Awesome DC Universe Online Trailer + Pricing Info

If you weren't excited for the superhero MMO DC Universe Online before, then you will be after seeing the awesome trailer that was shown at San Diego Comic-Con (embedded below). And if you're still not excited for the game after watching the trailer, then you never will be, so I guess you can stop reading this then.

More DC Universe Online Videos

Pricing details were also announced at the Con (via IGN). The monthly fee will be $15 a month, which is about par for the course with MMOs.

The release date is November 2 later this year, so start charging your power rings, arming your utility belts, or whatever kind of preparations you need to do to start laying some superhero smackdown come this Fall.

There Is Indeed a Master Timeline to Zelda, Says Aonuma

Congratulations Hyrule historians, all of your countless hours of research and theory have not been in vain. A true master timeline to the Legend of Zelda series does, in fact, exist according to Eiji Aonuma. He says in a recent Official Nintendo Magazine interview, via ZeldaDungeon.net:

“Yes there is a master timeline but its confidential document!” explains Aunuma-san. “The only people to have access to that document are myself, Mr. Miyamoto and the director of the title. We cant share it with anyone else! I have already talked to Mr. Miyamoto about this so I am comfortable in releasing this information – this title [Skyward Sword] takes place before Ocarina of Time. if I said that a certain title was ‘the first Zelda game’, then that means that we cant ever make a title that takes place before that! So for us to add titles to the series, we have to have a way of putting the titles before or after each other.”

So there you have. Will the timeline ever be revealed to us? Probably not, but I'm sure a lot of Zelda fans will take solace in the fact that it exists at all.

Play Alien Swarm for Free, Get TF2 Hat

If there's one thing Team Fortress 2 players covet more so than anything else, it's the almighty hat. Valve, knowing this, smartly decided to add an irresistible incentive for TF2 players to play their new free-to-play game, Alien Swarm. Complete a couple of co-op missions and a new hat is yours (as you can see in my screengrab below).

Like I said, it's free, so go out there and claim your hat!

On the Horizon: Metroid Other M

In a little over a month, August 31 to be exact, comes the next installment in the great Metroid franchise, Other M. Retro Studios had been developing the console Metroid titles for nearly a decade, but with Other M, Nintendo hands the reigns over to Team Ninja, known best as the developer of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. Team Ninja is taking Metroid in a more cinematic direction in hopes of fleshing out Samus' character a little bit beyond just being a badass space bounty hunter. On the gameplay side, expect a mesh of classic 2D sidescrolling with Prime-style first person shooting.

So, dear reader, are you excited for Other M, or could you care less? Do you have high hopes, or has what you've seen so far make you prepare for disappointment?

(Here's a little GIF I threw together just to have something pretty to look at on the site.)

Site Note: Sorry For the Delay, Folks

I know this blog has hardly any readers yet (if any at all), but I still feel like I have a duty to keep it updated. It's been a week since a new post, so I apologize and promise that I'll post some new stuff real soon.

And if you readers are out there somewhere, please feel free to leave comment so I know you exist! I have yet to get a comment yet, so it'd be pretty cool to know that someone, somewhere, read this little ol' blog of mine. Also, the first person to comment gets a prize! The prize of knowing that you helped provide a sense of worth to a fledgling gaming blog, which is really the greatest prize of all when you think about it (not really...).

The Game Critics Awards for E3 2010 Are In

A few weeks after the event took place, I think we can finally call it a wrap on E3 2010 as perhaps the definitive "Best of E3" awards, the Game Critics Awards, have been announced. For over a decade, the Game Critics Awards have brought together a number of different industry media publications in order to pick consensus winners for the biggest event in video games. So, without further ado, the winners of E3 2010 are:

Best of Show
Nintendo 3DS
(Nintendo)

Best Original Game
Dance Central
(Harmonix/MTV Games/Microsoft for Xbox 360)

Best Console Game
Rage
(id Software/Bethesda for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)

Best Handheld Game
God of War: Ghost of Sparta
(Ready at Dawn/Sony Santa Monica for PSP)

Best PC Game
Portal 2
(Valve)

Best Hardware
Nintendo 3DS
(Nintendo)

Best Action Game
Rage
(id Software/Bethesda for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)

Best Action/Adventure Game
Portal 2
(Valve for PC / Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360)

Best Role Playing Game
Star Wars: The Old Republic
(BioWare Austin/LucasArts/EA for PC)

Best Fighting Game
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
(Capcom for PS3 and Xbox 360)

Best Racing Game
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
(Criterion Games/Electronic Arts for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)

Best Sports Game
NBA Jam
(EA Canada/EA Sports for Wii)

Best Strategy Game
Civilization V
(Firaxis/2K Games for PC)

Best Social/Casual Game
Rock Band 3
(Harmonix/MTV Games/Electronic Arts for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii)

Best Motion Simulation Game
Dance Central
(Harmonix/MTV Games/Microsoft for Xbox 360)

Best Online Multiplayer
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
(Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)

Special Commendation for Graphics
Rage
(id Software/Bethesda for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)

Engineer Update Nigh for Team Fortress 2

The long awaited, much anticipated final class update for Team Fortress 2 seems to be close at hand. The Engineer is the only remaining class without class-specific weapons and achievements of his own. Over at the official TF2 blog, an Engineer-centric comic serves as a harbinger for the upcoming update.

There are several clues within the comic that hint at what might be included in the update. There is a sequence in the comic that explains that all of TF2's sci-fi-esque gadgets (teleporters, cloaking devices, etc.) are the inventions of the Australians (global leaders of the "moustache sciences"). Their technological prowess is a result of their possession of the transformative element Australium, a gold-looking metal that can only be found in Australia. This provides the backstory to the first semi-confirmed weapon in the update: the Australium (or Gold) Wrench. As you can see in the video below, killing an enemy with this wrench turns them into an Australium statue which can be gathered up to replenish your metal supply.



Also within the comic is a lot of talk about Life Extender Machines, the blueprints of which end up in the hands of the Engineer. What will the battlefield applications be for such a machine? An ÜberCharge-capable dispenser? Let us also not forget the new-and-improved shotgun we saw a glimpse of in the trailer for the Mac update. What kind of perks will that provide? All will be revealed (hopefully) soon, so just grab a sandvich and stay tuned.