Fable III

It's a Revolution!


"Fable III" is the latest installment to the action-packed and critically acclaimed Xbox 360 exclusive franchise that has sold more than six million copies. Fans new and returning will now embark on an epic adventure, where the race for the crown is only the beginning of your spectacular journey. Five decades have passed since the events of "Fable II," and Albion has matured into an industrial revolution, but the fate of the kingdom is at peril. In "Fable III," you will be called upon to rally and fight alongside your people, ascend to the seat of power, and experience the true meaning of love and loss while defending your throne. In your quest to seize power and defend your kingdom, the choices you make will change the world around you, for the greater good or your own personal gain.
Who will you become? A rebel without a cause, the tyrant you rebelled against, or the greatest ruler to ever live?

Opening Trailer

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Features Metal Gear Solid Cameo

Can't wait to slice dudes up as cyber-ninja Raiden in Metal Gear Solid: Rising? You might not have to hold out for much longer. An anonymous tipster has informed Joystiq that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood will contain an unlockable Raiden outfit.

According to the informant, you'll be able to open up Raiden's costume in Brotherhood once you complete all of the tasks in the game's VR training mode. Joystiq's source also passed along an image or two of Assassin's Creed's Ezio doing his best Raiden impersonation.

It might seem unusual for a Konami character to appear in an Ubisoft game, but this isn't the first crossover for the Metal Gear and Assassin's Creed franchises. In Metal Gear Solid 4, Solid Snake could don the garb of Altair from the first Assassin's Creed.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Pack

Zombears? Check. Sasquatch hunting? Check. Taming the Four Horses of the Apocalypse? Quadruple check. A $10 piece of downloadable content that rivals (and in some ways surpasses) full-priced retail releases in almost every way? You better believe check.

The Red Dead Redemption zombie-themed add-on Undead Nightmare skews one of the year’s most well crafted and thrilling narratives into an alternate universe filled with mythical creatures, never ending undead massacres, and epic/terrifying adventures that take full advantage of the richly detailed and expansive open-world established in Red Dead Redemption. In other words, say hello to the best piece of downloadable content you've ever seen.

When you consider that Rockstar San Diego was able to turn one of the best action-adventure games ever made into a genuinely frightening and heart-pounding survival horror experience while still maintaining the performance and presentation quality of the original game, it's nothing short of spectacular. The acting, the writing, the animation work, it’s all, like Redemption, top notch, and really helps ground the supernatural narrative suprisingly well (which is no small feat given the game includes a depressed sasquatch and an actual unicorn). 

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Launch Trailer

There are tons of small details that we could talk about if you really wanted to. Like the fact that the main story lasts around six hours — longer than some high profile retail games — or that there are 27 towns that you must cleanse of zombies by assisting survivors and regularly checking in to make sure they haven’t been overrun again, or that there are four types of undead, or that you can use zombie body parts as ammo in the newly introduced blunderbuss to blast other members of the walking dead to pieces. And that’s just single-player. The new Undead Overrun co-op horde mode pits up to four players against waves of zombies that would make Left 4 Dead very proud. I mean, if bang for your buck is your primary thing, you’d be hard pressed to find a better way to spend $10 this year (or any year, for that matter).


However, the reason Undead Nightmare is such an all around spectacular package, and why anyone who owns Red Dead Redemption should buy it immediately, is because it gives you exactly what you want out of a zombie apocalypse game: genuine terror but not at the expense of fun. One of my biggest problems with the Dead Rising series is that while it does offer you countless ways to lay waste to thousands upon thousands of infected, you are constantly burdened with requirements and time limits designed to make the entire experience more frustrating than fun.

Undead Nightmare opens with John Marston’s family being bitten by Jack Marston’s infected uncle. After hogtying his wife and son, and stashing them in their house for safekeeping, John doesn’t see his family again until the end of the game. He doesn’t have to run back every few hours to administer pain medication or a sedative to keep them from breaking loose from their ropes. The various tasks Johndoes have to perform, like burning coffins to clear out graveyards, or providing survivors with ammo and helping make towns zombie-free, while somewhat repetitive, never come close to being frustrating or annoying, and because the developers did a great job by designing the look and feel of the zombies (the costume design is stunning by the way), you are constantly wavering between genuine anxiety and unabashed joy.


Like Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, Undead Nightmare also gives you a chance to see familiar characters in an entirely new context. Granted, in this case, that context is a fantastical “alternate” reality, not simply a particular criminal subset, and it means you’ll encounter zombified versions of several Redemption characters, and familiar locations abandoned and ablaze, but it works in a kischy kind of way and adds to the overall tie-in appeal of the story.

The single-player campaign is clearly the star of the show here, however the new Undead Overrun horde-based mode is a fantastic addition and will provide countless hours of “Get off the ground now!!!”-fueled enjoyment as you scramble to climb onto rooftops while your friends attempt to hold back the unending hordes of undead long enough to keep you from becoming a zombie’s lunch. Sure, zombie horde mode isn’t original, but damnit if isn’t a whole hell of a lot of fun.


The DLC also adds a new Free Roam called Land Grab, which basically lets players claim areas around the map and try to hold it until the timer is up. It’s a fun little addition to the already varied Free Roam experience, which, thanks to the previously released Liars and Cheats Pack, now includes, multiplayer poker, Liar’s Dice, and horse racing.

As you can tell, there’s enough content in Undead Nightmare to keep you entertained for far longer than should be allowed by a $10 piece of DLC. And, honestly, if turning the greatest western game ever into a top notch zombie-infested thriller doesn’t impress you, I really can’t help you. For everyone else, look out! Zombie cougar!

Diablo 3 Preview

BlizzCon really is a nerd's paradise. Besides just letting attendees play new build of their upcoming video games, they also enjoy spraying the crowd with a datastream of facts about these same upcoming titles. Case in point this year were the Diablo 3 Gameplay and Open Q&A panels that gave us a ton of new information about the game. Although knowing Blizzard, this could all change at a moments notice.

But, they'll always be kind enough to tell us later that "Oh, that thing we showed you last year? Yeah, we killed that." So currently, this is all of the new information you need to know about Diablo 3. We told you about the Demon Hunter, and now you can read up on the new Skill system, the revamped Runes, the entirely new Traits, and where you'll be sticking your Charms. Read on for all the Hellish details.

Skills

Blizzard has always been good about admitting when something doesn't work. Like last year's skill system in the playable Diablo 3 build. They admitted that it was unwiedly and overwhelming. What players were left with was a system that was too big, covered up your character screen, and only encouraged you to scatter your skill points all over the place.

They tried out tabbed and list view to compartmentalize the system on the right hand side of the screen. But, neither one of those systems worked perfectly. So they changed to a sort of a hybrid between tabs and lists. At a glance, you know what to do when it comes time to level up. You can spend points to get new skill, or can you place a skill point into an existing skill. Skills and slots will now blink to indicate you can upgrade them.

During gameplay, you still get the burst of light that indicates you've leveled up (and yes, other players can see it when you're co-opping) and the familiar red square with a cross on it. Clicking it opens up the Skills tab, and you can easily see the available skills to upgrade, or if the "Purchase New Skill" option is unlocked, you can hit that and pick up something entirely new.

They also showed off some of the new Class Skills, which are looking very good:

• Barbarian: Ancient Spear. This is a ranged attack, but rather than dealing ranged damage to the enemy, it hooks them (ala Scorpion in Mortal Kombat) and yanks them closer to you so you can pound on 'em.
• Wizard: Meteor. This is a spell that does area damage. It's a classic Skill, re-envisioned forDiablo 3. When you put runes in Meteor, you get tons of fun.
• Witch Doctor: Spirit Walk. This is a mobility Skill that is different than the Wizard's teleport spell. When the Witch Doctor uses it, they turn incorporeal, and can walk through enemies.
• Monk: Wave of Light: This Skill summons a spectral blue bell that shoots out a ranged attack. It has evocative imagery to help remind you that hey, you're a Monk.

Runes

When you're talking about the Skills, you have to talk about Runes. Blizzard has revamped the Runes system so extensively that they removed it entirely from the Diablo 3 build at BlizzCon last year. Back then, the Runes had names like "The Power Rune," and "The Striking Rune," and they could modify certain skills accordingly. Now they've changed the Runes to be colored: Alabaster, Indigo, Crimson, Obsidian, and Golden. Additionally, every Rune now works with every Skill. Not only that, but the Runes won't be bound to the Skill, meaning you can mix and match as much as you want.

They changed the naming system because they didn't want each Rune to be tied to a particular effect, such as the Striking Rune always meaning it had something to do with striking. By using a colored naming scheme, the Runes can be semi-tied to that color, i.e. fire for Crimson, but they can deviate from that whenever they want. Each Rune affects each Skill differently, and part of the fun is testing out different combinations. The Runes also have seven ranks, and they increase as you play through. According to Jay Wilson, "Higher ranks equals more crazy. You're gonna need that in Hell." They rank like this:

• Normal Mode gives you "stone" Runes, ranked one through three.
• Nightmare Mode gives you "silver" Runes, ranked four and five.
• Hell Mode gives you "gold" Runes, ranked six through seven. 

They showed off the Wizard with a Rank 7 Rune in his Magic Missile Skill, and it fires a ton of missiles per shot. Very nifty.

While we're talking about Runes, Blizzard also showed off some of the new skills for the other classes. Including:

• Barbarian: The Barbarian has a skill that allows them to chuck weapons at enemies, conveniently called Weapon Throw. But if you slot the Crimson Rune into this skill, it does more damage, Obsidian changes it into a hammer that stuns enemies. Alabaster will confuse enemies into possibly attacking each other, and Indigo changes it into a ricochet attack. But, if you put in the Golden Rune, it changes the skill to Corpse Throw, allowing the Barb to hurl dead bodies at enemies with devastating effect. It's not clear if they'll need bodies to make this happen (like the Necromancer's Corpse Explosion Skill), or if they can just pull them out of thin air.
• Wizard: Hydra: this classic spell causes several spectral hydra heads to emerge from the ground around the wizard and attack. If you slot a Rune into that Skill, you get corresponding new Hydras: Crimson gives you Frost Hydras (interestingly enough), Indigo gives you Lightning Hydras, Obsidian creates Acid Hydras, and so on

• Witch Doctor: Plague of Toads: this skill normally calls forth a group of poisonous toads that deal damage to nearby enemies. Runes change this, of coure: Crimson makes Fire Toads, Golden, reduces their cost, Alabaster creates Blinding Gas Toads, Indigo creates a rain of toads, or a "Toad Blizzard" (zing), and Obsidian creates a gigantic toad that eats monsters whole, yet doesn't digest their loot. Ribbit.
• Witch Doctor: Poison Dart: this skill normally has the Witch Doc blowgunning out a poison dart. Naturally. But when you slot a Golden Rune into it, you slow monsters down, Indigo will give you rapid fire, Alabaster shoots out snakes that attach to your enemies face. Ouch.

Traits

Traits are an entirely new system for Diablo 3. What are they? Basically, they are passive skills that can customize and modify your character builds. They are gained as you level up with every other level, and they alter your core attributes. They allow you to "role play" with your character. Got a Barbarian who wants to be stronger? There's a trait for that. Playing a Wizard and you want more elemental powers? There's a trait for that. They are not universal, by design, and each one contains flavor text to give you a bit of background. Some examples:

• Barbarian: Inner Rage. This trait decreases the rate of Fury (the Barbarian's version of Mana) loss, and increases Fury gained for hitting the same target. You can rank it up five levels. "While most orders teach the merits of calming the seas of the soul, the guardians of Arreat have embraced the raging inner storm."
• Wizard: Prismatic Cloak. This increases the effect of Ice Armor and Storm Armor by 100%, and can be ranked up three times. "An icy mist that freezes to the bone, the low hum and spark of electricity in the air ... even touching a Wizard can have dire consequences."

Blizzard knows that the current Trait system is not perfect, and they are currently working on it. They know that the Trait UI needs work, that gaining them every other level isn't perfect, and that there are probably too many of them, and too many ranks in each. Considering there are roughly 30 traits per class, and that you can spend up to 5 points in some of them, each class will have about 90 points worth of Traits. So, it needs work. Or as I like to say, "Yet another reason you won't see this game for quite awhile."

Worried about customization? Blizzard pointed out that with Skills, Runes, Traits and Charms, you'll have the opportunity to build 96,886,969,344 per class. That's a lot of math. Oh, and speaking of Charms...

Talisman

Inventory frustration will be alleviated somewhat in Diablo 3, thanks to the fact that Blizzard is giving you a Talisman to store your charms in. Charms were trinkets that were added in the Diablo 2 expansion, Lord of Destruction. These gave your character specific bonuses just by holding them in your inventory, and came in multiple varieties and sizes. But, the problem is that they would take up valuable inventory space, and you never wanted to get rid of them.

They've solved this by adding a Talisman that your character has, and it contains space specifically for Charms. You don't start immediately with it, but you'll gain it through questing, and it grows in time with your character, meaning you'll have more space at about the same time you're finding more Charms. Charms have evolved as well, and they now alter your core attributes, and you can focus on shaping and changing those through customization. 

One example they showed was:

• Bronze Cross of Brawn: Adds +6 to your Strength

Contrast that with something from Diablo 2, like the:

• Small Amber Charm: Resists Lightning By 10% to 12%

You can see that they want to affect your character more, rather than just providing a defensive or offensive bonus to your character, which is something the traits also do. Charms now look like they'll come in just one size, unlike D2 which had large Charms that would take up three inventory slots. Between Traits and Charms, there's a lot of ways to spec out your character, so get ready to play the matching game.

Which brings us to the end of just about everything related to Diablo 3 that was firehosed onto us at BlizzCon, except for the Battle Arenas, where they're now housing all of the PVP action in this title. 

This Information was found on G4tv.com