Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune played his cards close to his chest when speaking at Capcom’s Mega Man Universe panel at this year’s Comic-Con. The series creator didn’t reveal much new information about the mysterious claymation trailer, which was released just prior to the convention. Speaking in very broad terms, Inafune pointed out one goal of Mega Man Universe, is to ‘allow you to play as the Mega Man of your dream.’ Later adding that another goal is to ‘unite Mega Man fans from around the planet, together in one place.’

Inafune did, however, hint that Mega Man Universe won’t be the only new Mega Man title announced this year. “Actually, I want to tell you there’s other things going on with Mega Man right now. This is going to be a big Mega Man year for me, personally. You haven’t heard the last of the Mega Man announcements in the near future,” said Inafune, adding that the unannounced title is “an oft requested thing” fans have been wanting. You can watch the entire Mega Man Universe panel discussion below.

Above: The Mega Man Universe panel at Comic-Con 2010

Above: In case you missed it, here’s the mysterious debut teaser for Mega Man Universe

July 26, 2010

Have you ever been sat in front of Modern Warfare or Battlefield thinking: “Gee, I wish I could shoot these make believe terrorists with a shitty looking plastic rifle.” Then rejoice, friend. Because today is a fortuitous 24 hours for that little peripheral whore in you.

According to the product description for CTA’s Assualt Rifle Controller, it allows gamers to ‘get down on the floor in full sniper pose and wreak havoc in their favourite shooters.’ Who knew lying prone stomach-first on the floor improved your aim in frantic FPS’? Once we’ve vacuumed up all the lice in our shag carpets, we’re so trying out that shit tonight.

Above: Just think how impressed your friends will be when you get this bad boy out of the box. Plastic PS3 guns are definitely still cool, yeah?

The controller also comes with all the buttons you’d get on your DualShock, with the trigger acting as an R1 button. And look! Absolutely, positively, probably authentic gun noises coming from a crap little speaker. Alright, so we know it’s essentially an abomination of technology. Still, we kinda want one.

Can you think of any other rubbish peripherals you’ve bought/seen and secretly loved/wanted to own? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below. Give them to us! We need them to feed our imaginary children.

July 27, 2010

This is the first screenshot of Dungeon Siege III, which is the first Dungeon Siege to come to consoles, the first to be published by Square Enix and not Microsoft, and the first to be developed by Obsidian and not Gas Powered Games. That’s a lot of firsts! It’s also a lot of ugly, if you ask me.

I’ll temper my face palm with information from someone who’s actually seen the game. Heidi Kemps took a look for us recently, and wrote of the graphics:

“Perhaps the most striking new feature was the one that showcased the game’s stunning graphics. You’ll be able to survey your surroundings more effectively by using vistas – vantage points in areas that let you see far out into the distance, giving a better glimpse of the areas and goals that lie in wait.”

Having not seen the game in motion, like Heidi, all I have as reference is this screenshot, and let me tell you: ICK! I like Obsidian, and I’m willing to put some faith in Square Enix’s ability to oversee its first Western RPG, but this mess of skeletal polygons looks awfully JRPG to me, and the advancing hero looks like a character out of KOEI’s Dynasty Warriors (right).

For reference, here’s a screen from Dungeon Siege II. Aside from looking dated as hell, it probably reminds you of World of Warcraft or Diablo. It’s got a Western fantasy feel, and while there’s a touch of Eastern influence, it’s no Final Fantasy:

That’s what Dungeon Siege looks like! Fine, so maybe my reaction is influenced by nostalgia and a general fear of change, but it also has to do with how impressed I was at the visuals of inXile and Bethesda’s Unreal-based Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, which I’d have expected Dungeon Siege III to look more like.

But wait! We received one more Dungeon Siege III screen today:

I like this one. It’s a little Tim Burton, a little Alien, a little… Piranha 3D. But I can’t help but be reminded of Square Enix again, if only because of the publisher’s love of glowing-eyed enemies. But now I’m just being a nitpicky asshole.

I’m making a lot of assumptions. Screens rarely do a game justice, and I have no concrete indication of how much creative control Square Enix has taken. Plus, the knowledge that Chris Taylor, the creator of Dungeon Siege, is advising the team at Obsidian soothes some of my concerns, though he’s likely also very busy working on Chris Taylor’s Kings and Castles. His name’s in it and all.

I’m still excited to see what Square Enix and Obsidian do with Dungeon Siege. Just, please, send us some better screenshots. These don’t look anything like the great pieces of concept art we saw earlier.

UPDATE: Just in time to potentially invalidate all my bitching, the game’s first trailer showed up. It’s a pretty uninformative teaser, but it does look nice. Getting… slightly… less… skeptical…

Jul 27, 2010

A man on the internet has discovered something cool on YouTube – a hidden game of Snake that can be played while watching videos on the site.

All you have to do is find a video that uses the newer version of the player (if you hover your mouse over the video, a progress bar pops-up), press and hold the left cursor key and a game of Snake should begin.

It definitely works. I’ve been playing Snake all morning with some sexy video game action distracting my eyes in the background. It was pretty challenging, but I mostly stayed focused on my constantly lengthening snake.

First of all I got a pretty long snake watching Heavy Rain’s Madison do her sexy strip tease:

It grew even longer when I snaked over the top of the Mass Effect 2 sex scene featuring mega-hot space babe Miranda Lawson:

If you have trouble getting it to work, I found that clicking on the progress bar before holding the left cursor key seems to help.

So if you’re watching something on the Tube today, see how big you can make your snake.

July 26, 2010