Back To The City

So my report last week about Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was correct (woot, go me) and Capcom have now confirmed it. Obviously i'm not here to brag though, in fact i bring you more Resident Evil-ness in the form of the new ORC teaser trailer. Check it out below in all it's zombie filled glory and let me know what you think... and Yes, that IS a zombie getting curb-stomped at 0:45

The Arrival Continues...

The final piece of DLC for Mass Effect 2 has now launched, and with Arrival out of the way, that lets Bioware focus on Mass Effect 3, which they obviously plan on doing. Reports suggest that we'll be seeing a massive increase of information on the third installment of the franchise next month, when it appears UK PSM3, GameInformer and French Playstation Magazine will all be running stories. Naturally if you don't feel like tracking down all those magazine's next month you could just keep an eye on your favourite gaming news outlet (like say, The Arkhive) to catch all the details when they leak.

Exploiting The Platform

Crytek have released a message over on their blog letting everyone know that people using exploits on Crysis 2 will be penalised. The general opinion I've found though is that the console releases have been relatively cheat and hacker free, so this message must be aimed at the PC community, which like any game has seen it's share of hackers. That's not to say the game runs perfectly on consoles either though, with people begging for patches to fix numerous problems, rather than promises to stop cheating.

Bringing The Payne

The Twitter account for Rockstar went off recently with links to two pictures and a simple message... "He's Coming". It seems Max Payne is slowly making his way back to the world, although exactly how much hair he'll have is questionable... One picture shows Payne shooting at something, looking a little rugged with a full head of hair, stubble and a bandaged and bleeding arm, while the second pic shows Payne lurking in the darkness, completely bald, looking like a Hawaiian shirt wearing Agent 47. Max Payne 3 will be the first Max Payne game created solely by Rockstar and not written by series creator Sam Lake, so it looks like we won't have to wait too much longer to see if Rockstar can keep the series alive on their own.

Great...It's a thing. (2+2=4!)

Fuck. Look what you've done university.
Here I am, once again in my Critical Reasoning class, learning about lovely new material which has been completely going over my head as I update Tumblr and the 'Kive. Right now my lecturer is talking about camping.
I have no fuckin' clue why.

Shit...

Right so this is about 17 minutes after the stuff above and right now we are learning about the self evident truth of 2 + 2 = 4...
Wow university...Really? You want to go there? I mean I'm not a maths person but I do know that.

I guess there are reasons for it, but I have glossed over in my mind and lost track of what is going on.
All that is sticking with me is 2 + 2 = 4.
...
Wow demon possession?! How did we get to that? Maths to demonic rule over a mortals fleshy meat sack?
Okay I'm impressed.
It has something to do with appraising arguments by their self evident truths. Not entirely sure where demons factor in but I'm still impressed.

Well I guess that is me done. I should pay attention so that I don't you know, fail.

My name is Mikey and demonic possessions + wandering mind = creative blog post ending.

Kombatants Revealed

A spoilerific screenshot has been leaked which appears to reveal the entire line-up from the upcoming Mortal Kombat game. The list has yet to be confirmed or denied by Netherrealm Studios or Warner Bros, but it looks pretty legit. To avoid spoiling anyones day, i'll put the list and screenshot after the jump, so click through to find out if your favourite fighter has returned. Remember though, at this point in time Mortal Kombat is still banned from sale here in Australia, so unless you're visiting from another country or plan on importing, this list won't help you much.

Returning To Your Residence... Evil

Survival horror fans rejoice, as it is now confirmed that Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica X will be making their way to your favourite console via digital downloads. Both games will be given the HD touch-up and will be released around the end of the year, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the franchise.

If you're hoping to get back further in the history of Resident Evil though, keep an eye out because a story that has apparently been leaked from the upcoming issue of OXM has details on the next Resident Evil game, titled Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. ORC will apparently take you back to the 1998 Raccoon City incident, but will see you make your way through the city as a 4-man team of Umbrella Security Service Operatives. Named Vector, Beltway, Bertha and Spectre, the operatives are based around Resident Evil 2's secret character Hunk.

**********SPOILERS**************
The team will be tasked with covering up the epidemic and eliminating survivors, and as such, will end up fighting not just the zombies but also survivors and Spec Ops soldiers. ORC will also allow you to rewrite major parts of the Resident Evil history by killing key survivors such as Leon Kennedy.
*******END SPOILERS*************

So it's looking to be a busy year for Resident Evil fans... The Operation Raccoon City story is yet to be confirmed, but should be soon, so keep watch for more details and for the release dates and any further info on the RE4 / RE:CVX releases.

This shouldn't be a habit...

I may have just found a way to get regular posts done. However it's not a good one.

University.

How are you enjoying my university?...I'm one of my English classes right now. We have just finished a writing exercise.
It was nothing spectacular, I mean what I wrote was...Clearly.
But the setting we were given was to write about a character at a bus stop who has just had the most amazing news possible. Something wonderful has happened, however we aren't allowed to say what it is and just sort of give the impression about what the character sees around them.
Then, unsurprisingly we have to take it all away from them.

It was an interesting task. I wrote in second person, which is a first for me. If you don't know, second person is all "You noticed something on your arm" etc.

The room I am in is a small, boxed in little hot box. There are 12 people sitting, while comfortable, we don't seem to want to make eye contact. Not me. I'm amazing. Just so you know. I'm the only one who answers questions, talks and reads my stuff out loud.
I'll let you decided what is wrong in that paragraph.

So yeah this shouldn't become a habit.
My name is Mikey and right now we're talking about the metaphysics of insects.

University makes me smarter.

So here I am. Right this second as I type this, sitting in my Critical Reasoning class.
And I am learning how to argue fairly well. This is just an elective class. As some of you may know, I aim for nothing but to become a published author. However this class is fuckin' entertaining.
And it's fun to argue for a class. You raise a good question/point at the start of the class, you all go off on a tangent and avoid any real work. So hooray for that too.

But the highlight of this class, and maybe my year so far, is without a doubt my lectures horrible spelling/attention to detail.
While talking about credibility of an argument he wrote:

Cerdibilkity. As I have now taken to be the greatest word in the world and with a pronunciation much like this Cer-dib-ilk-ity

18 Minutes after what I just wrote: While writing the above I got a fair bit distracted from the lecture itself and missed a bit. So this next section of the post is a little late compared to the first however overall irrelevant to you reading it.
Right now we are talking about cork hats and the people who wear them. While that may sound weird, or your average Friday night, it does make sense in context.

I lost quite a bit of what was being said.
Oh well. So I just wanted to say, I'm still here, I've got more stuff for the 'Kive coming (POKEMON BLACK REVIEW WOOO!)

Thanks and I will see you all soon.

My name is Mikey and cerdibilkity.

A New Experience

A video has been leaked that is supposedly a Microsoft internal video, showing their intentions on changing the pc gaming experience to be more like that of Xbox Live. The WGX (that's Windows Gaming eXperience) will link several of Microsoft's software and internet technologies together to make everything more social as well as see your Avatars make their way to PC. While this video is more concept than actual proof of what is to come, i wouldn't be surprised if we see some of it's functionality coming to your pc soon, in fact this video is reportedly from march 2010, so some of the avatar functionality we saw added to xbox.com and the Windows Phone may have been from this. Check out the video below and let us know what you think...

Silent Hill... A Great Place To Hang With Friends

Radek Marek, art director on Silent Hill: Downpour, has told italian xbox magazine that Downpour will not have multiplayer, however he worked in mention of a possible multiplayer game in the future. He stated that Konami are looking into making a seperate game for multiplayer, and while his studio (Vatra Games) doesn't have much info on it, but "that most players have to survive in the town of Silent Hill" if it goes ahead. He also mentioned it would be coming to the Xbox Live Arcade.

[UPDATE] This has now been cleared up and confirmed as false. Apparently something was lost in translation between Marek and the interviewer as there is definitely no XBLA game coming at all.

Hail To The Kings

There may be a lot of red and blue, but you'll find no space marines here... Details about the multiplayer of Duke Nukem Forever have started leaking and they sound interesting to say the least. Forever will support up to 8 players (mostly designed for 4v4) online but in typical Nukem style, don't be expecting much character customisation. Looks will simply depend on what team you're on, with one side playing as Duke's in red shirts and the other as Duke's in blue shirts. The typical gametypes are also there in dukematch, team dukematch and hail to the king (Forever's version of king of the hill), but rounding out the games is the Forever version of everyones favourite capture the flag. Capture the babe will see the teams attempting to capture the opposing teams babe and drag her back to your base. Easier than it sounds when the babe will apparently resist your attempts to move her, occasionally requiring you to give her a 'gentle smack' to calm her down. The game will feature 10 maps to play on at launch (presumably more will be released as DLC too) including a remake of everyones favourite Dukeburger (where all players are mini Dukes inside a giant fast food outlet), the old west town of Morningwood and even a vegas casino map. The confirmed list of weapons so far pretty much covers all the classic Duke Nukem guns and gadgets, including pistol, shotgun, ripper, pipebomb, rpg, shrinker, railgun, freezer, devastator & tripbombs (which apparently can now be placed on players and enemies). The jetpack will also appear in certain maps, but won't make an appearance in single player. Finally there will be some customisation options, but not sure on what they are, just that you can earn points to upgrade by getting kills, and bonus points for one off kills like killing someone with the holoduke or accidentally blowing yourself up with a pipebomb.

Arriving Soon

With Mass Effect 3 announced and Dragon Age 2 recently hitting shelves, you could be forgiven for thinking Bioware is done with Mass Effect 2. Of course, You'd still be wrong. The final piece of DLC for Mass Effect 2 has now been officially announced and dated and Arrival looks to send the game out with a bang. Looking to bridge the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3, Arrival will see Shepard having to figure out how to deal with the impending return of the Reapers. Sheperd gets sent to the edge of the galaxy to recover an undercover agent with evidence of the Reaper invasion, oh and we finally run into Admiral Steve Hackett (still voiced by sci-fi icon Lance Henrikson). Arrival will be hitting our xboxes on March 29th for the typical price of 560 points.

Molyneux Makes More Than One Fable

When it comes to Fable and Lionhead Studios in general, we're more than used to hearing Peter Molyneux say things that don't end up in the game, but during his BAFTA fellowship speech last night, Molyneux admitted he'd fabricated things to keep the press interested. He said he could " name at least 10 features in games that I’ve made up to stop journalists going to sleep" during an apology to the press and his team. It might be interesting to see if his comments during the speech have any effect on his acceptance of the BAFTA fellowship which is awarded in recognition of outstanding achievement in the art forms. Molyneux will now be only the 4th person to be awarded the fellowship for work on video games, following in the footsteps of Shigeru Miyamoto, Nolan Bushnell and Will Wright.

Return of the Lawsuit

A full year after the whole shitstorm that is the Activision vs. West / Zampella lawsuit started, things seem to have now escalated to the maximum level as Activision have succeeded in having EA added to the $400 million lawsuit. EA are accused of having held secret meetings with Jason West and Vince Zampella back in August 2009 while they were still working for Infinity Ward and allegedly pursued confidential information from the ex-IW heads. The trial, which will now see Activision take on West, Zampella, 40 ex-Infinity Ward employees, and now EA, will commence in may. Personally i expect all parties involved will end up settling this whole affair an an undisclosed settlement to avoid bringing any more publicity upon themselves, but i'm sure we'll hear more in the next few months.

The 'Kive - Past, Present & Future

It has certainly been quiet around here, and i'll get into that in a moment, but first, let me just say that The Arkhive has now been up for over a year, that's right, we've actually had our first birthday. Back in March last year, The Arkhive came about due to a friends constant nagging for me to start a blog, my insistence that i wouldn't have enough shit to say to actually fill a blog, and some late night convo's convincing other people to help me fill it with whatever random shit we wanted. Several hours later (about 10 minutes filling out details and 4 hours 50 minutes trying to find a semi-decent available name) The Arkhive was born and we started posting, not knowing if anyone would read it (they mostly haven't), what the future would hold (gaming news, rants and random mikey-ness mostly) or how long it would last (admittedly, much longer than i suspected). As of recently The 'Kive (as the authors affectionately call it... ok, as i call it when i'm yelling at my monitor because something broke) has become inactive, largely as i lost interest and got tired of just spamming it with the latest news. Mikey has taken made an effort to keep it up, but with uni back on, i suspect he won't be able to sustain it for long. Which brings us to the future portion of this article... and here's a surprise, i have NO intention of calling it quits. Over the next week or so, i'll be getting in contact with Mikey and Steve to discuss the future of The Arkhive, what we want out of it, and what we want to put into it. Whether that ends with us deciding it is time for The Arkhive to be sealed and buried, or whether it means breathing new life into it via whatever crazy methods we think of (i'm betting psychotic artificial intelligence) will be seen. So keep checking back and we'll see what happens.

P.S. I'll see about getting some news flowing through again until we figure shit out.