The new AVP game was certainly one I was looking out for at E3. I have to say it took me quite a while to actually find it! The overwhelming enormity of the E3 event does not help things! It was nestled away in a dark corner of the show floor, perhaps quite an apt place for it when you consider the dark foreboding nature of the franchise. When playing the first games dark shapes converge on your vision even when you alone, such was the atmospheric nature of the gameplay, in my mind anyway. Anyone who has played the first games as a marine will know what I am talking about. In fact right now those people are hearing echoing ominous pulse beeps in their minds in reflection of the gameplay in the first games.

From an atmospheric perspective, this new AVP game held no less of this famous atmosphere than the first games. Of course the conversational buzz, bright lights and loud music of E3 erodes some of the sinister nature of the gameplay. I can only assume that playing the game in the comfort/(uncomfort!) of your own home in the dead of night will have you jumping every time a lift moves or a light flickers! Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to play the game, as it was a developer showcase where they played it and walked you through the gameplay. Additionally, much to my disappointment they only showed the game as played from the predator perspective. I would have a sneaking suspicion that they only showcased the predator to allow our own minds wet our appetite for the Alien and Marine gameplay. For me the predator was always not as dynamic as the other races and seemed the easiest to play with. My personal preference was for getting the “bejasus” scared out of me as I cautiously navigated the dark maps as a Marine, armed with a narrow beam torch, a movement sensor now synonymous with your impending doom, and one of the best sounding guns in any game I’ve ever played! Of course in multiplayer my friend always revelled in being the alien and leaping from above to devour me as I helplessly fired off rounds into the dark!

I couldn’t get a gauge for either of these perspectives as only the predator was on show. The main difference in the predator is the new jump ability as shown in the gameplay movie I recorded from E3 (http://hivemindgames.ning.com/video/avp31-1). The predator can now pick a point in reasonable range on the level and jump to it. The usual stealth abilities, health abilities, shoulder cannon etc. are all available. The main weapon of choice here seems to be the wrist blades, which judging by the video seems particularly effective against the alien. A careful management is required here as healing abilities, personal shield and stealth cloak all stem from the same energy well. So be careful! The last thing you want will be your stealth shield going down in the middle of an alien den! Another new ability the developers showed me was the ability for the predator to direct sound. This is used to distract marines from their group so you can pick them off one by one. I certainly noticed that the AI is very clever in this game and much improved from the original. Again, this is something the developers focussed on in this game.

Talking to the developer they were very conscious in this game about keeping true to the original movie franchise atmosphere. I am certainly not talking about the AVP movies, but rather the classic original alien movies and the predator movies. True to this a lot of the predator campaign takes place in the jungle. The video does not do it justice, due to the flicking between vision modes, but the visuals are very impressive here.

Although I didn’t get to see the alien and marine I certainly got a sense of the sneaky deadly nature of the alien and indeed the AI. While playing an alien managed to sneak above the developer and as he looked up there was a springing alien in mid-air ready to claw the predator to bits. Despite my surprise the guy was able to get his wrist blades out in time and dispatch the alien with only some claw damage! He ended this confrontation by taking the aliens tongue as a trophy. Again another expanded element to this game is the abundance of various trophy kills! What more needs to be said! It looks awesome and I can’t wait until next year when it is released!

Posted by Mark Tattersall – Hivemind Games CEO

On the final day the crowds died down enough for me to bite the bullet and enter the queue to play Halo ODST – A popular one at E3. After an hour queuing I got my chance. The setup, pictured through the enclosed booth below, consisted of two games running with four on a team.

The object of this particular game at E3 was to withstand waves of grunts, and other new mystical creatures (including winged critters!) as a team of four. You can choose the difficulty, for which my team went with Heroic, all being Halo 3 veterans…

The enemies come in waves from the larger alien drop ships. You find yourself ducking for cover when the enemies are dropped in due to the clever suppression fire they bombard you with from their lofty turrets, attached to the outside of the drop ships. This particular game was heavily focussed on team co-op play. From my understanding of talking with some of the designers, although they wouldn’t give too much away, it sounded like the whole game would have a heavy co-op element to it, building on the co-op abilities of Halo 3 in a more focussed manner. It seems an “us against the machine” approach is used for ODST and both teams and individuals gain points for various achievements during the dispatching of enemies. For example, kills, assists, double kills, head shots all equal points for your final score as an individual and a team.

This means that dispatching waves of enemies efficiently and quickly with limited deaths gives you a score, which your friends and other teams can try and beat! Personally I like the “us against the machine” mentality. I believe it allows for a good variation from the now standard for most experience on Halo 3 matchmaking, whereby you come across teams that suck the fun out of the game by taking it too seriously and ultimately being too good!

I would of course imagine that ODST will have the standard matchmaking where you can compete directly against your fellow ODST players, however another new element in ODST is the fact that there is no personal shield any more. This adds a whole new tactic to the game. While it is a lot easier to die, and rightly so as you don’t have the master chief armour, there is some element of regeneration. It works by having two health systems. The first system that is affected when you are hit is one that works similar to games like gears of war. If you are hit you get a red haze around your vision, but if you step into cover it will subside. You must do this quickly though in ODST as after a shot or two your second system is affected and this is your base health system. Once this goes down at all it does not regenerate! So tread carefully!

I am really looking forward to this release and the general consensus from the guys played it around me in the booth and queue – is awesome!

Hello again from E3 in LA! It’s nearly mid-day here and I can safely say I have barely even entered one of the three main hall areas. There are just so many games on show here it is unfathomable!

I have played 1 game so far, and had a look at the gameplay of another game.  Both are games that will be released in about 3 months. No big names yet – these guys were on stands outside the main hall. This just goes to show how many games must be on show.

The games were Need for Speed: Shift and Battlefield 1943. Need for speed: shift attracted me as you could win a BMW M3 if you won their competition.. I wouldn’t say no to that! I later found out that the competition was only open to US residents. Of course I am going with that as the reason I couldn’t win the car, not the fact that some veteran gamers spent hours practicing yesterday, while I found it difficult to keep the car from getting destroyed on my first attempt!

The fact that I could not win the car did not deter me from having a go at the game for a good 20 minutes. I have to say I quite liked it. I talked to one of the games producers at the stand. He said he came from working on GRID before moving to the need for speed team. There seemed to be some similarities from an engine perspective. The style is arcady at first when compared to Project Gotham. If you were coming more from a Gotham Background, like me, you will find it quite hard to get used to the breaking for one which seems overly excessive with very long breaking times. One thing I liked is that when you crash a blurred vision effect renders you visionless for a period dependant on how hard you hit the wall, car or other immoveable object. Real damage effects add a conservative element to the driving I don’t believe was as prominent in other need for speeds. All in all a good driving game to compete with Burnout. However, I you were looking for a Gotham contender I would look elsewhere..

I got a free pass for a download of Battlefield 1943 so I will definitely be downloading this from its xbox live release in 3 months. It seems a quite significant cross between Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Bad Company. In fact the game engine looks almost identical to the Bad company engine. This is probably why it is only really a bolt-on download game for 15 euro from xbox live. I was a massive fan of Battlefield 2 but not a huge fan of Battlefield Bad company so I will see how this plays out and might try and give it a go later in the day when the crowds die down a bit.