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Nintendo NDSi Review

2008-11-11T12:30:00.002+07:00

Nintendo has released its new line of the Nintendo ds, the Nintendo DSi. The Nintendo DSi comes with a larger screen and a built in digital camera at 640x480. Nintendo has ditched the GBA slot which is a real pain but have made the screen 17% larger in size which is what we all want.

The new model numerous new features and changes:

* 3.25″ LCD display, 17% larger than NDS Lite
* 3 megapixel exterior camera, lower resolution interior camera
* new SD memory card slot for playing back music, images, downloadable content
* removal of the GBA cart slot
* built-in music player
* chassis is 2.6mm or 12% less than NDS Lite

Complete Review

Logitech G9 Mouse Review

2008-10-08T12:27:00.005+07:00

In an attempt to cater to the fanatical gamer in us all, Logitech has abandoned the kidney shaped, ergonomically designed mouse of the past and instead decided to bring the radically shaped G9 to market. It would seem that outside of the new shape, Logitech has built a monstermouse using bits and pieces from their incredibly popular G series of mice. Back are the adjustable weights for those who like the feel of a weightier mouse. Gone are the wireless capabilities of the G7 because nothing pisses you off more than marking up a frag on account of your dead battery.

The G9 is rich in features valuable to any hardcore gamer—a fast and precise 3200 dpi laser sensor, on-the-fly dpi switching, profile and macro management, and nine buttons. Since one size doesn’t fit all, Logitech included two interchangeable grips to accommodate people’s different ergonomic preferences, and they even included weights for that perfect balance of friction and control. Not only that, but users can decide whether they want to use the scroll wheel in a clicky, line-by-line mode, or simply zip down a page in its free-spinning mode. The one word that would best describe the G9 is customizable.

Read full review at indogeek.com

Silent Hill: Homecoming Review

2008-10-04T00:50:00.007+07:00

Sony’s recent Siren: Blood Curse and even SH’s own PSP effort from earlier this year have partially managed to scratch my itch for creepy storytelling, grotesque mutations, and undie-soiling scenarios. But, more than just being scratched I’ve been waiting for that itch to be rubbed bloody raw ever since the next-gen consoles arrived. Now, with Silent Hill: Homecoming, one of my two favorite (the other being Resident Evil, of course) horror franchises has finally arrived on my horsepower-pushing Xbox 360.

Developer Double Helix Games did a very smart thing when Konami handed them the Silent Hill license. Clearly fans of the series, they didn’t try to muck about by introducing new gameplay elements which don’t necessarily serve the story in their just-released Silent Hill: Homecoming, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs. Bioshock offered a revisionist take on survival horror, one which looks like it may be replicated in the upcoming Dead Space while Resident Evil is reportedly moving in a more “Gears-style” direction. Silent Hill, on the other hand, stays true to its roots and is all the stronger for it.

In Homecoming Double Helix have crafted an experience which is a uniquely modern take on survival horror, incorporating now-standardized game elements such as 3D camera controls and smooth character interactions into the genre’s basic tenets, bending them where necessary but never breaking them outright. In Homecoming, fear comes from keeping players in a constant state of high tension, achieved through combination of deft level and art design, unsettling audio cues and perfectly paced proceedings. In short, this latest Silent Hill, new developer and all, is at once a return to form and a bold step in a new direction.

For the first time Double Helix has taken the reins of Konami’s fright-filled franchise, and, for the most part, it seems a changing of the guard was the right move. Team Silent, Konami’s in-house developer began to lose ground after the series crowning creep-fest Silent Hill 2; SH3 wasn’t great, and The Room was worse. With Homecoming, Double Helix have crafted far from a perfect game, but one that at least gets the series back on the right track. Like Resident Evil, before its game-changing fourth entry was released, this franchise has been long in need of a serious update. It was time to do away with the clunky, tank-like controls, frustrating cinematic camera, and head-scratching narrative threads. Homecoming addresses all these issues and more, offering the best Silent Hill since 2.

This time around, the story follows Alex Shepard, a soldier who’s been discharged and returns home to Shepard’s Glen. Of course, this isn't where the fun begins. You start out in a hospital that would rival anything Eli Roth could think up for the next Hostel film and quickly discover that Alex has big brother issues. Somehow seeing his younger brother Joshua at the hospital doesn't raise as many questions from Alex as it would a normal person, but hey, this is Silent Hill and certain things are forgivable. You move quickly through the hospital and find yourself finally back home. Unfortunately, everything has changed. For starters, the fog level is increased to a point where you will begin to fear the fog again in real life, just like you did with the first game.

The unfolding story which follows comes to reveal a great deal about the history of Shepherd’s Glen, which is indeed directly linked to that of Silent Hill. A number of the series’ overarching story details are more fully developed by the time the closing credits roll, though to give even a basic idea of what would delve into heavy spoiler territory. Those who have been fretting over the presence of Pyramid Head and the hideously scarred Nurses can rest easy in the knowledge that, while their presence may not be explicitly explained, it is suitably justified.

Of course story is second to atmosphere in a Silent Hill game, and here we have some of the best in the series. For starters, the level design is generally superb. Double Helix clearly favors tight, claustrophobic spaces, as evidenced in locations such as the Shepherd’s Glen Cemetery, Silent Hill’s local prison and a subterranean hike into the depths of an abandoned mine. An abundance of tight hallways limit both mobility and visibility at nearly every turn, heightening the sense of fear. When combined with some truly unsettling ambient sound effects - the impact of which is significantly increased with surround sound - traversing these environments proves to be a mentally exhausting experience.

Even Alex’s childhood home is fair game. The player’s first visit is unsettling enough, with mom raving in the living room and a Lurker hiding in the basement. Later, when the home is transformed into its inevitable Otherworld incarnation, even the faint illusion of safety in universally familiar surroundings is stripped away. Between this and the game’s final environment – no, we’re not revealing it here – it’s clear that Double Helix is trying to hit us all where it hurts, turning even the most sacred of sanctuaries into unholy nightmares.

It doesn’t hurt at all that Homecoming’s graphics rank among the best of what’s available right now. The incredible levels of detail in both the environments and the creatures which inhabit them are highly effective in giving our imaginations fewer blanks to fill. These details extend right down to even the smallest things, such as enemies showing damage in real time as Alex cuts them apart or tiny black insects scuttling for the safety of nearby crevices when light is cast on them.

The entire production is complemented by the excellent atmosphere the franchise is famous for creating. The score and gut-wrenching sound effects nicely set the macabre mood, and the visual presentation—aside from just being too damn dark some of the time—is equally successful at setting your neck hairs on end. Enemies are as sickening as ever, and some of the bosses will have you calling for your mommy. Pyramid Head, of course, is on board in all his five-pointed-noggin' glory. Additionally, the titular town’s hellish counterpart, the Otherworld, will likely live in your nightmares long after you’ve completed the game. Despite a bit more focus on action, the series, first and foremost, continues to deliver frightening atmosphere in spades.

All of this praise doesn’t mean that Homecoming is without its flaws. The combat system, built upon a series of basic light-heavy-dodge combos, works reasonably well but some of the monsters feel a bit too cheap. Siam’s attacks in particular are nearly impossible to dodge while no such complications interfere with the game’s four bosses, all of them larger than Siam and some of them more agile. In many ways, it’s best to save firearm ammo for encounters with Siam or Smog, the game’s only true ranged attacker until the very late stages, rather than holding out for the boss fights.

As agile as Alex is, there’s also still some general clunkiness in his movements. This stems from the controls, which are vaguely tank-like. The left analog stick handles forward/backward movements and left/right strafing while the right stick manages both the camera and the direction Alex is facing. While he is thankfully fairly quick on his feet, there’s no easy way to perform an about-face. For a game so focused on avoiding confrontation, Alex’s impaired ability to turn tail and run is a bit surprising.

The story also becomes a bit muddled by the end of the game unless you’ve been reading all of the scattered notes, letters and the like. While useful objects such as weapons and health drinks emit a faint yellow glow, reading materials are only indicated by Alex’s automatic head tracking and an “Examine” pop-up command when he’s right on top of the item. Given how dark the majority of Homecoming’s are, we would’ve preferred a more user-friendly way to locate these story-advancing elements than following Alex’s head, which is often shrouded in shadow.

While there are things that don't quite feel right with Silent Hill: Homecoming, there is more than enough to hold it up as a great way to enter the month of October. This game delivers on the experience you have come to expect from the franchise. It will also give you reason to begin clamoring for the next installment. The folks at Double Helix gave me the Silent Hill I wanted: a nerve-racking, scary as hell experience to hold me over this Halloween season. Any fan of Silent Hill should be checking this out, and anyone just needing a good scare can join in the Homecoming.

GEEK SCORE : 7.9/10

What do you think?

King's Bounty PC Review

2008-10-02T22:14:00.011+07:00

Long ago, in the year 1990, King’s Bounty was created by New World Computing (also the company that created Heroes of Might & Magic). King’s Bounty was meant to be a strategy RPG in its purest form. However, from what I was told by the developers from Atari at E3 2008, the key developer of the game, Jon Van Canegham, felt that he could also create an interesting turn based series using similar game mechanics to King’s Bounty, thus leading to a very successful Heroes of Might & Magic series (which I am very thankful for).

Now, this doesn’t mean that King’s Bounty ended its existence from that point up until today, though it may seem like the case with its lack of titles. In 2001, a remake of the original was released on the PS2 but was titled: Heroes of Might & Magic: Quest for the DragonBone Staff. It received little popularity to say the least (as it was marketed as a Heroes game but was strictly like the mechanics from King’s Bounty).

The basic premise of King's Bounty: The Legend is standard-issue fantasy. There's a magical kingdom run by a noble king named Mark who has a beautiful daughter who apparently fell from the stars. Despite Mark being all good and nice and stuff, the kingdom has fallen on some difficult times as the number of bandit attacks and monster sightings has gone up in recent months. It's up to the player, a new hero and recent graduate of the Darion Temple, to head out into the world, fight a gazillion assorted monsters, loot everything that's not nailed down, track down the source of this new evil and blast it to smithereens in the name of truth, justice and all that stuff.

After installing and playing the game, the first thing I noticed was the beautifully hand drawn title screen that appears. Highly colorful and reminiscent of some of the older Heroes titles, I was impressed with the level of dedication to the art style and presentation. Also, the beginning music was very epic and enthralling. The opening sequence was a little less promising with just a few pictures of concept art and other hand drawn pictures to portray the narrated stories by a voice that sounded more out of a documentary than a storyteller from a knight’s kingdom. So, unfortunately there was no beginning animation sequence to kick off the story.

You begin the game by choosing from one of three classes: Warrior, Paladin, Mage. Each class has a brief description of the effects on gameplay (and you can make your own assumptions just by your gaming intuition). The Warrior excels in combat but lacks in magic. This gives him more inherent abilities for bolstering the abilities of his units that he commands. Mages are on the opposite end of the spectrum where their armies that they command are not as much of a factor as their spell casting abilities. The Paladin is a good median between the two, having strong leadership abilities but also a moderate amount of spell knowledge. (I will further elaborate on the specifics of each class later). I chose a Paladin because I found it important to use both skills, and the hand drawn caricature for the Warrior scared me away as it looked strikingly similar to that of Patrick Dempsey :-/

Players travel through the world on horseback via an isometric overhead perspective. The world itself is lovely if a bit cartoonish, filled with all sorts of eye-pleasing animations, with well-designed (if a bit generic) fantasy creatures wandering about the landscape and all-sorts of little ambient details that make the world an enticing place to explore. As players travel around, they'll run into various wandering monster armies as well as hero-led troops that can be fought for gold and experience points. There are also a number of castles, towns, building and ruins filled with all sorts of baddies to kill. Many of these must be cleared as parts of long quest chains, while many others offer long-term benefits or serve as a source of troops when their guardians are cleared out.

It's when the player goes into combat that the real attraction of King's Bounty: The Legend becomes clear. The conceit of the battle system is that the player's hero doesn't personally fight in battle. Instead he acts as commander and chief spell-caster for armies of men and monsters that struggle with each other across a hex-grid battlefield in the manner of classic turn-based strategy games. Katauri Interactive's recreation and update of this system does their team and the legacy of New World Computing proud. King's Bounty's battle system is incredibly deep and enjoyable, more than a match for the original game or any of the classic Heroes of Might and Magic games they inspired.

One noticeable issue with the format of the game is that easy battles can become mundane, as there are numerous battles that will take place in the game with no gaps for quests (such as the case for Heroes). This is one situation where Heroes does a better job of dealing with the problem of hackneying a routine into the ground as in Heroes, significantly weaker enemies may want to flee and you are given the option to fight or allow them to run away.

There is an auto combat feature in King’s Bounty that allows the computer to fight for you but you still are forced to watch the battle. The option of skipping weaker battles would be greatly appreciated in King’s Bounty or if they could find some way to auto simulate the battle without forcing you to watch so that players can still earn the experience, the game would flow much more fluently (they did it successfully in Earthbound so I don’t want to hear that it can’t be done).

One final addition that is only possible because of the expansive RPG nature of the game is the addition of bosses. As you play, you may run into enemies that are huge in stature and even huger in difficulty. This is a great feature that helps to distinguish this game as an RPG.

While there's a lot to the system that makes it work, two elements in particular stand out. The first are the game's beautifully drawn interactive battlefields. What battlefield the player fights on is dictated by where on the overhead map the hero encounters the opposition. While each battlefield is somewhat randomized, they'll usually have a chest the player can open (in later stages of the game, these chests become a significant source of income and magical items) as well as environmental hazards such as a bee's nest that attacks both sides or a cursed cross that slows down any army near it. That makes every battle tactically unique and really helps to stave off the "same old, same old" feeling that can come from a 60-70 hour game like this. It also makes the player's choice of where to fight often as significant as what to fight with.

The second is the sheer variety of armies the player can command. The world of Endoria is filled with a ton of controllable creatures ranging from poison-spitting mobile plants to vampires and dragons. Each comes with their own set of basic abilities as well as special powers (basic archers, for example, can be upgraded with fire arrows that do damage-over-time or ice arrows that paralyze enemy units). As the player rises in power and clears out more of the world they'll be faced with more and more powerful army mixes that will require a strategist's eye in putting together a coalition of unlikely army units to stop. Players will also acquire the ability to command "Spirits of Rage," four super-powerful units with different powers that can be leveled up separately and then employed at strategically critical moments.

I was very impressed with the amount of visual beauty that could be created without using too much graphical power. The game is fully 3-dimensional with tons of vibrant colors and flashy animations and could run on the highest settings on my cheap, mid-range 9600 GT 512 MB video card (one that can be found as cheap around $60 right now after mail in rebate). Thus, the environments were beautiful and much more varied than in the Heroes series (another benefit of making an expansive interconnected world). Battles also look sharp with detailed backgrounds and smooth combat animations that can be changed from high to low speed (you’ll most definitely want to play on high because of the aforementioned problem with battle repetition).

The sound quality is top notch for the game, providing gamers with lengthy, enthralling songs throughout their adventure. Different areas trigger different songs and though most battles have the same song, some trigger different ones as well. However, I have a problem with the amount of text in the game and wish that they would have addressed it by putting voice acting into the game for some of it. I tire of reading countless amounts of text and am tempted to skip over it sometimes just to move the game along. Sure the voice acting at the beginning is a little cheesy, but I would rather it read the text to me in the game than not have it at all.

The game does have a few other minor negatives. The very randomness that ensures replayability also contributes to distinctly weird creature distribution. It's not unusual for players to see massive armies they have no hope of defeating in the game's introductory zones while end-game regions will sometimes be loaded with creampuff battles that do nothing but slow the game down. There is an automatic pilot for combat but the game desperately needs some sort of autoresolve function to avoid players sitting through five minutes of boringly unlosable combat. The crowded overland map also makes it difficult to pick up what features are interactive, what's just scenery, what's a road and what's not (this has an unfortunate consequences if the game's pathing runs the player into a battle he or she's not prepared for). The game could also use more fast-travel options and some sort of a central "bank" for purchased creatures. As it stands now, the player often has to backtrack over huge swaths of landscape to find the troops they need for a particular combat.

In general, King's Bounty is a fully fledged RPG experience with highly executed strategy elements to boot. It is very similar to the Heroes of Might & Magic series (because both series were created by the same developer and mastermind) but it separates itself by providing real time movement and deeper character building. Visuals and Sound are top notch and well surpass the problems with story development and translation issues. Overall, the game is a great addition to the world of PC strategy gaming and succeeds in being a great remake of an 18 year old game.

GEEK SCORE: 8.5/10

Brother in Arms : Hell's Highway Review

2008-09-28T18:19:00.010+07:00

Hell's Highway's combat and squad mechanics really sell it -- allowing you to accept several of the game's shortcomings

I've always had a soft spot for shooters that rely on the size of your brain rather than your bullet caliber. The Rainbow Six franchise, the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter series, and the horribly overlooked Star Wars: Republic Commando always appealed to me because they required precision, care, and player/A.I. teamwork. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 held this same charm, and that's what made me anxious to finally get my hands on Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway -- the series' long-awaited, oft-delayed third main installment.

Brothers In Arms' first appearance in early 2005 was a shot in the arm for the battle-weary World War II genre. By putting a first-person spin on Full Spectrum Warrior's excellent 'cover and suppress' gameplay, it helped steer the genre in a more intelligent, strategic direction. Within each level were, essentially, a bunch of set-piece puzzles to solve: you'd face clusters of entrenched enemies and have to try and suss out ways in which to pick them off through cunning squad placement, and a mixture of suppression and flanking tactics. Running headlong towards the enemy was a one-way ticket to death.

Which is just as well really, because once you peel away the rain-coarsened skin textures, destructible picket fences and ever so slightly shrewder Nazi AI, Matt Baker's latest outing reveals itself to be a four-year-old World War II shooter. Fortunately for Ubisoft, it also happens to be a decent four-year-old World War II shooter - long past its prime, but still good for the odd blood-curdling Christmas yarn.

On paper, you can't argue with all the new features. The 'Big Thing' for Hell's Highway is without doubt destructible cover. It's not simply about suppressing the enemy anymore, it's about identifying weaknesses in their cover points and taking maximum advantage. If your enemy is behind a metal barricade, tough luck, but if they're stupid enough to think that a rickety wooden fence or a pile of sandbags are going to provide adequate cover, tell the men with bazookas to rain death down upon it and see just how long it lasts.

With this extra layer of strategy built in to the game, it's no longer a case of getting your squad to suppress while you merrily outflank them. It's evident right from the word go that Gearbox has expanded the battlefields sufficiently that you're almost always outnumbered. While you might have two or three squadrons of men to position around the environment, the chances are you'll be facing maybe five or six pockets of enemies. You really have to consider your priorities a lot more. Generally, you might figure out the weak links first, destroy their cover, pick off the stragglers, and then when the odds have been evened out, suppress the enemies which give you, Sgt. Matt Baker, the chance to slip in down the flanks and pick enemies off when you've got an appropriate angle.

When you do take your character into the fray (and you will, as some less-engaging missions force you to play without squads for a time), you'll find that he's a surprisingly capable fighter. I remember having immense trouble killing enemies by myself in the original game, but Hell's Highway's new cover mechanic improves accuracy while also offering ample opportunity to protect yourself from incoming enemy fire. Just like Rainbow Six: Vegas, Hell's Highway does a splendid job at changing your viewpoint, shifting from first- to third-person perspective when you take cover. This not only keeps you safe, but it also gives you a better camera with which to issue subsequent commands (though it doesn't make up for the inability to command troops via an overhead map, à la the first Brothers in Arms).

Aside from the odd, feeble tank escapade or solo interior jaunt, the entire game is structured around progressively tougher variations on this theme: once you've mastered the basics, Gearbox has you repeat the trick under distant sniper fire, or head-to-head with a light artillery piece. The default first person controls go against convention somewhat - you slip into iron-sights view by clicking right stick rather than holding a trigger - but once you've acclimatised they're solid enough. Less flexible players will be glad to know that Gearbox has stirred in alternative control schemes corresponding to popular templates. We found the "Tour of Duty" and "Ring World" layouts most intuitive.

You won't get far without the tactical map, defaulted to the back button, which furnishes you with a terrain overview together with the locations of allies, visible enemies, your next objective and "reconnaissance points." (The latter are essentially very bookish Easter Eggs - stand on one and hold X to unlock a real-life WWII recon report.) Hell's Highway makes definite strides over its predecessors in this regard: enemies and allies are hot-keyed to the face buttons, saving you the necessity of scrolling to find them, clutter is minimised, and the icons themselves are more conspicuous.

After a few missions, the game's invisible tutorial schools you seamlessly in all aspects of the game, and you cannot argue with the solid fundamentals. Everything which made the original compelling returns in a bigger, better, more technically accomplished fashion, and the battlefields offer a more expansive challenge on the whole. But does it go far enough?

In a word, no. The game's biggest problem is a crushing lack of variety. Set over ten chapters, by the time you're four or five in, the sense of grinding repetition has settled. With the enemy permanently set up in predictable formation, it really does become a case of picking off the cannon fodder, blasting through weak defenses, flanking and repeating until bored. Admittedly, some of the later chapters amp up the number of enemies you face at once, but the formula remains stubbornly repetitive. Why didn't Gearbox experiment with enemy behaviour, and get them to try and outflank you, or put you in situations where enemies are coming at you from unpredictable directions? Constantly facing enemies that only appear in front of you just feels incredibly old for a game which prides itself on strategy and authenticity.

As a technical entity, the game impresses at first with an opulent corridor crawl through a ruined hospital, moonlight spilling onto crumbling plaster, but just as you're letting your jaw drop it snatches you away to banal two-tone countryside. Gearbox's engine is not at its best rendering wide open spaces - the background blurs conspicuously at times to save on texture detail - and we noticed a fair few pathfinding problems among enemy and friendly troops alike. While some authentically leathery design work has been lavished on the character models, Hell's Highway doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Resistance 2.

To rehearse, then, this game's greatest enemy is context. There have been too many advances in the field of tactical action for Gearbox's antiquated follow-up to earn more than passing recognition. What about voice commands, a la the upcoming Tom Clancy's EndWar? What about the option to store or queue orders, set up windows of fire, or toggle soldier behaviours, as in the criminally overlooked SOCOM US Navy Seals: Tactical Strike? Couple this shortfall of ambition with some niggling mechanical hiccups and you're looking at a game which will owe its inevitable top-ten retail showing to timely marketing rather than genuine worth.

At this point, Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway represents little more than a solid evolution of the original, as opposed to being the game which takes strategic World War II action to dizzy new heights. With an engaging but ultimately repetitive play mechanic at its core, it deserves a decent amount of respect, but its charms wane rather than grow as it progresses. With little more than a rooftop sniper interlude and a trio of tank driving segments to break up the flow, Hell's Highway is short on surprises after the first few hours. It's by no means a failure, but simply lacks the inspiration to make it a must-have.

Hell's Highway's single-player battles are addictive and satisfying, and I'm looking forward to playing through them again. Hopefully, future entries -- and the ending certainly alludes to a follow-up -- will bring the story and action back on equal terms, engaging both our hearts and our minds.

GAME GEEK SCORE: 7/10

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Review

2008-09-25T23:27:00.005+07:00

Touted as being the pretender to the throne of MMO games, expectations for Warhammer Online were running high. Whilst brilliant in a lot of ways, the lack of polish and a fundamental flaw in the game dynamic does not bode well for its longevity. It is certainly worth playing, but it will leave you wondering why it was not finished before release.

WAR!!
Mythic picked the abbreviation with the same single-minded sense of purpose with which it has crafted this impressive new entry in the field of massively multiplayer RPGs. Those three angry letters send a message just as clear and pointed as Blizzard's three-letter exclamation of wonder. For all its tremendous debt to World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online is not about losing yourself in the scale and grandeur of an extravagant fantasy world. It's about the hard and gritty business of battle. WAR is all about war.

The push and counter-push of the battlefront is everywhere you look: from the bar in the top right of the screen that indicates whether Order or Destruction controls the zone you're in, to the grand Realm-versus-Realm endgame of capital city sieges; from the dynamic NPC battles littered throughout questing zones, to the way even small-scale player-versus-player battles naturally coalesce around a single, see-sawing frontline. At its best, WAR is less about standing toe-to-toe with your enemies than shoulder-to-shoulder with your allies.

There are two opposing factions: Order and Destruction, each consisting of three races. It's High Elves, Dwarves and the Human Empire for the former, and Dark Elves, Greenskins and Chaos for the latter. Each race has three to four of its own 'careers' (classes), amounting to 20 in all. Though there are definite analogues, no two races have the same classes. Each of the two sides has one city to its name - purdy, Germanic Altdorf for Order, and the epic, otherwordly Inevitable City for Destruction. These aren't social or shopping hubs so much as enormous trophies and goals, the ultimate battleground for the RvR meta-game. Once one side has a decisive upper hand on the server, they get to raid the enemy capital. The zones eventually reset so war can begin anew, but in the meantime there's glorious pillage to be had.

This has its problems of course, as although some effort has been made to differentiate each class, some do have a level sameness about them. That is to say they have different abilities, but the same effects.

Once you have made your selection you are off to your character's starting point. First impressions of the graphics at this point are pretty good. Warhammer Online has a more realistic and gritty feel than some of its counterparts. The Green Skins' area has the muddied feel of a war camp, while the Elven area has that ethereal, tree-hugger feel to it. The environments are well thought out, and have themed music that manages to capture the underlying story well.

Early quests are pretty much what you would expect (go there, kill this and gather that) but what we particularly liked is how intuitive the quest tracking is. On the larger map, quest areas are surrounded in red so you have a fair idea of where you need to go to complete your quests, and the quest tracker on the right hand side of the UI gives you immediate access to what you need to do when you get there. There is a helpful sound when you have completed the quest as well.

In addition to the quests there are events called Public Quests. These are events that take place in the open world. Often these are in stages, and usually you can stumble into them when questing. Basically they require a whole bunch of people to complete them, but in effect every player is competing against each other to earn the loot.

How it works is that every player's contribution to the quest is assessed and they are ranked according to this contribution. A random multiplier is then introduced, and the top few players are then awarded a loot sack. In the loot sack are bunch of items that you can then choose from. The rest disappear once you have made your choice, and if you miss out in the loot roll you are awarded a bonus multiplier for the next public quest when it resets (usually in minutes), which means persistence will win a reward eventually.
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This is fine in theory, but these Public Quests just don't work when there is a lack of population. The Green Skin and Chaos areas in the servers we tried were easy with heaps of people, but the Elven area had a small population in comparison, and it was largely impossible to complete these quests. Given these Public Quests result in experience points, it makes levelling in these areas all the more harder. Even in the higher population servers some PQ's were hard to complete as players had either levelled past them, or the chapter simply didn't have enough players to complete them. As the servers mature this problem will only get bigger for late-comers to the game.

Warhammer Online's PvP elements are a definite ray of Elven sunshine. Mythic has divided its PvP priorities into two forms: Scenarios and Open-world RvR. Scenarios are played like instanced team vs. team matches between Order and Destruction. Players can join scenarios as easily as clicking a button on the HUD. Groups of players that have banded together also have the option of joining and playing scenarios together.

Once inside the scenarios, players can expect standard modes of gameplay. Capture the flag and capturing and defending control points are just a few of the game modes. There are some additional ones that add a twist here and there, but it isn't anything veteran gamers haven't seen or played before. When players select to join a scenario, they are placed in a queue, so while the game is preparing a scenario, players can continue to go about their business. Once the scenario is ready, players can join and are instantly loaded into it. Once the scenario is finished, the game places the players back where they were within the game world, allowing them to pick up where they left off. For once, these out-of-world zones aren't tedious or pointless to play, and those who would normally find them to be a waste will catch themselves actually having fun.

So what of the Realm vs Realm itself? It's definitely the game's heart even if it's not as much its majority as you might think. It's fairly evident that's where the developers' love lies, as it feels much grander than the shallow PvE. This is the aspect that we're most reticent to pass judgment on just yet, as it likely won't be until a couple of months into the full release that the whole picture becomes clear. The high-level keep and city sieges could well be the most spectacular fights any fantasy MMO has ever offered, but it'll take a large, experienced population to make them work. The earlier, lower-key PvP definitely makes it an exciting prospect, however. There's a sense of intertwining to it, everything working towards a single purpose rather than being a collection of smaller, standalone tasks. Whatever your PvP activity, be it ganking RvR-flagged enemy players, seizing objectives in the open Battlefields or piling into all-out war in the closed Scenarios, it's all adding to your Renown points and your side's power.

Open-world RvR plays out in predetermined areas of each map and there are no multiple instances of the same thing. Battlefield objectives are scattered throughout these contested areas. Each tier has two maps in it, each with its own set of objectives. When one realm captures and holds all those objectives, bonuses are given to the players of that realm and the game acknowledges their dominance. Eventually, Mythic's idea leads to one realm being able to capture and hold all the objectives of each tier until the end, which results in the siege of the other realm's capital city.

Players will earn points for two different ranks, one is their overall rank and the other is their Renown Rank. Earning renown is a matter of participating in PvP, whether it's scenarios or open-world RvR. As players earn renown points and ranks, they get access to renown abilities, which can be used to help their characters become more powerful. Of course, the issue of low-level player populations cannot be ignored. How will the balance be impacted when there aren't any players left in the early tiers of the game?

Player balance in the game seems to be surprisingly good at this early stage of evolution, although we did find some of the healer classes were harder to level up than the melee classes. The combat is already attracting some debate, specifically surrounding the lack of skill or variety. We certainly found it entertaining enough, although the lack of combat options for some classes did make it seem repetitive at times.

The UI will be familiar to a lot of MMO players, and this can be readily adjusted without too much effort. Bags can be viewed as icons or in list format, and the casting bars give you a good description of the ability and a cool down time once used.

The visuals in Warhammer Online are a mixed bag. On one hand, the style should be applauded as being unique and interesting. City architecture and creature design are top-notch. Conversely, character models seem to lack the detail and finesse that was put into the other areas of the game. Weather effects and the day-night cycle will help keep the environment from becoming stale, but some areas of the world appear to suffer from "no-sun syndrome," making those areas less pleasing to the players who enjoy the scenery changes. Overall, Warhammer Online falls short without next-generation graphics, but when attempting to create large-scale combat between countless players, Mythic had to make some sacrifices. This isn't to say that the graphics are terrible or hard to stomach because they aren't dated for an MMO, but they aren't going to turn heads either.

Music and ambient sounds are good, and have a lot of variety. There are distant battle sounds, yells, animal noises etc. to all add life to the world, although these don't seem to change when you are underground. Exploring a crypt while hearing the chirping sounds of birds, although uplifting, does not fit well with the circumstances.

As we have said, there are plenty of high points in this game, however our biggest concern is how well it will build and retain the community it so desperately needs to make it playable. Early indications are concerning, with almost no in-game chatter, but the wide variety of PvP opportunities could well attract a lot of the jaded PvP players from other MMO's.

There are a lot of features that make up Warhammer Online. Most of those features aren't anything veterans of the genre don't already know and understand. And, there are a complement of bugs and glitches that accompany this giant, but the core gameplay is solid. Warhammer Online isn't trying to reach a specific audience either, regardless of Mythic's original intention. Instead, it seems to be creating a whole new audience, turning and redefining players' expectations and behaviors. If MMOs are what you enjoy, Warhammer Online is one of the best on the market. It may not have a new combat system built from the ground up, or flashy next-generation graphics, but its success without those two elements is a feat in its own right.

Its similarities to and improvements on WoW - most especially in PvP - make it the natural next home for anyone either dispossessed by Blizzard's effort or who has held out from all MMOs in the hope of something a bit meatier. Playing Warhammer Online, it's easy to forget that this game stems from a hobby so often accused of nerdiness. It shares design values, fiction and certain concepts with the Warhammer tabletop game, but really it's only the name that binds them. Conan was supposed to be the so-macho MMO, but against this it seems a bit Sealed Knot. WAR is war. The associated intensity of this means it probably won't pick up anything like the audience WoW has, but it will get a large one. And a very, very satisfied one at that.

Ups:

Warhammer fans will love the faithful creation of the Warhammer world. One of the best player versus player games currently on the market. Some great new MMO concepts.
Downs:

This game deserved more time in the testing phase. Poor installation mechanics and glitches make this very much a diamond in the rough. More concerning is the reliance on server population to make much of the game playable.

GEEK SCORE: 8.2/10

Devil May Cry 4 Review

2008-09-18T23:58:00.001+07:00

If you play Devil May Cry 4 on the PC, you should expect all of the same visceral carnage featured in the console versions, but there's a caveat: You'll need a gamepad. If you're a glutton for punishment, you can try using the game's keyboard control scheme, but it's awkward and frustrating. However, assuming that you have a decent controller, you'll find that this excellent sequel is Capcom's finest PC release in years.

It's a challenging experience, though its smoother difficulty curve makes it far more accessible than Devil May Cry 3. In this vein, you're given an excellent number of gameplay choices that help you tailor the challenge to your preferences. You can initially choose one of two difficulties (and if you want to cry like a little kid, you can unlock several more), and you can even choose whether you want the game to perform some combos for you automatically. No, you aren't apt to find Devil May Cry 4 to be excessively tough on your first play-through, although it is no walk in the park, either. Nevertheless, it is generally excessive, and that isn't a bad thing. Stylish action, terrific boss fights, and beautiful, melodramatic cutscenes will inspire you to push forward, and they serve as an appropriate reward for a well-played sequence of demon slaying.

Dante's back, and he's badder than ever.

It isn't surprising that a game featuring the charmingly insane Dante would be so over the top, though the series' famed antihero is not the real star this time around. Don't worry; you'll still get to play as Dante, and he brings with him a good selection of weapons and fighting styles, just as Devil May Cry fans would expect. But you'll spend the majority of the game as newcomer Nero, who has a selection of impressive and elegant moves of his own. Nero is an excellent character, capable of delivering a few wisecracks, a brooding glance, and a heartfelt plea of love to his beloved Kyrie in a few moments' time. He's clearly cut from the same cloth as Dante, and it's a bit disappointing that the game doesn't explore this connection in more detail. Regardless, you'll want to follow Nero's exploits as he struggles to learn the truth about his own religious organization, The Order of the Sword, and Dante's apparent murder of its leader.

The story doesn't offer up a whole lot of surprises, but it embraces a certain attitude of self-indulgence. Cutscenes are overwrought, visually stunning affairs, and are among the best you are likely to see in any game in recent years. The theatrical dialogue, impossibly athletic animations, and swooping camerawork make for quite the spectacle, but somehow it's a spectacle that manages to stay on just the right side of cheesy. Devil May Cry 4 takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, so for every shocking, bloody cutaway, there's an equally funny quip that helps keep the narrative in check. There are a couple of cringe-worthy exceptions, such as one scene in which Dante decides he's a tango dancer (don't quit your day job!), but overall, you're apt to find the scenes to be gorgeous, thought-provoking, and emotionally stirring.

Nero's claim to fame is his demonic arm, better known as the devil bringer. With it, you can grab on to distant enemies and pull them in, pick them up, and slam them around for some excellent combos, plus deliver a few other surprises. These mechanics are easy to pull off, and they represent a general shift from the defensive gameplay of Devil May Cry 3 to a more aggressive approach. As you play, you can pull off some incredibly satisfying moves, both in the air and on the ground, and the most violent of these are accompanied by slick, bloody animations and appropriately gory-sounding thwacks and slashes. Timing these various moves can be tricky, but like in the previous games, eventually the subtleties of your combos will click, and in time you'll be pulling enemies toward you, slashing them into bite-size pieces, and smashing them into one another with glee.

The devil-bringer moves go a long way, which is probably a good thing, given that Nero has neither as varied an arsenal as Dante nor access to multiple fighting styles. However, he does have his standard sword, the red queen, and a revolver known as blue rose, and later on he earns another weapon that franchise fans will enjoy seeing in action. As you progress, you will earn proud souls based on your performance in any given mission, and with them, you can purchase new combos and upgrade existing ones. And you'll need them to handle droves of demons that get progressively tougher--and which are awesome to look at, to boot. You can choose these new moves individually, or you can let the game autoselect them for you based on how varied you want your array of attacks to be. It's worth noting that you can't really make a mistake here; if you don't like the move, or if there is a more powerful upgrade available to you, you can unlearn what you have purchased for a full refund and use the souls for something else.

In Devil May Cry 4, style is substance.

You'll also encounter a number of secret missions scattered around, and you'll no doubt find them to be the most challenging aspect of the game. In some cases, you have to execute a certain move a set number of times in a row, or dispatch every demon within the allotted time. Although those missions are challenging, others require you to have purchased a particular move before you can manage it. If at first it seems that some of these missions are simply unbeatable, have faith and return to it later. There's a good chance that you were simply missing a piece of the puzzle. You aren't required to do these missions, but the orb fragment that you earn is a perfectly fine reward, and accomplishing these difficult tasks is incredibly gratifying.

Vampire Rain: Altered Species Review

2008-09-18T23:54:00.000+07:00

Vampire games apparently can't be staked. If they could be finished off a la Van Helsing, you can bet that Vampire Rain: Altered Species would never have made it to the PlayStation 3. Developer Artoon's blend of Splinter Cell-style stealth gaming with toothy creatures of the night was so awful when it debuted for the Xbox 360 last summer that it deserved to be locked inside its coffin for good. Alas, the game has been resurrected for a new platform with a subtitle added to it in the hopes of fooling people into believing that this is a superior sequel. It isn't. This is a mostly straight-up reissuing of last year's debacle, loaded with the same crippling design screwups and absurd difficulty.

Playing Splinter Cell with vampires isn't as cool in reality as it is on paper. About the only good thing about this game is that it doesn't waste your time; it broadcasts its awfulness right from the start. The campaign tells the ludicrous tale of John Lloyd, member of a team of plucky commandos fighting a secret war against postmodern vampires called Nightwalkers. These fanged goons are biting their way across America and will outnumber Joe Sixpacks with pulses in precisely 908 days. The new PS3 version of the game better explains how this is happening, courtesy of a relocated flashback scene, although the whole story still seems faintly ludicrous and not the slightest bit scary. Civilians are still walking the streets at night without a care in the world, so it's hard to believe that you're in the middle of a bloodsucking apocalypse. Visual design of the game is too urban and high-tech to give off any sort of creepy gothic vibe, so the game always goes for the gross-out. Yet gory scenes, such as the one where you discover some of your buddies have been turned into performance art through the innovative use of stop signs, seem more like cheap gimmicks than truly spooky.

Oddly enough, the rain of murderous vampires doesn't keep pedestrians and cops from wandering the streets at all hours of the night.

It's hard to get too creeped out by the protagonist and setting, either, because both are pulled straight from Splinter Cell. Aside from fanged foes ripping your throat out when you lose, there aren't any differences between Vampire Rain and a typical espionage-style sneaker. Lloyd looks exactly like Sam Fisher, right down to his black Underoos and night-vision goggles. Mission objectives are taken from the Third Echelon playbook. You're sent on one technological scavenger hunt after another, set in usual-suspect locales, such as offices, parking garages, warehouses, and deserted city streets. Goals are very formulaic. Even though Lloyd is supposed to be fighting an undead invasion, he spends most of his time dealing with standard spy stuff, such as sabotaging electronics, shutting down power plants, and sniping bad guys. Level design should also be familiar because you spend the game creeping through alleyways, climbing ladders, and sliding down wires or poles in a desperate attempt to avoid the vision cones of patrolling bad guys displayed on your minimap. The only striking difference between this game and a typical sneaker is that you're dealing with undead killing machines that have no personality--not the usual sentries whining about noisy rats. Instead of getting to listen to inane conversations tipping you off to the guards, you get a cheesy flashing-eyes special effect that lets you know somebody with fangs is watching and you've got a couple of seconds to get under cover. If you fail, you're dead. If you succeed, congratulations--you've just beaten a transparent game mechanic.

Still, this isn't exactly a by-the-numbers stealth game. New ideas are introduced in almost every area, but these innovations just mess up what should have been a pretty straightforward game design. First of all, Nightwalker vision cones are rough approximations of what the beasties can actually see. Shadows are more authentic zones of darkness here, not the magic cloaking fields seen in the Splinter Cell and Thief games. But even though you get used to this vagueness, the fickle vision cones force you into tedious trial and error. Sometimes, you'll go to great lengths to get around a sentry that you're positive will be able to easily spot you, only to eventually abandon this alternate route and discover that you can dart around the bloodsucker unseen. Other times, you'll try to walk by a Nightwalker a half block away and be sighted immediately. To make keeping track of enemies even more bothersome, their vision cones are not automatically activated on the minimap. Instead, you have to switch on the necroscope feature of your night-vision goggles to check heat signatures and separate the vamps from innocent derelicts wandering the streets at 3 a.m.

Second, Nightwalkers are virtually impossible to kill. Throughout much of the game, weapons are worthless, so it takes a full clip of the automatic rifle or the submachine gun to take down a single Drac-pack refugee. They are also amazingly fast and kill with just two swipes, the first of which always incapacitates you. And once a Nightwalker gets you in its sights, it goes on the hunt until one of you is dead and can even pursue you by leaping all the way up to the tops of buildings. So there's no running away or hiding. Later weapons, such as a UV knife and a sniper rifle, make it easier to kill Nightwalkers, although these new-and-improved devices require rare ammo (yes, even the freaking knife), and disappear at the end of each level. Some levels appear to have been tweaked for the PS3 release, however, which makes the game marginally less difficult in spots. The vampire population seems to have been trimmed back in some key locales, and ammo caches have been made more common. These two changes make both sneaking and shooting more palatable. Still, nine times out of 10, vamp numbers, toughness, and speed continue to make it suicidal to try fighting them.

A Nightwalker's speed is pretty cool to behold in a picture, but it's very frustrating to actually be on the other end of its fangs and claws.

Level design causes more headaches. Paths forward are relentlessly linear in the campaign missions. Even though street scenes in the game appear wide open with lots of alleys to explore and ladders to climb, you're hemmed in by invisible borders. Basically, you're herded toward the single route through a level by both invisible and real walls, as well as heavily populated groups of vampire sentries, that you immediately know you have to find a way around them. Everything is so dark, however, that it can be tough to figure out which way to go. Most backgrounds are so shadowy that fine details are swallowed by the gloom. You frequently can't be certain of the presence of vampire sentries until you stumble over them. Night-vision and necroscope goggles can be used to pierce the blackness, but the battery powering them runs down in a few meager seconds.

Vampire Rain's murky visuals haven't been cleaned up for the PS3 port. This take on the game looks and performs worse than its 360 predecessor. Load times are long, despite a mandatory 30-minute installation of almost 4GBs to the PS3's hard drive, and jagged edges are on show everywhere. Sound effects don't help you navigate the darkness, either. Vamps generally don't say anything when they spot you, and their footsteps are so muted that they might as well be walking on air. They never talk to one another, shuffle their feet, cough, or even complain about how Count Chocula is an offensive vampist stereotype. Generally, they just stand stock still, mindlessly staring into space or mindlessly staring into space and smoking. The only noteworthy aspect of the audio is a high-pitched score that raises your heart rate and the squelching sound of a vampire mowing down on your carotid artery during the you-got-killed cinematic.

Solo gameplay modes outside of the campaign are generally unimpressive. One-off levels called trial stages can be more entertaining than the full-blown story missions because of somewhat innovative ideas, such as playing tag with all the other members of your team or grabbing a weapon from under the nose of a vampire, but they are too short to be all that involving. The only multiplayer option that stands out is Death or Nightwalkers, a solo and team Deathmatch variant where a killed player can turn into a vamp. Of course, all this does is give the player the absurd speed and strength of the vampires, so games end up unbalanced. It's probably best to stick with the uninspired alternatives online, which include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and a Capture-the-Flag clone where you capture a flame.

Now let's go back to hoping that this is the end of the Vampire Rain series. But just to be absolutely sure that nobody has any bright ideas about summoning the game back from the grave for a third go-round, please hang some garlic over your Wii.

Saints Row 2 Hands-On - Story, Co-op, and Zombies

2008-09-18T23:46:00.000+07:00

By their very nature, sandbox games are open-ended experiences where the balance between story progression and time-wasting mischief is entirely up to the player. It's hard to take that formula and squeeze it into a short demo, which is why THQ recently invited us to spend an entire day with Saints Row 2. This extended play-through gave us ample time to plug away at the bandages-to-riches storyline, cause some chaos with real and improvised side missions, and take a spin through Stilwater in a co-op setting.

Welcome to the gang-ridden world of Saints Row 2.

The first Saints Row greeted players ready to embark on their journey into gang life with one of the more elaborate character creation systems seen at the time. Saints Row 2 takes that system and beefs it up considerably, giving you the option to customize a truly ridiculous number of attributes. Using sliders adjusting everything from your overbite to your septum width, you can craft an avatar of either gender that looks anywhere between "perfectly normal" and "abomination of nature." Once your base physical attributes are set, you can set the mood of your face with a number of fixed facial expressions to make yourself look confused, joyous, or just plain evil. From there, you have three voice options for each gender (including a wonderfully out-of-place English accent for the gents) and the ability to choose your taunts and walking style.

Your character then begins the game on a prison hospital bed, awaking from a five-year coma caused by the explosion that capped off the first Saints Row. You're whisked away from these confines by a friendly prison mate only to realize that the Saints are no more. Other gangs still roam the newly expanded streets of Stilwater, but the purple-clad clan you worked so hard to build up in the first game has been more or less eradicated. Thus begins the story, with you working to build the 3rd Street Saints back to glory. And because you're ostensibly playing the same protagonist from the first game despite crafting a brand-new avatar, Volition has tossed in plenty of self-deprecating dialogue like, "You look different. Did you get a haircut?"

First on the agenda is rescuing fellow Saint Johnny Gat, who's currently on trial with over 200 counts of homicide to his name. This mission involves storming the court trial with some heavy firepower, taking out the guards, and ushering Johnny out the door. The idea of storming a particular stronghold with guns blazing becomes a familiar refrain for the first few missions of the game, as the next item on your list--securing a base of operations for your gang--involves clearing all the Sons of Samedi and gang members (and a few scattered hoboes) squatting in a local abandoned mission.

Once you've got a base, the story missions begin to offer more than just shooting scads of people. One mission requires you to recruit some fresh blood for the Saints, and you go about this by doing odd favors for some of the local talent. One girl has you proving your worth by flying off a few of the big jumps lurking all throughout Stilwater, while another would-be Saint asks you to take his tow truck and impound the car of someone who owes him some money. But these types of missions are more the exception than the rule, as most tasks require you to exercise extreme prejudice against rival gangs in your quest to take back the city.

Explosions are a way of life in Stilwater.

One of the most compelling features added to Saints Row 2 is the ability to go through the entire story (and any mission in the game, really) in two-player co-op. It's a simple drop-in, drop-out affair that allows for you to set your game to be public, friends-only, or invite-only. The missions are beefed up in difficulty and enemy AI to compensate for your doubled firepower, and are triggered whenever one player chooses to begin. One odd thing about the co-op is that each player only sees his or her own character during the cutscenes rather than both of them, but as long as you're not playing on side-by-side televisions like we were, that shouldn't be a tremendous issue. And thankfully, there's no tether system to be found; you and your friend can exist on completely opposite ends of Stilwater if you so choose.

Dead Space Updated Hands-On - Environments, Story, Combat

2008-09-18T23:30:00.000+07:00

A's upcoming sci-fi horror game Dead Space drops you into the not-so-lucky space suit of Isaac Clarke, a member of a deep space rescue team. Unfortunately for Clarke, his own rescue team finds itself in need of rescue quicker than Corporal Dwayne Hicks of Aliens can say, "Game over, man!" The game is being developed internally at EA and has been making us jump since we got our first look some months ago. We finally got our hands on a work-in-progress version of the game for the Xbox 360 to see how the various demos we've seen all fit together.

Welcome to Dead Space. Watch your step.

Our version of the game let us start a brand new game, which eased us into the story. If you're a fan of science fiction movies and games, Dead Space's narrative should feel familiar. Like at the start of a lot of hair-raising sci-fi tales, the game has a team of folks going to investigate a ship (in this case, the USS Ishimura) with which contact has been lost. And just like in those sci-fi nail-biters you may be familiar with, things end up going horribly wrong for said team. In fact, your ship will meet an unsightly end early on in the game. And in Dead Space, Isaac's special lady is onboard the derelict ship...which makes things personal.

Your core goal is to find your lady friend and get the heck out of there with your surviving teammates. Of course, because you just know things aren't going to be easy, there's also a mystery to uncover, namely what happened to the Ishimura's crew of 1,000 people. To add some urgency to the proceedings, the Ishimura has seen better days and requires you to do some repair work to get around. This is, of course, all complicated by the fact that there's all manner of unpleasant creatures lurking between you and just about everywhere you need to go.

What happened to everyone? Why couldn't your lady friend have picked a less ill-fated assignment? We don't want to spoil the plot, but we will say this: Clark eventually discovers that many of the deadly threats he finds are actually what's left of the Ishimura's crew. Exactly what happened to them is what you'll have to discover as you explore the ship. As for your girl picking a better assignment, well, you're just that lucky. You'll discover all this and more as you make your way through the massive ship--on foot and by tram--as part of what appears to be a linear story.

Dead Space's approach to gameplay should be familiar to veteran players of third-person action games. You'll run around, explore, solve puzzles, and strategically dismember the creatures you come across. Yep, strategically. Although the enemies you face do seem space zombies of some sort, shooting them in the head just doesn't get you very far. You'll have to take out the arms, legs, and other important appendages before finally taking your enemies down for good. You'll have plenty of options for how to do this as you explore the game and buy yourself more weapons. Yes, in the future, there are vending machine-style shops that sell you stuff. You'll start out with a simple cutter but find tons more if you've got the cash. You'll also be able to upgrade your suit, which is basically the only thing that stands between you and horrible death.

Besides offering functional goods, such as weapons and upgraded suits, the vending machines will also offer health and ammo. You can also increase the types of items available in the machines by finding blueprints of new items. You'll find more money and ammo with careful exploration as well. However, one of the most important items to find are special nodes that you can use at workbenches you come across on the ship. You'll be able to use these nodes to power up different attributes on your weapons or suit; this will be crucial to survival.

Shooting them in the head doesn't quite cut it on this derelict spaceship.

While all of the above may sound pretty standard, Dead Space gets a BioShock-like twist thanks to the addition of special powers you can gain, such as slowing time or moving objects. They come in handy when solving puzzles. Other elements in the mix are the space- and zero-gravity sequences, which force you to either get through areas before your suit runs out of air or figure out how to get through rooms that feel like an MC Escher painting. While it may sound like a crazy quilt of mechanics rolled together, it actually works pretty well from what we've played. There's a good amount of variety, and the story elements that are peppered throughout have been keeping the action interesting so far.

NHL 09

2008-09-18T22:34:00.000+07:00

There are few moments in any sports video game more satisfying than scoring a goal in NHL 09. It's more than aiming top-shelf and pressing a button before the goalie gets into position. No, you have to outmaneuver the defense with quick skating and smart passing,

work your way into scoring position, and then manually put the puck where the goalie isn't. But if you played EA Sports hockey in the past two years and experienced the stellar control mechanic known as the skill stick, you already knew all this. In NHL 09, EA expands on its already outstanding gameplay with a host of addictive game modes that make this, quite simply, one of the best sports games of all time.

The future of hockey? The Kid sure does play like it.

With skill-stick control, your right analog acts as your hockey stick. Move it left or right to deke, press up for a snap shot, down then up for a slap shot, and to the side then up for a wrist shot. On defense, you have 360-degree control to clog passing lanes, deliver poke checks, and pull your opponent's skates right out from beneath him (two minutes for tripping.) There's also a dedicated stick-lift button that, when used in proper position, will whack an attacker's stick away from the puck. When not in proper position, you're likely to be whistled for high-sticking or slashing, but this aggressive defensive move adds another risk/reward element to the action.

If anything, the new skill-stick additions transform NHL 09 into a defensive-focused game, forcing you to use actual hockey strategy to get past the blue line. Indeed, flip-dumping the puck into the offensive zone--another new maneuver this year--will allow speedy wingers to get behind aggressive defenders sliding in for the pinch. You'll have to take what the excellent defensive AI gives you; working passes into the slot or behind the net and cycling the puck to create scoring opportunities. Simply zigzagging past defenders on the breakout isn't going to work, especially on higher difficulty settings. Rest assured, there are fewer scoring opportunities than in years past, and NHL 09 is a much better overall hockey experience because of it.

But in large part, the overall gameplay on the ice remains very faithful to last year's game. Checking is mapped to the right analog stick, and the physics have been improved so big hits can only be delivered at direct angles (provided the defender has a full head of steam). A stationary defenseman is more likely to harmlessly shove an attacker than knock him off his skates. This eliminates arcade-style hit fests and forces you to play more conservative defense. If you pull defensemen out of position to deliver a big hit, you'll open up the slot, and skilled opponents will take advantage. Hockey purists won't like all the off-the-puck hits that could easily be whistled as interference, but these concessions to video game fun are balanced well against the game's dedication to realism.

Because this simulation approach forces you to play real hockey, casual players that loved the old arcade style may feel lost. Fortunately, several tutorials are included that introduce player controls and some basic strategy tips. And if you still hate the skill stick, you can opt for the two-button NHL-94-style controls.

Most of the development time on NHL 09 appears to have been spent off the ice on two new modes: Be a Pro and the EA Sports Hockey League. When you first pop in the game, you're asked to create and customize your own Be-a-Pro character, from the length of his mullet to the flexibility of his hockey stick. You can then plug him into the AHL affiliate of your favorite NHL team and try to take him from a wet-behind-the-ears rookie to an NHL legend. This Be-a-Pro mode is similar to Superstar mode in Madden NFL 09. A third-person camera follows your character on the ice, and experience points earned in-game can be used to upgrade your attributes. The first time you find yourself alone on a breakaway, you'll be absolutely hooked. As satisfying as scoring is in the normal game, a Be-a-Pro goal will have you jumping out of your seat because you're so much more attached to the player scoring it. There are some occasional camera issues as you move behind the opponent's net or transition from offense to defense, but overall this mode stands head and shoulders above similar modes in other sports games.

Professional hockey players only have one professional debut. Enjoy it.

The EA Sports Hockey League lets you take your Be-a-Pro character online and join friends for six-on-six matches, expanding on the three-on-three online matches of NHL 08. If you choose to create your own team, you can select your jersey from any of the NHL teams, international teams, AHL teams, or European league teams. Then, you can select a team name and motto before commencing your assault on the leaderboard. It's an engaging online mode for sure, but it's not without its problems. We suffered significant connection issues, and the interface is confusing. Game invites are terribly frustrating because accessing your friends list isn't intuitive in the slightest. Even though you play as your Be-a-Pro character, your skill attributes do not carry over from one mode to the next, which is a shame because it takes several games to earn enough experience points to gain just one attribute point in a category. On the ice, there's also a strange bug where a computer-controlled defenseman will rip a slap shot into the stands if he receives the face-off. Despite its foibles, though, the EASHL is a mode you just have to play for yourself. Forget scoring goals. Simply playing good team hockey is an addictive thrill that will have you coming back for much, much more--if you manage to connect to a game.

If you love playing head coach and GM, the deep Dynasty mode makes a welcome return. The create-a-play feature has been expanded to include breakout and sideboard plays, which are perfect for triggering dump-and-chase plays for those who can't dance around defenders at will. With the AHL license, you can call up hotshots from your minor-league team and send down aging veterans or simply place them on waivers. If you don't care to participate in any of the hardcore management, you can play your way through the schedule and let the computer handle those decisions for you. A Tournament mode rounds out the game modes, letting you play through the SM Liiga of Finland or Elitserien of Sweden--there are five European leagues featured in all.

The classic Canadians almost make up for the lack of classic teams. Almost.

Where NHL 09 does not fall behind is with its slick player models and excellent animations. There are hundreds of new player animations, including some bone-crushing checks into the boards. The frame rate holds at a smooth 60 frames per second on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, although you will notice some slowdown during replays and cutscenes. In the booth, the former ESPN play-by-play tandem of Gary Thorne and Bill Clement is arguably the finest duo in sports video game commentary. Gary Thorne's voice alone can carry the action of a little league baseball game, and Clement continually drops insightful hockey knowledge, even if some it is recycled from last year's game. Regardless of the fact that ESPN no longer broadcasts NHL games, Thorne and Clement add even more color and authority to NHL 09.

If you even have a passing interest in hockey, you owe it to yourself to play NHL 09. EA has raised the bar yet again for its hockey franchise with engaging gameplay, excellent presentation, and enough game modes to tide you over until Christmas. Move over Blades of Steel, NHL 09 has earned its place among the greatest sports games of all time.

Street Fighter IV

2008-09-17T22:41:00.004+07:00

With no need to save up your quarters for the arcade, Street Fighter IV is on its way to home consoles.

It’s been a long time coming, but Capcom has decided to grand the wish every Street Fighter fan with the fourth installment (no counting spin-offs and updates) in the series. What can fans look forward to when it releases? Already released in arcades, we have some insight on what to expect.

Ryu is back to reclaim his spot as the top emotionless fighter.

Among the most important aspects for fighting titles has to be the character roster. In the arcade version there are 18 fighters currently residing in the world of Street Fighter. Don’t fret if you consider 18 to be a small number as Capcom is promising to include at least extra three characters for the console versions. As for who is represented, here is a list of characters you can currently play (or will in the console versions) with:

1. Ryu. 2. Ken. 3. Chun-Li. 4. Guile. 5. M. Bison. 6. Sagat. 7. Vega. 8. Balrog. 9. E Honda. 10. Blanka. 11. Zangief. 12. Dhalsim 13. Vega. 14. Rufus (new). 15. El Fuerte (new). 16. Abel (new). 17. Crimson Viper (new). 18. Seth (new). 19. Dan. 20. Cammy. 21. Fei Long.

On your knees fool!

Street Fighter IV not only features a healthy cast of characters, it also has in-depth fighting mechanics that should please hardcore fans. The largest introduction to SFIV is the focus attack which is essentially built up counter attack against your opponent. Think of it as building up adrenaline and then using it to counter your opponent with a surprise attack. Having played around with the focus attacks, it’s safe to say that they add a new tactic for players to take advantage of within their fights rather than continually trying to string together large combos.

A sucker-punch at its best.

Another large reason why the console version will prove to be a worthy cure for your Street Fighter addiction is the possibility of downloadable content. Yes, that’s right; Capcom and the producers of SFIV are considering bringing forth downloadable characters after the release of the title to the consoles. No word on what the download content would consist of, but one can only imagine that new characters and environments to fight in are in the works.

Clearly hugging it out is the only way left to go.

The last bit of information we have on the console versions are that they may end up including the car-smashing bonus rounds. It also hasn’t been officially announced, but Yoshinori Ono, the producer, has commented in the past that he has considered adding them in. It would be a godsend if they are included as gamers love to whack away on those cars in-between matches – plus, they served as a great distraction from straight up fighting.

You can look forward to Street Fighter IV on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC for either a late 2008 or early 2009 release. Until then, stay tuned to GWN for our coverage of Street Fighter IV over the next few months.

Dead Space Updated Hands-On - Environments, Story, Combat

2008-09-17T22:41:00.002+07:00

EA's upcoming sci-fi horror game Dead Space drops you into the not-so-lucky space suit of Isaac Clarke, a member of a deep space rescue team. Unfortunately for Clarke, his own rescue team finds itself in need of rescue quicker than Corporal Dwayne Hicks of Aliens can say, "Game over, man!" The game is being developed internally at EA and has been making us jump since we got our first look some months ago. We finally got our hands on a work-in-progress version of the game for the Xbox 360 to see how the various demos we've seen all fit together.

Welcome to Dead Space. Watch your step.

Our version of the game let us start a brand new game, which eased us into the story. If you're a fan of science fiction movies and games, Dead Space's narrative should feel familiar. Like at the start of a lot of hair-raising sci-fi tales, the game has a team of folks going to investigate a ship (in this case, the USS Ishimura) with which contact has been lost. And just like in those sci-fi nail-biters you may be familiar with, things end up going horribly wrong for said team. In fact, your ship will meet an unsightly end early on in the game. And in Dead Space, Isaac's special lady is onboard the derelict ship...which makes things personal.

Your core goal is to find your lady friend and get the heck out of there with your surviving teammates. Of course, because you just know things aren't going to be easy, there's also a mystery to uncover, namely what happened to the Ishimura's crew of 1,000 people. To add some urgency to the proceedings, the Ishimura has seen better days and requires you to do some repair work to get around. This is, of course, all complicated by the fact that there's all manner of unpleasant creatures lurking between you and just about everywhere you need to go.

What happened to everyone? Why couldn't your lady friend have picked a less ill-fated assignment? We don't want to spoil the plot, but we will say this: Clark eventually discovers that many of the deadly threats he finds are actually what's left of the Ishimura's crew. Exactly what happened to them is what you'll have to discover as you explore the ship. As for your girl picking a better assignment, well, you're just that lucky. You'll discover all this and more as you make your way through the massive ship--on foot and by tram--as part of what appears to be a linear story.

Dead Space's approach to gameplay should be familiar to veteran players of third-person action games. You'll run around, explore, solve puzzles, and strategically dismember the creatures you come across. Yep, strategically. Although the enemies you face do seem space zombies of some sort, shooting them in the head just doesn't get you very far. You'll have to take out the arms, legs, and other important appendages before finally taking your enemies down for good. You'll have plenty of options for how to do this as you explore the game and buy yourself more weapons. Yes, in the future, there are vending machine-style shops that sell you stuff. You'll start out with a simple cutter but find tons more if you've got the cash. You'll also be able to upgrade your suit, which is basically the only thing that stands between you and horrible death.

Besides offering functional goods, such as weapons and upgraded suits, the vending machines will also offer health and ammo. You can also increase the types of items available in the machines by finding blueprints of new items. You'll find more money and ammo with careful exploration as well. However, one of the most important items to find are special nodes that you can use at workbenches you come across on the ship. You'll be able to use these nodes to power up different attributes on your weapons or suit; this will be crucial to survival.

Shooting them in the head doesn't quite cut it on this derelict spaceship.

While all of the above may sound pretty standard, Dead Space gets a BioShock-like twist thanks to the addition of special powers you can gain, such as slowing time or moving objects. They come in handy when solving puzzles. Other elements in the mix are the space- and zero-gravity sequences, which force you to either get through areas before your suit runs out of air or figure out how to get through rooms that feel like an MC Escher painting. While it may sound like a crazy quilt of mechanics rolled together, it actually works pretty well from what we've played. There's a good amount of variety, and the story elements that are peppered throughout have been keeping the action interesting so far.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Updated Hands-On - Through the Howling Ford and Borean Tundra

2008-09-17T22:41:00.000+07:00

Logging into The Wrath of the Lich King feels just like logging into normal World of Warcraft. Things don't start to get a little bit different until you travel to a major city for, what else? A shave and a haircut. When you see the red and white barber's pole, you'll think "Why not? I've had this mullet for 70 levels. It's time for a change!" So you'll sit down in the barber's chair to flip through hairstyles, hair colors, and facial-hair dos just like you would in the character-creation screen; except that this time, your new look will cost at least a dozen gold. Now, before we go any further, we must warn you that this preview may contain spoilers on the expansion's new content. Also, please note that our impressions are based on an unfinished beta version of the game, so all information here, haircut-related and otherwise, is subject to change.

This do is all the rage in the frozen north, ho ho ho!

Once you settle on a new look (Good-bye, comb-over; hello, red Mohawk!), you'll be ready to introduce your new self to the new zones. You're free to travel to either the Borean Tundra or the Howling Fjord, but you should definitely check out the Howling Fjord first. The quests here tend to run a level lower than they do in the Borean Tundra. They're also more concentrated around their respective horde and alliance strongholds. Once you've gained three to four levels in the Howling Fjord, you'll easily breeze through everything in the Borean Tundra for another quick and easy level or two. That's the beauty of having two starting zones; you'll always be ahead of the level curve if you complete them both.

The Howling Fjord is a zone dominated by the Vrykul--huge Viking men with terrible manners. Though there are many factions, none of them are friendly. As you make your way through the Howling Fjord quest lines, so too will you make your way through each Vrykul village. In many cases, you'll simply kill a set number of them, but in others, you'll burn their towers, blast their structures, and kill their dogs. Some of the best quests, though, involve a pirate stronghold known as Scalawag Point. The first two characters you meet are a Blood Elf-worshiping artifact collector and a beefy Tauren bookie. The quests of these two characters intersect because the collector owes the beefy bookie money; so don't be surprised if, when turning in a quest to the collector, another player comes in and kicks his butt.

You'll also meet the pirates' second in command, who won't let you get a word in edgewise before she assumes you're there to kill her boss; then she tells you how. You'll track him to a cave, where you'll face him and his giant bear pet. Both are tough as nails, so make sure to bring friends. Other quests in the Howling Fjord have you freezing contaminated spores, as well as shattering them, hunting critters with your brand new falcon pet, and running around in the body of a reactivated rune golem. This, in turn, will get you ready for the siege weapon warfare in Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients.

Lake Wintergrasp is not a battleground or an arena. Rather, it's an entire world zone dedicated to player-versus-player combat; the first in World of Warcraft. The basic idea is that one faction will defend a keep and the other will assault it. Each battle will last a set amount of time, with both honor points and arena points on the line. Also, as you gain honorable kills, you'll gain ranks and access to siege weapons. At the first rank, you will only be able to make a simple catapult, but assuming you are able to kill enough of the enemy, you'll gain access to siege engines and flying machines. While the siege weapons will be balanced like rock-paper-scissors, it is less clear how Blizzard intends to balance the zone itself. Because this is an open-world PVP zone, it is likely that in any given battle, one faction will be able to field more troops than another. Blizzard is considering ways to equalize this, such as bestowing bonuses on a faction that has lost several battles in a row or on one that is fielding far fewer combatants. When we know more about the subject, you will, too.

Look familiar? Naxxramas assaults Wintergarde Keep in the Dragon Blight.

But while the new battleground and the new world PVP zone will go through changes in the future, the Borean Tundra already seems ready for retail. This is another starting zone on the other side of Northrend from the Howling Fjord. This area is beset by both green giants (decidedly not jolly) and the scourge. You'll fight cultists, purge the undead, and beat back the mean greenies as they emerge from their warships. The best confrontation in the Borean Tundra, though, is between Nesingwary's Expedition and a group of animal rights activist druids. Nesingwary, as always, wants you to kill animals to bring back pelts, tusks, and claws. However, as soon as you kill a critter in the Borean Tundra, you become marked for death by the druids for a few minutes. Assuming you haven't recently killed anything furry or feathery, you can approach the druids for quests that involve saving trapped animals and attacking hunters. You can easily choose a side or play one against the other for even more gold and experience.

Regardless of the starting zone you choose, you'll quickly come in contact with members of the opposite faction, and if you're on a PVP server, that means a fight. When the beta began, certain classes were unbelievably powerful; it seemed like paladins could kill you just by targeting you. Then, things shifted around a bit, and rogues were destroying everyone with instant poisons. Most recently, warlocks became PVP gods with a massive buff to a talent that had previously been comically lackluster. Things have been changing so much so rapidly that it is impossible to tell what the PVP landscape will look like when the game actually retails. Only two things are apparent: There is still a long way to go, and when we finally get there, we'll be able to blast each other on foot, in tanks, or from the air.

Aside from all that, the actual business of leveling a character in Northrend should be very familiar. You'll talk to non-player characters in town, then head out into the wilderness to kill bad guys, wreck plague spewers, and hunt condors. If you've been leveling a character on one of the live servers and enjoying the accelerated pace of the experience gains, you should know that leveling in WotLK is currently very slow. Each level will take a great deal of time and effort; you won't simply zoom all the way to level 80. Then again, doing so would rob you of enjoying all the wonderful effort Blizzard put into the new areas it has crafted and the thousands of lines of clever dialogue it has written. You should stop and smell the peace bloom because every new zone in Northrend is full of amazing sights, such as a giant, overturned tree in the Grizzley Hills.

To give you a sense of scale, that tiny blotch at the bottom of the stairs is a troll.

Overlaying all of Blizzard's efforts in Northrend is a patina of new graphical quality. This new layer is one of detail and sophistication. You're still definitely looking at World of Warcraft, but the models and environments all look slightly more realistic than before. It is as though, before your eyes, WoW is evolving from a cartoon into an impressionist painting. Where the old graphical style used broad strokes with simple colors, WotLK features finer details on everything from trees to orcs. If you can imagine the original World of Warcraft being painted by a nice, fat brush, WotLK has been colored by one with a much finer tip. And then, floating above it all, is a beautiful rendition of aurora borealis. WotLK doesn't push any graphical envelopes, just stylistic ones.

Of course, this preview hasn't taken into account the new trade skill, Inscription, or any of the new dungeons, but each of those assets warrants its own full preview. And even if we could reveal all the secrets of Northrend to you, we wouldn't want to do so. This article has exposed but the very tip of Northrend's iceberg, with an entire mountain of adventure, gear, and PVP content waiting underneath its surface. In the meantime, we'll keep chipping away at Blizzard's ever-growing massively multiplayer online role-playing game, and we'll let you know as soon as we unearth more.