E3 2011 Games Coverage

Halo’s role as gaming’s premiere shooter and entertainment-record-breaker has been taken over by Activision’s Call of Duty. Halo 4 aims to recapture some of that the series’ lost bluster and multimedia grandeur. 343 Industries’ new sequel will do the bulk of the heavy lifting, but it will be backed by Halo’s return to live action video, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Variety reported on Monday that the new live action series will air on website… Read More

Poor Zune. What chance did Microsoft’s little media player and its attendant digital music and video store have in the face of the crushing monolith that is Apple and iTunes? In all the ways that the Xbox brand, the Xbox 360, and Xbox Live have succeeded over the past eleven years, Zune has failed. The company already stopped making actual Zune handhelds. Now it’s time, finally, for the Zune Marketplace itself to die. (Microsoft announced in… Read More

Microsoft wants to make something clear: There will be no successor to the Xbox 360 in 2012. There will be no big reveal at the E3 conference in June, no embarrassing MTV event in May complete with ridiculous fake CG trailers for Madden NFL. “There will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon. For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360,” said Microsoft spokesman David Dennis in a Mar. 15 statement. Translation: Get over it. Of course,… Read More

We're more than a month past the close of E3 2011 and footage is still arriving online on an almost daily basis. On Tuesday you got to see the Kanye West-'Power'ed Forza MotorSport 4 trailer and today brings a new look at THQ's Metro: Last Light, the follow-up to the publisher's 2010 release, Metro 2033. The two-and-a-half-minute look is clearly marked as part one, meaning there should be more to come soon.… Read More

When we were at E3 last month, we were impressed by BioShock Infinite. So much so that we awarded it our overall Best of Show for this year’s E3. We based that decision on a few various factors, but one of the most important was the gameplay footage we saw, which was awesome. That same footage debuted last night on Spike TV during the half hour BioShock Infinite special, and we now have all 15 minutes of it for you to see. It is a bit odd… Read More

One of the hardest things about writing up what was shown of BioShock Infinite at E3 this year was knowing that words would only tell half the story. Irrational Games' latest is stunningly beautiful to behold, and you don't really get a sense of the gameplay possibilities from mere words. You have to see protagonist Booker DeWitt swinging from skyrail to skyrail in a massive, open battlefield to really appreciate what this 2012… Read More

If you are a fan of the Metal Gear series, then you know how important the story is. What began on the NES back in 1987 has gone on to become one of—possibly the—most story-intensive series in video game history. If you need proof of that just go play Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and clock how much time you spend in cutscenes versus how much you spend in actual gameplay—it will be about even your first time through. Needless to… Read More

Amidst all the bling and pomp of the biggest titles at this year's E3, one that flew under many a' radar was Sega’s upcoming Binary Domain. Amongst all the other titles at E3, the game suffered from one series setback that potentially crippled it when it came to standing out on the show floor—it was not part of a franchise, nor was it a sequel. There was no number “3” on it, and there was nary a semicolon in the title. That in no… Read More

The show may be over, but E3 2011 left us with plenty to talk about. From the Wii U, to Battlefield 3, to the first glimpse at Modern Warfare 3, the show may have ended, but its legacy will continue for a long time to come. There were several massive, big budget sequels displayed, and more than a few surprises to be had. But who came out on top? Below is our list of the best of 2011. Best of Show Winner: BioShock Infinite Few games had… Read More

Nintendo's upcoming console has had a lot of rumored names and codenames. Some call it Project Cafe; some call it Wii 2; others believed it might have a simple name: "Nintendo." However, we've now learned its true name: Wii U. The Wii U is Nintendo's next generation videogame console, a true successor to the Nintendo Wii. This makes it Nintendo's sixth home gaming console since 1985 when it launched the NES.… Read More

At E3 last week, Ubisoft wowed us with gameplay footage and a description of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Revelations. That footage quickly (and unsurprisingly) made it online. Ubisoft then decided that if everyone was going to watch the clip anyway, you might as well see it in context. If you missed the clip the first time around, the setup is that Ezio is in Constantinople making friends with the Ottoman Empire—meaning they all want to kill… Read More

One of the best parts about E3 is finding that hidden gem. I found this game tucked away in the outer reaches of the South Hall. E3 has become a show about big blockbuster games on big consoles, but some of the best games are simple and fun. Robot Entertainment's Orcs Must Die is not a $60 game you'll buy shrink-wrapped from the store, but it's certainly just as fun. Created by some of the guys responsible for Age of Empires… Read More

A week after E3, buzz about the Wii U certainly shows no signs of slowing. Nintendo has published a translation of CEO Satoru Iwata's E3 Q&A with analysts. The five pages are quite a read, but Iwata clarifies where Nintendo is coming from with its upcoming Wii U console, what audiences it plans to target, and some of its difficulties with the 3DS and Wii as of late. We've compiled three of the most interesting answers below,… Read More

If the successive sets of Roman numerals, hyphens and numbers didn't already give it away, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is not a game that intends to rock the foundation of one of Square Enix's flagship series. Instead, this year we're getting a direct sequel to FF XIII that follows Serah, the younger sister of Lightning (the hero of FFXIII), as she embarks on her own quest to save the world. A few of the details revealed include a… Read More

Dead Island is an interesting case both for and against cinematic video game trailers. Earlier this year, publisher Deep Silver released an incredible trailer for Dead Island, it's zombie survival game that takes place, you know, on an island. The trailer was quite innovative and gave Dead Island a lot of positive attention. However, after playing the game at E3 last week, I'm kind of bothered that this trailer falsely advertises… Read More