Do Red Dead Redemption players hate crows? I shoot virtual deer and wolves a lot in that fantastic video game Western, but look at these stats, pulled from the Rockstar Social Club: More »
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We delivered the first of three Portal 2 videos yesterday. While the previous trailer showcased Chell, Wheatley, and GlaDOS, the next two demonstrate new gameplay elements. Asbestos-filled excursion tunnels and faith plates promise to ramp up the already mind-boggling gameplay of Portal.
Excursion Tunnel:
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Faith Plate
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Check out more Portal 2 info at our hub, filled with exclusive content.
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NEW LASER LENS HD66 PART for XBOX 360 Ordinary DRIVE
- This is a HD66 laser lens for XBOX360.
- Replacing your old XBOX360 laser lens with this new XBOX360 HD66 laser lens will solve your problem.
- Have to be removed the solder point before installing.
It is designed for replacing the old or broken laser of your Xbox 360, keep your Xbox 360 perform its best all the time
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Mountain Sheep's Minigore [99¢] has been somewhat of a cult favorite on our forums, with legions of fans still willing to defend the honor of Minigore whenever a new dual stick shooter hits the App Store. The Episode 4 update was announced quite a while ago, with the developers promising a new level, new playable characters, a new weapon, and even co-op over Bluetooth and local WiFi.
Today they released a 30 second gameplay clip of co-op mode, and it's hard to not get excited at the sheer potential of playing Minigore with a friend:
We liked Minigore a lot when it first came out, and since our initial review, an onslaught of updates have been released adding all kinds of new characters and features. There's even a iPad Minigore HD [.99] if you're an iPad owner looking to get your 'gore on. Mountain Sheep isn't discussing any release date estimates for episode 4 yet, but if you want to stay on top of all things Minigore, follow the Minigore blog or stop by the thread in our forums.
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Silverhill 2 Piece Xbox Unlock Kit with T10 and Powdercoated Unlock Key
- The two tools needed to get into your Xbox 360
- Special Ergonomic T10 Screwdriver with ergonomic handle and spin cap
- Xbox 360 Unlock Key is powdercoated black for durability and longer life
- Screwdriver is high-quality Chrome Vanadium Steel, less likely to strip or deform
If you need to open your Xbox 360, these are the only two tools you need. The Black unlock key gets you into your Xbox 360, you use it to remove the grey plastic side pieces. Then you use the teeth to unclip the Xbox 360 from the back. After the housing is separately, you use the high quality T10 screwdriver to remove the screws that hold the top half of the housing on. It has a spin cap so that you can apply pressure with your palm while you spin the ergonomic handle. This gets your Xbox 360 op
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SGN's Exo-Planet made its first appearance on the App Store in early April as Exo-Planet Elite for the iPad [.99], a few weeks ago Exo-Planet Elite [.99] was released for the iPhone, and it wasn't until a few days ago that the DLC-powered free to download Exo-Planet [Free] joined the ranks. Exo-Planet is an online shooter, somewhat similar to ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], but with a third person perspective, multiple game modes, and an always-equipped grappling hook.
The game is controlled similar to most shooters, and a brief tutorial tells you practically everything you need to know about playing. Movement is controlled with the left side of the screen, and sliding your thumb around the right side of the screen allows you to look around. Virtual buttons are scattered about that do things like allow you to view the scoreboard, switch weapons, and fire. Every player is equipped with a grappling hook that can be shot at most surfaces, and grappling is as simple as tapping where you want to fire it and waiting for your character to reel themselves in.
Exo-Planet takes place in space, and hopping around and sticking to magnetic surfaces with your boots is highly reminiscent of the zero-gravity extravehicular activity portions of Dead Space. The third person view is actually really nice for all the maneuvering you'll be doing, as you can really get a great look at both your surroundings and the locations of your opponents with the pulled back over the shoulder viewpoint.
Exo-Planet includes three gameplay modes, two online and one offline. Online modes include capture the flag and deathmatch, and both are 2v2 team based battles. The offline gauntlet mode is substantially less exciting, with players competing in timed sessions shooting a series of moving targets. I suppose this answers the common complaint of most online-only games in giving iPod touch users something to do when they're not near WiFi, but gauntlet mode doesn't provide much challenge and really only seems useful for grinding scrip, learning the controls, and killing time.
What's this "scrip" stuff? Well, like similar games, Exo-Planet uses an in-game currency system to purchase various upgrades for your character. Everything from tricking out your weapons to increasing your run speed or even making your grappling hook reel in quicker can be purchased with scrip. This seems to be the major division between the free and paid versions of Exo-Planet.
If you shell out some cash for Exo-Planet either for the iPhone or iPad, you get something called "scrip boost" which increases the amount of scrip you earn by playing matches and fighting in gauntlet mode. In the free version, you have the ability to buy scrip in increments ranging from 99¢ all the way up to .99.
Playing online is a lot of fun, although in my testing the quality of the games I get matched up with varies wildly. Some are fast paced 2v2 matches with little or no lag filled with players who know what they're doing (capture the flag is particularly fun in these situations) and others are 1v2 lag fests that either end with the timer running out while you return the flag over and over or kill inactive players, or just simply lagging out. There isn't any Eliminate-like energy system, so you don't really lose anything but the time it took to load in to the game when you get a bad match… Which oddly enough has made me much more willing to put up with intermittent connection and lag issues.
Few games match the experience Exo-Planet provides when you find yourself in a game with 4 solid players with good connections. Playing with skilled players amounts to constantly grappling while firing, grappling again to avoid incoming fire, and either trying to stay alive or capturing as many flags as possible which can be a lot of fun. Connection issues are a problem, and it remains to be seen how much post-launch support SGN is going to give Exo-Planet, as you can really only play the same maps and use the same weapons so many times before getting bored. People on our forums are really digging the game, and I really recommend at least giving the free version a spin if nothing else– Especially if you've found yourself even slightly enjoying games like Eliminate in the past.
App Store Links: EXO-Planet Elite for iPad, .99 (iPad Only) – EXO-Planet Elite, .99 – EXO-Planet, Free
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A few weeks ago, the joint venture from Revolutionary Concepts and Tangible Games Banzai Rabbit hopped onto the App Store. Taking the basic core gameplay of the arcade classic Frogger and adding a host of new elements, including exquisite 3D graphics, produced a game that we thoroughly enjoyed in our review apart from one major gripe – it was just too difficult for your average gamer. The developers heard this cry loud and clear and actually anticipated it to a certain extent. An easy mode had been created prior to release for the possibility that gamers found the game to be too hard, thus an update including this new mode and a few other tweaks was able to be submitted relatively quickly after release. The new update has now hit the store, and it addresses practically every concern we had over the initial release, giving no reason not to give Banzai Rabbit a spin.
The new easy mode, titled Cuddly Bunny, starts you off with more lives, extended time to rescue each infected human, slower traffic and hazards, and half the cost of buying continues with mutagen orbs. These changes do wonders making the game more accessible, and at the risk of sounding impossibly hard to please, it's almost too easy. Rarely did I get killed by a hazard, and when I did it was usually because I was trying to rush. Lives and mutagen orbs stockpiled as I played, and never did the timer count down more than about halfway. I don't want to spin this in a negative light, however, as it gives me exactly what I wanted in the first place, which was a way to see the game from beginning to end. Given that the cute storyline and cutscenes are a big part of Banzai Rabbit, I had no trouble enjoying them as I made my way through this easier difficulty.
Another noteworthy aspect to this update is the addition of checkpoints. Losing all of your lives and having to start completely over from the beginning was a point of frustration in the release version, and checkpoints alleviate that problem really well. The easiest difficulty offers many checkpoints should you have to restart the game, with medium difficulty having them as well although fewer and farther between. The hard difficulty remains for the truly hardcore, featuring no checkpoints whatsoever along with less starting lives and much faster traffic. Banzai Rabbit does a wonderful job at catering to a wide audience with this latest update, and if you were on the fence before due to the difficult nature you should have no problem playing the game in it's entirety now.
Also worth mentioning is the impending release of a separate iPad version of Banzai Rabbit. The game is already quite the looker on the iPhone, but with updated graphics taking advantage of the iPad's higher resolution it looks simply stunning. UI tweaks to the game's controls, optimization for the faster processor, and additional cutscene screens are in this version as well with the possibility of some exclusive iPad-only content. The iPad version should be submitted in the next few days, and barring any sort of complications with approval should be available in the next couple of weeks.
Above are some of the early iPad screenshots (click to enlarge), so you can get an idea of whats to come.
App Store Link: Banzai Rabbit, .99
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In this not so special edition of Kotaku Off Topic, let’s talk about non-video game related things we’d really like to fix. Me? I’d like a time machine to fix my troubles. More »
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