Far Cry 2 is here with a new look and case of malaria cured for and developed by Ubisoft Montreal. For fans expecting to get the same experience as the first game: better think again. Jack Carver and his guns of steel are missing. There are no feral powers or mutagens, or trigens. Instead, you’re thrown into a war between struggling factions of the APR and UFLL, in a war torn African nation in which you’re the only hero.

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Rockstar: San Diego, oh how you fill our hearts with happiness! Happiness in releasing such a great game, but a bit of despair in the form of ridiculously hard AI that makes the game a bit unforgiving. The only problem is with such level of detail in Midnight Club: Los Angeles and the incorporation of the real world licenses: who cares about the tiny flaws? Midnight: Club LA is most likely not just a prevalent mark on games that incorporate reality such as the City of Angels, but a mark in racing genre overall. We missed the cops, and we missed a world that serves as a hub for newer races. Entering the sexy sky view in GPS mode, the game zooms out of your current location and gives you an overhead view of the city, showing which places are ready for some wild races in the night or day.

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Sure you have GTA IV. You can explore an endless NY cityscape, online in free roam, do a lot of missions with but there are many palliative factors that come with a game like GTA IV: a more serious tone, stealthy missions, and annoying tailgates. The in-between? Saints Row 2. Saints Row 2 literally does what it sets out to and brings freedom to an open world game, even if it doesn’t look mind numbing like a GTA IV game but pretty close. Years after the original, you find yourself in a Stilwater tackled with bringing the Saints back as the true kings of Stilwater, ready for retribution and redemption. Players can play who they want, but not just that. They can play with whomever they want in this sequel through on-line co-op or just free-roam the big city and take a break from some other modes. Saints Row 2 does many things that GTA IV just refuses to let players do and is more focused on smaller city settings than bigger cities with thousands of closed doors and dead ends. There’s no break here. Saints Row 2 is showing no bounds while it jumps out of a plane and parachute into shelves.

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Fable II, Lionhead’s ambitious follow-up to it’s popular Xbox title is coming with a retributive bang. While, many of us have waited four eager years to discover destiny and witness it’s effect on Albion, others may have been looking to discover Albion for the very first time. Now the question is: will you choose to be hero or foe? The choice is yours. Whether or not this is a great game is out of your hands.

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Don’t cry everyone! Just be happy to know that the ESA just contacted WhatIfGaming to say that E3 2009, to take place June 2-4, 2009 isn’t public as many were hoping after some ridiculous statements about E3 2008 not “displaying the games industry’s wealth.” As I’ve taken position before, allowing E3 2008 as a media only event was the right choice and so is the same case again. E3 2009 is just a little “expanded” to allow for retailers to participate in the convention this time around. There’s always E For All everyone! According to ESA:

The 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E³) will take place from June 2-4, 2009, at the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC), the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced today. The expanded E³ will welcome all qualified computer and video game industry audiences, including international and U.S.-based media, analysts, retailers, developers and business partners to preview the latest in interactive entertainment and technology.

When directly asked if “public,” meaning Timmy and his 4 parkour friends to the game lines will be able to attend, ESA stated to us rather directly:

The changes only include: increased booth sizes, increased qualified audiences, and an intensified focus on reinforcing the improved plans for E^3.

Update: Talk about the level of hate mails I just received (around 500) from posting this. This is what ESA wrote to us. We specifically asked if “non-members” of ESA meant anyone in the public, and that’s a no. It just means that people NOT in the ESA group (few companies, exhibitors, and now developers) can gain access to this event in 2009. Public is still not allowed.

Update # 2: Confirmed again. Not Public. Press/Developers/Attending Companies/Business Partners still need to APPLY to attend. E3 2009 will be like the “old” E3’s in terms of scale in the booths, not public attendance. Public cannot attend.

For all our hardcore PC audience, that means everyone of you, we recently got hands on with an early copy of EA’s Dead Space for the PC. Good news? It’s still Dead Space!

Bad news? The controls are 2nd to the worst controls we’ve seen ever since Path of Neo came to the PC platforms. The smoothness compared to consoles is just not there, and from what we can tell it doesn’t seem like a patch can fix most of the issues. Inventory stack access becomes frustrating when fighting with monsters and aiming for on-the-fly changes. The controls just aren’t smooth. When contacting EA Redwood Shores regarding these issues:

Dead Space for PC is an equivalent experience to that on consoles. The controls are different and customizable, but we feel it’s in the best ability for the players to match what the console experience is like.

It’s ironic that it needs to be argued that it matches the console experience from the controls in EA’s eyes.  The fact isn’t a matter of customization as much as it’s just not feasible to do most of the mapped controls on the keyboard and still maintain a fluid transition between interface and gameplay. If you have a console, go with the console version of Dead Space. The PC one is just not the same thing. If you’re tight on $20 extra for the console version, rent it and then settle for the PC one after. It’s such a shame.

What!? A newcomer to the survival horror genre, that offers a much needed twist to the stale pre-established franchises of the genre? While many companies may stick to the familiar, and take the “don’t fix what’s not broken” approach, EA Redwood Shores is doing the exact opposite. Dead Space challenges the genre taking it into unfamiliar territory supported with strong story elements, fresh game triumvirates, and plenty of scares that are terrifying enough to pull away fans of the other games in the genre and others and even make new fans of horror survival. In short, Dead Space is the new benchmark on “how to launch a new franchise.” EA has a winner here.

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The BlackJack II has been out for a while, and it seems like the Samsung Epix is revolving around the same design and features. Is this one actually any different?

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Team initiative is all about you and the other 3 guys beside you on the front lines. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation makes crosshairs shake with a brim happiness knowing addictive combat is a mere game controller away. Like previous iterations, Confrontation takes the name of epic battles and allows for military style combat in a form unrealized by most games out, most noticeably Call of Duty 4. Confrontation takes the elements that made it a pure success and brings newer concepts to military style combat genre that has been missing for a long time. With close quarter combat and very few BS where players just go every which way during an online match, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation is an experience that no lover of shooter genres wants to miss out from.

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We all here heard the breaking news of BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams being announced through a trailer on the PS3 version of BioShock. Now, here’s some other information someone sent to us just now.

BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams is part of a prequel and at the same time is a sequel, so you’re kind of close on the interpretation of the trailer. The rising replica of Rapture can represent something to do with this or something part of a bigger surprise that everyone has to wait and see to play. —- 2K Marin Dev CH.

There you have it. Some concrete information on what the trailer meant and more about what’s to follow in the sequel..er prequel sequel.

Editor’s Note: It appears that our source we still think of as trustworthy (that came through on a lot of information) gave out information under a false alias to protect identity from 2K Games PWNING higher ups. Apologies to our audience as we were also misled on the tiny tidbit. We instead place initials of this person (not Charles).

The very first teaser trailer for BioShock 2 has been included with the PS3 version. The footage is unlocked after completing BioShock on PS3, and shows a 11 year old girl (presumably a Little Sister) standing on the Atlantic Coast peering out into the ocean.

A cuddly Big Daddy toy dangles from her hand as the camera zooms out to show a cityscape bursting from the sand behind her.

Eventually the BioShock 2 logo fades in before the subtitle Sea of Dreams is written underneath. Guess this means it’s confirmed for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2010.

Source: BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams Trailer