Batman: Arkham City Hugo Strange Trailer

The full trailer introducing Hugo Strange to Batman: Arkham City has been released, and you can check it out below.



Very excited for this game!

Mass Effect 3 Officially Announced

Well, we all knew this one was coming. Mass Effect 3 has officially been announced, and the Reapers have invaded Earth.

You can check out the announcement trailer here or below:

Video Games | Mass Effect 3 | VGA 10: Exclusive Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Slated for a holiday 2011 release, Mass Effect 3 will see the conclusion of Commander Shepard's story ark and will allow players to import their characters from Mass Effect 2 to preserve their Shepard's continuity.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Announced

Good God, in 11 months time, I simply won't have a life. The sequel to digital crack has been announced, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be landing on Nov. 11th, 2011.

The official site has been revamped into "teaser" mode, and you can check out the trailer there or below.



Here, there be dragons.

Batman: Arkham City VGA 2010 Teaser Trailer

Very, very slick. The latest teaser for Batman: Arkham City speaks for itself, I think:

Halo Wars Stat Tracking NOT Being Shut Down

Well, well, this is some unexpected and great news! Fans have screamed their outrage, and Halo Waypoint has listened: Stat tracking will not be removed for Halo Wars this coming Wednesday after all!

As officially announced here, the official forums will still merge with Halo Waypoint's forums, and Title Update 5 will still be released, however Halo Wars.com itself will remain active and we'll still be able to log in and check our stats. Should the site ever close down completely, stats will remain active elsewhere and more details will be released at that time.

Excellent news, and thank you for listening to your customer base, Halo Waypoint!

Dead Space 2 "Emergency" Trailer

With the announcement of the upcoming single player demo (releasing on Dec. 21st for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), EA has released a great new action-packed trailer for Dead Space 2.

Entitled "Emergency," you can give it a watch below.

See more Game Videos at EA.com.

Really looking forward to the demo, and greatly looking forward to the sequel!

Halo: Reach Noble Map Pack Quick Looks

The Noble Map Pack, the first DLC for Halo: Reach, launches this coming Tues. Nov. 30th and Bungie has released a Quick Look video for each of the three maps.

You can check the videos out on Bungie's official site here or below.

Forums Removed

So kids, I wasn't able to get Delay of Game integrated in the way I was hoping and was ultimately unsatisfied with its look here on Arbiter's Judgement, so I've decided to remove the forums from the site for now.

I might bring them back at a later date, but until then, please visit Delay of Game the old fashioned way (by clicking this super awesome fun happy link), and participate in a great online community of like minded gamers!

Halo Wars.com Shutting Down

This is some very sad news: on Dec. 15th, Halo Wars.com will be shutting down. What does this mean for us, the gamers? The official message boards will be gone for one, but more importantly, the game will no longer feature any stat-tracking what-so-ever. I suppose this means win percentage won't mean spit anymore, but really, without stat-tracking the game will likely die pretty fast.

Halo Wars community members are encouraged to sign up at the Halo Waypoint forums and post there, but no alternative will be offered for the lack of stat tracking.

Multiplayer will still exist at least (and I'm assuming Leaderboards), and a 5th (and likely final) Title Update will be coming soon. It won't feature any balance changes, however, and instead will correct the Theatre bug that prevents players from selecting the last three cinematics from the Campaign, and it will also remove all references and links to Halo Wars.com.

This might actually be one of the first Title Updates to ever remove content from a retail game.

You can read the official announcement here (and find out how to get a special Avatar for the Halo Waypoint forums), and it might be best to start playing a lot of games now, because I really do think Halo Wars will fade away after the 15th of December.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II TV Commercials

And speaking of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, here's some cool TV Spots for your viewing pleasure. The second one was especially great.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (Xbox 360) Demo Impressions

I'm sure you've all seen the lackluster reviews for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II by now, and it's partly because of these that I didn't bother to try the demo until today; a demo I downloaded as soon as it was available a month ago. Well, that and I've been busy grinding Daily Challenges in Halo: Reach, but I digress.

The demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is set on Kamino, which is now under Imperial control. Seeing as how Starkiller died at the hands of the Emperor at the end of the first game, Vader has had him cloned. It looks like the Dark Lord wants his old apprentice, who was stronger in the Force than even he, to hunt down the Rebellion Starkiller created. There's just one problem: Starkiller's clone remembers far too much of his genetic predecessor's past, tarnishing his loyalty to Vader.

The demo focuses on Starkiller's escape from Kamino so he can go in pursuit of Juno Eclipse, the woman he loves, and now wielding dual Lightsabres, you get to hack and slash and actually dismember a host of Stormtroopers and other Imperials in your way.

For the demo itself, you're extremely powerful and a lot of your abilities are maxed out. The Controls are akin to those of the first game, save that once you learn how, pressing "Y" while Blocking will now execute a Mind Trick. I used it once and then presumed to Hack, Zap, and Graple my enemies into oblivion instead. Force Lighting still rips things up, you can charge up Force Push to knock back several enemies with devastating force (oh, the pun!), and of course you can combine various attacks to create combos. I'm not just talking about hacking and slashing with Force Lightning infused Lightsabres by "dialing" a combo, I mean you can Grip and enemy, zap them, and launch them at other enemies with explosive results. Good times, but all featured in the first game.

Graphically and audio speaking (Ha, another pun!), the demo was solid with fluidly animated character models, strong voice acting, and those nerdy trademark Star Wars sound effects we all get off on. Gameplay wise I didn't find anything lacking, but I didn't find anything inspiring either. It really did feel just like the first game, save that I started out stronger and I had a second Lightsabre to wave back and forth menacingly. Most of my old combat tricks still worked, the same run-around-zapping-and-tossing-stuff at the bigger enemies to wind them down worked, and there were some cool button mashing finishers, but there wasn't anything to wow or entice me like with the original game's demo.

Another thing I found amusing was the Holocrons. In the original game, you really had to hunt for these items which would bestow you with extra experience, Lightsabre Crystals, or Outfits. In the sequel's demo release, they were a lot like "Find Waldo Yet Again," really not trying anymore. The bloody things were right out in the open in completely unmissable spots! That's not necessarily a bad thing, but a little disappointing as hunting them down was a nice challenge.

I also had an odd little bug where at the end, when I approached the Imperial Shuttle, the game went to the loading screen, but without the spinning reticule. It just stood there forever, and I had to press "Start" and then I could select an option to "Skip," which brought me to a closing cut scene, so I'm not sure if I missed anything or not.

While I greatly enjoyed the original game and thought the critics were far too harsh on it (see my review here), based on my experience with the demo and the feedback I've heard not just from pro reviews but also from my fellow gamers, I can't see Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II as a must have title. As a rental or waiting for it to hit $19.99 in a bargain bin, that I could recommend.

We Have Forums! Sort Of...

Delay of Game, a forum I moderate, can now be linked to any site or blog, and I've added it to Arbiter's Judgement. So after 5 years, we finally have forums!

You can now find them in the side bar (as of this typing) under the Reviews index. Feel free to browse around, register, and post. It's a great forum with a great community!

I know its current integration doesn't look perfect just yet, but it'll get sexier as I move it around and toy with it, trust me. Especially if you drink a few beers first.

You can, of course, also check out Delay of Game directly by going here.

Xbox 360 Fall 2010 System Update Impressions

On Mon. Nov. 1st, 2010, the Fall System Update for the Xbox 360 was released via Xbox LIVE. Like so many System Updates before it (and not just limited to the Xbox 360 platform), it had a bumpy start on day 1.

The usual search of "The Update Bricked my Console" threads surfaced, whether legit, due to user-induced installation errors, or modded boxes going bye-bye, I don't know, and I'm not really referring to these.

On launch day, most Avatar Awards and downloaded Avatar items could not be selected/equipped, which I found odd since Microsoft is huge on marketing their cute little Mii wanna-bees. Halo Waypoint also kept encountering an internal error and wouldn't load beyond it's main menu, some Dashboard videos wouldn't play, and gamer's download histories wouldn't load.

Thankfully , most of these were fixed by Monday's end and Avatar's received an update when you went into the Editor on Wednesday evening, I believe.

One of the main focuses of the Fall Update was to add Kinect compatibility to all Xbox 360's, and since I don't own Kinect, I'm assuming this went off without any major hitches. The Dashboard was also aesthetically redesigned to a blander, simpler, more white style. There's less motion and graphics in the background now, which seems to have sped up load times of things like your Friend's List, and while I'm happy for such improved functionality I must confess I'm not a fan of the blinding white new menus. It's something I'll get used to, like the new sound effects, but I really wish it wasn't so bright.

Keeping in step with Microsoft's more family oriented outlook, when the update is complete a new, brief tutorial (pictured) starts up, which is great for newcomers to the console, but for veterans you'll just want to skip right past. The Welcome Channel will need to be disabled like it always does after every major System Update, and sadly, Microsoft still hasn't added the often requested My Xbox Channel as the default Channel option. One day perhaps, one day.

The Xbox LIVE Marketplace and Zune Marketplace respectively have seen a complete organizational overhaul, and this is a _huge_ improvement. The Zune Marketplace is so much easier to navigate and your own library is far better sorted, and you can actually see new items in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace in preview windows, increasing the speed of navigation there as well. I must confess, of all the changes brought about by the Fall Update this is my favourite and the most notable.

Voice communication is also supposed to have been improved, but I've been a hermit this last week and actually haven't voice chatted with anyone, but I hear people now sound like they're talking through a tin can and reactions have been mixed. I'll find out for myself soon enough, I suppose.

Long asked for, Netflix has not only come to Canada but finally to the Xbox 360. It's an "app" you need to install just like Facebook for the Xbox 360, and since I don't have a Netflix account and The Walking Dead is already available on Zune Marketplace, I simply haven't bothered.

When all is said and done, the 2010 Fall System Update is one that I find rather underwhelming, but in a good way. It certainly didn't wow me in any fashion, several core aspects have been greatly improved to my liking, but cosmetically the Dashboard now looks uglier to my eyes, so it's a trade off. Overall I suppose, not a bad update at all.

Mandatory for all those wanting to connect to Xbox LIVE, if you don't have this update already, you likely will soon.

Dead Space 2 "Ring Around the Rosie" Trailer

A new trailer has been released by EA for their upcoming horror shooter, Dead Space 2. I really like the atmosphere it creates, so give it a watch:

See more Game Videos at EA.com.

Kinect Gold Subscriber Preview Night - Toronto

Set to change the way we play, Kinect launches for the Xbox 360 this coming Thurs. Nov. 4th. This past Tuesday, Xbox Canada held a preview event in downtown Toronto where Xbox LIVE Gold members could come by, try out Kinect, and compete for awesome prize packs!

The Gold Subscriber Preview Night was my first experience with Kinect, and like many of you I've read both good and bad about the new technology from various media sources. Personally, I wasn't expecting too much going in besides a gimmicky new peripheral for my console, and I'm happy to say that Kinect was much more impressive than I first suspected.

The venue is a rented location right across from the Eaton Centre at 207 Yonge Street (and you can actually still go there now for about another month to play whenever you like, no RSVP or Gold membership required!) and the ground floor has several booths set up with consoles, Kinect sensors, and Kinect games for the general public to try. The Gold Subscriber Preview Night was held on the second level, and after signing in at the front desk, I was permitted to walk upstairs and take in the relaxed setup that Xbox Canada provided.

With IKEA couches and Kinect themed decorations everywhere, as well as free snacks and drinks for all ages, the Preview Night not only encouraged guests to interact with the half-dozen booths set up with Kinect, but to also relax and socialize with the wonderful Canadian community members who could attend. The basic design of the venue was very well done, as Kinect is all about the social experience of getting off the couch and playing with friends and the location's layout certainly encouraged this!

Promotional staff were walking around the entire floor helping people learn about Kinect, answering questions, and of course, regulating the competitions for some sweet prize packs! The prize packs were of high quality, consisting of copies of Crackdown 2, Halo: Reach, Fable III, Xbox 360 Fable III Limited Edition Controllers, etc. I'm not talking individually either, I mean all of these things were part of one prize pack and were awarded several times throughout the night! Talk about promotion!

Now one very important thing to note about Kinect at this event is that the games were still beta versions as Microsoft is developing the hardware and software right up until launch, so while most of the launch titles were present they didn't have all their features, and for Kinect itself, facial and voice recognition was not used.

Having said that, I was quite surprised by how well the technology actually worked. All one had to do was simply approach a booth and stand a few feet back from the sensor, wave to assume control, and begin playing! I watched many people play Kinect Adventures!, and the ease at which people could control their raft and move their Avatar to collect coins around the game levels was most impressive. Regrettably I didn't get to try Kinect Adventures! myself, but I did experience several other titles.

First up was Kinect Sports where I tried for a prize pack. Bowling was the game being played when I tried, and the promo staff set the ground rules of requiring multiple strikes to continue. This was my very first attempt with connect, and I did not score a strike and was disqualified, but that's alright. Next up was Kinect Joy Ride, where Jeff, Xbox Canada's product manager, took me through how to play the game.

Like most Kinect titles, once the sensor is tracking you the cursor simply moves with your hand-guided motions. Stop the cursor over an option and a circle draws around it in a clockwise direction. This gives you a few seconds to move the cursor or, once the circle is complete, to select that option. For Kinect Joy Ride itself, once you're in-game you simply position your hands like you're holding a steering wheel and turn that wheel to drive your vehicle. Bring your hands close to your chest and you begin charging a Turbo Boost, and once you've built enough charge, thrust your hands forward to really launch your vehicle!

Personally, I found the sensor could be a little too sensitive while steering, and one promo staff member pointed out that while playing, I had also been moving my body and not just the "steering wheel," which in this case throws the sensor off a bit. It's something apparently a lot of new players have trouble with in Kinect Joy Ride, but once you get past that the game handles very smoothly. If you actually get some air time you can even spin around to cause your vehicle to spin!

The next and final game I tried was Kinectimals, in which I got to play and interact with a lion cub. I was able to throw Frisbees or Mexican hats at targets to score points, and the cub would run out and fetch used Frisbees for me. What was pretty cool was that leaning your body would actually tilt the camera angle, allowing you another way to adjust your aim. If you threw too fast though, the sensor might not properly track you, but if you used fluid, steady hand motions, you could often hit targets rather easily.

When I was done, the next person who stepped up for Kinectimals was a child. He was about 5 years old and being me, I spent some time helping him, assisting a promo staff member in instructing him on how to play the game. Sometimes he'd move too close and fall outside of the sensor's field of view, or he'd move too fast and not be tracked properly, but he was having a great time. He actually played a game with the cub itself, teaching it tricks by standing up, rolling around on the floor, or doing hand motions. The child was having a great time, laughing and telling his mom about everything he was doing, and this above any other experience that night really showed me Kinect's potential: that anyone, of any age, really can just jump right into a Kinect game and even if they aren't doing things quite right, they can still have a wonderful and entertaining experience.

Visually, I was quite impressed with the various game's graphics. While not Unreal Engine quality, they certainly looked very nice, and textures were crisp, fluid, and detailed, as were the various character animations, particularly that of the cub from Kinectimals. The environments of Kinect Adventures! also looked very well done.

I must confess I was certainly impressed with my Kinect experience. I only got to spend about 30 minutes overall trying out the various above games, but the tech was quite easy to use. I'm still not 100% sold on it though, as I think the motion tracking tech could be improved to be a little less or a little more sensitive depending on the title, but the potential is certainly there in spades. At this point, the target audience for Kinect is different than my personal style of gaming. After a long day at the office, do I want to come home and jump around my living room annoying my neighbours, or do I want to sit on my butt, drink and beer, and play some Halo: Reach?

If you guessed the latter then you've been paying attention, but that's certainly not to say Kinect won't be a great accessory to parties and casual living room gaming environments. Kinect is certainly something I will be keeping a close eye on in the months to come, and depending on how Microsoft improves and supports Kinect post-launch and if more mature or innovative games are made available that suit my tastes better, we'll, my neighbours just might be telling me to stop banging around after all.

Halo Wars Leaderboard Reset Coming, No New Posters for Official Forums

Wow. Halo Waypoint finally updated the Halo Wars website with some actual news. Not that they weren't updating it with unactual news before, they just weren't updating it for the last 7 months period.

Way to roll out those "big plans for Halo Wars" guys! But I digest...

The Halo Wars leaderboards will be reset due to popular demand this coming Fri. Nov. 5th. Your rank, of course, will be unaffected.

You can check out the main page of the official site for the good word.

Some disturbing news though. I just saw that if you register on the official site, you can not post on the official forums! That's right, the official Halo Wars forums no longer allows new members to post as of October 27th, and posters are instead encouraged to go to the official Xbox Forums. Not that there's a problem with the Xbox Forums, but seriously, talk about killing community growth...

Halo: Reach Noble Map Pack Trailer

Last week, Bungie released the trailer for their upcoming Halo: Reach map pack, the Noble Map Pack.




The Noble Map Pack releases over Xbox LIVE Marketplace on Tues. Nov. 30th for 800 Microsoft Points.

Personally, I just don't understood the concept of paying money for small collections of multiplayer maps, and I'll happily pass.

Diablo III - Demon Hunter Class Revealed

The fifth and final player class for Diablo III has been revealed: The Demon Hunter. Her cloaked look and Fan of Knives ability actually reminds me of the Warden from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, but you know, I guess there's only so many skills and abilities they can create.

The Demon Hunter appears to be an all female class, and she wields crossbows, often dual-wielding, to devastate the hordes of the burning hells. You can check out her page on the official site here, including some great amour-progression concept art, and her reveal trailer here or below.



I'm really liking the backstory and character set up, as she seems to be a rather interesting twist on the Amazon from Diablo II (the previous ranged combatant). I'm not impressed, however, with the reveal trailer; at least the narrative part of it.

I tend to prefer my fiction to be dark, gritty, and grounded in a measure of reality to enhance suspension of disbelief. The narrative aspects of this trailer are far too over the top for my liking; no real sense of danger and very, well, anime-influenced.

She can also continually fire while dual-wielding her crossbows without reloading.

Regardless, she looks like an awesome class, and I'll likely be using either her or the Monk for my first character.

Diablo III PVP System Revealed

Blizzard Entertainment has revealed their PVP settings for their upcoming hack and slash action RPG, Diablo III. For those too young to remember, Battle.net launched with Diablo back in 1996 (crushing paid-to-play services, might I add, until gamers allowed such silly things to come back. I'm looking at you, Xbox LIVE.), and allowed players to journey together into the dungeons of Tristram to face off against the Lord of Terror himself.

Unless some jerk decided to back-stab you instead. They kill you unexpectedly, and all your items and Gold were theirs, just like that. Infuriating, let me tell you.

As I recall in Diablo II (it's been nearly a decade, so bear with me as I rack the ol' brain), you could actually specify whether your character was able to take place in PvP matches or not. This was awesome as it allowed safety for those players who didn't want their gaming experience ruined by some sleazy online jerk.

In Diablo III, however, it looks like Blizzard Entertainment is going to officialize PvP by having actual arenas scattered throughout the world of Sanctuary where players and their friends can square off in different ways.

Personally, I think this is an exceptional idea. It allows PvP to become an optional yet organized function of the game. Those who want to Quest and loot can do that, those who want to PvP have the proper places to do that, and of course players can partake in both in their proper places.

For full details, step right this way.

The Social Network Review

Like most people, I have a Facebook profile. I signed up back in January 2007 and used it as an extra means of communication between friends and colleagues, to chat with them as an alternative to email, to plan various events, and yes, to check if that random cute girl was listed as "single." With the way online culture was (and still is) rapidly evolving, a social networking site the likes of Facebook simply made sense. One thing I never bothered looking into, however, was the origin of the site.

Now, about three and a half years after signing up, The Social Network has been released to theatres. Directed by David Fincher, The Social Network dramatically tells the tale of how the most successful social networking site in the world came to be.

It's 2003 and Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) has just broken up with his girlfriend (Rooney Mara). Pissed off and getting just a little drunk, he hacks into several Harvard databases and creates a site called FaceMash where students can go and rate between different girls as to which is hotter. The site is a success and crashes Harvard's servers, all in the same night, and while this generated a great deal of on-campus notoriety for Zuckerberg, it brought him to the attention of the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer) and their friend and business partner Divya (Max Minghella). They enlist Zuckerberg's aid in creating a Harvard dating site, which Zuckerberg agrees to but continually delays, creating his own site on the side with help from his best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield).

As Thefacebook launches and instantly becomes successful on campus, the boys look to grow the site, and interestingly enough Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the inventor of Napster, becomes involved as an adviser and ultimately plays a role in forcing Saverin out.

The Winklevoss twins accuse Zuckerberg of theft of intellectual property and Saverin sues for damages, and Fincher uses these lawsuits as the means for telling the story of The Social Network. Multiple lawsuits are contrasted with the telling of the sites origins and Zuckerberg's interactions with everyone involved.

The Social Network is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires and the real Zuckerberg, nor anyone from Facebook itself, were consulted. With that in mind, I've taken the drama presented in the film with a grain of salt as, let's face it, it's a movie and movies are meant to entertain. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a completely insensitive jerk who uses, and to a degree, is used during the creation and success of Facebook. Having never looked into the site's history before, I admit I found it rather interesting that the guy who made Napster was involved, but I must admit that I found the film very powerful in the portrayal of the dynamics of the people and the way that business screwed them all. Loyalties are divided, friendships ruined, and so much of the problems faced are petty and juvenile and I found myself easily empathizing with this (thanks corporate world!).

Without question I found the acting in the film very, very strong. Given the culture and people I typically associate with, Zuckerberg was very identifiable for me, an easy character to understand and to a certain measure, relate to. Same goes for Saverin, and I felt quite sorry for him and what he went through. The cast overall did an excellent job fleshing out the dramatic humanity of the characters, and The Social Network is the single most character driven film I recall watching this year.

Without hesitation I can easily recommend The Social Network, as given its content it's a film that just about anyone can enjoy. And for me, here and now in October 2010, I barely use Facebook anymore and haven't used it extensively for several months. Why? Because I find that instead of accessorizing the social process it began to replace it, which I don't agree with, and the irony of the greatest social networking site in the world destroying the friendship of it's original founders was not lost on me.