Infinite Lives: Empire at E3 - FIFA 12 vs. PES 2012
Posted on Monday June 13, 2011, 11:52 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 Ah, two beloved video gaming franchises that have been battling it out doggedly over the years: FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer. I managed to get time playing both while at E3 and it surprises me to say how close a match it's become.
FIFA has been making strides for years and this time around they've implemented some tweaks to make it a more immersive experience. Animations have been greatly improved, with real-time physics enabling the game to produce realistic collisions based on angle and momentum.
Elsewhere, there’s a greater emphasis on defensive play, with timed tackling at the click of the button. This counterbalances the attacking play, which has had a few tweaks to the 360 degree dribbling, with improved distance and turning.
How does it play, though? Well, I took on one of the members of the Zoo team and the match was teeth-grindingly close. The pitch feels more open; there’s less reliance on taking the wings to secure a cheeky cross and header. Ther... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3: Day 3 - The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Posted on Friday June 10, 2011, 16:54 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 There was no doubt that there would be a gaming tie-in to the Steven Spielberg directed movie adaptation of Hergé’s beloved Belgian journalist, given both the nature of the story and the rich visual style to the film. Movie tie-ins are renowned for being a load of hogwash – a product of definite deadlines and constricting narrative – so getting the opportunity to see Tintin in action wasn’t exactly on my must-see list of the show.
Spielberg and Peter Jackson introduced the demo via the medium of pre-recorded video and ushered the small room to put their 3D glasses on for a special demo. The story follows the exact events of the movie. A strategy that is fairly rare in tie-ins these days (most find themselves in a weird prequel limbo that often contradict the film with extra villains and such), so this came as something of a welcome surprise.
There’s a lot of charm to the game. It’s not traditional by any sense, flippin... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3 2011: Day 3 - Tomb Raider
Posted on Friday June 10, 2011, 16:47 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 As a gaming franchise, Tomb Raider lost relevancy a couple of console generations ago and apart from the recent top-down arcade title Guardian of Light hasn’t displayed much in the way of creativity in some time. Enter this brand new reboot simply titled Tomb Raider that serves as an origin story for everyone’s favourite archaeologist. Well, favourite tight top, short-short wearing archaeologist, at least.
Lara Croft is 22 years old, straight out of university and on the trail of adventure with her mentor Roth in tow. After their ship gets marooned on a mysterious island, she finds herself having to use all of her strength and cunning to survive the dangers that lurk around every corner.
It’s an interesting angle that dispels with the overly-sexualised poster girl of the ‘90s and punts her into a grizzly backdrop of survival. The Microsoft conference gave us a look at the opening mission, which saw Lara impaled on a steak, tied up and chased through claustr... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3 2011: Day 3 - The Old Republic
Posted on Thursday June 9, 2011, 17:47 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 It was way back at Gamescom last year when I last played BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars MMO. And while I enjoyed what was on display there, it was clear there was some issues that needed refining if it was truly to offer something unique in the crowded genre. The mission itself was a rather bland cave-based search for a lightsabre and, with a then fussy UI, the action lacked the pace Lucas’s series demands of itself.
In the year since, there has been some major improvements to the gameplay and aesthetics, making it one of the big highlights of the show for me. An opening cinematic opened our demonstration, called ‘Return’. Not just a rollicking blast through all-things Star Wars (space ships, John William’s score, bounty hunters and lightsabres) but the most visually impressive piece of Star Wars canon outside of the two trilogies.
That said, the quality of a cinematic is always something of a moot point when it comes to MMOs. Furious lightsabre battles betwe... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3 2011: Day 2 - Hitman: Absolution
Posted on Thursday June 9, 2011, 10:11 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 Agent 47 has been absent from gaming for too long. Skulking in the shadows, waiting to reveal himself once more like the sneaky neck-cracker he is. My level of anticipation for the Hitman: Absolution unveiling was matched by a huge amount of trepidation – after all, Hitman: Blood Money, for all its grizzly visuals, always felt rather light-hearted at its core. First impressions of Absolution and it looks like a far grittier take on the slap-headed assassin.
Our man 47 is currently in Chicago, with the police hunting him down and cornering him in a public library. While breaking down the exact hands-on demonstration would be nothing but a bore, there were certain moments that I noticed that both impressed and left some concerns.
Firstly, developer IO Interactive’s Glacia 2 engine looks phenomenal. The level of environmental detail and interactivity across the stage was impressive and both animations and character models are consistently slick. One area had 47 takin... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3 2011: Day 2 - Battlefield 3
Posted on Thursday June 9, 2011, 10:06 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 Battlefield 3 hit E3 with a rumble that left Modern Warfare shaking on the other side of the showroom floor. Admittedly, we’re slightly disappointed to only be given a look at the multiplayer side of the action, but after playing it, it’s looking increasingly likely that this could be the must-have multiplayer shooter this year.
Operation Metro is the map we’re about the tear through. Some gamers have felt alienated by the magnitude of Battlefield’s maps in the past but the vast detail packed into this sprawling arena makes for an astonishing backdrop for the action.
With four different customisable classes to choose from, I opt for the Recon class to snipe from a distance. We can mark enemy targets from a afar, following them across the map to easily pick-off players in sneaky fashion. It’s a bit slow-paced, so we switch to Support which arms us with a rifle and supplies the necessary firepower to pound our opposition relentlessly.
The... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3 2011: Day 2 - Need For Speed: The Run
Posted on Thursday June 9, 2011, 10:02 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 Last year’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit introduced major innovations to the franchise that cemented it as the ultimate racing franchise. Autolog allowed you to competitively take on your friends online without having to be in the same race, tracking details across all of your online play. Stats, times and challenges were all available, as you were constantly up against your Friends List vying for racing domination.
Need for Speed: The Run reintroduces the feature but takes it into the single-player campaign, as you race across America on the run from the mob. It’s a more focused title, this time developed by Black Box, that puts as much focus on Hollywood thrills as it does plunking the player in some of the hottest cars in the world.
The technology behind the game impresses, using the same tech as Avatar for motion capture to recreate all the nuances of the human face. A bit odd for a driving game, really. It’s because The Run takes you out of the driving seat and... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3: Day 2 - Nintendo Conference
Posted on Thursday June 9, 2011, 09:30 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 Everyone was waiting to see what Nintendo had under its red cap this year at E3. With their new console being unveiled (previously codenamed Project Cafe), many were speculating that Nintendo had taken the necessary steps to bridge the gap between the hardcore and casual gamer.
You wouldn’t know that from the way the conference started, though. LA’s Nokia Theatre was massively overcrowded and we were welcomed by the nostalgic melodies of the Legend of Zelda soundtrack that accompanied announcements of the 25th anniversary celebrations occurring worldwide (including the Zelda Orchestra touring the globe). It was an unremarkable opening that only reinforced the growing criticism of Nintendo’s reliance on their prime mascots.
New 3DS titles were announced with Super Mario 3DS, Starfox 64 3DS (Lylat Wars for us Brits), Mario Kart 3DS and Luigi’s Mansion 2. It was the latter that impressed most, providing a sequel to the criminally underappreciated Gamecube laun... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3: Day 1 - Sony Conference
Posted on Wednesday June 8, 2011, 13:38 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
 Sony had a lot to deliver with their E3 conference this year. After the hubbub of the PSN outage, there were as many people out for blood in the audience as there were people out for games. Plus, with the conference also scheduled to run a bum-numbing five hours, there was a hefty amount of anxiety surrounding the event.
The fear soon subsided as the show proved very triumphant for Sony, detailing their recently announced handheld, the PS Vita, while providing fresh glimpses at their AAA titles and showing off some fancy tech that’ll be hitting shops later in the year. That wasn’t before Sony’s Jack Tretton hit the stage to talk PSN outage, mind. “Nothing makes their editor’s day like controversy and bad news,” he began. “So to the press I say... you’re welcome.” He went on to provide a humble apology for the outage and opened proceedings with everyone’s favourite not-Mark-Wahlberg hero, Nathan Drake.
The Uncharted 3 demo ... Continue reading... Comment Now (1 comment)
Back To TopInfinite Lives: Empire at E3 2011: Day 1 - EA Conference [VIDEO]
Posted on Tuesday June 7, 2011, 16:06 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives
![Empire at E3 2011: Day 1 - EA Conference [VIDEO]](/images/image_index/580x250/51852.jpg) EA has one of the best games line-ups of E3 and while their conference was light on new material, it did deliver with some of the most scintillating games footage of day one. A panicked montage of news reports from around the world flashed across the screen to begin. London’s invaded, San Francisco is aflame and Earth itself is glowing red with global destruction. Mass Effect 3 is all-out galactic war.
BioWare brought along a bit more gameplay footage than was shown in the Microsoft conference and it’s clear that the scale of the sequel dwarfs that of its predecessor. The slick-looking action saw Sheppard quickly dispatching guards, firing his rifle and stabbing them in brutal fashion with his concealed blade. The biggest surprise came with the appearance of one of the skyscraper-sized Reavers (the civilisation-destroying bad guys of the series) rising in front of Sheppard left the audience in awe. Sheppard jumps into a turret and gets on the move, peppering the Reaver with bullets.... Continue reading... Comment Now
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