Archives by Day

April 2026
SuMTuWThFSa
1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930

Advertising

As an Amazon Associate, we earn commission from qualifying purchases.





Rainier's Articles


PC Preview - 'El Matador'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: Action
Publisher: Red Mile
Developer: Plastic Reality
Release Date: Q3 2006

El Matador is a third-person tactical shooter about a top Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Victor Corbet, who has been sent deep into drug cartel territory to stop drug trafficking. Mainly taking place in South America, El Matador's mission is simple: kill and eliminate all drug lords and bosses. As you progress through the game, its movie-like storyline unfolds with in-game cinematics and dialogue.

The story of El Matador is told through expository movie sequences, and the dialogue and cinematics inform you about the targets. Gameplay

PS2/Xbox/Wii/PS3/X360/PC Preview - 'Marvel: Ultimate Alliance'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: Action/RPG
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Raven Software
Release Date: Q4 2006

Hey, remember all the fun you had playing the X-Men Legends games? Activision, which employs few if any fools, does, and they wish to hook you up again. This time, they’re expanding that style of gameplay to the greater Marvel Universe, and to pretty much every console you can think of.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is the story of what happens when Dr. Doom reunites the Masters of Evil, and proceeds to attempt to mess up the wider Marvel Universe. In the face of such a threat, Nick

PS3/XBLA/PC Preview - 'Trine'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Puzzle/Platformer
Publisher: Nobilis
Developer: Frozenbyte
Release Date: July 2009

On the surface, Trine is not a difficult game to understand, as it is essentially a puzzle game in which you can switch on the fly between three varied characters. However, the basic puzzle mechanics and characters are mere underpinnings for the meat of the physics-based gameplay and cooperative play. The co-op was not present in our preview build, but the physics most definitely are, along with a surprisingly developed theme and production values for a puzzle title.

The three characters in Trine all have varied roles and

PS2/Xbox/X360 Preview - 'Superman Returns: The Videogame'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: Action
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Tiburon
Release Date: Q4 2006

The first thing I thought of when I saw Superman Returns, frankly, is that certain people are going to have an absolute ball with it.

The second thing I thought of, regrettably, was Superman's video game record. With the arguable exception of the arcade quarter-muncher, no game based on the Superman license has ever aspired to or reached anything better than utter mediocrity.

Like Spider-Man before it, Superman Returns is a free-roaming action game set in 80 square miles of city. As Superman, you've got

Wii Preview - 'New Super Mario Bros.'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Platformer
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Release: Q4 2009

Nintendo came out of E3 2009 much stronger than they did in 2008. They started off our booth tour with their big announcement of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and I got to squeeze in some play time with the game.

If you've played the DS version of New Super Mario Bros., most everything is going to be familiar, including major elements of Super Mario Bros. 3 from the NES era, new and entertaining power-ups, and a fair supply of secrets to keep things interesting for a good, long

'My Horse and Me 2' (NDS/Wii/PC) - 19 New Screens

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under Leipzig Games Convention - Leipzig Games Convention 2008 - Day 1

My Horse and Me 2 is packed with exciting new features, brand new graphics and animations, and an engrossing storyline to give fans the most complete equestrian experience and the most realistic horse simulation ever seen in a game. The My Horse and Me series are the only games in the world to earn the exclusive license from the FEI, the world's leading horse sports organisation.

NDS

"My Horse and Me is a great success

Wii Preview - 'Wii Sports Resort'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Sports
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Release: July 26, 2009

Before you read any further about Wii Sports Resort, go do a bit of bowling in Wii Sports. Notice the subtleties that are there in the simulation, and those that aren't. The Wii Remote, ultimately, is limited, and many of those limits have been removed with the recent introduction of the Wii MotionPlus, which links to Wiimotes to let you do more with them. While it is launching with two EA Sports titles for Wii, the MotionPlus clearly seems custom designed for the upcoming Wii Sports

PS3 Preview - 'Resistance: Fall of Man'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: FPS
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Insomniac Games
Release Date: November 2006

If there were no World War II, how would the world be today? The team at Insomniac decided to ponder this scenario in their upcoming launch title for the PlayStation 3, Resistance: Fall of Man. Picture Great Britain in 1951, and in your mind's eye, you'll probably see nice cafes, tea parties and quiet civility. The truth is that the world is just not a happy place, even in this alternate history, where WWII never occurred. An alien force has attacked the planet; Asia and most

Wii/PS3/X360 Preview - 'The Beatles: Rock Band'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Rhythm/Music
Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
Release: September 9, 2009

How can a game be both so much more than its predecessors, and yet so much less at the same time? This conundrum defined what I saw of the upcoming Rock Band release, The Beatles: Rock Band. The game floored me as a Beatles release, but its heritage as a Rock Band game seems a bit tenuous.

The basics are all there; this is Rock Band, with one significant evolution and some major interface modifications that I'll get to in a bit. The big new idea

PC Preview - 'Field Ops'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: First-Person Shooter/Real-Time Strategy
Publisher: Freeze Interactive
Developer: Digital Reality
Release Date: November 2006

Field Ops is one of the first titles to successfully merge both FPS and RTS into a single coherent genre. This is not the first game to attempt this – Battlezone and Battlezone 2 in the late '90s had similar approaches – but this is one of the best attempts at combining the best aspects of both genres without compromising either. This is neither an FPS with RTS elements nor a RTS with a splash of FPS – it works equally well as