Section 8’s “Seek and Destroy Map Pack” is now available and for 560 MS Points, players will receive three new maps along with ten extra achievements.
Details on the maps are as follows:
Players will be able to fight for control of a geothermal energy plant on the salt flats of New Madrid in “Devil’s Backbone” and battle in the narrow confines of a hazardous valley on the planet Titan in “Hornet’s Nest”. “AzureBasin” is set high atop a mountain plateau where a massive hydroelectric dam sits astride the map, with combat ranging from both inside and outside of the facility.
Additionally, a quote from our Section 8 review was used by SouthPeak Games and TimeGate Studios in their promotional trailer for this DLC. We’re pleased to be part of the campaign and we wish them the best of luck with their new map pack.
Saber Interactive appears to have an affinity for creating science fiction videogames. Their 2007 FPS, TimeShift, allowed players to control time while immersing them in an alternate universe where society has been ravaged due to a rebellious uprising against a despotic regime.
Although the meticulously crafted digital world of Inversion moderately resembles what was seen in Saber’s previous title, the premise is not at all similar. You will assume the role of Davis Russell from a third person perspective as he combats invaders known as the Lutadores. With some help from his ally, Leo Delgado (whom another player will be able to control in the co-op mode), Davis has recently escaped from a Lutadore prison encampment to search for his missing daughter. The Lutadores were also responsible for the death of his wife and Davis is understandably seeking vengeance. (more…)
Left 4 Dead 2 was released last Tuesday (11/17), a mere one year after the first one, and the level of improvement that Valve has added is pretty impressive. Everything that has been added to the game has been done so to increase the mayhem that your team has to go through. I’ve always been of the opinion that the best times in L4D1 were, ironically, when you were getting beaten to a pulp. You needed to REALLY work together as a team when your team was getting pounced by a hunter, pulled by a smoker, fighting a horde off while trying to stay away from a tank… ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
The feeling of never being completely safe made each experience a nail biter, a feat few games can match. However, the more you would play L4D1, the more you would get its tricks. When a horde came, everyone ran to a corner and spammed the melee trigger, a tank brought out the molotov cocktails everyone had, followed by a mad dash backwards to get out of his monkey arm-range. Boomers? Please, throw a pipe-bomb. It grew into a game that you almost HAD to play on Expert difficulty or Versus to get the charm out of it. L4D2 has fixed this and then some. Simply put, there are no tricks. This game is hard, and it constantly puts your teamwork skills to a test, and we’re not talking 1st grade spelling test here, this is more like senior year of college, theoretical physics final exam. Even if you’ve been through each campaign the amount each single one deserves, the next time you play you’ll have to adapt to the changing environments, the different weapon choices you’ll have, and, most importantly, the very versatile special infected. (more…)
Halo 3: ODST is an expansion to the Halo 3 storyline that doesn’t star the well known Master Chief – instead, you’re an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. Some die-hard fans may not be too happy with the fact that they don’t get to play as Master Chief, but this game is just as fun nonetheless. (more…)
Codemasters’ ultra-realistic first person shooter, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising will release this week on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
A sequel to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, Dragon Rising centers on a fictional conflict between Russia and China over contested land. The Russians have called on the aid of the US Marine Corps to rid Chinese forces from the area. (more…)
Rubi Malone is a complete and utter badass. She drinks, swears, has tattoos, a foul temper, and possesses a set of lethal skills that serve her well as a “professional problem fixer” in the seedy underbelly of society. You’ll have a riot playing as her in Artificial Mind & Movement’s WET, a third person action shooter that’s meshed Matrix-style acrobatics with gun slinging and swordplay. In many ways, it’s like Stranglehold with a sword and more platforming. But to peg WET as a knockoff of Stranglehold with a few new tricks won’t do it justice, as it’s far more endearing and fun.
As Rubi, you’ll make use of a variety of impressive maneuvers in bullet time to annihilate waves of enemies throughout the campaign that has her caught in the middle of a war between two drug syndicates. The foes that you’ll encounter aren’t overly cunning or difficult and you’ll be able to take them out with relative ease. But the goal is to do so with style. The game will reward you with Style Points as you rack up kills, and these can be used to purchase upgrades and new skills. The key to increasing your score is to drop enemies with as much flair as possible, and this is achieved by making good use of Rubi’s acrobatic abilities.
Firing your gun while Rubi is in mid air or performing various stunts such as sliding will trigger slow-mo and split targeting. One weapon automatically locks on to a nearby enemy, while you’ll have to manually aim the other, and this allows you to take out multiple hostiles at a time. This trick has been implemented extremely well and it’s one of the key ingredients that makes WET so satisfying. Sliding on the ground in slow motion while firing at two grunts at the same time and finishing another off with a violent slash of your sword is beyond entertaining. It’s moments like these that make WET such a treat to play. Just wait until you shoot at enemies upside-down as Rubi makes her way down a ladder – it’s insanely fun. (more…)
Section 8 is a recently released team-based FPS on the Xbox 360 and PC. There are few games on the Xbox 360 that are more unapologetic when it comes to team-based strategies, as even using the creme de la creme of long range weapons – the sniper rifle – is best used when you have 2 or 3 teammates with you concentrating on one enemy. That being said, some of the design choices that TimeGate Studios went with in regards to actually getting into a game are very disappointing. Thankfully, that is the only thing that really keeps this game from being great, and it’s one that may be addressed in a future patch.
The first topic that should be covered in any review of Section 8 is the spawning method. To spawn into the game, you’re given an overhead view of the entire map. You can move a crosshair anywhere on the map to, what it is called in the game, “burn-in” to that location. It then switches to a first person view of your character from 3000 meters in the air, rocketing towards the ground. At around 1500 meters, you can choose to hit your air brakes to change your position (though not hitting them won’t hurt your player at all – it will just give you a short recovery period once you land). You can literally spawn anywhere on the map, though it would be unwise to spawn into AA fire. Yes, the enemy bases have AA guns that will tear apart your shields and armor if you try to burn right on to one. This is an amazingly awesome-looking effect, and having the ability to drop on someone is one of the more satisfying ways to score a kill in any recent game. (more…)
In light of the amount of competition that a new shooter faces, it’s important for developers to innovate and provide a fresh experience. With Raven Squad, Atomic Motion has achieved this with the unique concept of blending traditional FPS gameplay with RTS components. While the model is distinctive and the two modes have been merged together well enough, the game is of low quality in general and will not appeal to fans of either genre.
You’ll control two squads (Infiltrator and Assault) that are fighting together behind enemy lines in the Amazon. It all looks very reminiscent of Far Cry 2, but not nearly as polished. Each squad consists of three men, and you’re able to switch between the two teams or select which soldier you want to play as at will. Generally, I only changed squads or men depending on which gun I felt like using at the time, or if a certain weapon was required to complete a task.
Raven Squad’s principal design component, as alluded to previously, is the option to toggle between the FPS and Tactical / RTS Modes. You’d expect this transition to be awkward, but it has actually been done fairly well and you can seamlessly change modes by pressing Y. However, you’ll find that for the most part, you’ll prefer using the first person viewpoint as the RTS Mode can be somewhat confusing and boring, basically. Although, it does serve as a useful aerial map that lets you scan your location to determine the proper direction or to preview what dangers lurk ahead. There will be times when the game forces you to use a specific mode for a period of time depending on your objective, but when given the choice, it’s best to use the FPS option. (more…)
Available now on Xbox Live Arcade is a game called Shadow Complex – easily the biggest release in the “Summer of Arcade” game list, and not just because it’s a whopping 834MB.
The game centers on an average American man who received “special forces” training from his father, but he is initially uninterested in using his skills in a career because he isn’t a killer, nor does he condone it. This rapidly changes when his girlfriend is kidnapped on a nature hike. Although the story follows the age-old “kidnapped princess” cliché, it’s still fairly entertaining and exciting. (more…)
In light of the successful launch of Red Faction: Guerrilla’s Demons of the Badland DLC last week, THQ has revealed that a second pack will be released on September 17, while a third is scheduled to arrive in October. (more…)
