The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - "Infiltration" Review

Note: Full spoilers for this episode follow.

This week's installment of Earth's Mightiest Heroes tended to wear its influences on its sleeve, drawing material from a number of comics involved in Marvel's Secret Invasion storyline. As in the Black Panther story  "See Wakanda and Die," Panther was charged with repelling an invasion of his homeland. As in several issues of Mighty Avengers, Nick Fury struggled to uncover which of Earth's heroes had been replaced. And as in Secret Invasion itself, a crashed Skrull ship revealed an entire crew of what appeared to be escaped Avengers. It was a packed episode, but luckily the end result was less choppy than might be expected.

Ms. Marvel of all characters proved to be the star of the show this time. She served as the voice of moderation between the crashed "Avengers" and Black Panther's forces. Her ongoing struggle to reconcile her duties to S.W.O.R.D. with her status as an Avenger is serving the show well. And seeing Carol unleash her powers later in the episode is a treat. As much as the character has suffered a rocky history in the comics, Earth's Mightiest Heroes continues to do right by Ms. Marvel.

The battle for Wakanda was also enjoyable, albeit not quite at the scale I was hoping for. What should have been a siege of a massive and highly advanced city instead played out as a brawl between a handful of Skrull impostors and Wakandan footmen, with a few tanks and cannons thrown in for good measure. One area DC shows like Young Justice continue to dominate Marvel's efforts is in animation quality. It's hard not to wonder what this battle might have looked like with Young Justice-caliber animation. Still, the individual character match-ups were fun. The only thing cooler than one Black Panther kicking ass is two Panthers battling each other. There was also something strangely satisfying about seeing Wasp revert to full size in order to deck the Skrull Giant-Man. Call it payback for the infamous spousal abuse storyline in the comics.

Iron Man also returned to the spotlight briefly for an unexpected team-up with Doctor Doom. This episode expertly captured the uneasy relationship the two have always shared in the comics. Doom may have disdain for all humans, but even he has to begrudgingly respect Tony's scientific acumen. It's also nice to be reminded that this show isn't limited by the same character rights issues as the Avengers movies are. That fact was further emphasized with the glimpse of Nick Fury's Skrull candidate charts. These charts offered a who's who of Marvel cameos, including everyone from Wolverine to Magneto to Luke Cage. Aside from fan service, the Fury scenes worked nicely as a means of tying some loose threads together. Fury revealed the myriad ways in which Skrull agents like Captain America and Mockingbird have been manipulating recent events towards the Skrulls' end. Unfortunately, Fury was taken down before he and his remaining allies could go on the offensive. Hopefully we'll get a chance to see his abbreviated Secret Warriors squad in action before this storyline wraps up.

Much in the same way Secret Invasion itself did, I felt this episode missed some potential with the impostor Avengers. It would have been exciting to see at least one of the characters revealed as the real deal. But with the invasion plotline still unfolding over the next couple episodes, there's plenty of time yet for more Skrull-related shocks and surprises. I only hope these next chapters do a better job of capturing the full scale and scope of this conflict.

Jesse is a writer for IGN Comics and various other IGN channels. Follow Jesse on Twitter, or find him on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Two New Dota 2 Heroes Added

Announced officially on the Dota 2 website, today's game update added the classic heroes Disruptor and Undying to Valve's take on the action-RTS / MOBA genre. Disruptor is an Intelligence hero that focuses on blasting away at his opponents with electricity, while Undying is a Strength-based hero who uses plagues and the undead to unleash hell upon his foes.

The update also fixed numerous bugs for specific heroes, including quite a few changes to wisps. Also updated are the ways that bots work, with some specific bots like Crystal Maiden being  made "even more timid." To get a full breakdown, check out the latest update's notes.

To learn more about Dota 2, you should check out our Wiki, as well as our numerous character profile videos. Rest assured we'll be covering the heck out of Dota 2 leading up to its 2012 release.

Source : ign[dot]com

Company of Heroes 2: Creating an Authentic Experience

When it comes to tackling World War II, Relic Entertainment strives to do it respectfully. The studio’s Company of Heroes franchise is a testament to this, with previous titles in the real-time strategy franchise presenting the battles, heroes and horrors of the Greatest War to players in ways that felt more lifelike -- and, consequently, more unsettling -- than many had come to expect. Of course, as a company whose goal is to create video games, Relic must make its titles fun -- something that can easily take away from the authenticity of the experience.

How do they do it, then? How does a team that’s built a name making some of the most critically acclaimed and authentic strategy games take what they’ve learned from travelling around the world -- studying the weapons, mechanized monsters and battlefields where millions laid down their lives -- and apply it to the upcoming Company of Heroes 2? We interviewed Game Director Quinn Duffy to find out.

Now we present Duffy's insight, alongside some of Relic’s photographs, sound design clips and videos they’ve used to inspire, create and shape the direction of Company of Heroes 2’s Eastern Front.

Bread, Bullets and Battlefields

When you're making a game about the Eastern Front, it's safe to say one of the best ways to get an understanding of it is to saturate yourself in it. To gain valuable insight into the Russian people of the past and the present, Relic did just that in March of 2011, when the team leaders traveled to Russia and Germany. "We went to St. Petersburg, the former Leningrad, and went to a number of battle sties in and around the city," Duffy detailed, with regular stops to museums so they could, "see and feel and get reference images of all the equipment" for the game.

The rations people live off of. Click the image to see more photos from Relic's travels.

It didn't even take all that much effort to find what they needed in Russia since, as Duffy put it, "[the Russians] just went gangbusters on celebrating the Great Patriotic War." The Relic crew found ample material in an array of museums that cataloged everything from specific types of weapons to what Duffy refers to as "dark stories." In one instance Duffy and the Relic team got to see the food ration given to the people under siege at St. Petersburg, which he described as being "smaller than your computer mouse...125 grams of s***ty bread a day for non workers. A million people...a vast number of people starved."

“

They went gangbusters celebrating the Great Patriotic War.

That understanding of the darker side of the Eastern Front history was something Duffy felt the team really benefited from. "To be in Russia and then to go to Berlin again...It brings it to life," he said. Essentially, visiting the places where people died and became heroes brought it all home for the team, "We say, 'oh, 70 years ago,' but when you stick your finger in a bullet hole it doesn't feel that long ago. It brings it to life in a really dramatic way. That was hugely important trip for the leads team and for reinforcing the direction of the game."

The Human Element

The Company of Heroes franchise has always had much more believable infantry than most strategy titles, with soldiers who react to being shot at, scream when they're harmed and generally act like you might imagine soldiers did those 70 years ago. Like the previous games, Duffy said the goal in Company of Heroes 2 is to get across "real soldiers, real battlefields, real war. The team therefore added a lot of animations and contextual speech to "create this sense that these guys are really aware of their environment." Watching real combat footage, the team at Relic has seen the way panic affects soldiers, the way that people can become a bit confused, and they try to integrate that into their characters. Though Duffy does acknowledge that their characters have "a bit of that Hollywood" layered in since in real combat "you rarely see the enemy, guys aren't moving around a ton," and, "you don't have the sort of second-to-second type of reactions that you want in a game."

The foundation for more realistic characters may have been in place from their previous games, but Relic really wanted to take the knowledge gained from traveling and reading memoirs from people involved in the war and instill, as Duffy says, the "fatalism" and "unbelievable bravery" of the Russian people. Duffy said this will come across in "their speech, their acknowledgements, their griping, their bitching," all of which the team wrote to set the tone for a people pushed to the brink. Duffy wants to get past the Russia we know from movies like Enemy at the Gates, so that "you start to see the reach character, that these guys were soldiers like any other soldier," who "faced the most unbelievable hardships."

This philosophy and understanding of the Russian people has also played into the new mechanics for the Red Army. Duffy really, really didn't want "automagical b**lshit kinds of things going on" with how they functioned. The last Company of Heroes games gave you abilities to break suppression, for instance, where troops pinned down by machine gun fire could overcome their fear by pressing a button. This time around Duffy wants to avoid "the magical button," instead focusing on providing context for why soldiers are less likely to be suppressed. An example given was Soviet penal battalions, who had to fight until they either died or succeeded -- regardless of the situation. Contextually it would make sense why they're more likely to go through gun fire brazenly, as opposed to standard Russian infantry.

Source : ign[dot]com

Heroes of Ruin Review

Heroes of Ruin is a 3DS success that’s almost certainly destined to become a failure. In some ways that echoes the inconsistencies that lie at the heart of the game: it’s graphically weak, yet technically excellent, while its generic mechanics slot into a boldly designed, connected framework. The latter point is both its biggest triumph and its Achilles heel: this is an online-focused game for an audience that I’m not sure is big enough to sustain it.

Certainly the lack of enthusiasm that greeted its arrival would suggest as much, though the collective efforts of Square Enix and Nintendo to generate interest have been feeble. An eShop demo and a brief appearance during Nintendo Direct broadcasts does not equate to an effective promotional campaign. This is a game that deserves a bigger push than it has received so far.

Then again, outwardly it’s not the easiest sell. To all intents and purposes, this is a straightforward dungeon crawler that looks pretty ugly in screens and 2D video. Developer n-Space clearly hasn’t had the biggest of budgets to work with, and so we’re treated to awkward animations, a lack of detail in both characters and environments, and a frame-rate that’s alarmingly erratic in places. Turn the 3D slider down and things improve slightly, but you’ll be reluctant to do so because the image depth is the most striking of its visual qualities. It lends a sense of tangible solidity to the otherwise unremarkable environments, even if it has the unwanted side-effect of highlighting a few PSone-era textures in the foreground.

“ Offer a man trinkets of a slightly higher numerical value than the ones he possesses and he will snatch them up greedily.

The trade-off for the ugliness is that, frame-rate issues aside, the netcode holds up pretty well in a four-player game. There are occasional glitches and loading times are excessive, but on the whole the online game is surprisingly robust for a Nintendo console.  Indeed, the game would rather you tackle its dungeons with friends or strangers than alone: the default mode is multiplayer, and n-Space eagerly ushers you towards options that allow you to link your account to the Heroes of Ruin website to track and compare stats, and to set up StreetPass for trading purposes. There’s even voice chat, though the sound quality is akin to someone speaking through a sock into a microphone while sitting in a particularly echoey bathroom. Still, it’s more than we’ve seen from any other developer on 3DS so far, including Nintendo.

If the online focus is admirably brave, the game itself is a little more risk-averse. You begin your adventure with a choice of four player classes. The leonine Vindicator is a sword-wielding warrior with healing abilities, and the Gunslinger is your standard ranged fighter. The elven Alchitect is a powerful mage from afar and an average melee combatant in close quarters, and finally you have the brutish Savage, who compensates for his limitations with the ferocity of his attacks. A relatively short campaign – most players will finish somewhere between six and eight hours – and four save slots betrays the developer’s intentions: they want you to go through the story once with each character type. It’s a testament to n-Space that you might well be happy to do so.

That may come as a surprise given the disappointingly uninspired setup. Each mission begins at a hub city so generic it’s actually called Nexus. Quests are accepted here, and there are plenty of merchants to trade with. Otherwise it’s a lifeless setting populated by static characters, your interactions with them purely text based, aside from the variations on “hello” and “goodbye” that bookend every conversation. From here you’ll travel to various areas to fulfil requests, which tend to comprise rescue missions, boss fights and the occasional item hunt. The few puzzles are embarrassingly simple, requiring you to trigger switches in the correct order, or move statues until they form identical poses. Upon completing a dungeon you return to Nexus and repeat the process.

What keeps things interesting is the steady stream of loot you’ll gather from defeated enemies and treasure chests. It’s one of gaming’s oldest and most effective hooks: offer a man trinkets of a slightly higher numerical value than the ones he possesses and he will snatch them up greedily. Though the overhead perspective makes it difficult to see the visual changes that come with equipping a new pair of pauldrons or boots, you’ll find it difficult to resist the allure of newer, shinier gear. In four player mode, you’ll all be racing for the same prizes, adding to the thrilling sense of chaos wrought by the basic but satisfying combat.

It’s not quite as nourishing as it could be, however. There’s never any real need for team tactics given the regularity with which the game showers you with new items and healing potions. The desire to provide players with immediate gratification and to keep teams alive results in a difficulty curve that’s far too gentle. Even the end-of-dungeon bosses can fall quickly to a squad doing little more than collectively jabbing the standard attack button over and over.

Other minor flaws gradually begin to niggle. The ability to instantly sell unwanted items is extremely useful for the solo gamer, though in online sessions it allows avaricious dungeoneers to instantly profit from loot that may have benefitted their fellow players. Elsewhere, you’re required to shift from circle pad to d-pad or touch controls to negotiate menus, a pointless and unnecessary change. These are very minor usability issues, but they betray a general lack of polish untypical of a Square Enix production.



Source : ign[dot]com

Is The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Cancelled?

With The Avengers movie destroying box office records left and right, it would seem odd that the current Avengers animated TV series, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, could be cancelled. But there’s increasing speculation that might be the case.

In recent interviews, Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb has been non-committal on the status of EMH, only saying they had ongoing plans for the Avengers in animation, but not whether that particular series would continue. While Earth’s Mightiest Heroes debuted after Disney bought Marvel, it’s worth noting that the show was already in the works before that deal. The speculation is that Marvel may want to end Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in order to begin a new Avengers animated series fully developed and produced by them and also in continuity with the new Marvel animated series universe established by Ultimate Spider-Man.

When I spoke to Adrian Pasdar last month (who voices Iron Man on Ultimate Spider-Man), he noted he had also voiced Iron Man on the upcoming Hulk and the Agents of Smash animated series – likely a sign those two shows (both fully produced by Marvel) will be considered part of the same universe. A universe Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is not a part of...

While acknowledging Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ fandom, Loeb’s comments to Collider in March, on the topic of serialization in the animated series, also could point to the current Avengers show not being in line with Marvel’s future plans. Said Loeb, “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes has a tremendous following. One of the things that’s very unique about that show is that it was at a time prior to my coming in. It is a very serialized show, and there are a lot of characters. What we wanted to do with Spider-Man, and going forward, was to tell stories that are individualized. Obviously, we want everybody to watch the show every week, but we also know that people’s time is often taken. So, DVR the show, but if you’re not going to do that, the idea is that you will be able to catch up. I don’t ever want anybody to sit down on Sunday mornings at 11 o’clock and suddenly feel like, “Well, I lost the last three episodes, so I don’t really know what’s going on.”” Loeb has previously indicated that the final twelve episodes of Season 2 of Earth's Mightiest Heroes feature more standalone storylines.

There are still eighteen episodes left to air for Season 2 of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. When I asked Marvel for information on the show potentially ending after that, I was told the company doesn’t officially comment on plans for future seasons of their Marvel Universe programs.

Loeb usually takes part in a Marvel television panel at San Diego Comic-Con. Assuming that is the case again this summer, no doubt the future of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will be a question many are curious to ask.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/22/is-the-avengers-earths-mightiest-heroes-cancelled

LEGO Lord Of The Rings Game Outed By Toy Sets, Online Retailer Ads By Google » Blog Tags Today's Most Popular Videos »

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes isn't even here yet, but we've already got what appears to be confirmation of the next franchise-pegged LEGO title from TT Games: LEGO The Lord of the Rings. The toy company has been sending out early looks at summer 2012's physical LEGO LotR sets, and the packaging includes logos for both Warner Bros. and TT Games, MCV reports.

There's additional evidence as well, in the form of a now-removed product listing -- here's the cached version -- on the UK retailer ShopTo's website for an Xbox 360 release of LEGO The Lord of the Rings (via Eurogamer). The page points to a late October 2012 release. That's hardly confirmation, but a release in that timeframe would make sense, what with Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unpexpected Journey hitting theaters on December 14.

We can't take any of this as fact, of course, but the evidence is nonetheless pretty compelling and hard to ignore. Don't forget: the last time new of a LEGO game leaked early, it was for LEGO Batman 2 and that leak came from early looks at physical playsets. Just saying.


Source : http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723653/lego-lord-of-the-rings-game-outed-by-toy-sets-online-retailer/

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - "Michael Korvac" Review

Note: Yep, we've decided to begin weekly reviews for The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! For some reason we can't put our finger on, the timing just felt appropriate... Moderate episode spoilers follow.

With the Avengers movie shifting Marvel Studios' films into a more cosmically-oriented direction, it's only fitting that Season 2 of Earth's Mightiest Heroes continues to do the same for the show. The series continued its gradual build-up towards the big Kree/Skrull War conflict, but in the process introduced both a legendary Avengers foe and a very unusual team of "Space Avengers" called the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The episode handled Michael Korvac very well considering the limited, 21-minute time span. The character was always meant to be a cautionary tale of what happens when one ordinary man is given god-like power, and Korvac's gradual breakdown over the course of the episode captured that descent into madness. As in the original story, his desperate attachment to his girlfriend, Carina, providing just the right touch of humanity. The fact that so much of "The Korvac Saga" was reduced or eliminated for this episode was probably for the best.

But in the end, it was really the Guardians of the Galaxy who stole the show. Considering that the episode was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (who created the version of the Guardians the episode utilized), that's only to be expected. Hawkeye had a great line, "There's a tree and a raccoon scowling at us, man. Are we firing?" That pretty much kicked off hostilities between the two groups as they embarked on the obligatory "let's fight each other for a while until we unite to battle a common foe," shtick.

It might not have been the most clever or surprising plot, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. Whether it was
Iron Man vs. Quasar, Hulk vs. Groot, or Black Panther vs. Adam Warlock, the battles were consistently engaging and visually memorable for a show that doesn't always boast the strongest animation quality. The vocal work was also particularly noteworthy thanks to all the guest stars. There was the inimitable Kevin Conroy as Star-Lord, of course. Kirk Thornton's Warlock and Troy Baker's Korvac were also particularly well done. Although, as a long-time fan of Rocket Raccoon, I can't say I ever pictured the character with a heavy British accent.

This episode may not have had quite the epic scale and sense of doom the original Korvac Saga did in the comics, but it ended on a suitably tragic note that leaves the door open for the villain's return. On a more somber note, the episode was dedicated to the memory of its director, the late Boyd Kirkland. At least Kirkland was able to go out in style with one of the better episodes the series has seen to date.


Source : http://tv.ign.com/articles/122/1224443p1.html

Company of Heroes 2 Officially Announced

Following last week's leak, THQ has officially announced Company of Heroes 2. In development at Relic, the real-time strategy sequel will be focus on fighting on the Eastern Front during World War II, where you'll play as the Russian army and push back German forces.

Scheduled to launch in early 2013, it sounds as though Company of Heroes 2 will include some of the first game's features including destructible environments and commander abilities, and, judging by the screenshot, will look a lot prettier thanks to Relic's proprietary Essence 3.0 Engine.

THQ also revealed plans for downloadable content following launch, though did not specify how many pieces of downloadable content would be released, when, or how much content would be included with each release.

The original Company of Heroes was released back in 2006 and was awarded a 9.4 out of 10 on IGN. A free-to-play version of Company of Heroes was later created, though was shut down in 2011.


Source : http://pc.ign.com/articles/122/1224442p1.html

Company Of Heroes 2 Fights Nazis On The Russian Front In Early 2013 Ads By Google » Blog Tags Today's Most Popular Videos »

We already know that an upcoming issue of PC Gamer (UK edition) will cover the first details of Relic Entertainment's Company of Heroes 2, but now THQ confirms it in an official press release that outs the game for an early 2013 launch. The sequel will stick to its predecessor's World War II setting, though the action will now be moving out of Western Europe and over to the front lines in Russia.

The original Company of Heroes remains one of the strongest and most immediately accessible real-time strategy games around. Its strong focus on small unit tactics and control point-based map conquests offered lots of good times. The sequel's focus on the Eastern Front will leverage the power of the new Essence 3.0 Engine and introduce new features like Dynamic Battle Tactics and Commander Abilities. Look for more info on Company of Heroes 2 soon.


Source : http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723510/company-of-heroes-2-fights-nazis-on-the-russian-front-in-early-2013/