Lord of The Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood

The Lord of The Rings Online has been a pretty quiet mmo, to say the least, but has announced a new expansion pack called the Siege of Mirkwood.

Lord of The Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood will have a base price of $19.99, but will have a variety of offers available with the launch of the expansion.

The Siege of Mirkwood will finish the second volume of this mmorpg’s story, ending what the mines of moria started. This expansion will bring a wealth of great add ons to those of you who are already players and or fans of the game. The East of Misty Mountains has been opened up for travel, the level cap has risen to 65, there are multiple new dungeons and raids, and the new introduction of skirmish. Skirmish will allow palyers to create and train their own personal army to fight enemies of your choice. Sounds like a pretty hefty and new feature that was added on, great content worthy of it’s own expansion on it’s own.

There has been other changes as well, including what the devs call major changes to the combat and legendary items.  You may noticed improved responsiveness during battle. As well as the ability to craft items of your own customized second and third age legendary items from raw materials. Also, you’ll be able to grow your weapons’ power to level 60, achieve new legacies, titles and a fourth runic slot that can further enhance your legendary items.

This sounds like an amazing and well made release, so keep your eyes open for the Lord of The Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood expansion.

Little Big Planet Water

Media Molecule is now taking sign ups to the Little Big Planet Water Beta Test event.  To do so, you need to be 18 years old, have a PSN id, and you can’t share what you see in the Beta test.

News that Media Molecule was bringing water into Little Big Planet have been buzzing around earlier as well. It’s interetsing news to say the least. People have been extremely creative with what LBP already had, imagine what people will be making now that there is the addition of water. I see Little Mermaid, Super Mario and Moby Dick levels all around.

This is a pretty exciting thought. If you have any ideas for levels you will create for Little Big Planet using water, you should leave them hear. It’s an exciting thought, because the Little Big Planet level creating community is a very creative one. I’ve seen amazing levels created since day 1. Some of these levels look like it was something created by a professional level designer. This one addition is going to add a lot of gameplay elements to something that was already rich with it. I’m wondering if there will be waves included as well as fully functional water physics. Being able to manipulate the water would be pretty fun. I also wonder if you will be able to drown your sack boy.

Regardless, you should Sign Up for the Little Big Planet Water Beta Test.

Final Fantasy XIII

Well, any of you familiar with Final Fantasy XIII know that the Playstation 3 owners have been laughing at how the Xbox 360 will have to use a lot of discs, opposed to the PS3 users only needing to use one disc. Now, straight from Square Enix’s mouth, Final Fantasy XIII will ship on about three (or more) DVDs.

The Final Fantasy XIII director made it clear that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game will indeed be identical. No differences in content what so ever. But, due to the limited size available on Xbox 360 DVDs, that version will have to ship with about 3 DVDs. So you should expect to get up from the couch about three times, which isn’t so bad when you think about it. We used to have to do that back in the day, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Regardless, you’re still going to be enjoying what the game has to offer, so anyone who really complains about this must be incredibly lazy and should get out more.

The Final Fantasy XIII director promises about 40 to 50 hours of gameplay on the main quest. That is a beastly and amazing amount of hours you’ll be getting out of this game. Still disappointed? Note, that is just the main quest. Square Enix is known for adding tons of side quests, made available to your character. You can also expect to get a fair amount of downloadable content created for this game, so I estimate you will get over 60 hours of gameplay assuming you play the game to the fullest. Though, the development team is still working on compressing game data. Most games out, this generation, can not even hold a candle to that amount of gameplay you’re getting. Final Fantasy XIII is screaming Game Of The Year.

The one thing that may disappoint you is how neither of the versions will have the native Japanese language track. So those of you who were hoping to get Japanese voice acting with English subtitles may be disappointed in that. But that should be the least of your worries. With the amount of praise and work going into this game, you won’t be able to leave disappointed after playing Final Fantasy XIII.

The Tower of Shadow

Konami showed off one of their new projects called The Tower of Shadow, which is arguably one of the most innovative games shown during the Gamescom Press Conference. On this Wii exclusive platformer, you happen to control the shadow of a character, instead of the character itself, making your way through levels making extensive use of what’s called shadow physics.

As you see from the picture, you don’t actually see the person casting the shadow, just a silhouette. This puzzle platformer has you leaping across gaps, navigating through the tower as you make your way up. The hook to this game is how the game makes use of the angle of lighting. The angle of lighting will actually affect the platforming aspect of this game. It’ll allow you to reach places you weren’t otherwise able to reach.

That is where the shadow physics come in. The angle of light will determine how you interact with the shadow, you’d have to see a video of the game in action for you to understand. It’s the first time I’ve heard of a concept like this put in a game. I’m curious as to the underlying code, sounds like something interesting on the programmers part. The light can change drastically depending on what part of the level you’re at. Not only that, but you have a winged companion called Slyph that can manipulate real world objects, which can cast shadows to help you on your way.  It will arrive on the Wii some time in Spring 2010.

Fairytale Fights

FairyTale Fights is an extremely violent third person action game that takes on a childish and cartoony style to it. The game, surprisingly, was built using the Unreal 3 engine, and if you aren’t tech savvy, it’s one of the most popular and widely praised game engines avialable.

You get to play as a defamed fairy tale character, such as Snow White or Little Red Riding hood, and you are fighting to get back to the status you once were. Leaving a bloody trail of bodies and heads behind you as you fight for your cause. There is both online and offline co-op for your enjoyment. The game can be so bloody at times, that it just becomes hilarious in a sort of weird way. The blood isn’t anything that would traumatize you, it’s strictly something made to be so ridiculously violent and gore filled, that you just laugh at it. You can see that they aimed to go over the top with FairyTale Fights, as you have normally innocent child like characters, going on killing spree’s. The game is still fairly new in development, but it’s coming along smoothly.

With that bit of information out of the way, back to the Kill 1000 Kids Acheivement. Playlogic had it in the game originally, but now they intend on removing the achievement all together. Smart move on their part. Imagine hearing on the news, new game that rewards gamers for murdering children. They’d be in the hot seat and they’d most likely get sued or the game labelled as adult only.  Sony and Microsoft probably would have had a problem with it as well.  If you like funny and mindless violence, keep an eye out for FairyTale Fights.