The original Portal had the element of surprise. Its style of first-person physics-based puzzle gameplay was unique. GLaDOS, the murderous robotic villain, was new and vibrant and evil in the most charming way. Cake jokes and songs about surviving dismemberment were still hilarious. It was short, succinct and essential. Creating a sequel without playing all the same notes and making it feel like Portal: The Longer Version is a tough task. For Valve, it's apparently no problem.
From the first moments of waking up in the rusting Aperture Science facility to right before the credits roll, Portal 2 rarely falters. The world is bigger, the story thicker, and the character development more surprising. The mania of GLaDOS, the facility's operator, is molded into unexpected forms alongside a host of brutally funny personalities. The history of the Aperture Science facility is filled in, character origins discussed, and though its pacing suffers as it occasionally strikes a more serious tone, an abundance of cruel jokes and cheerfully sincere death threats prevent it from losing its sarcastic charm. When you're not staring at your screen with wrinkled, pained expression on your face trying to figure out a puzzle, expect to be laughing.
You still play as Chell, dragged back into Aperture after the events of the first game. You soon meet Wheatley, a spherical robot, voiced by Stephen Merchant (The Ricky Gervais Show, Extras) who helps you through the early stages. It's difficult to overstate how Merchant's obvious enthusiasm for the role benefits the game. No word Wheatley speaks is without witty inflection, and the consistently clever writing perfectly complements the onscreen action. It's easy to be be just as concerned about missing lines of dialogue as about progressing through the puzzles, especially during Wheatley and GLaDOS' verbal sparring matches.
The attention to detail throughout is nothing short of stunning. The facility is in a state of disrepair at the beginning. Once GLaDOS whirs into action, so does the facility, becoming an extension of her body and personality. When you enter a room mechanized crane arms and wall plates spin and shift with an urgency like you walked in on them with their pants down. As Portal 2 progresses, the environments expand from claustrophobic test chambers to yawning underground chasms. Metal girders and structural supports break and crash into each another, snapping apart in chaotic and natural ways, consistently serving not only to entertain the eye but to expand our understanding of the game's characters. The core appeal of something like Portal will never be the visuals, but it's still impressive how much mileage Valve is getting out of its Source technology first used for Half-Life 2 in 2004.
Though there's a much bigger emphasis on story and character development in Portal 2, you'll spend a lot of time tangling with spatial reasoning puzzles in test chambers. Valve brings back the same portal gun while greatly expanding the number of gameplay toys. The gun shoots two linked portals through which you and objects can pass and momentum is maintained. To get from one test chamber to the next and through the guts of Aperture's vastness, you'll use your portals to redirect energy beams, coat surfaces with globular gel that makes you bounce or run at high speeds, pass over gaping pits with bridges of light and manipulate cylindrical tractor beams. Arriving at a solution will require quick reactions just as often as clear thinking, as portals sometimes need to be repositioned while soaring through the air or before timers run out. This isn't a first person-shooter in the traditional sense, but at times it can feel like one as you zoom in with your portal gun to spy distant targets and frantically adjust your aim and fire with precision.
No matter how complicated the puzzles get, the solutions are always sensible. Sometimes you'll "get it" right away and adjust lasers with lens blocks to activate platforms to reach switches. Other times you'll have no idea what to do, exhausting seemingly all possible options until, eventually, a solution so plainly obvious sparks in your brain and you curse yourself for being such a dolt. Valve does an excellent job of presenting you with all the necessary clues without slapping a set of instructions onscreen to explain the way forward. Even when multiple mechanics are mixed into puzzles like jump pads, tractor beams, light bridges and gels, I never felt getting stuck was due to unreasonable or poor design, only my ability to decipher it.
As good as the single-player story is, the co-operative is the real highlight of Portal 2. The beginning of the co-op picks up right after the end of the single-player game, giving you and your partner control of two robots, and serves as a continuation of the story of Aperture Science. It features fewer characters than the single-player mode but is still filled with enough sharp writing, deadpan jokes and absurd humor to keep you entertained between puzzle sections and provide motivation toward an end goal. Better yet, instead of simply recycling puzzle designs from the single-player portion, the inclusion of another player significantly alters the way you need to think.
That's because each of the robotic co-operative characters carries a portal gun, which means two guns and four portals. Valve takes full advantage of the increased capacity for dimensional holes by raising the level of challenge and coordination required. As is obvious if you've ever played Left 4 Dead, Valve knows how a good co-operative mode requires a game design that doesn't simply encourage but requires you to work together. In Portal 2, communication is vital to success.
Getting through can be frustrating, especially if you're playing with someone you don't know, because there's no diffusion of responsibility here. You can't hide in a corner and wait for someone else to do all the work. The contributions of each person involved are plain to see, and Valve's developed numerous tools to help make communication as smooth as possible.
You can set context-sensitive markers on parts of the environment to wordlessly indicate where a portal should be placed, where a partner should move, and even trigger a countdown clock to synchronize when switches should be hit or buttons pressed. The indicators may feel superfluous at first, but once you're setting up four portal chains of light bridges to block turret fire or redirecting edgeless safety cubes as they fly through open air over bottomless pits, it's obvious how useful they can be. Barely a moment will go by in silence while playing Portal 2 with another, except when you're listening to GLaDOS belittle your intelligence with endearing sarcasm.
Really the only place Portal 2 falters is in the second act of its single-player mode, where the pacing sags and the story becomes more concerned with the past than anything else. Even so, as compared to many other linear first-person games where the stories are little more than shrink wrap and glorify a blood-is-progress philosophy, Portal 2's mid-game doldrums are relatively far more creative and confidently original. Valve's sequel serves as the anti-Call of Duty. Portal 2 is a first-person thrill ride from beginning to end that challenges you to think without failing to entertain.
Spider-Man: Edge of Time revolves around the timelines of both The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 as they must work together to prevent the death of Peter Parker.
That's why I find myself drawn to Spider-Man: Edge of Time. The haunting image of Spider-Man 2099 carrying the broken body of the Amazing Spider-Man was how Beenox Studios introduced Spider-Man: Edge of Time to the world in April, and it has stuck with me ever since. Yes, I gave the game some good natured ribbing by making sure to point out that while this game is not Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions 2 it sure seems like it is (same voices, art style, Spidey-switching idea), but the thing I took away from that initial taste was a desire to dive deeper into this story that hinges on the wallcrawler's death, and that's exactly what the E3 demo gave me.
Maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself, though. Spider-Man: Edge of Time follows up on Beenox's success with Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Here, a scientist from the future travels back in time and kills the Amazing Spider-Man (that's the red and blue hero we all know and love). This sends a shockwave through the universe that instantly changes the timestream. The time-traveling scientist sets up an evil company that shouldn't exist for dozens of year and molds the future in his image.
Spider-Man 2099 is the only one who knows how things used to be -- how things are supposed to be -- because he went through the time portal with the evil scientist. Now, Spider-Man 2099 has to work through time and a telekinetic link with Amazing Spider-Man to keep the hero from getting killed and unspooling everything.
Players take on the role of Amazing Spider-Man and use his web hammers and such to quell enemies from a distance. Spider-Man 2099 is much more melee based and meant to get up close and personal with the bad guys. As I've said before, though, that's not all that shocking as that's how both of those characters played in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, but the E3 demo introduced "Hyper Sense." This ability allows Spidey to slow down time and dodge enemy attacks while getting in some shots of his own.
Hyper Sense is critical because it's needed to take on Anti-Venom. Of course, Anti-Venom is Eddie Brock. In the comics, Brock used to be Venom and be a bad guy, but as Anti-Venom he's a force for good and can cure people of aliments. That doesn't matter here as the evil scientist has taken control of Anti-Venom and is going to use him to fight the Amazing Spider-Man. That fight might sound like every other fight in a video game, but Anti-Venom can "cure" Spider-Man by removing the radioactivity from his blood. Basically, if he gets his hands on Spidey, he can make him a normal dude.
This is what kills Spider-Man. Activision confirmed that Anti-Venom is the foe that takes Spider-Man's life and kicks off the entire game. I'm not sure if what I saw in the demo was the second time Spider-Man faces off against Anti-Venom or if this truly was the fight that ends his life, but when I found out this is the man that would finally kill Spider-Man, the fight meant so much more. Anti-Venom kind of hulks up and lunges at Spider-Man. The hero tries to talk him down, but eventually Anti-Venom pins him down and -- the demo ends in desperation.
It sucked for me, but it was a good place for Beenox to stop it. Back in April, I saw Spider-Man: Edge of Time for the first time and didn't think too much of it other than that image of a dead Spidey. Now, I want to see that Anti-Venom fight end. Were those the final moments of Parker's life? Do you play through them? I assumed the game started with a cutscene of Spidey dying and then players took over the task of Spider-Man 2099 trying to stop that from occurring. Now, I'm thinking we start on a fool's errand to beat an unbeatable foe.
I know Spider-Man's going to fail, and this time I don't just want to watch, I want to play.
Jigsaw wants you to play another game, but should you run in terror?
I didn't enjoy the first Saw game. It had bad, repetitious level and puzzle design, and some truly awful combat. Sadly, Saw II: Flesh and Blood, the sequel pumped out in just a year, does essentially nothing to change this, somehow even making the combat worse.
Prepare yourselves; Jigsaw wants to play another crappy game.
Saw II follows the story from the films, placing you in control of a young Michael Tapp (the son of Danny Glover's character from the movies), who is trapped in an elaborate maze set up by the serial killer Jigsaw. Beyond that the story is hopelessly lost on anyone not familiar with the movies, as character after character is introduced throughout the game in a manner that assumes player has memorized the cast of every chapter in the series. However, Saw II has lots of additional reading material that you can collect to try which sheds some light on what's going on, but unless you're ready to do some reading on Wikipedia you'll find yourself as lost as I was.
OK, so storytelling isn't Saw II's strong point, but you'd at least hope they could at least get the horror aspect right. Sadly, no. The game is full of traps that will kill you outright, such as shotguns trigged by opening doors, or tripwires on the ground, but these are repeated so much that you eventually anticipate them. Jigsaw goes from diabolically clever serial killer to tired and predictable after just the first two hours of the story.
Even the puzzles that won't kill you outright end up being little more than repetitious speed bumps to finishing the game. Countless doors require you to move some segmented wires around so that the power travels from the source to a switch, while other times you'll have some other item that is only obtainable through doing a simple game of pressing lights on and off (pressing the switch makes the adjacent lights turn on or off, depending on the state they were before). Saw II has a few of these simple puzzles and it beats them right into the ground. Occasional twists on the mechanic also fall flat (making players manipulate two wires is not clever), making these "puzzles" feel more like nuisances put in the game to turn it into a multiple hour experience.
The major set-piece puzzles of Saw II are also uninspired. The last Saw videogame had a few unique puzzles wherein the player was tasked with saving a major character from an elaborate trap. Saw II also has these, but they're either minor twists on what was seen in the last game, or simple tasks that are introduced so that they can be repeated ad nauseum in other parts of the story. Even when these puzzles manage to introduce a cool element, such as one that makes you do simple match-two-similar-pictures while also keeping a victim out of cycling jets of fire, they become frustrating affairs thanks to the fact that slipping up almost always causes instant failure. Learning by failing is ok if actually teaches you (see: Limbo), but in Saw II it just feels punitive.
The environments are imposing at first, until you realize that nothing is going to jump out and scare you without prompting you first. The only reason you'll find not to run headlong into darkness is the occasional bit of glass or acid on the ground (you're barefoot). Otherwise you are always prompted when you run into an enemy, or even given a chance to mash a button to dodge a hidden trip wire. And don't worry about getting lost in the dark, either, because despite there being a map the game is so linear that you'll never need it.
Combat was almost universally panned in the last Saw game, and Saw II somehow manages to make it worse. Instead of the clunky combat of yester-year, players are now forced to suffer through a quick-time event. You can argue all you want that the previous game didn't require all that much skill when it came to fighting, but simply inputting a few buttons to take out foes not only isn't fun, it takes all the suspense out of wondering when and where they're going to attack you from.
Running screaming through an evil forest with familiar scenery in the third chapter of Shadows of the Damned.
Grasshopper Manufacture's resident impresario, Suda 51, has made mention of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse again and again in marketing and interviews for his upcoming HD debut, Shadows of the Damned. But after making my way through the first half of the game, it's clear there are other 80's horror icons that belong in that list of influences. Five or so hours in, and it also seems like your ability to appreciate the multi-dimensional references to eight and sixteen-bit era gaming conventions and VHS horror mainstays might determine your ability to appreciate Shadows of the Damned as a game.
Publisher EA and Grasshopper Manufacture have already shown the first two chapters of Shadows of the Damned a couple of times before, but chapter three is unlike anything they've exposed us to previously. It also kicks Shadows of the Damned's horror homage into overdrive. Where earlier levels of Shadows of the Damned reference the style of the Tarantinos and Tobe Hoopers (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the third chapter features an extended tribute to Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 and their director, Sam Raimi.
While he's better known now for his directing work on the Spider-man films, Raimi made his bones (no pun intended) writing, directing and producing the Evil Dead films. In the middle of Shadows of the Damned's third chapter, the Evil Dead worship isn't just evident, it assaults you. Running screaming through the woods, our hero Garcia (F*cking) Hotspur is fleeing the deranged corpse (possibly? Shadows wallows in nebulous explanations of weird sh*t) of his suicide girlfriend Paula, taking refuge in wooden cabins, screaming to the world "How do you stop them?" I had to stop and take a moment to process the familiarity, the audacious, wholesale lifting of visual cues, right down to the roaring intangible spirit trying to break down the cabin door.
Then an undead monster banged its head up into the cellar door and cackled maniacally, staring at Garcia through the crack left by the rope securing the portal, and I'm pretty sure it said something about swallowing my soul.
As a fan of Raimi's work, it's hard not to feel an overwhelming sense of kinship with Suda 51 for his clear love of Evil Dead ad infinitum. It's that building psuedo-relationship, that kinship of appreciation, that's pulling me through Shadows of the Damned where otherwise I don't know that I'd be so inclined to continue. The wacky, over the top gore, the fantastic and diverse score by Silent Hill composer and fiction-caretaker Akira Yamaoka, the Ghouls and Ghosts inspired progress map between chapters, these are all attaching themselves to the threads of nostalgia in my brain. The gameplay? Not so much.
So far, my earlier issues with Shadows of the Damned from a mechanical point of view are borne out in this review build of the game. Shooting is a little clunky, and a little slow in the way that third party Unreal Engine 3 third person shooters often are. The camera doesn't always play nice despite the relatively simple demands placed on it. The character animation is often laughably bad, and Shadows of the Damned so far desperately panders and stoops to every possible dick joke and phallic reference it can stretch to - it's like the video game equivalent of that douche at the party who never stops with the "that's what she said" refrain.
It isn't fair to crucify Shadows of the Damned yet though. There's still half of a game to go, and mechanically, Shadows of the Damned is functional, if nothing else. But I can't shake this feeling that if not for my own predilections toward campy horror and gore, the five hours I've spent playing Shadows would probably have felt at least twice as long. The new tricks it keeps pulling out to show me are mostly removed from how it plays, which is usually considered a not so good thing. The question is whether Shadows of the Damned will find something besides red meat to throw at me in the second half.
Cole's adventure in New Marais warrants your attention.
I'm a sucker for sandbox games and solid third-person action titles, but Infamous didn't intrigue me leading up to its 2009 release. Superheroes and comic books aren't my thing, and I figured I would be just fine ignoring it while waiting for something more alluring to come through. But I was wrong. Having been tasked with writing the IGN Guide for Infamous, I jumped into an experience I thought wouldn't interest me and ended up loving every second of it. I beat Infamous four times. No matter how many times I played, Infamous never got old, and it quickly became one of my favorite games of the entire generation.
I'm happy to report that, in many ways, Infamous 2 is even stronger than its predecessor.
Tangible allusions to Infamous are scarce in Infamous 2, and there's an expectation that you're already familiar with the events of the first game. So you should definitely play the former before you play its sequel. Having survived his time in the quarantined metropolis of Empire City, Cole MacGrath -- with powers imbued to him from a mysterious device known as the Ray Sphere -- finally faces off against the prophesized Beast. He gets his butt kicked and retreats to the American south to lick his wounds and follow-up on the very real possibility of becoming more powerful in the town of New Marais.
Infamous 2's story is a deep, character-driven affair -- Cole's best friend Zeke is back and joined by a new foil named Bertrand and his anti-Cole Militia -- but what good would it be without great gameplay to accompany it? Infamous 2 plays nearly identically to how the original played, and that's a good thing. You'll once again control the electric superhero (or supervillain as you get to choose your moral alignment) in third-person. You'll once again have the ability to use his superpowers as well as take advantage of his increased melee capabilities thanks to a weapon called the Amp. And experience points can be used to unlock new, more powerful attacks, allowing Cole to inch closer and closer to the strength necessary to take on The Beast.
All of this boils down to gameplay that is superb. Cole handles smoothly, and better yet, he feels powerful. Cole in Infamous 2 is a continuation of Cole from the original, so he should feel like a powerhouse, and he does. Certain skills you had to learn in the original Infamous, such as the abilities to float and grind, are already learned as Infamous 2 gets underway. The goal here is simply to make Cole even more outrageously powerful than he already is, as opposed to starting again from scratch. This is definitely a nice touch. And while melee combat isn't as strong as it could be (and in fact causes Infamous 2's most serious problems in terms of a wonky camera), fighting is still incredibly satisfying.
Aesthetically, Infamous 2 pleases both the ears and eyes. Sucker Punch has created a telltale art style that fits perfectly in this series, and the game's overall look, including animations, is improved from the original. The sounds of New Marais are also great, from the basic sound effects of a bustling city to the voice acting. I certainly miss Cole's original voice, but the voice acting in Infamous 2 is still top-notch.
New Marais is a totally unique location that is a more living, breathing locale than Empire City ever was. There's real diversity in New Marais from the neon-lit red light district to the Katrina-like devastation of Floodtown, and it is all there for you to explore with the game's trademark parkour and climbing moves. Plus, there are plenty of enemies to fight, with a more robust cast of foes in both type and size. There are normal pedestrians who will rebel if you go the evil route to massive ice creatures looking to pulverize anything and everything.
Rockstar Games takes the side of the good guys in its risky new police procedural.
IGN SCORE : 8.5(GREAT)
L.A. Noire is different. It's not like most video games developed by Rockstar. You don't play the outlaw running wild, free to kill, steal, and cause destruction. You're a cop. A good cop at that, determined to restore order to the violent streets of 1940s Los Angeles.
L.A. Noire's not like most games. Sure, there are car chases, gunfights, and a point-tally to judge the quality of your police justice, but it's a slow-paced, meditative experience. The focus isn't on how good you are at scoring headshots with a pistol but instead your ability to read a suspect's face and determine if he or she is telling the truth, holding something back, or flat out lying.
Using a brand new technology called MotionScan, L.A. Noire delivers pure performances from a talented group of actors. Every wrinkle, twitch, downward glance, grimace, and hard swallow is from an actor playing a part, not an animator manipulating things from behind the scenes. It's a striking, sometimes unnerving effect certain to help push video games closer to true cinematic experiences. It's easy to fall into old video game habits like checking your phone while listening to a line of dialogue, but you're setting yourself up for failure. The actors' tells are in their faces, their posture, their eyes – rarely is it revealed in what they say.
This is where L.A. Noire shines. The interrogations are like lengthy dialogue scenes you'd see in an RPG -- but they're captivating. This is the core of L.A. Noire and that core is very good.
You're a detective, so you're going to scour crime scenes searching for clues. And when you question witnesses, you have to think less like a gamer and more like a sleuth. It's not easy. In fact, it's often a real challenge to judge the trustworthiness of a witness' statement. The line between "doubt" and "lie" is very narrow. Though L.A. Noire's hero, Cole Phelps, is regarded as one of the best case men ever, I still managed to falsely accuse dozens of suspects, doubt witnesses who were actually forthcoming, and use the wrong clues to try and catch killers in lies.
After every question, selected from Phelps' trusty notebook, you get a response from the suspect. Then you must choose to believe, doubt, or accuse them of lying. Get it right and you can open them up and get more clues. Get it wrong, and they offer less. The better you do over the course of a case, the more you'll understand the suspect's motivations. The worse you do, the tougher it is to get at the truth, but there's no possibility of failure in any conversation. L.A. Noire won't abruptly end if you fail to catch a killer's lie or miss an important clue. The bad guy only gets away if it's pre-determined in the story. The only game over screen comes from dying or allowing a fleeing suspect to escape. This makes you less of a real detective and more of a page turner, destined to always reach the next chapter so long as you make a choice -- any choice.
L.A. Noire isn't all about badgering people, though. This is still an open-world game. You're free to deviate from a case, explore faithfully recreated 1947 Los Angeles, and tackle more action-oriented missions. No, you can't run wild like in Grand Theft Auto (you're a cop, accept it), but there are some other things to do. Forty "unassigned cases" come in as calls on the radio. These aren't random; they're single-scene missions where you'll stop a bank robbery, chase down a bat-wielding lunatic, or shadow a crook to his hideout.
A few other distractions can be had -- finding all of the famous L.A. locations and discovering more than a dozen hidden cars -- which earn you points towards leveling up your rank. New ranks mean new clothes, hidden car locations, and intuition points (which can be spent to reveal clues and narrow choices when interrogating a suspect). This is the "game" portion of L.A. Noire, the part built for those who aren't ready to release their old needs as gamers. And maybe Rockstar is struggling to release that same hold. I like going about town, but L.A. Noire would have been stronger with greater focus on the experience and less concern for including traditional game elements.
Each time I start getting immersed in the world, I'm reminded "you're playing a game" with unnecessary text popping up on the screen or a score tallying my lie-detecting ability.
There are moments when L.A. Noire comes together brilliantly, when the threads from multiple cases lead to a darker ringleader. But more often, things are perhaps too true to real police work – repetitive, redundant, and unsurprising. Despite having 21 cases, some of which can take more than an hour to complete, L.A. Noire drags at times because it recycles the same drama.
We go hands on with Transformers: Dark of the Moon multiplayer and see how Optimus really stacks up against Megatron.
With licensed titles, we're all understandably skeptical of the idea of a cool multiplayer component. With the upcoming Transformers: Dark of the Moon game, players should be paying attention. Last year, Transformers: War for Cybertron offered one of the most interesting multiplayer experiences around. It was fast, violent, dynamic... and no one played it.
Of course, the same could be said for War for Cybertron -- while it was received reasonably well critically, it didn't sell so great. This kind of thing is the kiss of death for a multiplayer community, and the player base for War for Cybertron dried up rather quickly. Developer High Moon's hope with Transformers: Dark of the Moon is that its immediate tie-in to the fast-approaching third Transformers film will get it more attention than its spiritual predecessor. After spending about half an hour with Transformers: Dark of the Moon's multiplayer, which borrows heavily from War for Cybertron's, I'm hoping for the same thing.
Put simply, Transformers: Dark of the Moon's multiplayer is everything that War for Cybertron's was. On the surface, it's a familiar combination of the class-based play of a game like Battlefield Bad Company 2 or Team Fortress 2 with the killstreak and perk emphasis of Call of Duty. One immediately apparent change from War for Cybertron to Dark of the Moon is a sort of de-prioritization of the support classes. The specialized role of Scientist from War for Cybertron is gone. In its place High Moon have reclassified flying characters as Hunters.
Otherwise, the classes from War for Cybertron are mostly untouched. There are the speedy Recon characters, now Scouts, that can skirmish quickly but can't take much punishment; the Leader class is now the Commander, who have friendly buff special abilities and a good mix between mobility, armor, and power; and finally, the Warrior class (formerly Soldiers), who bring the heaviest firepower to bear but suffer from the worst comparative mobility.
That's the other major thing about Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the thing that sets its multiplayer apart from virtually everything else out there. Every player can freely shift between robot and vehicle forms, lending a mobility and combat versatility to every combatant that steps over and above every other shooter out there. There's a constant calculation required, forcing you to decide what form and what strategy is best suited to the situation at hand.
In practice, Transformers: Dark of the Moon's multiplayer plays out like a combination of Unreal and Tribes. Levels are asymmetric and have major altitude differences that force you to keep your eyes moving up and down as well as left to right, and the perks, which include abilities that might keep opposing players from using their abilities or transforming, add unpredictability to the mix. Like War for Cybertron, it's fast, fun, and violent.
Unfortunately, some of the balancing issues of War for Cybertron have carried over, as well. It seems clear playing Dark of the Moon that the class-based dynamics at play lend themselves particularly well to Conquest mode, multiplayer's point-capture mode. In Conquest, the different roles unique to each Transformer type complement one another. Scout players are the first on-site point men, Hunters are the rapid response firefighters, Commanders provide fire support and buff their teammates to take or hold points, and Warriors go in to clean up messy situations - or to cause them. In these matches, it's easy to feel useful and have fun playing the way you want to play.
However, in Team Deathmatch, the importance of the Scout and Hunter classes is minimized by their poor damage dealing capabilities. In a way, it's easy to understand why High Moon would pull back and make sure that these classes have severe limitations. The Hunter in particular has such an enormous mobility advantage taking to the skies that for them to wield a more destructive payload could make other classes pointless. But as it stands now, it's just not as fun to play as those classes outside of Conquest. It's not a new issue -- in this respect, Transformers: Dark of the Moon picks up right where War for Cybertron left off. Still, it rankles.
Perhaps players will be assuaged by the major addition to Transformers: Dark of the Moon's multiplayer. Rather than picking an odd palate-swapped Transformer that kind of, sort of looks like your favorite, players can now choose named, major characters in multiplayer. Sure, this can look kind of weird when there are something like three Starscreams rolling by a pair of Megatrons, but the ability to smash Starscream out of the sky online as Optimus Prime? That's priceless.
Ghost Recon started on PC, which you might not guess given how console-focused the series has been the past few years. Well, PC gamers are finally getting some much deserved attention with a promising new free-to-player title, Ghost Recon Online. The bad news for purists: This is a third-person cover shooter. That aside, if the early demo is an indication, this is a free-to-play game worth looking forward to.
Teamwork is the focus in both of the objective-based modes to be included in the late 2011 launch. Ghost Recon Online is an 8v8 battle that's as much about on-the-fly strategy as it is sharp reflexes.
Domination mode, for example, is designed to create blockade points where one team has control of an area and is able to set up a daunting perimeter. Sure, a skilled (or lucky) soloist can get in and maybe take them out. But that won't work against a good team, who have the same reconnaissance tools and can guard against a single infiltration. You're going to have to work together to distract and flank well-guarded positions. And there are rewards both in-game and post-game for playing as a team.
There are three classes to choose from at launch -- Assault (tank), Recon (stealth), and Specialist (engineer). When teammates are within 15 meters or so of one another, they automatically buff each other. When buffing, a blue line connects players, like an invisible tether, helping to establish their locations in a firefight. Those buffs are specific to a player's class. The Assault class boosts armor for nearby teammates, Recon extends the range of intel (highlighting enemy locations), and Specialist replenishes ammo.
It's not just good to stick together, but to work strategically with your teammates. The Assault class has a special move where he whips out a shield and rushes forward in a berserker charge. It's fun to do alone, but far more effective if a buddy trails behind. It's a good option for storming an enemy defense, as both are well protected. Once you break enemy lines, you have two soldiers able to quickly take down an opponent's nest from the inside.
Post-game point tallies favor those who work as a team to capture objectives. Unlike Call of Duty's online reward system, where killing is more lucrative than objective-nabbing, Ghost Recon Online gives considerably more points for capturing and defending locations than for capping people in isolation. There are also some added bonuses for party play (sticking with your friends from game to game).
The strategy is what adds complexity to Ghost Recon Online. The controls are fairly stripped down and simple. The only deviations from the standard move keys and mouse-click aim/shoot functions are using space bar to take cover (and this works well even in the early build) and the F-key to engage a class's special ability. Along with the Assault class's shield rush, Recon can scan the area to highlight enemies in the vicinity and the Specialist can deploy an Aegis Shield to add a protective dome over a small area.
Ghost Recon Online has a persistent character system with a level 50 experience cap. Earning levels unlocks new items (armor, clothes, weapons, weapon mods, grenade types) which you then buy with in-game cash earned from playing well. Every match also ends with a loot drop. This randomized drop can net you cool things (I scored a nice ACOG scope). The better you do in a match, the luckier you are. Meaning, the more points you earn, the higher the chance of good loot.
Ubisoft promises there are no tricks or hooks to "force" you into putting money down on microtransactions. While it's not clear of all the things money can buy you in Ghost Recon Online, one thing it won't earn you is an advantage on the battleground. Real-world cash can only buy items you've unlocked. If you don't want to wait to earn in-game cash for a new scope, you can drop some real bills down instead. Or you can buy some cooler-looking versions of items. But none of it gives you any real advantage that you can't earn by playing the game.
Ghost Recon Online offers something different in the free-to-play market. And it offers something a little different for an online PC shooter. It's a free game and one worth checking out when the public beta rolls around later this year.
Fallout: New Vegas -- Honest Hearts Review A beautiful park with an uncertain future.
During my time in the Mojave with Fallout: New Vegas there was one thing I'd hoped to learn more about: the Burned Man. If you don't remember hearing his story, the Burned Man was one of Caesar's (the founder and leader of Caesar's Legion) best men until he failed him in battle. As a punishment, Caesar sentenced him to a gruesome death: covered in pitch, lit on fire and tossed off the cliffs of the Grand Canyon. Rumors around the desert indicated that he somehow survived this brutal treatment, but nothing ever came of it.
Luckily for me Honest Hearts -- the second piece of downloadable content available for Fallout: New Vegas -- sheds more light on the legend. This adventure is more typical "Fallout" than the last bit of content, Dead Money. You travel to Zion National Park in Utah with the Happy Trails Trading Group and deal with what's going on there. It's a familiar formula of exploration, choice, murder and a decent (but not entirely gripping) storyline.
Some quick notes before you hit the road: you need to travel light. This means no companions (you'll have to tell them to go away yourself, they don't automatically leave you like they do in Dead Money) and 75 lbs of stuff on your back. There are ways to raise the poundage up to 100, but you'll need specific perks or skills to do so. If you're like me and prefer to have some backup, you'll be happy to know that you receive temporary companions during your stay at Zion.
The national park is a beautiful place filled with red cliffs, radiation-free water, plenty of plants to pick and stunning hand-painted murals on the bedrock. Although my feelings would differ if this happened in real life, I was pleasantly surprised when I got caught in a rainstorm. The addition of weather patterns is a really nice touch and at night the sky is bursting with stars. These details make Zion a really fun place to wander around in. Fast travel is also back (it wasn't possible in Dead Money) and that made me very happy.
There are two downsides to Honest Hearts -- the first is that the animals (a.k.a. target practice) aren't particularly interesting. The Cazador is still the most dangerous and annoying bug of all time (especially in its "Giant" variety here), while the geckos remain hilariously goofy. Basically, everything that can hurt you in the park is something you've seen before, and that's a little disappointing.
The storyline also lost steam after a couple of fetch quests and I eventually stopped caring about what was going on. Still, regardless of whether or not you give a damn, the ending forces you to make a moral choice that will decide the fate of the park and its inhabitants. There's no real black and white "good" or "bad" here, which I appreciate.
The icing on this cake is that downloading Honest Hearts boosts the level cap by five again, so you'll be able to kick even more ass in the wasteland. There's also some interesting loot to take back with you, including a Yao Guai gauntlet. Who doesn't want to run around with a mutated bear fist on their arm? That's what I thought. Closing Comments When considering the $10 or 800 Microsoft point purchase, ask yourself these questions: Do I like Fallout, but need a new place to explore? Do I want a higher level cap? Do I want to know more about the Burned Man? If the answer to any of these is “yes”, then do yourself a favor and download Honest Hearts. It doesn’t change much of the Fallout formula, which is a good thing. The narrative could be stronger and there’s a lack of variety in terms of creatures occupying the park, but these are minor complaints about an otherwise enjoyable time.
Modern Warfare 3 Announcement Teased Is the world's most-anticipated shooter about to be revealed?
This weekend, a picture of a page from the UK's Official PlayStation Magazine has been making the Internet rounds, appearing on a variety of sites, including Push Square. The picture is purportedly of a page in the magazine teasing a major reveal of the upcoming Call of Duty title, Modern Warfare 3, in its next issue.
The teaser for the next issue of the magazine (which should be available June 8th in the UK) simply says "Only in next month's... PlayStation Official Magazine -- UK" with a huge green "3" underneath it. Further down the page, it says "The biggest game in the world returns." All of this could point to Modern Warfare 3.
With E3 falling in the same week as the release of the next issue of the magazine, it's entirely possible that a Modern Warfare 3 reveal will take place before the next issue of the magazine is available. And Activision also has an investor call this afternoon where the next Call of Duty game may be announced.
All you need to know about the sky-bound follow-up to BioShock.
BioShock Infinite is the next game from Irrational, creators of the original BioShock. It's a first-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on story, and it's set in the bizarre world of Columbia, a floating city above America at the beginning of the 20th century.
GAME DESCRIPTION : Welcome to the city of Columbia. Floating amongst the clouds, cruising far above sea level, this is a place unlike any you've ever seen. Please enjoy your voyage... The third game in the popular Bioshock series, BioShock: Infinite breaks away from the underwater setting of the first two games to take players into a floating city held aloft by dirigibles. The game is set in 1912. You play as Booker DeWitt, a disgraced former private detective who's picked up a new case. Your goal is to find Elizabeth, a young woman who's gone missing and return her unharmed. The only problem is that she's being kept on this flying city. Columbia was once a symbol of America's success as a nation, floating around the world as a traveling World's Fair, a marvel of human innovation. But strange things have happened since Columbia's unveiling in 1900, and now the city has disappeared into the clouds. DeWitt knows how to find it, but over the years stories have been told about Columbia having unlawful heavy armament and deranged citizenry. Do not expect this to be a pleasure cruise.
Dirt 3 wastes no time in making the point that rallying is back. While it was present in Dirt 2, the extreme sports aesthetic and overall feel made it seem slightly out of place--but in Dirt 3, point-to-point races in classic rally cars are front and center.
The first thing you notice when starting the game is that the paddock and RV from the previous game are gone, along with all the product placement and extreme sports lifestyle gubbins. Your pre-race car selection is now set up as a team selection but can be done on an ad hoc basis, with the vehicles determined by your reputation rather than by your ability to afford them. Once you've picked your team and car, you find yourself in the "service area" near the start of the race, where you can tweak individual car settings, as well as the difficulty level of your opponents, the number of available flashbacks, and the driving assists.
To begin with, you're presented with two classic rally stages in Finland, which do a good job of setting the scene for the game. Despite the trimming of the fat that got between you and races in Dirt 2, it will feel instantly familiar for fans of the series. The two stages you hit first are challenging but not punishing: relatively open bends and small jumps that help to ease you into the driver's seat. The choices of a Peugeot 207 and Abarth Grande Punto are hardly the most thrilling, but they're good little rally cars that are fun to throw around the track.
Your co-driver is as useful as ever, giving you information on upcoming track conditions and direction changes. One neat change is that each team gives you an additional challenge for each race you enter, with varying numbers of extra reputation points for completing them. These could be as simple as finishing a race with a clear second lead, beating a certain lap time, or even crossing the finish line over a certain speed.
After the rally stages in Finland, we were thrown halfway around the world to the Michigan Smelter. This grey, industrial wasteland is the venue for the very opposite ends of Dirt's competitive spectrum--the Rally Cross event. After being tossed into either an Impreza or Lancer, you blitz around a track with other racers, which is a nice change from the straight-up rally action for those looking for a more varied experience.
After that, we got thrown right back into the rallying again, with a couple of spectacular stages in Kenya in some decidedly more old-school ralliers: an Opel Kadett GT and Fiat 131. The sandy, gravelly track was a nice change from the mud of Finland, and the contrast between the lush forest and the sun-bleached desert couldn't have been more extreme. After that, it was time to check out one of Dirt 3's new events, the Head2Head. This was in Michigan and was a hybrid of track and point-to-point racing. It was a multistage track that you race over at the same time as a single competitor, but the track design ensures you never meet. Your co-driver is in the car with you giving directions and lending a more traditional feel to the event than the rallycross races, and it proved to be a fun intermediate point between rallying and rallycross.
Later in the first season, we got a chance to see some the game's party tricks with the addition of some fairly extreme weather. Snow features quite heavily, both on the ground and flying through the air as you race in many of the events. Old favourite events such as Land Rush also made an appearance, along with the newer drift events, making Dirt 3 a satisfying mix of the old and the new.
The climax to the first year was one of Dirt 3's flagship new features: gymkhana. Though it started with some simple smashing, this quickly escalated into full-on jumping, donutting mayhem. While difficult at first, it became satisfying and fun as we learned to do all manner of deeply unnatural things with the vehicles. Thankfully, it never felt like the game's general sim ethos was being lost, at least during our brief look.
Dirt 3 looks to be packed full of features both on the disc and to come--the ability to upload your replays directly to YouTube via the flashback menus could be a winner, and the plethora of online features have us really excited to see how it all comes together. The changes to the game look to be generally positive--the replacement of the RV with a sleeker, geometric menu system looks to be a great improvement, and the refocusing of the game on the racing was a welcome return to the series' roots.
Rumors about Nintendo's Project Cafe/Wii 2 may have died down a bit, but that hasn't stopped me from discussing every angle of the upcoming console. A week ago I asked you to give me your name and design ideas for Nintendo's next system. The response was overwhelming.
I've gathered some of the cooler (and in some cases amusing) submissions, published here for all of you to enjoy. Still have some ideas of your own? Submit your thoughts to nintendo@ign.com.
Today Ubisoft revealed the first details about the fourth game to appear under the Assassin's Creed header. While the new name was outed last week, today we learn the first details about where the game will take us.
In Assassin's Creed Revelations, Ezio Auditore will travel to Constantinople, in the footsteps of Altair, in order to further unravel the mystery between the Templars and the Assassins.
Revelations also brings back the multiplayer experience first introduced in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood with "more modes, more maps and more characters" according to the official announcement. In addition, players will be able to "manipulate the construct of Desmond's memories and the Animus to decipher the mysteries of his past and gain insight into the future."
In addition, Revelations has been described as the "final chapter of the Ezio trilogy" and is scheduled for release this November. We'll learn more about the game at E3 next month.
GAMEINFORMER cover of the 'Assassins's Creed Revelation'
The first image to emerge from the new game also features a new tool simply called the "hook blade" which you can see hanging from Ezio's sleeve. Check it out below:
