We team up and fight giant robots with our bare hands...and stack some colored blocks.
It's hard to miss the developers donning bright red firemen hats, located off to the side of one of the halls at the 2010 Penny Arcade Expo. Indie developer Firehose Games was busy recruiting people to jump in and play their upcoming PlayStation Network title, Slam Bolt Scrappers. Described as a combination of Super Smash Bros. and Puzzle Fighter, you and up to four friends can either team up and play through the campaign, or split off into teams of two and tackle each other.
As a scapper, your job is to punch these colored creeps that come from the sky, which gives you colored blocks to stack on top of one another in order to create weapons. Slam Bolt Scrappers doesn't need much of a premise to get you engaged in some hectic gameplay. In the campaign, you play cooperatively with AI teammates or real people if you can gather them (no online play has been announced yet). There are various different levels but the objective remains largely the same. You must punch the flying grubs that come from the sky and they'll drop colored pieces that makes it feel like you're playing Puzzle Fighter. You're stacking the same colored blocks to create two by two squares or anything larger. The bigger the square, the more powerful the weapon.
You use the X and Square buttons to punch, and you can button mash as much as you like. The circle button drops the piece that you're carrying onto your tower and the triangle button lets you discard it. To rotate, you use the shoulder buttons. It starts to get crazy when you're busy hitting things (or other people) and you begin to forget your main goal, which is to build up those weapons.
Each color determines what kind of weapon you'll get. The game will automatically use that weapon once you've created the square. For example, if you can stack a two by two tower of red blocks, it'll fire off a missile at whatever it is that you're fighting. In our case, it was a giant robot. If you're playing in the competitive mode, you'll be firing at the opposing team, who is also furiously working to build their tower of destruction. You can always fly over and punch them to steal their blocks, but if you die, you're out of the game for awhile but you can press a series of buttons that appear to get yourself back into the game.
Slam Bolt Scrappers is a bright, colorful four-player action game where you pick one of several goofy characters with silly hats, that have the ability to fly all over the screen. There is drop in drop out play, so it's easy for friends to jump in and play with you. There's also a beverage mode, which allows you to play the game with one hand while holding a drink in the other. Slam Bolt Scrappers is currently set to be released early next year.
This mash-up of genres wears its influences on its sleeve, but it's a very pretty sleeve nonetheless.
PAX may not quite be on par with E3 when it comes to major game announcements, but it’s still hard to get through the weekend without seeing a few new titles in the headlines. One of the more interesting reveals from the show thus far has been Ubisoft’s unveiling of Outland, an artistic platformer from the developer behind Super Stardust HD. Outland combines retro 2D platforming with a number of elements from shoot-em-ups--most noticeably a light-dark dynamic similar to Ikaruga. After hearing about the game yesterday, we took a walk over to the Ubisoft booth, hung a left at HAWX 2, and took a look at the demo being shown for this upcoming downloadable title.
If what they say about first impressions is true, Outland is certainly in good shape. Its slick art design combines stark black platforms with vivid, colorful background scenery. The level we saw had a definite jungle theme to it, with roots curling from the bottom of floating platforms and giant spider creatures skittering along on the ground.
The story diving the game is a simple one: one day you awaken from a strange dream, notice things around you aren’t quite right, and set out on a quest to speak with a shaman who can heal your ills. This sets the stage for a jungle world overrun by mysterious creatures and monsters. Along with the aforementioned spiders, we also saw an imposing boss figure named the Golem. This one-eyed creature towered over the protagonist, wielding a giant club and looking not entirely unlike one of the bosses from Shadow of the Colossus.
What seems like it will ultimately set Outland apart from other pretty 2D platformers is the light-dark dynamic that’s been heavily inspired (to put it politely) by the classic arcade shooter Ikaruga. Essentially, there are enemies, platforms, and hazards in the world that can either be neutral, light, or dark. As the player, you quickly unlock the ability to fully align yourself with either your light side (a pale blue) or dark side (a deep red). In terms of combat, you can only attack enemies of the opposite color (attacking same-colored enemies will wind up hurting you) while absorbing flying projectiles of the same color will heal instead of harm you. The game encourages clever exploration beyond the required path, often making certain moving platforms usable only when you’re aligned with that color.
The shoot-em-up comparisons don’t end at Ikaruga’s light-dark system, either. A lot of areas in the game will unleash what feels very much like a top-down shooter’s idea of ’bullet hell.’ You’ll see waves of flying blips that are actually harmful projectiles. These often come out of the ceiling in semicircles of alternating color, forcing you to both quickly take cover under platforms and rapidly switch sides to keep from getting hurt. Having not played the game, we can’t say how difficult this wind up being in practice, but developer Housemarque assures us that they’re keeping the difficulty accessible for casual players. These bullet hell areas, then, are more an optional challenge for the hardcore players to defeat in order to earn bonus items and collectibles.
All in all, Outland certainly looks like an interesting platformer. It may wear its influences on its sleeve, but the combination of different genres is at least creative in its own right. We’re hoping to get a chance to play it soon to see just how these different elements come together. Keep an eye out for more coverage.
Sony shows off its arcade style action game for PlayStation Network at PAX 2010.
Sony is showing off Eat Them!, a new PlayStation Network action game, at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo. The game is being developed by European developer Fluffylogic, who last worked on Savage Moon, and owes a bit to arcade classic Rampage as well as Sony’s own War of the Monsters. We had the chance to try out a very early version of the game which has a nice retro feel to it.
Eat Them! documents what happens when monsters go on a destructive tear in a city. At the moment that doesn’t involve anything too surprising for anyone who’s watched a Godzilla movie. Buildings are smashed, ant-sized people go running around screaming, the military tries to put a stop to things- you know, the usual. You’ll play as one of several monsters, each with their own unique attributes, who have to level everything around them within a time limit. Your arsenal of moves is almost exactly what you’d expect. You’ll be able to run, kick, and smash into the buildings around you to satisfying results. If the basics aren’t good enough for you, you can improvise by grabbing most anything and using it as a makeshift club. Your grab move can also be used to pick up the hysterical masses running at your feet which serve as tasty snacks that restore your health. Your arsenal of moves gets a technological boost courtesy of weapons bolted to your massive frame. While that all sounds well and good, Eat Them! offers the cool twist of a monster lab you can use to create your own unique critter of destruction. While the selection of monsters in the version of the game we played were fine, we have to say the option to create your very own freak of nature has a very special appeal- you can just never cram enough eyeballs on a misshapen head as far as we’re concerned.
We tried a brief sampling of missions in the game which are set in one of four themed environments that are laid out as pulpy 1950’s style comic books. The demo we played let us hop into the different books and choose a mission. We reckon the game will feature a linear progression that has you unlocking missions are you tear your way through the city. Your destructive stroll through the city conveniently yields cash that it appears you can use in the game’s shop to pick up some essentials. While we were only able to try single player in the version we played, Sony rep on hand noted that Eat Them! is set to include online multiplayer for four people which has the potential for a whole lot of fun.
Eat Them!’s presentation helps tie the comic theme together very nicely thanks to a clean cel shaded look. There’s some nice line work on the monsters that helps the unsettling details, such as teeth, eyes, tongues, piping and other parts of their anatomy, stand out. The city and industrial environments we had a look at were laid out tightly, offering plenty of opportunities for smashing and mayhem. The third person camera worked pretty well most of the time but required some minor adjustment when we were trying to line up some attacks on buildings or dealing with a helicopter.
Based on what we played, Eat Them! is funky little arcade-style title that looks very promising. There’s just something satisfying about running around destroying cities as a monster. The addition of custom monster creation, and online play to the classic ’smash everything’ formula makes Eat Them! a game that’s worth keeping a look out for when it releases on PlayStation Network this holiday. Look for more on Eat Them! in the coming months.
We grapple, leap, and uppercut our way through this retro sequel.
Bionic Commando Rearmed played like a love letter to a bygone era of 8-bit platformers, adding a stylish coat of paint to a game whose overall structure felt firmly rooted in the 1980s. Of course, there was a perfectly good reason for that: Bionic Commando Rearmed was a remake of an NES classic. Rearmed 2, being a sequel to a remake, doesn’t have that same immediate connection to a decades-old predecessor. This has given Capcom and developer Fatshark the creative leeway to make some changes and additions to the original formula, several of which we’ve just had the chance to experience in the game’s latest hands-on demo.
The most noticeable one is your character’s ability to jump. Bionic Commando was a game that revolved around a grapple mechanic, having players run along and swing across gaps rather than leap over them. Grappling is still at the heart of the experience in Rearmed 2, but now you can move around in a way that feels, to put it simply, more natural. Levels are still designed in such a way that you’ll need to thoroughly master that grapple mechanic to get by, as well as seek out new weapons to unlock special sequestered goodies a la Metroid, so the addition of jump feels like less of a game changer and more of a slight breath of fresh air.
A number of new attack abilities are in store for players, as well. You can now do a sort of death from above attack when leaping from high platforms down to enemies below, which is also a mechanic that plays a role in progressing through puzzles whenever you’re trapped behind a stone wall. You can unlock a powerful uppercut ability that can instantly take care of weak enemies or let you quickly launch an explosive barrel at the tougher ones.
Like the original Rearmed, the sequel will also have a co-operative multiplayer mode that allows two players to play simultaneously. You share lives and unlockables, and there’s no friendly fire, so there’s not much of a chance to grief your teammate. While the level design doesn’t change to require team-focused progression through puzzles, there are a number of enemy types that require you to work as a tight pair rather than let one person do all the work. You’ll have the chance to play it alone or with a friend when Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 is released in early 2011.
We try out the final DLC chapter of Dragon Age: Origins. Warning: this story includes spoilers.
Dragon Age: Origins swept thousands of would-be adventurers away with an epic storyline that told the tale of a land torn apart by war, and the role of your character, a member of the powerful Grey Wardens legion, to bring peace. Over the course of that adventure, your character met the likes of knights, thieves, traitors, and faithful hounds. Your character also met Morrigan, a mysterious witch whose powerful sorcery made her a valuable ally but whose actions’well, let's just say she didn't always share your goals throughout your journey. Over the course of the original game and its ensuing downloadable content updates, Morrigan vanished from the world on her own uknown quest, and in Witch Hunt, the final DLC update for Dragon Age, you'll eventually track her down and be able to get some answers out of her. Please note that this story contains spoilers, both about the original game, and about the DLC itself.
Witch Hunt is described as being somewhere between 90 minutes to two hours long, and once again lets you either create a new Grey Warden character, or to import your existing character to play as. Since the DLC focuses on Morrigan, if you chose to involve your character in a romantic relationship with her, your dialogue options when you finally track her down will change, and if you decided to have a child with her, your speech choices will also be different.
In any case, Witch Hunt will let you revisit several locales from the original game, such as Flemeth's old home in the swamp and the Circle of Mages (from the original game's mage origin story), while meeting up to three new companions who can join your party. We began the adventure outside of Flemeth's home, searching for clues as to Morrigan's whereabouts and were greeted by the first companion, a Mabari hound (who, if you've imported a character who played through the original game, will be your original dog character, or will be an all-new companion if you're using a new character to play the DLC). After being joined by the faithful hound, we entered the hovel to find the female elf warrior Ariane who also hunted Morrigan, since the sorceress had apparently stolen away an ancient elven tome from her tribe. After striking a quick truce with the elf (who became our second companion), we then made our way to the mage's circle--both to research "eluvian," the topic of the mysterious elven book and also to meet the DLC's third companion, the mageling Finn.
Since our time with the DLC was limited, we skipped ahead to a few key points in the game, including a new boss battle with a new monster, the "varterral" (otherwise known as "the strider")--a powerful critter that will appear in Dragon Age 2 (just like how the previous DLC update, Golems of Amgarrak, also contained a monster that will appear in the sequel). The strider is an enormous, creepy-crawly critter that resembles a giant, spindly-legged spider made of driftwood. This giant creature has numerous abilities that can incapacitate your party members and also has a challenging habit of leaping into the air if it's getting too beaten up to escape your frontline fighters. Thankfully, we were playing a pre-loaded save game with characters that BioWare helpfully advanced to extremely high levels, so while the battle was a close one, it wasn't impossible.
We then skipped ahead to our final saved games--saved games for characters, some of whom had romanced Morrigan, others of whom hadn't. These last saved games were set just before the DLC's conclusion--at the moment where the party catches up with Morrigan and the main character can interrogate her. It seems that Morrigan has discovered a fully-functional eluvian--the magic mirrors from the original game that can potentially act as portals to another world, though to the enchantress's touch, the surface of the mirror rippled like water.
Despite the fact that we're basically spoiling the ending of the DLC in this story (and with it, the saga of the original Dragon Age), you can take comfort in the fact that Morrigan was her usual cryptic self, and generally avoided giving a straight answer to nearly all of our questions. When asked about her intentions, she simply replied that she had much to do that required her to acquire power over time, and that her adopted mother Flemeth was the real threat (and depending on whether you elected to kill Flemeth, you can take a slightly different dialogue choice here). When asked about the child, Morrigan says only that the child is somewhere safe, and being prepared for "what is to come." After barely giving you any kind of answers to your questions, you must then bid the witch farewell, though how you choose to end your meeting with her is up to you.
Witch Hunt will be released this Tuesday, September 7.
You read that right. The video game equivalent of the walking dead is playable here at PAX 2010.
We'll spare you any history lessons on Duke Nukem Forever. If you follow video games at all, you likely know the long, rocky, infamous--and did we say long?--history behind this first-person shooter. All you need to know is that it's actually playable here at PAX 2010. Granted, as you'd expect, there's quite a line to see it. But if there was ever a game where a lengthy queue was appropriate, it's this one. CEO of Gearbox Randy Pitchford certainly knows. "I heard the line outside was 13 years long," Pitchford joked while giving a presentation on how new developer Gearbox picked up the project after 3D Realms collapsed last year.
To give a quick summary, Pitchford described his personal attachment to the franchise (Duke Nukem 3D was the first game he worked on before forming his own studio) as well as the reason publisher 2K Games trusted Gearbox to salvage the project ("we brought them a megahit with Borderlands"). But it was a quick introduction, followed by a new trailer and the opportunity for everyone there to get some hands-on time with a couple of different levels.
The trailer was Duke at his ridiculous best, punching giant aliens below the belt, spouting one-liners, and taking more than a few self-referential jabs at himself. After that, it was time to play the game. The demo started off simply enough: You're standing in front of a urinal in a men's room with the screen politely directing you to pull the right trigger to begin urinating. This opening scene sets the table rather appropriately for a brief but utterly absurd demo. A few seconds later, you walk up to some EDF forces in a locker room drawing plans to deal with the current alien invasion on a whiteboard. One soldier--the only one left standing amid a number of mangled survivors--invites you to offer your advice, and after a little first-person whiteboard scribbling by the player, that soldier remarks something to the effect of, "That's a great plan! If we had done that, that guy over there would still have his arm!’"Pause. "And at least one of his balls."
Duke, being a man of action, quickly runs through the tunnels of this football stadium--it turns out that's where the demo starts--and out onto the field. Standing on the 50-yard line is a giant one-eyed alien monster called the Cycloid. Fortunately, Duke has just picked up a rocket launcher called the Devastator. Using this handy little weapon, you run all over the rain-soaked field dodging the boss's attacks while occasionally firing rockets at his single, solitary eye. After a couple of minutes, the beast is felled, and Duke celebrates by ripping out his eye and kicking a field goal with it.
After this, the game's first level, we were quickly transported to the 15th level. This one begins in some arid canyons with Duke cruising along in his signature monster truck. The controls are simple: just pull the right trigger to accelerate and hit the B button to handbrake around a corner. This sequence seemed like a bit of a palate cleanser, as there wasn't a whole lot of challenge--just cruise along, look cool, and splatter the occasional pig alien too stupid to get out of your way. But you run out of gas before arriving at a small canyon village and have to do on-foot battle against a bunch of ugly aliens.
To help even the odds, the game scatters a few useful guns around the little town. There's the railgun, which comes in handy for remote sniping; the shrink ray, which turns your enemies into tiny things that are almost too adorable to kill; and a turret gun for dealing with a landing enemy spaceship. Unfortunately, we weren't able to progress past said spaceship before the allotted demo time was over. But we'll go ahead and assume there were aliens, guns, and one-liners to be found after a successful completion. Call it a hunch.
If there's one thing that surprised us about the demo, it's this: Duke Nukem Forever is pretty darn fun for a game with such a tumultuous development. The comic timing was impressive, the guns felt satisfying, and the graphics were quite pleasing to look at. Of course, this is a Duke Nukem game through and through, so there are some inherent elements to it that will instantly turn some people off. But pick up a controller, spend a few minutes with it, and you'll be surprised at how well it has turned out. Whether the rest of the game can follow suit is something we're eager to see. Stay tuned for more.
A pair of cute robots star in Valve's team-focused twist on the Portal formula.
According to GLaDOS, Portal 2's dry-witted antagonist, scientific achievement is all about cooperation. That's why one of history's greatest scientific teams is the duo of "Albert Einstein and his cousin Terry." Of course, it's pretty obvious she's lying through her robot teeth on that one. But what would Portal be without a villain spouting out hilarious bits of grossly inaccurate misinformation at every turn? That's just Portal. But all this cooperation business? Well, that's certainly new.
Fortunately Valve is here at PAX 2010 to explain what co-op is all about, as this new feature was the focus of the developer's latest Portal 2 demo. To put it in context, this mode is one of the many new ways Portal 2 is expanding on its predecessor. In addition to a single-player story that Valve claims will last about twice as long as the first Portal, the co-op mode will clock in at roughly the same length--making for an overall package that's supposedly four times as large as the original Portal.
Co-op tells a parallel story to the single-player mode, with a pair of new robotic protagonists simply named Blue and Orange. They're an oddly cute pair, one squat and one oblong, looking almost like a robotic Bert and Ernie. The two players can interact with each other in a variety of ways that range from critical to solving puzzles all the way to almost entirely nonsensical. The latter includes the ability to wave at one another, or just simply start dancing in celebratory glee.
But as hard as it may be to hear, dancing alone won't solve puzzles. To solve puzzles, you'll need to master the new co-op mechanics. We were shown a few examples of ways the two players will have to interact with each other to progress through GLaDOS' increasingly devious death traps. One very basic option is a paint tool that lets one player tag a surface in order to indicate to his or her teammate that this is the place where you need to drop a portal. According to Valve, this is to alleviate the vague gesturing and eventual frustrated shouting that tends to creep up whenever two players are trying to tell each other where to go in an online game.
Beyond simply tagging walls and surfaces, you can now work together by combining your portals to send one player to areas he wouldn't normally be able to reach on his own. As one example, Valve showed us how infinite falling can work in a co-op scenario: Player B sets up two portals above each other and lets Player A fall infinitely between the two. Then, Player B carefully aims and shoots a portal onto a distant wall to launch Player A--with all that built-up momentum--across a pit of deadly goo and onto a safe ledge. There were times in the first game when you could do something like this, but infinite falling was almost always too disorienting to use strategically. But with a friend at your side, it's suddenly a mechanic that can be used quite a bit more often.
Adding more complexity are some of the new objects you can interact with in the world. One we were shown was a reflector cube designed to reflect the path of deadly lasers. These come in handy whenever the door leading to your goal is powered down, making it necessary to guide laser beams to laser receptacles to power the door back up. One player drops the cube in a certain location, while another drops portals around to carefully guide the laser beam along. The trick, of course, is making sure you don't accidentally zap your buddy with a deadly laser beam along the way.
Everything we were shown suggested a very promising follow-up to the original Portal. This new co-op mode is looking a bit more complex and heavy on mechanics, so it could very well provide a much steeper learning curve. But between GLaDOS' reliably laugh-worthy dialogue--and there was plenty of it--and the sense of accomplishment that goes along with solving those puzzles, we'll go ahead and assume that the steeper climb will be worth it. You can expect to see Portal 2 arrive on February 9.
Gambling on matches and a suite of expanded customization options are some of the highlights from our time playing Black Ops online.
With Call of Duty: Black Ops, developer Treyarch is taking the venerable first-person shooter franchise into the secretive world of Cold War-era special operations. Thus far, we’ve seen single-player demos ranging from an intercontinental flight by SR-71 Blackbird aircraft to subterranean tunnel combat in the throes of a Vietnam war zone. Tonight, however, Treyarch and Activision gave the press its first look at the game’s online multiplayer side--that leveling-up system of persistent unlockables that’s long been a hallmark of the series. With additions ranging from training tools to ease in new players to a points gambling system for the hardcore bunch, it’s clear that Treyarch is casting a wide net with the new features it has conjured up for Black Ops multiplayer.
The most daring change to the leveling and experience points formula that Modern Warfare first introduced to the series is a new currency system. In addition to earning XP the good old-fashioned way, you’ll now be able to earn an in-game currency called CP, or CoD points. Depending on the game mode you’re playing, you’ll be rewarded in XP, CP, or both. On a basic level, CP lets you manually unlock new weapons, attachments, and perks a la carte, rather than follow the preset upgrade tree we’ve seen in previous Call of Duty titles. But in addition to paying CP for a new red dot sight five levels before you would normally unlock it, you can elect to gamble your CP in a new collection of game modes called Wager Matches.
These new modes--four in total--require players to risk some of their CP at the beginning of the match with the potential to win it all back and then some at the end of the match. The thing is that only the top three players in the match win money--the rest go away empty handed. In addition to this gambling mechanic, the four Wager Match modes offer an interesting twist on standard Call of Duty multiplayer modes. In One in the Chamber, each player starts the match with three lives and a handgun loaded with a single bullet. Killing players lets you pick up their guns, but if you waste your bullet, you’ll have to run around with only melee attacks. The action is very tense, and conserving ammo in such a way couldn’t feel like more of a departure from the usual run-and-gun style for which has the series has become known.
We also played a Wager Match mode called Gun Game. This one starts each player off with a single handgun as well, but the difference becomes apparent very quickly. With each kill in Gun Game, you suddenly pull out a new, more effective gun--essentially moving up a tier. There are 20 tiers in total, and the first to get a kill with each gun is the winner. However, when you get knifed, you’ll actually drop back a tier, so it’s possible to lose progress (especially if one of your enemies is hell-bent on griefing everyone). In our experience, the endgame strategy in a Gun Game match can differ wildly from its early moments, as the sniper rifles you get when you reach about tier 15 require a more patient shot than the shotguns and automatic weaponry you wield earlier. When you add this to the fact that you’ve got money on the line, it’s easy to see how some of these Wager Match modes could feel very intense.
If this new currency and gambling system is more suited for the hardcore Call of Duty player, the new Combat Training mode seems geared to lure in those who would normally be intimidated by such complex mechanics. For the first time ever in the series, players will be able to set up a match against AI-controlled opponents to learn the ropes of a competitive multiplayer match. These can be played either solo or with friends. Combat Training lets you learn the ins and outs of each map, as well as get a feel for the game’s various weaponry--all without the fear of being killed constantly by high-level human opponents.
Another new feature that offers similarly educational potential is the Theater. Like the Halo 3 mode of the same name, Theater automatically saves your replays and gives you the chance to go back and watch them from any perspective in the match. You can even record certain segments within the replay, customize the transitions, and turn them into a highlight reel of gleeful kills. All of these replays can be shared online, giving you the chance to either learn from the masters or simply boast your triumphs to friends.
Neutral to any ’hardcore’ or ’casual’ designations is the expanded suite of customization tools in Black Ops. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how well you know a map’s check points--all you need is an artistic streak to appreciate these additions. The big one is the emblem editor. Modern Warfare 2 introduced the idea of player emblems--those little graphics that players could choose to appear next to their names on the onscreen menus and ’killed by’ notifications. In Black Ops, you can design your own emblem from scratch with a system similar to Forza Motorsport’s multilayered vinyl editor. After you’ve made your own custom graphic--we elected to go with a bunny rabbit with an imposing skull for a face--you can then choose to slap that emblem onto your gun for all to see in battle. The same goes for your clan tag, as well. Other options include expanded camo patterns and even customizable reticles. If you’ve ever wanted to grief opponents by killing them and making sure the kill cam they see of your actions shows a smiley face aiming reticle taking their lives, well, now you can do that.
Of course, Call of Duty online multiplayer is still, at its heart, about visiting exotic locales and finding new and exciting ways to shoot people in the face. So naturally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention some of the gear and maps we experienced during our hands-on time. One of the fun new bits of weaponry is an honest-to-goodness flamethrower gun attachment, and we had a fun time roasting enemies with it. There’s also a Valkyrie missile that lets you fire your weapon and manually guide the ordinance directly to your target, whether that’s through windows or around corners. In terms of map offerings, we played in three different locations: a snowy Russian mountaintop called Summit, a Vietnamese urban war zone called Cracked, and a fairly standard warehouse map called Radiation.
There’s certainly a lot to the multiplayer in Black Ops. We could go on about various and sundry observations we spied, like the equipment you can drop to wreak havoc on your enemy's radar or the minature RC car rigged with explosives you can unlock as a kill streak, but we might be here all day. So suffice it to say, there’s quite a bit going on here--but fortunately, it's not all added complexity purely for the most diehard of players. Still, exactly how all these new features wind up coming together is something that only time will tell, but we’re optimistic about a lot of these features. When you throw in the training tools to help ease the transition, a lot of these things look even more appealing. You can expect to see more Black Ops coverage leading up to the game’s November 9 release date.
We log time with the very beginning of Platinum Games' frenetic shooter.
We've gotten peeks here and there at Sega's upcoming action title Vanquish over the past few months, but not an opportunity for a proper sit-down with the game. That recently changed, as we got the opportunity to spend some quality time with Platinum Games' latest project to see how all the bits we've seen in the past come together as a whole. Playing through a work-in-progress PlayStation 3 version of the game, we were able to try out the first eight sections of the introductory chapter. Long story short, the whole thing painted an interesting picture of what to expect from this frenetic action game.
Vanquish opens up by introducing you to the main character, Sam, as he tests his battle suit. It sets up the story with a lengthy cinematic that shows a violent assault against the city of San Francisco that makes use of an orbiting space station and some devastating technology. It seems Russian forces have taken over a satellite that's harvesting solar energy, and they've taken some key scientists hostage and have issued threats to the world. Your role--as government agent Sam, who has been outfitted with a state-of-the-art battle suit prototype--is to go in to the satellite, stop the Russians, and rescue the scientists. The premise isn't quite Die Hard, since you'll be joined by military forces on your quest, but because you're wearing a one-of-a-kind battle suit, you still have to deal with the brunt of the problem.
The opening level follows Sam as the military lets itself into the space station with a good old-fashioned space assault. The run to the space station interior mixes up dramatic set-piece cinematics, such as bulkheads exploding and some of your compatriots being sucked out into space, with segments where you control Sam and head toward the station interior. Once you get inside, your main concern will be dealing with a variety of mechanical enemies. The main enemies you'll be going up against initially are humanoid robots that vary in size and armament. The early part of the demo is focused on getting you used to the suit's different abilities. Besides the three weapons and the two grenade types Sam can toss, the suit's boost and dodge abilities are central to differentiating Vanquish in the third-person shooter genre. Your ability to boost for short distances and to perform tactical dodges that reward you with a brief time slowdown to let you blast at enemies are key to success in a firefight. By mixing up these unique moves with your weapons, melee combat, and using cover, Vanquish's gameplay mechanics have a unique flow. This was most clearly illustrated in the first major boss fight against a massive mech that's armed to the teeth. You'll have to rely on the suit's abilities to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves during the mech's attacks in order to target its weak spots.
Any sense of accomplishment you'll get from taking down the mech is short-lived as you're directed deeper into the space station. The journey is challenging, because new enemy types block your way. Thankfully you're able to tweak your weapon loadout by picking up weapons as you find them. You'll be able to gain ammo for existing weapons if you pick up the same type as well as slowly upgrade their ammo capacity and damage. As you defeat certain enemies, you'll also be able to collect pickups that upgrade your equipped weapon or grenade an entire level.
While the early parts of the missions we played were straightforward and had us directing Sam to set points in the station, eventually new tasks were mixed in, such as rescuing trapped soldiers, setting explosives to open the way for your group to progress, and escorting an armored vehicle through a darkened corridor while facing off with non-robotic creatures. The final mission we tried had us facing off against a Russian soldier wielding a battle suit that seems to shame Sam's from a feature standpoint. All in all, the action was fun, satisfying, challenging, and rewarding thanks to a tally system at the end of each section that rates you on your performance. That said, get ready for a respectable amount of challenge even on the normal difficulty.
With the madness and challenge that you'll be dealing with, it's pretty key for the game to handle well. Vanquish's controls are smartly laid out in one of two control options that you can select. The mapping of actions works well, allowing you to shoot, melee, lock on, boost, dodge, take cover, and throw grenades with relative ease. You'll also have the option to invert your controls. Overall, it all works well, although we should note that target and camera movement and control aren't as tight as we'd like them to be at the moment, but they get the job done.
The visuals are sharp, with a high amount of detail. The space station environment, which is the center of all the action, includes wide-open spaces that are perfect set pieces for story cinematics and boss fights, and tighter, more claustrophobic locales, which gives the game a nice amount of variety even in the early portions we played. The enemies are a mix of humanoid-sized foes that come in a wide variety of types and massive screen-filling bosses. The action is fast and hectic, at times to the point of making it tough to keep track of everything going on, but it doesn't appear to slow down unless it's supposed to.
The audio frames the action well and definitely stays true to Platinum's style. You'll hear high-energy tunes that suit the crazy visuals. The voice acting comes across as somewhere between over the top and the old-school melodrama that used to be the norm in import games. We haven't decided if we're sold on Sam's voice, which sounds a lot like the military leader he's working with, but it does all seem to work.
So far Vanquish is looking like it plays to a lot of the strengths Platinum demonstrated with Bayonetta. In short, the action is insane and looks cool. The controls take some getting used to and aren't as tight as we'd like, but we're hoping it's all tightened up before the game ships. The visuals feature sharp detail and handle the spectacle capably, even in the incomplete version we played. The action was smooth, and the high level of detail was impressive. More importantly, we didn't notice any significant hitches to the game's performance on the PlayStation 3, which is a good thing to see following the disparities between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Bayonetta. Vanquish is currently slated to ship this fall for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Look for more on the game in the coming months.
The follow-up to Ron Gilbert's DeathSpank has everything, from pirates and robots, to aliens and ninjas.
Even though DeathSpank hasn't been out that long and summer is about to wind down, Hothead Games recently announced a follow-up game, DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, which picks up right where our hero left off in the first game. According to Hamish Millar, the producer of Thongs of Virtue, the game was being developed in parallel with the first DeathSpank and is a much larger game in terms of content. Millar came by our office today to show us some new areas, as well as DeathSpank's arsenal of fancy modern-day weapons.
Without revealing too much from the previous game, let's just say that DeathSpank begins this game as a captive, locked in a POW camp. You'll be filled in on what the Thongs of Virtue mean, and it turns out that DeathSpank is the only thong bearer (out of six) who hasn't been corrupted by these magical undies. His goal is now to save the world from evil thong-wearing tyrants, each with a unique set of quirks. Our demo picks up right after he breaks free and is running around a battlefield, helping soldiers take down orque communication towers. We were told that there will be more variety to the quests now, including ones that require you to be quick on your feet. For example, in order to take down the tower, we were handed a pre-lit stick of dynamite, so we had to run toward the tower before it blew up in our face.
What stood out is that instead of wielding an assortment of swords and axes, you now have access to a ton of weapons, ranging from bazookas to ray guns. These new weapons don't come with unlimited ammo, though, and the ray gun overheats, but they're incredibly fun to use. For those who have been playing the Xbox Live Arcade title Shank, the chainsaw that the main character uses is also featured in this game, because Hothead Games is friends with the developers at Klei Entertainment. We were told that this time around there is more of a balance between ranged and melee weapons, which is a nice touch, given how hectic things can get onscreen.
The next area we checked out was a town that looked like the Wild West. Apparently the bacon rush didn't go as well as people had hoped, and now the residents are going a little crazy. We ran into Tina the taco vendor, as well as several new crazy characters that may or may not be very helpful during our quest. Lurking outside town were some ghosts donning cowboy hats. Here is where the new nature grenade--which can destroy multiple ghosts with one explosive--came in handy. There are TNT boxes littered throughout the areas, so use them wisely and carefully to your advantage. Another new weapon that we were shown was the monocle, which allowed DeathSpank to control the minds of the neighboring ghosts and force them to follow along dutifully. Cooperative play is once again included, even though that was not shown in our demo. However, we were told of a new playable character named Steve, a ninja who rides a unicorn while unleashing shurikens and rainbows. He also dual-wields katana blades and sings his own name--a huge step up from Sparkles the wizard, we must say.
For our last stop, we checked out Le Beaux Kuckelle, a town by the sea that gave us access to a pirate ship. This vessel allows you to sail the open seas (and shoot fireworks) and explore new islands to discover the world's secrets. Our demo ended with a cutscene to illustrate the vicious attack on the North Pole. We partnered with General Snugglewugglepants to storm the snowy land crawling with evil elves and to eventually confront Santa, the bearer of the Thong of Generosity.
DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue looks to be a continuation of DeathSpank's adventure with plenty of new weapons and tons of quests. We were told that the story is longer this time around as well, and the campaign could take upward of 17 hours to complete. The game still looks great, with the same colorful art style that really pops out and plenty of loot to find and hoard. Gameplay-wise, everything is still the same, so those who have played through the original game can easily continue their adventure here.
Join DeathSpank on his quest for mythical undergarments when the game is released on the PlayStation Network on September 21 and on the Xbox Live Arcade on September 22.
We try out 2K Marin's upcoming downloadable add-on for BioShock 2 that gives fans a final single-player adventure in Rapture.
2K Marin is putting the finishing touches on the last piece of downloadable content for BioShock 2--a single-player-focused piece set in Minerva's Den, an as-yet-unseen part of Rapture that takes place in parallel to the game's main story. We recently got some hands-on time with the early portion of the DLC, as well as a demo of some other aspects that showcased the mix of old and new packed into the studio's farewell to Rapture.
Minerva's Den is a technological wonderland that has been cut off from the rest of Rapture. Once upon a time, the den served as a house for Rapture's computers. You'll play as a Big Daddy named Subject Sigma, another Alpha-series behemoth that gets his free will back via circumstances that will be made clear over the course of the adventure. The story kicks off in familiar fashion, with Sigma gaining consciousness and being contacted by Charles Milton Porter, a computer savant who created the intricate systems that keep all of Rapture running. While fans of the series will be familiar with most of Porter's creations, one will be quite new: a supercomputer called the Thinker that serves as Rapture's brain.
Thanks to some ADAM-enhanced improvements, the machine processes data at the speed of thought. But, much like all the cool stuff within Rapture, things have gone a little askew. Details on just what had gone wrong weren't clear when we played, but like any good supercomputer, the Thinker has gone a little bonkers: new security bots roam the halls of Minerva’s Den, Big Daddies are lumbering around with new weapons, and Porter is asking for help. The specifics of what has happened and the trouble Porter needs a hand with are mysteries that you'll have to uncover.
The story of Minerva's Den will span three areas in the new district and introduce you to new characters, enemies, and a new aspect of Rapture’s history. From what we’ve seen, it appears that part of the mystery is tied to a disagreement Porter had with his business partner, Reed Wahl, over how the technology was being used. The narrative will play out via the now standard mix of cutscenes, radio messages, and voice recorders. It also appears that besides the new faces, you’ll be hearing and seeing some familiar ones as well. During our hands-on session with the game, we found a recorder that commemorated Porter being brought on by Andrew Ryan, and 2K Marin reps told us that Minerva’s Den will offer some insight into what Dr. Tenenbaum got up to after she took off near the start of BioShock 2's main narrative.
In terms of gameplay, Minerva's Den strays a little from what we’ve seen in BioShock 2 thanks to a new weapon and plasmid. The former is an ion laser--a good, old-fashioned death ray that rips into enemies and does a stream of damage as long as it connects. As with other weapons in the game, you'll find alternate ammo, including thermal firepower that sets your target on fire. The new gravity-well plasmid plays with physics via a vortex that pulls things toward its center while doling out high levels of damage. Collecting new plasmids, weapons, tools, and even ADAM are key parts of the journey. From what we played, it definitely looks like the DLC will be offering a condensed leveling experience that will have you powering up Subject Sigma, and you'll even get to save or harvest six Little Sisters.
You’ll need all the powering up you can get to deal with the new threats in Minerva's Den, which include a new Big Daddy known as a Lancer, new security robots, and splicers. In addition, although we didn't see anything blatantly menacing, we have to assume that if the Thinker turns out to be a threat, it's not going to be too warm and fuzzy either.
Based on what we played, Minerva's Den looks to be a meaty piece of DLC that will round out the last tour of Rapture nicely. The gameplay is solid, and the story is interesting. The additions to your plasmid and weapon arsenal are cool, the new enemies will keep you on your toes, and the new achievements are always good to see. Fans of BioShock 2 will want to keep an eye out for Minerva’s Den when it's released on August 31.
Trick-or-treating with transforming Halloween costumes should be the only way to tackle the scariest night of the year.
From the minds of the developers over at Double Fine comes the role-playing game Costume Quest, one of several downloadable titles that the studio is working on. President and CEO Tim Schafer and project lead Tasha Harris stopped by the GameSpot office to show off their first game about a brother and sister who must rid the city of candy-stealing monsters. The charming art style and hilarious interaction between the siblings make this game ideal for just about anyone. Regardless of whether or not Halloween is your favorite holiday of the year, nothing beats transforming into a giant robot when all you had on was a cardboard box accented with tinfoil.
The demo began with mom and dad (mostly mom) lecturing the identical twins Wren and Reynold about making friends on Halloween and trick-or-treating together--what loving siblings should do. These twins don't have that kind of relationship, however. So after much fuss and girly slapping, you then point (with mom's finger) and choose which character you want to play as. The story will unfold the same way no matter whom you pick, so in this case, we chose Reynold. As the main character, you'll get the cool robot costume, whereas Wren had to sport the candy corn outfit that was probably crafted out of a trash bag. Her bitterness shows, as she tags along and finds ways to annoy Reynold as much as possible while they're out trick-or-treating.
The core mechanic of the game involves going house to house, snagging candy from friendly homes that still have their light on, and fighting monsters in the not-so friendly ones. Some candy-loving creatures have infiltrated the neighborhood and want to clear out all the houses of sweets. However, before we make it past the second house, Wren is snatched by a hideous goblin that mistakes her for a tasty bonbon and tosses her over a locked gate. Reynold decides to go after her, primarily because he's worried about getting grounded. He runs into an evil witch named Dorsilla and gets his robot costume taken away. But with the help of a black cat, he finds a pattern shortly after and is able to piece together a new costume after rummaging up some supplies. You'll collect multiple costumes throughout the game, and with the right pattern and materials, you'll magically have a new costume to put on and use to fend off foul beasts.
When you're not running around town knocking on doors, you'll likely be fighting in one of your various high-performance costumes. In battle, you automatically transform into a much cooler version of whatever it is that you're wearing. So in this case, Reynold transformed into a towering Gundam-like robot armed with heavy artillery. The battles are turn-based, and you use the X and B buttons to attack, and once you've charged up your special attack, you can unleash it with the Y button. A bar appears when you attack, which is like a minigame. If you can hit the A button as the cursor moves over the indicated spot, you'll be able to do a critical attack. The same applies when you're on the defensive, so you can take less damage.
Your costume also comes with benefits when you're out trick-or-treating. For example, the robot costume comes with wheelie skates, so you can zip along the streets much faster than you normally would, as well as launch yourself off ramps to explore new areas. Whenever an icon appears, you can use your candy pail to bash things like dumpsters and trash cans, and you can smash pumpkins and basically rummage through anything that would yield candy, the game's currency. Treasure coffins are strewn about and contain helpful items like the quest pieces needed to complete a new costume. Every quest that you undertake is logged in your notebook, and it keeps track of what's active, what's new, and what you may have missed.
Before our demo ended, Reynold approached a bully who was trying to steal candy from a small boy named Everett. By outrunning the bully Travis with his wheelie skates, Reynold was able to save Everett from having to return home without any treats. You'll run into plenty of interesting characters in the streets, including adults who never offer anything useful. It would be in your best interest to explore and talk to everyone, because with Schafer penning the script, it's hard not to laugh. The look and feel of the game also change as you play, because one minute you'll be exploring the cartoon-like suburban neighborhood and interacting with other cute wide-eyed children, but the next minute you'll be brought into a battle that's like an intense comic-book fight scene. Your enemies are more ferocious looking, and you're obviously much more intimidating--so it works out.
We're looking forward to seeing more of Costume Quest, as it is scheduled to be released in the fall time frame on the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Stay tuned for more updates.
We take an exclusive flight deeper into HAWX 2's single-player campaign and try out UAV scouting and a little air-to-ground combat.
The high-flying sequel Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 will let you return to the skies as an ace fighter pilot, but the sequel will have plenty of new toys to play with, including a wide array of different aircraft to fly from modern American, British, and Russian forces. In addition, the game will have all-new military tech that won't necessarily involve flying, such as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones, and it will also have a larger variety in its missions, including some that will challenge you to switch from midair dogfighting to bombing runs in a matter of minutes. We've tried out some of this new stuff and have new details to report. Please be advised that this story contains minor plot spoilers.
The first new mission we played, "Thieves in the Night," took place about a third of the way through the game’and it didn't even involve getting into a cockpit. We'll explain: The game's story involves quelling an uprising by angry insurgents who are being supplied by a mysterious arms dealer, and part of your job as a member of the HAWX team is to use a UAV to tag key locations on a satellite-image map. In this mission, our Russian contact, "Wolfhound," was on the ground and had identified the mysterious arms dealer who is apparently supplying the insurgents with anything from heavy-duty bombardment missiles to crates of assault rifles with the help of a mysterious and highly placed source in the Russian military. The UAV view is a zoomed-out map colored completely in green. The view vaguely resembles HAWX 2's zoomed-in bombing view (which lets you switch the view from your bomber cockpit to a zoomed-in image of the ground below, from which you can acquire bombing targets). In the case of the UAV, your job isn't to drop any bombs, but rather it's to paint key targets with infrared (IR) markers so that they can later be bombed by your allies.
In this mission, you must first paint a few key bombing targets by putting them in your sights and pressing the fire button to mark them. However, the arms dealer himself suddenly makes an appearance, being driven in his own car to meet with his local customers. At this point, we were required to focus our sights on the dealer's moving car (which appeared as a tiny white blip on the radar) to maintain a surveillance audio link that let us eavesdrop on his conversations so long as we kept him in sight. (Fortunately, HAWX 2 frequently autosaves checkpoints after each individual task within missions, so while the few times we let our quarry slip away meant that the mission was over, we were able to restart more or less exactly where we had left off.)
The eavesdropping clued us in on more intel--namely, the site of other weapon drops in the city and on nearby docked freighters, which we also painted for airstrikes. Eventually, the arms dealer made a transaction with his local partners, after which the cars of all involved parties scattered in different directions while we carefully followed our original target. However, it was just then that our Russian contact was spotted by a few of the arms dealer's henchmen--then quickly dispatched both men and dragged their bodies into the shadows. Since our contact's cover was blown, our last order of business in this mission was to help him escape by using IR tagging on enemy roadblocks so that he could be clued in on which side streets not to take on his way out of town.
We then skipped ahead to a different mission later in the game--about halfway through--called "Behind Enemy Lines." The mission takes place just after the Russian army has recovered a pair of stolen nuclear warheads from the enemy and is flying each one back to Mother Russia in transport planes. Our job, as a Russian pilot, was to jump into a Su-27 Flanker and escort the carriers through enemy territory on their way home. Unfortunately, the enemy was already on the alert and had a substantial force already airborne and headed our way, which meant that we had to do double duty both defending the transports and defending ourselves from enemy fighter planes.
After beating back a few waves of enemies, we finally approached an area dug in by allied Russian forces that had antiair guns stationed on the ground. These areas were marked on the map by obvious glowing green outlines, and we did our best to lure enemy fighters into the kill zones to get them off our backs.
We'd finally gotten rid of most of our enemies and had nearly reached friendly space, so the transports set a course to take the long away around the last stretch of hostile territory, which was equipped with antiair guns of its own. However, our high-ranking commanding officer in the Russian military made the puzzling demand that we cut straight through, since the route through enemy lines was much faster. (Why he gave that order is anyone's guess.) Unfortunately, one of the transports, piloted by none other than Wolfhound, was hit by enemy fire and had to make a crash landing right into enemy territory--a small encampment on the lee side of a dam.
Though Wolfhound was able to expertly land the damaged craft safely (without any of that unsightly nuclear holocaust), the frustrated agent immediately demanded an evac, which our commanding officer assured us was inbound. While Wolfhound established a perimeter, enemy vehicles and emplaced cannons on the ground had begun to open fire, and we were tasked with using our Flanker, an excellent dogfighting ship, to go toe-to-toe with earthbound tanks and gun emplacements in a narrow mountain valley. This is a lot tougher than it sounds, since the Flanker is a heavy-duty fighter jet that, while equipped with powerful armament, doesn't exactly turn on a dime.
We did the best we could, carefully swooping down into the bowl of the valley and dumping as many missiles as possible onto our foes before pulling up like mad to avoid crashing right into the mountain. While we scored several kills, our grounded comrades were unable to hold out against the assault, and rather than risk having the nuke be recaptured, our high-ranking commanding officer ordered us to aim and fire at the dam, which would surely kill Wolfhound and the transport survivors but would also eliminate all opposition on the ground and at least let the Russian forces come back later to pick up the pieces. We had no choice but to blow the dam, dooming our comrades to a watery death while our high-ranking Russian commanding officer assured us of how shameful it was that such brave men should die for the cowardice of politicians.
HAWX 2's single-player campaign will offer plenty of variety and the ability to use some interesting new toys beyond just more fighter jets. The game will be released on September 7 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
We go Titan-climbing with Gabriel Belmont in Castlevania's first 3D outing on current-generation consoles.
When Hideo Kojima unveiled Lords of Shadow last year, he described shifting Castlevania development away from Japan as a means to make the series "more appealing [to an international audience] in the years to come." Development duties, he revealed, had been given to Madrid-based MercurySteam, making Lords of Shadow doubly notable; this is also Castlevania's first foray into 3D for the current console generation. How the prolific franchise has been "reborn" for Western markets won't be fully clear until the October launch, but playing through the first two chapters offers strong hints.
This is a 3D action game in the same vein as the PlayStation 2's Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, with familiar Castlevania elements remixed into a third-person hack-and-slasher. But between the PS2 game and this one are seven years of progress, years that notably included the whole God of War series and its various imitators. Lords of Shadow borrows from these and more, drawing on diverse sources, though none more plainly than 2005's Shadow of the Colossus. That game's Colossi have been drafted in as Titans, enormous stone guardian bosses with glowing magical weak spots, of which more later.
The game's hero, the Robert Carlyle-voiced Gabriel Belmont, is a knight of an ancient brotherhood. He rides out in an 11th-century, medieval fantasy Europe that suggests Van Helsing meets Lord of the Rings. It's the End of Days, or so say the pitchfork-waving peasants, with the world plagued by monsters and divine intervention nowhere to be seen. "A storm is coming," concurs narrator Patrick Stewart, who could do gravitas while reading the phone book. Belmont has specific worries, though; his wife has been murdered, her soul caught up in the supernatural conflict and trapped in limbo.
From the first level of the first chapter, a combat tutorial, the Castlevania staples are reassuringly present. Belmont fights with the combat cross, an ornate cross relic with a retractable iron chain--the traditional whip, in effect, for lashing enemies and, later, swinging and climbing. His first foes are equally traditional: werewolves and giant werewolves (lycans and wargs, if you please). Though neither castles nor vampires figured in our extended demo, we're promised they are in the game--somewhere around chapters six and seven of an ample 12-chapter, 20-hour experience.
The environments of the first two chapters, each split into many smaller levels, have a good deal of variety. We proceeded from the tutorial's rain-lashed village besieged by werewolves, through spooky woods, poisonous swamps, graveyards, and underground caverns, on to a lush, near-exotic forest, with hanging vines and waterfalls, a huge frozen lake, and the labyrinthine ruins of a long-dead civilisation. In contrast to the rich, elaborately drawn environments, the paths through them are mostly straightforward and linear, with the odd detour to access a health font or a chest holding an upgrade.
Beyond the snarling werewolves, we did battle with grenade-tossing goblins, giant spiders, gremlins, and trolls--a decent, if conventional, mix of enemies. We're counting on more outlandish nasties later in the game, further along the difficulty curve, and preview screenshots seem to bear this out. The by-the-numbers fantasy monsters, at least, throw the striking Titan bosses into sharp relief. These are the Shadow of the Colossus-like colossi: rocky, ancient, golem-like giants, invulnerable to Belmont's combat cross but felled with a good stabbing in their mystical glowing weak spots.
We met the first of them towards the end of the first chapter on an enormous frozen lake--the Titan wading waist-high while we were on the icy surface, dodging blows from his huge stone fists. The Titans must be traversed as much as fought; we rappelled up the Titan's arm while his fist was stuck in the ice, climbed the carved ledges on his arm, and then used the combat cross's chain to swing and clamber to each of its weak points in sequence. We had to hold a button to grip when it tried to shake us off, and dodge out of the way when it tried to grab us, but there's no limited stamina for gripping as in Shadow of the Colossus; you can hang on indefinitely, which takes some of the urgency out of the fight, but also some of the frustration. Similarly, the generous checkpointing doesn't ask you to redo the weak spots you've already destroyed.
Outside of the Titan fights, combat is the stuff of classic action games: a mix of direct and area-of-effect attacks with the cross's chain, mixed with the jump for flashier combos, which are picked up and upgraded over time. The aerial moves are the most fun, letting you whisk enemies aloft as you jump and lash them in the air around you. Dead enemies drop daggers, which are required for Belmont's secondary, ranged attacks. Button bashing, as ever, will get you so far, but blocking and dodging are key at any difficulty beyond the easiest setting, Esquire. (Warrior and Knight are available on your first play-through, with Paladin locked at first.)
Action game tropes are plentiful: there are fonts to top up Belmont's health and magic reserves and medallions which, when filled with collectable gems, permanently increase health and magic capacity. Weapon upgrades collected at regular intervals add to the combat cross, in one case adding a hook to the chain, turning it into a grappling hook gun for swinging and rappelling, and in another case adding spikes to the chain, letting us saw through obstacles. Killing enemies, meanwhile, gives experience points to be sunk into combat move upgrades.
The magical power-up system was introduced halfway through our demo; Belmont gets a light meter and a shadow magic meter, which must each be filled with neutral magical orbs. These are collected by filling up, in turn, the combat focus meter, which rewards you for fighting with varied attacks and dodging those of enemies; this adds another strategic layer to the combat system, dissuading button mashing further still. Once a magic meter is full, the light or shadow mode can be activated; these are, respectively, a purple, electrical-looking aura that heals Belmont as he fights, and a red, fiery aura that increases his attack power.
The first hours of Lords of Shadow suggest a game with plenty up its sleeve. If it's prepared to follow through on its gradual learning curve and increasingly creative enemies and environments, we'll have an action game to stand alongside the best of them--not to mention a Castlevania game to do the series proud, "reboot" or no. Time will tell, on that count, but Kojima's stamp of approval, as the game's executive producer, should calm the nerves of Castlevania devotees. They, like us, will be waiting until October to lay eyes on Lords of Shadow's eventual castles and vampires.
We bust out of prison and swing our sword with a look at the divergent story in this upcoming fantasy RPG.
When The Witcher was released in 2007, critics and fans alike applauded its use of rich storytelling; intelligent, mature choice and consequence systems; and the creation of a detailed, living world. Three years on, Polish developer CD Projekt Red is back for another tour, bringing with it a sequel that builds on each of its precursor's core strengths.
Since giving it a fresh lick of paint wouldn't fly with the game's dedicated audience, the dev team has completely overhauled the project, and the proof is in the numbers. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will feature three different game openings, 16 endings, more than 150 minutes of cutscene video, and a total rework of the streaming technology. The latter means that where the previous title included 700 load screens, the follow-up features just four. Our demo included an extensive look at the branching narrative and choices available to players and their ability to make the experience a personalised one by either relishing in it or avoiding conflict.
Skipping straight into the action we were reintroduced to monster-hunting mercenary Geralt, who had found himself in a bit of a predicament in a mission called Escape from Valette Castle. Suspended in the air by his wrists and covered in fresh-looking lash marks on his back and chest, we scrolled around the environment to take in our setting. Cobblestone walls met our gaze everywhere we looked, while not too far away, on the other side of some thick, steel bars, two guards sat chatting. Unbeknownst to them, we already had the key for our escape in our possession, but as they were clearly not ones to shy away from a fight, we opted to play the social card first. Goading the pair into the cell, we dropped down violently, unleashing fist swings to knock one of the men unconscious. Guard number two fell with little resistance, and once the room had been cleared, we took the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with our sword rather than take on all comers with bare knuckles.
The development team was quick to point out that it is still in the process of tuning difficulty and that for the purpose of skipping through the combat quickly, most enemies required only one or two swipes with the sword to be dispatched. Itemisation has been a key area of focus for the studio, with the character menu screen being divided into all the archetypal inventory slots, such as belts, pants, and gloves. The Witcher 2 will include a significantly raised number of items available to players, while a new crafting system will allow you to add runes to weapons, in our case giving it a faint blue glow and some juicy new stats. Cat potions are just one of the items that have been given a rethink in Witcher 2 and now allow the imbiber to not only see in the dark, but spot targets through walls, not unlike Detective mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum.
It was time for our demo to showcase some of the choices available to players. Rather than simply being provided a set story and being asked to follow the bouncing ball, we were given a firsthand look at how the game will branch as a result of your choices. A two-PC setup had one guide take the combat route to escape the prison, while the other snuck around in the shadows, blowing out fire torches illuminating the corridors and stealthily knocking guards unconscious. The first path led us to a woman being tortured, and after springing to her defense to confront her attackers, we opened up additional dialogue with her, offering optional help from her associates. Path two had us locate the woman's missing son and escape the prison before burning it to the ground. Different choices will determine whether you walk the worn path to the front door, scamper around underground in hidden passages, or accept non-player character assistance to use secret exits.
The final part of our demo showcased a boss fight in an open space with a huge elemental field commander named Draug. The three-phase fight included dodging the flaming arrows of his archer minions, running to safety as tornados destroyed objects on the battlefield, and a meteor shower that charred the earth.
CD Projekt Red isn't mincing its words with this game, telling audience members that they are happy to be put side-by-side with any RPG shipping next year with the belief that The Witcher 2 will be the "best looking RPG of 2011." Easily one of the most visually impressive titles at Gamescom 2010, character models were lifelike and moved naturally, indoor environments were suitably dingy, and the outdoor vistas were beautiful and bathed in warm, natural light. The development team confirmed it is actively exploring options for bringing the game to current-generation consoles, but will not be doing so if the hardware can't give the game the graphical fidelity the studio believes it deserves.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings already looks gorgeous, and the studio still has six months of time up their sleeves to tweak and tune. Keep an eye out for it when it hits the PC in the early part of next year.
We dropped by Square Enix's Gamescom booth to check out the company's first-ever Western RPG.
Square Enix may be renowned for role-playing game series such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, but after its acquisition of Western publisher Eidos, it has found itself publishing a slew of titles in a different vein. One of them is Dungeon Siege III, developed by US developer Obsidian, which will be Square's first Western-developed game in the role-playing genre. We dropped by to meet Obsidian to see how it has been getting on since its last showing at E3.
Get a glimpse of Dungeon Siege III in this teaser trailer.
Obsidian used Gamescom to show off a new section of gameplay especially tailored for the German show, as well as talk about its aims for the project. It's aiming to bring the Dungeon Siege series to a console audience without alienating the PC fan base, which means offering both a deep, nonlinear storyline and plenty of action and loot. Dungeon Siege III is also designed for social play with drop-in, drop-out co-op allowing a second player to come and go as he pleases throughout the entire campaign.
We watched Obsidian play the game as a guardian-class character. The developer was able to adapt the character's stance to wield one or two swords at a time, with the emphasis on being a support character to the other player. The combat seemed straightforward enough--the game would autotarget enemies so that the guardian could perform a blade dash on multiple targets. There are three levels of more powerful special attacks too, including a spectacular "fall from heaven" move where your character rises into the sky and crashes down to earth destroying anything in the vicinity.
Importantly, this is the first game to use Obsidian's brand-new in-house engine called Onyx. The results are impressive from both a technical and an artistic perspective, with dynamic lighting, rag-doll physics, and a smooth frame rate resulting in a handsome-looking game. As an RPG specialist, Obsidian should be able to provide some interesting dialogue to carry the story, and, in fact, the vocal options revolve around an actual tree onscreen in the game. As a result of this, there will be multiple endings depending on the choices you make throughout the story.
Obsidian seems focussed on offering deep RPG mechanics while also making this the most accessible game in the series yet. Little additions, such as the ability to press up on the D pad to point to where you should be going, will hopefully alleviate any frustrations for those who struggle in the genre. Dungeon Siege III is launching on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in 2011. We'll bring you more information on the game as we have it.
We got to see three different approaches to a police station infiltration: action, espionage, and a charm offensive.
Deus EX: Human Revolution has been gathering momentum recently, following a trailer from Final Fantasy CGI specialists Visual Works and an impressive E3 demo. At Gamescom this year, the developer was on hand to show a brand-new demo that took place about 90 minutes into the game, as the main character Jensen had to infiltrate a police station. He had the choice of going in guns blazing, using a stealth approach, or charming his way in. We saw all these methods when Eidos Montreal demonstrated one section of the game being approached in three different ways.
Check out our Gamescom interview with Deus Ex: Human Revolution producer Jean-Francois Degas.
The infiltration mission took place fairly early on in the game, just after a terrorist attack from an anticybernetic group called Purity First. There's a mole in the group, who is actually augmented, and he's passing information to the authorities. The game's protagonist, Adam Jensen, gets a call to go check out a police station, infiltrate the building, and extract a piece of electronics from a dead man's head. Initially reluctant, Jensen decides to give it a go, and he has a number of different methods at his disposal.
With the caveat of using unlimited ammo and health, the development team from Eidos Montreal burst into the police station guns blazing. After being warned by a security guard not to go any further, Jensen carried on and took out two officers using a pistol. He then turned a corner, and getting behind a photocopier to form portable cover, he pushed down the corridor. When he arrived in the office part of the building, he engaged Smart Vision, which produced a visual outline of the threats so he could see where they were, even through cover.
He then proceeded to upgrade his revolver so that it could fire explosive rounds, tearing up the entire office as he went. The development team also showed off a nonlethal weapon called the PEPS, or Pulse Energy Projection System, which would fire a wall of energy, incapacitating enemies but not killing them. Having blown away an entire precinct, Jensen then attached explosives to the coroner's room door and forced his way inside to recover the device.
Eidos then showed a more peaceful approach to the situation, demonstrating how you could complete the mission without firing a single bullet. Again going through the front door, Jensen went to talk to the police officer assigned to the front desk. As it turned out, the two had worked together years ago, although some sort of incident where the other man shot a kid meant that the two had lost touch. Still traumatised by the event, the officer was now working on desk duty and was reluctant to help Jensen get inside the office. However, with enough persuasion, the man eventually gave in and helped Jensen through.
This section of dialogue highlighted the attention to detail in the world--the light streamed moodily into the office, fractured at awkward angles by the slanted, mistreated blinds. After convincing the officer to let him in, Jensen was able to stroll through the building and make his way to the coroner, who assumed that he was some sort of government official. Eidos Montreal commented that this approach also allows you to hack the office's e-mail system if you want, allowing you to glean more information about the world itself.
The final approach was stealthy, with a healthy amount of running, jumping, and hacking required to get in to the building. Jensen needed to employ a strength augmentation to push a dumpster up to one of the fences around the side of the building to jump over it, and he then needed to hack his way into a terminal to gain access to the rear of the building. Once inside, Jensen had to use cover, avoid cameras, and employ camouflage augmentations in order to move through unnoticed, and he even had to knock out a guard at one point to avoid detection. He then sneaked into the room holding the body and exited via the sewers. Eidos noted that Jensen could have just taken the sewers into the building as well, if he'd looked around and found that there was an access point.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution seems like it will remain faithful to the other Deus Ex games, at least in the level of choice it offers in approaching situations. The game is looking impressive as a result and promises to offer 20 hours of gameplay, and that's without any of the side quests. The game is scheduled for a March 2011 release on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, so be sure to check back for more information on GameSpot soon.
We fulfill our lifelong dream of being the Terminator and happily make a fool of ourselves in the process.
While the original Yoostar was a somewhat niche PC-only title, developer Blitz is aiming for a wider audience with Kinect and Move support for the sequel Yoostar 2. While the idea of a karaoke movie game may seem a little strange, in practice it’s incredibly amusing, if sometimes embarrassing.
The game works like this: You are challenged to reenact a famous scene from a classic Hollywood movie. There are more than 60 movies to choose from, ranging from classics such as Casablanca to more modern films such as The Matrix and The Terminator. Once you’ve picked a scene to act out, you’re given a chance to watch it in its entirety to learn the lines and movements. You can choose which actor from the scene you wish to be, with two people able to play as different characters. Once you’re ready, you’re asked to stand between dotted lines on the screen, after which the scene starts.
Instead of seeing the original actor in the frame, you are superimposed in his or her place. Your lines are shown at the top of the screen, along with a typical karaoke-style bouncing ball to guide you. After you demonstrate your brilliant acting skills, the game applies a number of effects to match the recording with the movie, which is then played back to you. The results are often hilarious, with our attempt at the famous "I’ll be back" scene from The Terminator being particularly cringe-worthy.
Your performance is then given a score based on how well you read out the lines as well as your physical movements in the scene. You’re then awarded a fame score and are given the opportunity to share your video on sites such as Facebook and YouTube. It can also be uploaded to the Yoostar Web site, where other users can rate the video. Positive ratings on the Web site are linked back to the game, awarding you with higher fame points. If you’re feeling particularly creative, there’s even a freestyle mode, where you can unleash your acting skills on a variety of unscripted scenes.
While we were a little skeptical at first, the technology behind the game renders scenes surprisingly well. Your footage is integrated naturally, with little evidence of an obvious cutout effect. The results are often very funny, particularly if you or your friends are graced with less-than-perfect acting skills. Though there are just over 60 scenes in the retail release, more will be added at a later date via DLC in special packs and individual downloads.
Yoostar 2 is due out later this year on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Look out for a full review soon.
We briefly go behind the wheel of Bond’s Aston Martin for a high-speed chase through frost-covered mountains.
With no new James Bond film in sight, it seems that some unexpected attention has been brought on James Bond 007: Blood Stone, the latest game to put you in the role of the world’s most famous fictional spy. But Activision and the development team at Bizarre Creations are seemingly up to the challenge, as Blood Stone features not only a script written by well-known Bond scribe Bruce Feirstein, but also voice-overs provided by Judy Dench, Daniel Craig, and Joss Stone, who is not only playing the Bond girl in the game, but also providing the title song. If that’s not enough, all of Bond’s motion-captured movements featured in the game were provided by Daniel Craig’s stunt double, who probably knows more than anyone about how James Bond should behave in a fight.
While all of this is sure to please fans of the Bond films, Bizarre Creations is going to great lengths to ensure that the game itself is just as entertaining as any good Bond film. Therefore, Blood Stone will feature a mixture of action, with some levels focusing exclusively on Bond and his unique ability to maneuver his way out of just about any situation--in this case, an ambush inside a construction site where a bioweapons scientist is believed to be held. Naturally, Bond has to fight his way out of the ambush using a combination of physical skills, gunplay (though it’s not always necessary), and limited use of a single gadget--a smart phone that delivers basic augmented reality information, such as waypoints and enemy positions. There are also specific points in a level that you can scan with Bond’s phone to gain some extra details about the mission. But you can’t just walk through the entire level with it turned on like some might have done with Batman’s detective vision in Batman: Arkham Asylum, which functioned in a somewhat similar fashion. The signal will eventually get disrupted, preventing you from clearly seeing the information.
When it’s time for Bond to take on some bad guys, you probably don’t want to have anything blocking your view anyway. As previously mentioned, Bond has a few options when encountering enemies--he can be stealthy and sneak up on enemies to take them down, or he can simply use his firearm. However, when you take an enemy out with a melee attack, you’re given a focus aim, which grants you a one-shot kill on any enemy you decide to use it on. Think of it as something similar to the mark-and-execute feature in Splinter Cell: Conviction where Sam earned tokens that in turn enabled him to mark enemies and kill them with a single bullet. Plus, it’s just cool to see the many different ways Bond manages to knock an enemy out, whether it’s by slamming heads into concrete pillars or choking an unsuspecting goon with his leg. Still, if you decide to fire your weapon, Blood Stone also has a cover system in place, allowing 007 to seek refuge from the hail of bullets that inevitably come flying his way.
What was also interesting about this particular part of the demo is how differently you can play the game. The first time through, we saw a slower, more-methodical Bond, taking out enemies with deadly precision and little firepower. But the second time through, Bond tore through the environment at great speed, melee attacking enemies and firing his weapon with equally deadly efficiency. Either choice seems to depend largely on your skill and patience and just how comfortable you feel with the game’s mechanics.
Bond eventually makes his way toward the catacombs buried next to the construction sight, and it’s not long before he finds himself in a heap of trouble. The massive drill used to dig the holes beneath the surface suddenly turns on while Bond maneuvers up some scaffolding, and it doesn’t take long to realize that you have to move a little faster to avoid certain death. But this is James Bond we’re talking about, and in the demo, he safely escapes the drill with some athletic moves, and we’re greeted with a cutscene that shows the kidnapped scientist being abused by a shifty-looking courier responsible for delivering very important information to those of the criminal persuasion.
In the next scene, we get to see how the game seamlessly transfers into racing game mode when Bond takes after the courier through the streets of Istanbul in his own car. If there’s one word that can describe this sequence adequately, it would probably be "intense." There’s just so much action going on around you, some of it designed to obscure your view or possibly even distract you from your ultimate goal of chasing down the courier. We might even go so far as to say that this is probably what would happen if Michael Bay directed a driving sequence in a Bond film.
We had a chance to go hands-on at this point, but not with this particular driving mission. Rather, we got to try a small portion of a driving sequence in Siberia where Bond chases after a train in his Aston Martin with Joss Stone’s character in tow. This driving mission is somewhat similar in the sense that you really need to pay attention to the layout of the track and where the road leads--one false turn and you’ll end up in a nearby river. Interestingly, we found the controls to be a little loose, making it difficult to gauge just how much power to put behind turns or how to use brakes effectively, but for now, we’re chalking that up to having jumped right in to a mission that occurs so late in the game (and is designed to be difficult under normal circumstances anyway).
We’ll be sure to have more on James Bond 007: Blood Stone, including more information about its team-based and deathmatch multiplayer options, before its release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the PC later this year. A DS version is also in the works.
Gamers Corner 
