The upcoming Halo 3 “Legendary Map Pack”, coming out April 15th (tax day) includes a new/old map. It’s everyones favorite snow covered level, Sidewinder! The new map has quite a few differences, first of which is the name, now called Avalanche (much more hardcore than Sidewinder). Some other notable changes are the trade of ladders (one of the few levels that had ladders) for the now infamous “Man Cannons”. For more details, you can read all about it at Bungie’s official post here. One of the first sentences on their post reminds gamers of the 800 M$ point price and that Bungie itself can’t make it cheaper. :( At least they feel our pain.

Boom!

Could it be? Does the PS3 have more and better exclusives this year? Looks like 2008 may possibly be the year of the Playstation, again. Just like old times.

Is it just me or is almost every big game coming out this year a sequel? No matter what console you’re on. Either way, you got to be excited about something on the list. If the majority of these games actually release this year, wow. But does anyone really expect that? So, let’s jump in and analyze the exclusives. Note, this list in no way represents the entire list of exclusive titles for each console. It does, however, represent what we at Counteragent think are the biggest exclusives most likely to actually be released this calender year.

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Capcom’s very own “little E3 type show”, DIgital Day is here, and if you’re a fan of Capcom, than boy do they have a lot of good stuff. Good stuff like the next in the hopefully long line of Lost Planet games.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition COLONIES EDITION (this is a big one folks)

Definitely not a sequel, but not something fans of the original will want to pass up. The game includes the same (awesome) single-player experience from Lost Planet: Extreme Condition but with all new modes, like Score Attack(not too dissimilar from Halo 3), Trial Battle Mode (Boss Battles, that’s it), and Off-Limit Mode (Extreme Super-Charged Weapons, Unlimited Ammo, and Faster Movement. Think EDF: Earth Defense Force 2017, but with better graphics).

The multi-player is also getting some upgrades with new gameplay modes. Akrid Hunter (play as the giant alien bugs, while everyone else tries to take you down), VS Annihilator, Counter Grab, Point Snatcher, Akrid Egg Battle, and Egg Bandit. In addition to the new modes are four(4) new multi-player maps and five(5) new playable character models. Also, an unconfirmed number of new weapons. Even a couple new perspectives, first person and over-the-shoulder (ala Resident Evil 4) views. Best of all is the price, get all of this and more for the low, low price of $29.99 as soon as the game ships May 27th on both PC and Xbox 360. Screenshots after the break.
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This is a new trailer for the upcoming Gamecock Media and Spark Unlimited game, Legendary. Should we file this one under “a good idea done bad?” While I found some of the video to look pretty good it seems to have some problems. I’m interested in the whole opening Pandora’s Box, and what will happen. I know this isn’t a finished product so we’ll see what happens. Watch the video tell us what you think. Video after the break.
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The Battlefield franchise has been around for a while and has a pretty big, loyal following. The games have continued to move forward with each release (I’m talking specifically about the PC games, not the console versions), although some may disagree that the last release, Battlefield: 2142. Well, whether or not you’re a fan of the previous Battlefield PC games, they are continuing the trend of change with their latest entry in the franchise.

Battlefield Heroes not only changes everything by introducing a completely new take, labeled “cartoon shooter”, but they’ve also changed the entire payment structure, offering a completely free-to-play model. If you prefer not to, you’ll never have to drop even a single penny to play this game. The game will instead make it’s money through advertisement. Not even in-game advertisement like you may think. They will be showing ads on the games loading screens, and while you download the game and run it off of your personal computer, you will be required to launch the actual game from their official website at battlefield-heroes.com. That way they ensure not only the loading screen ads, but also any ads on their site as well.

All in all the game has tremendous potential. The look, while many may compare it to the recent hit shooter, Team Fortress 2, is done for maximum accessibility and, according to the developers, just plain fun. The system requirements are also pretty minimal, especially considering most of the latest system hogs like Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3. Look for the game to go live sometime this summer.

Gallery and Trailer after the break. Boom!
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Just a bunch of screenshots to whet your appetite for Capcom’s upcoming (sure to be instant classic), Street Fighter IV. Everyone you’d expect, from Blanka to Chun Li, plus a couple new fighters. Enjoy.

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Boom!

If you caught X-play last night on G4TV then you were treated to a little eye candy. Of course by eye candy I mean that little hottie Adam Sessler. If you were able to take your eyes off him for a second you got a nice little Rainbow Six Vegas 2 preview. Game looks pretty good. They had Chris Masters, one of the designers dropping some of the usual knowledge, i.e. better A.I., more weapons, rewards for playing the game well, and of course the improved CO-OP which will now include the entire story (THANK GOODNESS!!).

All thats well and fine and frankly stuff we’ve heard already. Mr. Master’s also let us in on the fact that the Rainbow Six boys will not have a trilogy of Vegas games. He said this would be the last game based in Vegas. Of course they will be making more games but they won’t be in Vegas. I bet they’re gonna follow CSI’s lead and go from Vegas to Miami to New York.

You may have also seen that Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is number 2 on the 360 sells list on pre-orders alone so I guess you guys are excited about this game, I know I am.

Castle Crashers is the next big little thing from the people behind the frantic and colorful Alien Hominid. Sorry, but this game isn’t a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. However, it does share some similarities to the old arcade and NES turtles games. If you where a fan of the old arcade games where you and three of your buddies could drop quarter after quarter fighting armies of faceless minions, then this is for you, minus the quarters.

Castle Crashers is a high intensity, 4-player co-op, action hack and slash game. The game is all hand drawn and rendered in beautiful HD. The gameplay is very much like the old two and a half demensional side scrolling co-op fighting games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, and The Simpsons arcade games. The Behemoth, the company making the game is still very much a indie developer, as they do everything in-house, from development, to marketing, to distribution. This game will be fairly easy for them to distribute, seeing as how it will be coming to the Xbox 360 via the Xbox Live Arcade. All the better for them and us. They make more actual profit and get to easily distribute a game, we get a great game at a much better price than full retail.

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Did you have a chance to download and try the demos for the new XNA created community games? They were only available for a limited time. Why? No real reason, guess it was just a test to see if there was any interest. So, was there any interest? At first, yeah, I was totally interested. Then I downloaded and played all the games.

They’re only 15 day trials, which for the vast majority is plenty enough, if not too much time. Some of the games seem very much like tech demos, not games. One of the games, Jelly Car, is a really cool little tech demo, but it kind of gets boring real quick. Probably the most fully fleshed out title was The Dishwasher. The game, Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, is actually not at all about washing dishes, more about killing stuff in the most brutal, bloody way possible. The game starts slow and builds nicely, adding new moves every once in a while to extend you’re arsenal of death. It’s definitely not for the squeamish.

Other than these, there really isn’t anything you can’t just play online at any number of flash casual game sites. We’ll have to wait and see what actually becomes of this whole community games thing. At this point nothing really compels me to grab my M$ points wallet just yet. I’m still waiting for games that are actual games, like the upcoming Bionic Commando: Re-Armed.

Boom!

Holy Crap! All the favorites from one of Capcom’s best fighting games ever Street Fighter 2 return in full 3D-ish glory. The trailer is just a little over three minutes long and features ten different characters from the game. Two of the fighters are new, C. Viper and Abel. The rest are the people that made the Street Fighter series so popular back in the day, such as Guile, Ryu, Ken, and everyone’s favorite mean green fighting machine, Blanka.

Boom!