Sony Confirms Dual-Shock / Navigation Controller Switcheroo

When the Move, Sony’s new motion controller, was priced at Sony’s press conference on Tuesday, a big cheer went out from the attending crowd. $50 is pretty good for a brand new peripheral. But 10 seconds later that roar was replaced by crickets when the Navigation controller, in essence a sister to the Wii’s Nunchuck, was priced at $30. Here we go with the costly extras. But you can unbunch those panties of yours; while it might not be as comfortable as the smaller Navigation controller, the existing Dual Shock 3 controller is compatible with the Move as well.

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Interview: Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days

A bearded man wearing a dirty white tank top is crouched behind the wall. Bicycles are to the left of him, a impenetrable wall to the right. The only way out is through a gauntlet of corrupt Shanghai cops. He dashes out caught in a hail of bullets. The screen becomes grainy and red as he takes the hit. You play as Lynch in Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days.

We talked to Hakan Abrak, a producer with IO Interactive about the story, the gameplay modes, and his favourite new gameplay feature.

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First Look: Civilization V

Anyone who’s spent time playing Civilization knows it is not a game that is quickly played and then put aside. You emerge from the fiery crucible of building a nation from the ground up with digital track marks on your arm and a vow to never play again–until the next time you turn on your PC.

2K showed off Civilization V at E3, a game three years in the making. It looks like this game will be providing the same level of addiction.

See after the break for all new features.

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The Old Republic’s New Trailer

It’s just a cinematic without any new insight into the gameplay, but the latest trailer from BioWare’s massively multiplayer online role playing game–Star Wars: The Old Republic–is pretty dang wicked. It’s things like this and the original Clone Wars animated series (not that crap they have on now) that give me hope for the Star Wars universe.

EA hosts regular screenings of this video on a massive screen at the company’s booth here at E3, and it’s pure spectacle complete with Jedi hurling t-shirts into the crowd and an announcer practically foaming at the mouth. It always draws a crowd and it’s big and loud. I’m thinking of going back again this afternoon because, while this version is nice, it’s always better in epic format.

Interview: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Just a year after Assassin’s Creed II hit stores, Brotherhood–the sequel to the sequel–will be busting its way onto the scene. Not an expansion, Brotherhood is a full game that follows in the years after ACII. There’s a single player story that follows the parallel lives of Desmond Miles and his ancestor master assassin Ezio Auditore who is in a new war with the son of his previous nemesis… the Pope… in Rome.

But the big deal with Brotherhood is that it’s multiplayer. Rather than mess with the world of the Desmond’s genetic memory story, its “plot” follows the training of Templar assassins in Rome, letting you control any one of a variety of Templars and their genetic ancestor killers from the doctor to the cleric to the courtesan. But enough about my thoughts (and I think it’s great), here’s Jean-Francois Boivin, AC production manager at Ubisoft, with his answers to my questions about AC: Brotherhood.
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First Look: XCOM

X-COM is a much beloved turn-based tactical squad game from the last decade. When the rights bounced around from Hasbro to Atari and then to 2K Marin, it appeared we’d finally get a new game on the IP–minus the hyphen. 2K Marin’s objective is to combine the “fundamentals of strategy and fear, and put them together.”

At 2K’s booth, we got a 20-minute tour of the updated XCOM world.  Boys and girls, put on your tinfoil hats as we delve into the wacky world of aliens invading America.

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Hands On: Mafia II

On August 24, 2K is returning with its second installment that is the developer’s answer to a sandbox Godfather game (without all that baggage of the actual Godfather story). Mafia II lets us take the role of Vito, son of a poor Italian immigrant, who is making his mark in the world as he grows from street thug to “made man” in 1940s and ’50s America.

There’s lots to this game which could be fairly compared to the Grand Theft Auto series. Car chases and bloody gun battles are the essence of Mafia. So, how did if feel after 20 minutes of play?

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Hands On: Nintendo’s 3DS, Kirby, Donkey Kong, And Zelda

The Nintendo E3 booth was busy with media and fans today at the Los Angeles Convention Centre. Luckily, we were able to spend time with the Nintendo 3DS the newest Wii titles announced at Nintendo’s press conference.

See after the break for our reactions to the games.

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Hands On: GoldenEye 007 (2010)

There were big cheers from the crowd in the Nokia Theater on Tuesday when Nintendo announced the return of GoldenEye 007 later this year from Activision. The title, often credited for launching the console first-person shooter genre, GoldenEye holds a special place in the hearts of gamers. In the past couple years, there have been rumours of where this game might surface.

When Perfect Dark arrived on Xbox Live Arcade earlier this year, it contained a number of GoldenEye multiplayer maps and weapons, suggesting a full game might be just around the corner.

But rather than Xbox, we’ll be seeing GoldenEye completely revamped for the Wii and DS. And while it pays strong homage to the original game, there are a number of changes including Daniel Craig replacing Pierce Brosnan, sexier graphics and nicely improved gameplay. So how did my first 10 minutes of this new game feel today?

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Hands-On: Hunted: The Demon’s Forge

Not every game at E3 can get you all hot and bothered about the future release. Hunted: The Demon’s Forge from inXile Entertainment fits into that category. Granted, there are bugs still to be worked out, but my hands-on time playing co-op with the game’s combat designer left me feeling the developer hasn’t gone far enough to realize its vision of creating the “reinvention of the classic dungeon crawler.” I felt WB Interactive’s demo of Lord of The Rings: War in the North pulled off the fantasy co-op action game much better.

Hunted is a co-op action adventure set in a dark fantasy world similar to BioWare’s Dragon Age. With gameplay reminiscient of Gears of War’s run and cover approach, it puts the gamer into melee and shooter engagements as the two characters move from dungeon to dungeon (ie: enclosed maps of action). It is a linear, story-driven game following the story of two mercenaries coerced into doing something more altruistic than they normally would. Yup, something evil is on the rise and our heroes need to do something about it.

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