Mass Effect 2 PS3 Releases To Widespread Praise

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Mass Effect 2 has finally launched onto PS3, available on Blu-ray and also via download on PSN. This version of the game, including an enhanced game engine, a interactive prequel comic in Mass Effect: Genesis, and free DLC bundled with the game, has been widely praised, with a Metacritic score hovering around 95 percent.

“The Mass Effect team is very proud of the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 2 has already won multiple awards, including IGN s Game of the Year and Gametrailer s Game of the Year as well as Best Sci-Fi Game, Best Blockbuster Game, and Best Story, among many others,” said Chris Priestly, Community Coordinator for BioWare. “And early word on the PS3 version is extremely positive with a 5/5 rating from The Toronto Sun, 5 stars from The Guardian, a 9.5/10 from IGN and Official Playstation Magazine giving it 10 out of 10!”

Source: PlayStation.Blog

Milla Jovovich Talks ‘Hate’ For Resident Evil Movies

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The four Resident Evil films from Paul W.S. Anderson have been successful and certainly have a following, but they’re somewhat infamous among some fans of the titular game series. Star Milla Jovovich indicates she got some backlash from fans who aren’t fond of Alice (a character created for the movies that’s not in the games).

There are, like, 15 people in the world that spend all day really hating me. Like horrifically hating me with a passion. They’re always writing, said Jovovich. I tell them: ‘Why don’t you just write a script ‘ But if you ask one hardcore fan about something, they’d disagree with that hardcore fan over there.

Another hardcore fan might think the hunters should have been in the movie. And what are the hunters They’re big frogs, she added. There are a lot of characters in the Resident Evil games that are not very photogenic.

When asked if she’s won people over, Jovovich said, All I can tell from my twitter page is that there are a lot of fans of Resident Evil that love Alice and the franchise who feel that, if you want the game, play the game. The game is such a sprawling world. You can’t please everybody and hardcore fans are hardcore fans and you’re never going to please them, no matter how many oversized frogs or giant bees you put in.

Alice was never part of the Resident Evil videogame world. When I first met with Paul for the first Resident Evil, I said I wanted to be Jill Valentine,” continued Jovovich. He said: ‘Yeah, but people don’t know who Jill Valentine is. Only a small group of people play this game and there’s a potentially huge audience out there. But if we have to talk about the history of Jill, there’s such a storyline for those characters – you don’t want to get stuck having to use Capcom’s storylines.’ Capcom changes a VP and suddenly the storyline changes. So he needed to create a character that was a bit more like the audience: the innocent coming into this who they can relate to without needing to know her history.

Source: CVG

Augmented Reality Ads Expanding

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Pop group Black Eyed Peas released a new ad campaign tied to their single The Time (Dirty Bit). In the corresponding music video, lead singer will.i.am uses a smartphone to make a video game version of himself pop out of a billboard, which has been duplicated in an augmented reality experience.

“Technology has finally caught up with our imaginations,” wrote will.i.am. “[Our album] is symbolic of adopting these new technologies, such as augmented reality.”

Augmented reality has already been used for marketing by large corporations like Lego, Mini Cooper and Red Bull, and it’s only set to get bigger. Industry analysis firm ARC Chart thinks that revenues generated worldwide by mobile phone augmented reality applications will reach $2.3 billion by 2015.

“Just like we did with the hype around the iPhone, we capitalized on the hype over AR,” said Alexander Trieb, co-founder of Tripwolf, a Vienna-based social travel-guide. “We can’t monetize AR as a standalone application, but it definitely adds to the value we provide the user and the advertiser.”

Citing the Black Eyed Peas app, Jan Schlink of Metaio thought of how things could evolve. “We could have a hyperlink on that poster to download sound samples or hidden bonus tracks,” he said, “So you stand in front of a poster and can directly download the sound just by triggering it through the image.”

Source: DW World

Dead Space 2 Launches To Smashing Pumpkins

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While there have been numerous concerns about Dead Space 2 from the fans, whether it’s the fact that Issac now speaks, his new RIG uniform, or the presence of multiplayer, people appear to have gotten it out of their system and are really anticipating the game now. Check out the release trailer with a progressive rock soundtrack.

Half-Life 2, Done Up In Paper

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Valve has fan efforts that any other company in the world could and should be jealous of, and now they’ve gotten a rather unique tribute for Half-Life 2. Here’s an amazingly accurate rendition of the plot of Half-Life 2, with paper models in less than five minutes.

F.E.A.R. 3 And Divergent Co-op

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F.E.A.R. 3 is introducing co-op play for the first time in series history, and its putting quite a twist on things. Check out how the game is designed to play with these very different entities.

Touch Screen Ads Merits Debated

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Interactive touchscreen ads are becoming more common in public places, coming out to try and attract more attention to brands and products. Recent efforts include a Yahoo! campaign at 20 bus stops in San Francisco, wherein people participated in various puzzle and trivia games, and a Cadbury touch screen ad in London where players bashed virtual chocolate creme eggs.

However, there’s also a matter of cost with these sorts of campaigns. A digital screen visible in daylight can cost somewhere between $58,500 and $66,225 whereas a display panel for posters only costs between $2,330 and $3,115.

“We would like to see more innovative opportunities for creative messaging through technological enhancements or out-of-the-box features, said McDonald’s Singapore marketing director Agatha Yap. But at a more cost-friendly rate.”

Source: tmcnet.com