Last night, I spent a couple hours playing through the beta of Destiny, the upcoming sci-fi first-person shooter RPG that Bungie will release September 9th on the PlayStation 4 (which is what I played the beta on), PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360. And while I found it to be an invigorating game that recalls what Bungie used to do in the Halo games, there were also some easily fix issues that made me think it could be even better.
Though he was a cult favorite from the moment he first appeared in “New Mutants” #98 in February of 1991, Deadpool has since joined the ranks of Dr. Strange, Ant Man, and Ghost Rider as one of Marvel Comic’s best love second stringers. Now he’s been given the ultimate honor — no, he’s not on the cover of Mad magazine…or hosting Saturday Night Live…or finally getting his own movie starring Ryan Reynolds — he’s gotten his own table on Zen Studio’s Zen Pinball 2 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita, and for Pinball FX 2 on the Xbox 360.
Zen Studios have announced that fourteen tables from the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions of Zen Pinball 2 will be coming to the PlayStation 4 version of the game on July 15th.
With a name like Sniper Elite III, you’d expect this World War II third-person shooter to have a lot of long distance gunplay. And it does. But thanks to the inclusion of a silenced pistol, stealth kills,and general sneakiness, Sniper Elite III — which was made by Rebellion for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PC — also lets you get up close and personal…and the game is all the better for it. It’s just too bad it isn’t better overall.
For the last few years, Transformers fans have taken comfort in the knowledge that while the movies were terrible, the games were decent, sometimes even good. Sadly, this is not the case with Transformers: Rise Of The Dark Spark, a piss poor third-person shooter that Activision are releasing on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, WiiU, and PC.
At a recent event in Los Angeles, Sega gave game journalists (myself included) a chance to play through a decent chunk of Alien: Isolation, the upcoming, first-person, stealth-action, survival horror game that’s set up as a sequel to the classic 1979 sci-fi film, and will be released on the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PCs on October 7th. But while my time with the game wasn’t exhaustive, it’s still clear to me that this game has the potential to be as scary and engrossing as the movie that inspired it.
As I’ve said many times, I like games where you shoot Nazis. But unlike most World War II shooters, where you get up close and person, Sniper Elite III — like its predecessors Sniper Elite and Sniper Elite V2 — casts you as a WWII soldier who prefers long distance relationships. With 505 Games releasing Sniper Elite III on July 1st for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360, (and the developer, Rebellion, issuing a PC version the same day), I spoke to 505’s VP Of Global Marketing, Kevin Kraff, and 505’s Production Coordinator, Michael Greening, about such new additions to the series as the co-op modes, weapon customizing, and the ability to kill trucks.
As a Jew-ish, World War II first-person shooter fan whose history with the Wolfenstein series goes back to the original 2D game from 1981, Castle Wolfenstein, I came to the first-person shooter Wolfenstein: The New Order cautious but hopeful. But MachineGames — who made it for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC — have managed to assuage my fears and exceed my hopes by making a Wolfenstein game that plays like modern-style first-person shooter.
If you’ve been to this site more than once, you might’ve noticed that I have an affinity for the pinball games made by Zen Studios. Be they based on the Star Wars movies, Marvel Comics, or an original idea, Zen’s pinball tables always manage to mix realistic physics and sounds with physic-ly impossible mechanics. Which, for a gamer who grew up on pinball, hits a real sweet spot.
I recently had a chance to pick the brain of Peter Grafl, one of the pinball table designers at Zen Studios, and asked him who decides what tables they’ll make, how they’re designed, and what tables he’d like to make.