World of Gaming

Indiana Jones has been raiding tombs since 1981. Lara Croft got in on the action in 1996. Nathan Drake half-tucked his shirt and headed underground in 2007. And now, in 2010, it's Dr. Diggabone's turn. Other than his desire to locate lost relics, the rotund hero of Lazy Raiders has very little in common with his forebears. He doesn't have a gun, he's not athletic in the slightest, and he's too lazy to walk or run anywhere even when his life is threatened. He moves only when gravity dictates, and in this game of 75 mazelike levels, you can think of him as an oddly shaped ball that needs to collect treasures and avoid hazards en route to the exit. Lazy Raiders isn't a particularly challenging game, but its puzzles are fun to figure out and demand a deft touch with the analog stick.

After you opt to play either as the aforementioned archaeologist or as your avatar, Lazy Raiders' five tutorial levels do a great job of familiarizing you with the controls before dropping you into the game proper. You rotate the level using the left analog stick, flip the level vertically with a quick press of the A button, and that's it. Your primary goal in each level is simply to reach the golden pick axe so that you can dig through to the next level, but the path to the pick is rarely straightforward, and even when it is, there are other traps and treasures to consider before you leave. Lazy Raiders' 75 levels are divided up into groups of five, and every fifth level is a treasure room containing a valuable artifact. To access those rooms, you first need to collect a number of idols from the preceding levels, and in order for those idols to appear, you invariably have to fulfill other criteria, such as disabling all of the traps or collecting all of the liberally scattered gems in a level. This progression system works well because there's almost never any danger of being unable to pass a level, even if you're finding it impossible to collect all three of its idols. You're also encouraged to replay levels, both to collect more idols and to improve your rankings on online leaderboards.

Your score for each level is measured in dollars, and it's based on enough different factors that you always feel like you can improve in some way. You earn dollars for collecting gems and idols, for disabling traps, for forcing enemies into traps, and for exiting a level quickly, for example. You lose dollars anytime you take damage, so while Diggabone has infinite lives at his disposal, there's definitely an incentive to steer him clear of spike pits, flamethrowers, rotating saws, rolling boulders, and numerous other dangers. One of the neat things about the hazards in Lazy Raiders is that many of them can be used to cancel each other out, rendering even the deadliest levels safe to navigate. Dropping a boulder or a giant snowball into a spike pit fills the pit so that the spikes no longer protrude, for example, and bringing a flamethrower and a crate of TNT together results in an explosion that destroys them both. Similarly, any of these traps can be used to kill enemy bats and thieves who, like you, are slaves to gravity when the level is rotated.

The most surprising thing about Lazy Raiders is that even though your goal in every level is the same, it never feels overly repetitive. Level designs are diverse, and as you progress through the three different themed locales, new hazards and gameplay mechanics are introduced regularly. You don't have to contend with snowballs that get bigger when they roll over patches of snow until you reach the Arctic Wrecks levels, for example, and puzzles involving machinery and cogs (which double as dangerously spiky wheels when they're rolling around) don't show up until you arrive in the third and final Wild West area. The locale changes also add some much-needed variety to the visuals, which are detailed enough that you can derive some sadistic satisfaction from seeing Diggabone falling into traps or merely from great heights even when you have the camera zoomed out enough to see an entire level onscreen. The only reason you might ever feel the need to zoom in is if you lose sight of your hero after flipping a level, which can happen quite frequently in the Seven Cities of Gold treasure rooms, where the coloring is just a little too close to that of your explorer's outfit.


That outfit, incidentally, becomes available for your avatar to wear outside of the game as soon as you start playing, though you have to beat the final level of the game to unlock the matching hat. As in previous levels, reaching the golden pick in that level isn't terribly tough, but you need to have collected at least 175 of the 192 idols in the game to even play the last level, so don't be surprised if you get sent back to solve earlier puzzles upon reaching it. Fortunately, these levels are almost as much fun to replay as they are to play the first time through, because no matter how good you are with the analog stick, they're unlikely to ever play exactly the same way twice. It's conceivable that you could blaze through Lazy Raiders quickly enough that the asking price of 800 Microsoft points seems a bit steep, but if you take the time to savor and properly solve the majority of levels, you'll find no shortage of value here.

The Sims 3 was last year's award-winning sequel that gave you more power than ever to control the lives of little computer people. Now that the first expansion, World Adventures, has come and gone, the Sims 3 team is hard at work on the newly announced expansion, Ambitions. Ambitions will let you follow your sims into work in fully realized careers in which you take your sims step-by-step through their usual workday. Associate producer Grant Rodiek explains.

GameSpot: Give us an overview of The Sims 3 Ambitions.

Grant Rodiek: The Sims 3 Ambitions allows players to control their sims while they are at work in a variety of new careers. Instead of sending your sims off to work all day, The Sims 3 Ambitions lets you pick a career like firefighting, investigator, architect, ghost hunter, stylist, or doctor and then guide your sim to make choices and succeed (or fail) every step of the way. You can also make your sim a tattoo artist, sculptor, or inventor.

GS: Why go in this direction for the next expansion pack? Was in-depth career gameplay the most requested feature from the fans?

GR: Career gameplay is something we've wanted to do for a long time and it's something that our players consistently request. We always strive to do something new that hasn't been seen in The Sims before. We're especially excited about the fact that the in-depth careers really offer something for all types of players. Storytellers will love solving mysteries as an investigator or resolving the problems of the afterlife as a ghost hunter. The "gamers" will enjoy being the hero as a firefighter and saving civilians as the doctor. The team cannot wait to see what the builders and sim creators make with architect and stylist careers. There's a lot of depth and variety here for every type of sims player.

GS: Could you explain how the career-based gameplay will work? Will it be comparable, for instance, to the gameplay in Open for Business for The Sims 2?

GR: The focus of Open for Business was creating and managing a retail establishment. The Sims 3 Ambitions is more about your sim's personal venture. Each career presents a unique experience.

Firefighters need to develop relationships and maintain their equipment while at the firehouse. But as soon as that alarm rings, they need to get to the fire, clear rubble piles, carry out children, stop gas leaks, put out the flames, and be the hero. Your town may fall victim to small fires, huge infernos, and even earthquakes.

Stylists will be hired by neighbors to offer fashion advice and provide partial or complete makeovers. You can choose to make sims look really good or just terrible. It's a lot of power to put in the hands of our more-deviant players, but the ability to give the entire town a face-lift is fantastic. And profitable!

Investigators will have cases to solve by any means necessary. Investigators are great for our more-deviant players. For example, if you need information, you can bribe a sim, convince them to give your sim the information, or even beat them up. You can break into homes for clues or other nefarious purposes, like stealing their items for "evidence." Many cases have a lot of humor within them--some "sims noir"--so there will still be lots of laughs. There's a lot of variety--and these are just three of our careers!

GS: Tell us about inventing, sculpting, and tattooing--how will these new career skills work, and how will they let sims earn extra money? Will they, like the martial arts and nectar-making skills of World Adventures, let your sims earn enough to support themselves?

GR: Inventing is a fantastically huge skill that is full of content. Crafty sims can gather scrap from the junkyard, broken objects, or even by blowing stuff up with their handy detonation packs. They can then use this scrap to invent excellent objects like the floor hygienator (provides hygiene to sims who walk over it), toys, widgets, a personal drilling device, a time machine, and even a personal robot.

These inventions (and other things) can be used to complete opportunities or be sold via the consignment store for a handy profit.

Sculptors can craft wondrous masterpieces in several mediums, including clay, wood, ice, or metal. This is a great way to customize your sim's home and earn a living.

Using the tattoo chair in-game (or at the local salon), your sims can tattoo their neighbors with both fantastic and questionable body art, for a price, of course.

GS: We understand that there will also be career paths that will let you affect the layout and appearance of your sims' neighborhoods. How will that work?

GR: Architects will be hired by neighborhood sims to remodel their homes. For example, expecting parents may hire your sim to build a new baby room for them, or a sim who has just learned to paint may contract your sim to create an art studio. Before long your talented sim will have had a hand in many, if not all, of the homes in the town. We have dozens of different jobs based on story progression and your neighbors' desires--it's a very exciting feature.

GS: Tell us about some of the other additions that the expansion will add. What new items, building options, and gameplay features will also be added?

GR: One of the features we're most proud of is adding the ability for players to add, remove, and modify lots in edit town. Create-a-World is still the most powerful tool available for players who want to create and modify worlds, but for players who just want some of the options, this is a great alternative. Players can also add neighborhood objects like signs, rocks, and other large structures.

The tattoo system is an incredibly powerful new creative tool for our players. Players can apply multiple tattoos in up to five layers, scale them, change the colors, and even modify opacity. Players can also upload and share these tattoos on the exchange, giving our community yet another creative outlet.

Build mode will see the addition of the ability to modify the pitch of individual roof sections, which is incredibly useful for aspiring architects. We're also adding a multistory column tool for added home variety.

Finally, we always try to add some fun new objects for sims to play with while not working or studying. Sims will love motorcycles, the trampoline, and more.

GS: Finally, is there anything else you'd like to add about The Sims 3 Ambitions?

GR: We're really excited to make this game, and we cannot wait to give it to players. It's an entirely new sims experience that perfectly complements the open world, personality traits, and creative tools from The Sims 3.

GS: Thanks, Grant.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 clearly deserves to be called “super.” The eight or so levels I played at Nintendo’s 2010 media summit ran the gamut from simple to embarrassingly complex, and overall, the new Mario builds on the foundation of previous Mario titles, but adds enough novel tricks, traps and abilities to keep it from being a stale nostalgia trip.

Judging by the interview I did with Nintendo’s Bill Trinen (which you can see on X-Play shortly), the development team had as much fun experimenting and creating the game as I had playing, probably a core reason SMG2 has improved so greatly on what the first game offered.

The addition of Yoshi is the biggest game-changer in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Not every level uses Yoshi, but the ones that do are impressive. Mario’s dinosaur friend swings his tongue, and gobbles down enemies and fruits that act as items. Some fruits allows you speed Yoshi up or float him in the air. Expanded-power Yoshi is a welcome expansion of the established Galaxy gameplay.

Along with the return of old Nintendo pals, Galaxy 2 breaks out some new items too. The level Nintendo demonstrated in the early morning presser involved a drill that allows players to dig through planets and explore within them, opening new paths where it appears none exist. Although it felt like cheating to watch the level played before I had to chance to solve it myself, little magic was lost as a consequence; there’s a lot of pleasure in experimentation with new devices.

What is most impressive is how the new items are incorporated into puzzles that challenge my perception of 2D vs 3D platforming. The game tightly nestles in between the two in a very satisfying manner. I am still delighted as I write this.

Many elements from the first game reappear -- the bee suit, the Lumas and the collectable comet bits that can be used to unlock new areas -- but (of course), there are some new approaches to these elements that I can't detail because, well, they're secret for now, known only to Nintendo.

In short, SMG2 is enjoyable to watch, to play, to assist with star collection or to simply heckle other players attempting the most challenging of puzzles. May 23 can't come soon enough.

As far as sweeping proclamations go, the claim that Lara Croft practically invented the modern action-platformer is pretty low on the controversy scale. It's hard to argue against the idea that recent hits like Uncharted and Assassin's Creed owe a large debt of gratitude to Ms. Croft's Tomb Raider series for helping to usher in today's era of jumping, climbing, and shimmying across three dimensions. So when you hear about the next game bearing her likeness, it's entirely understandable that you may let out a guffaw or two. But here it is: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, due for release as a digital download this summer, is an arcade-inspired action romp with a fixed isometric camera and a focus on high scores and replay value. Though the genre is something out of left field, this latest Lara Croft adventure looks to maintain much of the feeling of earlier games (tombs, booby-trap puzzles, and so on) with a framework designed around cooperative adventuring.


On a story level, Guardian of Light is a buddy adventure starring Lara Croft and Totec, a Mayan tribesman. The plot is lighthearted Hollywood fare and tells of the Mirror of Smoke, an artifact whose ancientness is matched only by its mysterious powers. And as people tend to do with mysteriously powerful artifacts, a number of folks are fighting over this thing. The odd couple of Lara and Totec find themselves in a battle against Xoxolt, an evil spirit released from the Mirror who has the distinct advantage of controlling all manner of spirits to do his bidding. Expect to be going up against undead tribesmen, giant salamanders, and from the looks of it, everything in between.

But for this downloadable game, the focus falls less on story and more on uncomplicated gameplay. As the point totals erupting from dead enemies suggest, this is a game with one foot in the 1980s. Beyond that, there's also the fixed isometric camera angle. Moving through Central American jungles and temples, you'll always see the action from the same semi-top-down perspective. This keeps the focus squarely on the torrent of enemies capable of swarming you at any given moment. It's a set-up that leads fast-paced yet simple combat: point your weapons at the things you want to die, shoot, and repeat. It's hard to draw any clear comparisons due to the fact that we weren't able to play the game, but the combat definitely gave off a retro, where-did-I-put-that-quarter kind of a feel.


Each playable character has unique weapons and skills for maneuvering through those Central American jungle ruins. Lara's got her iconic dual handguns (which, befitting of the retro style, have infinite ammo), and Totec hurls deadly spears. But these weapons aren't used purely for combat. For example, the spear works both against enemies and as a tool for traversing past obstacles: Totec can throw a spear into a wall to allow Lara to get up to an otherwise unreachable ledge. Lara, on the other hand, has a grapple hook to make it across seemingly impossible gaps, and Totec often must place his life in her hands with assisted jumps. Other co-op tricks include Lara's ability to jump on top of Totec's shield when he holds it above his head and Totec's tightrope walk across a gap using Lara's grapple rope.

You'll also encounter a number of tombs to explore. These indoor caverns offer up the chance to take a break from the frenetic combat to do some old-fashioned puzzle solving. Think booby traps that can only be overcome with two people working as a team, and you've got a good idea for how these puzzles will function. This co-op system will work both online and locally, featuring a drop-in system for adding a second player on the fly. The whole game can be played using a single player, as well.


Contrasting the old-school game design are Guardian of Light's modern visuals. Vegetation sways in the wind and reacts when you walk through it, while the environments have a nice sense of scale when the camera shows you at the top of a platforming sequence that's meant to spiral downward toward a point far below. Those looks, along with the co-op stuff, are some of the big points working in the game's favor. At this point, the big question remaining is how the game plays. Expect to see some hands-on coverage leading up to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light's summer release.

I was so close, guys. I could have played God of War III from start to finish, but it would have required turning to physical violence...and I'm hoping to keep my job a little longer. See, a full version of God of War III was inside the PlayStation 3 in front of me at a God of War III event on Thursday, but a nearby member of the God of War III team pulled the controller out of my hands after finishing the first boss encounter in Kratos' possibly final adventure.

Before the machine was powered on however, I'd spent a palm-sweating 20 minutes with the opening to God of War III. There are few words that summarize God of War III besides an unfortunate but fitting cliche: epic. The scope of the third installment is terribly ambitious. The game opens with massive Titans crawling up Mt. Olympus, intent on taking down the gods.

What's so impressive about God of War III, however, is not that everything's done in real-time, it's that so much is happening all at once in real-time. Every few seconds, there are moments that could have easily been implemented by the team without much pain and suffering using pre-rendered video; instead, it's all happening in-engine. You'll be running forward on the backs of these gigantic creatures, fighting off enemies, leaping from platform-to-platform, while other Titans are scaling the same mountain to the left and right of you. Often times, these Titans will reach over and interact with you. It's a supremely impressive technical feat.

Really, though, it's better to let a video do the talking for me.

It also served as a powerful reminder to games profoundly influenced by God of War, such as the recent Dante's Inferno (a game I reviewed and quite liked, actually): we were here first.

The game itself plays like you'd expect: God of War. It's hard to argue that's a bad thing. God of War III looks and plays like the God of War series, but taken to the Nth degree by a development team acutely aware of its strengths. Sometimes the amount of action happening in the background can prove distracting from the action, but that's pretty much complaining about the game being too good looking. I'll deal.

I have to put my foot down, though. Why do I have to hold a shoulder button to open every chest in God of War? I can take down gods, but I need to muster strength for a chest?!

Okay, okay, I'm nitpicking.

Soon, I won't have to complain about not being able to check out the rest of God of War III. In just a few weeks, we'll finally see how Kratos' story plays out. It can't come soon enough.

After the Haiti earthquake, FarmVille responded by allowing players to buy limited edition White Corn seeds, and 100% of the proceeds went to the World Food Programme. Now the WFP gives back, thanking virtual farmers for their generosity.

"We wanted to thank all of you for stepping up and helping them during this time of crisis," the WFP rep says in the video, which was filmed at a WFP "nutrition activity" in Port-au-Prince.

Sales of the limited edition White Corn seeds brought in roughly 1 million dollars, which were used to help earthquake victims.

This video comes on the heels of a Brazilian news site accusing Zynga of keeping half of the proceeds, which Zynga firmly denies. We suspect the confusion was over FarmVille's previous Haiti relief campaign (before the giant earthquake) -- also called Sweet Seeds for Haiti -- and for those, 50% of the proceeds were donated and Zynga pocketed the rest.

Whatever the case, it's nice to see that spending a few dollars from the comfort of your home (playing a game no less) can actually make a difference.