Video Games: PC, PSP, PS3, xBox, and Wii Gaming News

Finally the story of Kratos is coming to the PSP, courtesy of Ready At Dawn studios under SCEA’s supervision. God of War: Chains of Olympus takes off with the 10 years during which Kratos was fighting for the gods, not against them. Chains of Olympus creative director Cory Barlog says to 1UP:

“A lot of what we’re telling with the later stories is Kratos when he’s just really realized he’s a puppet of the Gods, really realizing that he’s getting screwed over, and [the PSP game will] flesh out when he did have maybe a little bit of faith and when that faith started to crumble a little bit — when he started to see some cracks in the stories they were telling him.”

Here’s a screenshot for you–the game looks darn good for a PSP game:

Apparently we can expect the same gameplay from this one as the PS2 series, with massive combos, bosses, fights, and storyline. Quote, even though it’s PSP, “we still are aiming for an epic game. It’s gonna be God of War. You’re going to get the God of War experience on the PSP.” Sweet.

Gameplay videos for Starcraft 2 have made it onto YouTube (thanks IRSerious) and we’re going to post them, all of them, here:

Official High-def Cinematic Trailer

Starcraft 2 Game Demo part 1

Starcraft 2 Game Demo part 2

Starcraft 2 Game Demo part 3

Starcraft 2 Game Demo part 4

After watching these videos I’m getting a sluggish feeling, like all the extra 3D graphics they’ve added to Starcraft takes away the lightning rushes and fast-paced nature of the game, leaving a battleground where things sort of just glomp slowly around. It’s very pretty, but once all the elements get into position to fight, they just sort of stand in lines and poke at each other!!

We’ve been paid to bring it to your attention to a free casino game training website, but it’s actually pretty cool. I’m not much of a gambler myself, but Online Casinos (OC from now on) promise to teach how to play Blackjack, Video Poker, Slots, Roulette, Baccarat, Sic Bo (what is this!?), Craps, and Keno with interactive flash games. Annoying flash games that suck all your virtual money and complain that you don’t know how to gamble.

For example, take the Roulette Trainer, which lets you spin happily away until your money runs out, but is quite easy to use and practice with. I tried the “covering” strategy for my personal number, 23, and got it on the third roll, for a net profit of $108:

My luck with their Blackjack simulator totally ran out, probably because BJ doesn’t have a chance to get a 23 anywhere in it:

The advice is a bit annoying, but they offer on their other pages simple strategies like, “You always want to hit until 17 IF the dealer is showing a 7 or higher.” Following this strategy for a while I ended up about $30 in the hole, heh. The site also offers a section dedicated to POKER, reviews of online poker games, a daily gambling news section, a free blackjack strategy chart maker, and free casino games. If you can’t learn something about gambling here, you probably shouldn’t be holding the cards.

Blizzard has officially announced, after much speculation, that it’s currently developing Starcraft II, a title that fans around the world hope will meet their ever-increasing expectations.

The president of Blizzard, Mike Morhaime says, “With StarCraft II, we’ll be able to do everything we wanted to do with the original StarCraft and more [...] We recognize that expectations are high following the long-running popularity of the original game, but we plan to meet those expectations and deliver an engaging, action-packed, competitive experience that StarCraft players and strategy gamers worldwide will enjoy.” And, judging from the in-game screens, it looks like Starcraft 2, if nothing else, will adhere to the sort of visual and gameplay standards that Starcraft established.

Here are some of the official Starcraft II screenshots and concept art. Check out the official website for more Starcraft II multimedia (including official trailers) and downloads.

We can’t wait for this to drop!!!