Where do you go after such an incredible experience with Batman: Arkham City? Why you go back to the beginning. And that's what Warner Bros Montreal has done with Batman: Arkham Origins. 

Taking place Christmas Eve in the early years of Batman's existence, Black Mask is offering a rather large bounty to anyone that can kill the Batman. The amount of money draws all sorts of criminals to Gotham and Batman has to survive them all hunting him down trying to collect the reward.

I was able to sit down and play through about a 30 minute demo of the game. The graphics look about the same, but I was told there were some minor improvements that might not jump out to anyone. It still looks really, really nice to me and I've become quite fond of the art style that this series uses to portray the Dark Knight. 

The first half of the demo feels very familiar as you are introduced to the combat system. That free-flowing style that makes Batman such a joy to watch when he's fighting is all here and nothing's change. Warner Bros Montreal specifically stated they didn't want to change anything that's worked so well in two games so they pretty much left that alone with some minor improvements. Having not played Arkham City in so long, it didn't take much time for me to feel comfortable in fighting a group of thugs and taking them down with extreme prejudice.

Two new enemies were on display in the demo. The first one is a big brute with armor, that can't be taken down until the armor has been removed. You need to do three cape stuns to bring the brute down and then a multitude of quick hits to finally be able to pull the armor off. Only then can you finish the brute off, and of course you have to deal with the multiple foot soldiers that surround him at the same time.

Another new enemy is a karate expert and in the demo there were two I had to deal with. When alone, they were a handful as they did many quick hits as well as countering your hits. When the two are near you, you can almost expect a pounding as they work together well in punishing you with quick hits. 

Now, what got me a little excited is an improved detective dynamic. Walking around, I witnessed a helicopter go down in front of me. Using improved detective vision, I scanned an area near the site of the crash to get a clue. With that evidence in the computer, the crime scene gets recreated in front of you, but only in small parts. You're able to fast forward and rewind the bit that's recreated to show you even more clues of what happened. The crash site had the helicopter tail missing so I did a search to see that it hit a sign before it went down. Examining an area in the crime produced more data points, thus recreating more of the crime scene to view. Rewinding again, I found the tail section missing in the other area. Scanning the tail section revealed a bullet hole which led to the recreation at the point of the bullet striking the helicopter. Seeing the laser from the sniper scope, I swung over to the origin of the laser to find a dead SWAT sniper. Scanning the sniper, I found that it wasn't him that shot the bullet, but it was a bullet that ricocheted from another area that took out the SWAT member and then the helicopter. Only a select few can do this and this lead me to the conclusion it was Deadshot who was behind this all along. So, this was a simple example of piecing together clues to solve what happened at the crime scene and tapping into the detective element of the world's greatest detective.

New gadgets, of course, will be making its way into Arkham Origins. The one thing I played with during the demo was a batarang with a line attached to it. You can use this a few different ways. For one, you can shoot it between two gargoyles and create a line where Batman can walk on. You can use this to drop down on unsuspecting criminals and take them out. Another effective way is to shoot it at an enemy and latch it to an exploding barrel making for an easy takedown. That's just one example of a new gadget that's going to be available in the game.

The final part of the demo revealed the Joker as he toys with Batman and blows up a large, uninhabited building. The Joker's design seems more sinister than the last few games with a more jagged look on parts of his face. That infectious Joker laugh and humor ends the demo and my time with the game until its released date.

It's maybe a new studio, but my quick time with Batman: Arkham origins is one of my most memorable from the show. As a big fan of the first two games, I have very high hopes for this one and playing the demo hasn't dashed any of that. Let's hope that it lives up to the others upon release in October 25.

Also I have to make a quick mention of Blackgate, the Sony VITA game that's also coming out taking place in the same universe. While I didn't get a chance to play much, I thought the game looked fabulous on the hand held. It takes place three months after Blackgate and features some minor spoilers if you haven't finished Origins. The quick scene I saw had Batman meeting Catwoman for the first time. Like I said, it looked pretty good with the short amount of time I had with it, but I definitely need to play more to really know how well it holds up.

     Final Fantasy XIII has been an interesting experiment in the Final Fantasy franchise. The first game was as straightforward a game as could be, while Final Fantasy XIII-2 was a pretty wide open experience that added monster collecting and an interesting take on time travel. Now we're reaching the end of the Lightning Saga, and it looks to be the most radical departure from the classic Final Fantasy experience yet. I got a chance to go through the short demo for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII during the show today, and I have to say I'm way more excited now than when the game was first announced.

    Lightning is the sole party member this time around, so it's more of a solo gig, and that's fine, it suits Lightning well. It also works canonically and I'll stop there to avoid saying anything spoiler-y. So  now how can Lightning fulfill all the roles a party is normally comprised of? By changing clothes of course! In a move reminiscent of Final Fantasy X-2, Lightning can now change her class with a quick wardrobe change. For the demo she had access to a Sorceress role, a Heavy Knight, and her standard class. Each class offered a different set of skills that are mapped to the face buttons, so Thunder would be mapped to triangle, defend is mapped to square, attack is mapped to circle, and Gale Strike is mapped to circle. Using any of these attacks will drain the ATB meter, which slowly refills over time. While it refills you can swap costumes and use the ATB meter for that costume to make more attacks. It's surprisingly snappy and responsive and works perfectly for the fast paced nature of the game. 

    The brief demo had me chasing Snow through a rather baroque looking building that was bubbling with chaos, which seems to be an unknown entity at this time. There was also a girl named Lumina who looked a lot like Serah, which I'm sure there's a pretty good reason for that. Unfortunately after running in to her and fighting the massive boss she summoned, the demo was abruptly ended. But that last fight is quite interesting as it introduced the Overdrive system. This allows Lightning to tap in to a large pool of ATB that can be spent however you want. While using the Heavy Knight, her Heavy Slash attack deals a great amount of damage but eats up a ton of the ATB gauge. Using Overdrive mode however, she can launch the attack a few times in succession.

     With a current launch date of late 2013, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is looking like it'll be a great addition to the franchise. These radical changes in gameplay between versions is certainly doing the game some favors, because this new battle system has me really intrigued, and after that cliffhanger ending from Final Fantasy XIII-2 I am eager to see how this story wraps up.

Quick side story: Chuck texted me a cell phone picture earlier this week of the Magic 2014 play area at E3, where Wizards of the Coast is showing off their new digital game. I quickly reminded him that what he saw was the cool-kids club and he surely wasn’t invited to enter. that is because only the coolest of the cool play MtG!

The latest trailer for the upcoming Magic 2014: Duals of the Planeswalkers was released out of E3 which gives us our first glimpse of the new gameplay features present in the game. finally, after years of asking for it, fans are going to get true deck building thanks to the addition of sealed play.
   

If Matt’s impressions of the Atlus’ Dragon’s Crown weren’t enough to get you excited for the game, perhaps the official E3 trailer for the game will sell you. Atlus latest video showing off the game really gives us an idea of just how beautiful the game looks in motion; the hand-drawn art style really comes to life on the screen. This is definitely a game on my radar for both the PS3 and Vita when it launches this Fall.
   

     Atlus made a bold move when they picked up Odin Sphere back in 2007 for the PS2. Fast-forward to 2013 and I'm thinking the same thing with Dragon's Crown. I figured the game to be dead in the water after it was dumped by UTV Ignition back in 2012, but during the show today I finally had the chance to get my hands on the game. This chance turned into nearly an hour of me clutching the PS3 controller and Vita tightly, refusing the let go. I had to down that harpy one more time, had to appraise that loot, had to enjoy the archer's combos, had to tap the screen to find hidden loot, I just had to get my fix.

    What drove me to such an act of madness and obsession? Duh, it was the fantastic gameplay (read: Sorceress' Assets). No seriously, this game is everything a fan of games like Final Fight, Dungeons and Dragons: The Tower of Doom/Shadow Over Mystara, Streets of Rage, and any other early 90's brawler could ever want. Each character plays distinctly different from the rest, but I opted for the archer most of the time (juggles not jiggles) as her combination of ranged attacks and ability to keep enemies airborne made her perfect for my style of play. 

    The two maps available for the E3 demo allowed for a decent amount of exploration, and using the right analog stick on the PS3 controller, or Vita touch screen, I could direct the companion thief to open chests and locked doors that gave me access to some sweet loot. Completing a level gives players the option to appraise their loot or just sell it outright. Though the demo gave players access to some pretty powerful gear, it was interesting to see that some weapons and armor had buffs against specific attack types, and offered damage bonuses depending on the type of enemy hit, offering a great deal of depth to the weaponry that is carried in to battle.

    Dragon's Crown is incredibly easy on the eyes, and it looks amazingly fluid in motion. The PS3 visuals looked fantastic, and the OLED screen of the Vita did an amazing job of showing off the visuals. The Basiscape soundtrack was kind of muddled because of the loud show floor, but if their past work is any indication, I expect it to be great when the game is finally released. August 6th is the day when Dragon's Crown is finally available on the PS3 and Vita, and after this brief taste, that seems like a very long wait. 

Here's a ProTip for you when you play Command and Conquer, a Gaming Nexus exclusive if you will.  When you play Command and Conquer don't accidentally sell off all of your buildings at the start of the game as it leads to instant defeat.  I tell you this as this totally happened to the guy next to me at the demo room yesterday and not me.  Definitely not me.
 
With that out of the way the new Command and Conquer does look solid so far.  While Victory Games doesn't have a release date for the game yet they are expecting to have the game out by the end of the year.   The free to play game will feature three factions: the EU, the Asian Pacific Alliance, and the Global Liberation Army (GLA).  Each faction has five generals to choose from and each general has their own special units and abilities. 
 
The team at Victory has flushed out each faction a bit with the GLA getting the most love.  What was once a fairly stereotypical mid-eastern terrorist organization is now a bit more global in their reach with members from around the world. 
 
I spent about 25 minutes playing the skirmish mode against an enemy AI and it feels exactly like you would expect a Command and Conquer game to.  There's the usual resource collection (gold and oil), base building, unit creation, and combat.  What took me back was that the game was using the Frostbite 3 engine as it makes a huge difference.  Not only are the graphics great but there's a level of destruction and explosions that I haven't seen in a RTS game before.  It doesn't really impact gameplay but it does make the combat that much more engaging. 
 
I was also impressed with the generals themselves and how much personality they have in the game.  We've seen some of that in Generals before but this really elevates it to a new level.
 
The game does look and play well and I'm interested to see the monetization structure behind the game.  The folks at Victory are committed to making sure the game isn't "Pay to Win"  but I'm interested to see where they land on where players will spend money.  Outside of that and the some fit and polish stuff I can see the game becoming something that RTS fans will want to sink their time into.

At Razer's booth, the buzz was on their new laptops that they announced. Razer was kind enough to walk me through two of their models they had present.

The Razer Blade Pro is the 17" Haswell i7 sporting gaming monster with the Switchblade interface on the keyboard's right side. With 8GB of ram and some SDD connections, the full 43-watt CPU with GeForce GTX 675M laptop was a sight in person. I was really impressed by the Switchblade panel that allowed for a wide varied of colored keys and the large trackpad area can even mirror an area on the screen. That really blew me away. It's really, really thin and you can expect about 6 hours of battery life in general usage. Razer has gone and allowed you to tweak the sensitivity of the trackpad to a point where they say you could use it with games. That remains to be seen, but if so, that's a pretty impressive feat. 

Also on display was the Razer Blade, which is the 14" version. Thinner and more powerful than most Macbook Airs, this 14" gaming laptop also packs the same powerful components found in the Pro version. Now, the small size doesn't allow for the Switchblade interface to be in place, but you do get what sounds to be a pretty beefy gaming laptop at a very small footprint.

The one thing I didn't like was the usage of TN panels. I thought there were muddle colors in some scenes and dark shades of grey rather than blacks. Also, viewing angles were pretty narrow as well. Now, there could be some trade offs that Razer decided was worth it to go with TN panels rather than IPS panels that many others enjoy, but we'll see how it shakes out. Also, no touch screen as well here, and Windows 8 begs to have touchscreen at times. I know gamer's today wouldn't be using it that much, but I think there's use cases that would drive for a touchscreen on a Windows 8 laptop that call for the inclusion of the tech. Perhaps, a future version then.

Overall, the laptop's designs were excellent and I love the feel of them. There's a few things I would've like to have seen differently, but we'll see how it goes and see if the Razer Blade line connects with the road gamer when it gets released.

Nordic Games has recently announced that their upcoming FPS game Deadfall Adventures will be released on September 27th for the Xbox 360 and Windows PC.  Deadfall Adventures is an FPS experience combined with puzzle solving and exploration that will feature a single player campaign, multiplayer battle arenas, and a survival co-op mode. [READ MORE]

Namco Bandai is entering the free-to-play genre by launching Tekken Revolution, exclusively on the Playstation Network and comes with eight iconic Tekken characters, an Arcade mode and ranked and player matches. 

The game also includes new Special Arts and Critical Arts moves designed to help newcomers. Players can level-up characters increasing three attributes including Power, Endurance and Vigor to mold combantants into each players unique play style. The eight characters you can play are Kazuya, Asuka, Paul, Law, Lars, Jack-6, King and Lili. The game works almost like an arcade machine. You have a certain amount of credits to start. After spending all those credits you can wait to earn more. Premium tickets are earned for completing various feats in the game and can be used in place of coins. If you run out you can buy more premium tickets if you wish, or wait for more coins. 

Tekken Revolution is available now on the Playstation Network 

For more information check out their official website, Facebook page and Twitter.

SteelSeries was showing off three headphones they announced recently. Tucked away at a quiet restaurant near the convention center, Travis and I sat down to go over the entry, midrange and enthusiast headsets they had to show.

Coming in at $40, the 3HV2 is a foldable is a very affordable headset that can take a beating. It features a retractable mic, extra padding, and a long line. The line has an inline remote to control muting of your mic as well as sound volume. The audio drivers have been updated to deliver better highs and mids as well as solid lows. As a gamer, you want clear sound on a wide range of frequencies and SteelSeries has gone and done some work on improving the drivers in the 3HV2 as well as the others I'll be talking about. If you want it to attach it to your phone or tablet, an adapter is included to do so. This looks to be a nice secondary headset to carry in your bag when you are on the go. 

The 5HV3 can also take a beating as was shown to me by one of the SteelSeries folks twisting the headband to extreme lengths. It also features a retractable mic and a swappable cable system. It's got a little micro-USB like connector that serves two functions. There are other connects that you can interchange the 5HV3 with so you can connect to a phone or a computer. It also serves as a breakaway point so if you stand up quick or someone gets caught on it and pulls, it will just break away at that connection to minimize damage on any of your connected components. The cable's double braided so it's strong as well. I listened to some music with the 5HV3 and was pretty happy with the audio coming from the new drivers in the highs and mids. For portability, the 5HV3 can come apart into three pieces and be put back together very easily. Travis will be looking at the 5HV3 for Gaming Nexus in the near future and he seemed pretty excited about the product.

Now the 9H is for those that want everything. It's got metal hinges, a very robust noise cancelling retractable mic, and a generous amount of soft padding. It's an incredibly light headset although it doesn't seem like it from the looks of it. The mic is one of their largest and hides really well. The ear cups has a double enclosure design. It's a DJ type design that will greatly block sound out and keep sound it. The double enclosure should help keep all the sound you want to hear in and keep any sound you don't want to hear out. It also features a double braided cable and that interchangeable connector system for connections to PC, mobile, and Mac. The 9H will also come with a USB sound card that has a mic, headphone, and the micro-USB like connector. When connecting the 9H to the sound card using the special connector, you'll get Dolby benefits such as simulated surround sound using two Dolby technologies. It can take "upscale" 5.1 to 7.1 sound, but again this can only be done when you use the included sound card. There's no plans to sell the USB sound card separately yet, so it seems that if you want this as well, you'll have to buy the 9H. The 9H will be $160 and be out the third quarter.

The three headsets from SteelSeries seem pretty solid and I like how they address a wide range of features and price points. They all felt really well done and I'm excited to hear how these perform with games and music. ?

One of the cool pieces of hardware on the E3 show that you might not have heard about is the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED. Carl Zeiss, arguably the world’s top company when it comes to optics and lenses (check any Sony camera), has produced a multimedia eyewear product aimed at the gaming audience.

The Cinemizer OLED can even be equipped with an optional headtracker to give an unparalleled sense of immersion in your favorite PC or console games. The device doesn’t need anything other than a standard HDMI connection in order to function. We got a chance to speak with Dave Hodson of Carl Zeiss regarding the tech earlier this week and he runs down everything that you need to know about this incredible piece of hardware in the interview shown below:
   

Bethesda has announced that it's Next-Gen games The Elder Scrolls Online, The Evil Within, and Wolfenstein: The New Order will all be available on PS4 and Xbox One- in addition to The Elder Scrolls Online being available for PC and Mac.

Below is the newest trailer for Elder Scrolls Online.
For more information on any of these games, visit www.bethsoft.com