Killzone 2 Demo Offer from Gamestop

Courtesy of Joystiq:

Want to play the Killzone 2 demo? Gamestop is offering a pass to both in-store and online customers who pre-order the game. Those who drop the $5 in store will receive a card that gives access to the demo, while those reserving via the website are promised an email with the code sometime on or after February 3. No details on what the demo will feature. We’ve poked our Sony contacts to see if there will be other ways to try out the game before its February 27 launch.

Now that the release of the PS3’s long-awaited killer app. is approaching, you can’t help but wonder if it will live up to the hype and deliver the goods, or flop.

And if any of you fine folks happen to give the demo a shot, please drop us some info regarding the available control options.

Season’s Greetings from Alt-Controls.com

Festive colors, no? Anyway, we hope that you are all enjoying the holiday season and spending far too much time playing your new games.

It’s been a little slow around here lately - there hasn’t been anything out that needed immediate coverage and we’re all pretty up to date about the control options for the games of significance. Things should be picking up soon though as there are a number of cool games on the way in 2009.

Speaking of games, what did you guys and gals manage to snare this year? I was happy to receive Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: World at War. I’ve already smashed through World at War and finished it last night. It was a pretty decent game in my opinion and I had quite a bit of fun with it. Albeit short, I thought that the campaign was a riot.

The levels taking place in the Pacific provided an interesting twist to the series, and being able to knife the banzai troops in the neck was a nice touch. Though I have to admit that I enjoyed the Russian Campaign a little more. I thought these levels were better, and found them to be more appealing visually as well. Although the Russian missions were essentially familiar territory for the series and didn’t really offer anything new or unexpected, in my opinion they provided some classic COD action that was executed very well.

As for Gears 2, I’ll be trying that out later today after spending about half an hour with the original for a quick tune up and to get back in the Gears frame of mind. *Update - Gears 2 is awesome.

And how about the rest of you, what games are you occupying yourselves with during this holiday season?

Hammer Time Courtesy of Red Faction: Guerrilla

By now most of you are probably aware that a new Red Faction game is on the way from Volition and THQ, set for a release in 2009 on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.

Red Faction was a popular last-gen FPS series, but this time around they have decided to shift the perspective to a third person view. Red Faction: Guerrilla will feature variety of weapons, vehicles, destructible environments and numerous multiplayer options.

Pretty standard fare for the most part, but speaking of multiplayer: Read the rest…

RUMOR: DEATH OF THE FATHER OF LEGACY? *updated

*It’s official now, the developer has shutdown permanently -via Kotaku

As of late, it has become clear that not even the mighty gaming industry is immune to the powers of economic downturn. Reports around the web state that the offices for Nottingham based Free Radical were unexpectedly locked down today. Apparently the staff was notfied when they arrived for work. You may recall that this studio is comprised of staff from Rare’s Goldeneye and is also responsible for the developemnt of the much loved Time Splitters, and the mostly “meh’d” Haze. One can only hope this isn’t true, but many in the industry are taking such actions these days. Even big players like EA and SONY have cut jobs as of late.

Source
Source

New Riddick Game in the Works

A follow up game to the smash last-gen hit, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, is currently in development.

The new Riddick game, Assault on Dark Athena, is supposedly going to offer a spruced-up version of the original game’s campaign, plus a new expansion.

This should definitely be an appealing title for fans of the first. I’m intrigued as well, despite having never played Escape from Butcher Bay. Nor have I seen the Riddick film. So why would I be anticipating this game then? No, not because I’m a fan of Vin Diesel… but because I’m a fan of The Darkness by Starbreeze. This was a fantastic game by a very skilled, yet underrated development company, and it also offered full support for alt-controls. I can’t speak for the first Riddick game, but since The Darkness sported the four standard stick layouts, hopefully Dark Athena will be a safe bet.

Be on the lookout for this one to drop in Spring 2009 on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

-via Kotaku

MIA Games

Now that the year is coming to a close and the onslaught of new releases has slowed down, we want to ensure that the control list pages are current. This was a pretty busy season for new shooters and I tend to think that as a community, we all did a great job of making sure that the control information for new games was readily available for everyone in relatively short order.

However, with so many new games coming out that needed covering, there are a few examples of titles that inadvertently slipped through the cracks. So at this point, we’d like to open the floor to our contributors and readers to help us play a little game of catch up.

The games that still need to be added to our lists include Silent Hill: Homecoming, Secret Service and NPPL Championship Paintball 2009 (or Call of Duty: Paintball as we like to call it since it’s an Activision title).

In our defense for not covering these games yet, for the most part they are budget or low-profile titles that are sometimes difficult to get a hold of. We thought it was better to focus our efforts on the games that you’ve all been dying to get your hands on, such as Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, and more recently, the demo for RE5 that was only available in Japan. And I’ll be willing to bet that this is probably the first that you’ve heard of these games, with the exception of the new Silent Hill.

So if any of you folks have some information on these games or would like to chip in by checking one out, please feel free, and either post a comment or email us with the details so we can ensure that our lists are current. We would appreciate the hand.

Mirror’s Edge Time Trial DLC in January

Taking the size of the maps shown in this video I must admit that it all looks very impressive and it would seem that players can look forward to spending obscene amounts of time on this content. Below is the good info from the press release.

“Players will be challenged to achieve the fastest times possible on nine races across seven all-new and totally redesigned Time Trial maps. No guns, no cops, and no city: this is true aesthetics, agility and flow that will challenge any runner. This special DLC pack will be available for $10 USD or 800 Microsoft points. As an added bonus, all PLAYSTATION 3 Mirror’s Edge fans will be able to download an additional map for free.”

Official Press Release

Resident Evil 5 Demo is up on XBL *UPDATED

*UPDATE: We have added screen shots and impressions of the control options at the end of this article.

In Japan only. Sorry to burst your collective bubbles folks but look on the bright side, someone isn’t reading this post and is currently rushing to their XBOX to be disappointed, and it’s not you.

This is a request to any member that has a Gold account for XBL-Japan. We would really love hear from you about this title so please drop me an E-mail if you can help.
Read the rest…

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Announced!

The fact that Activision has announced that a new Call of Duty title is in the works should not be a major surprise, though the theme is, somewhat. Many gamers wondered what the next game would offer as far as setting was concerned. Some pondered if future warfare was next on the horizon, and others wondered if the series would return to the modern format of COD4 (pictured left).

As this post’s title indicates, the decision has been made, and the series will be returning to the modern setting of the fourth installment that was so well received by fans of the franchise.

Call of Duty 6 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be released in the Fall of 2009 on multiple platforms. Now, I recall someone predicting this earlier on…? It’s fun being right. And I’ll guess that Call of Duty 7 = World at War 2. The following title after that might tackle a futuristic setting. Just a prediction of course, we’ll have to wait and see.

Via ProductReviews.net

Shooter Showdown: Gears 2 vs Resistance 2

Now that the influx of new releases is beginning to slow down, we’re all left with the burning question as to which games we’re going to spend our hard earned coin on.

The following video courtesy of IGN tackles that question and compares Gears of War 2 with Resistance 2 in order to determine which one is more deserving of your attention, and/or money:

Read the rest…