This week, there is a lot of Xbox 360 new game release deals. So much so, that we'll forgo an overly long intro and just get right to it. So ...
Best Buy is giving out a free beanie hat with purchase of Guitar Hero World Tour, selling Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway for $40 and offering Blitz II for $50. Target stores only have one good deal and that's a free $25 gift card with purchase of an Xbox 360 Arcade console. Circuit City is dishing out the gift cards (as has become the norm), giving away a free $10 gift card with purchase of Fable II, Golden Axe,Far Cry 2, Dead Space, Saints Row 2, and Hell's Highway. You can score a free $10 gift card and mini strategy guide with purchase of Fallout 3 (CE), a free $15 iTunes gift card with purchase of Guitar Hero World Tour and a free t-shirt with Legendary. Phew ... happy shopping!
A few years ago the gauge for graphical fidelity was how good water looked in engine. Today, it's all about fire. Alone in the Dark, Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2 and now Far Cry 2 all show off its flash by igniting the world in flames.
We were able to hit the classy Yorkville area of Toronto, Canada, to launch of Far Cry 2. While we've played around with the map editor and fired a few rounds at other events the launch party was special because we were able to play the entire game projected onto a movie theater screen.
Oh boy. Not only are there eight new games hitting the Xbox 360 this weeks (and Portal on XBLA, lest we forget), but several of them look to be good games. Heavy hitters like Far Cry 2 and Fable II undoubtedly top the list, but there are some other big names in there as well. Check 'em out:
It's Sunday and that means we've already sifted through retailers' ads and found the best Xbox 360 gaming deals. Why? Because we want to save you cash and because it counts towards our government mandated community service hours. Let's get to it ...
This week, Best Buy is giving away a free drum shade with purchase of Rock Band 2 bundle and Target is selling NBA Live 09 and SoulCalibur IV for $55. Over at Circuit City, they're giving out free $15 iTunes gift cards with purchase of Fable 2 (LE), a free strategy guide with Far Cry 2, a free t-shirt with the Rock Band 2 bundle and a $10 gift card with Midnight Club: LA. Circuit City is also selling GTAIV, Mercenaries 2, The Force Unleashed and Madden 09 for $45. Have fun shopping.
Want to build a pyramid from scratch and duke it out with your friends while making your way across the desert? Think building a few serpent rock sculptures would add a nice touch to your multiplayer deathmatch? Well, those examples and anything your creative mind can conjure are all possible using the Far Cry 2 map editor. Yes, the same map editor that made us "oo" and "ah" this past August. Watch Ubisoft's latest map editor trailer and witness its unmatched awesomeness.
Achievement lovers gather 'round, we have some freshly new achievements to share that are solely related to Far Cry 2 and Spider-man: Web of Shadows. Intrigued? If so, you can click your way to the complete list of achievements via the links below, but be warned. The Spider-man achievements are yawn inducing and Far Cry 2's are, well, aren't all that bad. The Mapper achievement and its mention of "validation" makes us raise an eyebrow or two.
Source - Far Cry 2 achievements
Source - Spider-man: Web of Shadows achievements
Okay, forget the Halo 3ViDocs. Forget the Too HumanGoblin Man of Norway. We're prepared to call the first installment of the Far Cry 2 developer diary the best developer diary ever. It's not every day that a development team -- in this case Ubisoft Montreal -- travels to Kenya for research. The first in a series of developer diaries about the trip, this video covers the events leading up to departure. Even preparing for the trip sounds like it was quite an ordeal. In addition to briefings about what to expect (wild animals, corruption, etc.), each member was given over a dozen shots to prepare them for the possibility of disease. Risking malaria to make sure you get those tree bark textures just right? That's dedication.
Ubisoft has announced (in text format on gamesindustry.biz, appropriately enough) that it plans to begin supporting subtitles to its internally developed games, beginning with Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia, and Shaun White Snowboarding. The addition is being made in order to make the company's games more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. According to Ubisoft, this will require modifications to game engines already in use and also "inclusion of subtitles in the conception phase of game development."
Frankly, we can't live without subtitles (some people have to sleep at night, after all) and we're surprised that Ubisoft iis only now catching on to their necessity for many gamers. Still, it's a good move and we're sure many gamers will be happier as a result.
The for Far Cry 2 has us wondering just how immersive we want our games to be. In the video above, Far Cry 2 creative director Clint Hocking explains that the player avatar in Far Cry 2 does everything. In other words, the player avatar physically performs every action in the game. There is no magic healing when you pass over a med kit. The camera doesn't simply teleport into a car when you enter it. Every action is accompanied by an animation, whether it be fixing a jammed weapon or (sickeningly) fixing a dislocated joint (seriously, it's gross). Speaking of jammed weapons, Hocking notes that all of the game's weapons and vehicles degrade over time. As guns are used they begin to accumulate dirt and rust and eventually they will simply break in a player's hands. Likewise, vehicles will break down, requiring players to hop out and work on the engine before continuing.
The only question we have now is whether or not players will have to hunt down an in-game Porta-Potty every few hours.
Here's your jaw dropping amazing video of the day. After the break (or jump, if you're all about BIG videos) you can view a demo of Far Cry 2's map editor in action with commentary by a seductive narrator (not that we're complaining or anything). And it's a guarantee that you'll be impressed. Seriously, we had no clue Far Cry 2's map editor would be so vast, so customizable and so epic in scale. There are over 1000 objects, you can change the weather, the landscape AND even alter the environment's textures. It's hard to admit, but Far Cry 2's map editor puts Halo 3's Forge to shame. Hell, there is no comparison. We're flipping impressed with what the Far Cry 2 dev team has accomplished. A big round of applause to them.
Resident Evil 5 and Far Cry 2 are both Africa bound! Coming soon from Ubisoft Montreal is Far Cry 2. A sequel of sorts, Far Cry 2 takes the name from the original title developed by Crytek and features a new story and world. Taking place in an unnamed part of Africa players can expect a more realistic shooter than the original. If that guarantees we won't be shooting up aliens in the boiling heat then sign us up! Also, check out the briefly flashed-URL that points to the blog of Reuben Monday-Oluwagembi, the personal blog of the journalist narrator from the trailer. Yay! More Alternate Reality Games! Far Cry 2 is set to release this October, the trailer is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
No demo for you, you unworthy and too needy fanboys! Or so says Ubisoft (not exactly word for word, but it's the general idea) in regards to offering up a pre-release Far Cry 2 demo, because it'd be giving away too much of game. "Even if we were to give out what you played today - even if we put invisible walls around it and said, here's the demo, you can go anywhere you like inside these walls and play it how you want - that's potentially right there eight-to-ten hours of gameplay" says Far Cry 2's creative director Clint Hocking. "I don't know too many people who are willing to give away a 12-hour game for free." Do you feel the fun getting sucked out of the room?
So, it's confirmed, no Far Cry 2 demo love for us. Then again, it isn't like we don't have 20 minutes of game footage to garner some sort of opinion off of. But that's looking at the whole thing from a "glass half full" perspective.
