alex

I think the last time any of us heard anything really significant about 2K Marin's upcoming first-person reboot of the classic X-COM strategy series, it was last year's E3. Flashes of continued existence have popped up here and there, but with the original, tentative release date and this year's E3 fast approaching, the radio silence from 2K was, ironically, a bit disquieting.

Fans need wring their hands no longer, as 2K chose to break the silence today with both a new trailer (which you'll find embedded at the bottom of this story), and a solid release date for the title: March 6th, 2012.

The trailer shows off a good bit of the game's style of action, which, as Kotaku'sStephen Totillo interestingly pointed out, 2K went to great pains to avoid referring to directly as "first-person shooting." I mean, the trailer certainly looks chock-full of first-person view points, and scenes where you are at least ostensibly shooting things, but there's something about the way the characters on your team and the enemy soldiers move, the way they're animated, that feels very... dare I say it? Okay, here goes nothing. It feels very strategy game. I'm just sayin'! It looks that way! Don't hold me to anything! I'll deny I ever said it!

I'm not sure if old school X-COM fans will ever be completely happy with something that isn't pure, unfiltered X-COM, but if the trailer below can't get you even a little excited about the prospect of what 2K Marin is up to here, well then, I just don't know what to tell you.

@doe3879: Because all those other dudes were busy being "live" on "camera."

You will be forgiven if you missed the final stinger at the end of Konami's pre-E3 2011 press conference. After all, that would have meant sitting through to the very end of Konami's pre-E3 2011 press conference, and that's asking an awful lot of anyone.

However, if you did bow out a little early, you actually missed what might be the most exciting (possible) revelation to come out of the whole, dull affair. Right at about the 54:30 mark of the conference video--which you could actually skip to at any point, since the whole conference was pre-recorded and not live--a quick flash of a burning "C" pops up, followed by the words "They're coming..."

Unless this is some mean-spirited jerk's way of announcing a Cybernator reboot, this pretty much has to be a new Contra game of some fashion. Who wants to play, "Name the platform you'd most want to see a new Contra game on?" Ready... GO!

We already knew that Hideo Kojima was planning to stay in Japan for this year's E3, and that such far-flung nonsense as a Metal Gear Solid 5 wouldn't make its debut at the show. Even still, hope still existed that perhaps, just maybe, Kojima Productions might give fans a new look-see at Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which hasn't really made its presence felt in what feels like forever. Plus, there's all that talk of a brand new, original title from the studio that we couldn't help but hope might get teased ever so slightly.

Well, scratch all of that. During the course of Konami's slightly-less-bizarre-than-usual pre-E3 press conference, Kojima made it emphatically known that neither Rising, nor any other Kojima joint, outside of the newly announced MGS and Zone of the Enders HD Collections, would be at E3 2011.

On the subject of Rising, Kojima was fairly tight-lipped, but did state that the game was still scheduled for a 2012 release, as originally planned. If we were to see any new media or information for the game in 2011, the next most likely place would be at this year's Tokyo Game Show.

Though any real info on Kojima's next upcoming project was unlikely to appear today, he did give a brief look at a new engine Kojima Productions has been developing in house, which his next title will use. Titled the Fox Engine, the new engine is designed for multiplatform compatibility. The tech demo is toward the end of the conference--which you can watch on Konami's website, or possibly another site if Konami's servers are still borked to hell--but it shows off some impressive lighting and environmental effects, and evidently will make developing simultaneously for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC a great deal easier.

While I have only minimal tolerance for Raiden and his shitbaggy shitbagness, I imagine a number of you out there are disappointed to hear nothing of Rising at this year's E3. What say you? Was this one of the games you were hoping to see most? Or are you sorta checked out on this one at this point?

Though Konami's pre-recorded pre-E3 press conference was a bit of a letdown in terms of both big, new game announcements and the kind of Napoleon Dynamite-esque chicanery we've come to expect from them--pre-recording it might have, in fact, been specifically designed to counteract any unwanted stupidity--the publisher did have quite a showing when it came to HD collections of their own classic titles.

Over the course of the hour-long event, Konami announced individual HD Collections for the Metal Gear Solid, Zone of the Enders, and Silent Hill franchises, all of which will be released between 2011 and 2012.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which is schedule for release this November, contains newly HD remastered versions of Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker--sadly, no original Metal Gear Solid, for as-yet-unknown reasons.

These are not emulated versions of the games, but rather updated versions specifically designed for the Xbox 360 and PS3. These versions will include all the usual bells and whistles, like upgraded audio, redrawn art, an updated UI, right analog/force feedback support, new trophies/achivements, and a new piece of tech Hideo Kojima has labeled "transfarring."

The oddly-named technology is designed to let players transfer save data between their PlayStation 3 and PSP systems, with the idea being that you will be able to simply play your game seamlessly at home, and on the go.

Next up is the Zone of the Enders HD Collection, which combines both Zone of the Enders and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. Though nothing was specifically shown of this collection in action, Kojima explained that it would have the same transfarring tech as the MGS collection, and would be released in 2012.

Lastly, buried within the Silent Hill: Downpour section of the conference was a brief mention of the Silent Hill Collection, which puts remastered versions of Silent Hill 2 and 3 together into one package. No details of any kind were given beyond the list of games and their HD capabilities, so hopefully we'll get more info on that come E3.

For those still holding out a modicum of hope that Yu Suzuki would finally berate Sega into letting him make Shenmue 3, you might want to sit down and take a few deep breaths, because it's looking very much like that ain't gonna happen.

Today it was announced that Suzuki has signed a deal to slide into the role of Executive Game Producer at little-known Japanese studio Premium Agency, the makers of such games as Xbox 360 downloadable Death By Cube, and Naruto Shippuden: Kizuna Drive for the PSP. His job will be to advise on "a number of social and mobile" projects, though apparently his first game will be some manner of as-yet-unannounced fighting game for Kinect.

This would, on the surface at least, seem to mark the end of Suzuki's tenure at Sega. The exact nature of Yu Suzuki's role at the company has been in question for a while now. There was talk some time ago about Suzuki retiring from his post as the creative head of the Japanese publisher, but it eventually came to light that he was still at the company, just working in a less hands-on, more research-and-development-focused role with the publisher's coin-op division.

He hasn't officially produced a game since 2008's arcade-only Sega Race TV, and frankly seemed to have little involvement in the company's operations beyond making periodic appearances at events for the expressed purpose of dangling false nuggets of hope for the possibility of Shenmue 3 finally happening, only to then disappear back into whatever netherworld of unchecked idealism he lives in and leave harried Sega PR reps to have to once again explain to the world that, yes, they know you really want it, but it's not in development, okay?

This bizarre game of Whack-a-Shenmue 3-Quote-from-Yu-Suzuki seemed to play out every few months for the last few years, but as of today's news, it looks like he's got other things to focus his attention on now.

Suzuki does also maintain his own company, YS Net, which last we checked, was still hard at work on Shenmue City, a PC title developed for the Japanese social games service, Yahoo! Mobage. I know that's not exactly Shenmue 3, but it's something, right? Right...?

Well, at least there's a new Kinect fighting game to look forward to. Unless it's another Naruto game. Then maybe not so much.

What we've seen of Rocksmith, Ubisoft's unfortunately-titled first foray into the admittedly dicey realm of non-dancing music games, has so far been... questionable. The game itself, which retails for $79.99 and includes a specialized quarter-inch-to-USB dongle that allows you to plug any electric guitar into your Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or PC, actually sounds like it could be pretty cool. But when your initial marketing video looks like an accidental parody of bad marketing videos, and repeatedly claims to be the first "real guitar game" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you might have a little work to do when it comes to convincing players of your product's credibility.

One good way to go about fixing that problem would be to include a great soundtrack full of both major classic rock artists and burgeoning modern rock acts. After all, one of the best things about the early Guitar Hero games was the mixing of songs you automatically recognize and stuff you discover through the game itself. Hell, it's all Guitar Hero II's fault that I discovered both The Sword and Dethklok.

Today, Ubisoft went a long way toward rekindling that classic feeling by announcing a slew of new tracks set to be featured on Rocksmith's soundtrack. It's actually quite a good list that runs the gamut from old school behemoths like The Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd, alternative bastions like The Pixies, Radiohead, and Soundgarden, and modern artists like The White Stripes, Spoon, and The Black Keys.

Since there is absolutely nothing worse than a list of songs with no accompanying audio, I went ahead and tossed in some YouTube links to all 23 announced songs in the list below. No need to thank me, this is what I'm paid to do for you people.

• Best Coast – When I’m With You
• Blur – Song 2
• The Black Keys – Next Girl
• The Boxer Rebellion – Step Out Of The Car
• Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love
• The Cribs – We Share The Same Skies
• The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry
• Jenny O – Well OK Honey
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – Sweet Home Alabama
• Nirvana – Breed
• Pixies – Where Is My Mind?
• Radiohead – High and Dry
• Red Fang – Number Thirteen
• The Rolling Stones – The Spider and the Fly
• Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch
• Soundgarden - Outshined
• Spoon – Me and The Bean
• Stone Temple Pilots – Vasoline
• Taddy Porter – Mean Bitch
• Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect Union
• White Denim – Burnished
• The White Stripes – Icky Thump
• Yellow Moon Band - Chimney

And, just for funzies, here are the six songs previously announced.

• The Animals – House of the Rising Sun
• The Black Keys – I Got Mine
• David Bowie – Rebel Rebel
• Interpol – Slow Hands
• Nirvana – In Bloom
• The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

You can effectively point to H.G. Wells' seminal sci-fi novel, The War of the Worlds--not to mention Orson Welles' panic-inducing radio play based on the book--as the core inspiration for the vast bulk of alien invasion stories we currently have in modern fiction, including a variety of different video games.

Developer Other Ocean Interactive has evidently decided to just cut out the middle man with its latest game, going straight to the source with its newly-announced adaptation of The War of the Worlds, a "2D cinematic platformer" for Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network this summer. To be honest, I had no idea what the specificity of the "2D cinematic platformer" call-out referred to when I first read the press release, but the release later goes on to compare War of the Worlds to the gameplay style and rotoscoped visuals of such platforming classics as Flashback, Out of This World, and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, so I'm guessing it'll be something along those lines.

The game stars a nameless protagonist forced to try and escape a massive Martian invasion in London. You'll navigate a variety of obstacles and, yes, tripods, as you work to rescue your family.

No media of the game was released, but Other Ocean plans to show the title during E3 next week, so perhaps we'll get our first look at it then. In the meantime, I'll sit here and continue to hold out hope for that first-person shooter based on Ann Veronica that I've always dreamed of.

To quote a certain Whiskey colleague of mine, it's been a looooong roooooad for Sony lo these last several weeks. We, the collective gaming audience, have given the company a perhaps rightful amount of crap for how it handled communication with its customers during the fallout of the hack that sent the PlayStation Network into offline limbo for longer than anyone could have possibly expected. While the Welcome Back program and assurances of identity theft insurance did a little to help quell the masses, deep down, I think all any of us really wanted was just to get back onto PSN and start playing some damn games.

Today marks one of the final steps in that "get back to playing some damn games" initiative, as Sony announced via the PlayStation blog that the PlayStation Store has emerged from the ashen cloud of offline purgatory and returned to the online realm in both North America and Europe. Though you may run into a few errors throughout the day trying to access certain content, these are likely just creaks from the house settling itself, and soon enough, everything should be back in proper working order.

The blog entry lists an almost absurd amount of new content for players to sort through--seven weeks is a long time, yo--which I will skip out on re-posting here. Suffice it to say, there is a veritable smorgasbord of new games, demos, DLC, avatar crap, and the like available for your perusal. There's even a new episode of Qore, if you're into that kind of thing.

It's worth noting that none of the Welcome Back program downloads are available just yet. Sony's post explains that the apology downloads are currently going through the final phase of testing, and should be available "soon."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some L.A. Noire PS3-exclusive content to finally download and dig into!

I'm calling it: Worst video game trailer of 2011.

THERE IS NO VIDEO GAME IN YOUR VIDEO GAME TRAILER, DAWG.