Max Payne may have suffered the indignity of a horrendously embarassing cinematic adaptation that nearly crushed all the goodwill Marky Mark had cultivated since Boogie Nights, but plenty of video games have been subject to similar ordeals–the abomination that was the Super Mario Bros. movie didn’t kill the game franchise upon which it was based, and while the Max Payne series certainly isn’t as iconic as the Mario games, it has served up enough entertainment to recover from that minor tragedy.

However, fans of the franchise were disappointed when it was announced that the third entry in the series was put on hold. Thankfully, some screenshots, courtesy of IGN, indicate that the project is still in development.

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Rockstar Games does not know quit, with each new release the publisher showcases games high in replay value and their dedication to high quality visuals. L.A. Noire will be no different.

The lifelike animations of the in-game characters are the best do date. Rockstar has dropped off several fresh new screens revealing how fearful players should be about the video game “uncanny” valley. Continue Reading

We never could really get into The Witcher’s time-based mouse attacks, but the world of the Witcher offered fans of PC RPGs an alternative to the simple and overused mechanics of mainstream role playing games. CD Projekt has steadily been working on a sequel and have built an entirely new engine for The Witcher 2. To delight of fans everywhere, time-based clicking has moved aside.

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With any luck, my weekend will entail lots of Just Cause 2. The game falls far short of its potential due to repetitive missions that don’t take advantage of the island’s vertical capabilities, but you can’t argue with an engine that lets you grapple from buildings to cars to helicopters and back. Still, there’s one way that Just Cause 2′s shortcomings could be easily corrected: Dinosaurs. Jeff Akervik, an artist for Game Informer, was kind enough to show the world what that might look like. Just because.

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Final Fantasy XIII comes out in Japan on Thursday, and in the United States in March, but some stores have already broken the Japanese street date. The result? Lots of new, unofficial, totally not airbrushed Final Fantasy XIII screenshots from early in the game, via the Unofficial Final Fantasy Site. Normally we’d let this kind of thing slide, but we know Final Fantasy breeds a special kind of excitement, so read on the for the motherload. No word on whether these screenshots are from the Xbox 360 or the reportedly graphically superior Playstation 3 version. Also, if you’re outside of Japan and cannot wait for the game, Play-Asia will be exporting the Playstation 3 version, without region protection, for $100 starting Thursday. [via UFF Site]

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It’s not clear where these Halo: Reach screenshots came from. Someone named “Tom Morello” reportedly posted them on the MGS forums, where they were subsequently picked up by NeoGAF and the world. But now the original NeoGAF poster says Morello is a fake, leaving the origin of these new Halo photos a mystery. Of course, you don’t care about where they came from, you just want to see more, right? Onwards to the jump, where we’ve got a gallery of six.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing that one scene of Heavy Rain — the one at the sketchy industrial site — over and over, especially after it was playable at E3 this year. Fortunately, we’re finally getting a look at some more facets of the Playstation 3-exclusive crime drama, due out next year. There’s a convenience store hold-up scene that could be intense, plus a handful of intriguing characters, such as the gnarly-toothed, leopard-skin coat-wearing individual seen above. All the shots here, plus the 22 more you can see at GamesWire, convey tension and suspense, rather than the Quick Time events that could cost your character his or her life. That was probably done on purpose.[via GamesWire]

If you ever needed proof that video games don’t shy away from violence and have little regard for the laws of nature, behold the above screenshot from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. This supposed reboot of the classic vampire-slaying franchise looks to have a bit more gore than the jump-and-whip platformers of the Nintendo era, which I guess is okay if your love of Castlevania is less pure than holy water. As the game is scheduled for a 2010 release, we still don’t know much about it, except that it’s a third person slasher, with occasional puzzles, set during the “end of days.” Check out a couple more screenshots after the jump, provided you’ve got no problem with dead horses. [via Joystiq]

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