2K Sports games have always had great music and I think that’s going to be a tradition that the folks over at 2K Sports are looking to continue. In case you were wondering, the game will be coming out on Oct. 4th if all goes well, and will be playable on most consoles including Wii, PS2, PS3, and Xbox360.
The track list includes music from Eminem, Lil Jon, Twista, Q-Tip, Travis Barker, Cee-Lo, Royce Da 5’9″, and more!
Full track listing is below:
1. Eminem & Royce Da 5’9” – Fast Lane
2. Travis Barker featuring Yelawolf, Twista, Busta Rhymes and Lil Jon – Let’s Go
3. CyHi Da Prynce – Sideways (2K Remix)
4. Kurtis Blow – Basketball
5. Friendly Fires – Skeleton Boy
6. Machine Drum – Let It (edIT Remix)
7. Aceyalone featuring Cee-Lo – Workin’ Man’s Blues
8. Freddie Gibbs – Look Easy (2K Original)
9. Chiddy Bang featuring Q-Tip – Here We Go
10. Zion I featuring Rebelution- Many Stylez
11. Duck Down All -Stars 2 – Shout The Winners Out (2K Original)
12. Middle Class Rut – New Low
13. Bassnectar – Cozza Frenzy
14. Ancient Astronauts – Still a Soldier
15. Alex K. and D.J.I.G. – Now’s My Time (2K Original)
16. See-I – Haterz
17. James Pants – We’re Through
18. Shinobi Ninja – Rock Hood
19. DELS – Shapeshift
20. Hudson Mohawke – Thunder Bay (instrumental)
21. Mr. Chop – Intermezzo 2 (instrumental)
22. Kid Mac featuring Mat McHugh – Hear You Calling
23. Thunderball- Make Your Move
24. The Freeze Tag – The Shuffle (instrumental)
25. The Death Set – It’s Another Day
26. Project Lionheart -They Come Back
27. Jamaica – By The Numbers
28. XV – Awesome
Good News everyone! I’ve got new cover art for the new 2K12 Video Game. You can catch our review of NBA 2K11 here. We expect good things with this game so we hope 2K Sports doesn’t disappoint. In 2K12, it looked like the graphics were great, but suffered a little bit to add in all the great new features. The game was definitely very deep and they put a lot of time and effort into making it as real as possible. Hopefully 2K12 fixes a few of the minor issues and spruces up the graphics a bit.
Looks like Jordan will be joined by two other legends, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. These two icons are getting their own covers as well. The Cover Art was done by Adam Larson of Adam&Co. The release date is set for October 4th and will be available for “the PlayStation 3, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360, Wii™ system, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and Windows PC.” Feast your eyes on the below images and let us know what you think.
I was invited out to Sony’s Holiday Season sneak peak and among the items being shown was their all new PS Vita. Unfortunately, I was unable to take video of the unit head on, but we spoke with a bunch of Reps concerning new titles for the PS Vita so check out the vids below as we update them.
I did get to check out a few titles first hand and most importantly, to hold and feel and caress the device. Here are my thoughts.
Hardware:
From a Hardware perspective, the device takes you back to the moment you first laid eyes on the original PSP. It’s slick and visually appealing. It looks better in person than you thought, and has sexy curves. I was surprised by how big it was. That 5 inch screen is totally satisfying and quite beautiful, though I did squint a bit in light even though there wasn’t much of it around as I was in a room with all the windows shuttered. The unit was much thicker than I was expecting, however, it was thin for it’s size if that makes sense. The front and rear facing cameras where there and they were a welcome addition. The rest was standard stuff that you know already – dual analog sticks, 3.5 mm headphone jack, L/R Bumpers, two speakers, etc. I did note two ports on the top of the device. One seemed to be for an SD card, however, I couldn’t make the other one. Seemed to be proprietary. I suspect it will be how Sony plans on selling physical copies of their titles, but we’ll see.
Titles:
ModNation Racers: This game is shaping up to be a pretty fun title. It’s a racing game at heart, but it gives you the ability to create maps on the fly. Using the touch screen capabilities, this is a lot easier than fumbling around with an analog stick and cursor! An added bonus is Vita owners will be able to play PS3 Maps.
Ruin: If you like dungeons and Dragon type games then this title will definitely tickle your fancy. Pulling a page from Microsoft, the game designers allow for seamless play between consoles meaning you can pause and start exactly where you left off between the Vita and the PS3.
WipeOut: This classic title gets the Vita treatment and it looks great. The game designers used the accelerometer to allow for motion control and the touch screen for different uses such as attacking or charging. They also utilized the Vita’s camera for online game-play.
Hot Shots Golf: One word – “Fun”. We took a look at this title and its looking quite good. Your still playing golf so things haven’t changed that much, however, they have also made changes to take advantage of the Vita’s feature set. You can use the touch screen now to position your player when teeing off as well as some motion control.
Reality Fighters: Really interesting title that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The real kicker is the level of customization you have over your character. You can take a picture of yourself using either of the two cameras and create your character based on your likeness. You can change your appearance to super muscular or super…unmuscular. You can choose different weapons, clothes, facial expressions, and even fighting styles. They haven’t sacrificed too much on gameplay either as the fighting techniques look very polished. You can even play in an augmented reality setting.
One last gem was for the PS3, but definitely worth mentioning. The game was called “Journey“. You play a floaty thingy and you meet up with another floaty thingies to get to the top of a mountain. Sounds bumish, but it’s really quite fascinating. The game is really very visually pleasing. You can go it alone or you can team up with someone and take the journey together, but the clincher is you never know who that person actually is. No gamer tags, no chat, no nothing. Just you and that other person on a journey together. And at any point that person can simply walk away.
Wrap-up
This coming Holiday Season is warming up with all these fresh titles in the pipeline. I’ll be in line for my Vita when it launches. The specs are solid and if they can keep innovative games coming, it will easily be the king of portable game consoles. It ALMOST has me wishing it was already the Holiday Season…Almost. I’ll still take as many days of summer as I can get!
Upset about Miami Losing this year? Tough, suck it up. Looks like that will be the main theme for 2K Sports’ next Basketball game. From what their telling us, this is the first public image of the new game and it looks absolutely stunning. Look below…which is the real one??? You can read our review of NBA 2K11 here, however, NBA 2K12 seems to be upping the anti yet again in terms of graphics. Follow us on twitter @themanlyman for more information as we get it!
Sid Meir’s Civilization is one of the most popular strategy games around for the PC. It’s great mainly because of how in-depth the game is. The player balances an economy, population, and wealth all while defending as well as warring with other civilizations to make sure your civilization is the greatest of all. Now take that and put it on facebook and you have something interesting.
2K Games is working on Civilization World which seems like an appropriate name given the platform. Facebook will add a social aspect that brings the experience to another level. Granted, its a dumbed down version of the game so no fancy graphics, however, you can cooperate or play against friends throughout the game without investing too much time. Definitely seems like something I’m willing to try out.
So Nokia just debuted their newest device – the Nokia N9 and it is getting A LOT of buzz. I believe this is because Nokia has a lot of people rooting for it. Symbian just wasn’t cutting it though to be quite frank and if the videos and images hold up we are all in for a refreshing treat! You can find the full press release here, but the high points are as follows:
The phone’s sexy curves are made from a fancy-schmancy piece of “polycarbonate” which should make it hard to spot scratches. They did away with that annoying button on the face present in the N8 and E7 and just have one multipurpose button to the side (besides the volume rocker). You can also double tap the screen which will “wake” the phone. You can then swipe across the full length of the phone horizontally or vertically to get to the home screen. This gesture is also how you get in and out of apps quickly.
The phone is sporting an 8 MP camera with a Carl Zeiss auto-focus lens. The display is a 3.9 inch curved piece of Gorilla Glass. The N9 also comes with NFC (Near Field Communication) which means tap to play or pay with other devices which support NFC functionality are a go!
It doesn’t look like Nokia have set a definite date, but it’s supposed to drop sometime “later this year”
Creative Director Ken Levine talks about the origins of the “Skyline” that you will be utilizing in the game. There is new footage of the skyline at work, and it looks like an awesome roller coaster with people shooting at you.
The Sony PSP has finally been revisited and completely revamped. The end product is that pretty little thing you see above. The PS Vita, as its called, has all sorts of goodies under the hood. For starters, it will come with front and rear facing cameras, 3G and Wifi, dual joysticks, and a 5 inch screen. You will reportedly be able to speak with other gamers while playing and even play with gamers near by. Retail price is looking like $249. Take a look at the video below:
looks like you’re in for a treat with irrational game’s new addition to the Bioshock series. The game takes place in the air rather than underwater this time. The graphics look stellar. See below for propaganda art and video.
I got a chance to take a look at Nokia’s E7 and I had a blast doing so. It was cool getting stares and having people ask what type of phone it was. I have the lowdown on what it was like to actually use the phone. Though my relationship was short-lived, about two weeks, I had some ups and downs. Read on to find out what they were.
Likes:
Form
So did I mention this phone is sexy? I got the Austin Martin Grey (ok I made that up). The phone just looks and feels nice in the hand. It has gentle angular curves on both ends of the device much like the N8 which no other device really has. It’s not the thinnest device, but it doesn’t feel flimsy at all like the Nexus S or the Galaxy S. In fact, it’s sturdy enough to hang out in the pocket all day and come out unscathed without the aid of conventional phone armor. I’m still not a fan of the slidy-nob to unlock but at least the center button serves that function as well. There is also another slidy-nob on the top right of the device that serves as a zoom in/out or volume control which I found clever. I also loved the slide-out sim-card trey. It keeps you from having to open the phone for switching sims if your into that kinda thing.
The Extras
Again, I love the fact that it comes with a mini HDMI slot and adapter for Hi Definition output. Dual LED lights for a nice bright flash instead of the commoner’s one LED light source. Really spacious and well thought out keyboard that slides into a provocative pose. Though it takes a little getting used to at first, the sliding mechanism is quite sturdy and unique. Most people I showed the phone to were pleasantly surprised with the hidden keyboard. These are the little things that make the phone pleasant to use. The 4″ AMOLED screen certainly doesn’t hurt either. The display is quite bright and is makes video playback look great.
Staying Connected
You can stay connected through your OVI password. I liked being able to stay logged into my facebook and twitter and get updates via the widget on one of my homescreens. You also get updates from your different email accounts as well as messages from contacts.
Dislikes:
Audio
On more than one occasion, I did notice the phone quality seriously depreciate. The audio would sort of pop, almost like an old vinyl record would. Not sure what that was about, but it wasn’t often. However, I did notice it and thought it worth a mention. Other than that the audio quality was on par with my other phone experiences.
Browser
I’m not clear on what the vision is for the Symbian browser, but I wasn’t too impressed with the browsing experience. It was fairly fast on my T-mobile “3.5g” connection, however, I found it cumbersome to navigate. It would give me a list of sites to navigate, but it always felt like I was doing too much work to get from one place to another. The phone never really supplied me with possible sites I was trying to type out, nor was it visually engaging. Of course you can bookmark, the surfing with more than one window open wasn’t very elegant and was definitely difficult to do while on the go. You had to stop what you were doing in order to navigate and that can be a little annoying in a city like NY where I need my info ASAP while I’m on the street.
Data Input
The keyboard definitely helped with text input but I am still unsure of why Nokia doesn’t just break down and add a full digital keyboard for both portrait and landscape modes. Why do I have a number pad in portrait mode? It’s useful when talking with the drone on the other end of the phone when trying to pay a bill or turn the cable back on, but that’s about it. Wish there was at least an option to switch between keyboards. I also didn’t like being taken to a text area when typing up an email or response to a text. I think it would look better if I would see the text right there next to the original received message without first going into that text box. It feels like an extra step which ads to the time it takes to get simple things like that done.
Camera
Why oh why did you skinch on the camera for the E7? Give it the bulgy eye like you did with the N8. I don’t care if you guys were concerned about the slimness. I like my phones with curves in all the right places! I thought 8 Megapixels was good, but no true focus killed it for me. All of the pieces for a great shooting experience and no control over focus ruins the fun. It’s like going to the mall on a shopping spree and only having a dollar to spend. Ok I’m being a bit dramatic, but it did feel funky. I ended up wanting to wait till I got my true camera for picture taking.
Overall:
Overall I enjoyed the device and I can’t sing enough praises about how well made and beautiful the device looked and felt in hand. Other than a few funky sounding calls, and camera disappointments, I enjoyed using the phone and wouldn’t mind owning the device. However, I must say that Symbian is beginning to feel a bit aged, especially when I compare it to iOS or Android. It’s a shame because the phone itself is a true beauty.
