The contest is over and comments are closed. Thanks to everyone for participating and check back tomorrow to find out the results!

EpicBattleAxe has felt a disturbance in the Force – we sense that someone out there REALLY REALLY REALLY wants a copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic Collector’s Edition....]]>

The contest is over and comments are closed. Thanks to everyone for participating and check back tomorrow to find out the results!

EpicBattleAxe has felt a disturbance in the Force – we sense that someone out there REALLY REALLY REALLY wants a copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic Collector’s Edition. Although our Dark Side wants to keep the copy, our Light Side wants to share it with one of you. So, both ‘sides’ have come to a compromise in order to give YOU a shot at winning a brand-spanking new, unopened, unmolested SWTOR: Collector’s Edition!

Here’s how to enter:

- You must register an account (if you don’t have one already) at EpicBattleAxe.com then log-in and enter a comment to this post. You may enter multiple comments (i.e. if you have a question) but only one will count towards you winning the contest.

- And, here is the Dark Side: We have to have 500 comments by Midnight (Christmas Day – December 25th) to give this away. Seriously. So tell your friends (but not TOO many of your friends), re-Tweet, and spread the word on Facebook. Remember, you’ve got to help us get to 500 comments for anyone to have a shot at winning.

- One winner will be randomly selected at midnight EST, Sunday night, Dec 25th.

Here’s the official rules:

- Must to be at least at least 18 or older, or enter and lie and say your parents entered it. They’ll be happy they don’t have to spend 170 bucks on the game anyway, so it’s all good.

- Must be in the U.S. or Canada Sorry – the logistics for shipping overseas isn’t insurmountable, however, it’s expensive – and this thing is heavy. * Updated to include Canada, which is, in fact, not overseas – who knew?

- Viking Brent and EBAAXEMAN will put all of the usernames in a Darth Vader Helmet on December 26th. We will video (Or Live Stream, haven’t decided yet) the pull of the winner.

- The winner will be notified on EpicBattleAxe.com, as well as sent an email (you know, the one you registered with on the site).

Looking forward to seeing your comments, and good luck! May the Force Be With You – and may your hatred make you stronger……..

Merry Forcemas, The EBA Crew!

After the presentation from Jake Neri, we filed out of the small presentation room and began our highly anticipated wait for the hands-on.  While in line, we met up with Sean Dahlberg, Community Manager for BioWare and Alyson Bridge, Community...]]>
Cont’d from Brent’s Behind Closed Doors With The Old Republic

After the presentation from Jake Neri, we filed out of the small presentation room and began our highly anticipated wait for the hands-on.  While in line, we met up with Sean Dahlberg, Community Manager for BioWare and Alyson Bridge, Community Coordinator.  Some of you who watched the reality gamer show “Ultimate Gamer” may recognize Alyson.  She was a contestant (but unfortunately didn’t make it very far) who obviously has landed on her feet coordinating a massive community – a community absorbing every detail of this highly anticipated game.  While we were chatting, I couldn’t help peaking around the corner every few seconds to awe at the Old Republic “Game Room” .

There were 12 workstations set up – but only 6 playable classes: Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Imperial Agent,Trooper, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter. Brent and I were able to play side by side – he playing the Sith Warrior, and myself playing the Sith Inquisitor. I began the demo standing amongst a group of Sith (..there was a Mon Cal!) where I picked up my first mission, and experienced the first instance of the story driven content.  Not going into details, he basically said I was a scrub until I proved myself and that I would probably die on the mission. Go figure.  I then followed the map indicator (in the upper right of the screen) that told me the direction to go for the mission.  Brent was in another area of the temple with his Sith Warrior, but we soon met up outside, facing the valley of the Dark Lords. that’s when I slash waved – and my character performed a waving emote

This is when I really started to get excited – I looked around to get a scale of things, and was amazed at how detailed – and how LARGE the area was.  Then I noticed I couldn’t see Brent’s character when we grouped.  Tim Timmerman, Assistant Producer for the game, walked up to assist.  A few debug actions later and I could see Brent’s Sith Warrior.  From there, we ventured across the valley and entered one of the temples. Once we entered, there was an NPC at the bottom of the ramp that I talked to, who basically said that his troops had been trying to get rid of a slug menace and everyone was dying.  The conversation was very in depth, but my favorite part about it was the Inquisitor’s response to the worried commander. Commander: “But, my lord – my men are dying! Please, help us!”  Me: “Dying is only the final failure of the weak”  Damn straight.

Once we proceeded on the mission, I noticed that the slugs were not aggressive, so they didn’t attack us immediately.  In typical MMO fashion, I targeted a slug and began to attack.  Brent was using his Warrior tanking abilities while I was kiting with lightning and attacking occasionally with my ‘lone’ lightsaber attack.  the movements were very smooth, and I didn’t notice any choppiness in the combat animations. A couple of times we were fighting multiple enemies, and so I used another force ‘suspension’ type ability to crowd control one of the slugs.

Aside from taking the game in for the first time, one of my primary missions was to get an MMO feel for the game, or at least what I’m used to.  There were other demo players around killing enemies for missions – after you killed an enemy, it dropped loot. At one point, I looted a GREEN pair of gloves.  There was a character and inventory screen that I could find, along with a status window that appeared to gauge your affinity toward light side and dark side (much like the KOTOR games).  I could go anywhere I wanted, so as far as exploring – there was no linear aspect on my direct gameplay, only that which was obtained from the missions.  Even then, I wouldn’t call the missions “linear” because there are so many options available to you.

Unfortunately, we were asked to wrap up our demo.  We spent so much time exploring, looking around and tinkering with the controls that we weren’t able to finish either mission.  Tim was nice enough to pose for a picture with me, and we were on our way out the door. “What’d you guys think?” asked Rob Chestney, Senior Writer for Bioware. “F*cking Awesome” replies Brent.

I left feeling justified that my time was well spent, and any worries that I had about linear gameplay, or the lack of a true MMO feel for the game was completely gone.  It was truly an amazing experience in this small little corner of E3, when I realized that my dream MMO was less than a year away.

Final thoughts:

Announced you can play as a Twi’lek Smuggler, and Chiss as an Imperial Agent (you guys may recognize the Chiss race from the expanded Star Wars universe – Grand Admiral Thrawn was Chiss.  Appropriate, I think, for the Imperial Agent class.

Player/NPC interaction was amazing – to experience it first hand is a great example of the integration of MMO and classic KOTOR playstyle. I loved the quote “Dying is only the final failure of the week”!

The world is HUGE! We started on the planet Korriban – and I cannot.. CANNOT stress the scale of the planet – just the starting zone alone was expansive – best guess is perhaps twice the size of real world surface area than a a typical zone in World of Warcraft (for those that are familiar).  Again, this is just a guess based on playing the game and checking out the map.

I was immediately familiar with the controls – chat window was in the upper left, player status bar just above the action ‘bar’ which included the controls. We have already seen an expansive amount of screenshots and gameplay video – but what we haven’t seen a lot of is the character screen, inventory screens, etc..  Character status screen (inventory) was very detailed – my inquisitor had an enhancement equiped that was an image of a brain with some lightning around it (not sure what it did). The force ‘status’ window had a familiar gauge for light side and dark side – mine was neutral.  No idea yet as to what types of buffs or abilities you can get from either one.

As you fight enemies, you see the damage number above their body as you deal damage.  The font is larger when you perform a crit.  Once you kill an enemy, it pops up how much experience you gained.  Also, items have durability. During the limited gameplay, I didn’t see any detoriation.

From a gameplay prospective, for those expecting something completely revolutionary, don’t read into my fanboism as to thinking this is the most amazing gaming experience you will ever have. Truth is, its not going to completely change the MMO genre, if you were expecting it.  However, with the addition of the amazing story line, what you get is a complete experience.  You can definitely tell where they have taken aspects of all MMO’s that work, and included those into the game, with BioWare polish.

The folks over at Darthhater.com have a more complete demo experience as well, so I highly recommend you checking out their Q&A HERE as well as the extended G4 hands on video (below).  The force is definitely with us in this one.

Seriously though, Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn’t need more hype.  The fans need Bioware to bring this one home, and it looks as though they are well on their way – or are they? How do you feel about the news thus far coming out of E3? Are you more excited, or are you still maintaining a ‘wait and see’ approach till you get your own hands on? Let us know!

When I first saw Mortal Kombat, it was at my first job. The grocery store where I worked cycled 1 new arcade game every 3 months. Since it was how I spent all my break time, I always hoped we would get something cool and fun to play.

When I...]]>

When I first saw Mortal Kombat, it was at my first job. The grocery store where I worked cycled 1 new arcade game every 3 months. Since it was how I spent all my break time, I always hoped we would get something cool and fun to play.

When I walked into work on the day of ‘delivery’ I was skeptical – It appeared to be a fighting game similar to Street Fighter, but with a more ‘realistic’ look to it and a block button?!. A couple of quarters later, I was wondering why the hell the other character dizzied around and the game kept yelling ‘FINISH HIM!’ after the matches. WTF? One of my co-workers walked up and asked if he could play. “Yea, I played this before,” he said, “lemme show you something.” So, he challenged me – and whipped my ass with Sub-Zero. Then, something strange happened. He walked up to me, performed a button combination, and then ripped my characters head off (I was playing with Scorpion) with his spine attached. Nothing like some over the top violence and innovative combat to hook a new generation of gamers.

Over the past several years, the Mortal Kombat name has taken a beating (with the exception of the critical success of MK vs. DC). Midway went under, and subsequently was acquired by Warner Brothers. Fortunately, Ed Boon side stepped the Nerd Rage and quit; and NetherRealm Studios was born. On the heals of the 3D side scrolling monster that is Street Fighter IV, Mortal Kombat looks to draw on next generation power and an improved style to draw in a new era of fans (without all the quarters).

That being said, I had a chance for a ‘hands off’ behind the scenes preview of Mortal Kombat at Warner Brother’s booth. We’ve all seen the trailer – but that just scratches the surface of generating excitement for this title. It’s graphically amazing, true to it’s roots – and incredibly, graphically, gory. When I entered the demo, the player selection screen was up, showing Sub-Zero and Scorpion. There were at the time 8 playable characters, and throughout the demo, they were all shown. the demo was live, so they proceeded to spar in 1v1 and tag team matches that were fast paced and full of lethal combos.

There are 2 major additions to the game which will be of huge strategic use. The power bar serves as a marker for ‘super’ moves and ‘x-ray’ special combo moves. Super moves are more exaggerated versions of the normal special moves. For example, Sektor’s missile attacks turn into heat seeking missiles, and Reptiles ‘juggle’ orb is huge and appeared to be unblockable. The X-ray moves are devastating combo attacks. This is where one of the unique development features of the game kicks in. The entire skeletal and muscular system has been rendered for each character. When the X-ray move is initiated, the action slows down, and it zooms in on the areas where the impacts occur. For example, Kung Lao slams his hand into temple of Mileena, and it shows the x-ray image of the bones in her neck breaking from the impact. Then, immediately after, he slams the back of her neck, breaking the spine and causing teeth to spew out of her mouth. It’s very graphic, and extremely brutal. So, basically awesome.

Another feature I noticed was the persistent damage to the characters – throughout the fight, major attacks caused gashes on the body, revealing bleeding cuts and exposed bone – even the closeups at the end of the match show a very beaten down player (if the match was close!). Kung Lao had a huge bleeding gash across his chest and it looked like his eye was hanging out of the socket.

They mentioned that multiplayer would play a huge roll in the game (duh) but they didn’t provide any additional details. All in all, the game was classic Mortal Kombat – but reminded me loosely of Street Fighter IV in generalized gameplay and the ‘power up’ bar. Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

From what I could tell, there were 28 players on the select screen, but only 8 were selectable: Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage, Kung Lao, Reptile, Nightwolf, Sektor and Mileena. Sources at the hands off demo mentioned it would be an early 2011 release, but who knows. The game looked so polished, I was thinking more like Christmas of this year

Mortal Kombat had a strong showing at E3 and had many old school fans eager for more – but what about you? Maybe I’m biased by my own nostalgia. Let us know what you think by sounding off on our forums! Let’s hope for a Flawless Victory!

After playing the demo...]]>

It’s been a long time coming, but we will soon have a worthy follow up to the Contra franchise – even though it’s not an ‘official’ sequel. Hard Corps: Uprising is a classic style side scrolling shooter loosely following up the original Contra: Hard Corp title released on the Sega Genesis.

After playing the demo on the floor I have to say, the visuals are amazing. In full HD, the hand drawn artwork will satisfy the fans of Arc System Works’(http://www.aksysgames.com/) style (developer and publisher of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue).

Even though the ‘Contra’ title has been stripped, the gameplay is classic Contra. I was playing the XBLA version of the game in 2 player mode. After blasting my way through most of the level, I received a weapon upgrade that was reminiscent of the Spread gun (damnit, I used to get so pissed after losing this weapon in the original!), and later an enhanced ‘laser’ upgrade. We quickly blew through the first mission which ended with a very familiar mini-boss – a blockade which you had to blast your way through to continue the level (nearly identical to the mid level boss in the original Contra).

So visuals and play mechanic similarities aside from the Contra series, there are a couple very noticeable differences, which I feel are definitely bad ass. First off, you have a health bar!!! You will, however, lose your weapon if you are hit. The other difference is a type of player advancement system. You will gain experience and level attributes to your character, and there will also be a shop with which you can pay for upgrades. Although I didn’t see this feature hands on, it will make it’s way into the final release.

It may not have the Contra name on it, but this is the definitive next generation Contra title. I only left wishing I could play it once I left the E3 floor, but I’ll have to wait for the Winter release date.

Check out some of the gameplay footage HERE, courtesy of Gametrailers.com

Now it’s your time to sound off, fellow axeheads! Is it not Contra without Bill and Lance??! Will the title be the definitive reboot of a classic franchise?

Have you ever had one of those moments where reading just a few words suddenly impacted your entire life? Let’s take a few examples:

Your fired.

Your hired!

I want to see other people.

The internet’s down.

Your dying.

Your WOW account’s been hacked.

I PWND U….

I could go on, but you...]]>

Have you ever had one of those moments where reading just a few words suddenly impacted your entire life? Let’s take a few examples:

Your fired.

Your hired!

I want to see other people.

The internet’s down.

Your dying.

Your WOW account’s been hacked.

I PWND U….

I could go on, but you get the point.  Well, not too long ago a Korean Times article reported that StarCraft II would be getting an Adults-Only rating in Korea. Mega Ouch. The headline must have read like one of the above statements to the throngs of Korean StarCraft fans. Now, while North America has given the game (currently in closed beta) an “over 12 rating”, the adults only stamp means you would have to be 18 years old to purchase the game in Korea.  The financial impact to Blizzard not withstanding, it brings up an interesting topic – is the issue of compulsive gaming replacing the once prevalent issue of gaming violence?  Korea has been in the news a lot lately for its proactive roles in curbing this type of behavior,  such as imposing midnight curfews for gaming.

According to the article, Blizzard hasn’t decided yet what strategy it will take, considering that if they restart the evaluation process, it could delay the release of the game in Korea by another year.  Blizzard, “Ok, so the asses have changed their mind and are trying to screw us out of a shitton of money. WTF? North America doesn’t care about their kids, why should Korea?” (not a direct quote…)

Having been playing in the beta for several weeks now, I can say that there isn’t a large difference in violence from the original StarCraft. I mean, the deaths are a little more ‘graphic’ when the units explode and blood goes everywhere, but that’s nothing new, last I checked. So, I’m wondering how YOU feel about the news…Do we applaud Korea for taking steps to help with an overwhelming gaming addiction problem? Do we weep for Blizzard because they may initially only make 1 billion instead of 2? Do we give a flying f*ck because we’ll get to play the game ourselves and to hell with the rest of the planet? Your voice, your opinion – we’ve heard what some industry insiders think, but what do YOU think about the situation? Oh, and BTW, there’s several new interviews/videos of StarCraft II available for you to check out now right here.

Your fired. Your hired! I want to see other people. The internet’s down. Your dying. Your WOW account’s been hacked. I PWND U….

I could go on, but you...]]>
Have you ever had one of those moments where reading just a few words suddenly impacted your entire life? Let’s take a few examples:

Your fired.
Your hired!
I want to see other people.
The internet’s down.
Your dying.
Your WOW account’s been hacked.
I PWND U….

I could go on, but you get the point.  Well, not too long ago a Korean Times article reported that StarCraft II would be getting an Adults-Only rating in Korea. Mega Ouch. The headline must have read like one of the above statements to the throngs of Korean StarCraft fans. Now, while North America has given the game (currently in closed beta) an “over 12 rating”, the adults only stamp means you would have to be 18 years old to purchase the game in Korea.  The financial impact to Blizzard not withstanding, it brings up an interesting topic – is the issue of compulsive gaming replacing the once prevalent issue of gaming violence?  Korea has been in the news a lot lately for its proactive roles in curbing this type of behavior,  such as imposing midnight curfews for gaming.

According to the article, Blizzard hasn’t decided yet what strategy it will take, considering that if they restart the evaluation process, it could delay the release of the game in Korea by another year.  Blizzard, “Ok, so the asses have changed their mind and are trying to screw us out of a shitton of money. WTF? North America doesn’t care about their kids, why should Korea?” (not a direct quote…)

Having been playing in the beta for several weeks now, I can say that there isn’t a large difference in violence from the original StarCraft. I mean, the deaths are a little more ‘graphic’ when the units explode and blood goes everywhere, but that’s nothing new, last I checked. So, I’m wondering how YOU feel about the news…Do we applaud Korea for taking steps to help with an overwhelming gaming addiction problem? Do we weep for Blizzard because they may initially only make 1 billion instead of 2? Do we give a flying f*ck because we’ll get to play the game ourselves and to hell with the rest of the planet? Your voice, your opinion – we’ve heard what some industry insiders think, but what do YOU think about the situation? Oh, and BTW, there’s several new interviews/videos of StarCraft II available for you to check out now right here.

Sweet!

Here is the official word from GameStop:

“Reserve StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and receive an invitation...]]>
Not sure if you’ve heard, but it’s recently been revealed that if you go to Gamestop and pre-order StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, you get a beta key to play the currently live beta.

Sweet!

Here is the official word from GameStop:

“Reserve StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and receive an invitation to the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta. Available online and in-store while supplies last. Once you receive your Beta Code your order cannot be canceled.

Online Customers (web delivery): A code and instructions on how to join the beta will be emailed within 1 business day of when your order was placed.

In-Store Pickup Customers: Please wait 24 hours after your order is placed, then proceed to your store to pick up your beta code.

Store Customers: A beta code will be printed on your pre-order receipt”

OK, so, there ya go…If you’ve been dying to get your StarCraft 2 on and already plan on picking up the game then you might wanna consider throwing down some cash online or at your local GameStop. Let the EBA Community know what you decide to do!!!