PC Game Trailers At The Spike TV Video Game Awards
By: Justin Moody | PC Features | December 13, 2010
The Spike TV Video Game Awards were aired last night and numerous exclusive trailers were shown to tantalize nerds with footage of games they can't have yet. Although many of the games debuted at the VGAs were console exclusives, several will also be coming to PC next year.
Batman Arkham City is the sequel to last year's amazing Batman Arkham Asylum. The trailer aired on the VGAs didn't have any gameplay footage at all. It did have some photo-realistic animation depiction Batman beating the crap out of some goons, who were eventually revealed to be working for Hugo Strange, a B-list villain from the comics who Batman battles when Kiteman and Crazy Quilt are out of town. Batfans might be happy to see him, as Strange also happens to be one of Batman's first enemies, having appeared in Detective Comics before Batman got his own self-titled Comic
Even though no actual in-game footage was shown, Batman was depicted using a few gadgets, including a smokebomb, which wasn't available in the first game, so that's probably a little hint about new features for the game. Batman was also shown crashing through a wall to pounce on a thug, and firing his grapple while gliding with his Bat-cape; these might also be clues about new combat option in the coming game.
We also got a clip of Portal 2. Again, there wasn't any actual in-game footage, just a c-gen movie that shows the two wacky robots who players will control in the co-op sequences. Valve has already announced that these characters exist, so there wasn't any new information here, just an amusing short film about funny little robots. The main (Human) protagonist from the first Portal game, Chell, will be playable for the single-player portions of the game, which comes out in April.
Mass Effect 3 had a trailer shown as well. This one, of course, had no in-game footage either. The trailer depicted The Reapers, a race of giant malevolent machines, attacking Earth. Mass Effect was announced as a trilogy, and the previous two games were about Commander Shepard fighting giant space robots, so there wasn't much new information here, aside from the fact that the Reapers actually reach Earth. The second ME game ended with an implication that the Reapers were coming, so this isn't much of a shock either.
There was a brief shot of Mass Effect hero Commander Shepard watching the attack from orbit, but none of the supporting cast from either of the first two games were shown, nor were there any new crewmembers seen. A nameless space commando sniper was depicted on Earth, and presumably was the narrator for the trailer, but it isn't clear if that character will actually be in the game. The release date was announced as Holiday 2011.
The least informative Trailer of the night was for Elder Scrolls V. We got to see a bit of animation of a dragon, with a lengthy voice over, but nothing tangible about the game, and certainly no in-game footage (A distinct theme for the VGAs). We did find out that the game will be subtitled "Skyrim". Or perhaps it's actually "Sky Rim".
What is clear is that it will be available on November 11, 2011. Actually, the date was shown as "11.11.11" so that might be Roman numerals for 2.2.2 which could mean that it's coming out on February second. It could also be binary for "219", so Bethesda failed to even clearly indicate the name and release date of the new thing they want us to buy (But we can be pretty sure it's called Skyrim and it comes out on November 11th).
All of these trailers and more can be seen on Spike TV's website.
Justin Moody
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