Rock, Paper, Shotgun

With the conscious recklessness of talking about another game on Left 4 Dead 2 launch day, here’s something else you could play. It’s the demo of the game of big Jim Cameron’s film. Y’know, the film that’s supposed to be make everyone believe 3D is the future of cinema and, to steal Kieron’s line, looks like Braveheart with furries. The film and the game (which is akin to a slightly more open world third-person Halo if you play the humans, or rather more platformy if you play the elves Na’vi) both aren’t due out until December, but a demo has mysteriously appeared on the German Coke Zero site. English Demo, German website, American sugarfree fizzy beverage. Huh. Oh, and it’s only available until November 30. The 1.6Gb demo’s still downloading here, but I’ll update this post once I’ve given it a whirl.

A new game-footage trailer for Ubisoft’s game tie-in for sci-fi film Avatar has turned up on BigDownload, and tells things from players fighting from the alien side of the conflict. I’ve posted it below. The footage is set up by Patrick Naud, the executive producer, who explains that the game allows you to fight the conflict from both human and Na’Vi perspectives. Fairly predictable-looking action stuff follows, with the sticks and bows giving it a tinge of Turok. That said, we’ve heard that the full game is actually looking fairly promising. Not long to wait to find out for sure, of course, as it’s out on 4th of December.
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We may not get Assassin’s Creed 2 on PC for a few months yet, due to spurious excuses to pretend it’s not about dodging piracy and not giving a monkey’s about the IBM compatible, but there’s no reason we can’t enjoy the promotional run-up. For instance, 15 minutes of live-action footage of a dude being a 15th century Italian assassin, by way of a prequel to the game…
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A few new bits and pieces on Assassin’s Creed have appeared, partly in the form of a preview by GameTrailers, and partly in an architecture video from German site Gamerglotze.de. You can see both of them below, learning a bit more about the background behind the new central character and his motivations, and see a lot more of the city that you’ll be clambering all over.

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I’m going to assume there’s an achievement for getting through the entirety of Splinter Cell: Conviction by breaking people’s necks. Anyway, this walkthrough trailer is extremely detailed, showing off loads of the new takedowns, an interrogation function, the sticky cam, Sam’s goggles with their new cheaty wallhack feature, and some other man-violence. Oh, Sam, you sure know how to deal with a faceless enemy thug. Swoon. The game is apparently out in February.
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The footage from the game of James Cameron’s Avatar shown at the Tokyo Game Show is shooty indeed. (And reminiscent of the early footage of Lost Planet 2.) I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for all that blasted and mutilated alien wildlife – I’m assuming that’s going to be the point of the film, and therefore the game, since the plot centres around consumerist humans hoovering up resources from the lovely alien world of Pandora. I can already sense that it’s going to be considerably more satisfying to shoot up the humans and mechs than it will be to fire your guns at a trumpeting bird-o-saur, righteous or otherwise.

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…but the PC version is delayed! I know! That never happens, right? Ubisoft has just dropped the bomb about the no-longer-November release, claiming it’s so they can “deliver the best quality game”.
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This week Ubisoft released Transmission Games’ new World War II arcade aircraft title, Heroes Over Europe, and I’ve been having a play. Some thoughts and aerial battle chatter below.
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Head south for a sprawling walkthrough of Assassin’s Creed 2, courtesy of Destructoid. As well as detailing some of sprawling renaissance city, it shows loads of interesting mechanistic stuff such as purchasing equipment with the money you’ve earned, exploring secret locations, hiring mercenaries to fight guards for you, distracting people by throwing coins, and so on. There’s also fun-looking chase sequence. So the missions do indeed look more diverse than the original, and I wonder whether the new spread of equipment to be bought on the streets of Florence will make the possibilities for delivering assassinations more varied too? All this and flying machines… The game is out on November 17th.
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Ubisoft have clearly gone bonkers, but in a splendid way. In the spirit of PAX, they’ve created a very silly teaser to promote Splinter Cell: Conviction, containing possibly the worst piece of photoshoppery in the history of the world. It’s a fun time, see below.

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