Gamahala

Halo Wars Review

2009-02-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

Bungie Studios has spent the last decade refining its winning formula for first-person shooter success with the Halo series. The epic sci-fi saga about humanity's battle for survival against the alien Covenant collective has now spanned three games on Microsoft's Xbox consoles, and that number will only grow in the years to come. For the first time, a non-Bungie development studio has tried its hand at expanding the series in the form of Halo Wars, a real-time strategy game set in the universe popularized by the enigmatic Master Chief. And although Spartan warrior John-117 doesn't appear in the game, developer Ensemble Studios has otherwise closely followed Bungie's formula for success. Halo has always been about intense bursts of run-and-gun gameplay with pretty graphics and a robust and addictive multiplayer component, all wrapped up in a compelling story. Rather than strike out on its own with an approach more akin to its wide-open Age of Empires series of real-time strategy games, Ensemble has stuck to the Bungie formula in Halo Wars. Missions are tightly designed, the action moves constantly forward, and momentum isn't bogged down with complex technology trees, multiple buildings and resource gathering operations. Because of this, Halo Wars serves almost as a "my-first-RTS" rather than as a Halo-ization of more traditional strategy offerings like AoE, Starcraft and Command & Conquer. Compared to those games, Halo Wars offers you less control over where you set up your base of operations, how you build your armies and the manner in which you achieve your objectives. In stripping the RTS experience down to its core function of creating an army to defeating an enemy, Halo Wars brings something fresh and lively to the console RTS landscape. Many console strategy games are ports of their PC counterparts, which causes design problems from the outset. Actions that were designed to be managed with the precision controls of a keyboard and mouse are shoehorned onto a controller with a limited number of buttons and a slower system of on-screen navigation. As a result, many of these ports simply don't work as advertised, and gamers end up shaking their fists at an angry and vindictive God. The Ensemble developers seem to have had just that experience, because they took a totally different approach with Halo Wars. This game was built from the ground-up for the Xbox 360, and the control system shows it. Almost every action in Halo Wars can be accomplished with two button presses, and production choices are made from a Mass Effect-like radial menu that never has more than eight options. On the battlefield, just tap the A button on a unit to select, say, a Spartan super-soldier; move your cursor to a location via the left analog stick; and tap the X button to send him there. If the location is empty, your unit will move there, and if it's occupied by an enemy, he'll attack like the well-trained Marine he is. Most units also have a special attack, which you can execute at the touch of the Y button. Warthogs, for example, can plow over enemy ground forces, which comes in handy as a last resort. Once you use a special attack, it will need to recharge, so use them wisely. Marines and their vehicles don't train and build themselves, so you'll need to handle that on your own. All of Halo Wars' campaign missions are played from the United Nations Space Command perspective (sorry, no Covenant campaign), and most start you out with a single base of operations, or at least a spot to build one. These Firebases come with three building sites and can be upgraded to support up to four additional sites. In some campaign levels, and in most multiplayer maps, you'll have the opportunity to operate additional bases, but you can only build in designated areas. While some may find this restrictive, I found it to be refreshing approach that significantly streamlined the base-building process, which can be cumbersome to manage in other console RTSs. Although your base site is fixed, that doesn't take the strategy out of the process. Halo Wars is as much about managing limited resources as it is about blowing stuff up. Each Supply Pad you build as the UNSC, and each warehouse you construct as the Covenant in multiplayer matches, will provide you with a steady stream of resources that you can use to build your army, beef up your base and deploy super weapons. One of the most satisfying things to do in Halo Wars is to fully upgrade the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon on the Spirit of Fire, build up a healthy stash of resources and then spend those resources to unload a group of three pinpoint 600-ton rounds on a Covenant base. Nighty-night, bugs. Dropping mad loads of Tungsten on the Covvies wouldn't be nearly as much fun without the awesome explosions said rounds impart upon detonation. Ensemble did some great graphical work on Halo Wars, and it paid off. The particle effects and damage modeling are incredibly satisfying to watch, and every Covenant and UNSC unit is lovingly recreated to look just like its counterpart in the previous Halo games. And the graphical eye candy doesn't stop at the battlefield. The CGI cutscenes in Halo Wars are beautiful, and they add a tremendous amount of character and weight to the game. Die-hard fans of the Halo storyline won't be disappointed with the way Ensemble and Microsoft brought the world to life, from the intricately detailed Spirit of Fire to the FMV sequences that show Spartans engaged in intense hand-to-hand combat. There's a cutscene for each of Halo Wars' 15 missions, and they're a nice reward for completing each level. Unfortunately, the tale they tell isn't quite up to the standards Bungie has set in previous games. It's not the plot that's the problem; it's just your standard the-galaxy's-in-danger story. Rather, it's the characters involved that left me somewhat wanting. All are fairly stereotypical, and the two main characters, Sgt. John Forge and Prof. Ellen Anders just weren't very likable to me. The former is a chauvinist tough-guy who's none too pleased about having to babysit a lady doctor on a man's mission. And Anders is what IGN Xbox 360 editor Erik Brudvig describes as your typical "Dr. Science" archetype -- a cheeky, headstrong egghead in a white lab coat who won't take no for an answer. The best character in Halo Wars is probably Serina, an A.I. with attitude and more than a little contempt for the humans she's charged with assisting. But Halo Wars makes up for its character shortcomings with its unflagging devotion to retaining the Halo feel. The story still feels epic in scope, and there are some powerful on-screen moments. Even the interface and extras are unmistakably Halo. The Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary difficulties are here, as are the crossed-sword icons to represent them. There are even skulls scattered throughout the game that you can collect by meeting special objectives in the campaign. Flip them on just like you would in Halo 3 to turn on effects like Grunt Birthday Party, which adds a shower of confetti to every Covenant Grunt you kill, or choose More Cowbell to crank all explosions in the game up to 11. Halo Wars is full of nice touches that show the development team's personality and dedication to the Halo universe. Hardcore fans will find plenty series lore to pore over in the cutscenes, and there's even an unlockable Halo timeline that lays out the history of humanity's struggle for survival. Ensemble also injected its own irreverent sense of humor throughout, including the game tips that scroll along the bottom of the screen in the menus. This is where I learned that "The Brute Chieftain likes Thornbeast for dinner, but it better be rare." It wouldn't be a Halo game without multiplayer, and Ensemble didn't skip this area either. Halo Wars features an online multiplayer matchmaking system similar to the one Bungie built for Halo 3, albeit with far fewer bells and whistles. Just pop into the multiplayer menu, and the game will find you a party and match you up with competitors via TrueSkill. There's nice attention to detail here, from the Halo 3-like ranking system to the transparent system of party matchups (Halo Wars lists your party's TrueSkill rank). Since the game's not out in the wild yet, it was impossible for me to test how Halo Wars' matchmaking system holds up under the strain of Xbox Live with tens of thousands playing. But from my limited tests taking the game online, things worked smoothly. Voice chat worked well, there was no lag, and matchmaking was quick and painless. Again, all that could change when the game is released. There are only two playable factions in Halo Wars multiplayer: UNSC and Covenant, which I didn't find to be a detriment to the experience. That's partly because both sides have three different leaders to choose from, each of which has access to different perks, units and bonuses. Your leader choice can make a big difference in your strategy on the battlefield, which is a nice touch. Some may complain that the Flood isn't a playable faction (although they are in the campaign). Personally, I hate the Flood, and I was happy they were excluded. In addition to matchmaking, you can also create custom online matches, engage in skirmishes locally against AI players or even play through the campaign cooperatively with a friend. But competitive multiplayer is really where Halo Wars opens up and allows you to stretch your strategic muscles. You can play one-on-one, two-on-two or three-on-three matches, and there are 14 maps that are scaled to those game types. Unlike the strict campaign, the multiplayer modes of Halo Wars feel most like what RTS fans are used to from the genre. Like the Halo FPS games, the Halo Wars campaign is all about quick bursts of fun strung together, and that means missions with carefully defined objectives. For many PC RTS players, the draw to the genre is the ability to step into the shoes of a powerful general with every little bit of the situation at his or her command. But there aren't that many ways to complete the missions in Halo Wars. There wasn't a point where the game really took off the training wheels and said, "There's the enemy – go get him however you see fit." As a fan of both the RTS genre and the Halo universe, I liked Ensemble's approach to blending the two ideas, but I found myself wishing the reins were a bit looser. However, I still had a ton of fun with Halo Wars, and I highly recommend it to any Halo fan who's never really cared much about real-time strategy. But if you're a hardcore RTS nut who's a bit of a control freak, you might be disappointed with the options here.

Closing Comments

Halo Wars deftly dodges between the hardcore micromanagement of real-time strategy and the instant gratification expected by Halo fans. Ensemble has nailed console RTS controls, but at the expense of some depth. The campaign missions often seem overly scripted and the experience doesn’t have the wide-open feel of some other RTSs. But the Halo feel is most definitely present, and serves as one of the game’s biggest strengths. The cinematic cutscenes are gorgeous, if the narrative is somewhat thin in places. Overall, Halo Wars is a fresh and expertly polished approach to the console strategy genre, and it’s a fitting goodbye from a beloved studio.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Review

2008-12-01T05:05:00.000-08:00

Four years ago Blizzard launched World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online RPG that abruptly snatched the spotlight from former genre heavyweight, Sony Online's EverQuest, and went on to enjoy a degree of success few could have predicted. With 11 million subscribers worldwide, the cultural impact of Blizzard's creation is difficult to accurately measure. It's spawned its own lexicon, countless Internet memes, appeared as the focus of an episode of South Park, and has dominated industry discussion about online games since its release. Games like this like this aren't one-shot, linear run-throughs or exercises in melding gameplay with abstract artistic themes; they're services. You pay a subscription fee and in return you get stable servers to play on, constant bug fixes, updates to game systems, added content, and customer support lines. It's a much different experience from other media, such as movies or books, particularly when trying to assess some kind of worth. You don't fault a movie for crashing, for instance, you fault the projector. A paragraph in a novel will never glitch out, requiring you to close and reopen the pages to reset it. A massively multiplayer online game has so many more moving pieces and potential complications that having a company like Blizzard working behind the scenes should inspire confidence. It's got the quality assurance staff and support to ensure its products are remarkably polished, perform well, and actually work across a range of desktops and laptops with wildly varying hardware configurations. Also, the fact that there's such a large player base means this virtual world isn't getting shut down anytime soon, a danger with this type of game as most recently demonstrated with NCsoft and Tabula Rasa. Wrath of the Lich King is the second expansion to Blizzard's game, something the player base has already snatched up in great quantities. This kind of release schedule, with an expansion roughly every two years, differs from what Sony Online did with EverQuest, a game that just received its 15th expansion in just about 10 years. What you get with a Blizzard expansion is an incredible amount of content, some of the more prominent features being a new level cap, a new continent, the first added player class since the game's launch, and a general assurance it's all going to work correctly. Simply having plenty of content and stability isn't enough to make the game worthy of your dollar however. You could, for instance, have a magazine subscription where the product is always on time, in good condition, and is full of pictures and text, but in the end it's still just another issue of Sawdust Quarterly. As most gamers out there know already, World of Warcraft is a remarkable product. From the entertaining, strongly defined classes with wildly diverse functionality and generally solid feel and timing of activating skills, to a gigantic, beautiful open world and myriad ways to spend your time leveling up professions, coordinating large-scale attacks against powerful dungeon bosses, or engaging in player versus player battles ensures you'll find something to like. While the previous expansion, The Burning Crusade, offered quite a bit for new WoW players back in January 2007 with two new playable races and accompanying level 1 – 20 starting zones, Wrath of the Lich King is geared more for high level players. The level cap has been bumped up to 80, and the new continent of Northrend isn't accessible until you've got a higher level character, so if you're new you'll need to move through the original release content as well as territory from the first expansion, both of which are required to play Lich King. That being said, Blizzard made the leveling process up to 70 much more rapid through patches released before The Lich King's arrival, so those who activate now won't spend nearly as much time in the original release territory or Outland from The Burning Crusade as those who dove in when the content was still new. With the majority of the player base at or very much on their way to the level 80 cap at this point, any green players won't really experience the full degree of the community and social strengths of the game until later on. Even longtime players will have to retread some old content since the new class, the Death Knight, starts at level 55. Provided you've got a high enough level character you can roll one of these demonic melee fighters as Horde or Alliance and experience right away one of the expansion's major strengths; a stronger narrative cohesion. Unlike the other classes, Death Knights get their very own introductory quest lines that have you working temporarily for Arthas, also known as the Lich King. In all it's about 49 quests that start out with your character battling against the forces of light, killing citizens, infiltrating operations, assaulting strongholds, and flying frost wyrms over battlefields to reign death on those below. Through a few in-game, voiced character interactions alter you'll witness some dramatic events that provide a nice narrative context for the class within Blizzard's alternately self-serious and flippant fictional world. After the introductory sequence you take a bit of a detour though Outland as you'll need to level up to the requirement for entry into Northrend before rejoining the story of Arthas. At least Blizzard didn't make players restart at level 1. While it's difficult to say at this point what kind of role Death Knights will carve out in raiding groups and what kind of PvP strategies will be developed, they're certainly an entertaining class to play. Compared with the other nine alternatives in World of Warcraft, Death Knights have a distinct rhythm to their play styles, a result of two unique resource systems used to pull off moves. Death Knights start off fights by consuming different types of runes to activate skills, all of which have an accompanying cooldown sequence. Using these skills also builds runic power that makes available other skills, meaning the flow of fights with Death Knights alternates between managing rune cooldowns to trigger abilities and counterbalancing that with those that consume runic power. Talent trees of course strengthen different aspects of the class. Depending on how you've allocated your points you can be more effective at generating and maintaining runic power, make yourself more resilient in battle, dramatically boost your damage output and unlock a number of interesting skills. The Death Knight can, for instance, briefly come back to life as a ghoul after being killed, project a stationary anti-magic zone to dampen incoming magical damage, call down a gargoyle to inflict damage on foes, blow up corpses like Diablo II's Necromancer, and even summon a ghoul companion. Considering the class wears plate armor it's certainly a force to be reckoned with, and is particularly noticeable in PvP because of its death grip ability, which yanks targets from a distance to the death knight. It's been a long wait for a new class to toy around with, and what Blizzard has delivered provides players with a fresh set of distinct, entertaining skills to put to usewhile playing solo and grouped. One criticism that tends to get leveled at MMOs like WoW is that there's no strong central narrative. Something like BioWare's Mass Effect has a powerful story and characters, the endless nature of the MMO and the need for the developer to keep players engaged so they'll keep that subscription active means there can't really be a true termination, even if there are climactic events, though games like Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online try to address that. That being said, Blizzard has built in much more narrative across the zones of Northrend, anchored by frequent appearances by Arthas, which makes the leveling process a more interesting endeavor. Like in the Death Knight opening sequences, players will get plenty of opportunity to interact with the Scourge's heavily armored leader. He tends to show up all over the place, after seemingly mundane quests in the Howling Fjord to the finale of a dungeon run through Drak'Tharon Keep on the borders of Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak. He'll spout sinister lines with a Dr. Claw-like cadence and whether you take him seriously or smirk at his overwrought malevolence, you can't help but pay attention when he raises his sword, Frostmourne, to single out a victim or emphasize a point. One of the more involved questlines in a zone called Dragonblight fleshes out more of Arthas' history, his transformation from noble prince to embodiment of evil, and culminates in a lengthy cut-scene surrounding the Wrath Gate (Black Gate?) that gives players a better sense of what's going on in the world at large, and with a follow-up questline that spans the old world and provides a nice connection between the new and existing content. What's perhaps more effective for narrative delivery is how Blizzard's implemented localized changes in the game world depending on your actions. This can be as subtle as a bed of flowers popping up around an NPC after you turn in a quest, to more large scale alternations. After the Wrath Gate event, for instance, the landscape in front of the entrance is encircled by fire and screaming citizens run every which way and it stays that way afterward. In the Death Knight opening scenario, you'll travel back and forth between the land and a floating necropolis, and between each journey to and fro there'll be no load times yet the landscape below will shift from idyllic human town to a roaring battlefield over which frost wyrms soar. These types of transitions, though sometimes subtle, really work to enhance the notion that you're affecting the game world in a meaningful way. Coupled with the in-game cut scenes and you've got a World of Warcraft with far more narrative direction that has been previously seen. Yet you've still got to drop in the caveat that it's a good story…for an MMO. It's something that those ensconced in Azeroth will absolutely adore, but won't win over those who put the game to the side years ago or those who never took any interest in the genre in the first place. Another step forward for Blizzard is their overall zone design. Northrend not only looks far more appealing than any of the old world content but also contains a wider variety of quests. It's an important development as many tend to complain about how getting quests to kill X number of mobs, pick Y bits of random crap off the ground, or collect Z collectibles off of corpses can make you want to tear your hair out, and rightfully so. Those types of quests are boring, and in Wrath of the Lich King Blizzard has not only strengthened storytelling, but it's greatly improved the quest structures. You'll still spend time killing and collecting but quest chains are mixed up with vehicle missions, like running dragon battle daily quests at Wyrmrest Temple where you blast fireballs at other winged reptiles. There's sequences where you swoop around battlefields to snatch up survivors as well as numerous instances where you put on disguises to infiltrate enemy installations and quest for monsters which all work to alleviate the drooling stupor you might fall into after doing the same type of quest for hours on end. Some of these sequences don't work all that well though, like a giant-riding section in Zul'Drak and a defense sequence on a mountainside in Icecrown, but the glitches hardly affect the overall experience. The zone designs contribute to the sense of variety as well through complex geographic layouts like the sprawling canyons of the Howling Fjord to the jungles of Sholazar Basin. The highest level zones of Storm Peaks and Icecrown are even more impressive, as they cater to players with flying mounts. In Icecrown, for instance, a quest hub floats over the zone in the form of a battleship. Not only does it make for an interesting setup as you fly up to receive tasks and can explore the innards of the ship, but builds on the notion that this is an epic conflict and allows for some gorgeous vistas as you fly out over the railing and behold the frozen wastes and Tolkien-esque black barbs of Icecrown Citadel and its snaking gates. Then there's of course the instanced dungeons in which players battle tougher content but are rewarded with better items for their character. From the starting 5-man endeavors into The Nexus and Utgarde Keep to higher level instances like Gundrak, Wrath of the Lich King's basic dungeons are all fairly accessible and brief, meaning there aren't droves of mobs to battle through to get to the loot yielding bosses. We were moving through with pick-up groups in roughly 45 minutes, and that was without anyone having previous knowledge of the layout or boss attack patterns. The more involved raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King can be entered in either 10 or 25 man groups, yet again lowering the bar for players who may be intimidated by the more organized, team-oriented styles of play. Beating on AI controlled bosses and leveling your character isn't the only option in World of Warcraft; there's also quite a bit of player versus player combat to be had. On open PvP servers you can slap around anyone of the opposing faction, but Blizzard has gradually added a number of more ordered systems to its game over the years, something expanded upon in Wrath of the Lich King. Wintergrasp, a zone dedicated entirely to PvP, lies buried near Northrend's center. It's an attempt by Blizzard to give more structure to larger scale conflicts, as players can enter the zone and after a timer counts down attempt to assault or defend a fortress. It's not something that's going to elevate the game's open PvP element to the level of Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, but it's still a nice change of pace from leveling or bashing bosses since, in addition to engaging in large-scale team battles, you can commandeer siege equipment armed with rams and destructive projectiles to break apart pieces of the stronghold, adding another element to the PvP gameplay. The culture surrounding this new zone hasn't really matured at this point, though there's certainly potential. Something that's a little more measurable is the Strand of the Ancients battleground arena, a new type of set player limit see-saw battle where teams take sides storming a series of gates with siege equipment. It fits in with the general philosophy of the expansion pack where Blizzard takes what their player base enjoys and adds to it, in this case socketing another cog in the overall PvP machinery. Plenty of smaller scale changes have been implemented on top of this, not the least of which is another new profession, Inscription, that among its many functions allows players to power up existing skills. Other profession systems have been adjusted as well. With Enchanting, one of our main character's professions, it's possible toenchant rings, though only your own. An achievement system has also been built into the game, evidence that Blizzard took a note from systems whirring in something like Microsoft's Xbox 360, where simply by virtue of adding in a goal, let's say kill a number of turkeys within a time limit, the company can keep its player base busy sometimes even without a reward beyond a higher achievement point total. Not to deny the player base a fancy new hangout, Wrath of the Lich King includes a new capital city. Called Dalaran, the metropolis floats over the sparkling forests of Crystalsong on Icecrown's border, and comes with portals to other major cities, access to battlegrounds and Wintergrasp, and even its own instance, the Violet Hold, where groups fend off wave after wave of powerful enemies and bosses. Dalaran, like the rest of the zones, is quite pretty thanks to graphical effects recently added into the game including real-time shadows and more detailed models. Pairing those upgrades with the more interesting zone designs and a return to more realistic settings, a refreshing change after the alien zones in Outland, and you've got a game that still manages to impress with scenes of occasional beauty. And of course you get character animations practically unparalleled in the genre, and a diverse range of spell and ability effects that easily allow players to identify another's class as soon as something's cast. Many of Warcraft's sounds will be familiar to players, but the music and effects are still of the highest quality. While running around Northrend you'll be treated to a score that works to enhance the overall feeling of the zones, and it's always great to listen to the Lich King's spiteful verbal barbs.

Closing Comments: With Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's play style has been tweaked to be more accessible, addictive, and deeper. Any longtime player is sure to be pleased with what Blizzard's done here since it gives the higher level population a wealth of new content for play as well as improves the overall look of the world. And let's be honest, if you're going to spend hundreds of hours in a virtual space, it helps if it's pretty. It's an MMO system that works, as the game's success underlines, but you've got to ask yourself after four years how long this kind of momentumcan last. Perhaps within the next two years, or by the time the next World of Warcraft expansion is released, there'll be a clearer answer.
As for now, Blizzard is more than content to build on World of Warcraft's formula, improving and refining nearly every aspect of the game, delivering new quest systems, a better and more focused narrative, loads of new goals to chase by yourself or with friends, and made acclimating to its world's complexities a process generally free of the headaches of something like CCP's EVE Online. Those who've yet to jump in should absolutely do so; it's hard to imagine anyone being disappointed with such a well-run, polished product that offers so many reward strata and diverse styles of gameplay.

Reboot: Luigi's Mansion For Wii, DS

2008-12-01T04:59:00.000-08:00

Do you realize it's been seven years since Nintendo released Luigi's Mansion alongside the launch of GameCube? I can hardly believe it. The project, which starred Mario's cowardly brother on a trek through a haunted house, proved a charming, funny, and polished affair. It played well, making use of the GameCube controller's dual-analog setup; it was meant to be a showpiece of the new pad, in fact, although I don't think Nintendo fully succeeded in that goal. It also looked good. As Luigi wobbled with fluid animation through eerie hallways and rooms filled with paintings and furniture, lightning bolts flashed in the foreground and cast shadows onto nearby walls. I'd be remiss if I didn't additionally note the catchy soundtrack full of jingles so memorable that I've adopted a couple of them as ringers for my iPhone. And using the character's flashlight and vacuum to find and trap ghosts was a clever, engaging mechanic. Obviously, I enjoyed the game -- the seemingly lower review score of 7.0 I gave it was the result of Mansion's shallow nature, nothing else. I mean, I breezed through the experience in five hours and rarely encountered genuine challenges.
Sandwiched between Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in the pantheon of Nintendo console launch titles, Luigi's Mansion pales in comparison. Although the Big N still sold two million copies of the game, it's frankly neither as revolutionary as Mario 64 nor as epic as Twilight Princess. Yet, I really do feel like Mansion is a franchise worth continuing and more specifically, enhancing -- a real possibility with the added power of the Wii console and more importantly, its unique controller. Not only that, but there's an opportunity for the publisher to simultaneously migrate the series to its handheld. Just as a port of Mario 64 launched DS, so could a portable version of Luigi's Mansion help sell DSi.
What, exactly, would Nintendo need do to really reboot the series -- give it a proper makeover befitting of Wii's upgrades and advancements? The obvious answers: better controls, better graphics and a new hook. But since I'm just editorializing anyway, indulge me as I get into the specifics -- a melange of ideas I think would make for a far better experience -- ones that really utilize the strengths of Nintendo's system. There are the presentational tweaks and upgrades. Luigi's Mansion employed a static camera system that moved with the character as he explored environments, triggering transparency for walls and objects before they could obstruct the viewpoint. I actually liked this method and feel that re-using it would make a lot of sense in certain situations, even if for reasons of nostalgia -- fan service for those who really enjoyed the GCN title. However, I also believe Nintendo would be wise to take a look at a game like Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, which positions the camera behind the back of the main character as he explores the world. (Click here to watch a video.) This is both more immersive and would jell better with some of the gameplay controls I have in mind. Ideally, a Wii sequel would employ the two different viewpoints depending on the situation.
Luigi's Mansion featured some great character animation and lighting effects, but with a small bump to Wii's GPU and CPU, not to mention roughly double the RAM and a much bigger storage medium, there's plenty more than can be done. In fact, at Space World 2000, Nintendo showcased a rendered demo of Luigi's Mansion as it hoped it would be; the end product didn't quite live up to those initial visuals, but I think a Wii build could easily surpass them. Think about it. More room for texture clarity and variation and a little more power for advanced texture and lighting effects, from a plethora of maps (specularity, bump) to per-pixel-like lighting for Luigi's flashlight. Now throw in volumetric fog for environmental effect. Bloom lighting to bring ghosts to life. And crank up the particles so that when Mario's frightened brother has a ghost caught with his vacuum, the trail sparkles and pops as it shifts between colors to indicate just how close Luigi is to catching the enemy.
"A Wii version of Luigi's Mansion could take advantage of the systems more powerful technology in many fantastic ways," says Eric Nofsinger, chief creative officer at High Voltage Software, currently making The Conduit for Wii. "The scale of the game could be increased, allowing the player to explore not only the mansion, but the environment around the mansion. Luigi could navigate a hedge maze, search through a haunted greenhouse, get lost in the woods, or rummage through a garage filled with ancient vehicles."
Adds Nofsinger: "The Wii can more effectively handle liquid and water effects, which allow the Mansion to have bodies of water for Luigi to interact with. These could be ponds, swimming pools, or flooded basement rooms, but they would all add visual pizzazz. These could also be used to add underwater exploration elements and ghost fighting to the game."
Nofsinger also has some ideas about lighting. "These effects can be dramatically increased as well. Not only should Luigi's flashlight be less of an obvious 3D 'cone,' but all the shadows should all be generated in a more real-time manner, allowing the ghosts, and Luigi's flashlight to cast shadows when their light is thrown on nearby objects," he says. "Colored lighting would help as well, allowing the various brightly colored ghosts to affect their environment. The player could even cycle through colored lenses for Luigi's flashlight for gameplay effects (different colors could be used to highlight different ghosts, or hidden objects)."
Don't stop there, though. As games like Boom Blox have proved, realistic physics are every bit as possible on Wii as they are other systems and this fact could take the Luigi's Mansion franchise to new heights. Imagine being able to use the character's vacuum to manipulate in-world items as well as suck in ghosts, stacking objects atop each other to create a makeshift ladder for Luigi to use or to interact with the world in realistic ways. For example, floating a burning candle across the room to a nearby curtain, which catches fire, revealing a hidden doorway beyond. Even ghosts could affect physics. Picture a ghost caught in your vacu-stream battling to get away, regularly toppling objects and hurling items at you in an effort to break free. Whereas the original game felt repetitive, a little light on depth, regular physics-based puzzles would alleviate or altogether eliminate such a shortcoming. Fragile has something else in common with Luigi's Mansion in that its main character wields a flashlight as she explores a dark world. The difference is that Namco's game has the benefit of the Wii remote and seems to utilize it well. As you move through blackened rooms, you point the flashlight with great speed and accuracy, all with Nintendo's controller. This simple mechanic implemented correctly and used in conjunction with Wii MotionPlus could dramatically enhance a Wii version of Luigi's Mansion. Simply move Luigi through the mansion with the nunchuk's analog stick and point with the Wii remote. So easy. So fast. So exact. And obviously, the same control configuration would serve Luigi's vacuum-based interactions. Point at items, grab them with the B-trigger and the move them around with the remote. You could even throw them around and catch them mid-air if you're quick enough with Nintendo's controller. (I used to do this all the time with games like Elebits and found it a fun show of skill, even if it served no other purpose.)
So where would Wii MotionPlus come in? Ghost locks, of course. As soon as you lock onto one of the supernatural foes, you'd use the Wii remote to reel it in like a fish, pulling backward, twisting it side-to-side, and slowly inching the enemy closer to its trap. The aforementioned particle trail, changing in color, could simultaneously serve as a visual cue, letting you know when to ease up and when to pull harder. If the trail were to change hues to blue, you'd know you've got too much slack and need to pull back; to red and it's you'd push forward or the lock might break. You would do all of this while moving Luigi about with the analog stick, edging him backward when necessary and walking him forward when the opposite is true. I think it would be a fun mechanic.
What Nintendo shouldn't do, though, is stop with the basics. I was playing Left 4 Dead on Xbox 360 last night and found its online four-player cooperative mode downright addictive. Nintendo has the capability and means to give Wii owners an experience very similar for its software, a reboot of Luigi's Mansion included. Suppose that a Mansion sequel included an online cooperative mode. Four players battling through mansions, working together to find and capture ghosts. Of course, the ghosts in Luigi's Mansion are a far cry from the zombies in Left 4 Dead and as a result the threat level and intensity would be inherently diminished, but I think there are ways to increase it. There's the cheesiest way: add a clock timer and set a goal for the number of ghosts that must be captured. It'd work, but there are better, less artificial methods to achieve the same goal. Imagine that as you and three friends explored the mansions, chatting over WiiSpeak, the ghost count continued to grow -- unless, that is, you controlled it. If you and your buddies could not keep finding and sucking in ghosts, the mansion would eventually become too haunted and you'd be forced to exit, effectively losing the match.
Matters could be made more complicated by Luigi's cowardice. When zombies attack in Left 4 Dead, they deplete your health; lose enough and you'll lie on the ground, dying, your only hope a team member who might revive you. Take those fundamentals and apply them to Nintendo's game. Luigi could function by way of a courage meter that increases as he captures ghosts but decreases when he fails to capture them -- that is, he gets a lock but for one reason or another is unable to accurately suck them in. If the courage meter drops to nothing, Luigi bolts, flailing his arms and screaming as he runs aimlessly through the mansion. You would not have control of this, but your teammates could choose to come to your rescue and instill courage back into the character. The added challenge of chasing Luigi about the environments would raise strategic questions, particularly if the ghosts are mounting. Should your friends even bother going back for you or should they just try to push forward and finish the mission? But what about an alternative gameplay style? Something inspired by another game this time: Splinter Cell. Consider a versus mode in which two Luigi characters (or Mario and Luigi, or even your Mii avatars) walk through mansions in search of two ghosts. Mario holds only a flashlight. Luigi has a vacuum. And the two must work together to catch the ghosts -- the first accurately using the flashlight to stun them and the second utilizing the vacuum to suck them in. Meanwhile, the two ghosts are on a mission to find the mansion's various fuse boxes so that they can shut off power in the electrified rooms whose illuminated areas keep their brethren locked in place. If they can shut down all the boxes, all of the ghosts are able to run free and Mario and Luigi must vacate the mansion.
Maybe you like some of my ideas and maybe not. But regardless, I think it's clear that there's plenty of juice left in this franchise and that a Wii reboot could really do it justice. That said, why not go ahead and develop a DS version, too? Take the franchise to the portable realm and introduce it to more players? Could a DS game emulate the GameCube experience? Is that even possible?
"Yes, absolutely. Luigi's Mansion could not only be faithfully adapted for the DS, but also take advantage of the touch screen for capturing ghosts by sliding the stylus," says Jools Watsham, head of Renegade Kid, a developer leading the charge when it comes to technical achievements on Nintendo's handheld. It created Dementium: The Ward and is currently underway with Moon, one of my most anticipated portable projects. "On a side note," adds Watsham, "If Nintendo are looking for a developer to adapt Luigi's Mansion to the DS, we're interested!"
Asked how a DS title might interact with a Wii version, Watsham casually responds, "There are many ways of approaching a combo-release of the two titles. It would be great to have a co-op mode where you control a different character (perhaps Baby Luigi, or a friendly Boo) on the DS to not only assist in the main quest of cleaning on the Wii, but also help clean different areas of the mansion that Luigi can't reach - like mouse holes, attic, beneath the floorboards, etc."
There are even more possibilities with DSi, still without an American release date but destined to hit sometime next year. Using the portable's built-in camera, you could take various photos -- of yourself, your family members, your dog -- and then upload them to the Wii game, where they would become paintings hung on the walls of the spooky mansion Luigi explores. Meanwhile, as Watsham points out, the stylus control that DS brings to the table seems perfectly suited for a game of this type.
There's no proof that Nintendo cares enough about the Luigi's Mansion franchise to consider a Wii sequel, but stranger things have happened. For example, characters from a Japan-only shooter called Sin & Punishment made a cameo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl by way of a simple assist trophy. Now, Sin & Punishment 2 is set for release on Wii, a fact that shocked many when Nintendo announced it earlier this year. Luigi's Mansion featured a full-blown level in Brawl. That's good enough for me to keep the hope alive.

Sonic Unleashed

2008-11-17T04:57:00.001-08:00

Even though SEGA promised that all versions of Sonic Unleashed – the next 3D platformer featuring the company's videogame mascot – would ship simultaneously, the company spent most of its time focusing on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. Unfortunately, at least in preview builds, those versions have only looked prettier in screenshots; in motion, that's a different story with its incredibly inconsistent framerate and movement that didn't speak well for the design's overall quality. After finally experiencing the Wii version for the first time this week, I have to ask: maybe the company should have been focusing on the Wii version instead? It's too early to say whether the Wii version will end up being a great game, but at the very least in my brief hands-on with Sonic Unleashed, I have to say that the Wii version certainly looks and plays better in Wii standards than the more advanced console versions do, even with the lower visual standards. Sonic Unleashed is a Sonic game that's separated into two distinct portions. During the day, players do the established Sonic thing and run really, really fast through bright and vibrant environments, leaping over ledges, sliding under platforms, running through crazy loops and corkscrews while collecting rings and taking out enemies using Sonic's lock-on targeting attacks. Speed is key in these levels as you're rated based on how fast you get to the end – and that includes the time you take out the boss. In the corner of the screen you'll see exactly when your S ranking will tick down to an A, the A ranking to a B…and so on. At night, that's when things get a little more hairy. Sonic transforms into a Werewolf like creature (which is still really, really odd considering he's already a furry creature, but whatever) and romps through these locations in a slower, more brutal pace using hand-to-hand combat in place of the lock-on targeting attacks. Now, I've already experienced this game in a work-in-progress version on the Xbox 360 a few months ago – while the crispness of the visuals were certainly impressive, the fact that the game's framerate took a serious dive in both the speedy daytime environments and the more slow-and-brutal nighttime levels were a little to jarring to accept. Sonic has always been about speed, and when you can't get your 3D engine to portray that speed, you're in serious trouble. The Wii version that I played earlier this week was promised to be a final build of the game, and in the two levels I experienced – one day, one night – the framerate never dipped below its locked refresh. The game is clearly running at 30 frames per second, which is slightly disappointing considering speedy games tend to feel more fluid when they're running at 60. But at the very least, it was a consistent 30 FPS that never tanked at all. The game definitely doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of the Xbox 360 version – no realtime physics engine to bounce the shattered remains of crates and doors around the environment, and no 720p/1080i HD resolutions. But even without the "next gen" effects the Wii version looks great and Sonic Unleashed seems to be one of the better looking Wii titles on the system. According to SEGA, while the Wii version shares the same story and the same game locations as the other versions, Sonic Unleashed on the Nintendo console has its own level designs and challenges. Some of the Wii levels may look similar to the ones that will appear in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, but there are subtle and not-so-subtle changes to make the Wii version its own game. Well, the Wii and the PS2, anyway – SEGA's also making Sonic Unleashed for the last-generation Sony system, and it will be a port of the Wii edition. The Wii version is controlled using the Nunchuk/Remote combination and features motion control for some of Sonic's basic abilities. In the daytime "Sonic" levels, Sonic attacks using a whip of the Wii Remote after lock-on targeting an enemy; it's surprisingly satisfying. During the nighttime "werewolf" levels, all of Sonic's attacks are motion-based – a Wii remote thrust, or a nunchuk thrust…or a combination of both. When you're climbing as the werewolf, you waggle both controllers alternatively. For those who want a more traditionally playing game of Sonic, SEGA has incorporated both Classic Controller and GameCube controller support so you can simply press buttons instead of motion-waggling the devices. Sonic Unleashed is all wrapped up and ready to go, and according to SEGA you should be expecting the Wii version to hit shelves next week. Before we give you our final review of the title, hit the movie link below to see exclusive direct feed footage of the Wii version in action.

Gears of War 2: Making it Bigger!

2008-10-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

The first Gears of War was a showpiece for the buzzwords "Destroyed Beauty." Unreal Engine 3 expertly crafted dilapidated environments and broken down cityscapes, delivering what many considered to be the most visually impressive title on Xbox 360. Gears of War 2 does what a good sequel must do and expands on the mold set forth in the first game. When Cliff Bleszinski delivered his now infamous marketing line of "Bigger, Better, and More Badass," I'd guess that the first portion was not only a descriptor for the physical scale of the environments in the second Gears, but also the feeling that the player derives from blasting their way through the five act adventure. SPOILER ALERT: Not to dissuade you from reading the first part of our Gears of War 2 week-long coverage, but the next several paragraphs discuss (usually dealing in vagaries) locations and some specifics to Gears 2. While I personally don't consider them spoilers, some of you might. You've been warned. Having played through Gears of War 2 on the hardcore difficulty setting, I can say that it's certainly a longer game than the first. Thankfully for the armada of Gears fans out there the North Carolina-based developer did not drop the ball in terms of delivering entirely new gameplay situations that span a far greater number of diversified settings. Gone are the days of ripping your way through building after building and courtyard after courtyard. The first game had three strong deviations from the aforementioned formula: the final act on the train, the underground levels, and the vehicular level that has you taking out swarms of Krill. For all but the Locust infested underground, which was a fairly lengthy few chapters that included the revelation of the Theron Guard, the changes were small. It didn't hurt the core gameplay much but it would have been nice to explore more unique parts of Sera. Gears of War 2, almost as if it's aware that the core gameplay doesn't stray far from the first, does a much better job of keeping the levels feeling fresh. Without spoiling anything, I can think of five strong variations on locale that are totally unlike the experience of the first. Beyond that, nearly every mission feels larger in scope and importance than what transpired in Gears 1. This feeling of importance and meaning has little to do with the actual size of the levels. We've shown Marcus and Dom escaping the underground on the back of Reavers and on the top of Derricks battling Brumaks in the side of cliffs but it's not the size of these locations that delivers the feel that Epic Games promised so long ago. Instead it's an amalgam of everything from Steve Jablonsky's score, the voice acting from the likes of the inspirational Chairman Prescott, all tied together by the actions done by the player. Gears of War 2 is a story of a last gasp for humanity, the tale of a group of warriors trying to land a blow deep into the heart of the Locust horde. Those who have seen the recent Last Day trailer know that Marcus and Dom are launching themselves down underneath the crust of Sera in an attempt to stop the Locust at their source. The feeling of being Bigger is also accentuated by unearthing more of Sera than we've seen before. New characters like Tai Kaliso and Dizzy Wallin and the interesting way that they're handled in the story helps bring the player closer to understanding the feeling of Dom and Marcus' struggle against the Locust. The Stranded are another tool that helps flesh out the feeling of hope that drives the COG soldiers. They're a sect of citizens who didn't make it into the safe confines of Jacinto and instead have remained on the perilous war torn surface of the planet. Dom and Marcus stumble on a group of Stranded in search of Maria and the player is given a look at the resiliency that continues to hold the people of Sera together. It's important to remember (while avoiding spoilers) where Gears of War 2 takes players. It starts above ground in a hospital, venture onto a Derrick and trudges toward the broken down, Locust infested city of Landown, then continues to throw locales that differ in gameplay style, color palette and architecture at the player. It all culminates with an adventure into the Locust lair itself. Those who have heard us talk about the multiplayer map Ruins know the layout. Locust carvings and drawings cover the ceilings, ground and walls as players are greeted with swarms of the subterranean creatures trying to protect their home turf (or are they up to something else?). There are elements like retractable cover that allow players to sculpt the battlefield here and there, again creating a new definition for the term "Bigger" than what some might have originally thought. It should be no surprise that Gears of War 2 delivers the bigger "aesthetic pleasures" that most will be expecting, but it's the undercurrents in the game that truly do the marketing moniker justice. From the emotional responses to some of the climactic events to learning more about the people of Sera to fighting some truly massive enemies, Gears of War 2 is indeed bigger than the first in just about every way imaginable.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows - Amazing Allies Edition Review

2008-10-27T05:16:00.000-07:00

Some wept for another mediocre rendition of their favorite hero, some unleashed screams calling for my head, and many just buried their faces in their hands to ignore the mess altogether. Still, in the midst of the dark clouds surrounding the main version of the title, a ray of light has shone through. That light -- that glimmer of hope -- is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows - Amazing Allies Edition. On a story level, the portable version of this game shares a bit with the tale you'd find on a console. Venom shows up, Spider-Man fights him, and part of the black suit we know as the symbiote leaps onto our hero and outfits him with the familiar black and white costume. From there, Spider-Man can switch between his red duds and his black duds at will and has to make choices throughout the game that dictate whether he's staying true to his "Great Power/Great Responsibility" roots or he's letting the symbiote turn him into the aggressive jerk from the old school comics. As you wrestle with these choices, Venom's symbiote continues to break off and infect New Yorkers. Soon, the city is a black, gooey mess that only our friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man can clean up. With that, the major similarities between the two SKUs stop. Web of Shadows on the PSP plays as a side scroller featuring 3D characters on a 2D plane -- think Bionic Commando Rearmed. You've been recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to run from left to right through New York's buildings, air ducts, and secret bases on a mission to find the components that can create a sonic wave large enough to send the symbiotes packing. Of course, it wouldn't be a superhero game if you didn't have waves of bad guys popping up and keeping you from rounding up the few power couplings you need. The majority of foes you face on this quest will be street thugs and symbiote-infected folks, but there's the occasional robot and boss (Shocker, Tinkerer, Kraven, Jackal, and more). To take these guys down, you're going to rely on Square to punch and Triangle to kick. If you leap into the air and hold X, you'll cast out a web line to swing and kick from, but those two simple buttons pretty much amass all the offense you're going to have in Web of Shadows. If your feet are on the ground (or wall or ceiling) and you tap the right shoulder button, you can cast webbing at your foes, but this only stops them without hurting them. If that combat system sounds weak, Amaze has tossed in a number of extras to try and keep the fighting fresh. For starters, you'll notice five slots in the upper-right corner of the screen. These are your power-up slots. Before you go on a mission, you'll be able to arm these circles with allies and abilities to help you crush the competition -- exoskeleton power-ups make it harder to damage Spidey for a period of time, web darts turn your webbing into fast and furious projectiles, and Spider-Man Flurry allows our hero to speed around the screen and clean everyone's clock. You'll earn and unlock these abilities by finding spider tokens hidden throughout the levels, and you'll be able to stockpile them in the power-up menu. Still -- if the name of the game didn't give it away -- the biggest deal in the power-up arena is the ability to call in your allies. Basically, you'll arm one of your allies at the power-up manager and when you need him or her, you'll hold the left shoulder button and use the directions to cycle to the appropriate power-up slot. From there, you press circle when the slight waiting period ends, and the character appears on screen to lay waste to the baddies. Storm slams folks with lightning, Stiltman stomps all over the competition, and Hypno Hustler jams out on his guitar while your opponent's health is drained. All of these attacks are just the summoned character standing in front of the screen while damage registers against the opponent, but there are a ton of friends and foes to unlock and it's cool to see them pop up. So, beyond the power-ups you're finding in the levels, you're going to have skills to purchase as well. See, as you take out bad guys in the game, you'll see a white number rise above their beaten bodies. This is a value that's being added to your skill point total. When you're back at the main mission menu and about set to go out on a new leg of the journey, you can pop into the Skills Manager and buy new moves, abilities, and power-up slots with these points. Stuff ranges from the simple Web Slam that allows Spider-Man to web two foes at once when you pull off a button combo to the expensive, rare power-ups and health bar increases. Now, there are a few layers to this skills system. To begin, the skills are color-coded so that you know which costume they're augmenting, but perhaps more important is the reputation system. At the top of the Skills Manager screen is a little red Spidey head and a little black Spidey head. Next to each of those craniums is a number that indicates your reputation for each suit. Most of the skills that you can purchase will have a point cost and a reputation minimum. So you might have the 525 points needed to purchase the Symbiote Strength 3 skill, but it's entirely possible that you won't meet the minimum requirement for black suit rep. Getting your reputations up is actually one of the big reasons I feel Spider-Man: Web of Shadows - Amazing Allies Edition is a charming game. See, When you run into people or situations on the street, there's usually a sound clip of Spider-Man making a wisecrack that then moves into a text-based conversation. The other person's statement appears at the top of the screen, and your choices for what Spidey can say appear below. Generally, there are three color-coded choices. Red is good, gray is neutral, and black is bad. You make a choice, and if it's red or black, you get a point or so added to that suit's reputation. What makes this fun is that fact that this game is extremely well written. It's funny, has a good handle on the Marvel Universe, and Spider-Man reads like Spider-Man should. Now, the good/bad thing isn't limited to just answering questions; your actions matter, too. I mean, one of the first good/evil dilemmas I was faced with was when Spider-Man found a construction worker's lunch and had to decide if he wanted to be evil and eat it or leave it alone and settle for leftovers at home. Later, I found J. Jonah Jameson captive in a secret fortress and stored next to his super-nice clone. Spider-Man is forced to decide which version of his boss he lets go. Don't get me wrong, this game isn't a comedy and lots of choices are as simple as helping a citizen or telling them to screw off, but it's a blast thanks to the genuinely interesting text that has been created for each conversation. On top of all of that, Spider-Man acts like Spider-Man in this game. One of my major complaints with the other versions of Web of Shadows was the fact that the Spider-Man in that game was a whiney dude who threw innocents off buildings and didn't act anything like the Peter Parker from the comics. That isn't the case here; Spider-Man's voice has the energy you'd expect and he's funny. Still, Amazing Allies isn't the greatest Spider-Man game in the history of mankind. For starters, you can't hit enemies when they are on the ground. You'll knock a thug to the ground just about every time you fight one, but when they're sprawled out on their backs, you can't touch them. Even when they're up and mobile, hit detection is wonky. At one point, I had a bunch of villains on a pyramid of boxes. If I stood on the level below an enemy, I couldn't hit him. If I hopped up on his box, I couldn't hit him if I was too close. Basically, I had to move to the very edge of the box and fight or just repeat a jump-then-kick maneuver. Even bosses have a few irritating issues. Whether you're fighting Venom, a symbiote-infected Luke Cage, or whomever you run into, there are only specific points when you can attack the big bad guy. Even if they're just standing there charging their weapons, you can't hit them. This is annoying, but kind of a throwback to the side scrollers this game is trying to mimic. Another old-school touch some might find out of place is the fact that each Spider-Man mission has checkpoints, but if you were to quit the game and come back to it later, you'd be forced to restart the mission. The checkpoints aren't save points, and that's weak for a portable system. A final oddity is that the PSP has a tendency to take an extended stutter now and again. You'll be playing, and usually after a checkpoint, the game will just freeze for a moment or two before allowing you to continue playing. It's not too bad, but it's weird that it's there.

Closing Comments

In the end, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Allies Edition is a welcome throwback to the Spider-Man games of old. More than a few times I found myself using the D-pad to hop around an enemy and reminiscing about playing Spider-Man on my SEGA Genesis. The action is simple, but the quirky humor, Spidey's trademark verbal jabs, and slick style make the game a lot of fun to play.
Still, I can't recommend the game too highly. If this was a $20 game, I'd have no problem telling you to fork over your cash, but problems such as the inability to hit enemies who are lying on the ground or running at you, the game's awkward pauses, and the fact that Spider-Man kind of glides across stuff sours the $40 deal.

What We Want In BioShock 2

2008-10-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

In 2007, 2K Games released a critically acclaimed first-person shooter set under the sea in a once utopian paradise that had tragically gone awry. A tale that explored moral dilemmas, totalitarian control and genetic manipulation -- among other complex themes -- BioShock set itself apart from other shooters with its immersive world and its creative gameplay mechanics. Players could choose to blast their way through enemies or take a stealthier, more manipulative route, tricking enemies into fighting each other before they moved in to mop up the survivors. Regardless of how you ran through the halls of Rapture, or which moral path you chose, the game only scratched the surface of Andrew Ryan's incredibly complex world, and fans eagerly awaited a sequel.

Recently, with the release of BioShock on the PS3, the veil of secrecy seems to be lifting. By beating the game on any difficulty setting, a teaser trailer for BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams is unlocked in the extras menu. The trailer is supposedly set on the Atlantic Coast, and features a young woman staring out at the Atlantic Ocean and clutching a Big Daddy doll, with a cityscape quickly rising from the sand behind her. Before any explanations of the city's appearance could be made, the logo screen and subtitle pops up, ending the trailer abruptly. This, of course, got all of us at IGN thinking: what would we want to see in the upcoming sequel to BioShock? I checked with IGN Editors to see what elements they would want to see addressed, changed or eliminated entirely, as well as where the game should be set and what characters should be included. For our thoughts, as well as the BioShock 2 Teaser Trailer, check below. Additionally, if you're interested in the BioShock Head To Head, check here. (Note: all images in article are taken from BioShock.) The first and most immediate question that came to mind was exactly when and where the sequel should be set. I wanted to know whether our editors thought the game should be set a few years after and would be a return to Rapture, if it should be set in a new location, or if the sequel should actually be a prequel. In case you don't know, the original game took place in 1960, and was set entirely within Rapture's underwater walls. Although you traveled through different locations in the city, you were still confined to Rapture as you explored the hallways and tried to eliminate Andrew Ryan. Overwhelmingly, the majority of our editors wanted to see a prequel to the original BioShock, with many of them wanting to experience the exact moment that chaos breaks out. Being in the midst of this insanity, with a city completely falling apart and being destroyed around you could be one of the most compelling stories ever created, especially with the denizens of Rapture trying to do everything they could to survive.

Greg Miller, IGN PlayStation Editor, summed up much of the prevailing thoughts by saying, "I want to be a character in Rapture as everything goes to hell. An underwater city filled with super-powered people on the brink of insanity sounds great." Others mentioned that the city was too large and too vast to simply be used once as a backdrop and tossed away. Chris Roper, IGN PlayStation Editor-in-Chief, mentioned that more of Rapture needs to be seen. "I'm sure there's plenty of places that we haven't seen yet, and if there's a gap of time either before or after the original title, revisiting some of the places we've seen before would also be great." Charles Onyett, IGN PC Editor and reviewer of BioShock on the 360 and PC, concurred, stating, "the sequel really needs to be a prequel to be interesting, as the story of Rapture's fall would be, I think, far more interesting to play than whatever the muddled aftermath might have been." However, not everyone is a fan of the prequel idea. Jason Ocampo, IGN PC Editor-in-Chief, hates the idea of a prequel, mentioning that they should be "taken out back and beaten." However, Jason also provides his own thoughts as to what the game should wind up being. "I think storytelling demands that you take risks, and that you not hit the reset switch. I'd like to see the aftermath of BioShock and see how the situation and story adapt and change to the events of the first game; it's not enough to simply make another haunted house of a city full of Little Sisters and their guardians. That would just be more of the same."

Ryan Geddes, IGN Xbox Editor, also would like to see something a bit different than the old stomping grounds, saying, "for me, Rapture wore out its welcome just a bit. I personally would prefer to visit a new location, and from what we've already seen in the trailer, that appears to be the plan. I don't have any preference on whether BioShock 2 should be a sequel or a prequel; I just hope that whatever the devs decide to do retains the feel of the original." Hilary Goldstein, IGN Xbox Editor-in-Chief, agreed with this statement completely, and was even exasperated by the potential of re-entering Rapture, mentioning, "I'd like to see a new setting altogether. Though the history of Rapture is interesting, I don't want a rehash of levels I've seen before. I feel like I've had my fill of Rapture and it's time for something new. I'm sure it will be a return to Rapture though. Sigh." Another question I posed to the editors was what the next game should focus on. The original game dealt with a lot of complex issues that haven't been touched on in many games, like utopian ideals that become corrupted over time, genetic and mental manipulation and being trapped by addictions. Since we don't know what "Sea of Dreams" refers to, or what themes will be covered in the sequel, it's hard to know how deep the game will be. Many of our editors felt a few options could be presented, with a strong connection to explaining the corruption of society from a utopian ideal into the flawed, desperate state of nature that is presented in the original game. Jason highlighted the utopian problem specifically, mentioning that "the theme of Bioshock for me was the danger of utopian thinking. Human beings are horribly flawed creatures, and attempts by governments to impose a kind of utopian ideology atop human nature are inevitably doomed to failure. This is a salient theme that often bears repeating."

Greg and Chris both seconded this, with a stronger focus on the decisions made by the citizens of Rapture. "Why did people decide that modifying themselves was the way of the future," Greg wondered. "Were there folks who resisted? What happened to those that didn't go with the flow?" Chris also wondered about the morality of the people in Ryan's experiment, stating that "corruption and greed could, and probably should, also be big points of the story, and it would be interesting to see those elements make their way into the player's hands." Nate Ahern, Xbox Editor, contributed perhaps the most creative twist to this question, potentially placing the gamer into the hands of the creator of the doomed underwater city, Andrew Ryan. "It might be interesting to put players in the shoes of the person, or at least the main driving force behind creating Rapture. The story of a person trying to build the perfect world full of perfect people, only to have it all crumble at their feet could be riveting," he said. That raised an interesting question: just how much of a connection to the original game has to be in the sequel? Should Andrew Ryan have had some hidden agendas or machinations that are mysteriously uncovered at the start of BioShock 2, prompting the events of the game? Will Dr. Tenenbaum, one of the main characters of the original game, play another role in the title, particularly if the game is a prequel? This elicited a range of responses from the editors, from those who didn't require these connections to those that felt a strong need to include specific characters.

Nate, for example, thought that there were a few specific characters that had to be in the game: "the main icons from the first game are Rapture, Big Daddies and Little Sisters. Everything else is more easily forgotten and can be replaced." Chris didn't think that big twists had to occur as a reason for the game itself. "There's enough there that we don't know about yet to make for an incredibly interesting story without needing to throw some curveballs and possibly screw up the lore," he said. Jason thought that connections to the previous game were solely tied to timing in the sequel, stating that "it depends on how much time has passed between the games. If it's a few years, then definitely yes; if it's more like a few decades, then no. The longer the gap, the more the events of the first game should pass from memory and turn into myth or legend."

One continuous element that a couple of the editors felt needed to be included was Andrew Ryan himself. Hilary thought the story would need it to tie the two titles together. "Ideally, BioShock 2 would be set somewhere new, but still have connections to Tenenbaum and Ryan. That way we have a connective thread to the original, but 2K Marin is free to spin the story in whatever direction it sees fit," he said. Charles felt that Ryan was a key element that had to be included in the sequel, stating, "Ryan needs to be present, since without him there'd be a dramatic loss of personality. He basically characterized all of Rapture and without him, I think the setting would have far less impact." Geddes agreed with this point, indicating that he felt there was more to Ryan than was let on in the original game. "There was definitely more to Andrew Ryan than Rapture, and that's what I'm hoping to hear more about in BioShock 2. Why the subtitle Sea of Dreams? It's an intriguing phrase, and it's encouraging to see that it's not 'Return to Rapture.'" While Andrew Ryan might have been the primary force that controlled the city and was a malevolent presence in the first game, sneering his displeasure through the radio at your advances in his flooding domain, the citizens of the town were the true threats that players constantly dealt with. Apart from the splicers that were driven mad by the genetic and physical manipulations they'd done to themselves, players also had to deal with security turrets, bots and cameras that would attack if they got too close or triggered alarms. How should these threats be handled in the sequel? Mark Ryan Sallee, IGN Guides Editor-in-Chief, wanted to focus more on a larger variety of enemies than was found in the original. "It'd be nice if there were more than three different types of enemies. In BioShock, there are splicers, spider splicers and big daddies, and really the big daddies are the only interesting things to fight. Give the splicers significant gameplay differences, for example: splicers with shields that can only be damaged from behind so you've gotta use plasmids to stun them, or splicers that themselves use plasmids against you."

Other editors focused more on manipulating the mechanical obstacles that you faced in the game, changing the way that you could interact with turrets or bots. Chris thought that it would be great to combine elements of bots to be more effective in battle. "This would depend on whether the game is a sequel or prequel. If it's a sequel, I'd love to see elements of the first game mixed together and combined in new ways. For instance, bots could now be affixed with cameras, making them harder to avoid," he said. Charles focused much more on turrets and hacking, feeling that manipulating these machines would remake elements of gameplay, stating: "assuming it's a prequel, these would all still be present, though new mechanics of hacking would be nice to see. For instance, if you could take two downed security bots and cobble them together into a more powerful one, or fashion sentry turrets into customizable weaponry that you can add parts to as you improve your skills -- that would make for some meaningful and engaging gameplay choices." Ryan Geddes focused more on traps instead of direct combat, seeking a different way to eliminate splicers. "Each player in BioShock approached combat a little bit differently. Personally, I like to set up elaborate traps for splicers and Big Daddies that included all of the above and then some. I hope these elements return, along with some new traps and methods of sabotage. I need new ideas for booby-trapping Ryan Clements' desk," he said. Watch yourself, Clements -- Geddes has you in his sights. One other aspect related to combat dealt with Little Sisters and Big Daddies. If you've played the original game, you know just how daunting it is to fight and eliminate these creatures, which would also include a moral dilemma with their ward once the giants were felled. Would you harvest the Little Sister for her Adam, essentially killing her, or rescue her and receive less Adam, but freeing the child. In the teaser trailer, the "Little Sister" (if that is what she is) appears to be much older than the children in the original game. How will this affect the moral dilemma of the game if the Little Sisters are no longer little, but older teenagers or young women? This provoked a large amount of discussion between the editors.

Chris thought that they could be called Sisters and could receive more personality, noting: "as children, they just did what they were programmed to do. As adults or even just teenagers, they would be smarter, perhaps having their own agendas instead of just collecting Adam." Greg agreed, thinking that there was potentially some emotional motivation driving these young women. "I want to see how these ladies are dealing with all the crap they did in the past and how they're trying to move forward. I would imagine a few of them are out for revenge, and I'd like to see those emotions developed. A few Big Daddies that aren't over trying to protect the girls would be interesting too," he said.

Charles took this into a different direction, potentially raising the idea of the Little Sisters taking more of a backseat in this one and the Big Daddies taking a more prominent role. "Since I'm still hoping the game's a prequel, we'd get to see the development of the Little Sister and Big Daddy relationship, which I think would be really interesting. In that case the player wouldn't be harvesting the Sisters for ability upgrades, but witnessing the development of and perhaps even participating in the creation of Big Daddies, who you eventually fight later on in the game, would be a great mechanic and serve as a powerful narrative thread", he said. Could that mean that the young woman on the shore is the initial Little Sister that helps create the original Big Daddy relationship? Who knows... Of course, collecting Adam would obviously lead to plasmids, the incredible inventions that allowed the citizens of Rapture and the player to launch fire, electricity and other powers from their hands towards their opponents. How should these powers evolve or be manipulated in a sequel? Similarly, how should the weaponry of the game change or be improved in BioShock 2? A large consensus seemed to come from editors about wanting the ability to combine plasmids together for different effects. Fran Mirabella, Director of Video Production, pointed this out specifically, saying, "I'd like to see the ability to mix effects of plasmids, maybe. It could just be a visual thing (like Electric Shock shattering after an Ice Blast), but perhaps there could be a bit more strategy to it." Nate liked this idea, but wanted to push it farther, combining plasmids with weapons to unleash extra damage and chaos. "I'd like to see plasmids not only be able to be mixed with other plasmids, but also infused with weapons. It'd be nice to get a crossbow with a bolt tip that contained a swarm of bees that could attack a group of enemies when planted in or around one."

While Greg demanded a flight plasmid (to help him live out his Superman fantasies) and Ryan wanted a chainsaw at the end of a machine gun (to help him live out his Marcus Fenix fantasies), Charles had a more in depth weapon customization suggestion. "I'd like to see far more in terms of customization. Instead of just using random junk to craft ammunition types and upgrade stations to power-up weapons, I'd like to see the system developed into something more sophisticated where you can tweak a bunch of different parts of weapons to modify their functionality. Maybe this means there are only less weapons, but the ability to apply individual hoses to a flamethrower to increase power or modify a shotgun so it has more barrels would strengthen gameplay." If plasmids and weapons could be expanded in these ways, what elements from the first game need to be completely eliminated or changed to work better or differently? For instance, should the character you play as in the sequel harvest Little Sisters in the same manner (assuming that Little Sisters remain in their form from the first game)? There appeared to be agreements with the editors revolving around two elements of the game: hacking and Little Sister Harvesting. Almost all of the editors felt that hacking needed to be either streamlined or eliminated completely because of how repetitive and boring it became. Nate mentioned that he'd like to see a different way of hacking entirely, saying, "hacking was an important part to the first game but I'd like to see it scaled back and changed up with different kinds of hacks available. It shouldn't all be about guiding the stream of green goo through a maze, but instead a set of five puzzles that pop up at random or for specific types of machinery." Hilary agreed, wanting to see more mini-games included to add variety to the hacking.

As for the Little Sisters, there was unanimous agreement that harvesting the children was fine for the original game, but needs to be completely redesigned for the sequel. Almost everyone wanted to see this move in a different direction to help upgrade your character. Charles felt that it would be tied to the narrative of the original too much to work for either a prequel or a sequel. "I think there's going to have to be another type of mechanic for upgrading your character. Harvesting Little Sisters just wouldn't make any sense with regards to the overall narrative if you set the game before or after the original," he said.

Nate wanted to be able to harvest more than Little Sisters to provide some variety, saying, "while Little Sisters obviously played a large role in the first game, maybe it would be cool to harvest other things, maybe innocent people in the second game. Still have Little Sisters play some kind of part, but not the same as in the first game." Creatively, both Fran and Geddes raised the possibility of playing as a Little Sister, which would turn the pre-existing gameplay in a different direction. "Maybe we'll actually play as a Little Sister. Now that would be interesting, challenging and risky. Bring it on," Geddes said. Apart from that, Mark Ryan had some interesting suggestions as to how the game should be further adjusted: "the most glaringly poor mechanic of BioShock is the vitality chambers that reduce the game's challenges to basically nothing. I'd like to see the game ditch the adherence to first-person shooter norms and do something more interesting with the controls and environment interaction, ala Metroid Prime. I don't mean to suggest abandoning dual analog control -- wouldn't be horrible, but it'd be commercial suicide -- but get away from the same formula of weapon choices, weapon cycling, switch pressing. Really it'd be nice to feel like I'm playing an original game, instead of a prettier version of Wolfenstein." Hilary also chimed in that there needs to be a penalty for continually manipulating your genes, just as what happened to the splicers, stating, "The first Bioshock suggested that plasmids and genetic modification is what ruined the people of Rapture. Yet it didn't ruin the main character. There needs to be a cost for your self-inflicted genetic experiments."

So if changing mechanics was fair game, what about changing the environments of BioShock 2? As previously stated, the original game was set entirely within Rapture, but even inside of the various areas of Rapture, the game felt extremely stage-based. Whether it was moving through the artistic madness of Sander Cohen's Fort Frolic, the engineering areas of Hephaestus, or the lush garden areas of Arcadia, each themed area was decidedly linear, and while you could go back to previous areas, there was no real need to. Should the sequel remain a linear experience, or become a more open-world adventure?

The editors were essentially split down the middle on this one, with some feeling that BioShock 2 would be an incredible experience as an open-world game. Chris mentioned this specifically, tying much of the open nature to a prequel set in Rapture before things go wrong. "Having all of Rapture open to you at any time would be fantastic, especially if it's set as a prequel just as things were starting to go bad. You could take advantage of actual shops, see entertainment shows just for kicks, and really dig into the setting. It would be an undertaking to do something on this scale, but having something on the order of Fallout 3 set in Rapture with plasmids would be phenomenal if done right," he said. Charles seconded this idea, mentioning that this would be a better way to allow players to explore the game environment, stating, "A more open-world environment would be great. Put in friendly NPCs that you can interact with, maybe some item vendors, possibly throw in a simplistic questing structure. Though that would detract from what made the first so compelling with its focused narrative experience, I'd love to see the sequel veer in a totally different direction and allow us to explore and learn about more of the world. Trying to copy the narrative power of the first isn't going to be as effective when trying to tell a different story. I think it'd be served better by a different progression mechanic and world layout." Not everyone shared these opinions, however; Ryan and Greg felt like turning the game into a more open game experience would ruin the its atmosphere entirely. "BioShock worked well in part because it was claustrophobic. Changing that would upset the balance and create an entirely new type of game (no more traps, etc.)," Ryan said.

It might seem as though we covered everything, but just to be sure, I asked if there was anything else that editors might want to see within BioShock 2. The responses were pretty creative, to say the least. Chris wanted a million dollar bill packaged with the Collector's Edition, while Hilary simply wanted "boobies" and Jason demands aliens be excluded. Greg's demands were relatively simple: "A main character I can connect with, more of a penalty for dying, and flight. Let me fly!" However, Charles and Fran had a few interesting answers. Charles pleaded for the single-player only focus to remain for BioShock 2 so that the action would still be solid. "Please don't shoehorn in a multiplayer mode just for the sake of having one. I'd hate to have my weapons loadout in single-player limited by multiplayer weapon balance considerations," he said. Fran, on the other hand, wanted to see much more destruction and interactivity, stating, "with the animations being as awesome as they were, it would be sweet to see them amp up level destruction or allow you to climb or interact with more things. I don't want Shenmue, but I would like to strangle a splicer with my bare hands -- or my plague, stone, or fire hands, for example." Fran also had one final comment saying, "would you kindly give me more photography with the ability to save and send pics?"

Resistance 2

2008-10-22T04:53:00.001-07:00

It must be a daunting prospect to follow up a critically acclaimed game that became a Greatest Hit. The same could be said of following up a story that featured the infection and obliteration of Europe and most of the UK by alien creatures. Fortunately, Insomniac loves a challenge, and they've been hard at work trying to best the adventure of Nathan Hale from Resistance: Fall of Man. In case you were wondering, they've managed to succeed handily. Not only is Resistance 2 an improvement in all facets of the game, it dwarfs the considerable action of the first title in the series. The original game was a bleak alternate history tale of the devastation of Europe, not by the fires of war from a Nazi regime but by the invading Chimera, a strange alien race bent on the extermination of the human race. The sequel picks up immediately where the original game left off, bringing Nathan Hale from the decimated territory of England to the safety of the United States, which was essentially the only remaining area in the world without Chimeran infestation. At least, it was. Two years after Hale's arrival in America, the Chimera launch massive coordinated attacks against cities in the USA, obliterating entire cities, killing thousands of civilians and converting others into shock troops to be used against the rest of the population. As bad as things once appeared in Europe, they suddenly seem to be much worse in America. Fortunately, Hale joins the SRPA, a secret governmental agency that deploys super soldiers known as Sentinels into battle. Sentinels are much more than their name implies; these warriors have blood infused with strains of the Chimeran virus, giving them heightened abilities like super strength and health regeneration. America will need all of their abilities, because new monsters have been roaming its cities, forests and waterways. But can a squad of Sentinels uncover a way to repel the Chimeran hordes? Will this be the last days of humanity, and just what will Hale's role be in the impending battle? Questions like these run rampant throughout the single-player campaign, which is a bit shorter than that of the original game (about 10 hours spread across a prologue and seven chapters), but no less complex or lacking in its depth due to the information revealed to Hale throughout the game. In fact, it feels a bit tighter and faster paced than Fall of Man thanks to the action of the game and how information is revealed. Elements such as the Cloven from the original game, the Chimeran infection, and even the connection of the ARG Project Abraham and its connection to Resistance 2 are explained over time, and you do wind up gaining a large sense of what's going on within this grim universe. However, for as many secrets that are discovered by the player, it seems as though just as many, if not more, are left unanswered. This brings up one of my primary issues with the story, which is that I feel like it needed a narrator with some kind of perspective on the events of the mission like the first one did. While Rachel wasn't omniscient, she did manage to tie together a lot of elements that weren't fully covered or highlighted in your missions. By contrast, Resistance 2 is very Hale-centric, and focuses much more on his actions and what he wants to do. That's fine, but his motivations behind what his decisions are or why he chooses to act a certain way or go to a specific location aren't fully explored. As a result, some elements of the story aren't fully cohesive, and a large number of questions are left unanswered, which could potentially confuse players until the hypothetical Resistance 3 eventually is released. For example, players are introduced to a number of supporting characters that comprise Hale's squad of Sentinels. During one mission, you're introduced to some personal details about a particular soldier, which seems rather pertinent to the mission and plot at that moment, but it's quickly dropped and not addressed again. Even though collectable intel fills in a few pieces of info that's left out, you really wonder just what the effect of exploring that side story would have been, or how that might have affected Hale or his squad or changed the action in the mission in any way. Instead, the moment is lost, there's no reflection on it, and you feel somewhat slighted. However, the story issues (which are arguably a minor or subjective problem) are overshadowed by the considerable elements that are marshaled together for Resistance 2. The first game was well known for its atmosphere, tight corridors and its surreal environments. All of that has been maintained, and even augmented. For instance, it's extremely strange to walk into the town of Twin Falls, Idaho, and see the entire place covered with flesh pods, which obviously contain the unfortunate remains of the townsfolk. When one of your squad mates remarks that seeing the entire thing makes him miss conversion centers, you can't help but agree with him. But eclipsing this is the sheer scale and scope of the game, which is nothing short of epic. In every single level, there is at least one moment that will make your jaw drop, such as the absolute devastation of Chicago and its total infestation of Chimeran creatures. The same can be said of the various "monsters" that you'll face off against, many of whom tower over the battlefield thanks to their size. The giant Goliath walkers in the prologue are one thing, but when you first witness the dimensions of creatures like the Kraken or the Leviathan, it's definitely one of those things that gives you pause (as well as a sense of accomplishment when you defeat them). The huge battles that erupt across the various levels will give you an adrenaline rush. While the scale of the battles in the first game was large, the numbers present on screen at one point in time is simply incredible. You'll find yourself and a dozen or more soldiers squaring off against twenty or more drones, a number of Chimera, and a couple of turrets, all firing bullets at you. Facing down these incoming attacks can be daunting, but when you throw in the fact that the frame rate is rock solid without a hiccup, it's a pretty impressive feat that brings you into the action of the firefight. What also stands out is the fact that there are sections where you'll feel as though you've been through a massive battle -- after you and your squad have blasted hordes and hordes of monsters that descend on your position, you'll wade through the bodies of the fallen enemies that litter your path. Details like this help to convey the situation that this is a larger cataclysmic battle in humanity's last days. Fall of Man was eye-catching in its battle sequences, but Resistance 2 blows it out of the water. Part of this is due to the AI, which is solid for both enemy and NPC soldiers alike. In Resistance 2, the kinds of Chimera that you'll face off against will force you to approach a fight with different tactics, because they will attack you in different ways. Once again, Hybrids will team up with other soldiers, toss grenades or attempt to flank your position. Spinners, on the other hand, will charge forward and try to overwhelm you with large numbers and powerful melee attacks. Additionally, the game will frequently throw thirty or more of these beasts at you at one time, forcing you to quickly react and adjust to incoming strikes. Luckily, you're not forced to find a corner and face this threat alone. The NPCs in Resistance 2 are just as smart, returning fire at enemies and frequently eliminating some enemies for you, including some creatures that you hadn't seen coming until almost too late. Your Sentinel squad in particular is extremely skilled in this manner, targeting some creatures and blasting many of them that try to surround your position as you focus on the beasts charging directly at you. Of course, helping you eliminate the Chimera that foolishly stand in your way is the considerable weaponry at your disposal. Insomniac has always provided creative weaponry in their games, and Resistance 2 is no different. While you'll find a number of old favorites, such as the Carbine, Bullseye and Augur, there are a number of new weapons that are just as effective at eliminating Chimera. For instance, the Magnum is a great weapon that packs a significant punch with each round fired, but its true strength lies in the alternate fire, which explodes the bullet and injures nearby enemies. The Marksman is a rifle that can be used as an effective sniper rifle, although it fires off three rounds in quick succession. However, it's also sends out an electrified orb that shocks nearby Chimera, allowing you to fire a few rounds into them. There are even new grenades, like the Spider Grenade, which emits tendrils along a surface that explode into flame, allowing you to destroy large groups of enemies. Needless to say, you'll probably find a new favorite weapon or two in this arsenal, and you'll wind up unlocking more as you beat the game. While the single-player experience is a great tale with an epic scope, it is equaled, and perhaps surpassed, by the multiplayer modes, which are perhaps some of the best I've ever played, and I'm particularly picky about my multiplayer. The first mode that's included is a cooperative mode, which allows up to 8 players to leap into a game and explore the world of Resistance 2. However, you're not playing as Nathan Hale or as one of his Sentinels. Instead, you're part of the Spectres, a separate military faction tasked with tracking down and finding Gray Tech, items held by the Chimera around the world. The co-op mode missions run parallel to the action of the single-player campaign, and help to point out that Nathan isn't the only one that's fighting this war against the Chimera; other humans are risking their lives trying to defeat the invaders as well. (Incidentally, Gray Tech is also vital because you'll be able to use these items to unlock additional missions as well as gear that can be used to outfit your characters.) Players are given a choice between three different classes, each with their own abilities and traits. However, players aren't restricted to a particular class, and can switch at any time they wish, including during a match. The Soldier is the tank of the squad, equipped with a chain gun that projects an energy shield and packs more health than any other class. Spec Ops are the damage dealers of the group, and while they have less health than others, their Marksman is particularly effective in wiping enemies out. They are also the only class that can resupply soldiers by throwing out ammo packs. Medics are the final class, using their Phoenix weapons to drain the health from enemies and convert it to healing blasts from their weapon. They can also resuscitate party members faster than any other squad. Based on the class chosen, players receive experience points depending on how well they perform the functions of their class. This means that while everyone can receive XP for damaging enemies, soldiers will gain more for protecting troops, spec ops will gain more for resupplying troops and medics will gain more for reviving fallen troops. These points are important, because points will eventually translate to higher rankings as well as unlocking new weapons and Berserk powers. Berserks are specialized abilities that are tied to a particular class, and can be triggered when a player has gained enough experience points to fill a meter, which will slowly drain when the power is active. For instance, Soldiers can trigger Ironheart, which will reduce the amount of damage taken as long as the Berserk is active. The Ring of Life, by contrast, allows Medics to set down an area that will constantly regenerate health of any allies in its proximity. If a player frequently performs their job, they'll continually refill this meter, allowing them to try to swing the tide of the battle in their favor. That is an extremely important factor when it comes to the co-op mode, because the game takes a dynamic approach to play. Initially, you'll be given an objective and based on how you're doing, the levels of each class in your party and the number of players in a match, the game will scale the action accordingly. For example, if you find yourself playing a split-screen co-op game with one friend, fights will be easier than if you move in with seven other players and are surrounded by sixty enemies or more at the same point. But on top of this, you'll also discover that the objectives will dynamically change as well, making each situation play out in a different manner every time. What's more, as you blast through each checkpoint, you'll inevitably go up against some elite versions of these creatures, each of which hold more health than a standard Chimera and can inflict more damage as well. But even outside of the scaling action of the cooperative play, the mode truly embeds a sense of working together with the other players in your squad, because it's not possible to survive this mode by going commando. Each player is forced to rely on the other skills of their party mates to survive, but the one thing that I've found in playing a number of multiplayer matches is that anyone, from a newcomer to a seasoned veteran of the mode easily falls into a specific role and gets a hang of the gameplay, making it one of the most accessible multiplayer modes around. The competitive mode is also just as solid. Sure, Resistance 2 features many of the classic game modes that you've come to know and love in multiplayer matches, such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag (known as Core Control in the game). However, it's Skirmish mode where the mode sets itself apart, because the game will feature up to sixty players on scalable maps without any noticeable lag or technical hitches. Skirmish mode is objective based just like the co-op mode, with dynamic goals assigned to the six squads of five players each for the Human and Chimeran sides. These will cover a number of objectives such as controlling a particular node, protecting a specific location or eliminating a priority target on the other side. Rival squads on the other side will be tasked with stopping you, so you'll always have some kind of opponent attacking you and your allies. As time starts to run out in a round, you'll find that the objectives will start to funnel everyone towards a central point for overall domination of the map. This is where the largest battles break out, and also where the action gets most intense, which only serves to boost the level of fun to huge levels. Toss in leaderboards and lots of other multiplayer features, including the MyResistance.net functionality that will track stats in real time while also giving a number of social networking features, and you have a title that will expand both replayability and community. While the game is phenomenal in a technical and visual sense in the terms of its scale and number of enemies on screen at once, there are some weird technical issues that crop up here and there. For one thing, some of the textures are noticeably lower resolution than others, and there's a lot of texture pop-in and screen tearing that will crop up here and there as you move through each environment. What's more, you'll find some strange instances where monsters may twitch after they've been killed, or limbs of some creatures that have been blown off will still remain standing as if connected to some invisible body. It's a strange thing to see what would appear to be a mannequin limb. There are also some clipping issues that will crop up. Given the scale of the game, many of these issues are understandable, particularly given the fact that there is a solid frame rate throughout, but they do still stand out as a problem to be found within the game. Sound within Resistance 2 is much stronger, with solid voice acting throughout the entire game to immerse you into the game action. But much more than the voice acting of Hale and the other Sentinels, the ambient sounds within the game draw you into the experience of Resistance 2. Perhaps the best example of this is nearing a flesh pod in one of the cities or towers in the game. Initially, you'll hear some growling or rustling inside the pod, as if an animal was trapped inside. The gestational sounds of the creature are truly unnatural and even unnerving to the ear. However, what you'll find is that the loud noise associated to the explosion of these beasts in a slimy shower of blood and gore is disturbing, but quite satisfying.

Fable II: Saint or Sinner

2008-10-20T04:59:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the launch of the long-awaited RPG, we've given you a week's worth of features. Previously, we looked at swords, guns, magic and social interactions. We close out the week with a look at the differences between good and evil.Morality plays a large role in Fable II. The choices you make not only have an impact on the world around you, but affect the way people perceive you. It's important to note that there are two levels to morality. Of course, there's a good/evil meter, which measures how you act in the world. Kill innocents and make selfish choices and you'll push the meter towards evil. Donate to the Temple of Light and put the needs of others above your own and the needle will lean more towards good. But there is another measure of morality -- pure vs. corrupt. Purity and corruption are more subtle aspects of good and evil. Stealing, being lazy, eating excessively -- these are corrupting acts that will make you less attractive. Giving gifts and eating well are ways to keep your body pure (and sexy). And yes, you need to watch what you eat. If you want to be pure, then you can't eat meat or drink liquor. It ain't easy being pure. Before you get cranky about this, consider that in reality drinking, smoking, and eating bad food can all affect your appearance negatively. Kudos to Fable II for throwing in a bit of the real world with the fantasy. There's no reason why you can't be a completely corrupt (and perhaps morbidly obese) hero who makes all the right choices when it comes to saving the world. And on the flip side, you could be the most insanely evil vegetarian the world has ever known. A special title is awarded based on these ratings. This title can be found in your logbook, in the personality section. If you're completely evil and totally corrupt, you'll be "The Ghoul," a character who is "as degenerate as he is evil." On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is "The Saint," who is "as pure and benevolent a being as Albion has ever seen." There are a number of titles in-between, but you'll have to play Fable II to discover them. At their extremes, your character will have a menacing appearance and horns growing out of their forehead or a beatific look and a halo above their head. Not only will your appearance change, but that of your dog's. As we all know, a pet is often an extension of his owner. An evil owner's dog will morph to look similar to a Rottweiler with red eyes and a nasty disposition, while a good hero's pup will grow to look like a yellow lab. And don't think your children are exempt. They mimic their parents. Before having kids, consider that you may be giving birth to a little hellspawn. You won't really see horrible actions from your kid, but there is definitely a difference between a child born of goodness and one born to a wicked parent.Peter Molyneux has promised that he's going to make it really hard to be good. He is true to his word. There are some malevolently fun things to do when you're evil. The primary task is sacrificing innocents at the Temple of Shadows. Get a group of trusting individuals to follow you and lead them to the Temple's circle of sacrifice. Pull the wheel to determine their fate. Will they die by electrocution? Be impaled? Beheaded? Turned into chickens? Or will they experience a sudden sex change? There's only one way to find out -- spin the wheel!Good people get to, uh, donate to the Temple of Light. Awesome?Your path to good or evil, purity or corruption opens new expressions and can have a very real impact on the world around you. We'll leave these instances for you to discover, but promise that there are several distinct moments and they do change the future of Albion.

Dead Space review

2008-10-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

There haven't really been a lot of newcomers into the survival horror genre. Most of the titles released have come from pre-established franchises, with gameplay mechanics and story threads that are well known and debated by fans of the series. As a result, trying to establish a new franchise in the genre can be an even steeper uphill battle -- the story, game mechanics, characters and scares have to be even stronger than most games to interest and even pull away fans of other franchises. This is the kind of challenge that Dead Space, EA Redwood Shore's upcoming game, faced because it was set in a completely new universe of survival horror (in more ways than one), one that EA has been supplementing with an animated movie, comic book and other assets. Fortunately for horror fans, Dead Space is a great example of the genre and is an awesome way to launch a franchise that could continue for many years to come.The story behind Dead Space takes place hundreds of years in the future, during a time when mankind has exhausted all of the natural resources on Earth. Fortunately, in this dire time, humanity has mastered space travel, and a process known as planet cracking has been developed to combat this drought. A celestial body is split into pieces, and its minerals are strip-mined and melted, returning the byproducts to Earth for consumption. An entire fleet of ships sails the stars performing these tasks, and the crown jewel of this mining fleet is the USG Ishimura, which has performed more planet cracks that any other vessel. However, on a routine mission, the ship cuts off all communication from galactic command, which is somewhat strange. To discover what's going on, a small maintenance crew is quickly dispatched to the Ishimura from a nearby vessel. Players step into the boots of Isaac Clarke, a systems engineer that's part of the dispatched maintenance crew. Outside of fixing the communications issues, Isaac has a number of reasons for arriving on the Ishimura -- he has a number of friends that are stationed on the ship, including someone very special to him that sends an urgent holovid with a few cryptic messages before she disappears. Unfortunately for Isaac and his crew, shortly after they arrive on board the crippled vessel, all hell breaks loose. Their craft is destroyed, leaving them stranded on the Ishimura. The crew is attacked by nightmarish creatures known as Necromorphs, who kill most of Isaac's team and separate him from the surviving members. Even worse, the ship and its systems have started to be corrupted or are failing thanks to the Necromorphic infestation. It's up to Isaac to wander the halls, search for any friends or survivors that are still alive, and fix as many problems as he can until he can find a way to escape the ship, which can take you 12 or more hours to complete. Isaac isn't the typical hero that you'd find in most sci-fi games; he doesn't walk into the Ishimura packing a firearm or grenades, nor does he have specialized training. Apart from the first one that Isaac finds on a workbench, all of Isaac's weaponry and items are found via schematics that are scattered across the ship. Only one of them is a true firearm -- the security pulse rifle; the rest of his "guns" are repurposed pieces of mining equipment used for planet cracking. However, Isaac can use his engineering knowledge to make these weapons much more powerful by analyzing their blueprints and rewiring them at workbenches with the use of power nodes. Thanks to these nodes, Isaac can improve their performance in a number of ways, such as carrying more rounds, shortening his reload time, or increasing their damage. This upgrade system even expands to Isaac's space suit, which can be improved to strengthen his suit's armor or his air supply in case he enters a vacuum. He can even use the nodes to augment the stasis or kinesis modules, which can be used to freeze monsters as they charge him or propel items into the creatures, respectively. What's creative about this system is that players won't be able to max out every weapon or every bit of gear that they have in one playthrough; this forces them to choose what they'll specialize in as they go through the ship. This is an important decision to make, particularly because some weapons are more effective against the Necromorphs than others, and since you'll need to use strategic dismemberment to weaken and effectively kill them, the right weapon in the right situation can be the fine line between life or death in the game. See, unlike monsters in other games, Necromorphs will shrug off direct attacks to the head or chest and keep coming for more. Blasting their limbs off is the only way to cause enough damage to kill these beasts, and you'll frequently need to focus on aiming accurately and quickly at these weak spots before you're surrounded and dissected yourself. This is particularly true in later stages, when some of the Necromorphs start moving faster than before, and it frequently turns battles into brutal affairs, with severed arms and legs flying everywhere as you attempt to survive the onslaught of creatures. Thanks to the over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective, this can add an extra level of tension to the game while you're fending off swarms of beasts, but be forewarned: there is no quick turnaround command. While some people may consider this to be a problem, this is actually a wise design decision because it makes you feel much more vulnerable and claustrophobic within the confines of the suit, and whether you're moving through a hallway covered in bodies or floating in a zero gravity environment, you always feel as though something could reach out and kill you at any time. In fact, the atmospherics of the game play a large role in adding and heightening the tension that players experience as they move through the Ishimura. Although there are plenty of jump moments, the game isn't simply about the cheap scare as it is tossing you into an area that descends from bad to worse. As soon as you step on board the ship, you automatically get the sense that something is wrong. Everything from suitcases and books to work suits and tools are scattered around. As you go further in, you realize how violent and horrible the situation on board the Ishimura must have been, with limbs, blood-spattered walls and other gory scenes that are directly out of an abattoir. It only gets stranger as you move into more Necromorph-infested areas, with sections of the ship completely engulfed in a flesh-like material that pulses and quivers with a life of its own.The unsettling nature of the world is heightened by the fact that there is no specific HUD to speak of -- Isaac's health is presented on his back, his ammunition is holographically projected above the gun, and incoming transmissions that he receives pop up in front of his face. Even checking his inventory is pulled up via holograms, and it is done in real time, meaning that a Necromorph can come crawling through the floor or leap from a vent behind you and strike you at any time. Because you're never removed from the action, you feel much more immersed in the world, which is only added to with the environmental items scattered around the ship. Messages scrawled in blood, text and audio messages that detail what happened on board the ship, and even Isaac's notes to himself in his personal journal add to a sense that this is a ship that no one should be on or even near if they value their life, which is an impressive way to balance the story with the action of the game presented in front of them. Along with these startling sights, horror fans will pick up on influences from a wide variety of horror movies that are scattered through the game. Obvious connections of elements found in Dead Space can be tied to Event Horizon, the Alien Quadrilogy, John Carpenter's The Thing, Night of the Living Dead and more. But even more impressive than the large pedigree of game influences is the fact that it manages to weave a carefully balanced narrative that uses the best elements of these films with a lot plausible twists and turns within the story. Not only does the game lay down the foundation of why things went wrong on the Ishimura, it sets up the game to be the launching point for a franchise, and the universe of Dead Space is definitely large enough to support a vast series after this title. Although the atmospherics add a lot to the game, Dead Space isn't without issues that hamper some elements of play. The zero gravity areas are a bit strange because even though you can see legitimate areas that you could propel yourself to, you can't always leap there. Frequently, you'll need to make a shorter jump that's closer and then hop to the original target. While that seems a bit nonsensical, the other problem that occurs within the zero gravity space is that in these spaces, the camera can sometimes be restricted to show a specific perspective, particularly if you happen to be on a wall or a ceiling. Unfortunately, when the camera locks up during these moments, you can sometimes get attacked by some creature outside of your peripheral vision, which sucks. It can be extremely frustrating, especially when you're trying to dodge one monster only to get hit from behind by something that you could have seen if you'd only move one or two steps to the side, which suddenly releases the camera from being stuck. Another issue within the title is that there's a lot of backtracking within the game. It all makes sense in the context of the gameplay, especially when you're going through each situation; instead of being a meaningless fetch quest, it's completely plausible that you'd have to return to one area you've previously moved through once you discover that one vital piece of equipment you need to fix something is stored there. However, it does have a way of making the ship feel much smaller than a massive capital ship. That's not to say that you get this sense throughout the entire game, because there are plenty of spaces like the medical, engineering and mining decks where you'll move through large areas, but the repetition can be a bit disappointing. This is particularly heightened with the sometimes flawed nav icon. By pressing in on the right analog stick, a holographic line moves out from Isaac and points him in the right direction to go, even turning him to face the right way. The problem that comes up with this system is that every now and then, the game will spin Isaac in a circle, projecting a line that goes forward a few feet before doubling back on itself and pointing the opposite way. That's just bad navigation logic.As an aside, another strange feature that isn't a horribly bad or major issue is the fact that your foot stomp can be surprisingly powerful, destroying boxes or other items from a rather large distance. Typically, you'd expect that you'd only be able to crush something that was below your boot, but for some reason, you can crush a box suspended on a bench above you or floating in zero gravity. It's an odd choice, and a minor gripe that's humorous when you see it, but it does stand out as an oddity. However, one of the last issues that I have with the title is related to the New Game + feature. As I mentioned before, you won't be able to acquire every single upgrade for the game itself during your first playthrough. Fortunately, once you beat the game, you'll unlock five separate items, including a fourth difficulty mode previously hidden from the main menu. You'll also be able to move back through the story with all of your equipment intact, so you can blast your way through the game quicker. However, you'll be locked on the initial difficulty level that you chose when you started the game, and won't have the opportunity to switch. This can make the second playthrough feel a bit skewed because it's quite easy to fly through with an over-augmented Isaac. If you return to the main menu and choose a higher difficulty level (including the unlocked Impossible mode) you lose these upgrades and have to start over, which is rather disappointing. Whether you spend an hour or a day exploring the Ishimura, you'll definitely be struck by the visuals of Dead Space, which are eye-catching for both their detail and their gore factor. The detail placed into Isaac's suit is excellent, particularly as you upgrade it throughout the game, and the same can be said about the weapons themselves, which gain new visual and audio effects when you've maxed out their schematics with power nodes. The holographic implementation within the game is excellently done as well and is quite notable because of how it supplements the gameplay. The fact that you can rotate the camera around Isaac as he watches a video in front of him or that you notice little touches like Isaac's head moving up and down to acknowledge the holographic inventory screen highlights a lot of the great visuals in the game. On top of this, each level truly feels like its own, and whether it's the white walls that denote the medical decks, the poster-filled entertainment and housing levels, or the industrial mining sections, you get an idea of what these futuristic planet cracking ships are like. It's even more striking when you move into zero gravity areas and tumble through different areas, including the starkness of space. However, all of this visual discussion isn't even counting the disturbing character models of the Necromorphs themselves, which appear to be more and more freakish with each creature that you run into. Whether it's the tentacles and limbs that are placed in unnatural areas or the mutating forms that emerge from errant shots, the Necromorphs are quite unsettling to see, and even more unnerving when they come flying towards you. The same can be said for the gore and dismemberment, which is predominant throughout the game. Whether it's Isaac getting his head bitten off or impaled, or wandering through floors that are stocked with the fallen crewmembers of the Ishimura, the gore is both striking and appropriate to the gameplay. There are two things that I'm not crazy about: first, in the space or zero gravity areas, whenever the space gets depressurized, the pixilated visuals to show air being sucked out of an airlock or room doesn't look great compared to the rest of the game. My second and much more infrequent issue with the graphics is the slight slowdown that can occur, particularly during large explosions. Supporting the strong visuals is excellent voice acting across the board. While Isaac never utters a word, the other members of the cast perform their lines quite well, whether that's with an audio journal log or a holographic movie. However, the real standout is the use of sound, which is designed to send shivers up the player's spine. Whether it's the skittering through the walls of Necromorphs that are crawling towards you, the screams from the creatures as you blow off their legs, or the sudden sharp noises released as a jump moment occurs, the sound design is fantastic and really draws you into the game action. This is one of those games that you want to just listen to late at night with the lights off if you're looking to get freaked out.

Closing Comments: Call it science fiction survival horror, but Dead Space does the genre proud with an engaging story; action that's tense, fast-paced and extremely violent; as well as atmospheric qualities that will get under your skin and make you jump. It may be a newcomer, but the seeds of an incredible franchise have been sown, and EA's in a great position to reap a phenomenal franchise full of scares. If you like survival horror, action or sci-fi, Dead Space needs to be on your radar.

Fable II: The Wizard of Albion Set the world ablaze or raise the dead to fight by your side.

2008-10-16T04:48:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days, we've been examining the three elements that make up combat in Fable II. Previously, we've looked at hand-to-hand combat and ranged attacks. We finish off our look at combat with the most visually impressive of the three aspects, magic.Before picking up Fable II, you need to try and forget everything you've learned about magic from other role-playing games. Fable II does not use mana. There is no cost for casting any spell. You could (and are encouraged to) tap the B button repeatedly to fire off a quick succession of attacks at enemies. Doing this, however, only casts level 1 spells. So while it can be effective, you'll also be doing minimal damage. To get the most from the magic system, you'll want to use an even mix of quick-firing spells and charging up for larger attacks.Each spell in Fable II has five levels of power. This lays the foundation for Fable II's innovative spell selection system. You can slot a spell in each of the five levels (or up to the level of your most powerful spell) by holding down the Right Trigger. With the D-Pad, you can select spells for each level in-game, without having to go to the pause menu. Simple as that. Put a different spell in each slot or have all five levels be a single spell. The latter would be pretty boring, but who are we to judge?The longer you hold down B in combat, the more your Will charges. And the more you charge, the higher you ascend up the spell levels. As you shift to the next level, you'll see the spell charging in your hands change, making it easy to recognize what will be unleashed if you release the B button. This allows for strategic play with magic. You may want to have Time Control as your level 1 spell, enabling you to slow time the instant combat starts. Then as enemies are running towards you in slow motion, you can charge up to a more powerful, higher-level spell.Spells do not fundamentally change at higher levels. Shock electrocutes people whether it's a level 1 spell or a level 5. However, every spell has two uses. Cast a spell without touching the Left Thumbstick and you will cast an area affect attack. This will do less damage, but affect a wider area. The more potent the spell, the wider the area and the greater the damage. Hold B and push the Left Thumbstick towards an enemy and you will fire a direct attack at them. This can really mess a fellow up, but only hurts a single enemy. Shock: Damages enemies with an electrical blast. The area effect attack sends a wave of electricity. The more powerful versions of shock can leave enemies convulsing for several seconds. Do enough damage and all that is left is a smoldering skeleton.Inferno: Play with fire with either a single fireball thrown at an enemy or by creating a ring of fire to burn multiple enemies. The environment won't catch fire, but enemies will.Time Control: The targeted and area effect versions of this power are vastly different. Targeting an enemy and using time control lets you dash behind them, leaving your opponent open for a strike. If you don't target an enemy, Time Control slows time for everyone around you. This is one of the most useful spells in your grimoire. The higher the level, the longer and more pronounced the effect.Blades: Calls forth mystical blades to cut through your enemy. This is especially useful for targets running away, as the blades will track them down.Vortex: Creates a powerful whirlwind that snatches up enemies and tosses them about. You'll do greater damage by targeting a single enemy, but it's more fun to send a whole room flying about.Chaos: Summons the Mask of Madness to befuddle enemies. Confused enemies may attack their friend or even drop to scrub the floor (gotta get those bloodstains out). Targeted attacks extend the effect.Force Push: Use an area effect attack to create a wall of energy around you, pushing back all nearby foes and giving you some breathing room. Or target a single enemy to knock them back. This is very useful when fighting near cliffs and ledges.Raise Dead: Call forth the dead to fight as your allies. If cast near recently killed enemies, their spirits will rise to fight for you. Otherwise you get some less-impressive spirits. Use this spell when battling Balverines to even the playing field. Though this seems like a dark art, you don't become corrupt or evil by using this spell.Those worried that casting magic will age you, fear not. This is not the case. Magic users glow with power, but don't turn old and crusty after tossing around a few fireballs. However, when you become truly powerful, the Will energy begins to glow in your veins, so much so that you'll start to looking like an escapee from TRON. This isn't nearly as dramatic a physical change as what comes to the corrupt -- but that's a discussion for another day.

Release date: 5 days and counting!

StarCraft II Debate: Is three better than one?

2008-10-14T04:51:00.000-07:00

Blizzard dropped quite the bombshell on us last week with the announcement that StarCraft 2 has been split into three separate products, one standalone game for each of the three races. We've heard a lot of negative reactions to this, with most gamers not entirely sure whether this is a legitimate attempt to improve the depth and scope of each game, or just a way to increase their sales by holding back two-thirds of the project for future sequels. Personally, I think there's room for both views to be correct.Let's start by talking about the single-player experience. The first game's campaign will focus exclusively on the Terrans, giving players a chance to only see one-third of the full story. Quantitatively, Blizzard has revealed that the Terran campaign (and each subsequent campaign) will be as large and involved as the entire campaign from the original StarCraft. So from a purely mathematical perspective, you're getting just as much content from each of the individual sequel as we saw in the original game. But for me, part of the appeal of the original StarCraft was the opportunity to see the narrative and thematic connections play out over the course of each race's campaign. Now it just seems like the Terran-only version is going to be just one note over and over again. It might be a great note, but isn't the appeal of StarCraft's story in exploring three different points of view? I don't see how they can include that element in the individual sequels.They say they're adding some interesting tech choices to each race, so that's bound to increase the variability somewhat, but can they honestly achieve the same level of depth and interest of the original three-sided story all within the scope of a single race's campaign? I doubt it. Of course, Blizzard is one of those rare developers that can get away with making the same tired promises we hear from everyone else in the industry, but that's only because they've managed to deliver so far.By holding out on the release of the subsequent races' campaigns until at least a few years after the first Terran campaign, they're also giving other developers a peek at what they're doing. If Blizzard doesn't manage to incorporate new gameplay features in the latter two games, are they in danger of falling behind the RTS curve?For me, one of the reasons I was so drawn in by StarCraft's story campaign was largely because I knew I'd be seeing the events of the main campaign from the perspectives of all the different races. It made it much more interesting to follow characters, like Kerrigan, who disappeared early on in the game, and then be able to see them resurface later on. But when they come back, it's in a different narrative context because you're playing as the different race, and therefore have a new lens through which to view them. For instance, if you only played Terran, you might view Kerrigan's resurgence as purely evil. But because you already played as the Zerg in the original's campaign and in the Brood War expansion, you've developed a sense of sympathy for the character, and for any of the other ones.Imbuing the player with universal empathy for all the game's characters is something Blizzard is going to have a much more difficult time doing in StarCraft II now that it's been split into three pieces. While the way events play out and the way characters interact may work to reveal shades of gray in their motivations and actions, it can't be anything as powerful as would be actually playing the races. By putting the Terrans first, it immediately instills in players the notion that these are the guys you're meant to identify with, and therefore might have the unfortunate effect of inadvertently villanizing the Protoss and Zerg for reasons completely removed from the events within the game world.That being said, it'll be interesting to see what kind of new structures for narrative delivery will be present in StarCraft II. We know with the Terrans it'll be sort of a point and click interface to move Jim Raynor around his ship, talk with the crew, and select missions. I think it's unlikely to assume the Zerg and Protoss will also command battles from starships, so we'll likely see new explorable areas with those campaigns, although the point and click interface might remain the same. Or maybe Blizzard will toss it back to animated character portraits on television screens?And Steve, you brought up whether Blizzard is worried about falling behind the RTS curve. I wonder what that really means at this point. It seems like Blizzard isn't so much interested in staying ahead of the curve, but rather tweaking and adjusting an existing formula. They're presenting their campaign from a different kind of perspective this time around, but the core of what makes StarCraft feel like StarCraft is still intact as far as we've seen…and that core is 10 years old. If you look at what Relic's doing with Dawn of War II, you can see they're more interested in moving the genre into new areas, and obviously looking at what Blizzard did with Warcraft 3 and adding in more elements of persistence as well as the flavoring of the Warhammer 40,000 fiction.I think the guys up at Relic are probably feeling a bit vindicated at the moment, since a number of ideas in this new StarCraft II are already being implemented in Dawn of War II. Namely, this idea of a branching campaign and being able to select missions and zip around the galaxy in a starship. And based on what Rob Pardo, Blizzard's executive vice president of game design, was telling me, it's safe to say that DOWII will ship way ahead of StarCraft II. I wouldn't be surprised if StarCraft II ships of November of 2009 right now. DOWII ships in the first quarter of next year.I can't really talk the StarCraft universe much, since I personally tried playing StarCraft twice and stalled out both times at around the same point midway through the Zerg campaign. I will say that any move away from the traditional linear RTS campaigns of the past is a welcome one, and I am happy to see Blizzard make some radical changes in at least one regard. I got to play StarCraft II multiplayer for the first time at Blizzcon and I found the gameplay to be decidedly old school; it's almost exactly the same as StarCraft, only prettier. The potential pitfall with splitting the campaign like this is that it's going to feel awfully drawn out. Pardo admitted that the Zerg and Protoss campaigns exist mainly on paper on this point; work on them has hardly begun. It's sounding like the Terran campaign is still being pieced together. This is Blizzard we're talking about; the company executes better than almost anyone else, but that's because it will spend more time developing and polishing than everyone else. If the chapters of the trilogy are 18 to 24 months apart, it's going to take an awfully long time for StarCraft II to resolve.And this brings up another question: multiplayer. Blizzard is saying that the first game will have a full multiplayer suite, which means that while the single-player will only let you play as the Terrans, the multiplayer will have all three races fully playable. But that brings up all sorts of crazy questions, because Pardo also said that the other games could introduce new multiplayer features. However, each game will be completely stand-alone and optional, which means that some people will only buy the first game, others will only buy the second game, and there will be others who only buy the third game. How does Blizzard make this work? They don't know yet.How Blizzard addresses the issue of adding multiplayer content across release versions is definitely a big one, especially considering the fanatical amount of attention that will be paid to gameplay balancing post-release. To give others additional multiplayer content for purchasing the second campaign while not making it also available to those who only bought the Terran campaign seems highly unlikely, as everyone recognizes how that would wreck any kind of balance.A potential solution, if Blizzard were to introduce additional multiplayer elements with each release, would be to either fragment their community so that only those who purchased the expansions would play against each other, or offer the additional content to users who've already purchased a previous campaign as a free download. But then, if some users are getting content for free and some aren't, Blizzard runs into some tricky pricing issues that perhaps might be resolved by whatever they wind up doing with their battle.net service.As far as how the actual multiplayer works, I don't know if I'd really say StarCraft II feels 'almost exactly' like the first. It's certainly similar, and as I said, the core is still there. It's one of those things were the more you learn, the more different it is. It's still the same overhead perspective, same kind of look with regards to UI and unit designs, and the same kind of feel, I think, but there's quite a bit different once you get down to the unit level, from the new Terran Thor to the Protoss Colossus walkers. That's sort of like saying all the races in Supreme Commander are the same. They're certainly similar in a lot of way the units function, but when you look at the units up close, like a comparison of how Tech 2 point defenses work on all sides, you start to see differences.I think Blizzard made an excellent decision (at least as far as the fans are concerned) to include all three races in multiplayer for each title. That means you can just buy the Terran game and you'll still be able to go online and fight as the Zerg and Protoss. For Blizzard to have done otherwise would just be suicideLike you guys, I'm really wondering about this added multiplayer content. The obvious question, and one I'm sure Blizzard is asking internally, is exactly how much do they need to add to the sequels in order to maintain their status in the multiplayer RTS community and attract gamers who don't really care about the single-player experience? And if you begin adding those elements, how do you strive to maintain parity with earlier versions and not make it seem like a slap in the face to gamers who don't want to drop one-hundred-and-fifty bucks on the whole StarCraft 2 experience?I'm just speculating here, but Blizzard is too mindful of their image in the RTS market to let two or three years of development go by after the release of the Terran game and not feel the urge to tweak things here and there. So when the Zerg and Protoss games come out, not only will their multiplayer portions benefit from lessons learned from the Terran game, but also from the ideas found in other RTS games released in the interim. Without those additions, the sequels are going to feel like overpriced mission packs whose only justification is the fun to be found in their single player elements.Charles, I hardly think that Blizzard would be willing to go through the hassle of having separate communities based on which versions they have. Do we have three communities for each of the single title owners? And three communities for gamers who bought two but not three? And one final community (the real heroes) who bought all three? Ugh. It just seems like more trouble than it could possibly be worth. The real secret is that they want every one of their customers to buy all three as they come out.Well, to clarify, I think it'd just have to be three separate communities. One for the Terran campaign, one for the Zerg, and one for Protoss. If somebody bought the Zerg package, they'd already have all the content that came with the Terran campaign plus some, so no need for there to be separate multiplayer communities for Terran-only, Zerg-only, and Terran and Zerg combined. Zerg-only and the Terran / Zerg combo would essentially be treated as the same thing. Updates through battle.net may negate the need to separate the communities. But if not, this approach could make sense, as it would mirror what happens when an expansion pack is released for a base RTS game.But yeah, Steve as you hinted at before, I think the main issue is with fans who really want to see how the whole campaign turns out. It's understandable they may feel like Blizzard is taking advantage of their enthusiasm for its products. Obviously, developers and publishers want to make money on their projects but I'm genuinely concerned that they're overestimating the value that gamers will place on owning all three titles. Then again, it's Blizzard, so they can get away with a lot of things that would crush other studios. Still, I think three full-priced games and a ninety-mission campaign spread out over a few years is a bit of a stretch, even for Blizzard. And while it might not strain too many wallets to buy three different games just to get the whole experience, I agree with Jason that there's too much opportunity for the story to lose focus and wind up with a "who cares anymore" style ending. I hope I'm wrong but it's definitely a risk.Those gamers who suspect that Blizzard might charge less than the going price for games would do well to consider that the venerable Battle Chest itself is still selling at twenty dollars. For Blizzard to release a sequel that costs less than twice that is unlikely. But I won't rule out the appeal of microtransactions here. There's been a lot of noise about that lately and I think rather than lose out on a hundred bucks for players who will buy one game and not the others, Blizzard would offer up a reasonably priced suite of multiplayer upgrades. That way, owners of a single title can still pony up some cash to get all the online features they need to stay competitive.So what do you think? Is Blizzard trying to milk this sequel for all it's worth? Are we just being cynical and not trusting enough in their ability to deliver a game so awesome that one box simply can't hold it? Would you buy two extra sequels just for the single player content or are you simply looking for the multiplayer options?

Prince of Persia

2008-10-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

Forget what you know about Prince of Persia. Do your best to put the Sands of Time and its two sequels behind you. The new Prince of Persia, built on a modified version of the Assassin's Creed engine, is different from any game in the series' storied history. Sure, it still has amazing animations, death-defying acrobatics, and thrilling combat, but the new Prince is a completely different experience in almost every regard. It's an evolution of the past three titles, and if the first act (of three) is any indication, it's a step in the right direction.The story begins with a new Prince wandering through the desert. He's calling out to Farah, who's become separated from him during a sandstorm. Farah is his donkey. Instead of finding his wayward ass, the Prince runs into Elika, a mysterious barefoot girl on the run from what appears to be an elite group of guardsmen. After a quick introduction to the combat system, you're fighting a few guards and then running with Farah into a strange new world.The two come upon the mystical garden where Ahriman is being held captive within the Tree of Life. It is the duty of Elika and her people to guard this tree and keep Ahriman from ever escaping. But just as you arrive at the tree, the leader of the guardsmen approaches, telling Elika that the hour of their people has passed. This is your first boss battle and it doesn't end well. The man, whose identity and purpose we'll leave for you to uncover, smashes the tree and sets Ahriman free to corrupt the world.After this point, Prince of Persia opens up. The garden is your hub, from which you can easily reach the three worlds that make up the bulk of Prince of Persia. Ubisoft has promised that the world is open. That is true. Each of the three worlds is made up of four different, connected levels. The worlds and each level are circular. To get from one area to the next, you just need to hug a wall and eventually you will come to a junction connecting to the next area. If you want to try and heal the level you're in, it's just a matter of breaking from the outer wall and venturing inward.This set-up isn't obvious at first. It's only after clearing a few levels that the design starts to make sense and it becomes easy to maneuver where you wish. While you can go to quite a number of places at your leisure, there are some limiters. The majority of areas have magic plates that can only be activated once Elika has unlocked a specific power. There are four powers to unlock that correspond with four different plates. So while you can progress partially in certain areas, you'll often need to have unlocked the powers of a plate in that level to reach the healing ground.If you're worried that this somehow funnels you towards certain levels first, don't worry. You get to choose the order in which you unlock Elika's powers. Unlocking Rebound magic won't just open two areas in the first world, but also areas in one of the other worlds. So while there is the somewhat typical game convention of limiting your access to certain areas, you still have the choice of which you play first. And the choices you make do matter. Each boss will release a different corruption trap into the world that will remain for the rest of play. These releases are tied to specific levels. You could avoid these levels until near the end of the game, making the acrobatic elements fairly easy, or tackle them early to add acrobatic challenge. The same level you clear at the start of the game will be quite a different experience for a friend who saves it until the end, after all of the corruption has infested the area.The first world focuses on a single boss, The Hunter. This ruined creature was once a man who sold his soul to Ahriman. He makes an appearance in each level of this world, growing stronger with each successive battle. Fights with the Hunter are epic moments, especially if you are just getting used to the combat system.Prince of Persia is not a button masher. Combat is built on a simple principle. You have a button for your sword, one for your gauntlet, one for Elika, and one for acrobatics. There are no set combos, no "light" and "heavy" attacks. Instead, Prince offers a dynamic fighting system that adapts based on what button you press and when you press it. You might strike first with the gauntlet, which launches your enemy into the air, then when he is at his full height, hit the sword button for an air strike followed by the Elika button to see her launch the enemy even higher in the air and then finish with the gauntlet again to perform a grab move and throw the Hunter into the ground. Uncovering when to press a button and how to extend an attack string is one of the rewarding elements of Prince of Persia that is unlike just about any other combat system I've ever experienced. Not everyone it going to like it.The goal is to have gamers leaning back and absorbing the combat, which often consists of slow, methodical button presses rather than firing off a rapid string of button taps. It takes a while before it clicks and I imagine that it will never click for some. It took me about an hour and a half before I suddenly got it. When it clicks, combat in Prince becomes a Zen experience. And that's intentional. This is supposed to feel like that moment at the end of the Matrix, when Neo sees the world in a new way and becomes unstoppable. But, again, fair warning that this may never happen to you.To encourage gamers to use all four buttons, each enemy you face can assume three corruption states. The states offer a colored tint to the corruption surrounding the enemy along with a distinct look. Each state has a specific weakness -- a sword attack, gauntlet strike, or Elika's magic. At first, it's pretty easy to counter the states, but as the Hunter becomes more powerful, he'll quickly change states while you're in the middle of an attack string. If you don't recognize the state immediately, you could be in for some trouble. Where past Prince of Persia games attempted to throw numerous enemies at you and split combat and acrobatics evenly, this is the new Prince. The balance is heavily weighted towards acrobatics. Combat becomes a special event and the battles can sometimes be lengthy. Mostly, you'll be maneuvering through the world with combat the reward for your acrobatic efforts.While the combat might be an acquired taste, just about everyone will love the acrobatic sections. Acrobatics uses the same controls as combat, making it an easy transition. The gauntlet button, which launches enemies into the air in combat, is used to grab rings on walls to help continue your run. The Elika button activates magic plates and is used for an Elika-assisted double jump. The acrobatic button is used to jump.Moving around the world, leaping off poles and running along walls is a breeze. It's as fluid as the combat and immensely enjoyable. The first world makes use of two of Elika's powers. The rebound power, which we witnessed at E3, has you bouncing from plate to plate, hitting the Elika button each time to "rebound" to the next plate. The other type of plate is a bit tougher. Yellow plates require Elika to use the Wings of Ormazd power -- flight.Elika takes hold of Prince and flies through the level. Your flight is on rails, but you can maneuver Elika and the Prince around the screen. As you fly, obstructions will need to be dodged. Fail to zig or zag and you'll smash into a wall and have to restart the flight.Each level has two phases. The first is the corrupt phase. Here you will have pools of corruption that prove lethal to the touch. Any traps that have been released by bosses will also be seen throughout the level. After you reach the healing ground and push the corruption out of the area, you will see the healed phase of the level.Once healed, numerous glowing, white orbs appear around the level. You'll need to collect these orbs to unlock Elika's next power. This gives you reason to re-explore an area. Though it may sound like Ubisoft is rehashing levels, the healed state is a completely different story from its corrupt phase. Rather than feeling pushed forward towards a boss battle, the healed area is focused on exploration. You'll see orbs in areas that seem unreachable. Only by being creative with your acrobatic moves can you hope to collect every orb.Fans of previous Prince of Persia titles know that there is more to the series than just combat and acrobatics. Don't sweat it -- there are puzzle elements in the new Prince of Persia. In fact, the bulk of the windmill level is a puzzle. At one point you need to move a series of levers to reveal magical plates. The puzzle aspects feel like less of a focus, but they do exist.Prince of Persia is not just a prettier version of past iterations. It takes chances with the acrobatics and combat, attempting to create a very different experience. From what I've played -- roughly a third of the game -- I'd say it's a success. The combat is unique, stylized, and fun. The acrobatics are pretty much what I'd hoped for from a new Prince of Persia. The big question that remains is how the dynamic elements will play out over the full game and if the combat remains as invigorating throughout.

Little Big Planet

2008-10-07T04:50:00.001-07:00

The LittleBigPlanet Beta is still going strong and already the smallish pool of testers have managed to turn some really cool ideas into actual interactive reality. We wanted to take the time to give these guys a little love, but this is by no means a comprehensive list of the best out there. Hell, some of the levels aren't really levels at all, but if they've demonstrated a cool concept, help push the rest of the community forward (by, say, offering up their creation at the end), or just have something that we found particularly cool, we wanted to present it to you guys, giving the authors credit and hopefully helping to fuel even more creative minds to jump in as the full game expands. So here we've cobbled together some of the better examples of what we're talking about, along with little videos to illustrate it far better than our stupid words ever could. You may not get a video of the whole level (who really wants to watch poor, uncoordinated IGN editors jumping and falling constantly?), but we'll certainly give you a good idea of what we're enjoying. So put on that thinking cap, grab a pen and paper to jot down notes, and join us for a trip into the speedy, brilliant and, above all else, creative parts of LittleBigPlanet's formative early weeks.

Silent Hill Homecoming

2008-10-02T04:53:00.000-07:00

The Silent Hill franchise has always been known for its ability to trip the player's psychological levers, instilling a significant amount of unease, fear and even dread at the situations that they find themselves in. Whether it was wandering the fog enshrouded streets of Silent Hill or the rusty, industrialized hallways of the Otherworld, the characters were normal people -- not fighters -- stranded in a situation that was completely out of their control, forced to survive any way they could against unnatural monsters. That, in turn, imparted a sense of panic and concern in the player because they weren't guaranteed to emerge from a fight unscathed. Unfortunately for the series, the latest installment from Konami and Double Helix, Silent Hill: Homecoming, manages to drain the emotional and psychological elements from the game. While the monsters and strange environments of the game return, the overall experience just isn't scary, which is a major letdown for a title with such a great horror pedigree.Homecoming is the story of Alex Shepherd, a recently discharged soldier who has disturbing dreams that seem to plague him during his waking moments, many revolving around his younger brother Joshua. Once he eventually gets back to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen (thanks to a quick cameo of a previous Silent Hill character), he discovers that things are truly bad at home and only getting worse. People have been disappearing in increasing numbers, including Alex's father and little brother, the streets are shattered and in disarray and strange creatures roam the town. As Alex investigates his family's disappearance and the incidents going on, he eventually discovers the dark secret of Shepherd's Glen, its connection to Silent Hill, and how his family plays a significant role in these events. The tale itself is a decent one -- players that have gone through a number of Silent Hill stories before will gain a new perspective on the communities bordering Toluca Lake. Homecoming doesn't radically attempt to revamp the established universe that's existed for almost a decade, but tries to tie the plot of Alex's adventure to pre-established canon. There are a number of nods to both the Silent Hill film from a few years ago as well as the movie Jacob's Ladder, which adds a couple of layers to the development of the characters as well as the situations they find themselves in. However, even with all of that going on, the main twist related to the game can easily be figured out before it happens, leaving a rather bland taste when it's finally revealed. Homecoming eventually feels more like a subplot to a larger, unfinished tale with tenuous connections to the rest of the series. Apart from the aforementioned cameo and a brief mention of Cybil, many of the other story regulars have been excluded. Alessa and Dahlia don't show up, and even the few sequences where Pyramid Head pops up are more like brief guest appearances for fans, although he does have a great scene towards the end of the game.To a degree, this "straying away" from the well known characters or elements from the previous games would be fine if the title maintained the frightening aspects of the franchise, but that just doesn't happen. The placement of jump moments are extremely predictable, so you never feel like you're put on the edge of your seat because of something that'll suddenly attack you seemingly out of nowhere. Instead, you frequently come off as bored or unsurprised that a creature comes through a door or a gate, primarily because you won't have been attacked in so long that you'll start to expect something to step out of a shadow or a hallway up ahead.Even worse are the sections where the title continually triggers a number of respawning monsters until you move to a certain portion of the environment and trigger a cutscene. This doesn't create or contribute to the claustrophobic sense of dread a player should feel going through these games in any way. On top of this, it's blatantly obvious that the designers attempted to ratchet up the scares by making it impossible to see where you're going with a flashlight that barely illuminates anything. Even if you are in a darkened area with the flashlight on and the brightness option cranked up all the way, you'll have trouble seeing in front of you, which doesn't make the game scary at all. In fact, you'll frequently need to run up on something to notice that the flashlight is on. This simply cheapens the experience with poor design choices, making the fear that you experience tamer than that which you'd find at an amusement park's haunted house. Further reducing the terror is the fact that Alex is completely capable in combat. Unlike Heather, James or Harry from the previous games, Alex is a trained soldier that has some significant skills in battle. He has the ability to perform quick or heavy strikes, charge up his attacks to perform powerful lunges or string them together to create a number of combos. He's also able to switch his targets with a quick flick of the right analog stick, which helps you keep creatures at bay that attempt to swarm and attack you from behind. However, you're not simply a whipping boy for monsters; Alex can dodge incoming attacks and even retaliate with a counterattack once an enemy misses their strike. You're not restricted solely to hand-to-hand items, either; Alex will get his hands on pistols, rifles and shotguns along the course of his adventure, and will even be able to "upgrade" these weapons with stronger versions at a later point in the game. The problem with this approach is that Alex is too good with the weapons he gains. For instance, the earlier protagonists were horrible shots because they didn't really have any experience with a gun, only gaining more comfort as the game went on. Alex's aim is rock solid and you can easily pick off monsters or aim for specific sections of the beasts. This doesn't make gunfire nearly as challenging, and if you focus more on the melee than the ranged combat, you'll have plenty of bullets saved for bosses.What's more, the inclusion of the dodge will let you easily kill most beasts without suffering a single scratch. As long as you don't charge in blindly and hit the button as they attempt to strike, you'll have no problem landing a countering blow. That doesn't make you feel as helpless as you would in previous games, where battle is a tense struggle for survival, or worry that you'll have to hoard healing items because you'll constantly need to treat your wounds. What's more, the inclusion of Dr. Kaufmann's serum that increases your health meter makes it much easier to fight on against creatures, and acts almost like a third tier of healing items (outside of the drinks and first-aid kits). This more action-oriented focus on gameplay may turn off some longtime series fans, especially because monsters will just feel like obstacles in your way of exploring the rest of the title. The game is much more than a string of fights, though. As you go through the various environments, you may be tasked with cutting your way through doorways with button press mechanics, or sliding through walls to access new rooms. On your way, you'll gather a number of photographs, drawings and other items that will go into Alex's journal. The journal helps keep a number of details of the plot together, and can be referred to at any time to help you piece together the story of the game as well as solve some of the puzzles scattered throughout. Some of the solutions are easy to find, such as tracking down keypad entries. On the other hand, you'll also find some quite tricky puzzles scattered throughout the game, such as sliding puzzles that don't get reset if you make mistakes with them, forcing you to reload your progress if you really mess it up (as a quick aside, what's with the limitation to only five save games? In this day and age of larger hard drives, was it that hard to just allow players to save as many games as they want?).Visually, Homecoming is sharp, with a lot of nice details. Enemies will show off weapon damage, particularly when you slash at them with an axe or a knife, and Alex will perform different animations based on the various weapons that he has equipped. Speaking of the monsters, the creatures that roam through the streets of Shepherd's Glen, Silent Hill and the Otherworld look quite good, from the multiple-limbed amalgamation of the Siams to the jerky, snapping moves of the nurses and the slithering of the Lurkers. Even the bosses have their own unique and off-kilter appearances that change as Alex batters them into submission.The transformation of the environments takes much of its cue from the movie, with the ripping and peeling ash-like shift from the "real" world into the Otherworld, which is a striking effect. All of this, of course, is countered by the previously mentioned problems with the flashlight, which makes it extremely hard to see in dark spaces. There are a few framerate dips here and there, and even though the camera is much better than previous Silent Hill games, you'll still find that your view can be obscured by the angle initially chosen by the title. Characters in cutscenes do have a tendency to perform their lines with poor lip synching, and although their faces may be rather expressive at times, their clothing looks flat and generically textured. Finally, the game does employ a scratched film filter for the Otherworld that looks rather good, but the fog filter that's applied for the "real" world can make character's skin look unnatural. This also seems to contribute to shadows that move unrealistically, with the shadows seeming to vibrate and become pixilated and in motion even when a character is standing still. The 360 has less instances of this, but clipping of objects and items like hair seems much more frequent in this version than the PS3. The true star of the title, as it always has been within the franchise, is Akira Yamaoka's musical selections. Atmospheric, moody and beautifully presented, the music is as good as it's ever been. However, because the gameplay looses its psychological edge or the fear, the score feels somewhat misplaced with the title. It's way too good for many of the bland sections, and, after a while, you may exert too much of your energy even trying to get into the mood set by his music. It practically tries to beat you into feeling an emotional level that isn't supported by the rest of the game. Vocally, the dialogue is fine -- it's not horrible, but it's not fantastic either, and there are a number of delivered lines that you'll want to simply throttle characters for. In fact, you'll want to throttle Josh or leave him to whatever fate he'd suffer in the Otherworld because of his petulant delivery.

Fable 2

2008-09-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

Fable 2 is only 24 days away and counting!

Megaman 9?

2008-09-26T04:59:00.000-07:00

This just in! Capcom is remaking the original megaman series!

Kingdom Hearts anime?!

2008-09-19T04:52:00.001-07:00

I have just been informed that an anime version of the popular Kingdom Hearts series. The info links are here and here

Spore

2008-09-11T04:57:00.000-07:00

Spore is finally out! A game in which you create the universe. One evolution at a time. Here's the link.

Sonic Unleashed

2008-09-08T05:14:00.001-07:00

Sega's new sonic game (Sonic Unleashed) has been post poned to the holiday season. To those of you who wish to see the trailer click here.

In further news on sega's work Sonic and the Black Knight you can look here.

Welcome!

2008-09-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Gamahala! The safe haven for gamers of all ages. From noobs to pros. I am Axon the webmaster. At gamahala all of your gaming questions shall be answered. If you have questions for me. My email address is rahmauteon@yahoo.com