Eurogamer TV Monthly Highlights
Small arms fire, ambient occlusion lighting, Emily Booth, shame.
There were several reasons for excitement in the PS3 camp during March, not least of which was the first trailer for MotorStorm 2. Revealing the game's tropical island location, and hinting at a physics system that will allow racers to bring scenery crashing down on rivals, it looks really quite special. Well, the renders do. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is a more immediate PS3 racing prospect, and we offered you the sexy new TV spot should such things rev your engine, and we also have footage from the actual review copy.
360 owners got a little quiver of excitement in their undercrackers as well, thanks to Epic Games' presentation at GDC. Revealing changes to the Unreal Engine 3, CEO Tim Sweeney showed off what Gears of War might look like had it been released in 2008. In amongst the tech-babble about ambient occlusion lighting and soft body physics were many glimpses that must surely represent a pretty good insight into where they're headed with Gears of War 2. Most exciting among these is a look at the new crowd technology, which enables them to unleash hundreds of Locust Hordes rather than five or six.
Winning the prize for most unintentionally hilarious trailer of the month is Guitar Hero On Tour, the palm-sized DS version of the plastic fret-strumming smash. Apparently endorsing the notion that the game is aimed at repulsive stage-school show-offs, and will make you look really really cool, the trailer certainly suggests a game that you'll want to see in action at least once, if only to point and laugh. Which is a victory of sorts.
On the subject of brightly coloured plastic, this month also saw the debut of trailers for two games guaranteed to brick your console. Because it's LEGO, you see. LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman to be precise, and both look set to continue the high standard of silly humour and family-focused puzzling set by LEGO Star Wars. We can't help thinking that Batman's larger cast of characters gives it a better chance of fitting the formula, but we're giddily excited about both all the same.
Wait. What's that sound? That angry rustling? Oh dear, it's some grumpy PC gamers, shambling out of their woodland den, all cross that there's been nothing for their console-phobic tastes. Sheesh. I suppose you forgot that we brought you a twenty-two minute demonstration of StarCraft II's Protoss and twelve minutes showing off the Terrans at work, which starts with a nice nostalgic crackly bit like an old LP for some reason. You've never had it so good.
And just as John Craven used to sign off with a funny story about a squirrel that could do maths, here's our favourite from the more obscure videos of the last month. De Blob is yet another PC homebrew game, following the likes of N and Audiosurf, making the leap to commercial consoles. In this case, it's the Wii that will host this gelatinous tale in which the wobbly blob of the title picks up and mixes colours before splatting all around a monochrome town, colouring everything in. The gameplay looks considerably refined from the original freeware student experiment, so here's hoping that the move to motion-sensing doesn't lose the game's blubbery charm.
So, that was March, Eurogamer TV style. This hand-picked selection is but a fraction of the audio-visual delights that await you each and every day in our dedicated gaming video channel. Sexy popular people are tuning in right now. Shouldn't you join them?