Pages

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Weekly Wrap Up: May 8


2 pieces of Elder Scrolls news  
            The first piece of DLC for Skyrim has finally been announced.  The add-on is titled Dawnguard and will be released sometime during the summer.  Nothing has been confirmed about what sort of new content will be included, but more details are to be revealed at E3.  One thing that is confirmed is that the 360 will get the ad-on at least a month ahead of the PS3 and PC.  Another interesting Elder Scrolls announcement is that the next game in the series is already in development and that it will be an MMO.  The game will only support the 3rd person perspective, which I can’t stand for combat when playing Skyrim, and apparently looks like other fantasy MMOs.  A big plus though, taking after the new standard set by The Old Republic, is that the game will be fully voiced.  The game is being developed not by Bethesda but by ZeniMax Online Studios.  I find it weird that Bethesda decided not to work on the next step in their flagship series personally.  Also as someone who greatly enjoyed Skyrim and as someone who doesn’t play MMOs I have to say that, while this announcement is cool, it isn’t where I want the series to go.  Although maybe there isn’t anything left to do with The Elder Scrolls as a single player game since they had built up to dragons throughout previous games’ lore and then finally delivered it.  Then again since this is being made by ZeniMax it could free up Bethesda to both continue support for Skyrim through DLC like Dawnguard and possibly make The Elder Scrolls VI.  One thing that I do know is that I would have liked to have the option in Skyrim to have a human, rather than AI, partner assist me in my quests and in an MMO I can have many.  The Elder Scrolls Online has a trailer that can be seen on its site below.  Also the site has a link to Game Informer, which will be updating its Elder Scrolls Online section with tons of info if you want to learn more.

Black Ops 2
            The 9th Call of Duty game, which is being developed by Treyarch, will be Black Ops 2.  The game will be set in the near future where the military is largely made up of unmanned vehicles and robots that are then turned against us.  I’ve lost a lot of interest in the series over the past few years so the fact that the trailer has a lot of explosions doesn’t do anything for me.  What does peak my interest however is the news that the game will include branching paths that change the missions and outcomes that you receive based on your performance and decisions in the game.  I’m not sure exactly how that will work, but from what some people have said it sounds like if I die trying to rescue someone with strategic info on a base I want to assault, I don’t get a game over but have that mission marked as failed and I must assault the base with limited intelligence making it harder to infiltrate.  Like I said, I’m not sure if it will play out quite like that, but the idea of choice and consequence in a shooter is welcome.  Also it means that the team must actually focus on single player, which would be a welcome change for the series in my opinion.  The game will be coming out on Nov 13th and the trailer is linked below.

GameStop pre-order plan
While Treyarch appears to be trying something that I can appreciate, GameStop is trying something that I hope doesn’t catch on with the pre-orders for Black Ops 2.  I find that pre-order bonuses have already gotten way out of hand due to different stores getting different items and some of them actually being important enough that everyone should have them.  Now GameStop is taking it further by expanding on their pre-order bonuses with the addition of multiple rounds of bonuses.  If you pre-order right now, during round 1, you get a double sided poster as well as whatever they include for the next 3 rounds.  If you hop in during the next round you miss the first bonus but get the other 3 and so on with the other rounds.  Free SWAG has been a way of coxing people to by games right away instead of waiting a few weeks or months because they feel like they are saving money due to the free stuff they get.  Now they are using it to get you to buy months and months in advanced so that you don’t miss out on a poster or shirt or perhaps an in-game item because pre-ordering late costs you all types of bonuses.  This way you are committed to buying a game well in advance of seeing what it has to offer and getting to read reviews, play demos or see all of its trailers.  The game just got announced and you have to already be willing to fork over $60 so that you don’t feel like you missed out on any free stuff.  I know that Call of Duty is huge and that everyone is going to by this game, but seriously don’t support a stupid tactic like this that down the line could lead many to regrettable purchases because they got enough SWAG to convince them that they didn’t need gameplay footage to be sold on a game.  Hell I was excited about Duke Nukem Forever before it came out and if they offered me loads of free stuff early on I would have pre-ordered and I would have been horribly disappointed.  Luckily I held off my decision until I played the early access demo that I got from Borderlands GOTY Edition.  So what I’m saying is just pre-order somewhere other than GameStop if you want Black Ops 2.

For all the latest updates on the blog be sure to follow me on Twitter @Aeonofdoom360 and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments section below no sign up or registration needed.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Batman: Arkham Knight Critique - Joker Story

The most compelling aspect of the story in “Batman: Arkham Knight” for me was Batman’s ongoing hallucinations of The Joker. I had heard...