PSP Remaster

Now I'm excited about this, Sony have announced today they doing PSP Remaster. Basically they will be bringing over to the PS3 classic PSP games in full HD, Dualshock support and of course exclusive features for the PS3. This sounds awesome and I love the fact they announced Monster Hunter 3rd will be one of the first games, really cannot wait to play Monster Hunter in full HD on the big screen. Nice thing too is that the saved file can be shared between the PS3 and the PSP, so you can continue your game on the go.

I'm looking forward to seeing what else they will bring out, fingers crossed for the PSP God of War's!




Source: Pushsquare.com

Review: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean

I think this year we are being spoilt for Lego games, barely a month ago we had the new Star Wars Clones Wars and now Pirates of the Caribbean (also got the second Harry Potter by the end of the year).

So this time we are jumping into all four films of the Pirates of the Caribbean series and I got to say it's spot on. I loved every minute of this game, they got Jack Sparrow perfect especially with his trade mark run and got to love when he accidentally hits a female character and gets slapped for it.

There are few new changes which are pretty sweet, first off by holding down Y or Triangle you can select any character you have unlocked (in the hub or free play) which I found great. Saved me so much time from having to keep running to a station to change characters. Of course there a few things changed just for this game, instead of red bricks you got red hats, liked that touch. Also for collectibles you got ships in a bottle (instead of mini kits) and Jacks compass, now this was a very nice touch. Basically using a jack character you could use his famous compass to find several treasure items on each level, the items can only be found in certain areas. When you in that area you can select it with the compass there a tree map line will appear on the floor which you follow until you find the X. I loved that, its just a quick simple collectible thrown in but it was really cool.

The only downside I found the game quicker to finish, but since I've played all the Lego games I can understand it would be quicker since I know what I'm doing. According to Raptr.com it only took me 20 hours where the rest usually take me 30+.

So overall I would give it full scores! I recommend this game to anyone who loves Lego, Pirates of the Caribbean, wants a easy 1,000 gamerscore/platinum trophy. Hell its a fun game, just go play it and you won't regret it.


Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (Xbox 360)
Score: 10 out of 10
Gameplay: Good
Graphics: Good
Story: Good
Length: Decent
Controls: Good

Afternoon

Been doing a few small changes here and there on the site, added a new banner which I know is a bit rubbish but it will do for the time being until I get some more time to make a nicer one. I still got plans to change the blog layout and colour design, but that won't be happening yet since I rather get some more time for posting first.

So anyway how's things for everyone? got any nice cool games? L.A. Noire is out this week along with a good line up as well (No More Heroes, Dragon Quest VI, Fable 3 PC etc.). Picked up a few myself but not had chance to try them out and yes my gaming pile as grown to a even worse amount. In fact the other day I finally opened all the parcels that have been left on the floor since Christmas, not only have I filled all my shelving but now I've got a huge extra stack of games sitting in the corner of my desk. It's a constant reminder of what I've got to work on and that I need a huge holiday off from work so I can work on them lol

I have made a little progress this week with the completion of Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (full 1,000 gamerscore) and finished Brink story campaign on solo (was not a fan). Also clocked Fantastic Four finally a couple of weeks back, so overall I was doing pretty well and getting through my pile slowly.

Oh and before I finish this post, I was able to get all the retail unlocks in the Gears of War 3 Beta. One of the best betas I've ever done and now looking forward to playing multiplayer when it comes out (shocking to say I never play multiplayer with strangers on Gears, just private matches with mates).

Anyway that's it for now, give a shout with your updates!
~Iznic

Coming Soon Chart #2

Not many replies this time around, anyway since the lack of votes for the old list they have dropped to the bottom of the chart. The numbers [ ] represent their past chart place, red - means they dropped and green ^ means a rise in the chart.

That's it for now on the chart, hopefully next time more of you will take part

Coming Soon Chart

Date: Start of May 2011

1. Gears of War 3 / Lego Pirates of the Caribbean
2. Batman Arkham City [3^] / Splinter Cell HD Trilogy
3. Mass Effect 3 [2-] / No More Heroes (PS3)
4. Battlefield 3 [1-]
5. Super Mario 3D [2-]
6. Infamous 2 [3-]
7. Sony NGP (Console) [4-] / Uncharted 3 [4-]



No Longer On the Chart
[2] Portal 2 (released)

Time to update the chart

Couple of weeks back I asked you guy's what you looking forward too and created a coming soon chart, well it's time for a update! Games come out, new trailers get released so people do change their mind.

So again I ask you what are the top three games/consoles you looking forward too? rank them 1-3 with the first one being the most you look forward too.
Here is my little list
1 - Gears of War 3
2 - Batman Arkham City
3 - Mass Effect 3

Quick Post

Sorry for the lack of posting guys but I've pretty much been stuck in a loop, sleep - eat - work - game - repeat. I'm pretty much nearly burned myself out with gaming thanks to several events, all of which decided to all be at the same time.


Basically got two gaming events going on right now, the Gears of War 3 Beta and the Spring Event for Phantasy Star Universe. Both end next week and both I didn't do anything of for the first few weeks meaning now all my time is being spent on them.

I am enjoying the Gears beta, I don't really do public multi player much but this time around I'm finding myself really enjoying it. I do see myself playing this a lot when the retail version is released. Just need to clock some more matches so I can get all those nice unlocks for the main game, should be able to do it all in time (I hope).

Phantasy Star? well the event basically as reduced the dlc bosses levels down so I decided to give it ago, paid for my first month and jumped in. Heard it can be a pain at the start but a lot of achievement hunters said that they where able to do it all in a few hours thanks too help from friendly high level players. Well I met a nice level 51 who got me the first two achievements (one of the hardest ones as well :-D) then the next three days went to hell, no help after hours of asking and the solo level grinding was horrible/painful. The game does not like new players and espically ones who have never played a Phantasy Star before.

It was pretty much all thanks to this game that nearly burned me out and so decided I could not do it anymore. So I just cancelled my subscription and thanks to a very nice customer support rep, I've also got refunded the remaining time I had left. Happy days!


So that's my week and half, I've done nothing else and way behind on well ... everything lol so again sorry guys. I will be updating over the weekend and most of next week, until then hope you having more fun and getting plenty of gaming done!

New Assassin Creed Game?

Very excited now, even if its a rumor! just noticed on xbox360achievements.org news feed that there might had been a leak on the Assassin Creed Facebook page for the next game.

Basically all they know so far is that its called Assassins Creed Revelations and could star Altair again, maybe like Brotherhood is basically for Ezio. Course all rumors and could be a prank like X360A said but still, got my fingers crossed. No doubt we will see some news in the next few months with E3.

That reminds me, I need to finish off Brotherhood so better put that at the top of games to play.




Source: Xb0x360achievements.org

Some more future games

One of are regular readers (Lesley) kindly brought this to my attention yesterday. Binary Domain: The machine Age Has Begun, very amazing looking game and done by Sega. Watching the trailer I did see a few scenes that remind me of Vanquish though lol.

Second game was reported by shoptonews.net (shopto.net gaming news site), basically a 3DS game called Beyond the Labyrinth a dungeon RPG. Looks a lot like Ico which if its true then this could be one hell of a game, now on my radar too :) check out the link above for shopto's page on what they found out.

Well that's it for this post, if find any more games give a shout.

Coming Soon Chart #1

Well it's the very first Coming Soon Chart for this site (well technically I did do it for the Brotherhood site before the merge but you know what I mean). Did not get as many replies that I had hoped, come on readers reply! lol so anyway this is what people are looking forward too right now.

Coming Soon Chart

Date: End of April 2011

1. Battlefield 3
2. Mass Effect 3 / Super Mario 3D / Portal 2
3. Batman Arkham City / Infamous 2
4. Sony NGP (Console) / Uncharted 3

Battlefield seems the most popular this time with two votes, followed by quite a list of games to be honest. Anyway next voting will be start of May and hopefully more of you will take part, until then have fun everyone!

Finally Can Post

Finally!!!

Sorry folks I did try to bring quite a few posts today but for some reason I got hit with a ton of 404 Errors which meant I could not edit pages or make posts. Now that's it back up I've just had time to do the few updates to the site design I wanted to get out of the way (Patch 1.1.1) and my 2011 stats have been updated as well.

Will over the next few days catch up with the posts I've got planned but for tonight this is it, sorry!

Hope everyone is been having a good time and got lots of gaming in. Also hope you not been hit too hard with the PSN down age, hopefully there's a bright light at the end of this tunnel for both us and Sony.

Anyway catch up with you all later

What are you looking forward too?

When "Brotherhood of Gaming" website was running, this feature was quite popular with everyone who visited the blog. Basically I was interested in hearing what people where looking forward too, you simply reply with the top three games you looking forward too (did allow new consoles to be included as well). With this info I had a mini chart listing the most popular games. So I thought why not start it again with you guys, hopefully it will get some of you readers commenting :-p no reason to be scared, I won't bite

So either comment here or over on the facebook page the three games/consoles you looking forward too the most, also put them in order as well please. Oh and expect me to be asking quite often, games come out, new things get announced and of course people change their minds.

For me it would have to be the following
1. Mass Effect 3
2. Battlefield 3
3. Sony NGP

Patch Notes

You will now find at the bottom of the page on the right the blog patch notes, it will show the current version and a nice little link to the patch notes page. Here you will find the list of changes to the site and when it was done, know it's probably boring to most but it will be listing any changes I do. So any new pages added or taken away, colour changes, or anything new completely will be listed here and the date it happened.

Get Mass Effect 2 Free

The lovely people over at Bioware are giving away Mass Effect 2 (PC edition) for free if you have bought Dragon Age 2. All you got to do is go onto their offer page found below this sentence and follow the instructions given.

Offer page link


It's really easy, all you do is register your online code for Dragon Age 2 (black emporium) then play a game of Dragon Age 2, this will log everything on the EA servers. Then you just type that online code into the offer page and it will generate the code for your copy of Mass Effect 2. Put that code into the EA Download Manager and start downloading, all done!

Just to warn you it is a 11gb download so get cracking! and the offer ends 30th April 2011

Upcoming Games Part Two

As I mentioned in my last post the last few weeks have seen an increase of new trailers, announcements etc and so here is part two of some of the titles I'm keeping my eye on.

Asura's Wrath by Capcom
It looks interesting and that boss battle with the guy bigger then the world could be sweet, reminds me a lot of Devil May Cry or God of War style. Hopefully will see a lot more footage at E3 this year and some proper game play stuff as well.

Source: thanks to xbox360achievements.org and capcomunityvideos youtube channel


Dragon's Dogma by Capcom
Capcom seem to be turning out the games in the bucket loads. This one looks amazing just a shame its not out until 2012, basically a mysterious dragon is terrorising the land and you been tasked to take it out. You be controlling a party of three on your journey while fighting plenty of monsters and critters on the way. The trailer looks amazing and i love the griffin fight, this is high up on my want list.

Source: thanks to pushsquare

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Another open world rpg that I have to say looks beautiful, the graphics stood out to me from the start and the combat system looks to be good if it stays like that. Not much information though on the story and that's one thing I like about my games, it needs a good story to keep me sucked in.

Source: thanks to xbox360achievements.org


So that's all of them guys, quite a few nice games have appeared and I've got a good feeling we will be seeing a lot more at E3. Any of these take your fancy? or have you found some more hidden treasures, looking forward to hearing your comments later.

Upcoming Games

Over the last few weeks there have been quite a few new trailers released, in fact there are quite few I did not know about until now. First up thanks to shopto.net, they posted up a new trailer for a 3DS game by Konami (makers of one of my favourite games Time Hollow), Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights. Yes it looks a lot like Professor Layton but it still looks amazing and well done but still no proper date just this summer so hopefully not too long of a wait.

Source: Trailer thanks to shopto.net


Next up again thanks to shopto.net is the game play trailer for Resistance 3, after playing the PSP retribution game and the first in the series (ps3) at the start of the year I have been waiting to see the third. The second in the installment is sitting on my shelf waiting to be played anyway back to the trailer, It looks good and could be a first day buy but I was shocked the release date is now September. Both Batman AC and Gears of War 3 are slated for then as well, so it could be a crowded launch and a later buy thanks to that which is a shame.

Source: Trailer thanks to sparkthesun youtube channel and shopto.net


Xbox360achievements.org have posted up a dev diary for the new Warhammer 40,000 console game Space Marines, a third person shooter which looks awesome. They really are trying to keep to the lore and I'm looking forward to jumping into the 40,000 universe, had in the fact it takes place on a forge world just makes it all the sweeter!

Source: trailer thanks to xbox360achievements.org


Well that's it for this post, there are few more trailers that I like but will post them at a later date. Got to admit this year is looking to be amazing for the gaming industry, just hope we have enough time to keep up with it (trying not to think of the back catalogue of games I've got to play lol).

Review: Ben 10 Ultimate Alien Cosmic Destruction

The things I play for achievements, basically welcome to the second Ben 10 game for the Xbox 360. A simple action and adventure game which has you battling several low level minions and complete several puzzles to move through the levels. Each level will also have a mini boss battle of some type then end the level facing one of the many villains from the show.

The achievements are quiet simple, finish a boss, finish a level and collectibles in every level. Of course they have thrown in there box standard achievements like get "x combo" and "destroy x amount of objects". I followed the lovely walk through guide over on Xbox360achievements.org to find the collectibles and they got a wonderful video on how to get the x100 hit combo, took a few goes but got it with no problem.

In fact I got the full 1,000 gamerscore in one play through, would recommend you trash everything in each level to collect the DNA points to upgrade your forms. This will also count towards the destroy object and DNA collector achievements.

The game is just ok, the story is very boring and you can skip the cut scenes with the B button. Game it self is quite easy to play, puzzles are not that hard and the controls are very simple as well. Hold down the left trigger will bring up the forms you can select and with the right analog you pick the one you want to transform into. Holding down the right trigger brings up the specials moves, just press either the A/B/X/Y buttons. Not many bugs, few clipping problems where I got stuck in a wall but nothing to warrant game breaking.

So overall I would recommend it if you got a kid that's into Ben 10 or if you after a easy 1,000 gamerscore/platinum trophy but don't expect anything amazing (best to rent it)


Ben 10 Ultimate Alien Cosmic Destruction (Xbox 360)
Score: 5 out of 10
Gameplay: Average
Graphics: Average
Story: Poor
Length: Decent
Controls: Average

Update

Thought I would throw in a quick update in between working on the site. Not really put much time into the consoles lately, the PC as took up most of my time playing Dragon Age Legends and RIFT. Just shortly after the last update I did I went and finished Lego Star Wars Clone Wars, got the full 1,000 gamerscore in it which was a nice boost and added another game to the completed list. Will try and get a review asap along with the other list of games I meant to be reviewing, very disorganised right now.

Of course since then I have picked up several more new releases so the completion percent is down in the dumps right now, really need to start clocking some more games. Only console game I am playing is my rental game Ben 10 (Xbox 360) which to be honest I've not played in the last few days since of work taking up most of my time.

That's it really for me, as I said it's mostly been quiet but hopefully the next few days I will be able to get some more game time in and have a nice long update for you.

Check out the Progress page for the updated stats

Gears of War 3 Beta Information

Well its nearly time for the Beta and I'm very excited, been reading the press release for the dates and the awesome unlocks you can get for the main game. So I thought I be nice and post it up here if you have not seen it already.

DATES

Bulletstorm Epic Edition will give you one week head start to everyone else, starts next Monday (18th April) and lasts until Sunday 24th Arpil.

Then the normal beta will begin for those who have codes for pre-ordering in advance, start date is Monday 25th April and lasts until Sunday 15th May.

UNLOCKS

There are several unlocks for the beta (these unlocks will pass over to Gears of War 3) with a wide variety of criteria to unlock them.

Flaming Hammerburst
Complete one match by Sunday 24th April (Exclusive to the Bulletstorm week start)

Flaming Lancer
Complete one match during the week of 25th April

Flaming Sawed-Off Shotgun
Complete one match during the week of 2nd May

Flaming Gnasher Shotgun
Complete one match during the week of 9th May

Beta Tester Medal
Complete one match during the beta, attaches to you profile in Gears of War 3 and can be shown in the multiplayer lobby.

Thrashball Cole
Multiplayer skin unlock, complete 50 matches (any game type) during the beta. There is a catch, you must then complete 10 matches as Thrashball Cole to permanently unlock the character.

Gold-Plated Retro Lancer
This is the hardest/longest unlock, complete 90 matches during the beta (any game type) and then score 100 kills with the Lancer to permanently unlock this skin.



So there you have it, the full list and got to say it does look like a lot to do but I'm hoping that the 60 matches for Thrashball Cole will count towards towards the lancer as well (would make life easier). Anyway so give a shout if you going to be on the beta and will have to organise a night to work on some unlocks together and have a laugh.



Source: Gears of War Official Site

Site Changes

This is just a quick post to say I've not forgot about the blog, in fact as you loaded you should have seen some of the new changes I've been doing to the site. First of course is my Easter banner, hope you like my newb skills.

Second thing is that the time chamber page as been taken down for the time being, need to redesign to make it look a lot better. In it's place you will notice now there is a 2011 gaming progress stats page, in the future when I update I will talk about what I did then just link to that page to see the stats. Saves me keeping copying and pasting, also saves having tons of huge long posts, will be doing also for the Golden Key challenge too so expect to see some changes on that page as well.

Finally I will be doing a patch notes page, bit like MMO's work. On this page it will keep record of the dates and whats major change to the blog, I know it doesn't sound that interesting but I like the idea.

Anyway that's it for this post, catch you all in a bit and hoping you been having a good few weeks of gaming.

So what's game of the year so far

Been meaning to post this for a while now, in fact I was meant to be updating every time I play a new 2011 release but oh well its here now. So what is game of the year for me so far? well check out the lovely list below, oh and a few things. First off the list can change since some of the games on there I'm still currently playing and finally I've only added games I've played which makes sense anyway.

Game of the Year 2011
-!Work in progress!-

1. Ghost Trick (NDS)
2. Bulletstorm (X360)
3. Lego Star Wars 3 Clone Wars (X360)
4. Pokemon Black (NDS)
5. Crysis 2 (X360)
   
6. Total War Shogun 2 (PC)
7. Homefront (X360)
   
8. Gray Matter (X360)

So what's got your game of the year so far? I know this list is going to change for me quite a lot since of the huge line up at the end of the year.