Who Won Our May-June Poll?

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Two of gaming’s biggest titans.

The world’s best selling video game franchise versus the series that is looking to steal its crown.

Of course it could only be Call of Duty vs Battlefield which was our May to June poll.

Taking this ‘poll winner’ award with twice as many votes was BATTLEFIELD, which recieved 67% of the votes while Call of Duty received a meek 33%.

So, it’s official that JSX readers are over the rather same-y first person shooting template and much prefer Battlefield’s ability to shake things up (just a little bit, anyway). Perhaps Call of Duty Black Ops 2 will change that?

While we’re waiting to see what comes of the losing franchise, you can now vote in the June-July poll which is a big one….XBOX 360 vs PS3. Oh yes, your favourite consoles are now going head to head.

Vote now or forever hold your peace.

Thanks again readers,

Jasmine, Head Editor of J Station X

Watch Dogs Announced by Ubisoft, Steals a Surprise E3 Win

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Usually when we partake in the almost mandatory discussions of ‘who won E3?’, the talk is more often than note pared down to the E3 pressers of the big 3 (also known as ‘the big cheeses’) – Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. And while the latter left us underwhelmed with their less than enthralling new console, the Wii U, and the former two had little to show (okay, Sony had some interesting exclusives – more on those later in the week), it was actually a 3rd party pub/dev who caused the most E3 chatter at the LA electronics convention.

Ubisoft have now formally announced a game called ‘Watch Dogs’, in a high-tech third person sandbox game that riffs from Grand Theft Auto and has distinct hints of both Deus Ex Human Revolution, and more recently, Syndicate.

From what we can tell from the 9+ minutes worth of footage on offer, the protagonist of Watch Dogs is some sort of hitman/tech expert who is assigned targets. To eliminate them he can employ a range of electronic hacking – from crashing cars by changing traffic lights to gaining access to locations by disabling phones and causing distractions – two things we see happen in the Watch Dogs E3 trailer.

The graphics look slick and well put together (which is an understatement if you watch the Watch Dogs E3 gameplay trailer in 1080p in the YT player below), the gameplay looks stylish as ever and the story is as intriguing as you’ll ever get. Perhaps most surprising of all of this is that developer Ubisoft Montreal managed to keep the game under wraps until now.

Watch Dogs looks like a truly exciting game so we’ll be keeping you updated during the run up to the game’s release date next year.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to watch the Watch Dogs E3 trailer.

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Minecraft Success Reaches Incredible High

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Minecraft sales are HUGE!

Who loves a bit of Minecraft? I’ll admit it is a reasonably cool game, but did anyone truly think it would catch on like it has? If you miss your Lego blocks terribly then I guess you would expect it, but for the rest of the world? Not so much.

Still you cannot deny the figures. Minecraft has been a financial hit across PC, Xbox 360, Android and iOS, tallying up a grand total of 9.2 million. Sneeze at the figures if you like but for a game that is essentially about using building blocks, it’s a hefty sum. I guess the www.partycasino.com and console players of the world do unite every so often.

The creator of Minecraft Markus Persson, said via Twitter that the PC sales alone put the game up to 6 million. Then, add the rest of the platforms. Minecraft has become available on iOS and Android devices, which had sold more than 700,000 copies as of January.

Then the Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition sold a further 400,000 copies on its first day of release, before reaching the 1 million copy mark at the end of five days. In fact, the game is well on the way to being the fastest selling Xbox Live game in history, with more unique users than their biggest shooter game, Call of Duty: Black Ops.

A bonus for anyone who got into Minecraft because they were reminiscing about Lego, there is an Official Lego Minecraft set due out this summer too.

I think what might have surprised the Minecraft sceptics about the popularity of the game and the expansion, is just how simple the games concept is. The popular shooters are far more complicated and graphically challenging. Minecraft by comparison is more flexible.

Anyway, congratulations to the developers Mojang. No doubt the success will continue.

Medal of Honor Warfighter Screenshots Eclipse Black Ops 2 at E3

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Accidentally revealed by video game retailer GAME via Twitter last year is Medal of Honor Warfighter, the latest iteration in a highly successful franchise – despite the questionable reception of the game that came before it.

Medal of Honor Warfighter is yet again boasting expert knowledge in the form or Tier One soldiers who are the cream of the cream of the crop, the knobbles on the bees knees, in short, these guys are the best at what they do and EA have recruited them as consultants on how to create the most authentic military shooter of all time. Presumably, the soldiers also offered up tips on how to make the game as beardy as possible (spoiler alert : they succeeded).

Unfortunately, Medal of Honor Warfighter was in danger of falling into an abyss already populated by the overwhelming noise of incredibly brown, rather tedious shooters, but we’ve no need to worry about that as these new Medal of Honor Warfighter screenshots, straight from E3, show us that with the Frostbite 2 engine (responsible for Battlefield 3’s impressively lit visuals) behind it, Medal of Honor Warfighter is looking better than even its closest rival, Call of Duty Black Ops 2.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to see the new Medal of Honor Warfighter screenshots.

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JSX and E3

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

There is no doubt in our minds that you have probably gotten lost in all of the E3 mayhem, spinning heads, trailer overload and screenshot overexposure et al.

JSX are not about to do that to you as well. No, instead, our coverage of E3 will continue over the next few weeks, with us bringing you slimmed down versions of all of the stuff worth knowing about.

All killer, no filler. You don’t have time to hear about all of the rubbish games, with a few of the gems mixed in, and we don’t have time to write about them, so we’ll keep it strictly about the really brilliant gaming related stuff, and all of that chaff can stay in the bin where it belongs.

See you here tomorrow for our first bit of E3 goodness!

Far Cry 3 E3 Teaser Trailer is Every Bit as Crazy as You’d Expect

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Far Cry 3 prides itself on its insanity, we know this by now and the open-world paradise-cum-living nightmare based game seems unlikely to step off of this crazy train any time soon.

Quite the opposite actually, as developer and publisher of the game, Ubisoft, is wielding the madness as the biggest selling point of Far Cry 3 – a smart idea considering that very few games can boast such a roaster of characters in which the majority are clinically insane.

The nutso bananas inner workings of these characters will be on show at behemoth tech conference E3 next week where Ubisoft will be partaking in a showcase of their games – Far Cry 3 included. For now, Ubisoft are only giving us a small taste of the largely deluded with a Far Cry 3 E3 teaser trailer.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to watch the Far Cry 3 E3 teaser trailer.

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Rock Band Blitz Setlist Revealed

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

First things first – go and read our MAHOOSIVE Rock Band Blitz feature.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, you’ll want to wave your devil horns hand gesture in the air, put on your skinniest jeans and search for that black hair dye that you haven’t seen since you were in your teens, as playing Rock Band Blitz will be the final stage in your transition to *gaming rock legend*.

No plastic peripherals, no struggle to find storage and perhaps most importantly, no awkward sitting on laps because the gaming instruments have taken up all of the seating room – Rock Band Blitz scraps all of that and brings button pressing music rhythm fun to the Xbox Live Arcade and PSN with a standalone Rock Band title that would be a perfect addition in an arcade or to a music lover’s video game collection.

That’s the premise of the game, but I suppose now you’ll be wanting to know which songs you’ll be playing through, good job that developer Harmonix have just revealed the Rock Band Blitz setlist then! You can read the setlist in full after the break.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to see the revealed Rock Band Blitz setlist.

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ROCK THE VOTE.

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Our Call of Duty vs Battlefield poll is still ongoing in the sidebar, you should vote.

Why?

Because it determines how much of each we post on the site. If you want to hear more about Battlefield, we’ll go out of our way to find out what we can about it. On the other hand, if you vote for Call of Duty, JSX will strive to uncover the latest on Activision’s FPS franchise.

Like I said, it’s important that you vote. You know what to do.

Sleeping Dogs Trailer and New Screenshots Arrive Jam-Packed With Action

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

In the last Sleeping Dogs trailer, we saw main man Wei Shen break approximately a 7 gazillion faces within the 1 and a half minute trailer of Sleeping Dogs gameplay highlight, and it turns out that he’s really good at it, so we’re in good hands with the combat.

In another one of the game’s earlier trailers we saw the beautifully done driving gameplay, which resembled Grand Theft Auto 4 more than previous iterations of the GTA series has. All good stuff.

Today we have a new trailer for you (along with some Sleeping Dogs screenshots) that shows off more of these things, with an extra side of alleyway thuggery and angry Chinese shouting. You can watch it (and view those new screenshots) after the break.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to see the new Sleeping Dogs trailer and screenshots.

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Risen 2 Dark Waters Making of Trailer – Variety is In, Boring Stories are Out

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Jasmine Henry

Think back to the last time we spoke about Risen 2 : Dark Waters, I was sceptical about the pirate RPG due to the astonishing rate at which the gaming community has been let down by the role-playing genre as of late. But I want you to imagine a new sort of RPG – an RPG where DLC isn’t needed to fix the ending (because the developer got it right the first time round), an RPG where you don’t need to redo whole, entire quests because you picked the wrong dialogue option that followed it, an RPG where the developer knows exactly what it has to do to get it right and points a a sharp stick at the problems that could cause them to fail.

Imagined it yet?

That’s what Risen 2 : Dark Waters could be. Given its nature, and the usual traps that RPGs are snared by, that cannot be guaranteed, but as we’ve seen in previous trailers and as you can witness after the break, in the sixth edition of their making of Risen 2 : Dark Waters trailers, the game’s developer, Piranha Bytes, have built their game from the ground up in such a way that previously seen issues can’t even get close to their game, let alone get in it.

I’ll let them explain for themselves how Risen 2 : Dark Waters will achieve all of this, the video is after the break.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to watch the new Making of Risen 2 : Dark Water video.

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