DIY Halo Elite Costume - Amazing!

Oh, you’ve made your own assault rifle from Halo? That’s cute. Wait, you’ve made your own Spartan suit? Meh, it’s okay, we guess. See, the dudes at Peter Mander FX have ruined us forever, because they’ve produced about the best homage to Halo one could ever hope for: the ultra-realistic Elite suit you see above.

Largely comprised of plastic, TLC and dark magicks, the suit not only looks impressive, but it’s animatronic. We can’t imagine the blood, sweat and/or tears it took to produce such a lifelike recreation of this Covenant class, but we can get some idea from the video documenting the creation of this behemoth, which you can find past the break. Read more

APB Tries Insidious New Form Of In-Game Advertising

You guys rolled over for product placement in paid games. Want to know where that gets you? Streaming audio ads while you’re playing a game. How do you feel about that?

If you’re not sure how you feel, you can play APB to find out. The cops-and-robbers gunfights-and-car-chases MMO, which comes out next week, will feature ingame radio commercials every three hours. That’s in addition to your subscription fee. Here’s an explanation of how it works.

The advertisements-in-paid-games issue is over. You let it happen. The toothpaste is out of that particular tube and now it’s just a matter of how long you’re going to let game companies keep squeezing.

(Thanks Rock Paper Shotgun!)

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Valley Games’ 2010 Convention Schedule

Here’s a list of appearances for Valley Games in 2010 from their own blog…

I know you are all dying to meet us, so we should tell you where you can find us and we will be more than happy to sign autographs and take pictures with you. Who are we kidding…but seriously we are going to be at a few conventions this year and we would be very happy to see you there.

Origins – Columbus, Ohio USA June 23-27, 2010
Our booth number is 641 and we will have some special guests there. Aaron Lauster, the designer of Days of Steam, will be there along with Max Michael of Stratamax Games to show you anything and everything about Days of Steam. We will be having a contest that will be announced at the show and on our website when the show starts, so come by the booth and check it out.

World Board Game Championships – Lancaster, PA USA Jul 31- Aug 8, 2010
We are very excited to be going to the WBC again. This year we are sponsoring 4 different events: Titan, Republic of Rome, Beep! Beep! and Hannibal:Rome vs Carthage. Check the events calendar here.

FallCon – Calgary, AB Canada Oct 15-17, 2010
This is a great convention dedicated to local gamers in Calgary and surrounding areas. There is a great team of guys that run this event and we are always honored to attend. This will be the 23rd anniversary of the event, hats go off to Steve Zanini and Brent Lloyd even though their families do all the hard work at the con You can check it out here.

SPIEL – Essen, Germany Oct 21-24, 2010
This is a mainstay for Valley Games to attend every year. We won’t disappoint with the titles we are bringing this year but you will have to wait for that . We will once again be located in Hall 5, our booth number has not been given to us yet but as soon as we have that information we will pass it on.

This list might expand in 2011 depending on scheduling, please feel free to come by and say hello at any of these events, we are always happy to answer questions and talk about games of all sorts. Heck, we even get to play some every now and then.

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Gears Of War 3 Co-Op Offers Playable Monsters

LOS ANGELES — Back in 2008, Gears of War 2 introduced Horde mode, a co-operative way to play that saw five friends holing up and fending off wave after wave of hideous creatures. When it launches next year, Gears of War 3 will add a new Beast multiplayer mode that lets you and your friends get inside those marauding monsters.

I played a few rounds of the promising five-player Beast co-op during a hands-on E3 event here Thursday. We spawned on a map called Mercy, a church where Marcus and his COG buddies attempt to make a final stand. Our mission was to spawn as a variety of deadly creatures and attempt to off the computer-controlled humans.

The meatbags aren’t exactly helpless — they’re armed with the standard COG loadout, and they’ve also got mounted turrets, barbed wire and laser fences to keep the beasts from running roughshod over them.

I started by spawning as the smallest monster — a Ticker. I steered the small, fast-moving suicide bug around the human barricades and self-destructed at the feet of two human gunners. That was two down and many more smoldering splatters of flesh and blood to go.

Beast mode is still being tweaked, Gears of War 3’s Rod Ferguson told me. When the game ships, players will have to earn the ability to spawn as bigger, meaner monsters by getting kills and causing damage.

For the demo, we had free reign to spawn as almost anything we wanted. In this early stage, the creatures were split into four categories. Beasts are nasty little creatures like the Ticker and a new, slithering insectoid called a Serapede. (As this critter, I squirmed around the feet of humans, clamping their legs between my electrically charged tentacles. I racked up more kills as this monster than as any other.)

Other categories will be familiar to anybody who has played Gears of War. Within the Humanoid and Drone categories, players can opt to spawn as a gun-wielding locust or play as a Kantus healer.

Big beasts like the Boomers prove a real hoot to play. One of the behemoths totes a new gun called The Digger that launches burrowing missiles underground and beneath cover. A Mauler, with its giant flail, can smash human barbed-wire fences with a single swing.

Destroying humans isn’t as easy as it sounds, though. More than a few times, the A.I. defenders ran out the clock, surviving our attack and forcing us to replay the wave and slaughter more efficiently.

Even in this early state, it’s easy to tell that Beast mode will be as appealing to co-op gamers as Horde — which, I might add, is being refined and tweaked for Gears of War 3 as well.

Gears of War 3 comes out April 2011 for the Xbox 360.

Image courtesy Microsoft

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Catan Finally Coming To PlayStation 3

The PlayStation 3 version of one of the world’s most popular board games is coming to the U.S.

Gamers will be able to download Settlers of Catan via the PlayStation Network starting June 15, the game’s official site said Wednesday.  Settlers of Catan is a popular board game created by Klaus Teuber. Since its first publication in 1995, the game has sold 15 million copies. Last year, Wired magazine called it a “perfect” game; we were not exaggerating.

Catan will cost $6.50 and support two- to four-player online games.  Xbox 360 owners have enjoyed playing a different version of Catan, developed by Big Huge Games, since 2007.

The PlayStation version Catan was developed by Game Republic, the Japanese developer responsible for games like Genji and Folklore.  But don’t hold that against them. The videogame developer has a little known sideline in board game design. A handful of its tabletop offerings, such as Owner’s Choice and Shadow Hunters, have been localized for American gamers by Z-Man Games.

Gamers in Europe and Japan have had access to the Game Republic version of Catan for more than a year.

Image courtesy Game Republic

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Shogun 2: Total War Announced: Hero Units, Siege Battles Included

So much for secrecy — the cat is out of the bag early, as Sega has revealed that, yes, Shogun 2: Total War is the next game in the historical war simulation series from The Creative Assembly. The game is a direct sequel to the first game in the Total War series (released 10 years ago, if you can believe that) and will have players fighting as competing warlords in 16th century Japan, working to reunite the country under one unified ruler. The game promises the “ultimate refinement of the original formula,” combining a new AI and technical polish with the gameplay that made the first title so popular.

IGN has an early preview, and says that hero units will make an appearance in the series for the first time, fighting alongside about 40 units that will all be upgradeable. Siege and naval battles will mix up the gameplay and Creative Assembly hints at more features, including a set of agents that “that uses a rock-paper-scissors mechanic,” and some new ideas for multiplayer, including eight-player battles and personal avatars.

Sounds strategically interesting. We’re scheduled to see the game in action at E3, so we’ll let you know more then. Read more

Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 - First Game

My son Logan and I began our first game of Advanced Squad Leader: Starter Kit #1 tonight and at the end of the first turn I took a quick snapshot of the map.

ASLSK #1 is a tactical WWII hex and counter wargame that recreates battles on a squad level. The hexes are 40 meters and each squad counter represents between 5 and 10 men.

We are having a lot of fun so far and are probably making a ton of mistakes but that’s all part of the process. He’s playing the Germans and I am playing the Americans.

The scenario is “Retaking Vierville” and the Americans must prevent the Germans from occupying a certain number of buildings in the center of the town by the end of the fifth turn. We are still playing so no winner yet. Stay tuned.

I can already tell that we will be playing more of this, but it will take a few games to get the kinks out of figuring the rules, but it will be worth it.

Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 is published by MultimanPublishing. Read more

‘Fury Of The Bear’ Expansion Announced For ‘Tide Of Iron’

Fantasy Flight Games announced their next expansion for Tide Of Iron. Here is the word from their website….

It is June 22, 1941…

Operation Barbarossa has commenced and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union has begun. Employing over 4.5 million troops, Germany’s invasion spreads across an 1800 mile front. Pressing forward, the Germans seek to claim territory up to the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line. These two Soviet cities mark the proposed eastern border of the Reich. The Soviets, however, have no intention of going quietly.

Despite Soviet defenses, Germany continued to gain momentum from successes in other areas. Operation Typhoon began, targeting Moscow. But once again, Soviet defense forces pushed Germany back. A counter-attack would soon follow…

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce Fury of the Bear, an upcoming expansion to Tide of Iron! Take command of the Germans or the Soviet forces as war on the Eastern Front begins.

The Fury of the Bear expansion for Tide of Iron builds on an already epic game experience by adding the forces of an entirely new nation, as well as new vehicles, winter terrain, scenarios, and more! Featuring nearly 100 plastic figures for the Soviet army, plus new German figures, tokens, cards, and 9 new Eastern Front map boards, the Fury of the Bear expansion will let you experience Tide of Iron in an entirely new way. Read more

Will Battlestar Galactica Online Work As A Browser-Based MMO?

Hey, look, a Battlestar Galactica MMO!

Leading [MMO publisher Bigpoint's] product slate for 2010 will be Battlestar Galactica Online, a tactical space combat and adventure MMOG based upon Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica series. The game, inspired by one of the most popular science fiction series in television history, will launch worldwide exclusively this fall on Syfy.com for a 30 day period. The Unity co-developed MMOG will offer state of the art graphics that can be played directly in an Internet browser.

I’m allergic to the word “browser” appearing anywhere in the same paragraph as “MMO” or even “game”, but that’s usually because it indicates some cutesy free-to-play thing that’s big in Korea, or else a social gaming pyramid scheme.

Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be case with Battlestar Galactica Online. The game is being developed by a Norwegian studio called Artplant that, as near as I can tell, isn’t yet guilty of any particularly bad online games. In fact, checking their website, they don’t seem to be guilty of many games at all. But they seem to have the right idea. Read more

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker English Demo Releases Today

No matter how often you play it, you won’t be able to understand the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker TGS demo unless you know Japanese. Thankfully, all that changes today with a brand new English language demo for your PSP. Based on our calculations, the English translation makes it about 15% more comprehensible than before. Excellent!

The demo will be available on the PlayStation Store and here on Joystiq (via BigDownload) later today. To ensure a problem-free experience, make sure you have the latest firmware update and have at least 103MB of free space on your PSP.

Gallery: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

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