Cosmo's Reviews » Gaming News

FlashNews – Mechwarrior: Living Legends Beta LAUNCHES!

Cosmo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:29:33 +0000

After years in development, the Crysis mod that brings a new Mechwarrior game into fold of current-age gaming, Mechwarrior: Living Legends, launches. It’s a beta, but sweet holy mother of mech Jesus… This trailer video below made me giggle like a little girl. If you wanna jump right in, click here the torrent file for the beta.

Just epic.

News Roundup 16/11/09 – Assassin’s Creed 2 developer full mission walkthrough!

Cosmo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:18:01 +0000

Assassin’s Creed 2 developer walkthrough, Modern Warfare 2 gets taken down in Russia, Ghost getting his own game, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines patch, interview with Ray Muzyka.

Assassin’s Creed 2 Developer Walkthrough

The game still looks good, while the near-sightedness of the guards is still there and the boat physics are as amusing as they come. Nothing new here, just a heads up to what you’ll get to enjoy later in 2010.. damn delays.

Modern Warfare 2 gets taken down in Russia

It’s no surprise that Modern Warfare 2 caused scandal, but this is just ridiculous. The game is being pulled from stores in Russia not entirely because Russians are the bad guys, but beacause of the same “No Russian” civilian-slaughter that the USA folks yelled about. What do you know, video games uniting people under the same banner. Sadly, the negative banner. Still MW2 was pretty much asking for it after actually delving deep into real facts… the first mission having you play in actual Afghanistan instead of a random arabian country that was shown in CoD4. Having played the game, i did not see what the problem is. The thing is that us gamers have grown used to this thing, but imagine saying to your mother or some dude that did not play a video game in his life besides Tetris, “Hey, so i had this mission in MW2 where i had to totally kill this mass of civilians with light machine guns, i was SAWING THEM DOWN! Then i threw a grenade for the lulz to see the physics effects work their magic… Why are you looking at me like that?”.

Ghost from Modern Warfare 2 getting his own game?

A voice actor apparently spilled the beans on a possibile prequel or something to MW2, involving Ghost, the leader of the SAS in the game. Some spoilers fallow so if you did not play MW, stop reading now. —- Right, since in the game Ghost dies, he either comes back a zombie or we have a prequel for the game, setting it either before the whole storyline of CoD4/CoD6MW2 or even during the Cold War. Anyhows, i think it’s a bit early to start talking about MW3 or CoD7 and we still have just a voice actor’s word.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines unofficial patch reaches version 6.6

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a game launched in late 2004 and was a raw but sparkling gem of a game. A great mix of story, dialogue, characters, atmosphere and first person shooting action made this one of the best games of that generation. Sadly because of its many bugs and some shoddy gameplay features it did not garner much favor from the game critics. The developers threw out one or two patches but soon they had to close shop leaving the fans with a bit of a broken game. But the fans.. the fans never forget, and for the last five years they’ve been polishing and working out everything that was wrong or done poorly in the original game. After a long time of updating, removing, fixing and bugfixing, the unofficial patched reached version 6.6 and it appears it’s still not done yet. I highly recommend everyone to pickup the game, plug the patch in, maybe even a highdef pack and enjoy one of the most underappreciated games in modern gaming history.

An interview with Ray Muzyka about Dragon Age Origins

As always, it’s a vague interview, barely skimming the questions asked but overall, we get the sense of direction of what they’re aiming for. I’m really liking the game itself and i really hope they do more of it, but i would just like to underline a fact. It was briefly mentioned that they weaved the storytelling between the companions. Your choises are reflected in how the companions perceive you and what they say to you. That’s a wonderful system, a lot better then some meters on a scale saying you’re 64% bad. I would like to stress that storytelling is different from storyline and it’s a lot more important but that’d just be going into Editorial-field.

News Roundup 12/11/2009 – Modern Warfare 2 sells 4.7 million in day one!

Cosmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:27:56 +0000

Modern Warfare 2 sells 4.7 million on day one, Star Trek Online system requirements up, Armada 2526 trailer, Diablo 3 aimed at 2011.

Modern Warfare 2 sells 4.7 million on day one

There were uproars, there were scandals, there was bad publicity, there was a media sandstorm and a big aftermath, but in the end, Modern Warfare 2 sold. Man, it sold like salvation and absolution of sins at the Apocalypse fair. And it was expected. In the end, we might have wanted this or that, we might have felt this or that, but the marketing machine did it’s play and at the end of the day, we had our money out, and we were ready to play some Modern Warfare 2. Myself i played some SP, not terribily impressed, did not have enough time to delve in MP that much. The games have really piled up, and what’s a guy to do but take them one at a time.

Cryptic announces Star Trek Online system requirements

And they’re pretty fair. The minimum system requirements are lax, and even the recommended are easily met nowadays. Still, it’s an MMO, it has to be accesable to a wide range of PCs/Laptops since people tend to ‘take them along’. Anyhows, Star Trek Online’s out February 2nd so put on your vulcan ears, since we all know you have a pair, and start doing practice mind-melds.

Armada 2526 trailer

I’m a sucker for Space 4x games even though mostly i suck at them, but i enjoy the development, the building up, the initial pwning of races that underestimated me and the inevitable overwhelming. Still, Armada 2526 has a huge contender still standing tall after a long while, Galactic Civilizations 2. From the absolutely mindblowing AI to the graphics, ship building and the technology tree and possibilities that you have in that game, Aramada has a lot of ground to cover in order to even scratch the surface. I wish it luck, and may it have multiplayer. God i want a turn-based 4x multiplayer game so bad. So, soo bad.

Diablo 3 heading our way, come 2011

The release date on Blizzard products have always been shaky and best and ‘wasent this supposed to be out like this month? oh.. three years from now?’ at worst, and it shows with Diablo 3. It’s already being said that they are not seeing it out in 2010… and we’re already in 2009. Honestly, aslong as we’re not getting a fixed “Qx 20xx” evereyother data is useless. We even heard we’d get a Fallout 4 in 2018… so yeah.

News Roundup 09/11/2009 – Starcraft 2 beta delayed for next year!

Cosmo — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:07:52 +0000

Starcraft 2 beta delayed till 2010, Two Worlds 2 new trailer up, Modern Warfare 2 coming out tommorow, Borderlands Zombie Island DLC release date announced, Star Trek Online release date out.

Starcraft 2 beta delayed till 2010

After being delayed three times already, almost a year later, we’ve still no SC2, or no beta. And considering they want to make a trilogy out of this, then i think we’ll have the ‘full’ Starcraft 2 experience in 2016 or something. I think the limit where we just don’t care anymore was passed a few months back. Not even some hype to tide us over during these dry-starcraftless months.

Two Worlds 2 ingame trailer up

Personally i think Two Worlds Two is just tad too gimpy for me. Personally i was not terribly impressed by the first game and this one just seems to fallow in the same footsteps. The trailer is supposed to be all kinds of crafted awesome that gives the ideea of what the game strives for, a feeling, an goal.. here, we have shoddy animation with some shaky camera features and model clipping with people bitchslapping other people. Just no. All i want of Two Worlds 2 is to atleast try and fix the performance issues.

Modern Warfare 2 “tommorow”

MW2 has had it’s street date broken multiple times in the past week, and i don’t doubt atleast a couple thousand people are playing it at the moment. For the rest of us, the official launch is tommorow, 10th november. Or 12 if you’re on Steam. Donno, ask Steam, that’s what it says on my list. >.<

Borderlands DLC coming November 24th

Zombie killing in Borderlands can commence on Nov 24th, so ask your buddies to reinstall it since that level 36 hunter won’t level-up itself.

Star Trek Online dated February 2nd in North America and February 5th for Europe

Sadly i did not get to dip my nose in the beta, but i’m pretty sure i’ll be the first one to check it out. As most of you probably noticed, i’m a big fan of this game, and hope to have it atleast meagerly capture the space battles in their tactical form that we had in Bridge Commander. I couldn’t care less about the ground exploring. ;p

Flash News – Unreal Engine 3 FREE!

Cosmo — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:37:13 +0000

Unreal Engine 3, one of the industries most used third-party game engine has now gone FREE.

This is major news, all besides the obvious “mods made on the engine can now be redistributed without the original UT3 game”. All new companies have an excelent engine on which to forge their game and since all the deal requires is that Epic Games get 25% off after the first 5000$ made by a game, it all comes down cheaper then buying the license first hand. Really this is great news for indie developers world-wide and we’ll see a huge tide of great games and mods coming out of apparently nowhere. Props.

Edit: More details here

News Roundup 31/10/09 – Jedi Knight class revealed in The Old Republic!

Cosmo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:01:35 +0000

Star Wars: The Old Republic presents the Jedi Knight, Black Prophecy interview, The Void Trailer, Borderlands gets patched on consoles, Just Cause 2 trailer.

Jedi Knight class revealed in Star Wars: The Old Republic

It was obvious we’d be getting a Jedi sooner or later, and ofcourse he’s the beacon of hope and democracy in the whole galaxy. Just three more classes up for grabs. One is definetly a Mandalorian, the other possibily a droid or something and the last one… a twi’lek dancer? >.>

Black Prophecy interview with Timo Krahl

Black Prophecy is probably an MMORPG that you haven’t heard of. It’s a space sim designed around a mission-core with optional PvP aspects. It includes powerful ship customization and the focus on action-orientated combat rather then gear or strategy. What kept me interested in the game was the fact that it looked like something i would really play if Jumpgate Evolution failed. Check out the interview, it covers a bit on what the game is about and it’s background.

The Void trailer

A year later, and we finally get an english version of this game. This is a game made by the same guys that did Pathologic and in the same ‘weird’ vein. Btw, the video is a bit NSFW as is the game, so don’t watch this/play this at work. I have it and as soon as i finish up with Torchlight, will try it out.

Borderlands patched on consoles

All fine and dandy, but in the fix-list i fail to see the crippling “if you join a game you MIGHT loose all your skill points permanently” bug. We’ll just hope they’re working on it since it’s major compared to the other things on the list.

Just Cause 2 trailer features grappling hook action

I totally broke out laughing at the end. Seems like we’ll get a bit of fun out of the grappling hook. If it’s as much fun as the hammer/destruction gimmick in Red Faction Guerilla, i think i’ll very much enjoy it. The key is flexibility.

Also, i quote a guy from the comments on Joystiq “Rico Rodriguez? Seriously? Is the villain Razor Ramon?”.

News Roundup 30/10/09 – Interplay releases Fallout MMO concept art!

Cosmo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:34:47 +0000

Interplay releases Fallout MMO concept art, Star Trek Online closed beta signup, Borderlands launch trailer, MechScape cancelled, Left 4 Dead 2 Realism Mode detailed, sort of.

Interplay releases Fallout MMO concept art

With the court-case of Bethesda vs Interplay still running, seems Interplay really wants to prove they are working on something. Nothing much i can say on the matter, since i’m not familiar with the legal mumbo-jump they usually spin, but i do know that the franchise, what’s left of it anyway, is in good hands at Interplay.

Star Trek Online closed beta signup is up

Feel free to check it out, me personally, i’m struggling at the “Are you a memeber of the press?” checkbox. 1K users per month is not exactly big, but not tiny either. >.>

Borderlands Launch trailer

This comes at a funny time, since i’ve just finished it half an hour ago. The trailer lacks the ‘punch’ that expected but it’s good stuff anyways.

MechScape cancelled

It takes a strong CEO to back down on a project that might go nowhere. The fact that they’re self-funded does help the matter but as he puts it, “tens of milions of pounds” down the drain. MechScape was supposed to be a futuristic MMO with some pretty interesting concepts, making it more akin to Darkfall Online or Guild Wars, made by Runescape developer, Jagex. Sadly, it seems it’s not so, but the resources are getting moved to an unnanounced upcoming project.

Left 4 Dead 2 realism mode “detailed“

I wish i could have written ‘detailed’ without the quotes but it’s a video made by G4TV, and i just stopped and closed the tab mid-stream. There is no real information or bulletpoints listed, it’s just a bad gameplay video. Feel free to watch, and leave info in the comments if the chick actually managed to say something interesting/important about the mode.

Damned ‘deFRIBulator’.

News Roundup 29/10/09 – More Modern Warfare 2 controversy!

Cosmo — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:32:16 +0000

Leaked Modern Warfare 2 video raises controversy again, Aliens vs Predator server support, Dragon Age Origins trailers, Torchlight launch trailer, World of Warcraft updates, Borderland multiplayer bug across all platforms, Warhammer 40k: Space Marines on PC?!

Modern Warfare 2 features civilian massacre, people in uproar

If you missed a few days, a guy uploaded a leaked video of a sequence in Modern Warfare 2 in which the player gets to kill a hoarde of unarmed civilians in an airport. Reactions came now soon after, most of them the usual “OMGHOWCANTHEYDOTHIS!” type. I’m seriously trying not to rage here, but i find it just impossible with people saying stuff like “Mass murder of unarmed, unsuspecting, innocent men, women, children…. you call that fun? Entertaining?” or “this “game” is really just about exploiting socially unstable or psychotic people for money”.

I cannot believe the shit that people say and believe nowadays. Some ’games’ should receive a new name, since the original definition of game seems to not work in this new day and age. Let’s call them “Interactive Video Books”. In ‘Interactive Video Books’ what matters is not what happens on screen, but what is transmitted and the ideea and story that the IVB wants to present. So if MW2 were an IVB, you would not see crowds of civilians being mowed down by armed gunmen, but a reminder of how horribile such an act is, which in the IVB is used as a narrative. People generally approach games as a Tetris or a Pong, making every action appear fun and entertaining. They don’t think of them as a medium. A way to influence and make the receiver experience something. That’s the whole point of why we have people commiting suicide after seeing The Matrix and why we generally have close to zero confirmed cases of adult people killing someone ‘because they saw it in a game and it looked fun’. So in that respect, very few games actually entered the ‘medium’ and made the user feel and react in a true fashion. Modern Warfare 2, from what i’ve seen, tries to do that, and ofcourse, it’s getting a lot of flak for it.

We need more games to push the bounderies, to excel to impress and engage the receiver.. to act more like a medium. Sure, we would still have games, interactive media made purely for entertaiment without any wish to influence the player, and we would also have these Interactive Video Books. I just wish people would start to make a difference between them, and realise that ‘game’ is just term. Sadly, the world lives on specific terms and stereotypes.

Aliens vs Predator dedicated server ’still to be determined’

The fact that we did not get a straight answer should rattle our cage, but true enough, it’s a bit too early in to effectively gauge if and what will be possibile. We will see what the PC multiplayer community has in store.

Torchlight launch trailer is up

I got my hands on a copy, will review after i finish Borderlands and Torchlight itself. From early reports it’s 80-90% like Fate.

World of Warcraft rewards random PUG-ing

While i’m not a WoW player myself, i recognize that WoW is the leading ‘research’ and improvement of the grindcore MMO genre. Which is a good thing, no sarcasm ment. This latest update wants to make the ability to play an instance without waiting hours for your alliance to set it up, a reality. Also, the ability to insta-travel to the dungeons. They finally got the ideea that as awesome as having a free-world is, sometimes you just bloody don’t want to press “W” for 30 minutes. I’d say this even goes a bit into Guild Wars ideology, but if it helps make a better game, i’m all for it.

Bad Borderlands multi-platform bug

I’ve had this happen to a friend on my server aswell. The ideea is that joining a game, and having something happen in that game, like desynching, net connection loss and so on and so forth has the probability to totally reset the player’s skill points, artifacts and some other stats, making the game virtually unplayable with that character. The bug is multiplatform, so it happens on both PC and Xbox. While on the PC you can copy/paste your directory in My Documents/My Games/Borderlands, it’s a bit trickier on the Xbox, and the fact alone that you have to do that means trouble. I can only imagine a guy with a level 50 character losing all it’s functionality after just wanting to play with a few friends. It sucks. Glad me ad my friend took precautions since we knew about it before hand. Not many people have this luxury.

Also, yeah, will review after i finish, currently level 30 Hunter/Scavanger so i think i’m almost done.

Warhammer 40.000: Space Marines on PC? GET!

Sign now or die in a terribile accident. Still, ‘if we continue to see a strong desire for a pc version, who knows what might happen’ is translated as ‘we talked with our publisher and they said they’ll think about it if the numbers match’. Not getting my hopes up one bit, since online petitions rarely help.

News Roundup 26/10/09 – Third person view in Modern Warfare 2?!

Cosmo — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:51:53 +0000

Third person view in MW2, Champions Online Blood Moon goes live plus free weekend, Starcraft II interview, Bioshock 2 single player trailer.

Third person view in Modern Warfare 2

We all heard the rumors going around a few months ago about a ‘big reveal’ in MW2. Lately we thought the IWNet fiasco was the reason… sadly no, something even worse. Third person shooting in a first person shooter. I don’t know what they were thinking. I mean, sure, if it’s single player only, or on special multiplayer servers max, separated from the rest of the crowd, but for the love of God, WHY? I see no reason whatsover. They so could have spent that time doing something else.. like dedicated server. >.> Ok i give up… i’m just beat.

Champions Online launches it’s newest expansion tommorow

Also, if you wanted to check it out, they’ll have a free weekend up for anyone interested. Oddly, during that same weekend, they’ll also have the Haloween events. So first-time players will no doubt be met with themed cities and zombie NPCs.. totally staining an experience that should show you what you’re buying. Returning to the subject, also free retcons for everyone to work out the new changes. You guys have fun ya’hear.

Starcraft II interview

They talk design decisions, units, and some game structures. Worth a read even you aren’t waiting for Starcraft 2 since it also touches on some stuff about WoW and the old Westwood company.

Bioshock 2 singleplayer trailer

It shows a nice deal of gameplay and i can’t stop getting a vibe that it might be just a tad too much. It’s hardly atmosphere-creating when you’re an unstoppable juggernaut with a minigun. Still, while Bioshock 1 did not impress me too much, i’ll be sure to pick up the sequel.

News Roundup 23/10/09 – Cinematic L4D2 trailer ‘leaked’

Cosmo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:43:50 +0000

Cinematic Left 4 Dead 2 trailer leaked, Army of Two: The 40th day fan-weapons chosen, Dragon Age Journeys up, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed PC requirements and a little article discussing the possibile next WoW.

Cinematic Left 4 Dead 2 trailer ‘leaked’

I put the leaked in ‘’s because Valve likes to create hype by secretly releasing videos, see the TF2 update ‘leaks’. The cinematic trailer is nicely done and shows up exactly what you’ll get in the game. Zombies, zombies, more zombies, and getting pulled by a zombie 5 feet from the safehouse. Awesome stuff and very humorously done, as expected, worth the watch.

Army of Tw0: The 40th day weapon design contest winners

This is a bit of older news, but it caught my eye recently. Not because the first Army of Two was any good, or because i’m interested in the sequel, but because, the second weapon design choice that will be put in the game, was made by the /k/ – Weapons board on 4chan. The “sniper launcher” is a combination of sniper rifle/grenade launcher and was designed by Mack of Future Weapons. If you dident know that thatlast phrase was a joke, then stop reading and head on to the next news post. If you did, then you’ll definetly appreciate the brand of humor that design has, and the fact that it will actually get put into the game is even more awesome. This sort of thing makes you believe game developers are actually human and have a sence of humor… but really they’re robots… that run on money…

Dragon Age Journeys goes up

Yet another hype tool, Journeys is a flash-based, Heroes-combat-like RPG, which has you and your allies doing a few quests and while doing so, unlocking items that you can use in the real copy of Dragon Age Origins. Sure you’ll have to have an EA account and merge them both but still. Anyhows, seems like ‘limited’ ‘unlockable’ items are everywere nowadays, in preorders, in special fofers, in flash games and in swag.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed PC sys requirements

Not even a year ago, we were told, “No, it’s impossibile for this to run on a PC, it’s too demanding!”. Now we get to see exactly how demanding. After checking it out a bit, it’s not really that impressive, neither the minimum or the recommended. The only thing that peaks my interest is the collosal 23.8 gb requirement. Really now, how many high def textures and 1080p cutscenes can you stuff in a game.. and are they really needed? Overall, my overclocked Q6600, 3GB ram and 8800GTX system is looking forward to it.

Six contenders for MMO Supremacy

.. says the title of the article discussing current and future alternatives to WoW. It lists Lego Universe, APB, Aion, The Agency, DC Universe Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic in ascending order of probability. Lego Universe will most likely never brake the 1 milion users barrier, APB will probably do well since it’ll be retail-only and it might get to a few milion sales in a year or two after launch, Aion already launched and it’s a pretty nice success, The Agency will be crippled by the free2play/pay2play system, DC Universe online will only hit in America most likely and Star Wars: The Old Republic might not draw in the casual gamer so i doubt it’ll hit box office numbers. In addition to these MMO’s i’ll list a few others, in no particular order: Star Trek Online, Jumpgate Evolution, Guild Wars 2, and maybe Black Prophecy. Star Trek Online should definetly be on that list since it’s got a huge fallowing and a lot of people are looking forward to it, Jumpgate Evolution will have a huge impact since there are literally no modern good Freelancer-like MMOs out there and Guild Wars 2 might be a hit, underline might.