Digital Foundry's 2010  

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Digital Foundry's 2010

'Digital Foundry's 2010: Part 1' Screenshot 3d-1 While Digital Foundry takes a short break over the Christmas period, Richard Leadbetter looks back over the year in gaming tech, discussing the major stories and offering behind-the-scenes tales of some of the ambitious features posted, and the ways in which DF puts together its unique articles.
In addition to the retrospective, there's also a bonus extra too: the Eurogamer stats archive has been mercilessly pillaged to bring you the lowdown on Digital Foundry's most popular articles for each month. Somehow, rounding out the year with a "performance analysis" on ourselves seems rather apt.
The concluding episode of this retrospective, covering off July to December, will be posted next week.

January

'Digital Foundry's 2010: Part 1' Screenshot 3d-2 The Las Vegas CES show kicked off what would be one of the most exciting, yet controversial topics of 2010: 3D gaming. With all the major consumer electronics manufacturers showing off their brand new 120Hz, HDMI 1.4 displays, Sony demonstrated its commitment to stereoscopic gaming by showing a range of titles running on the new sets. Then-forthcoming titles such as Gran Turismo 5 rubbed shoulders with existing 3D wares like Ubisoft's Avatar and upgraded games like Housemarque's brilliant Super Stardust HD.
Having missed CES this year, and sensing that we were really missing out, I got into contact with SCEE to chase up what was going on and hopefully get some hands-on time. Credit to the PR team here - they gave us some superb access which I hope translated into some great coverage. Housemarque confirmed a full 720p/120FPS upgrade for Super Stardust HD, while a trip to Evolution Studios near Liverpool allowed to us to go hands-on with the new 3D tech and talk to the architects behind Sony's implementation of 3D gaming. Excellent stuff from a personal perspective: it's breaking this type of story and talking to the key people that is the most exciting part of running Digital Foundry at Eurogamer.
In other news, iPhone hacker George Hotz, aka Geohot, announced to a disbelieving world that he had hacked the PlayStation 3. By hotwiring the console's memory bus, Hotz effectively glitched the system into allowing Linux to read and write to parts of the system RAM it had no business accessing. The piracy-hungry hordes descended to pour scorn on Hotz's achievement since it did not immediately translate into free games, but other hackers were busy behind the scenes intent on honing the exploit into something more usable...
Meanwhile, nine months after emerging from "stealth development" at GDC 2009, OnLive's much-vaunted beta finally got into the hands of real gamers, who spilled their guts on the internet. Simultaneously it was revealed - as Digital Foundry had long suspected - that OnLive uses h264 video encoding, with one of the foremost minds on the subject blogging the core principles behind the firm's supposedly revolutionary compressor.
http://images.console-tribe.com/ps3/news/10.02.24/ps3last.jpg
And finally, Apple unveiled its years-in-the-making iPad tablet, opening up a new front in the hotly contested handheld gaming arena. Presented as a device for comfortable browsing and "consuming" media, my first thoughts were on the technical make-up of the new A4 processor, its GPU and the implications for gaming. Answers to our questions wouldn't be forthcoming for several months...
Other Digital Foundry articles: Image quality is clearly a serious matter. The anti-aliasing effect was our attempt to provide an insight into the kinds of custom solutions developers employ in their pursuit of improved edge-smoothing without the overheads of traditional GPU solutions. I'm always pleasantly surprised at how well read this type of feature is - more people read and shared this than the majority of the Face-Offs we published in 2010.

Panzer General Allied Assault  

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Panzer General: Allied Assault 

'Panzer General: Allied Assault' Screenshot 1Good hardcore tactical strategy games are difficult to find these days, but one of the best-known series of the last 15 years is SSI's Panzer General, which went on to spawn no less than six sequels, and now it's time for Xbox 360 gamers to get a taste of allies versus axis glory in Petroglyph's new Xbox Live Arcade title, Panzer General: Allied Assault.
Gone are the days of intimidating hexagonal game boards. Instead Allied Assault attempts to present its tactical strategy shenanigans through a more friendly card-based approach. You're still looking at some serious strategic depth, but the somewhat-randomised nature of the decks means you never really know what to expect from your own abilities, never mind your wily opponent.
Allied Assault sees you take on the World War II German forces during the events that lead up right up to D-Day. Would-be war heroes will be able to push back the encroaching enemy forces in scenarios based on The Battle of the Bulge, Utah Beach and Operation Market Garden. Playing through the single-player campaign sees you assume control of the American allied forces, while taking the action to the Skirmish mode lets you tinker around with both German and American sides.
Chess: World War II-style.
'Panzer General: Allied Assault' Screenshot 2
Allied Assault presents itself as a board game comprising of either 6x5 or 7x8 tiled grids depending on the scenario map. Each side must start on its base line and is given a selection of cards drawn from a random deck. More powerful advanced cards are earned by winning scenarios (extra rewards are received for playing and winning on higher difficulty levels) which then leads to the ability to create and use your own custom deck.
The game does a great job of tutoring you in the first mission. There are two distinctly different types of cards used: Unit cards and Ability cards. Unit cards represent the game's physical troops, vehicles and support weapons such as Paratroopers, Sherman Tanks and AA guns. Ability cards function in a number of different roles, with some allowing you to deal unstoppable direct damage to enemy units, give health boosts to your own units or cancel combat completely.
Swamps, troops, attack planes. Oh my!
'Panzer General: Allied Assault' Screenshot 3A typical game round goes something like this: You get your initial hand, place unit cards on your baseline, move units to neutral tiles (perhaps capturing a nearby town or objective tile as you go) and use any Ability cards you want. Next up is the combat round. This lets you engage enemy troops that are adjacent to your units with the hope of rubbing them out of the equation. During combat, a large number of stat-based figures and ability card factors come into play. It plays out like a drawn-out session of rock, paper, scissors; perhaps you boost your attacking unit's damage temporarily, or remove your opponent's supporting fire bonus, or even sacrifice a unit card still in your hand for a valuable defence bonus. Combat is where the strategy element goes deepest, and also, the luck element flies highest.

'Panzer General: Allied Assault' Screenshot 4Ending your turn will see your Prestige calculated and added to your reserves - make no mistake, players that burn through all of their Prestige in order to fill the board with units will probably end up hamstrung when it comes to repelling counterattacks from the enemy. Victory is usually achieved by nailing one of four requirements stated at the beginning of the round. These conditions include rushing and taking the enemy's home tile, occupying three or four key objective tiles at once, or simply destroying all of the enemy troop units on the board.
If it sounds like there's a lot to take on board here, that's because there is. It's only through a cautious approach and some blind luck that you'll find your feet. Xbox Live players looking for some instant gratification should go and boot up Battlefield 1943 instead, snipe some fools and not look back. That said, those of you that enjoy pouring over countless stratagems while painstakingly taking the time to appreciate the subtleties of a wicked combat system should be shinning up the nearest flagpole with excitement.
http://www.gameandplayer.net/images/plate/plate_09_1029_panzergeneral.jpgSacrifice: cannon fodder troop cards are great fun.
But even though Petroglyph's risky Xbox Live release is supremely rewarding for strategy buffs, it's not without annoyances. The biggest offender is that you can't speed up the combat cycle by clicking a skip-ahead button. You're forced to sit through a repetitious set of informational messages such as "You have no Ability Cards to play" when you obviously know that this is the case.
Occasionally, the random nature of deck draws can get right up your nose. Some campaign scenarios seem to rely too heavily on getting a very specific card or two in your hand in order to make a win not completely out of the question. In fact, you'll probably find yourself 'cheating' every now and again by restarting a map until you get that elusive 'Double Time' Ability card which allows you to advance a unit twice as far as normal to capture a tile before that bastard King Tiger tank beds down for the rest of the war.
Rifle bullet plus tank equals kaboom.
Nowhere is this more prominent than when you take your card-shuffling skills online in the multiplayer mode. Multiplayer is a one-on-one affair which lets you face off against another player over Xbox Live. Let's just say this - if your opponent has already beaten the single-player content on the Hard setting, and you haven't, then your weak-sauce custom deck barely stands a chance against their uber deck of ultimate destructive power. You'll quickly learn to hate, hate, hate the German King Tiger tanks and those demonic Flak 88 AA guns. Take my advice and make sure you crunch through as much single-player content as possible before putting your peanuts on the front line of multiplayer - the sting of a humiliating loss against a human opponent is far worse than the pride-filled chest of a cracking win against the CPU.
http://www.highlanderbr.com/site/media/users/admin/74685_mohaa.jpgPanzer General: Allied Assault is not for everyone. It will definitely gain a small subset of rabidly devoted XBLA players and rightly so - it's a great tactical turn-based game. But the average gamer will be a long way outside of their comfort zone. If you're sitting on the fence wondering if you'd like to face-palm those cheeky 1940s oppressors, then by all means check out the one-level demo sitting on Live right now. Who knows? Maybe there'll be a legion of newly converted strategy fans stepping on the napes of evil necks squatting in XBLA cyberspace. Good luck, soldier.

 

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit  

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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit review

It was a lengthy, arduous duel but, when that last squeeze of nitrous cannoned my Porsche 911 GT3 RS police cruiser into the back of the fugitive Nissan 370Z Coupe, I got my reward. The hapless Nissan flipped skyward, smashing into a nearside guardrail in a cinematic slow-motion spasm of broken glass and crumpled metal.
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit delivers moments of vehicular conflict and channeled road-rage for engrossing cops-vs-speeders combative driving (for the first time since 2005’s NFS: Most Wanted), but hits some potholes along the way.

The single-player features full career modes for both cops and scofflaw street racers, and allows you to alternate between them at will as you compete to generate bounty points to increase your Wanted Level (or Police Rank) and unlock new cars, events and weapons.
But between the spike strips, EMPs, and roadblocks it’s a challenge to keep your high-speed ride moving forward. These momentum-killers can be a pain at times—especially unanticipated spike strip deployments—but they do reinforce the chaotic nature of illegal street racing. It’s all part of a structured and surprisingly addictive adversarial system where you push your chosen ride to its limits in a flat-out effort to win races or stop speeders from endangering public safety (ironically by smashing into them at high speed).
Not so hot
With full licensing from such manufacturers as Audi, Aston Martin and Koenigsegg, developers Criterion (of Burnout fame) have assembled an impressive real-world stable—it’s the prime draw of the game. Sadly, none of these machines feature a proper cockpit view (an unconscionable downgrade from last year’s NFS: Shift) and the simplistic, tail-happy physics modeling only delivers a token challenge. Hot Pursuit is a poor partner for that pricey force-feedback steering wheel—your on-screen Alfa or Mercedes will respond just as well to a basic Xbox 360 Windows gamepad.
Despite the lack in hardcore driving depth, Hot Pursuit’s fictional Seacrest County scenery offers a postcard-pretty if exclusively rural backdrop, and the dynamic lighting and wet-weather effects inject welcome atmosphere. You may not believe you’re driving a real McLaren F1 or Maserati GranCabrio, but you’ll have a nice time faking it.
http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/article/660/660207/official-need-for-speed-most-wanted-car-roster-20051020052148667_640w.jpgHot Pursuit’s revamped interface puts a lot of its energy into helping you brag to your friends. The Autolog GUI immerses you in a Facebook-style suite of connected features where you can navigate to your single-player career map; post photos and comments on your “Wall” or connect directly through to your friends’ games to compare stats, exchange pictures and perform other social networking activities. You can also connect with up to eight players (friends and/or strangers) for a hiccup-free online multiplayer contest—including Race, Hot Pursuit or 1v1 Interceptor modes. EA might be using these features as a way of keeping second-hand sales down, but they’re smart additions that keep the multiplayer interesting.
As a long-time NfS player I’m not wild about some of Criterion’s shortcuts—specifically reduced handling fidelity and MIA features like cockpit artwork and replays—but there is still considerable substance beneath Hot Pursuit’s pearlescent paint job. Once you chase down your first errant speeder with a 200-mph Lamborghini Gallardo police interceptor (or lose that cop with a well-timed shortcut), you’ll likely feel the love too.

 

F1 2010 review  

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F1 2010 Review

The dominant scent in the Lotus garage at the moment isn’t warm Bridgestones or posh deodorant – it’s defeat. Nine races into the 2010 season and the team have yet to score a point. By rights, their new driver, a Finn called Timo Stone, should be ready to throw in the towel. The fact that he isn’t says a lot about Codemasters refreshingly risqué take on F1.
A lazier licence-holder would simply have bolted some next-gen visuals onto a stock genre template, then swanned off to the bank. Codies, to their credit, have tried something far bolder. F1 2010’s career mode provides a fascinating glimpse of what it must be like to be a Lucas di Grassi or a Bruno Senna, a driver at the bottom of the pecking order, cursed with a car that is woefully uncompetitive.
Tracks are faithfully replicated.
For your first season (careers can span up to seven 19-race seasons) podium finishes are a preposterous pipedream. You are just battling to out-perform your teammate and to meet very modest team objectives. A twelfth place finish or qualifying on the seventh row can be enough to see your stock rise. Keep turning in solid performances and dealing with press questions, and eventually the offers from bigger teams should roll in.
Well, that’s the theory. Right now even meeting the demands of a minnow outfit is tricky. Whether this is down to difficulty levels, or inherent (realistic) car weaknesses, it’s hard to say, but demanding physics can’t be implicated.
Heavy rein
The handling models are an entertaining yet faintly patronising mix of the rigorous and the reined-in. Turn off all the driver aids and the steeds still feel a tad sedated. If you’re used to wrestling spirited SimBin and ISI open-wheelers, you may find yourself surprised at how surefooted the cars feel in corners, and how tolerant they are of violent wheel and throttle inputs. The top sims – rFactor, GTR Evo, iRacing – all provide more visual and aural motion cues, meaning driving on the ragged edge is a more intuitive and satisfying business than it is here.
Have I got time to nip inside for a Jimmy Riddle?
F1’s rides are at their most mischievous when the heavens open mid-race and you’re caught improperly attyred. Dynamic weather can turn a grippy ribbon of tarmac into a perilous puddle-strewn skidpan in a matter of minutes. The camera and spray effects that accompany these downpours are superb. Hurtling through Monte Carlo’s winding streets or Spa’s forested vales with visor bejewelled, and world refracted and reflected, is an unforgettable experience.
AI drivers hold up their end of the illusion well too. They’ll jealously guard racing lines, dart through gaps and clash and run wide on occasions. Whether you’ve opted for the truncated versions of Grand Prix (usually around 10 laps) or the full marathons, you’ll invariably cross the line exhilarated, exhausted, and haunted by what-ifs. What if I’d chosen a faster but less stable setup? What if I’d pitted earlier? What if I hadn’t rear-ended Barrichello at La Rascasse and earned that brutal ten second stop-go penalty? Even with flag realism reduced, the marshals are a merciless lot.
At times you'll wish you were in a Maestro.
Much work has obviously gone into capturing the sport’s technical and regulatory side. Recent rule changes all loom large in the race strategies that you either devise yourself or leave up to your team.
http://media2.paultan.org/images/sic-track.jpgF1 2010 almost spins out on the final corner thanks to some low framerates on denser tracks, and excruciatingly poor savegame and replay facilities, but its core of solid racing thrills sees it through. If you like your speed duels redolent, gorgeous and glazed with glamour/ rain, this is a risk-free purchase.

 

 

saints row 2 review  

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 Saints Row 2 Review

Violent games don't surface often on the mobile scene, so it's surprising to find that this slimmed-down version of Saints Row 2 keeps it real with bloody tire tracks and colorful gang warfare. The developers could've opted to keep things clean, but that little extra edge and some genuinely fun driving mechanics make Saints Row 2 a worthwhile download. Saints Row 2 looks nearly identical to last year's movie tie-in American Gangster but with several major improvements. Besides the increase in violence, which makes plowing through crowded sidewalks much more shocking, Saints Row 2 also includes robbing, stealing, and hijacking minigames. For example, you can put on your angry face to get more cash from mugging or play a variation of Tetris to cram more loot into your getaway van.

Most missions are of the typical "drive here, shoot this" variety -- and as a result, the storyline isn't very involving. But since careening through the destructible locations is consistently entertaining, and the mean streets stay open after you beat the main game, this miniature criminal lifestyle is worth pursuing.

Grand Theft Auto IV  

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Grand Theft Auto IV Review

I won’t beat around the bush: Grand Theft Auto IV is the greatest game to come out for the Xbox 360 so far. I say that without reservation and without consideration for the planned downloadable content slated for later this year that will hopefully only add to its awesomeness. It is a true evolution for the critically and commercially successful GTA series, not just a “next-gen” polish job of the same old game. But maybe even more importantly, it’s a new high water mark for video-game storytelling in general. This may sound like hyperbole, but it is deserved: GTA IV signals a moment in video-game history where it can no longer be denied that the medium can be as significant of an entertainment vehicle as the best that movies or television have to offer. GTA IV is sublime.

Yeah, but a 10? I’m saying it’s perfect? Of course not—perfect is an impossible ideal. There are quibbles to be had with GTA IV, there’s no doubt. But that’s like criticizing the brush strokes in a painting. If you’re scrutinizing it that closely, you’re missing the bigger picture. Taken on the whole, playing GTA IV is an almost transcendent experience. If you’re a fan of the series like me, just getting to play a game you’ve looked so forward to for so long is a thrill in and of itself. But it also won’t take you long to realize you’re playing a video game that exists on a whole new level.

The first time you put the game in your Xbox 360, you get a loading screen with a montage of images done in that classic GTA illustrative style. Then the game just begins. There is no menu screen where you choose single player or multiplayer or anything like that. All of that is handled in-game. Instead, you are thrown smack into the story. And outside of reloading failed missions (another nice new feature of the game—you can reload your mission from your phone right afterwards if you fail), that’s about it for loading times. GTA IV does an amazing job of streaming the entire world of Liberty City as you play. Despite what some other people who’ve played the game have already said, I experienced very little pop-up, something you can usually expect in games without hard load times. In fact, playing the game in a near-gold state a week ago, as well as now with a retail copy, my experience has been relatively glitch free. That’s not going to stop the fanboys from fighting over which version is better, Xbox 360 or PS3. Guess what…I choose Xbox 360. I’ll take achievements over a couple of higher-resolution textures any day.


http://mystuffspace.com/graphic/grand-theft-auto-1.jpgUnless you’ve been living in a cave for the past year or so—or perhaps waiting in line to check the Internet at one of those refugee camps in Californy—you know by now that Niko Bellic is the star of this game. Literally fresh off the boat in Liberty City, Niko is originally from an unnamed country in Eastern Europe, most likely somewhere in the Balkans based on his name and references he makes to his time in “the war.” As opposed to other games that let you make the character look however you want, Niko is no simple avatar for you. Like C.J. in GTA: San Andreas, and Jimmy Hopkins in Bully, Niko is an example of Rockstar’s—and namely writer Dan Houser’s—ability to craft complex and interesting characters to lead their games. But Niko is somehow different. He may be a ruthless killer, but otherwise he’s a fairly decent guy. He loves his friend’s family and has a wickedly dry sense of humor. He seems like the kind of guy who’d be fun to hang out with, provided he doesn’t shoot someone on the way to the bar. Niko is hardly a psychopath; he’s just made some unfortunate career choices and become very good at doing some very ugly business. The actor who voices Niko, Michael Hollick, does a superb job, and the fantastic motion capture and animations (especially the detailed movement of his face as he expresses emotions) also go a long way toward bringing the character to life.

We first meet Niko as his cousin Roman is picking him up at the docks. Roman is instantly engaging, a wild and crazy guy who’s really just another shlub trying to achieve the American dream. He’s as ingratiating as he is spineless, but he’s also instant compelling as a character. Roman’s fate becomes as important to the gamer as Niko’s does. I found myself feeling very protective of him as the game goes on, something I’ve never really felt I had in a video game: a friend.
In fact, the concept of friendship is central to GTA IV. Like in the prior GTA games, missions are identified by the person who gives it to you. You know, all those little letters on your map. And as in the prior games, as you progress you meet more people, unlocking more missions. But thanks to GTA IV’s ability to build relationships with certain other characters, they feel less like a device and far more real. You can call up friends and go hang out, playing pool or darts or just getting totally s***faced at a bar. As a bonus, each of those characters has a special friend ability that you can unlock, that gives you assistance in one way or another (one person brings you guns, another can deliver a helicopter to you, etc.) Again, though, a big part of why this works is the amazing writing in the game. Characters are much more complex and nuanced, far more than in prior games when characters were often more like caricatures. GTA IV has a story that features real characters with real feelings that you will feel emotions for.

The excellent characters only help to drive an excellent story. I won’t spoil anything for you here, which is difficult to do. Like all GTA games, it’s a wild ride from beginning to end, and along the way you’ll have some key decisions to make, whether or not it is to execute a certain person at the end of a mission or let them go, or make a distinct choice between two paths that are presented to you. But it’s a reasonably wild ride (i.e. no aliens or jet packs) and something you’d expect from a serious Hollywood auteur. When I said the game reaches a new high water mark, this has a lot to do with it. Dan Houser has written one of the great tales about immigrants and the American dream. At one point, Roman exclaims: “We’re going to the top, Niko. The top!” To which Niko responds: “For now, let’s just try and survive, cousin.” That right there is your story in a nutshell. Full of twists and turns, it won’t end up where you expect, but you’ll love the ride and be left wanting more. Seriously, after 35 or so hours to get to the end of the story, all I wanted was more. Those downloadable episodes can’t come soon enough.

While all the story and writing is mindblowingly great, it wouldn’t be half as effective without the technological and design achievements Rockstar has managed to pull off. Yes, at first blush, the game is simply a “next-gen” GTA. But the amazing graphics, with some incredibly natural-looking lighting and really excellent performance for a game that models such a large and detailed world, are only half the story. The implementation of the euphoria animation engine is an excellent display of that technology. People in the world move in a very natural way—just watch Niko walk down some stairs. When guns start firing, enemies fall in different ways depending on where they’re hit and even do neat stuff such as clutch their neck and stumble away or roll around on the ground once they’re shot. It looks amazing, but if you back up and look at the whole picture, it’s really just continuing to make the entire world more natural and more believable.

But the fact that it looks cool when you shoot a guy is again only part of the story. GTA IV finally delivers a good shooting mechanic to the franchise. Your time on foot, gun in hand, was always one of the weaker points in the prior games. A poor target-locking system was partially to blame, but the whole system needed an overhaul. And, boy, did it get one. GTA IV features a shooting system that borrows from the “stop and pop” concept that drives Rainbow Six Vegas and Gears of War. Niko can, and must, take cover, popping up to take shots at locked-on enemies, that can be tweaked slightly with the right thumbstick for head shots or even leg shots for people you just want to incapacitate. For the first time ever in a GTA game, combat is more fun than frustrating, and Rockstar seems to know it. Why else would they put so many big shootout levels in the game, far more than any other game in the GTA series.

Of course the alpha to the omega of shooting is driving. You couldn’t have a GTA game without it. This time around, thanks to the more advanced physics at play, driving is more of a challenge. It’s rewarding to those who enjoy it, like me, but I can see how it might be frustrating to some. No worries…just take cabs everywhere. They act almost like a teleport and I, for one, used them all the time. Best innovation to the GTA series ever. 
Maybe the second best innovation is your cellphone. A lot of games have used the cell phone as a stand in for a pause menu, to make your world seem more real by putting a real thing in it to replace something that is unrealistic. You can’t pause real life. The cellphone in GTA IV is amazing, though. Your cellphone is the link to your friends and acquaintances. It’s how they contact you for missions and it’s how you contact them for favors or just to go play some darts. It’s got your personal organizer for missions set at a certain day and time, and you can also do other special stuff with it. For exampoe, you can call 911 to summon a patrol car—then just “borrow” it when the cop arrive up. There are other neat things it does, such as the number you can call that will tell you what the current song playing on the radio is, which ties into your account at the Rockstar Social Club website (provided you register) and enables you to purchase the MP3 at Amazon.

Ah, yes…music. Another cornerstone of the GTA series. In general, Rockstar doesn’t like it when we, the media, publish information about the songs that appear in the game. This isn’t because of a need to be tight, but because they want people to be surprised when they hear a certain track in the game. I can get down with this. I will say this: The radio stations are pretty awesome and have great DJs. When did you ever think fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld was going to lend his voice to a game? They run the gamut, from rock and hip-hop to a Puerto Rican-flavored reggaeton station to a spacey modern-music station that plays high-brow experimental stuff such as Philip Glass. (It’s okay for me to say that one, because it was in the original trailer.) In general, though, the music collection this time is less of a hit parade than Vice City or San Andreas. Instead, they tried to put in a lot of cool music you know, as well as stuff you don’t, hoping to turn you on to something different. Rockstar’s taste in music is pretty impeccable.
Going back to the phone for a minute, this is your seamless entry into the multiplayer modes of the game. GTA IV features fifteen modes that you’ve probably already heard about, including standard Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch types, as well as racing and the more GTA-centric Cops ’n Crooks mode. Cops ’n Crooks is amazing with 16 players—it really feels like you have a gang on the run…or, conversely, that you are a part of a big police department battling your way across town. The fact that the world of Liberty City is open in multiplayer modes makes for some pretty interesting possibilities. I look forward to insane videos on YouTube of gamers doing cool stuff together. Rockstar pulled out all the stops on multiplayer, maybe as some kind of atonement for never really including it in the prior games. It’s hard to say if GTA IV’s multiplayer will be as huge of a hit on Xbox Live as CoD4 or Halo 3, but one sure hopes so.

Having laid out all these amazing things that Rockstar has achieved in moving its game miles ahead of anything anyone has ever attempted to do in a video game, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what gamers will experience playing through. I haven’t even covered going on dates, watching TV, your friend Brucie, getting on the Internet, the great GPS system or the four-player cooperative missions. There are so many little things, so many great details, so many unexpected random events, that I could write a book and it would just be an incredibly long list of observations. Instead, go play the game for yourself. When you see how Rockstar brought everything together in a perfect storm of video-game design, you’ll think about the score we gave it and you’ll have a hard time disagreeing. I promise.

Red Dead Redemption  

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Red Dead Redemption Review

The American West has made actors famous and writers rich. It has inspired children on the playground and grizzled country singers alike. Its stories of heroes and bandits, gold rushes and simple homesteaders have been fictionalized and romanticized to the point that they're known the world over. And yet, videogame makers have either ignored the setting or attempted to squeeze it into existing game conventions with limited success. That has all changed now that Rockstar, the group made famous for its Grand Theft Auto series, turned its eye towards the Wild West. No game maker has approached the period with as much passion and power as Red Dead Redemption. This is the new bar that all Westerns must strive to reach.

It's tempting to say that Red Dead Redemption is ahead of its time, but the reality is that this is a game of and for the times. Rockstar shows an uncanny ability to hold a mirror up to society and remind us that present day hot button issues like racism, immigration, federal government power and personal freedoms are not only nothing new, they are deeply ingrained in American society. They are forces that helped to shape America into what it is, and their inclusion in Red Dead Redemption gives it a sense of authenticity that videogames in general lack.


But rather than preaching politics at you, Red Dead Redemption puts you in the shoes of the relatively neutral John Marston. This former outlaw gone straight has found that history has a way of catching up with you. Those who were once his friends have now become enemies, leaving Marston alone and fighting for his future in a lawless land. It's a setup that is almost cliche, but this is only the beginning of your adventure.
The storyline of Red Dead Redemption will take you all over a vast swath of countryside that straddles the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Along the way you'll meet, assist, and spill blood with a fantastic cast of supporting characters as Marston attempts to set things straight. The characters are wonderful with top notch dialogue and voice acting -- all good enough to make you feel a part of the world.

If there is any criticism I could level at the story, it's that Marston occasionally feels divorced from the action, his motivations muddled as he is all too willing to help anybody that asks for it despite his own pressing matters. A simple, "I'm being made to do this," from Marston is all you'll get out of the protagonist for much of the game while secondary characters drive the tale along, which was a bit of a disappointment for me. This all changes towards the end, however, as Red Dead Redemption builds towards a shattering climax that is amongst the best I've ever seen in a videogame.

IGN Movies picks its Top 25 Westerns of All Time. Click on the image above to see if your favorites made the list.

Following that main story will take you roughly 20 hours from start to finish, though most will find that there is so much to do that it is difficult to focus on one thing. This is made by Rockstar, after all, and their heritage as masters of the open world sandbox game is not lost.

Herding cattle and breaking mustangs? Check. Tracking down outlaws for bounty? You can take them dead or alive. Treasure hunting and sharpshooting challenges? There are dozens of them. The side missions and quests range from the little things like playing horse shoes or poker to big shootouts at bandit hideouts. There are even some that are fleshed out enough to be a part of the main storyline. You could spend hours just riding around trying to track down all of the components of a new outfit for Marston, or hunting wild game and picking herbs and desert flowers. The Rockstar Social Club, a free online community that connects to the game, offers additional challenges and leaderboards to encourage even more replay. If you're looking for one game to occupy you for months, this is it. 

http://images.thekoalition.com/2010/05/red-dead-redemption-multiplayer-preview-3.jpgAs you begin to make a name for yourself, the world of Red Dead Redemption adapts to your fame. The question of ethics and morality is left up to the player. If you want to be a salty drunk that assaults women and robs stagecoaches, that's your prerogative. Others might prefer to help the needy and be more honorable. Though there is a legal system in Red Dead Redemption that will keep the most villainous in check, you're free to take the high or low road in most any situation. A little morality meter, alongside a separate fame bar tracks your actions and the citizens you come across will begin to react to your renown. It's a system that allows for a huge amount of freedom and then rewards you for exploring it.

Like many Rockstar games, that freedom may ruffle a few feathers. Several of the actions you're able to perform will surely be considered indecent by some.

But all of that is left up to the player, and as it turns out there isn't just a lot to do -- there's a lot to see. The world feels alive with something happening everywhere you turn. Birds come screaming out of the bushes as your horse thunders by. Trains whistle while storms come blowing in to fill low-lying areas with fresh puddles. Around the next bend might be a carriage being robbed by bandits, its poor inhabitants crying out for help, or there might be a cougar or bear ready to tear down your horse and bring Marston to his knees.

Walk through town and you might see a drunk assaulting a prostitute, a lynch mob dragging a poor soul through the main drag, or a person who caught wind of your fame and has come looking for a duel. The simulation -- though its aggressive nature occasionally creates a goofy backdrop to Marston's conversations -- is always presenting something new and exciting.

Welcome to the Wild West.

What is most impressive about this sandbox is how fun it is to simply hop on a horse and take off across the prairie. Red Dead Redemption is a gorgeous game with an incredible attention to detail. The art direction, particularly the careful consideration paid to the color palette and geology of the land, is superb. Exactly the right amount of red is used to make the dusty hills and plateaus come to life, the sunsets look breathtaking, and the purple mountains call out with the majesty they're known for. The area you can explore is immense and dotted with towns, ruins, and different environments that all feel hand crafted and unique. Just ride out towards the sunset and listen to the exceptional soundtrack and you'll feel teleported to a whole new world.

The setting of Red Dead Redemption, leaving out the interactive elements, is an achievement in itself. Add in the smooth way the world reacts and moves and you have a game that is stunning. Horses gallop realistically. Bodies dangling from those horses -- be it from a rope or from a foot caught in a stirrup -- animate near perfectly. Shoot a bandit in the hat and it will fly off, or aim for the legs and he'll stumble to the ground while you prepare to hogtie him. None of the animations are canned, which means every time you go out into the desert to play you'll have a slightly different and awesome outcome.

It's a gorgeous game.

The only slight detractor from this wonderful world is that Red Dead Redemption doesn't have quite the same level of polish as we've come to expect out of a Rockstar game. While playing I noticed the occasional bug (once during a cutscene the game rendered two of the same character doing different animations, creating a weird ghosting effect) and the game did freeze during loading a couple of times. The game's graphics engine can't always keep up with the action, either, resulting in some visual hiccups here or there. Given the scope of what has been accomplished here, Red Dead Redemption is actually a relatively smooth experience, but it isn't perfect.

The developer's pedigree must also be mentioned when talking about the game itself. Some will describe Red Dead Redemption as Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West and in some ways that description is accurate. Many of the same presentational elements created in the GTA universe are used here, included extended conversations during rides to the next mission and the layout of the mini-map. In that regard, GTA veterans will feel right at home, though they will find little improvements to the formula in things like better checkpoint and mission replay systems.
This isn't just a redo of Grand Theft Auto with a different backdrop, however. Rockstar did a remarkable job of taking only the elements of its past games that work while adapting the flow and the controls to the Western setting. The Dead Eye slow motion effect makes you feel like a classic gunslinger. The confluence of a wide-open setting and turn of the century technology offer the perfect mix of civilization and wilderness. And the greater emphasis on ambient missions and random encounters makes the West feel as wild and untamed as your childhood daydreams imagined it.

Red Dead Redemption handles well, too, outside of touchy horse controls that make the mounts seem a little too eager to jump over a fence or into a river. The target assist makes attacking enemies while riding a horse a breeze, but it also makes the combat a little too easy at times. The cover system works similarly to GTA IV, but there just didn't seem much need for it when I could simply walk ahead slowly ripping off shots with perfect accuracy. I died here or there, but rarely did Red Dead Redemption feel particularly challenging.

Even after you've beaten Red Dead Redemption and completed 100% of the side challenges, there's still much more to do. The game continues online with cooperative and competitive modes for up to 16 players simultaneously. The competitive action includes team and free-for-all game types including standard shootouts and a capture the flag style of game. These are a decent distraction and can be quite fun -- especially at the start when each game begins with every player standing in a circle ready to draw pistols. Any hardcore player might end up a bit annoyed by the respawn system, however, which has a tendency to start you right next to an opponent. Without the other trimmings that I'll get to in a second, it isn't the kind of multiplayer experience I'd make a steady part of my gaming rotation.

Be as bad as you want to be.

The reason to keep coming back to Red Dead Redemption for months and months is called Free Roam. This is the multiplayer lobby of sorts, but the concept has been cranked up a notch to be an entire game in itself. Free Roam lets up to 16 players join into one world and then explore the entirety of the single-player map. You can form posses and take part in little skirmishes, simply shoot each other in the face, assault bandit hideouts and forts as a team, or just ride across the countryside together while taking part in hunting and gathering challenges.

A large number of the side distractions from the single-player game are here, as well as a whole extra set of little objectives. By completing the missions, killing each other, or playing in competitive games, you can gain experience and begin leveling up to unlock new character models, modes, and better mounts to ride. Free Roam by itself is meaty enough to be an entirely separate game and it would still be awesome.

Sometimes you eat the bear...

Several special cooperative missions are being made for download as well, but they were not available at the time of this review and so they weren't considered. The first pack has been announced as free, though, so keep an eye out for it.
Closing Comments
Red Dead Redemption is a must-play game. Rockstar has taken the Western to new heights and created one of the deepest, most fun, and most gorgeous games around. You can expect the occasional bug or visual hiccup, but you can also expect a fantastic game that offers the Western experience we've all been waiting for. Red Dead Redemption is a complete game in every sense -- both the single player and multiplayer modes are excellent -- and still manages to offer an attention to detail you rarely see from a game of this scope.


Red Dead Cheat Cods  

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Red Dead Redemption Xbox 360

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360) Game Details

ame System:

Microsoft Xbox 360

PS3
Shooter Sub-Genre:
Third-Person 3D Shooter

Mature Developer:
Rockstar

http://www.geeks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/RedDeadRedemptionLogo.jpgRockstar Games

May 18, 2010

7 months, 1 week, 1 days

August 7, 2010

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 Cheats & Codes


Infinite Dead Eye

Enter: I DON’T UNDERSTAND IMNFINITY

Unlimited Ammo

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Unlimited Horse Stamina

Enter: MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

Gun Set 1

Enter: IT'S MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT

Army And Bureau Uniforms

Enter: I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM

Good Reputation

IT AINT PRIDE. IT'S HONOR

Unlock Treasure Hunter Outfit

YOU THINK YOU TOUGH, MISTER?

Become Permanently Drunk

Enter: I'M DRUNK AS A SKUNK AND TWICE AS SMELLY

Spawn A Coach

Enter: NOW WHO PUT THAT THERE?

Super Famous

Enter: I AM ONE OF THEM FAMOUS FELLAS


 



 


 

Oath in Felghana  

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Ys: The Oath in Felghana

Simplicity is something rarely celebrated in videogames, but Ys: The Oath in Felghana is refreshingly straightforward – ironic, considering it’s a port of a remake of a 20 year old game. In the wake of Final Fantasy XIII’s absurd, 20-hours-long tutorial, jumping into a JRPG and just beating the snot out of everything is a nice change of pace. That this PSP port is just plain great works to its benefit, too.
Above: This isn’t a terribly long game, but you’ll see a lot of great settings 
You won’t find a lot of story to waste your time in The Oath in Felghana. Our hero’s a ginger with a sword who loves to murder monsters – that’s all we need. What little story’s here – the bad guys are dicks, blah blah, etc. – is a mixture of melodrama balanced out by an excellent translation and campy banter. It’s well-written and regularly funny, and the fully voiced dialogue is mostly likable. Even when the VO is bad it’s good. Even the odd character – Mams is a standout – is so deliberately, laughably terrible you can’t help but listen and be amused at how silly they sound.
Once the quick discussions end, you can get right to the stabbing, and Ys is an immediately gratifying, stabtacular adventure. The combat’s a little basic, but it throws a few curveballs at you, like enemies that are impervious to your sword and such. You’ll spam the jump, attack, and magic buttons more times than you can count, but it’s far more than bland button mashing.
See, The Oath in Felghana is so absurdly difficult that its combat requires deliberate grace to come out on top. You’ll fight tons of enemies at once, and you’ll need to move a lot to stay alive. This is a fast game, and if you’re not thinking ahead you’re screwed. The outstanding boss fights force you to jump, run, and dodge to the point that you barely have a moment to attack. You’ll die, and you’ll die plenty.
Above: Pain for pleasure 
Perhaps Ys’ strongest asset – aside from its seriously rockin’, non-stop-awesome original soundtrack – is that this extreme difficulty, even on normal, is rarely frustrating. We’re not prone to enjoying trial and error, but the combat is a skill-based challenge. When you die, you know it’s your fault, and you know how to succeed even when you repeatedly fail. It’s brutal, but not unfair, which leads to even more satisfaction with your success.
Because everything moves along at such a quick clip, you’ll probably push through The Oath in Felghana fairly quickly. Compared to other Ys titles, this is a far more straightforward and short experience. You won’t collect a ton of loot, which may burn some players. But we enjoyed building big combos, clobbering experience bonuses out of baddies, and collecting materials to upgrade our various weapons and magically endowed bracelets.
Above: You’ll spend very little time reading and listening. Killing > talking 
Despite its 10-15 hour running time, Ys: The Oath in Felghana never feels short – which it is by conventional Japanese RPG standards. It’s a punchy, fulfilling game that takes you to plenty of cool places and does a lot of basic things right. We’re a fan of a good ol’ fashioned action game that gets right to the good stuff, and this is evidence that we don’t get enough of this kind of game these days.

 

Dream Mysteries  

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Dream Mysteries - Case of the Red Fox

A preview for a new hidden object game called Dream Mysteries: Case of the Red Fox has appeared on GameHouse.com, and it sounds pretty interesting. According to details posted on the site, you'll play a psychiatrist with the unique ability to "dream dive" into patients' minds to discover the causes of their warped mental states.
Dream Mysteries - Case of the Red Fox
Here's more from GameHouse:

Dr. Corey Foster is a skilled psychiatrist with the unique ability to enter others' dream states and change them. Because of her extraordinary talent, she's been invited to oversee a surge of psychiatric illnesses at the Dream Seekers research clinic. A normal sunny day finds her tending to patient's therapy when it turns baffling, as similar haunting visions inhabit all of her subjects. What exactly is going on and why is Dr. Foster now having those similar visions as well?
Dream Mysteries - Case of the Red Fox
Join Dr. Foster and help her uncover the mysterious cause of these strange conditions. Travel between reality and dream worlds, healing patient's nightmares and searching for answers via surreal hidden object scenes. Play smart mini-games, locate useful items, and solve demanding puzzles. Can you unmask the true purpose of these unwanted images?
Dream Mysteries - Case of the Red Fox
The game is being developed by Portuguese studio GameInvest SA (World of Zellians, Hospital Hustle).
Dream Mysteries - Case of the Red Fox

 

Ballville  

Posted by Games

Ballville: The Beginning

While the casual gaming industry definitely isn’t lacking in match-three puzzle games, you’re more likely to run into titles with little to no originality than to find a game that tries to be different. In comes Striped Arts with a very interesting take on the match-three genre, a game called Ballville: The Beginning, that is one of the more charming offerings in the genre.
http://games.att.net/images/games/BallvilleTheBeginning/BallvilleTheBeginning320x240.jpgBallville follows a ball, or orb, that simply goes by the name of “Captain.” Captain has been sent on a space mission that goes awry when his spaceship is struck down in a meteor field. Landing on a seemingly deserted planet, Captain decides that he can’t let his first mission be a failure, and you are to help him find his lost shipmates and build a wondrous new city using all of their skills and powers along the way.

Gameplay is level-based, with each level containing a new or at least different shaped puzzle board than the level before. You’ll be tasked with clearing orbs from the board by making a match of three or more like-colored orbs. Most levels come with two basic blockades that must be removed before you can complete the level - orange squares that must have a match made on top of them for the orange background to go away, and empty crates that can only be destroyed by making a match to the left, right, above or below it.
There are dozens of levels to complete, each of which can take anywhere from 1-5 minutes or more, depending on how quickly you can spot new matches, or how lucky you are with their placement in hard to reach spots.
 The Beginning
Since you’ll be making matches with the orbs themselves, the characters in Ballville’s story, you’ll find that each variety of orb is unique, with its own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities that work for particular circumstances. For instance, there are “Flier,” or chick orbs that will randomly switch places with a neighboring orb, while “Engineer” orbs will burrow their way to the bottom of the playing field, taking all orange or crate pieces with them, giving you a huge boost in progress. “DJ” orbs will “sing” and destroy random crates on the board, “Hint” orbs will show you a suggested move, and so on.

There are 22 different kinds of orbs in all, but you will have to unlock the majority of them over time in order to use them. Every few levels, you’ll be met with a hidden object scene of sorts, that asks you to find a group of a new kind of orb. These orbs will be hiding, either behind objects in the scene, or off of the screen entirely, and must be brought in by activating a piece of machinery on the screen.
 The BeginningOnce you have more than four or five different kinds of orbs at your disposal, you’ll be allowed to start customizing further levels before you enter them. You’ll be shown the level’s layout, along with any orange squares, crates, or pieces of machinery that must be removed therein (a task for the “Electric” variety of orbs), and you can then choose the handful of orb types that you would like to be present on the grid during that level. It’s in this that a true element of strategy is added to the game - an element that is normally missing in games of this type. This is only compacted by the fact that orb types will become tired after helping you in multiple levels in a row, so you’ll be forced to choose new orbs for a few levels in order to let them rest.
In between levels, you’ll be treated to a light version of a city-building game, as you build homes for new species of orbs, unlock crates (using coins collected in each level) to add decorations and so on. The story plays out in this “Ballville” proper, as Captain surveys his new land and discovers areas of interest or continues to search for his lost brethren.
All told, Ballville is a truly enjoyable experience. There are a few slight issues here, most notably the fact that orbs will fall diagonally after a match has been made, rather than vertically, which hinders any planning ahead you might have done, and the fact that some orbs’ special abilities can actually hurt your progress, rather than help it (Fliers, I’m looking at you), but the orbs themselves are so darn cute that it’s hard to hold them against the game for long. If you’re looking for a game with a lot of gameplay and even more charm, Ballville is a nice place to start.

Bejeweled 3  

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Bejeweled 3

http://picture.mobilefan.net/PDAPic.nsf/--Download/B151F451710D4DCA4825706E000E620D/$File/Bejeweled23arm.gifSo, Bejeweled 3, eh? Really, all you need to know is that the core game of Bejeweled 3 is nearly unchanged from the Bejeweled formula we all know and love. As you'd expect, the meat and potatoes of Bejeweled 3 is the untimed classic mode, a straightforward affair where you match gems until you run out of moves. Lightning mode probably ranks second in the hierarchy, which is more or less a timed version of classic mode. Where Bejeweled 3 really pulls out the stops is in its abundance of secondary modes that all play off the classic gem-swapping formula.

Above: Detonating a star gem 
As much as we love Bejeweled, it does get old after awhile, and as mentioned above, Bejeweled 3's classic mode isn't remarkably different from Bejeweled 2's classic mode. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and we don't want every iteration of Bejeweled to be totally different like Bejeweled Twist was (which is also awesome in its own way), but our only caveat is that if you're already sick of Bejeweled 2's classic mode, nothing in Bejeweled 3's classic mode will feel all that fresh to you. The biggest difference is the addition of the star gem, which you get from forming a same-color set of five gems in a T or L formation. When you match a star gem, it clears all the gems in its row and column. Adding one gem type doesn't change the overall feel of the game though, even though it's a nice addition that does add to the gameplay a little.
Because of said sameness, Bejeweled 3's new modes definitely drew our attention away from classic mode. There are eight modes in total - Classic, Lightning, Zen and Quest are the primary modes that are familiar from Bejeweled 2, with Poker, Ice Storm, Butterflies and Diamond Mine filling out the brand-new modes - and together they offer a good mix of both timed and untimed variations. In Poker mode, for example, you get five turns to make a poker hand, and the color gem you match each turn gets counted as a card in your hand. For example, if you match orange three turns and green two turns, you've got a full house. As you progress, easier hands like single pairs become off limits, and you have to fight to stay alive by creating the best hands possible.
Butterflies mode is also a cool twist, where special butterfly gems appear at the bottom of the screen and move up one row each turn, and you have to get rid of them before they reach the top and get eaten by a spider. It's addicting and tense (definitely the tensest of the non-timed modes) and requires developing a whole different strategy.
Quest mode combines all the other modes and adds a handful more of its own minigames, and works kind of like the challenges in Peggle. Quests get more difficult as you progress, like having to clear a specific number of gems off a classic board in a limited number of moves, where the number you have to clear gets higher each time as the moves you're allowed gets lower. It's a great way to stretch your Bejeweled skills, and it works especially well because it offers a bite-sized, finite version of the game so that you can walk away before your eyes glaze over and you get sick of looking at gems.

Above: In Ice Storm, you have to create matches as fast as you can to push the freezing water down before it reaches the top 
How much you get out of Bejeweled 3 is ultimately going to depend on how much swapping colored gems on a grid still appeals to you. If you played Bejeweled, Bejeweled 2, Bejeweled Blitz, and the Puzzle Quest series, we wouldn't blame you if you decided to sit this one out, despite Bejeweled 3 being easily the most robust entry in the series to date. Right now PopCap is offering a 60 minute free trial on its site, so if you get through the whole 60 minutes and still feel the need to match gems, that's probably a good indication that it's worth the purchase.

 

Unbound Saga  

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Unbound Saga Review

http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/unbound_saga1.jpgRick Ajax is a comic-book tough guy who is constantly forced to fight for the entertainment of readers at the whim of his creator, the Maker. He's pretty sick and tired of it, and if you play Unbound Saga, you'll understand why. Originally released on the PSP last year, this shallow and tiresome fighting game has now made its way onto Xbox Live, giving you a great opportunity to ignore it all over again.

If your sole purpose in life was to fight repetitive battles like these constantly, you'd want to escape, too.
In Unbound Saga, you have the interminable task of guiding the lumbering Rick through 10 stages of boring, mindless, side-scrolling beat-'em-up combat as he journeys to give the Maker a piece of his mind and break free of his pencil-and-ink chains. Eventually, Rick is joined by former professional damsel-in-distress Lori Machete whom he suspects of being tossed into his life as part of a crossover with another comic book. This core concept of self-aware comic-book heroes has potential, but Unbound Saga doesn't do anything interesting with it. The story is unfocused and features characters that appear and disappear for no apparent reason, as well as levels that end abruptly without any sense of pacing or climax. The action ostensibly takes place on the pages of a comic book; you progress from one panel to the next and, when the camera pulls way out, you can see the edges of surrounding panels. But the visuals only make a halfhearted attempt to sell this concept; there's never any expository text at the top of a panel, and speech bubbles appear only alongside pop-up character portraits.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/113/1135556/unbound-saga-20101118015007316_640w.jpgAs Rick, you can kick and punch your enemies into submission, as well as whack them with items you pick up, such as bottles and benches. However, Rick is so slow and his enemies so stupid that there's no enjoyment to be gleaned from any of this combat. Once Lori shows up, you can switch between the two characters at any time. She's faster and more agile than Rick, but the action is so fundamentally weak that it isn't much more enjoyable to play as Lori. Often, just when you think you've finished a panel and are ready to move one merciful step closer to completion, the Maker's hand will pop into the frame and quickly sketch a new group of mindless thugs for you to clobber. So, by the time you reach the end of this excruciating journey, you'll be longing to clobber the Maker yourself for putting you through this tedium. Unfortunately, the final confrontation is as anticlimactic and unsatisfying as everything else about Unbound Saga. Along the way, you'll be confronted by punks, werewolves, hobos, and commandos, but despite the differences in their outward appearances, there's no real variety to the way your enemies fight. Lori actually refers to the constant stream of goons and thugs as the "Mindless Ones," and they sure do live up to their name. Even bosses are only differentiated from the other fist fodder by an energy bar at the bottom of the screen.
Fighting is a drag; it looks clumsy and feels clunky. And in addition to being simple and repetitive, the brawling lacks any sense of impact. Despite the visual representation of such big comic-book sound effects as WHAM, BLAM, and SMACK every time you hit an enemy, nothing about your attacks feels hard hitting or satisfying. As you progress, you earn skill points that let you unlock new combos and abilities for Rick and Lori, but the addition of a few new moves to your repertoire isn't nearly enough to make this clunky combat compelling. Unbound Saga tries to give you an incentive to play through the campaign multiple times by letting you carry over moves you've unlocked from one game to the next, but it's hard to imagine feeling compelled to finish the game even once.
The visuals in Unbound Saga are ordinary and inconsistent. Some of the background environments are interesting, especially those in the dingy, run-down city of Toxopolis, but the character models and objects in the foreground lack the detail to match and look out of place as a result. The cutscenes are the game's high point and feature gorgeous comic-book artwork. The voice actors do a fine job, but otherwise, the sound is disappointing. The harsh, grating music might suit the ruined urban landscape of Toxopolis, but it repeats too often, and the sounds of combat lack the necessary oomph to match the comic-book onomatopoeias onscreen.

This release of Unbound Saga adds local and online multiplayer, but while sharing the experience with a friend makes the drudgery a bit more tolerable, it doesn't make it fun. No matter what you're looking for, there's a game available on XBLA that does it much better than Unbound Saga. Comic Jumper makes much smarter, funnier use of a comic-book setting, and such hard-hitting classics as Final Fight and Streets of Rage 2 have satisfying combat and enemies that attack with variety and personality. Unbound Saga isn't in the same league. With these much better games and more like them readily available for download, there's no reason for anyone to waste time with this boring brawler.

 

Worms: Battle Islands  

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Worms: Battle Islands Review

http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/worms_battle_islands_game_logo.jpgThe folks over at Team 17 apparently don't subscribe to the idea of opening a whole new can of worms. Each new incarnation of the popular Worms franchise plays like a mere expansion of the previous outing, and in many regards, Worms: Battle Islands for the PSP is no different. Granted, these worms work well for Team 17--so well that they've shied once again from drilling any new wormholes into the franchise. The difference here is in the details. The controls have never felt so effortlessly intuitive, the customization options have seldom been so extensive, and the multiplayer modes have rarely been so welcoming. That said, it's still simply Worms. Battle Islands is palatable bait for series newcomers, but even devoted veterans may find their time better spent elsewhere.

It's Worms with masks! Exciting, isn't it?
For the uninitiated, Worms places you control of a battalion of adorable oligochaetes as they assault another team with missile launchers, exploding sheep, and the occasional concrete donkey. Here you bounce over hills and burrow through tunnels with flamethrowers, worming your way out of dangers such as proximity mines. Combat is turn-based, and you have only a minute to slither over to your enemy and make your move. Of course, this same tactic works for your nightcrawling foes, so there's a chance that you'll find yourself staring straight at your killer with nowhere to run.
The single-player campaign comprises 30 moderately challenging missions spread across six islands based on widely different themes. For instance, you start out in a postapocalyptic nuclear test site and work your way through tropical jungles and frozen wastelands. In each case, you wreak havoc on the jagged landscape with your rocket launcher or some other goodie from your weapon stash, and in certain cases you can assign snipers to eliminate the competition before a round even starts. As a welcome new addition, blueprints now drop from the sky in each campaign level (and sometimes land in absurdly unreachable locations), and you can use these to modify items like your unassuming baseball bat into something decidedly more threatening.
Indeed, customization has always been at the heart of the Worms games, and easily pleased thrill seekers will be happy to know that you can customize your worm's appearance with prizes earned from missions (including new items like masks and backpacks). If you've always wanted to see your murderous worm squiggle about with a Jason Voorhees-style hockey mask, this is your chance. You can even customize your victory dance or what kind of tombstone appears after you die, and there's a welcome option to design your own level.

The excellent controls let you keep the chaos under control.
Aside from the campaign, you can also test your skills through a series of time attacks or challenging puzzles. In one of the timed trials, you need to speed through multiple laps in a cavern while using only your jetpack; in another, you swing through a canyon using only a ninja's grappling rope while avoiding a lake of ectoplasmic goo. The puzzles are considerably more rewarding: in one, you must kill two opponents in the same turn; elsewhere, you need to finish off an enemy with only a weak mine and a punch. Still need training? Battle Islands offers three training modes and a free-for-all firing range to test out your new toys.
Be prepared for several difficulty spikes as you progress through the levels. In earlier levels, your worms can sometimes stand in plain sight before their enemies and watch as the missiles intended for them head off in the other direction; in later levels, enemy projectiles find your worms as though guided by your very thoughts--even if you were "safely" buried several yards within a bunker.
The five options in Battle Islands' robust online and offline multiplayer modes will easily keep you occupied for hours--provided you can find anyone online. The usual suspects are all here, including Deathmatch, Racing, Triathlon, and Forts, which gives you a base of operations, and each features leaderboards for those eager to become the Emperor Worm. Of particular note is the new Tactics mode, which lets you return to your war room at any time during the battle as well as see the battlefield for a minute before the match so you can place traps in advance. Best of all, you can even win items from your opponents in an online session.

At higher levels, enemy worms easily kill you from the other side of the map.
Thankfully, Worms has lost none of its peculiar charm. Worms shout things like "Bor-ing!" when enemy players miss, although the limited voice options ensure that you can usually predict which phrase you'll hear next. All the best weapons from previous incarnations are here, including favorites like the holy hand grenade, which triggers Handel's Hallelujah chorus when launched. Missions are preceded by well-animated cutscenes that are often good for a quick laugh. The backgrounds are decently lively but not distracting, and the island environments are filled with quirky obstacles like downed airplanes and half-sunken ships. The music, while usually subdued, is nevertheless appropriate for the often methodical pace of Worms. All in all, Battle Islands marks a welcome return to the series' two-dimensional roots after comparatively lackluster offerings like Worms 4.
Almost. Battle Islands suffers from a few minor drawbacks, such as load times that approximate the time it takes an earthworm to traverse a summer sidewalk. Elsewhere, an annoying bug repeatedly insists that your Memory Stick was recently replaced (when it wasn't) and that you need to reenable autosave. Even so, Battle Islands makes Worms seem like it was specifically developed for the PSP, and not ported from another platform. You can zoom in and out with the left and right bumpers, and you can view every corner of the whole map with the analog stick. You can control your worm and adjust your weapons with the D pad, and trigger chaos with the action buttons. Every other button is mapped as it intuitively should be.
But is it enough? Battle Islands approaches its source material as though all 17 previous incarnations of the game were but worthy betas. Here we have no giant leaps forward; only a finished product that's been a long time coming. To be sure, newcomers may enjoy worming their way into this enjoyable though worn artillery adventure, but experienced Worms players will likely balk at paying $24.99 for more of the same.

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