Archive for March, 2008

Red Alert 3!

March 19th, 2008 by Riley in Video Games

EA’s announcement that it is going to make another game in the epic series that is Command and Conquer made for some exciting news in the gaming world. Red Alert 3 will hopefully live up to the standards of it predecessors and make a great continuation of the series.

Red Alert 3 #1“It’s been too long.” said Chris Corry, Executive Producer at EALA. “Fans have been waiting for a new Red Alert game for seven years, and we’re working hard to ensure its well worth the wait. The team is staying true to the series’ roots while adding new elements like a co-operatively played story-driven campaign, an astounding new faction that will shake-up the Red Alert universe as we know it, and units that will help make Red Alert 3 everything our fans have been waiting for. And by bringing naval combat into the heart of the game design, we’re transporting that fast, fun and fluid C&C gameplay to the high-seas in ways that you’ve never seen before.”

The Red Alert series has an interesting story. The first game is about Einstein travelling back in time and killing Hitler to try and stop World War II. The plan goes sour and results in a Soviet invasion of Europe. Red Alert 2 continues with a Soviet invasion of the US by using mind-control to disable their nuclear weapons. The player is then transported back in time to fight Yuri, the leader of the Soviets.

Red Alert #2The third game’s story begins with a desperate Soviet Russia who go back in time to change history and restore the glory of Mother Russia. The mission is a failure and when they return it creates an alternate timeline where technology is completely different. A new superpower has appeared, The Empire of the Rising Sun, and the super-powers are fighting a World War III sporting crazy and wacky technology such as Tesla coils, heavily armed War Blimps, teleporters, armoured bears, intelligent dolphins, floating island fortresses and transforming tanks.

The RTS game is going to be on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 which is an interesting mix for an RTS game. The developers, EA Los Angeles, are trying to add new features to this game such as co-operative campaign, a new twist for the RTS genre, and naval capabilities, something not seen in this series before.

Being an RTS fan myself, I will be interested to see how the whole co-operative campaign works out. It could be a cool feature or it could epic fail…only time will tell when we can find out what the actual game is like. Check out the main site here.

Looks Like Team Fortress 2 Has A Challenger!

March 5th, 2008 by Riley in Video Games

Recently I stumbled upon a new game coming out and boy, it looked familiar. A cartoon-like, first person/third person shooter that allows people to co-operate as a team and have fun doing it. If you were thinking Team Fortress 2, you would be wrong. EA and Dice look to take a piece of TF2’s pie with their new game, Battlefield Heroes.

Battlefield Heroes #1Battlefield Heroes calls itself a “fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all skill levels” and it definitely looks interesting to me. The game is a continuation of the epic Battlefield series but with a Team Fortress twist. Battlefield Heroes will use a familiar, simplified class system that will only have three classes, Commando, Soldier and Gunner. The game will also feature an achievement system. Achievements work by a mission system which will allow you to choose a badge that you want and it will send you on a mission that will allow you get you to get that badge. As you play the game, you will get points and your level will go up. With those points, you can buy better clothing items that gives you that aesthetic advantage over the battlefield.

The extra bonus of this game is that it will be completely free. That’s right, I said free.

Battlefield Heroes #2The games comes across well as it has fused the genres of internet gaming. An FPS-MMO hybrid that the evil geniuses of EA have set free…and it’s going to dominate the internet gaming world. The game features MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) elements that will attract a large portion of gamers, it has a fun shooter side to it, is completely free and has given it a dash of cartoon smiles. I don’t think EA could do anymore to make this game sound better. Except by means of the trailer, which I think is one of the best trailers I have seen in a long time. It was better than the ten second trailer they gave us for Spore anyway…

So, I’m giving a thumbs up and eagerly waiting for this free game which is set down for Summer in Northern Hemisphere. That means Winter for us Southern Hemispherians which is only about three months wait. So keep your heads up and check out the official site here.