One Bond. Six classic Bond missions. That is the premise behind October 16th’s 007 Legends, the latest installment of the Bond franchise from Activision from Eurocom, the same studio responsible for 007 Goldeneye and 007 Goldeneye Reloaded. While it was already revealed with the game’s announcement that the six and final movie tied in to the game would be the upcoming Skyfall, Bond fans quickly began speculating which 007 films would make their way to 007 Legends.

With the trailer and screens below, Moonraker has been revealed as the first chapter for 007 Legends. Originally starring Roger Moore, Moonraker was the most sci-fi-esque Bond film, featuring a space station that was home to the villainous Drax and his minion for hire, Jaws. The film also featured one of Bond’s leading ladies with the second most obvious sexual innuendo for a name, Dr. Goodhead.

The 007 Legends trailer features Drax, Jaws and Goodhead, including the infamous scene of Jaws having a high voltage wire shoved into his metal mouth. It also shows Bond using one of his infamous gadget and the Moonraker laser, much improved from its original N64 design.

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Since their inception, the LEGO licensed games have followed a pretty standard formula. Players start off in a central hub where they can select missions to enter, check their progress and buy more characters to play as. After years of this between Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter, the franchise was due for a change.

Not only is LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes the first LEGO game to feature voice acting for the characters, but it will be an open world format. How this will impact gameplay will be interesting as this has never been attempted by any of the LEGO franchise games before. It may be a structure similar to a GTA game where players meet up with NPCs and receive missions or maybe even an Arkham City style where Batman receives updates from Alfred or Oracle, which would make sense using both the Batman franchise as well as the new voiceover being added to the game.

Take a peek below at the trailer and screen shots for LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes to see Batman, Superman, the Flash, the rest of the Justice League and all the villains in action. You even get a brief glimpse of the friendly antagonism between Batman and Superman as well. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is coming to all major consoles and handhelds on June 19th.

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To say Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition is already a success is an understatement. The game literally became profitable within the first hour of sales and boasted 400,000 users in its first 24 hours, breaking all XBLA records including the one set by fellow Arcade Next member Trials Evolution with its quarter million first day sales. But does commercial success equal a great game? In the case of Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition, the two are one in the same.

Gameplay

For those who haven’t played Minecraft yet in either its PC or mobile incarnations yet, the game is an open world where players must mine resources around them in order to craft tools and build structures including buildings, mine cart pathways and increasingly complex machines. On the surface, Minecraft looks incredibly simple as players only need to hack away at or place objects in the world around them.

But there are tons of layers of depth. Players literally start in a world with nothing but their fists to punch out sections of a tree. Once they have some wood, they start constructing tools to make these tasks easier. They also can craft weapons and armor to help defend themselves from the world around them.

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Whether you call it MOBA or DOTA, the genre that best fits Awesomenauts didn’t exist even a decade ago. Spawning from the Defense of the Ancients mod for Warcraft III, MOBA games are traditionally controlled as a isometric RTS style game. Awesomenauts changes things up a bit with the first major 2D side-scrolling release to the genre.

Gameplay

Awesomenauts follows the traditional MOBA formula of a team of players making their way past set defense points to reach an opposing team’s base. Each team consists of three players (which can be filled in with bots if someone is playing during slower hours) and the constant stream of less powerful computer controlled minions. Different from most MOBA titles like the DOTA mod is the game’s classic style 2D environment.

While greatly detailed to fit in a next gen world, all the action occurs on a 2D plane. Action is still fast and frantic though with players running in to battle, having rapid exchanges before someone is killed or forced to flee and most matches are over in less than fifteen minutes.

There is a somewhat limited supply of characters with only six playable Awesomenauts to choose from, each with different combat roles. Some act as tanks, others as damage dealers and others as more stealthy assassins. Players start off with only three unlocked and must earn combat experience to level up and unlock more. Hopefully Ronimo adds more through DLC or updates since the matches are usually matching teams with players already trending towards a few core characters rather than a variety that could come from an expanded roster.

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Forget about it being AMC’s top rated series. Forget about Volume 1 being the number one selling graphic novel of April 2012 despite it being published more than eight years ago and seven other volumes filling up the top 10. And even forget about it being the title that made Robert Kirkman a superstar comic writer.

The Walking Dead is now a video game too. And yes, we were just as hesitant when we heard about it as anyone else. As much as we appreciate a studio like Telltale with a pedigree of former Lucasarts employees and titles like Monkey Island franchise and Sam & Max, we know the dangers of a licensed franchise being brought to the gaming world. Luckily, Telltale showed us once again that the right team working with the right property can bring magic on screen.

Gameplay:

The Walking Dead comes to players as a newer style of point and click adventure game. Traditionally, the genre revolved around players sorting through an environment with trial and error until they found the proper combination of items and persons needed to solve a puzzle. Now, The Walking Dead steps up the ante with a faster paced and more natural feeling action oriented adventure.

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Let’s be clear about one thing right from the start. This article is by no means making a blanket statement that all piracy is okay. Piracy in the broadest sense is theft and is wrong. But with most things, it’s not just a black and white, yes or no, right or wrong topic. There is that gray area up for debate and here, we are going to take a look at piracy specifically as it relates to the video game industry.

If a game is about to be or has just been released to retail, is it okay to download off of a torrent site because someone leaked the code out from the manufacturer or was able to rip the files off the disk? Is it okay to use a key generator to claim ownership of a disk so you can play a copy that has been passed around your dorm? No. These are blatant acts of theft. These are where people are trying to mess with the system for their own personal benefit and denying payment to the people and companies behind the created game.

Some will argue that games are too expensive nowadays and piracy is their way of “sticking it to the man” to show them they aren’t okay with high prices. The truth of the matter is that, in relation to inflation, games are cheaper today than they were twenty years ago. During the heyday of the NES and SNES where larger cartridge memory required higher manufacturing costs resulting in some games costing well above even today’s norm price of $59.99. Don’t believe me? Go ask anyone in finance (or even your third grade math teacher) if something that cost $79.99 in 1990 is cheaper than something that today is sold for $59.99 and expect a slap in the face from them.

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The original Trials HD came to the XBox 360 in 2009 in what was considered one of the best Summer of Arcade promotions the XBox has done alongside titles like ‘Splosion Man and Shadow Complex. The time trial based off road biking became a smash hit with its addictive nature and online leaderboards. It was going to take something different to make the next Trials a success. Just simply adding new races wouldn’t be enough since those could simply be new add on DLC packs for the original.

Gameplay:

Much like the last Trials HD, Trials Evolution follows the same formula with most of its levels where players must take physics and momentum and use them on their side to get the rider from point A to point B. Along the way, environmental hazards like exploding barrels, bottomless pits and oceans pop up to impede the player’s progress. Luckily, for those just hoping to complete the level, there are lots of checkpoints which players can revert back to if they miss a jump or crash to their doom.

As with the previous Trials, the addiction to the game comes from trying to make it through a level with no faults to earn the gold medals on each track and top the leaderboard. Players will find themselves sometimes annoyed with certain sections but quickly overcome that as soon as they hit the “back” button to restart the current track.

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I have a confession to make- I never gave Trials HD a shot. Partly because my Xbox 360 gave me a red ring of death, and partly because of this YouTube video.

But while walking by Microsoft’s booth at PAX East, Trials Evolution was available to play, so I shelved my apprehension and joined three friends to try our hand at the four-player multiplayer, a new feature in this upcoming sequel.

Trials Evolution multiplayer is really really fun. Your goal is to finish the level as quickly as you can, with as few faults as possible. The player with the most points at the end of the heat ends the game. There’s a couple different areas to play in, and if you’re a veteran of Trials HD, you know how different controlling your bike can be. The two Trials HD veterans I played with had no problem picking up the multiplayer and schooling us newbies to the game.

I have a feeling Trials Evolution will soon join the ranks of Mario Party and Smash Brothers as another party game with the power to end friendships.

You won’t have to wait long for the chance to challenge your own friends to Trials Evolutions, as it will be available for download from Xbox Live on April 18^th.

We don’t get a lot of chance to cover sports here on The Flickcast, it just doesn’t fit in with the world of geek culture. Well, there is one place where geek meets sports, and it is the annual spectacle that is Madden. One of the highest selling game franchises of the year, Madden is the one place where geeks and jocks and come together in harmony.

The last two years EA has capitalized on the Madness that is March, and opened up the coveted cover athlete decision to a popular vote. After weeks of head to head battles, the finals have arrived and the next Madden cover star will either be Calvin Johnson of the Detroit Lions or (S)cam Newton of the Carolina Pussy Cats.

For those of you who are not sports fans and don’t see what I just did there, this will be a horribly one-sided, biased attempt to sway your vote should you click this link.

You should go vote for Calvin “Megatron” Johnson. That is right, he is nicknamed after a Transformer, and how cool would it be for the downtrodden city of Detroit? I am not a Detroit fan by any means. I just play a lot of Madden, and as a Video Game AND NFL fan, I think we can do MUCH better than flash in the pan (S)cam Newton. Also I am a Saints fan, and Newton plays for a rival team.

Head over to the ESPN cover vote page and vote, the Cover will be announced April 25th at 5:00 EST on ESPN 2.

Once the marquee mascot for the XBox generation of gamers, Master Chief has taken a step back in recent years. In hopes to regain the original glory of the FPS, Microsoft announced last year that they were moving a head with a brand new numbered Halo game.

Today Microsoft set Halo 4′s official street date, November 6th, 2012. This unsurprisingly puts one of the most anticipated games of the year in the middle of the juiciest video game release window. The real question now is can this 4th installment recapture the magic of the original trilogy?

FPS games have grown leaps and bounds since Halo: Combat Evolved rejuvenated the genre. Added to that, one of the original Halo’s greatest strengths was it’s story, and it will be hard for the developers to come back with a compelling and authentic Halo story based on where the franchise currently sits.

Of course that is all doom and gloom from a registered PlayStation fanboy. The truth of the matter is, if Master Chief is truly an iconic mascot in the same way Sonic, Mario, Link and Crash Bandicoot Kratos are than Halo 4 will be a rousing success, at least commercially. Heck, I will be rooting hard for this game myself, if for no other reason than to wash away that grimy layer of muck that is Gears of War being the 360s marquee exclusive.

In 2010, Jerry Holkins, aka Tycho, posted chapters for what he hoped would become the third installment of Penny Arcade’s steampunk RPG game series, but then much to the dismay of fans, not much else was heard of about the game.

Cut to 2012 and not only does the game have a developer, indie devs Zeboyd games, but it should be released sometime this summer. I got a chance to sit in on the panel where the game’s creators, plus Holkins himself, discussed how the game resurfaced and came to be.

What is obviously different right from the start in On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is the SNES-style art and graphics. The previous two games looked a bit more like one of Mike Krahulik’s comics, but this third game is less comic, more Final Fantasy. The battle system and dialogue boxes are reminiscent of all my favorite RPGs growing up, but combined with the snarky, sometimes foul dialogue always present in the Penny Arcade games, it’s more like an R-rated version of Dragon Warrior.

During the Q&A portion of the panel, fans asked a lot about the other apparent difference in On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3, which is the absence of a customizable protagonist. In this third installment, players take on a party of Gabriel, Tycho, and Ann. The developers mentioned that they may wrap up the story of the previous protagonist, but you won’t be able to play as him. However, there will be enemies in tiny hats, and tiny hats make everything funnier, so it all balances out.

On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 will be available this summer on PC, Mac, Xbox, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android.

It all started with Summer of Arcade before XBox Live came alive with a series of seasonal promotions to help push new titles for their digital download platform. With the Block Party freshly wrapping up with some hits like Warp, Microsoft has already dropped the list of games for the upcoming Arcade Next promotion set to start on April 18th and wrapping up on May 9th.

Of the four games, only one is a wholly original IP with Bloodforge. Trials Evolution is a sequel to XBLA hit Trials HD and Fable Heroes is a new gameplay style set in the Fables world. The most anticipated of all the titles though may be Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition, a port of the unstoppable indy PC sensation making its debut for the first time on any console system.

Also for the first time, the achievement cap on XBLA has been upped. Starting in April, XBLA titles will be allowed up to 400 Achievement Points and up to 30 total achievements per release. This is a drastic increase from the original 200 point / 12 total achievement maximum that had been in place (well, 250 point maximum if you include the possible 50 points that could be added for DLC.

Take a look at all four titles after the jump and stay tuned to the Flickcast for news and reviews on Trials Evolution, Bloodforge, Fable Heroes and Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition as soon as we get our hands on them.

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