The GameShadow Blog

Deep Silver recently released the teaser trailer for their 2009 title Ride To Hell. It contained a sample of the 1960s track “Born To Be Wild“ by Steppenwolf, and worked nicely with the open-world, motorcycle theme.

Short samples of music tracks, or music written specifically for a computer game are a staple part of promotional trailers/videos. Electronic Arts commonly use music with their sports titles, such as the early trailers for NBA Live 09, and have done so on older titles including Madden 07. It can be seen as a smart idea, as it promotes the game and the music, with no specific voice-overs or interruptions.

Other titles to jump out include World In Conflict for the 1980s-themed Ruling The World Video, and the GC 2007 Trailer that used a track by the rock group Audioslave to good effect. The Race Driver: GRID Trailer specialised in a heavy sound with Phat Planet by Leftfield, whilst in Gameplay Video 1 remixed it up with “No One Knows” by Queens of the Stone Age.

It is always interesting to see which music tracks, be it old or new ones, are used in trailers/videos, and how much of an impact they actually make in promoting the game.

Gamespot is running a pretty in depth interview with the boys behind Battlefield Heroes, including lots of details on the game. Check it out below.

I’ll be frank. There’s one reason I’m posting this. Honestly, we could simultaneously post huge news on Elite IV, WoW 2 and Half-Life 3, and a scantily clad receptionist from Croydon would still get the best clicks.

In other news, find out why Tomb Raider Underworld will suck right here.

Like many, I’m altogether rather chuffed that Okami is coming to Wii. It was clearly always going to find a home on the platform’s motion sensing controls, but the fact that it’s finally arrived in the US, and is on its way to Europe is still a cause for celebration - perhaps not least because the internal Capcom team that developed it, Clover, has now closed doors, and this release will represent its swansong.

The trailer’s right here, and it looks as if any concerns over the game’s performance on the low-powered machine can be put aside.

Simple really. Some random bloke who thinks he’s a bit cool managed to blag his way into 3D Realms, swear at Broussard about how long the game’s taken, and then catch around ten seconds of gameplay footage.

To check out George and Scott’s terrified glances at one another, head to 3:40, or for the footage go straight to 4:20. For a laod of random stuff you’re probably not interested in, just hit play.

Next-Gen is running a story with Yves Guillemot - chief exec of Ubisoft - concerning the challenge level we can expect to see in BGE2.

“We think the game was probably a little too difficult for the general gamers at that time. We’re going to make it more accessible and make sure that it’s really done for the new generation that’s come into videogames.”

To balance that with some good news, apparently it’s going to be the ‘future of games’, and it certainly looks from the trailer as if BGE2 might be setting its sights considerably further afield than the original.

On a serious note, the promise of the game being ‘more casual’ does, of course, strike fear into my gaming heart - the original was pretty damn easy, and the thought of dumbing down is understandably abhorent.

However, on a little more reflection, I’m not sure this is a bad thing. The point is, BGE1 was never challenging in the Quake IV sense - it was more about the experience - so the fact that the sequel is further seeking to draw in a more mainstream audience is really only in keeping with the series’ ethos.

At the end of the the day, BGE is one of very few games we can hold up high and say ‘Not all games are about explosions and tits. Some of them are about love, and nature and characterisation.’ The fact that a game like that is going to be approachable for the non-gaming massive can’t be a bad thing.

Perhaps when Fox tries to claim Jade has inter-species sex with a talking pig, they’ll actually play the game and realise what’s really going on.

Media Theory student Daniel Floyd has saved me a job - he’s taken all the obvious shortcomings in the game industry’s approach to adult love, and summarised their causes and effects in a humorous fashion.

He’s dead right.

Well, you’d kinda expect it, wouldn’t you? I am, however, still shocked and amazed at how awful the ad manages to make Guitar Hero On Tour for DS look. Who’d have thought not playing a fake plastic guitar would make the whole experience somehow sadder? I held out hopes that maybe there’d be some air guiater type freedom to be had, but I can only imagine these kids are going to get beaten up when they get back to the playground.

Ah well.

Without further ado, check out the vid.

Despite the fact that it’s a 100% blatant disgraceful rip off of TF2, it’s actualyl looking ratehr marvellous. I’m not quite sure about the dodgy opening (is it really cool to revel in the serious nature of the war you’re taking the piss out of?) but beyond that, DICE and EA clearly know what we want to hear.

This trailer follows earlier news that the game will be ad free, with only the website (where character customisation and stats tracking goes on) sporting anythign fo the like.

The game is due for release Summer 2008.

Not much more to it, to be honest. There’s a full 30 odd minutes of fresh footage, with Wright commenting over the top of in-game video. He’s even thoughtful enough to kick straight into the space exploration phase. Because he’s presenting at NASA, and they like things like that.

Shoot off here for the vid.

Yeah, I did a double take as well.

It’s available here on GameShadow and… yeah… it’s Duke Nukem Forever… kinda.

A lot of the sensible money says Duke is a bygone era - the gameplay on show here certainly doesn’t support any conclusion other than that.

All the same, it’ll be nice to see a proper action man on screen again. Even if his best lines are stolen from Evil Dead.