Created in the same stylized cel-shaded 3D animation with all the inkbrush strokes and splatters as in all the trailers, this excellent piece of eye candy depicts both Akuma and Gouken in a battle so fierce and violent that the earth literally breaks up around them, sending them into a fiery abyss. And even then they continue, trading world-quaking blows as if nothing had happened. Gouken seems to get the upper hand, but then Akuma reveals just how much of a magnificent bastard he is and does that move we all know and love.

Forget the Legend of Chun Li. If the studio could have just gone with CGI, maybe got some assistance from Capcom, then we’d have an awesome movie on our hands. It may not be more ‘Hollywood’, but at least you’d be doing the series the justice it deserves.

Here we have the newest trailer for “Arkham Asylum” the latest Batman game. I’m a comic book fan myself, so I am very much looking forward to this game. The tone seems to be right for a nice grimdark Batman game, it includes most of his fantastic rouges gallery and it is based off of the comics.

I’m sure that it will be riding somewhat on the success of The Dark Knight but I am so very happy that it isn’t a movie adaption, if not for the fact that most movie adaptions are badly rushed and usually very flawed, but also because we haven’t had a Batman game in quite a while and I really don’t want them to get it wrong.

Judging from the above video, it proves that they very much have the setting right. The game being set in the titular Arkham Asylum means that they will be playing, at least partly, on the physchological side of Batman, which hasn’t yet happened in games. In the end, the quality of this game relies heavily on the gameplay, whether it is an action game, a bit survival horror or any of many possibilities, I am sure that, if nothing else, it will be a good Batman game, something that we are in dire shortage of.

MadWorld Uncensored Trailer. Here’s what you really need to know: it’s super violent, it’s got the black-and-white cel-shaded noir thing going on about it, and it looks like it plays like God Hand. Yes, with the third-person perspective and everything. And yes, you do get to punch people with a juiced-up arm – but instead of having one with the power of a god,  you’ll be throwing down with a robotic arm that has a chainsaw attachment. And with it, you’ll be cutting up everything from random thugs to flipped-out ninjas.

Context-sensitive kills, God Hand-esque combat, and the freedom to use your chainsaw on anyone. Platinum Games, you’re doing something right.

You can view the awesome trailer here.

Metal Gear Solid 4’s gone and stole our hearts, LittleBigPlanet captured our imagination (despite Media Molecule being a total ASS with content moderation), and Killzone 2 is one of the many good-looking FPS games we’re still going to play despite how saturated the genre is already. What else can we look forward to on the Sony PlayStation 3 besides the next Final Fantasy?

Enter Ready at Dawn’s God of War 3, the next-gen sequel to the series that lets gamers play as the angriest man on earth. With swords chained to his arms. We see him in action via this trailer fresh from the Spike VGAs.

Looking at the trailer,  Kratos hasn’t lost his touch, still killing mythological beasties in his own style that’s just as brutal as it is fucking awesome. Whether you’re a towering centaur, a hulking cyclops or even one of those weird flying things, Kratos is going to rip you a new one and there’s not much else you can do about it.

While the trailer does show some pretty slick graphics, and Kratos looks like his own scowling self, there’s a bit of…well, typical-ness about the trailer. Sure, everything looks good, but the graphics aren’t something we haven’t seen before. Maybe it’s just the fact that the trailer takes place in the night stage, or something – but for some reason it doesn’t look like the polygon-crunching, boundary-pushing epic we’ve been hoping for. Hopefully this is just a peek at an unpolished first build, and we’ll be able to see the game in a better light soon.

You can view the trailer here.

Final Fantasy XIII Versus

The grahics are breathtaking: It’s like you’re watching a live-action movie. The shadows, the reflections, it’s amazing. But really, Square-Enix, can’t you tell us something about the actual game?

This trailer is similar to your average action-movie trailer. There’s a lot of flashing pictures, a hint at romance, the main character looking cool, and a lot of spectacular special effects. But you still don’t know anything about the movie. You have no idea whether it’s good or not. You have a slight idea what the plot is about, but nothing more than that. And you have no idea whether the movie is good or not.

What did we learn from this extended trailer? Well, the cutscenes look amazing. And we have four guys very much in touch with their feminine side. And a car. Oh, and some random girl shows up.

But we still don’t know anything about the actual gameplay. And that is what a game is about, not how pretty the graphics are. The fighting scene is obviously not how the actual gameplay works,  so we’re still absolutely clueless.

Will there be party members? Will there be spells, or mechanics similar to them, like in the regular Final Fantasy series? Will the gameplay be button mashing?

Please, Square Enix. Don’t just throw some pretty graphics at us. Tell us about the actual game. The thing that will keep most players busy, not the pretty graphics.

You can download the trailer here

I’m calling it – 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand will actually be a good game, and will be everyone’s biggest guilty pleasure ever since THQ and Yukes came out with the Smackdown! games for the PlayStation One. Despite the ridiculous premise and having nothing to build on except the rather lackluster first game on the PlayStation 2 (i.e 50 Cent: Bulletproof), this upcoming third person shooter for the PS3 and Xbox 360 does look like it’s going to turn quite a few heads. We arrive at this optimistic conclusion via the recently-released trailer of the game, titled Skull Retriever.

Watching the trailer, it’s really clear that a lot of work has been done to make it look the way it was. The in-game graphics look sharp, the cutscenes look decently directed and the gameplay looks nothing less than solid, despite resembling your typical TPS fare. There’s also a healthy bit of close-combat action in the trailer, with clips of Fiddy whaling on some unfortunate soul – and it just adds to how, well, professional everything seems. This isn’t just some whimsical endeavor by some rap artist with too much cash on his hands, this does look like a game you can sit down with and play seriously. Here’s hoping that the actual gameplay is as polished.

You can view the trailer here.

I watched the Ghostbusters: The VideoGame Atari Live trailer.

There are no words.

No, that’s not Generic FPS #3219413980473, that’s Frank in The Punisher: No Mercy killing someone. Generically.

There is little one can do to screw up the making of a game about Marvel’s The Punisher: you give Frank Castle a huge assortment of guns and things to kill people with, you give him a LOT of people to use aforementioned weapons on, and give it lots of over-the-top, unrelenting violence that the Punisher comic series has been known for. Volition Inc, the people who made The Punisher for the PlayStation 2 back in 2005 did this perfectly – with Frank not only being able to shoot up the bad guys as much as he likes, but also deal with them in creative ways, one of which involves shoving someone, feet-first, into a woodchipper. Sure they obscured these torture/interrogation sequences with black-and-white film grain effects, but it didn’t change the fact that it was DAMN AWESOME.

And now we see where Frank is headed in this side of the seventh gaming generation. Produced by Zen Studios, the guys behind hardcore classics such as Pinball FX for the Xbox 360, Flipper Critters for the Nintendo DS and Rocky and Bullwinkle for the Xbox 360, The Punisher: No Mercy is a no-frills first person shooter with the titular character doing what he does best: shoot bad guys to death.

As you can see from the video, the first-person shooter gameplay does look solid. Zen Studios seem to have a good handle on what constitutes an okay FPS – serviceable guns and effects, varied environments, visible damage and death animations for those who you use the weapons with, etc. Although, for the record, the violence does look a bit half-hearted, and the weapons themselves doesn’t seem to be packing as much punch as we’d like.

But the main problem here is that – well, consider this the opinion of yours truly – the first-person perspective gets rid of the fact that you’re the Punisher, and instead relegates the brooding hardass into someone you’d only be seeing in cutscenes. Mind, I’m all for immersion, making you feel like you’re the character you’re playing as and all, but I’m sure people would want to see the Punisher doing stuff that no other superhero would even DARE to do, rather than just re-play the same SHOOTAN GAEM scenario they could get from other games. It’s the Punisher’s main draw – he’s an entity of his own, uncompromising and hard-set on his path to revenge – and we WANT to see him fuck someone’s shit up. We don’t want him relegated to a gun and a pair of hands floating in our TV screens. We don’t need to imagine or be fooled that we’re the Punisher, because he’s just that hardcore. Zen Studios, please please PLEASE take a page out of the book that Volition wrote. You’re making a Punisher game, not a generic FPS game. We want the sharks, the woodchippers, the curb-stomps. We want Frank. The game being a PlayStation Network downloadable is no excuse.

You can view the trailer here.