God of War: Ascension - Teaser Trailer

First off, let me say that I’m glad that Kratos will soon be back in action. There was no way
Santa Monica Studios could let his adventure end with the cliffhanger left by God of War 3.
Seeing this reveal trailer begs the question of how are they going to top part 3? As awesome as
GoW 3 was, I can’t imagine how Santa Monica Studios can better themselves. Releasing the
two PSP games helped keep the Spartan in the lime light and a graphic novel written by a New
York Times bestselling author gave us a behind the scene look at the first game. It seems Athena
may still be present in this sequel. I wouldn’t be surprised if she is. Sony will release more
information as it becomes available and I’ll be keeping track of it.

 God of War: Ascension - Teaser Trailer

Project X Zone: An Initial Look

So this is a bit of big news. There has been word circulating of a major crossover game between Namco Bandai Games, Capcom, and Sega but just recently, a title for it has been revealed.

It's titled Project X Zone (X standing for "Cross") and it is a strategy RPG game that will be coming out for the 3DS sometime this year. While there aren't many details on this title yet, the first set of screenshots gives us an interesting take on what the roster may look like. From the screens released, characters from Sakura Wars, Valkyria Chronicles, Super Robot Wars, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Tekken, Xenosaga, Mega Man X, Space Channel 5, Virtua Fighter, Darkstalkers, Devil May Cry, Tales of Vesperia, .hack, Rival Schools, Dead Rising and Shining Force are in this title. Below are a few screenshots of Project X Zone:

We will post up more information will be posted about this title as we come across it. However, if you want to check out all the screenshots of Project X Zone and read up on the title itself, you can click on this link right here: http://andriasang.com/con0mc/project_x_zone_screens/ 

Hammerfight Review

Platform(s): PC

Developer(s): Konstantin Koshutin (aka Gkosh)
Publisher(s): Kranx Production
Genre: Action/Combat/Hack-and-Slash

I recently discovered one of the most addicting and deep games I’ve ever played for Mac and PC; and it seems to have a genre all of its own. In my best words, it’s a 2D Physics-based, Hack and Slash fighting game, with RPG elements. On top of that, 80% of the controls is in the way you move the mouse.

As you can see…this game is insane. You’re constantly swinging a huge weapon, around a flying machine that you pilot around the screen with your mouse. It sounds easy, and learning the controls is simple, but to master the physics of the vast array of weapons (whether it be a Hammer, Chain Mace, Pickaxe, Scimitar, etc.) takes a lot of experience. Once you land your first “Crushing blow” to an opponent’s pod, you’ll have a hard time quitting.

The main storyline takes place about a thousand years ago in a made up Egyptian-themed land. You start off as a guard in a small village. In the first few levels you smash your way through several waves of attackers with a limited variety of cheaply forged weaponry. You are then captured by a rich warlord and enslaved to fight in an arena for glory and for a shot at freedom. You fight intense one on one battles with single more skillful foe, capturing the opponent’s weapon upon certain victories. After you gain your freedom you are sent on several and they differ vastly: from slicing your way through massive flying worms and hornets, to raiding a village and breaking down walls and structures with the movement of your mouse.

Once you play a few levels of each different type of challenge, you unlock an arena version of each game mode. So, if you prefer quick thinking and dodging, there is the 1 on 1 arena battle. You can play arena mode from the game menu and fight a tougher opponent every time you win and earn coins to be spent on your character’s machine.

As you play, you can lead a path for honor and glory: showing mercy on other fighters that beg for their lives, or trashed their machine’s health to a point where it can’t fly... or you can ignore their pleas and smash the disabled machine anyway, resulting in more loot, but less honor from the crowd. As your honor goes up you gain access to new weapons and armor and you gain new flags for your machine with each title you are given. As I mentioned, this game is very dynamic.

Personally my favorite part about Hammerfight is the range of combat skill that you can potentially reach and how many different weapons you can become skilled at using. Swinging a fixed Iron hammer at an opponent is pretty easy to learn, and with practice, you can get a deadly good whack at the opponent every time.

And if using one weapon at a time doesn’t satisfy your hunger for destruction, you can combine two different swords together; all of a sudden you’re Kratos. S winging two fixed swords around your character scrapping up every beast and opponent around you. It’s not an easy fighting style to play, but when mastered your offensive and defensive abilities are dangerous.

Complete with legendary weapons, gem sockets for weapons, throwing knives, mortars, poison, and several different game modes, it’s shocking that Hammerfight hasn’t made it to consoles yet. No fear though, if you want to play against a friend, plug in up to 4 mice on your computer for a battle royal.

I give this game 4 stars out of 5, only because it demands you have a mouse with a right click and scroll wheel to enjoy the full range of controls. I highly recommend it.

Here’s a link to start playing Hammerfight. Supported on Mac and PC.

http://www.koshutin.com/