World of Gaming

We get a brief update on Aion and the upcoming 1.9 patch at GDC 2010.

The Game Developers Conference event in San Francisco is rolling right along, and so is Aion, NCSoft's 2009 massively multiplayer online game. If you recall, Aion is a game that let you play as a winged character belonging to one of two factions that inhabits a shattered world; a "light" faction and a "dark" faction, and participate in competitive player-versus-player (PVP) battles as well as demon hunts in the void between the world's halves. While AION had some interesting ideas, many players found the game to be too severe of a "grind," requiring many hours of slaughtering monsters to gain higher experience levels (which are required to access the game's top-level areas), and the conquering of instanced areas multiple times to get a chance at the game's best items.

In response to player feedback, NCSoft has implemented additional ways of obtaining bonus experience, such as "energy of repose," which, after you log out of the game, then later log back in, grants an experience bonus when you return, similar to World of Warcraft's "rest experience." The studio has also recently implemented "energy of salvation," which is an active experience point enhancer that gradually gives your character bonus experience for as long as you're logged in. In addition, NCSoft has reduced the number of instances required to get to the better loot by increasing the "drop rates" of key items so that players are more likely to find them the first time around.

NCSoft is otherwise optimistic about how Aion has developed since launch, and representatives pointed out that there are still high-level instances that have not yet been conquered by players, meaning the player base still has room to grow into the content. In addition, the studio feels that the upcoming 1.9 patch will help "lay a foundation" for a better game experience going forward by implementing such changes as letting two-handed weapon classes such as the gladiator and templar merge two two-handed weapons to create a more-powerful item (to address a character balance issue), as well as a returning of the game's final instance to make it more fast-paced and action-packed.

The studio has no official launch date pegged for 1.9 but plans to continue dutifully bringing over and localizing content from the game's Asian version as soon as is humanly possible, considering both translation to English as well as modifying and adding content to make it more comprehensible and more pleasing to Western audiences.

Source: Gamespot.com

This explosive puzzle game is sometimes too chaotic for its own good, but it's difficult to put down once you get sucked in.

Bejeweled has been the king of the ubiquitous gem-smashing genre ever since its inception almost a decade ago, but the franchise can't just rest lazily on its laurels if it's going to keep that coveted crown. Enter Bejeweled Twist, a puzzle game that has little in common with its forebear aside from how it compels you to destroy gems at all costs and watch your score soar into the stratosphere. Increased maneuverability has injected a dose of speed into the mix, while explosive bombs threaten you with a premature ending to your fun. Bejeweled Twist shares the addictive nature of the legions of puzzle games that have come before it, but it doesn't stand out from the crowd. The gameplay is often too chaotic to reward careful planning, and the multiplayer feels like little more than a throwaway. But once you get into a block-busting groove, it's hard to pull yourself away.

The concept in Bejeweled Twist should come as no surprise to puzzle veterans. Your 8-by-8 playing field is covered with colored gems that need to be destroyed for some undefined reason. By situating three same-colored blocks in a line, you cause them to explode, forcing a few new gems to fall from the ceiling. Unlike in the original Bejeweled, you are not beholden to moving your gems only when you can make a match. Rather, you can rotate groups of four pieces at anytime, letting you meticulously place gems for maximum combo impact. The game can be played with a stylus or the standard D Pad plus one button method, and though both get the job done, precision is much easier if you forgo the stylus completely. Either way, you select a 2-by-2 area and tap the screen or a button to rotate it clockwise. Unfortunately, you cannot rotate blocks counterclockwise, which is a bit limiting when you're rushing to make a match.

Lining up three of the same color in a row is easy enough, but if you want to show off and really push the score counter, you're going to have to make bigger matches. Score isn't your only reward for showing such puzzle-solving prowess, either. Match four in a row, and you get a flame gem that shatters everything nearby. Five in a row creates a lightning strike gem that takes out one row and one column, and if you manage to match six in a row, you get a supernova gem, which pretty much annihilates the whole screen. Needless to say, that last one comes in handy but is exceedingly difficult to create. The explosive impact of these special gems is pretty powerful, rocking the screen and spraying bits and pieces of decimated gems all over the place. It's a neat effect and is a worthwhile visual reward to go with your increased score.

These special gems come in handy when the game unleashes a few devious blocks to thwart your progress. Locked gems slowly materialize on the screen. They start with a warning, a benign padlock appearing on a random block. But after you take a turn or two, they solidify into a master lock, stationing a gem in place. The only way to remove one of these is to swing a couple of blocks over to make a match, and it's imperative that you do so quickly because these immovable obstacles can really get in your way. Bombs are even more troubling. These fall from the sky after a match and must be disposed of within a set number of moves. If you fail to line it up with two same-colored blocks, it explodes, and a brief minigame pops up. In this impromptu game of roulette, you tap the screen to stop a spinning wheel. If you line up bombs instead of gems, you lose, and your game is over. Doom (a spiky bomb) is the last obstacle. This slowly counts down your end like the bomb but can be destroyed only by using one of the aforementioned special blocks. If it blows up, there is no minigame to save you. Game over.

There are four single-player games to test your gem-busting might in. Classic contains the special blocks and deadly obstacles that offer the most notable departure from traditional Bejeweled. Difficulty ramps up as you complete levels, and by the time you get 10 or so levels in, you'll have to constantly be alert for bombs and locked gems, which creates tension as you desperately try to make matches. Zen mode removes these special items, letting you focus on matching colored gems at your own pace. Blitz packs the excitement into one 5-minute run, throwing out anything it can to halt your progress. And finally, Challenge mode gives you specific problems to solve. This is for the Bejeweled elite because the objectives on offer are extremely difficult for novice puzzlers to overcome. But if you are a puzzle master, you can lose hours trying to destroy five or more flame gems in one move or last 30 turns with deadly obstacles all around you.


Because of all the explosions constantly dismantling your playing field in Classic mode, Bejeweled Twist borders on chaotic. The screen rattles, shakes, and realigns with such frequency that building up big combos often comes down to chance, rather than careful gem manipulation. This frantic pace is compounded by the bombs that put pressure on you to move quickly and deliberately. Trying to dispose of these ticking tools of death is often frustrating because the screen is overflowing with so many destructible objects that making a specific match is pretty difficult. This chaos becomes apparent only when you get deeper into the game and adds a heart-racing element to the normally relaxed puzzle experience.

Finally, there is a two-player mode to round out this package. This is a competitive version of Classic mode, pitting two players against each other in a race to rack up combos before being overwhelmed by bombs. It's fun, because destroying gems is fun, but there is a severe disconnect between players. It's difficult to know what your opponent is up to, so it feels more like a single-player game peppered with random shouts of happiness or barks of anger rather than an engaging competitive experience. Furthermore, it requires two carts to play, which is pretty extravagant, and is bogged down by a lot of lag. The single-player component is the heart of the game, but Bejeweled Twist isn't at the same level as its prestigious progenitor. The game is hard to put down once you get in a rhythm, but the experience doesn't leave a lasting impression.

Source: Gamespot.com

Yakuza 3's compelling story, great atmosphere, and abundance of extracurricular activities make it the best game in the franchise so far.

Yakuza 3 is a gritty, free-roaming adventure game that thrusts you fist-first into the Japanese underworld. But while it preaches violence to bend you to its will, it rewards players who uphold the hierarchical bonds of its namesake organisation. The juicy soap opera story, striking visuals, and kooky Japanese humour will suck you in, and though the game stumbles with some combat quirks, the abundance of peripheral activities will allow you to lose yourself in the city and will have you heading back to belt out one more karaoke tune long after the credits roll on the main story.

The story picks up a year after the events of the second game, and you reprise the role of Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza and former fourth chairman of the Tojo Clan. After leaving the criminal world seeking a life less bloody, you establish an orphanage in Okinawa and play foster father to a handful of local children. In this role you do all the things parents do--confront school bullies, navigate the treacherous waters of teen dating advice, and extol the value of money. It's these seemingly banal exchanges peppering the storyline that reinforce the importance of family and represent the tradition and moral code of the Yakuza that Kazuma is witnessing being thrown by the wayside by gangsters seeking money and power.

When the land the orphanage is built on becomes embroiled in a turf war between politicians and local crime groups, you do the thing you know best--find the problem and punch people in the face. Taking control of a local Yakuza family, you set about unravelling the web of intrigue surrounding who is responsible for the assassination attempt on the Tojo chairman, Daigo Dojima. Optional lengthy recap videos and written character dossiers about the first two Yakuza games are included on the disc, so while first-timers may struggle a little initially, you can quickly get up to speed on who people are and where they fit into the fray. Regardless of whether or not you watch the cheat sheet videos, by the end, and as a result of choices made by those around you and allegiances you form and break, there's a genuine emotional connection with the game's characters even without requiring you to understand the bulky story backlog of the series.

Leaving the sleepy Okinawan town of Ryukyugai and your orphans behind, you return to your old Kamurocho stomping grounds in search of the shooter but end up in the middle of raging gang wars and power struggles. Peeling back the layers and working your way through street-level thugs up to the men dishing out the orders, you tussle with your own morality, but shelve peaceful outcomes for bloody beatings in the name of the familial code. You can only get so much info from verbal interrogation of suspects, so you do most of your sleuthing with your fists. Besting an opponent in a one-on-one fight is enough to get him to spill the beans, and you move on to finding your next target further up the food chain. You don't ever get given a choice to choose between pleasant and pummel, but you're rewarded with experience points for completing the objective. As Kazuma battles rivals old and new, he attempts to right his wrongs by taking Ryukyugai wannabe Yakuza Rikiya under his wing and shielding from the harsh reality of playing alongside the big boys in Tokyo.




* Add Game
* Tag
* Print
* Email
* Facebook
* Digg
* Tweet

Yakuza 3 Review

Yakuza 3's compelling story, great atmosphere, and abundance of extracurricular activities make it the best game in the franchise so far.
The Video Review
Watch this video

Dan Chiappini gets his heat moves on in this video review for Yakuza 3.
Watch It Watch HD 520p
The Good

* City of Kamurocho feels alive
* Diverse range of fun minigames
* Excellent voice acting
* Revelation photo challenges are hilarious.

The Bad

* Occasional framing problems with camera during combat
* Weapon crafting system feels tacked on.

Yakuza 3 is a gritty, free-roaming adventure game that thrusts you fist-first into the Japanese underworld. But while it preaches violence to bend you to its will, it rewards players who uphold the hierarchical bonds of its namesake organisation. The juicy soap opera story, striking visuals, and kooky Japanese humour will suck you in, and though the game stumbles with some combat quirks, the abundance of peripheral activities will allow you to lose yourself in the city and will have you heading back to belt out one more karaoke tune long after the credits roll on the main story.

Kazuma isn't all that chatty, so he does all the talking with his fists.

* Comment on this video
* Watch this video in High Def

The story picks up a year after the events of the second game, and you reprise the role of Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza and former fourth chairman of the Tojo Clan. After leaving the criminal world seeking a life less bloody, you establish an orphanage in Okinawa and play foster father to a handful of local children. In this role you do all the things parents do--confront school bullies, navigate the treacherous waters of teen dating advice, and extol the value of money. It's these seemingly banal exchanges peppering the storyline that reinforce the importance of family and represent the tradition and moral code of the Yakuza that Kazuma is witnessing being thrown by the wayside by gangsters seeking money and power.

When the land the orphanage is built on becomes embroiled in a turf war between politicians and local crime groups, you do the thing you know best--find the problem and punch people in the face. Taking control of a local Yakuza family, you set about unravelling the web of intrigue surrounding who is responsible for the assassination attempt on the Tojo chairman, Daigo Dojima. Optional lengthy recap videos and written character dossiers about the first two Yakuza games are included on the disc, so while first-timers may struggle a little initially, you can quickly get up to speed on who people are and where they fit into the fray. Regardless of whether or not you watch the cheat sheet videos, by the end, and as a result of choices made by those around you and allegiances you form and break, there's a genuine emotional connection with the game's characters even without requiring you to understand the bulky story backlog of the series.

Leaving the sleepy Okinawan town of Ryukyugai and your orphans behind, you return to your old Kamurocho stomping grounds in search of the shooter but end up in the middle of raging gang wars and power struggles. Peeling back the layers and working your way through street-level thugs up to the men dishing out the orders, you tussle with your own morality, but shelve peaceful outcomes for bloody beatings in the name of the familial code. You can only get so much info from verbal interrogation of suspects, so you do most of your sleuthing with your fists. Besting an opponent in a one-on-one fight is enough to get him to spill the beans, and you move on to finding your next target further up the food chain. You don't ever get given a choice to choose between pleasant and pummel, but you're rewarded with experience points for completing the objective. As Kazuma battles rivals old and new, he attempts to right his wrongs by taking Ryukyugai wannabe Yakuza Rikiya under his wing and shielding from the harsh reality of playing alongside the big boys in Tokyo.

I didn't tell them I was the Yakuzaball MVP two years running. Fetch, kids!

As in previous games in the series, brawling remains quite basic and can only be initiated with those who attack you first on the street, or in closed arena combat scenarios. Punch, kick, and grab moves are your bread and butter, while throws and wrestling-style takedowns provide variety. Combinations of punch and kick do the job, but exploiting an opponent with a calculated strike while his guard is down deals considerably more damage than just swinging arms and legs until you land a hit. An assortment of weapons, including stun guns, swords, shotguns, staves, and nunchaku, can be bought, sold, and picked up off the bodies of fallen foes, but since their durability depletes with use, they're more suitable for crumpling someone to the ground or keeping him at bay than as your main course of attack. The game also includes a weapon and armour modification and crafting element, which lets you combine bought and found items. These made items mitigate specific damage types like bullets and knives, or you can modify everyday objects into superweapons like juicing up a Blackjack for extra clubbing power, or adding nails to a pair of shoes. The system is fun for would-be home MacGyvers who like to tinker and combine seemingly mismatched objects, but the system feels more cosmetic than functional since you're never required to create items via crafting to beat a boss or progress the story. That said, like the pickup and bought weapons in Yakuza 3, custom objects act as a nice perk if you need a temporary boost to your arsenal.

Successfully scoring a string of melee attacks without taking damage rewards you with heat, the game's version of energy. Charging your meter allows you to unleash special attacks and brutal finishing moves, such as slamming skulls into walls, breaking bicycles over enemies, and performing flashy weapon executions. Target locking is better in Yakuza 3 than in its predecessors, but while it retains your last damaged mark as you move around, it's frustrating to get hit repeatedly from behind as you attempt to turn and face a target or struggle to frame the action with the game's freely controllable camera. Attack animations continue to play out when you're trying to manoeuvre away from danger and often cause you to get caught in a flurry of hits. These issues aside, combat feels meaty, animations look good, and the associated sound effects as you connect with an adversary are good and hefty.

Defeating gang bosses and completing the plethora of side quests and hired gun missions scattered around the city will reward you with experience points used to upgrade your abilities and increase your health and heat bars. You can complete the main story mode with basic well-timed punches and kicks, but seeking out the hilarious (and very Japanese) "revelation" challenges has you snapping photos of bizarre street behaviour to learn specific fighting styles. Examples of its ludicrousness include capturing a woman distributing tissue samples on the side of the road at ninja-like speed, a drunken businessman stumbling to avoid being hit by a goading teen, and a woman flipping her scooter 360 degrees over a car while ogling a picture of a pop star on a billboard. The revelations play out as quick-time events, and providing you press the indicated buttons in time and then select the correct statement from a choice of three options, your images are uploaded to your blog and new finishing moves and skills are added to your repertoire. It's a very different way to introduce new abilities, but they're a blast to search out and complete and are valuable for improving your fighter.


The environment is one of Yakuza 3's best characters, and its living, breathing feel and attention to detail are astonishing. Realistic-looking vending machines line city walls, popular Japanese food and drink brands are available in stores to purchase, and the excitable welcoming yells of "Irasshaimase!" as you enter businesses make it feel like home. You can't enter every building, but the ones you can are clearly marked by a colour key system on the minimap. This means that as you wander the streets taking in the sights and sounds of Kamurocho around you, you won't ever be stuck wondering which buildings you can interact with or find yourself bumping up against invisible walls or jiggling the knob on every door. There's a strange serenity in this hectic city as you eavesdrop on locals chattering and watch couples meet and embrace. But as beautiful as it may appear on the surface, the game snaps you back to its true personality as club promoters follow you spruiking their sordid wares and strangers stop you cold to exchange knuckles in random street fights.

While the pace and events of the story are enough to propel you towards its conclusion, the non-story peripheral content gives Yakuza 3 a welcome sense of diversity. There are more than a hundred side and hitman quests that allow you to do everything from carrying ice cream for a father who has overpurchased, to playing UFO Catcher claw machines in the arcade, to chasing down a bag snatcher, to offering financial advice to a man deep in debt and precariously perched on the edge of a bridge.

Dozens of shops and entertainment venues give you the chance to browse magazines at convenience stores, take ladies out on dates, go fishing, and try your luck in the underground casino dens and fight clubs. Some of these serve purposes; eating at restaurants replenishes your health, and fishing allows you to make money selling your catch at the markets. While others, such as practicing your swing at the Yoshida Batting Cage, are just a nice way to unwind after a hard day of pulping faces on the sidewalk.

If all that isn't enough to keep you occupied, once you've completed the main story, you unlock the Ultimate Skill, Premium Adventure, and Premium New Game options. Ultimate Skill is a series of rewarding and challenging trials that let you relive cage matches with boss battles from the story mode, take on the clock as you pummel hordes of attackers, put down foes with the fewest number of hits, and win by using only nominated abilities. Tag-team matches are fun and pair you with an AI buddy as you grapple with two targets at once. If you just want to focus on blowing through the story first and then attempt the other missions once you're done, the Premium Adventure and Premium New Game modes give you the chance to go back and tie up all the loose ends with the skills and money you've accrued and max out your character stats, or simply wander the city with or without your bankroll. They're a good way to extend the playtime past the 20 or so hours of the main story, but since the game doesn't offer a branching storyline, you're limited to redoing the same events over at a higher difficulty.


The delay coming to the West has been worth the wait. While localisation removes some of the more esoteric Japanese cultural phenomena like hostess clubs, the game retains its excellent Japanese voice acting and includes subtitles rather than redubbed audio for cutscenes. The biggest new feature is the inclusion of the game's Japanese downloadable content free in the box, which adds a survival cage match mode and a minigame challenge that lets you explore the city with minor character Haruka.

Don't let the fact that you haven't previously tackled a title from the Yakuza franchise put you off picking up this game. While the learning curve for the story starts off a little steep, by the end of the ludicrous, action-packed storyline, everything falls into place and you have formed genuine connections with endearing characters. Yakuza 3's detailed and living environments, engaging story, and abundance of extra things to see and do make it an entertaining ride and a great addition to your brawler collection.

Source: Gamespot.com

Two wheels and tons of speed; the motorcycle racing series is coming to America and we've got the latest look.

The SBK Superbike series, which has seen a few iterations released in Europe, will finally make its European debut this year in the upcoming SBK Superbike World Championship 09. Representatives from the game's publisher Valcon Games were on hand at the 2010 Game Developers Conference showing SBK off to the press.

Perhaps the biggest distinction between Superbikes and its racing series cousin MotoGP is the bikes themselves. Whereas MotoGP riders race on purpose-built bikes, in SBK, the rides are modified production models, closer to the motorcycles you can buy at your local dealership. That said, these are still incredibly fast and nimble machines capable of tearing up the world's most prestigious circuits. In fact, both MotoGP and SBK series bikes race on many of the same courses during their respective seasons, including Brno, Phillip Island, and more in the game.

During our brief demo of the game, we got some hands-on time at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah, which is a flat, fast track and one of the few courses that is raced counterclockwise. We drove a couple of laps at Miller Park and noticed that bike handling felt a bit heavier than in other recent motorcycle games we've played, with the slightest bit of delay when leaning into and coming out of turns. That might be the game's handling, or it might just be an accurate reflection of how the bikes handle in real life. Nonetheless, it required us to think ahead a bit more than we might have otherwise. Because we were playing at the easiest difficulty level, we were able to pass the field with ease and cross the start/finish line in first place.

Of course, winning a race on baby level is one thing; doing the same thing with the difficulty ratcheted up is quite another. Difficulty customization seem to be one area in which SBK will excel: Not only can you choose between general difficulty levels, but you can also customize very specific on-track rules and behaviors that will affect your race. This includes toggling options, such as braking assists, rider assists, inertia, false starts, traction control, rolling starts, and many more. The granular detail continues in the bike setup tools--you'll be able to set individual gear ratios, make suspension and steering settings, and even adjust the tension of your drive chain.

Twenty seven other riders will be on track with you in single-player races (including licensed real-life SBK racers like Ben Spies and Tom Sykes), and the game will support eight players racing online. The good news is SBK 09 is done--all that's left are some localization changes and minor in-game title changes. That means the game doesn't have a firm release date yet, but it should be out soon, according to Valcon reps. We'll have a full review once the game hits retail shelves, so stay tuned.

Source: Gamespot.com

Tattooed homicidal freak or square jawed do-gooder? It's up to you how you play in Realtime Worlds' upcoming MMO action game.

Whether you're a hardened criminal or a crime-fighting enforcer, the world of APB will have plenty of options for adventure. The upcoming massively multiplayer action game from Realtime Worlds is looking to make some significant changes to the MMO landscape, thanks to obsessive levels of character customization and a mission structure that is dependent not just on NPCs, but on fellow real life players. Realtime Worlds' Dave Jones gave a brief demo of the game during today's media briefing at the Epic booth on the floor of the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Jones kicked off the demo by showing a menu featuring three of the areas that will be in the game: the waterfront district, financial district, and the social district. The demo focused on the latter pair of districts, and Jones explained that the social district will be where hundreds of players can gather together to chat, form clans and dive into the game's deep customization tools. Seemingly everything can be customized from the ground up; Jones showed off the system of changing a character's physical characteristics such as height or weight, as well as designing unique clothes that he or she will wear by applying vinyl shapes. You can do the same with your ride as well--painting your car to your hearts' content and adding vinyls to give your vehicle a look all its own. You'll earn vehicles either by unlocking them or by purchasing them outright with cash you earn in the game. You'll be able to build modest, but not unlimited, car collection with a limited number of slots in your personal garage.

Customization doesn't just end with cool threads and a pimped out ride--Jones also showed off a simple sequencer that let you create custom tunes in a variety of styles that you could then assign to your car to play as you drove around town. You can even create and assign a song to play when you kill a fellow player in APB; sort of a musical equivalent of tea-bagging.

You'll be able to sell clothing or cars you design in the game and, in the social area, you can buy designated spots in the world to display your wares in the hopes of getting people interested. Also statues strewn around the social district will recognize the top players around the APB world and memorialize them, at least temporarily.

With the customization options out of the way, we were taken to the financial district where Jones and a fellow Realtime Worlds developer were unleashed in the world, with one character playing as a criminal and the other, an enforcer. Whether you are considered a criminal or enforcer in APB will depend entirely on your actions in the game; if you start beating people down and robbing them, your notoriety level will rise and you'll gain a criminal rep. Likewise, if you shut down crimes in progress you'll eventually become known as an enforcer.

It's the PVP interaction between criminals and enforcers that form the basics of how missions work. In the demo, Jones' character joined a party of like-minded thugs and started spraying graffiti at certain spots around town. Before long, a group of enforcers were alerted to the crime-in-progress (via an APB, naturally) and a posse of enforcers showed up to stomp down the bad guys. A huge gun battle emerged as the criminals tried to get their graffiti message spread and the enforcers looked to blast them to bits.

When a player is killed in APB, he or she will respawn a few hundred yards away. Enforcers will also have the additional ability to arrest criminals--slapping the cuffs on them and essentially keeping them out of action for 15-20 seconds, considerably longer than it takes to respawn after dying. The dynamic matchmaking and the constant push and pull of enforcers and criminals look to balance the gameplay throughout APB--and both factions will have specific mission types. For example, criminals will be able to capture VIPs, plant bombs and the like, and enforcers will also be able to kick off mission types with things like escort missions and defusing bombs. Up to forty players can be involved in a single mission (with 20 players per side) and teams can call in for backup should they find themselves outnumbered.

Cops and robbers might be one of the oldest genres around but it seems that Realtime Worlds is casting the well-worn trope in a new light with APB. We look forward to jumping into the world with the tattooed homicidal freak we've created in our mind when the game is released… whenever that may be. Look for more on APB in the near future.

Source: Gamespot.com

The NPD sales numbers for February 2010 were released yesterday, and two figures that stood out to me came in the hardware sales portion: 613,200 and 101,900. That’s how many Nintendo DSs and PlayStation 2s were sold, respectively, last month. The DS sales figures continue to blow my mind, but what I really want to ask you about is this:

Did anyone here purchase a PS2 last month? If so, what made you buy it? I'm just fascinated by the fact that Sony can still move over 100,00 PS2s in a given month after 10 years on the market. Am I alone?

We prowl through the mountains of Afghanistan in EA's upcoming military shooter.

Hearing executive producer Greg Goodrich describe things, you'd wonder why a developer would want to use military advisors at all. He had just finished showing us a demo for the upcoming Medal of Honor reboot. It was a tense scene from early in the game--a group of Navy SEALs prowling though the Afghan mountains under cover of darkness. More than anything else, the sequence seemed intended to show the surgical precision with which these elite Tier 1 soldiers operated. Characters slid from one al Qaeda campfire to the next at a pace that was nothing short of brisk, dropping enemies before they heard the M4s go off. It was a ruthless level of efficiency on display, and it seemed that the only things keeping the player from falling behind--or off a cliff--were the objectives whispered from his squadmates. So, of course, when EA Los Angeles showed the demo to real-life SEALs, their only feedback was that they'd never speak a single word during a mission like this one. Silence is golden.

Such are the challenges of developing a game where the primary goal, according to Goodrich, is authenticity. There's a difficult balance to strike between what paints the most realistic picture of special military operations and what works as a fully functioning video game. Finding that balance has meant developers have had navigate the murky waters of a give-and-take relationship with the very Tier 1 operators depicted in the campaign. Sometimes, the result has been taking things out of the game that these elite soldiers can't afford to make public, and at other times--like the example mentioned above--the development team has had to politely disregard feedback in order to keep the game playable.

But for all the hiccups or roadblocks in this relationship, Goodrich says the developers have been able to draw from a mountain of helpful advice and stories. Case in point: The aforementioned demo is based on a real military operation, described to EA LA by some of the SEALs involved in it. It's the night before a major offensive, and the plans call for a group of army ranger cargo helicopters to pass through a particularly dangerous mountain range in Afghanistan. As part of a SEAL unit, you're sent in beforehand to eliminate a number of targets to give those Chinook helicopters a safer flight. An easier way of putting it might be this: You need to soften them up a little.

Goodrich likes to use the catchy phrase "scalpel and sledgehammer" to talk about missions like these. You have to lurk through the darkness to methodically take down unsuspecting enemies, and once you've loudly announced your presence by blowing up their antiaircraft guns, there's suddenly AK-47 gunfire cutting through the nighttime quiet like an angry swarm of bees. According to Goodrich, that's how real life Tier 1 operations work. At any moment, you can go from precise and deliberate to utter chaos; thus, keeping your cool in those jarring transitions is what matters most.

Fortunately, you've got advanced technology on your side. Toward the end of the demo, you see a fleet of enemy trucks coming up the pass. It looks as though these heavily armed vehicles are going to spell failure for your mission. But if you flip down your night-vision goggles to get a better look, you'll see a flashing strobe light on each truck. Off in the distance, a friendly airship fires a missile at this caravan and immediately wipes it out of the picture. Without any context, it seems like you've just been rescued by the military equivalent of magic and pixie dust. But as it so happens, those strobes were carefully planted by a different playable unit in an earlier level. That gradual intertwining of various Tier 1 missions is a key part of Medal of Honor's narrative. And as an example that "narrative" doesn't have to equal "fiction," Goodrich quickly points out that those strobes were planted in the real-life mission as well.

That's one of the more obvious ways EA LA has drawn from this military advisory relationship. After the demo wrapped up, Goodrich told us about some of the more subtle bits of feedback that have been incorporated into the game. If you glance at the cover art, you'll see a real-life Tier 1 operator sporting a thick, impossibly manly beard. He's not just there for looks. This soldier is responsible for switching up one of the most overlooked parts of a first-person shooter: the hands holding the gun. When EA LA brought him footage of handgun combat, he abruptly noted that the player was holding his gun like a cop. That led to the realization that various units within the military will often employ different gun holds from one another. This is all a long-winded way of saying that you'll see different hand configurations on similar weapons as you bounce between military branches in the game. It's one of those subtle things most people probably won't notice, but it's an interesting example of the team's focus on details.

Driving all of this is a heavily modified version of the Unreal Engine. Medal of Honor's matter-of-fact presentation is a far cry from recent EA games that have used this tech to render highly stylized visuals (think Mass Effect 2), but the art design isn't without its striking ambitions. If you climb your way up one of the game's mountain perches, you'll be greeted with an impressive vista showing the sprawling valleys and peaks of Afghanistan's mountain ranges. These views capture a nice sense of scale, which should hopefully give the final game the feeling that you're just one man--however highly trained--in a much larger battle.

At this point, we're looking forward to seeing some of the other parts of the war in Afghanistan that this latest Medal of Honor will seek to portray. We're told that the final game will offer up missions that are set in dusty mountains, urban slums, and even some lush environments that few would recognize as Afghanistan. In the meantime, you can expect Medal of Honor to arrive this fall.

Source: Gamespot.com

2K Games and Firaxis finally show Civilization V at GDC 2010. Get the details here.

For years, the Civilization series has challenged players to assume the role of one of history's greatest leaders, such as Napoleon Bonaparte or Genghis Khan, and try to conquer the world through force of arms, scientific research, or overwhelming cultural superiority. And for years, the series has been synonymous with things like turn-based strategy, insidiously addictive gameplay, and the compulsion to explore every last square on the map. Except that with Civ V, you won't be exploring squares. You'll be exploring hexes. Yes, as you've probably heard, the new version of Civilization will make some noticeable changes to the series, including changing how maps will be divided not into four-sided squares, but into six-sided hexes, and how archers and other ranged units will actually be able to fire on their enemies from more than one hex away (previously, all units did battle by getting adjacent to their targets). These are big changes, but from what we've seen, they not only seem plausible enough to work, but also seem like they'll open up lots of new strategic possibilities. (Which means, you know, more of those sleepless nights.)

We saw Civ V in a hands-off demonstration at the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, in the early settlement game, as well as in a later, more-established session against more-developed nations. Civ V's interface is being designed by Firaxis staffer Russell Vaccaro, who also contributed to Firaxis' previous console Civ game, Civilization Revolution. Like that game, Civ V will have a highly streamlined interface that keeps a lot of the information off the main map view in favor of showing the game's detailed 3D world. From a technical perspective, Civ V's overland maps look better than they ever have and feature realistic-looking forests, mountain ranges, and flowing water in the form of inland rivers and sparkling oceans.

While you're gazing from sea to shining sea, you won't have to stare at piles and piles of numbers and icons--instead, while you'll still be able to access menus like your city's build menu, the scientific technology tree, and your diplomacy standings with other nations, they'll all be nested in menus that can be quickly and easily closed up. To make sure you don't forget what you were going to do next, the game will instead offer an enhanced notification system that will alert you to pretty much all happenings in the game, from completed scientific research to finished construction in your cities to discovering ruins (which appear to be the new game's version of goodie huts), and clicking on the notification will always open up the relevant menu and let you do whatever you need. In addition, Civilization III's advisors return in Civ V and will, as usual, offer you helpful tips on the next move you might want to make.

The demonstration we watched showed an early starting game for Greece with a troop of settlers (which act as the single settlers unit from previous games) and a troop of warriors (which act as a single warrior unit from previous games). The settlers immediately started a new city, while the warriors headed out into the wilderness to find a neighboring city-state, one of Civ V's new features. City-states are basically neutral cities of varying specializations (such as a militaristic city-state) that can be conquered if you prefer, though you can leave them neutral and form treaties with them, or take missions from them. Forming a strong relationship with a neutral city-state can be very beneficial--becoming buddies with the militaristic city-state in our demonstration meant that the neutral burg would send us free warriors every few turns--but it can also upset nearby civilizations who would prefer to have that city-state's services for themselves.

Expansion will still be crucial to your success in Civ V, and the amount of "culture" your nation produces will still be the determining factor in how often your cities expand, but this time around, cities will not automatically expand outward in giant concentric circles. Instead, your holdings will expand one hex at a time and will tend to automatically grow toward specific nearby areas that your current civilization needs--for instance, if you've been developing your agricultural base, your nation will automatically tend to expand toward that nearby wheat-growing plain. While you can still use the old trick of annexing nearby resources by just sending out a settler to build an adjoining city nearby, there will apparently be game-specific disadvantages to having two cities too close to each other. Instead, Civ V will offer you a new alternative to send settlers to a desired area and plunk down a huge sum of gold to simply annex that zone and its resources.

After observing the early ages, we skipped ahead to a more-developed version of Greece that lay near holdings from Germany and the good old U. S. of A. Our first encounter with Germany came in the form of greeting a German settler, which brought us an audience with Chancellor Bismarck in his private chambers. Meeting with world leaders will look and sound different in Civ V, since the game will switch to a full-screen view of that leader in his or her current environment (whether that be in a home office or out at war, for instance), which shows more or less a full-body view of the leader as he or she paces about the room, smiling (or frowning), gesticulating, and speaking his or her native language.

That's right, leaders will no longer be mute mimes who make grandiloquent genuflections in your general direction--Chancellor Bismarck will speak full-on German, while General Washington will speak perfect English. This is a new change that Civ fans have apparently been requesting for some time. In addition, while you'll still be able to negotiate trade agreements, travel agreements, and peace treaties with neighboring nations, Civ V will also let you enter into research treaties--essentially, a joint investment of a lump sum of cash that will accelerate scientific research for both nations. This can be a highly beneficial arrangement that earns you friendship points with other nations, and it can also be a serious bone of contention if you cut the treaty short midway.

In this session, after exchanging pleasantries with Bismarck, we set about making overtures to a nearby city-state along the American border. While we definitely made some friends there, General Washington of America didn't seem quite as happy and addressed us in a cordial but stern manner when we sought an audience with him. For the sake of the demo, our Firaxis hosts went ahead and declared war on the indignant dignitary, and we had our chance to observe Civ V's tactical combat in action.

Civ V, as mentioned, is making some significant changes to the way combat works. For instance, the combined armies of the previous games are a thing of the past--instead, only one "stack" (a single battalion of troops that occupies any given hex) can occupy a hex. No more combining units to make them stronger. In addition, units will take longer to produce and will eventually come to have upkeep costs associated with them--however, they will also have veterancy along the lines of what was introduced in Civ IV. That is, units that survive various skirmishes will eventually grow in power and may be able to select various bonuses to increase their usefulness and survivability. The Firaxis team, led by designer Jon Schafer, envisions more-intimate, tactical battles in Civ V (based on Schafer's fondness for the classic Panzer General)--generally speaking, you and your neighbors will have fewer military units in play than you might have had in previous games in the series, and they'll last longer and be more valuable.

The combat demonstration we watched showed a land invasion of America along two fronts, with enemy spearmen guarding General Washington's town on both sides. Our ranks consisted mainly of warriors, spearmen, and a few archers, and though our relatively weaker warriors unfortunately started on the front lines ahead of our spearmen, we were able to use Civ V's new switch move order to have the two units swap positions, and then we pit our spearmen against theirs. Those crafty Americans set themselves up behind a river, which gave their units a natural terrain bonus, but we softened up our foes with a volley of arrows from a stack of archers placed atop a nearby hill. By softening up our foes and weakening their remaining health, we effectively reduced their terrain advantage and were able to mop them up with our own spearmen, which were at full strength. Meanwhile, on the western end of the border, our troops encountered worse luck. Washington had built his empire around a one-hex-wide choke point in the mountains and blocked it off with spearmen backed up by archers. Because only one unit can occupy any one hex at any given time, there was no way to pass through the mountains without going through the enemy spearmen--cases like these will require your own archers (and other ranged units) to soften up the front lines. However, archers themselves will be extremely fragile and can be easily decimated if they're engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

And as it happens, in Civ V, units may no longer be garrisoned inside your cities, so defending your holdings will have two aspects. One--all cities will automatically defend themselves based on their current growth level and any defensive structures you may have built inside. Two--you'll want to make sure you defend your key cities with army units, possibly building fort structures nearby to enhance your defenses. This task may or may not be as impossible as it sounds since Civ V's "conquest" victory condition has been tweaked to require you to capture all enemy capital cities, as opposed to capturing every single city on the map. Again, these are big changes and are really pretty bold--but they seem like they could add real depth and exciting new direction to the series. Oh, and one last note--although Civ IV's religion system (which was met with mixed reactions) won't be making a comeback, we're assured by Firaxis that the feature wasn't simply cut without any plans for other new features to replace it. There are definitely more changes afoot for Civ V, and we can't wait to find out more. The game is scheduled for release later this year.

Source: Gamespot.com

We grease up to take on Super Street Fighter IV’s newest character, as well as take some Street Fighter III inductees for a test brawl.

In the last official trailer announcing even more characters for Super Street Fighter IV, the sound of a sloshing liquid and a mysterious voice over the last few seconds hinted that there may have been more surprises coming from the upgrade to last year’s fighting game favourite. Capcom finally unveiled what that last surprise was overnight, introducing a brand new character joining the Super Street Fighter IV ranks: the bulky, red-skinned, oil-obsessed Turkish fighter known as Hakan.

Before you dismiss the greased-up Hakan as a completely unrealistic addition, let it be known that Turkish oil wrestling is a real martial art (as evidenced by several YouTube clips), and was found by the team behind Super Street Fighter IV after producer Yoshinori Ono asked his squad to scour the internet for interesting and unusual fight styles a brand new character could be based on. Ono told GameSpot that with all of the other recent additions to the SSFIV roster being classic characters from the Alpha and III series, he wanted to introduce a new, wacky addition along the likes of a Blanka or a Dhalsim. And hence Hakan was born.

But while Turkish oil wrestling may be real, Hakan’s looks and move set are definitely more on the fantastical side rather than realistic. A grappler at his core, the potency and range of Hakan’s basic moves are affected by how oily he is, with players able to add more oil to his body at any time via performing a dragon punch move along with any kick button. Like Zangief, Hakan’s most powerful moves are throws: the Oil Rocket (performed via a full circle stick move plus a punch button) sees Hakan grab his opponent in a bear hug, with the pressure of the hug and his greasy frame eventually squeezing out his foe; and the Oil Dive, which sees Hakan grab a combatant and slide around with him/her on the ground. Doing a half circle move with punch performs an Oil Slide, where Hakan slides along the ground to knock down foes (the oilier you are, the faster and longer the slide goes). This can be followed up with another body slam by pressing a punch button at the end of the slide.

Hakan’s comedic value really shines when he performs his super and two ultras. His Flying Oil Spin super sees him running a short distance before grabbing an enemy and performing a combo, while his first ultra—the Oil Coaster—has Hakan throwing an opponent in the air before sliding them around his body at ever increasing velocity. His second ultra—the Oil Combination Hold—is bound to draw laughs the first few times you see it. With this ultra (performed by quickly tapping down three times on the stick and pressing all three kick buttons), Hakan lays flat on his back. If an opponent happens to jump onto the prone Turk, they’ll slip on his oily gut, landing face down on the ground. Hakan then jumps on top, and squeezes with an almighty effort, eventually popping out the hapless foe from between his legs and sending them shooting off across the stage. The move looks to be a purely defensive ultra, can be a little off putting, but still a lot of fun to pull off.

While Hakan’s unique fighting style may mean he’ll take some getting used to, fans of the various incarnations of Street Fighter III will be pleased to know that the character additions to SSFIV feel very much like they used to, with a few minor exceptions. Pugilist Dudley, for example, retains much of his move set from Third Strike, such as the Jet Upper, Machinegun Blast, Cross Counter, Short Swing Blows, and various Ducking combos. He even gets his Thunderbolt charge move back, which was last seen in 2nd Impact. Dudley’s super is still the Rocket Upper (which is essentially a chain of Jet Uppers), while his two ultras were also featured in Third Strike—the Rolling Thunder and the Corkscrew Cross (which has now evolved into an impressive looking horizontal tornado which spins an opponent).

Just like Dudley, ninja-in-training Ibuki’s Third Strike move set makes it into SSFIV mostly intact. The still speedy Ibuki retains the Kunai air knife throw, the Tsuijigoe somersault, the sliding neck breaker Kubi Ori, the explosive throw Raida, the Kasumi Gake dash, the dragon-punch-like Kazegiri, the Tsumuji, and the useful Hien. The Kasunni Suzaku—where Ibuki throws multiple projectiles while in the air—becomes her super. As for ultras, the Yoroitoshi is a modified version of a similar Third Strike super, and sees Ibuki grab an opponent and deliver an ultra powerful Raida-like move (and is performed via two backward half circles plus three punch buttons). The second ultra is the Hashinsho, which begins with a flurry of hits and finishes up with Ibuki jumping into the air and throwing dozens of projectiles at her opponent.

Makoto—one of the deadliest characters in Third Strike in the right hands—also has an almost identical move list compared to when fans last saw her. The uppercut-like Fukiage is back, as is the dash punch Hayate, the ground chop Oroshi, the air kick Karakusa, and the ever useful grab-and-choke Karakusa. The temporary power boost that is the Tanden Renki serves as Makoto’s super, while the multi-hit flurry of the Seichusen Godanzuki is the first of her ultras. The second is the Abare Tosanami, which sees Makoto jump to the back wall before diagonally leaping an opponent to begin a powerful combo.

Just as all of the previous characters introduced in Street Fighter IV felt and played like their classic counterparts, the Street Fighter III additions to the SSFIV roster feel instantly familiar (although it’ll take a few more hours playtime to see just how seamlessly these characters fit into the parry-less environment of SSFIV). We’ll have plenty more on Super Street Fighter IV in the following weeks, so keep it locked to GameSpot for more information.

Source: Gamespot.com

The third game in this sandbox action series has you exploring Hong Kong as an undercover cop.

If you're the type of person who enjoys video games as a form of escapism, then you may have found the first entry in Activision's True Crime series a bit of a head-scratcher. Of all places, the game was set in Los Angeles--otherwise known as the most frequent butt of jokes about traffic jams and endless urban sprawl. While the game itself proved to be a fairly entertaining action romp, it's hard to deny that the setting could have been a tad more exotic. It's a different situation, however, for the upcoming True Crime reboot from United Front Games. Set in the vibrant metropolis of Hong Kong, the next True Crime--this one free of subtitles--has you taking on the role of an undercover cop attempting to infiltrate the notorious Triads that plague this dense and colorful city.

When it comes to open-world action games like this one, the city itself can be just as important as any member of the cast. While we weren't able to play the game and thus explore the city at our own leisure, it seems that based purely on the visuals True Crime's version of Hong Kong has got character to spare. The outdoor nighttime environments are flush with color, with paper lanterns strewn between buildings and a rainbow of neon lights on every building. Other environments in the game include windy hills leading up to scenic overlooks and large stretches of water connecting the city's various islands.

True Crime will offer up the familiar trio of driving, gun combat, and melee fighting that other games in the sandbox action genre are built around. What looks to set True Crime apart from others, though, is the stylish way those actions are carried across on the screen. United Front is aiming to make True Crime feel a lot like a slick Hong Kong action movie, as the 2002 thriller Infernal Affairs was a frequent point of comparison when we spoke with the development staff.

The melee stuff is what grabbed us the most. The game's main character, Wei Shen, is clearly a man who knows a few things about martial arts. As he went about his mission trying to infiltrate a warehouse in the industrial area of town, the hand-to-hand skills he used to dispatch enemies were the highlight of the show. There was a lot going on, including grapples, counters, and reversals. All those rapid-fire movements were animated fairly well and the combat moved at a fast clip. With sweeping leg attacks, as well as the ability to quickly run and vault over objects, Shen was able to keep blazing through the mission without having to get his hands too dirty.

The way environments fit into melee combat grabbed our attention as well. These location-contextual attacks are pretty brutal, including the ability to slam someone's head in a refrigerator door and throw a guy into a dumpster mid-grapple then push him into an electrified circuit breaker. Handheld weapons are vicious, too. At one point, we saw Shen snatch a meat cleaver from an enemy's hands and deftly wield it like a dagger before plunging it into someone's chest. A moment later, he stole the gun from another enemy and quickly spun him around to shoot the back of his knee in one quick motion.

Once you transition into full-blown gun combat, True Crime begins to look a bit more ordinary. Everything is in there that you'd expect: a cover system, explosive barrels, and a good selection of black-market weaponry. But compared to the melee fighting, there doesn't seem to be anything terribly unique about the shooting aspects of the game. Then again, we didn't get to see a whole lot of gun play, and according to United Front, there's a somewhat unique nonlethal targeting system that lets you aim for limbs in order to take out enemies without killing them. While we didn't get to see that part, the promise of this seems like an interesting way to explore Shen's status as an undercover cop stuck in a morally ambiguous situation.

Finally, there's an entire city's worth of vehicles for the taking. Among other options, you can plow through cramped markets in SUVs or zip around the crowded streets and alleys on nimble motorcycles. But it doesn't seem like the selection of vehicles is the eye-catching part so much as what you can do with them. Our demo ended with a bizarre and improbable motorcycle feat: Shen sped up behind a quickly moving car then effortlessly leapt from the motorcycle to the fast-moving sedan as if it were nothing. When you combine that with the slick melee system, you've got a pretty good idea of the stylized gameplay that United Front is aiming to deliver. How it all comes together is something we should have a better idea about as we get closer to True Crime's fall 2010 release date.

Source: Gamespot.com

This modest add-on to a great game is aimed at players who fancy some multiplayer competition.

Last year's Dawn of Discovery was a complex but tremendously absorbing game of exploration, city-building, and resource management. Now, a new expansion called Venice seeks to entice you to return to the high seas of the early 1400s. Before you set sail with visions of canals and gondolas filling your head, you should know that this isn't quite the full-featured Venetian experience you might be hoping for. Still, while most of the additions are relatively minor, Dawn of Discovery fans will appreciate the ways in which Venice fleshes out the game's competitive aspect and will enjoy the opportunity, finally, to test their skills against human opponents.

The title for this expansion is a bit misleading. You won't be building any Venetian cities yourself, and with the exception of a few entirely new building types, the appearance of the cities you create is unchanged from the core game. Venetian trading ports are now present, but they're always maintained by the AI character of Giacomo Garibaldi, and although the architecture that makes up these ports is beautiful, the changes are purely cosmetic and aren't even onscreen that often. The new ship types available from Garibaldi are useful, but the Venetian element is just a bit of seasoning in the overall mix of the game, not the prominent element you might go in expecting.

Instead, the most significant features in this package are the competitive and cooperative multiplayer options that were conspicuously absent from the original game. Multiplayer games support up to eight players and are as deeply customizable as their single-player counterparts, allowing you to establish victory conditions that include population size, completing quests for AI characters, or being the only surviving player. Dawn of Discovery doesn't lend itself to quick and convenient action, but multiplayer competition can be richly rewarding if you're willing to put some time into it. Depending on how you set them up, multiplayer sessions of Dawn of Discovery can last up to ten hours or more, so it's just as well there's an option to save games in progress. If you know others with the game and can coordinate times to play, you're more likely to have a good experience than if you're hopping into the lobby and hoping to play with strangers. And the cooperative option is different from typical team-based play. Rather than team members each controlling their own ships, cities, and resources, each member of a team has full control of all the team's assets. This requires excellent communication and coordination to ensure that everyone is working toward the same goals. If you enjoy that kind of close collaboration, it can be great fun.

Along with the implementation of multiplayer, Venice enhances the competitive element of Dawn of Discovery by introducing sabotage and city politics. A new building type called the base of operations lets you send spies to hide among the populace of a competitor's city. Once your spies are there, you can direct them to commit acts that disrupt the economy of your rival, such as arson or sending out false prophets who compel people to stop paying taxes. And the introduction of city councils gives you a chance to take over a rival's town by buying off the majority of council seats and purchasing the key to the city. The original Dawn of Discovery didn't offer you many ways to try to make life difficult for your opponents short of launching a military assault, so the opportunity to covertly muck up the works for your rivals or buy your way to power is most welcome. And if for any reason you want to play without city councils or the threat of a rival sending a belly dancer to your city's marketplace, these elements can be turned off.

There's no new single-player campaign in Venice, but there are 15 new scenarios that run the gamut from breezy ship-racing competitions to society-building challenges under the most grueling conditions. These scenarios are diverse, and most of them are quite good, capturing an intoxicating spirit of high seas adventure. But while they serve to introduce the expansion's new gameplay elements, they don't do a good job of familiarizing you with them. For instance, when you're told in an early scenario to use spies to commit specific acts of sabotage, it's not clear which enemy houses you need to infiltrate to make specific acts of sabotage available to you, nor is it stated in the flimsy manual for this expansion. You're often left to just fumble around with things to determine how they work, and given how tremendously complex and daunting this game can be even when you're deeply familiar with it, the fact that it doesn't take steps to clearly explain how these new elements work is frustrating. Of course, a steep learning curve is nothing new to Dawn of Discovery, but it's disappointing that this unnecessary and unpleasant challenge hasn't been refined a bit.

With the exception of those moments you spend trading in a Venetian port (or just admiring the architecture in one), Venice is visually indistinguishable from the core game. Dawn of Discovery is still breathtaking in its evocation of an idealized historical setting, and the Venetian elements feel right at home in this gorgeous, bustling world. Similarly, the new music introduced here is a perfect addition to the score, as rousing and sweeping in scope as the compositions included in the original game.

Venice is more a modest collection of enhancements than a full-featured expansion. But while the emphasis on Venice in the title and marketing for this package may be disingenuous, the world of Dawn of Discovery is as captivating as ever. Those who have sunk countless hours into the core game and who relish the thought of spending many more facing off against human opponents will certainly find their $20 well spent.

Source: Gamespot.com

This beautifully presented WWI-themed tower defense game will have you coming back again and again.

When you hear the name Toy Soldiers, it might conjure images of the diminutive green army that emerges from a bucket in Toy Story or perhaps remind you of Martika's '80s hit of the same name. Unsurprisingly, the stars of this tower defense game have more in common with the former than with the latter, but they're not risking their green-and-tan bodies in assaults on armchairs or in the defense of dining tables. Rather, they're playing out scenarios from the First World War on battlefields that, though small enough to be towered over by desktop lamps, look a lot like the real thing. When you're not busily arranging defensive gun emplacements and the like on these dioramas, you're free to commandeer them, along with any tanks, planes, and sniper towers that you find. This makes Toy Soldiers an especially engaging entry in the tower defense genre because you have more to do than watch your defenses at work. It's also a lot of fun, and great value at 1200 Microsoft points (US$15) because it offers a Survival mode, as well as competitive multiplayer in addition to two decent-sized campaigns.

Your goal in Toy Soldiers is always the same: Protect the toy box representing your base that sits conspicuously on the battlefield. Suitable build points for defenses are arranged close by and, occasionally, across the entire battlefield. They come in two sizes: Small build points are suitable for anti-infantry guns, chemical weapons, and mortars, while large build points can accommodate antiair guns and long-range cannons. The victory condition for campaign missions is that no more than 20 enemies can reach your base, and unlike their counterparts in other tower defense games, enemies don't all follow the same route--even if their movements are still tightly scripted. Infantry, cavalry, armored cars, tanks, fighter planes, and bombers all pose different challenges, and keeping an eye on the enemy's unit queue to see what two or three types are coming next is key.

As you start each mission, the limited resources at your disposal are rarely enough to build more than a few defenses, but you earn money for every enemy that falls so it's not long before you can put all of the build locations to good use. Money is also used to repair and upgrade defenses, though you only gain access to upgrades as you progress through the campaign. And that's just as well, because while the simple controls make all of the build and upgrade options easily accessible, it takes a while to figure out which defenses are the most effective in which situations. A level-three weapon isn't always preferable to a level-two one, and you can often get by with lower level defenses if you're manning them yourself. You can hop onto defensive turrets at anytime, and using them is as easy as pointing them in the right direction and squeezing the trigger button. When they're available, vehicles work in much the same way, though it's worth noting that any vehicle that you leave unattended for too long or which gets destroyed takes a minute or so to become available again.

A good understanding of how all of your defensive options work is especially important in missions that end with a boss fight. Bosses include giant tanks, zeppelins, and trains, and although the same bosses appear in both of the campaigns, your fights with them play out quite differently. Even more so than regular missions, the boss levels often require some trial and error to beat. You need to memorize the boss's movements and position your defenses accordingly. Sometimes you have to tear down one defense to replace it with another in the middle of a fight just so that you have a weapon with the correct range, or manually reposition an existing defense so that it's pointing in the right direction when the boss moves. It can be frustrating to replay the same level over and over again, but every failed attempt makes you better prepared for the next, and because you do a little better each time, you're less inclined to give up.

Upon beating the Allies' 12-mission campaign, you unlock the Campaign+ mode that is played from the perspective of the Central Powers. The bosses and maps are largely unchanged, but the missions play out quite differently because you're up against more challenging enemies. In some cases, the remixed missions are also played at nighttime, which limits your visibility. Even more challenging is the elite difficulty setting that's available for any mission you've beaten previously. Unlike the other three difficulty options, which do exactly what you'd expect, cranking the game up to elite changes the gameplay quite considerably because your defenses no longer fire on anything automatically. You have to take control of every position manually, which makes for a much more frantic experience. The similarly challenging Survival mode also changes up the gameplay, sending in wave after wave of enemies onboard an armored train until your base inevitably falls. Neither of these modes is as much fun as regular campaign play, but they're welcome additions because they add some variety and offer a lasting challenge.

In addition to all of that single-player content, Toy Soldiers supports competitive two-player matches both online and via split-screen. In these games, you have control of your offense, as well as your defense; choosing which units to send into battle alongside the infantry that is handled automatically. You simply push Y to bring up your offensive menu, choose which of the three different unit types you want to send in, and then they appear on the map about a minute later. Multiplayer maps are symmetrical, so both players have a base to defend and have the same build points to work with. When they're closely contested, multiplayer battles are even more fun than the Campaign missions. That's not always the case, though, because once a player gets the upper hand, it can be extremely difficult for the other to get back into the fight. The most obvious multiplayer flaw, though, is that tanks and planes are overpowered--the former because they can easily be used to destroy defenses from great range; the latter because it's possible to fly them straight into the enemy's base so quickly that antiair guns don't stand a chance.

Multiplayer is also held back from greatness by a lack of content. There are only five maps available, and custom game options that let you determine which units are available, how much cash each player starts with, and that sort of thing are only available when you play against friends. If none of your friends want to play, your only option is to jump into a ranked match on a random map against a random opponent. Drivable tanks and planes, which can be turned off in friendly games, are always enabled in ranked battles, and too often, it's these vehicles that determine the winner. They're often a necessary evil, though, because they prevent games from turning into lengthy stalemates.

Other than some occasional drops in the frame rate when playing online, the presentation is uniformly impressive in Toy Soldiers. Units are detailed enough that they hold up to close scrutiny, and if it weren't for the clockwork keys sticking out of tanks and the small cogs that fall to the ground when soldiers are killed, you could easily mistake this for an attempt at realistically re-creating the Great War. The battlegrounds, which offer plenty of variety, also have a believable appearance--at least until you realize that the horizon looks like it's hand painted onto the inside of a box. Occasionally, you're afforded a blurry look at the real world beyond the confines of the battlefield diorama as well, which serves as a sometimes-needed reminder that you're playing with toys.

Despite its limited multiplayer offering, Toy Soldiers is a great game that you can easily sink a dozen or more hours into without feeling like you've seen everything it has to offer. You might keep playing because you're competing with friends on the online leaderboards for each level or, perhaps, because you want to unlock a Pickelhaube reward for your avatar. Mostly, though, you'll keep coming back to Toy Soldiers because there's plenty of fun to be had with it even after you've beaten every mission and won a multiplayer battle on every map.

Source: Gamespot.com

We take to the skies and water-bomb forest fires in our first look at this kid-friendly flight game.

Kid Adventures: Sky Captain is a Wii game aimed at fulfilling the flight fantasies of younger gamers by putting them in the cockpit of a series of planes and tasking them with a variety of airborne missions. We donned the aviator goggles and jumped in the cockpit in this hands-on from GDC 2010.

Who's Making The Game: Aussie developer Torus Games is the captain on this title. The company has a long history of making kid-friendly games, including Zoo Hospital for the DS and the Wii, and Scooby Doo! First Frights.

What The Game Looks Like: Kid Adventures: Sky Captain sees you flying around three different zones, each one sporting its own unique look and features. The first world you’ll be in is essentially a large island surrounded by smaller islands. It's lush, green, and laced with roads, tunnels, and railway tracks. The second area, which you'll need to unlock, is prehistoric-themed, with a large volcano as its centerpiece. The third is set amid floating landmasses in the sky, reminiscent of the gravity-defying mountains in Avatar. Each area looks bright and colorful, if a little plain.

What There Is To Do: Apart from just flying around and enjoying the scenery, each of the three areas is littered with different missions you can undertake, with 40 different mission types to be found in the game. Missions range from simple checkpoint races where you have to fly your plane through a series of hoops, to shooting down midair targets, to taking aerial photographs of key landmarks. Successfully completing missions earns you experience points, which you can use to unlock new planes (and skins for your new rides).

How The Game Is Played: You fly by holding the Wii Remote on its side and tilting it to go up or down, left or right. The 1 and 2 buttons are used for braking and accelerating, respectively, while holding down the trigger and tilting the remote will see you perform tricks like barrel rolls. Your plane is also equipped with a water cannon and a camera, and you can switch between these by holding down on the remote's D pad.

What They Say: "The game includes 40 exhilarating missions from sky racing, stunt flying, target shooting, and treasure hunting. Players will also have the option of inviting a friend to the cockpit and playing cooperatively in any of the missions or head-to-head in multiplayer mode and can unlock several flying machines, including a jet plane and UFO."

What We Say: Kid Adventures: Sky Captain is reminiscent of the Wii Sports Resort minigame that allowed you to fly around Wuhu Island, although with more purpose thanks to the many varied missions on offer. Controls were simple to learn, and we can see this being popular with young children when it comes out on the Wii on June 15 this year.

Source: Gamespot.com