Despite Comic Con being somewhat limited on game preview selection, we were able to get through a demo of the upcoming Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions on the showroom floor. Spidey games typically are hit or miss types of games: the movie tie-ins have been misses, but independent titles have garnered a bit more success. But the underlying problem with the games has been the combat. Button-mashing, button-mashing, swing, and button-mashing. After getting through the Dimensions demo, it looks like that trend ..read more

In the Gears of War series, The Locust have always seemed like such a bully. Sure, they’re trying to completely eviscerate any traces of human life, and they pop up from the ground and swallow cities, but have we really taken the time to get to know what they are really like? No, and because they’re alien bastards they can still stick it. But that’s no reason why we can’t play as them, right? So ditching any reason, Epic is ..read more

Let’s get straight to the point; Valve, makers of the Half Life series, Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2 and Portal have released a new game. The name of the game is Alien Swarm. It’s really good, and what’s more; it’s absolutely free.

Alien Swarm was originally a fan made mod for Unreal Tournament, and is now a standalone Steam-based game. It’s an almost-top-down 3D shooter with up to 4 players working in cooperation.

Each player gets to choose from 4 classes; Officer, Weapons ..read more

Just saw an advert for Knight and Day, the new Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz flick. What the hell is going on? The tone of this trailer is all over the place and leaves it feeling like an ad for a awful tv show nevermind a bad movie.

Is it meant to be funny? It’s not very funny but it seems to want to be funny. The action looks like the cheesy unnecessary overuse of cgi we’ve seen for years. It tells us ..read more

The first run of the European Console League happens next week in Liverpool.

The tournament runs from July 30th to August 1st. Games featured include COD4, Halo 3, GoW, Fifa 2010 and a little game called Super Street Fighter IV.

The Super tourney runs on the Saturday only, runs all day and now only costs £10 to enter! This is not too shabby considering that the original price for entering for SSFIV was £50.

That was dropped to £25 and then finally they ..read more

I’m writing this to you now after having lost around $15 (Ten pounds and eleven pence to be exact) to IGN.

Did you sign up for IGNs coverage of EVO 2009 last year? Did you too wait around for ages for the videos to appear, then wait in vain for all the pools videos that they promised they’d bring?

Well get on your Paypal account immediately! Go to Profile, My Pre Approved Statements under Financial Information, and then click on IGN Entertainment ..read more

The arcade version of Super Street Fighter IV was recently confirmed by SF director Yoshinori Ono.

However, it was only yesterday that the very first Japanese location test of the arcade version was held. The following screenshot was taken at the loctest yesterday, and reveals that there are two new empty character slots at either side of the screen!

Click here to see the full photo!

All the buzz right now seems to mainly center on the new characters likely including Elena, R. ..read more

With the latest news of Dragon Age II being revealed, Bioware is hard at work on the follow-up to their 2009 critically-acclaimed title.  While fans are anxiously awaiting to see what the sequel brings to the track, Bioware is not letting up on the gas as it keeps releasing a steady flow of downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins.  The latest, Leliana’s Song, provides an exceptional back-story to one of Origins’ main characters, and although it is quite short (at ..read more

The buzz about Kinect since E3 has not been about the potential of this new technology nor the games, but the price and what it can’t do. Microsoft has confirmed today on Major Nelson’s blog that Kinect will retail for $149.99 that will include Kinect Adventures with it to confirm what many of the retailers, and even the Microsoft Store, have been saying since E3. They also formally announced the new Arcade that will retail for $199.99 and ..read more

Before the silhouette platformer becomes a crowded subgenre, it’s nice to have one game that sets the bar extremely high for the followers that are inevitably on the way. Limbo features a mix of platforming, puzzles, style, tension, and brutality that is a rare sight these days on XBLA or any platform these days. Limbo kicks off Summer of Arcade in style with a great game that manages to pack in equal parts style and substance into one ..read more

Microsoft announced last week that Destination Arcade would be released for everyone in the US to download when Summer of Arcade started next week, but Major Nelson has announced today that it would only be available to until Summer of Arcade ends on August 18. We really don’t understand this either.

Destination Arcade is the newest app for the Xbox 360 dashboard that was supposed to make the growing library of Xbox Live Arcade games a lot easier to ..read more

The conferences aren’t completely changing, at least not due to the events of this summer, but at least you can change the virtual landscape of college football. NCAA Football 11 features several upgrades and changes that improve the visual, presentation, community, and the controls quite a bit. Despite a few kinks in the armor, NCAA Football 11 offers enough improvements that it is easily worth a purchase for football fans.

The biggest additions to NCAA Football 11 are Pro-Tak, Real Assignment ..read more

The original Hot Shots Tennis for the PS2 was the victim of being released after Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee for the PSP, which completely raised the bar that a new title couldn’t live up to on its first try. The follow-up to that original tennis title is Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip, the latest PSP game from Clap Hanz that incorporates many of the same elements we’ve come to expect from the acclaimed PSP developer. Rather ..read more

Welcome the latest in the Smashpad “On Point” Podcast series about the E3 2010 conference. In the E3 episode we cover all of the latest technologies (Kinect, PS3 in 3D, Sony Playstation Move, and Nintendo 3DS), Gran Turismo 5, Twisted Metal, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Kane & Lynch 2, LittleBigPlanet 2, Mafia II, Halo Reach, and more!

Enjoy!

Related posts: Gamer 2.0: On Point Podcast – E3 Edition E3 2010 Showfloor Preview: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days What Becomes of Lara Croft Now?

One liner: The beefed up Wii-like wand feels less compelling than when it was first announced, especially in the wake of the 360 Kinect.

Yes, we got to play all of the big technology innovations at this year’s E3 (Xbox 360 Kinect, Nintendo 3DS, and PS3 in 3D), and the most disappointing was (sadly) Sony Move. On its own, Sony’s PS3 Move is Wii Motion Plus with amazing graphics. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you should be ..read more

One liner: Sonic’s latest attempt at the third dimension has just enough of a dash of the 2D to impress all.

We got our hands on Sonic Colors for a few brief moments at E3 2010 last week. With demo kiosks just a few feet away from Sonic Adventure 4 and Sonic Riders for Xbox 360 Kinect, it was apparent that Sonic is still a powerhouse franchise.

Sonic Colors is yet another attempt to make “Sonic in 3D” work, an ..read more

One liner: PS3 in 3D is definitely very cool, but it doesn’t exactly make for a great gaming experience.

There was a lot going on at E3 2010 last week, but Sony’s 3D push was very apparent. They had an entire section of their booth devoted to 3D, and some big titles like Gran Turismo 5 were also shown off in 3D.

Unfortunately, not all is well with 3D play on the PS3. We’ll avoid getting all business-y on all ..read more

Mortal Kombat has long been a fighting genre laughingstock among the more serious competitive players, and with good reason – with the exception of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, the entire series has been horrendously bug-ridden and imbalanced. At the same time, it has brought forth a style and storyline that has gathered an absolutely massive fanbase of more casual players.

Normally, this isn’t a series I’d even bother writing about, but in the wake of E3, we now know enough ..read more