Last Week

Morning folks,

It’s been a while since I’ve really last posted on here but the last few months have been chaos for me. It was coming to the point getting spare time to write out a blog post was becoming impossible. It’s even made it a struggle to get game time in the last few weeks as well. 

Anyway good news I will try harder to at least get one post done each week to keep you folks up to date, plus I really do enjoy talking about games here.

So I’m not sure what to cover in this post or where to start since there has been a ton of new announcements since the last time we spoke. In the end I’ve decided to focus on what my thoughts have been this week concerning my gaming life and go from there.

Of course this week is all about GAMESCON which has pretty much all I’ve been talking about this week with the new announcements. Started off with the Tomb Raider 2 announcement about it being exclusive to the Xbox next holiday season. That really shocked me and I was floored by the news, of course with the wording “holiday exclusive” it was crystal clear that it was a timed exclusive but still shocking. Keep hearing Crystal Dynamics was scared of Uncharted being released so it does make sense to target the Xbox market while Uncharted comes out then do a second release later on for the PlayStation fans.

Also on that day another item was added to my buy list and that was the amazing limited edition Xbox One console in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare theme. I love the three colour scheme with the gold trim and to be honest it doesn’t really look like a Call of Duty theme which is probably why I like it so much. Plus the added bonus of a 1TB hard drive is a must since I found out the day that my Xbox One hard drive is at 41% full. I’ve barely got anything on it and with so many games coming out in the next few months I think I will need the upgrade.

I’ve put the order down anyway and I can decide closer to the date if I need to cancel but right now I want to upgrade. After Tomb Raider and the Xbox One the last thing on my mind this week was the World of Warcraft announcement. Think every fan has been awaiting for the announcement for the release date and finally on Thursday we had it. 13^th November we will see the release of Warlords of Draenor along with the awesome looking cinematic trailer for the expansion.

All through the video I was shouting “you cannot do that”, so many questions to be answers and could we be seeing a full alternate timeline to play around with. Blizzard could go full force with this and bring the Burning Legion into it in the next expansion, messing around with time opens up so much stuff to play with for the future expansions I just cannot wait to see what happens.

Shortly after announcing all this the physical collector’s edition was put up finally after months of waiting, everyone knew it was coming but of course we had to wait. Although we did have to wait nearly a day to confirm that collector’s box matches the rest in the series. Check it out below but I will be picking this up on day of launch.

That’s it for me today folks so have a good one folks,

Iznic

Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Announcement

Morning folks,
Yesterday they finally announced the next Call of Duty game and so take a few minutes first to check out the reveal trailer.



Before I go into the trailer there is a website counting down to the 4th May where it's meant to be all revealed so expect to see a lot more on Sunday with hopefully plenty of details. Anyway back to the teaser trailer and what we know. Release date is going to be the 4th November 2014 which is unsurprising.

We have a Private Military corporation that has decided to go evil and his now taking over. Plenty of new gadgets and we have one pretty good game from the looks. I prefer my Call of Duty games for the Single player and the co-op modes. Ghosts was a good story but not great, this though looks pretty amazing I just hope it keeps hooked all the way through.

I do chuckle at the new gadgets though, exo suit? huge jumps? Crysis/Crackdown anyone? really hope the jumps and wall climbing are not just specific events that use for a few times and that's it for the entire game.

GAMEINFORMER Magazine Cover

Guess we will have to wait until Sunday to find out some more details but until then it looks good and I will be adding this game to the buy list.
~Iznic

Call of Duty Ghosts Full Trailer

At the end of the Xbox One conference we finally got to see the full trailer of Call of Duty Ghosts, well actually we saw behind the scenes video, the announcement trailer and a comparison video with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.

What amazed me was how negative everyone was on the Internet about it, seriously folks it's a first person shooter what are you expecting from it? because from what I see they taking some massive positive steps forward. Right time for the trailers so the first is the announcement trailer for the game.



Now below is the behind the scenes and the comparision video with Ghosts vs. Modern Warefare 3.






As I said I really don't know what people are expecting if they hating this, the graphics are taking a massive leap forward and looking amazing. The new environment A.I is brilliant and yet people was taking the piss out of the fish reacting to players, think about it folks a environment that reacts to you. If you scare those fish it could cause bubbles and alert npcs on the surface, scare animals in the jungle can attract attention to you.

Multiplayer was another issue everyone had but yet we getting fully customisation characters finally, least now you will be able to tell who is who from a distance. The environment effecting the maps is a great new feature, the map can change at any time thanks to natural disasters like earthquakes or the players themselves. In the clip you see what looks like a lumber truck having the lumber fall off, great trap right there but that could block a path but also at the same time could be used to climb up to a new area.

Everything I saw was a positive step forward in my books and I'm looking forward to playing the game, also getting a ally dog is brilliant. You might make fun but think about it, it could sniff out traps in the game and if you got open areas that could be brilliant. You exploring a jungle or abandon buildings he could warn you of bombs that are rigged up nearby. Don't jump to conclusions yet because I think we have a winner right here and hopefully E3 will show some gameplay to back it up with.
~Iznic

Going to be a busy one

Morning folks,
Currently waiting on my PlayStation 3 to finish installing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, seriously forgot how terrible the load/install times can be. Reason I'm doing this is so I can redeem all the codes in my Anthology edition, spent the morning so far doing it for all different games since I keep putting it off and knowing my luck the codes will expire. Anyway while that is sorting out I thought it be a good idea to get a blog post up, especially with the fact my weekend was crazy and nothing was posted up. Plus this week will be a busy one since we have the Batman trailer going up today and of course the huge Xbox Reveal tomorrow.

Not sure how I'm watching the reveal tomorrow but I will be Twittering either way about my thoughts, then my plan is to copy all the Tweets onto a blog post to put up here. This is going to be test practise since this is what I was planning for E3, should be interesting to see how this will turn out.

So other then being excited to see what is revealed tomorrow I think it's time to update about my gaming adventures so far. Well in the multiplayer area I've got up to level 39 on Tomb Raider so getting close, of course it's taking more XP each level so it is dragging a little. Really cannot wait to hit level 60 so I can just focus on the kill achievements. On Gears of War Judgment I clocked the 10 wins on Team Deathmatchs in the week and now working on the 10 wins for OverRun, after that it just levelling up and working on the 100 kills for each Locust which will probably be a huge pain in the ass.

I did do some Call of Duty Black Ops 2 multiplayer this week, mostly because I redeemed my COD Ghosts weapon skins and wanted to see what they look like. Not bad to be honest just black with the white skull but the nice touch is the code gives the skin for every weapon in the game, thought it was just for the one gun so really happy about that. Had a few matches and laughs, in fact came top in my team on the one match which was shocking. I did plan to do some Battlefield 3 as well but Skyrim took over and well it was nearly midnight when I finished.

I bought a house in the game (cheer) and then took on another random Dragon who nearly had me, ok that's a lie the entire fight was not my best. So need to restock on health potions and find a better way to fight a Dragon because I struggle. Oh yeah I was in Windhelm and ran into a Orphan girl, as I walking past her I overheard her say that no one bought her flowers again.

Now folks when I heard you could have a family in Skyrim with the new patch I wasn't fussed about it, in fact I planned not too because my thoughts was "what is the point". I had a family in Fable and it just annoyed me, plus I love having the great warrior with no ties background. Anyway back to the Orphan story, so I over heard her saying she had not sold anything. Yeah who ever said that gamers are heartless and that video games cause violence have no clue because I had to turn around and talk to her. I thought buy a few flowers from her and help her to be nice (dang my good nature!), well I got the fully background history from instead. Both her folks are dead and she now selling flowers to buy food so she can survive.

Good lord my heart broke! damn myself for being nice and getting into stories too much. So I tried to adopt her but at the time I had not bought my house yet since I was still 600 gold short. Hearing her voice sound happy at the chance to be adopted then go sad when I don't have a house yet so I couldn't adopt her. Well as you can imagine I charged out to get more gold, of course I was so determined that ran right into a Dragon (the one I mentioned earlier) and was nearly a BBQ. Next time I load the game I will be adopting her, well I think I need to sort the house out first so she can stay there but that is the plan.

So that my friends is why I love games! because the story can really suck you in.

~Iznic

P.S. My plans for the week? other then watching a ton of new stuff being announced I will be working on my multiplayer games again, cleaning up lego Lord of the Rings and of course Skyrim.

Pre-Order Bonuses

Morning folks,
Thought I would start with a post that I've been meaning to do for a while and I was unsure how to write, see a few games have been given a few pre-order bonus items when you place your order. Originally I was going to do them as separate posts but then they would be really sort, so thought why not do just one big post listing everything. So let's start with Call of Duty: Ghosts and if you remember from my earlier post if you put a order with GAME you would get a gun skin for Black Ops 2 (See my post here). Well they now also giving away a giant poster with the skin as well, similar to the past games this is a double sided A1 poster.

Side A

Side B

So I'm doing pretty well with my posters this month since I've had a Diablo 3 one with my pre-order and now a Call of Duty one. Anyway that's the COD pre-order out of the way so let's go to it's rival Battlefield with it's latest game Battlefield 4. This offer is not being advertised too well since I only stumbled across it by accident and again it's a GAME exclusive offer in the UK. If you pre-order the Premium edition you get a set of Battlefield dog tags plus some bonus in-game content. Now the reason why this is not being fully advertised everywhere is because one there is no information on wht the in-game bonus content is and two no information on what you get in the premium edition as well. Of course I'm going to guess the Premium Edition will be like the Tier One for Medal of Honor or the Physical Warfare Pack for Battlefield 3 so we talking early access to multiplayer weapons, bonus weapons and maybe a DLC pack. Anyway this pre-order bonus so far is only on the website so don't miss out if you into your knick knacks.

Image belongs to GAME.co.uk

Finally coming to the end of the post and I'm ending it with Company of Heroes 2 for the PC, I've been a bit worried about this game since it was made by THQ and with the studio falling apart it left many questions if this game would be released. Well SEGA bought the rights and finally they have updated with a release date of 25th June which is great but the GAME exclusive Limited Edition as been cancelled. In it's place they are now offering a pre-order bonus of a single player mission set with some bonus items for the Multiplayer.

Which to be honest looks like all the stuff from the Limited Edition anyway so it's all good again. So that's it folks for this post and yes I know it was all about GAME today but they seem to be doing well with their pre-order bonuses. For those outside the UK then I would recommend checking out your local retailers to see what they offering.
~Iznic

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Evening folks,
Well it's the 1st May and the rumours about the next Call of Duty game was confirmed today but then we knew they would be. It was very unlikely for a Super Market to make a fake artwork and then stick up on their site for pre-ordering (Rumour post).

So what happened then, well they posted up a Facebook page with teaser images saying the Ghosts are Real then a teaser trailer finally went up on their youtube channel a few hours ago.



As I said it's a teaser trailer and not much is known about the game but saying that there is some interesting information in this trailer. First of more information is coming at the end of the month at the Next Generation Xbox conference, so this could mean a new partnership again with Microsoft. So far the last several games for the Call of Duty all the DLC map packs have been timed exclusive to the Xbox giving nearly a whole month or two before they see the light of day on the PlayStation.

Second bit of interesting news was once again it says "New Generation" instead of "Next Generation" for the Xbox, really want to know why they keep saying new and not next. Are they changing their console so it's not a console any more? all the patches and updates for the Xbox 360 have pushed it towards more of a full entertainment system then just a console.

Anyway I'm getting off track here and let's get back to the Call of Duty game, as I said there really is not much to go on right now. Some stores are already taking pre-orders and already GAME are offering a pre-order bonus, if you pre-order you get Ghost themed weapon skins for Black Ops 2 multiplayer.

So that's it for now folks, come back at the end of the month where hopefully we can see game footage and finally get some information about this new series for the Call of Duty franchise.
~Iznic

Weekend Update

Afternoon folks,
Thought it would be a good time to update you on my week of gaming and it's been pretty much Hitman dedicated this week. As you know last week I clocked the Platinum trophy for Hitman Blood Money and was undecided on what to play next, well I stuck with the HD collection and picked Contracts for the next game.

It was one of my favourite games on my PC and I've still got in my collection somewhere but I forgot how hard some of the levels can be. Anyway I'm now starting my second play through which I'm hoping to get done by the end of the weekend and then just mop all the weapons as well, so fingers crossed for the Platinum trophy by tomorrow. A lot of people say you can do it with one play through and then mop up but my god you make it a lot harder for yourself doing it that way.

You have to beat the game on Professional then get Silent Assassin ratings on all the levels to get the bonus weapons for the collection trophies. That's hard enough but then you got to get the weapons on each level which usually means gun fighting off through the level so on Professional that's insane since NPC's have extra and deal a ton of damage.

I've gone with the first play through on Professional with the 5 Silent Assassins ratings so that nailed me six trophies since the difficulty trophies stack. Now my second run through is on normal and again all the way through getting Silent Assassin on every level then I can reselect the maps to pick up the missing weapons. A lot easier and overall probably not that much longer time wise as well.

After this game I'm probably going to work on Hitman 2 Silent Assassin but that will take me a lot longer since I've heard the difficulty trophies don't stack so you have to complete the game three times. Hoping to put some MMO time today at some point since I've not been on in the last week, Old Republic I've not touched in weeks and I'm not bothering to renew the subscription at this point since I'm just wasting money on it.

Anyway that's it for small update today and I'm going to head off to play some more games, I won't make a promise but I do want to get another post up later so check back to see but until then have a good one.
~Iznic

P.S. Just read that it looks like Activision will be announcing the next Call of Duty this week, looks like a Gamestop display instructions was posted up saying for the 1st May. Should be interesting to see what they say after that huge leak last with the box art.

Rumour: Call of Duty Ghosts

Over the past few weeks the name Call of Duty Ghosts has been going around, claiming to be the next game in the series this year. Normally we don't pay too much attention to this but when several retailers make the mistake to put it up for order well then you have to take notice. Of course sometimes retailers do jump the boat a little early and put up preorders for games not announced that never happen in the end but in this case it's a little different.

Tesco not only put it up but with the box art picture as well, so this rumour is probably the real deal.

Boxart thanks to MCV

So it looks Modern Warfare has been dropped but its still being done by Infinity Ward, there was a date of 31st December but a second retailer let it slip as well later on with the date 5th November. So MCV believes the December date is a placeholder one. Either way so people made a big mistake to put this up, check out the link below for MCV story who first caught the details.

Guess we will find out more when E3 hits
~Iznic



Source: MCV Online