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Most Popular Achievements (10/31 - 11/6)

Jeff — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

This is it. It's the last weekend before Modern Warfare 2 is released. For some of you, it's a weekend filled with anticipation. For others, it's a weekend of complete indifference as you watch the Internet explode around you as every little bit of the game leaks. Leaks? Oh, right, for some of you, it's a weekend where you're playing Modern Warfare 2, because there are plenty of shops out there that'll break the street date for just about anything. Apparently GameStop stores in the North East part of the US have been given some kind of corporate go-ahead to just start selling the game, probably since plenty of independent game stores in those parts started selling the game last week. Makes me wish there were more stores like that around here. I can't even think of one non-chain game store in my immediate area.

Look at these guys, acting all "modern" and stuff.

Regardless of how you feel about Modern Warfare 2 (and it really seems like no one is truly neutral about it, because even the ones who say they're indifferent want to go out of their way to TELL YOU THAT IN ALL CAPS), it's always exciting to see these big tent-pole moments, where huge games get released and people line up to get them. It's interesting to see publishers of other games sort of move their games out of a bigger game's path. That's why some stuff got pushed to 2010. Love it or hate it, Infinity Ward's latest is going to cast a long shadow over the rest of the year.

Anyway, on to the data. I've gotten out my interpreter hat and rolled up my not-actually-an-analyst sleeves, and by looking at the achievements page for Borderlands, I'm going to say that the people who play that game are playing the hell out of it. Its an interesting case, because it doesn't have any achievements that are especially difficult. You just need to put in the time to get them. And clearly, you guys are putting in the time. There are no more "rare" achievements for Borderlands, and only three of them still show as "uncommon." Two of those uncommon achievements are for hitting levels 40 and 50, so it's really just a matter of putting in the time.

Here's a quick, unsorted list of assorted releases and the number of people playing them as of Saturday morning. I think these numbers probably tell you more about the site's audience than any genuine sales trend, but I'm sure someone out there could cook up a formula that eventually tied these numbers to sales, if they wanted to.

I think I mostly wanted to show those numbers to note the following:

- LEGO Rock Band is outperforming Band Hero so far, but not by much.

- Jurassic: The Hunted was released with as little fanfare as possible and I think our Quick Look of the game is the only coverage anyone's done so far. After watching that video, I wouldn't buy Jurassic, either. Except I already bought it. Damn.

- If 1,500 people are playing the not-as-good-as-PC version of Dragon Age, how many people must be playing the PC version?

- My guess is that DJ Hero and Tekken 6 are moving some units based on their name recognition, but neither game really took off at launch.

OK, let's get into the traditional lists. It's not especially surprising that Borderlands has held onto the top spot. Also, predictably, Modern Warfare 2 has resurfaced as interest in actually playing the game begins to swell. And The Ballad of Gay Tony has reignited Grand Theft Auto IV's popularity quite nicely. The site's significant international readership is probably responsible for Football Manager 2010 making the list.

And hey, this zombie thing for Borderlands is still coming this year, too.

Top 10 Sets

We've got a new pile of unreleased games in the achievements system this week, including some 2010 releases. So if you want to start planning out your January, be sure to look at the Dark Void achievements .

Tesla tells Will that he'll need to jack more spaceships if he wants all the achievements in Dark Void.

New Sets

Wallace & Gromit #2
Wallace & Gromit #4
Winning Eleven 2010 (I think this is the Japanese version?)
Chaotic: Shadow Warriors
Polar Panic
Rogue Warrior
Madden NFL Arcade
Encleverment Experiment
Dark Void
NCAA Basketball 10
The Tale of Despereaux
Big Brain Wolf (Steam)

And, finally, the individual achievements list. Borderlands is still holding on tight, but it doesn't control all ten spots like it did last week. People are looking for specific help on how to freefall as much as possible in The Ballad of Gay Tony , and they're also trying to figure out how to score 100,000 points in a single Forza 3 drift lap. That Forza achievement is probably the only one in the game that qualifies as tough. The rest reward you for specific, easy behavior or for just putting in the hours and gaining all your levels.

Donkey Kong?

Top 10 Individual

Borderlands - You're on a boat!
Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
Borderlands - Fully Loaded
Borderlands - Made in New Haven
Grand Theft Auto IV - TBoGT: Adrenaline Junkie
Borderlands - Speedy McSpeederton
Borderlands - Ding! Champion
Forza Motorsport 3 - Drift Lap
Borderlands - Can't We Get BEYOND Thunderdome?

OK, I'm going to go brace myself for the release of Modern Warfare 2. Actually, thanks to some retailers' inability to obey street dates and the notion of "overnight shipping," I'm just going to go play Modern Warfare 2. Review Tuesday.

Is This The First Teaser For Kane & Lynch 2?

Jeff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0800

It's blurry as hell, but those guys look enough like Kane and Lynch to me.

Kotaku 's Michael McWhertor got a line on a deliberately blurry video hosted off of MTV's German games site. The video isn't really surrounded by text that tells you what, exactly, it's supposed to be, but it sure as heck looks like Adam "Kane" Marcus and James "Lynch" Lynch , totally naked, and totally busting into a restaurant to escape gunfire and dogs. That could mean that this is the first piece of promotional material for the sequel to IO Interactive 's Kane & Lynch , which was released in 2007.

Here's a machine translation of the German text that's alongside the video.

Disturbing, confusing and a bit erotic. Thus one could describe the surveillance camera footage, which we make you this world exclusive access, if you wanted. Let's not.

It was pretty difficult to find the. I had several of my dubious and ill-smelling Contacts anhauen, (PR-people are truly the very worst) bribes changed their purses and a dirty piece of paper was signed with blood and sweat.

But now times butter for the fish: Does anyone have the two types identified in the video? What are they doing anyway? And why? And what has that to do with games? Give me your speculations, and Spiced gingerbread! Soon it's Christmas!

You do not even come on it anyway.

Yes, that's right. You do NOT even come on it anyway. Thanks , Google Translate.

While Eidos has stated that a sequel to the first game is in development, there haven't been many announcements about it, just trademark filings for "Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days." If having a pissed-off attack dog attempting to rip up a naked dude is IO's idea of "Dog Days," then I'm pretty interested in seeing more.

Actually, I'm super-interested in seeing what this game ends up being. The first one, for better or worse, will always hold a "special" place in my heart. I'll probably never be able to think about that first game without a rush of extremely mixed feelings, which, obviously, have very little to do with the actual game at this point. It's been my secret hope for some time now that K&L2 comes along and turns out to be completely amazing from top to bottom... basically everything that the first game wasn't. Something that actually capitalizes on the concept of "hey, what if we took Freedom Fighters and crossed it with Heat ?" instead of pissing it away with poor shooting and bad squad AI. Something with a script that doesn't make you feel like you need to take a shower after you finish it. Hey, better, more random AI in the online mode would be nice, too, while I'm making a list.

Anyway, if you want to see the video and missed the part where I linked to it already, click here to see it.

Netflix PS3 Discs Start Shipping

Jeff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Looks like PS3 owners looking to get in on Netflix's instant streaming will be ready to go as soon as this week. This showed up in my inbox this morning:

Rad.

Garrus Returns! And Other Secrets About Mass Effect 2

Brad — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Garrus! Buddy! What's up dude!

I got to play some more Mass Effect 2 earlier this week. And guess which familiar face I discovered? That's right! Garrus mother-effing Vakarian ! Everyone's favorite good-natured Turian will make at least a cameo appearance in this sequel, and it was good to hear his oddly soothing, gravelly tones as he picked off enemy mechs with a sniper rifle in a cutscene. Garrus is a smooth operator, you know.

BioWare has admitted several of your party members from the first Mass Effect will be back for part two, though some will have bigger roles than others. The only original character confirmed to be an active party member in Mass Effect 2 is Tali , the Darth Vader -masked engineer who for some reason I never, ever used. Hopefully other favorites like Garrus and (fingers crossed) Wrex will be able to join your space posse at some point.

The cutscene with Garrus afforded me a better look at the "dialogue interrupt" feature in Mass Effect 2's cinematics, which I've come to think of over the last few months as a violence option. It lets you hit the left trigger when an icon flashes onscreen that lets you speed up the proceedings, usually by pulling your weapon on someone or, say, throwing them out a window. In this case, Shepard trained his own sniper rifle on the mechs, and hitting the interrupt button made him pick one of these enemies off, meaning I had one fewer enemy to deal with once the combat actually started.

I get the impression that using the interrupt feature won't drastically change the outcome of a given situation, just tweak it a bit and bring it about a little faster. Some interrupts, however, will move your moral alignment one way or the other. Since you can't tell what your interrupt action will be and only have a few seconds to decide whether to use the option or not, BioWare says the final game will give you some kind of indication about whether the interrupt will generate Paragon or Renegade points. So if you're trying to do a full good-guy playthrough, for instance, you won't sully your record by unintentionally acting like a bad guy.

When I ran into Garrus, I was joined by the new playable Krogan party member Grunt (who ain't no Wrex, but gets the job done in combat) and Jacob, who was recently introduced in the Mass Effect Galaxy iPhone game. We were exploring Omega, a planet that's located outside of Citadel space and is thus outside the influence of the collective galactic government. BioWare says you'll be spending a good portion of Mass Effect 2 on these sorts of untamed border planets, which certainly opens up the potential for you to run into a lot of rough characters over the course of your mission.

Strange things are afoot on Omega.

Speaking of that mission, I was surprised to get more background on the core storyline in Mass Effect 2. The reapers of the original game are pretty much out of the picture this time around, as are the spindly, sentient robots the Geth (though there will be at least one important Geth character featured in the storyline). The big menace this time is the Collectors, an insectoid race that's trying to eradicate humanity colony by colony. You can see more about the Collectors in the new trailer BioWare just released. I was surprised that Mass Effect 2 seems to be more of a "further adventures of Commander Shepard" sort of story rather than a direct continuation of the events of the first game, though the total number of ways in which this sequel ties back into the original Mass Effect remains to be seen.

BioWare has been touting the technical improvements it's made in this sequel, and in this demo I finally started becoming convinced the developer will follow through on its promises. Inconsistent frame rates, popping textures, and intolerably long space elevator load times were the biggest offenders in the original game, and I was able to see the first two have been pretty much eliminated in the demo I played. The game ran perfectly smoothly as I fought off mercs and mechs, and saw complex environments like the seedy Afterlife Club (replete with Asari strippers and lots of neon lighting).

It was in this club that I ran into a Batarian bartender who poisoned Shepard when he served him a drink. Batarians have a longstanding grudge against humanity, see. The four-eyed Batarians were featured prominently in the first Mass Effect prequel novel, but then failed to make much of an appearance in the original game. For the nerdier Mass Effect fans among you, those guys will be showing up a lot more often in Mass Effect 2's border planets, since they tend to operate off the grid and outside the Citadel's influence.

Mass Effect 2 is looking like simply an improved, refined version of Mass Effect. Since I thought the first game was a great RPG with a few rough edges, a new version of the same game with those edges smoothed out is perfectly fine by me. The game is due at the rapidly approaching end of January, so keep an eye out for more on this sequel in the near future.

On a not-entirely-unrelated note, we also spoke with BioWare's Dr. Greg Zeschuk about Dragon Age: Origins hitting stores and the speed with which Mass Effect 2 is coming to shelves. Watch!

Go Watch Captain N (Actually, Go Watch Pole Position)

Jeff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0800

I want to know more about this girl's haircare regiment.

Oh man, I spotted this on Destructoid last night and it's been in danger of ruining my productivity for the rest of the week. It seems that someone's gone ahead and launched an on-demand video site for cartoons. It's called Jaroo, and it's got a load of third-rate cartoons from the '80s for you to "enjoy."

The gaming tie-in is that they've got episodes of Captain N, Sonic Underground, and episodes of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, which are presented with the live-action bits of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, so you'll get a little Captain Lou up in here (pour one out for the god, by the way).

But then there's Pole Position . Man, I forgot that Pole Position existed, but yeah, someone decided to license Namco 's driving game for use in a cartoon, then made it about a brother/sister duo who drive cars that can convert into hydrofoils and stuff. And they fight crime. And the cars have crappy computer faces in them that talk to the kids like it was a bad episode of Knight Rider. That's assuming, of course, that "a bad episode of Knight Rider" was actually possible .

The non-gaming stuff is even more obscure. The most relevant thing available is Inspector Gadget, though I'm far more interested in seeing if Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors is any good, since I vaguely remember that from my youth. There's also a database entry for something called "Siegfried & Roy," but hitting it loads up episodes of a Sherlock Holmes cartoon. Man, a Siegfried & Roy cartoon would be just about the most awesomest bestest thing I could ever imagine, but the Sherlock Holmes cartoon is set in the 22nd century, so... yeah, that's still pretty good.

Check out the site at jaroo.com .

No Doubt Gets Cobain'd, Files Lawsuit Over Band Hero

Jeff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

She does a mean "Y.M.C.A.," too.

Activision 's Band Hero has barely been on sale for 24 hours, and already the game is the focus of a lawsuit from one of the groups featured in the game. According the Los Angeles Times , No Doubt has filed a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that the way the band's likeness is used in the game is outside the lines of the band's agreement with Activision.

The in-game usage of the band is similar to the way music celebrities were used in Guitar Hero 5 , and it allows the members of No Doubt, along with Taylor Swift and Adam Levine from Maroon 5 to appear in any role on any of the game's songs. You... may also remember that this is the exact same scenario that caused all of the uproar over the way Kurt Cobain 's likeness was treated in that game, which led to a lot of Twitter-based unpleasantness from Courtney Love and, really, a lot of negative feelings from a lot of different people.

The LA Times article on the topic says that the ability to make Gwen Stefani sing "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones is a specific sore spot. Like this:

“While No Doubt are avid fans of the Rolling Stones and even have performed in concerts with the Rolling Stones,” the complaint states, “the Character Manipulation Feature results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes.”

Well, when you put it that way, maybe they've got a point. The suit also claims that the band's request to limit their usage specifically to their own songs was turned down because it would be "too expensive" to patch it.

Activision's issued a statement in response to the suit, so here's a bit of that:

“Some of the world’s most popular and iconic artists have been featured in Guitar Hero as playable characters, and we are proud to count No Doubt among them,” Activision’s statement said. “Activision has a written agreement to use No Doubt in Band Hero – an agreement signed by No Doubt after extensive negotiations with its representatives, who collectively have decades of experience in the entertainment industry. Pursuant to that agreement, Activision worked with No Doubt and the band’s management in developing Band Hero…. Activision is exploring its own legal options with respect to No Doubt’s obligations under the agreement.”

It sounds like someone, somewhere needed to spend more time reading the fine print, but after the double-whammy of Kurt Cobain and No Doubt, I'm going to guess that this process of using likenesses in rhythm games will either get a lot more formal and specific or Activision will just do away with it entirely and save the likenesses for band-specific products, rather than attempting to cram them in alongside the standard cast of the Guitar Hero franchise and be forced to enact a bunch of specific limits on usage. It's probably not worth it for the company to negotiate likeness rights if they can only use them for two or three songs. Be sure to read the LA Times article for more of the back and forth between the two camps.

Namco Working On Tekken 6 Online Patch

Jeff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0800

If you read yesterday's Tekken 6 review , where I go on for a bit about how the online part of the game falls somewhere between "unpleasant" and "unplayable," then you might be interested in this update. We received this note from the game's publisher today...

Hello,

To improve the online game experience for players of TEKKEN® 6, NAMCO BANDAI Games is developing a downloadable update which will be available as soon as it has passed rigorous testing procedures.

More details regarding the content of the update and the timing of its release will be announced shortly.

This is separate from the online co-op Scenario Campaign mode update which is scheduled for release this winter.

Thanks for playing TEKKEN 6, and keep on fighting.

- NBGA PR

Color me hopeful for the future. Tekken 6 with more functional online is a much more appealing product than what's currently on shelves. We'll let you know if we hear anything more specific.

The End of N-Gage

Jeff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Some sort of N-Gage compound or something.

Gadget-focused web site Pocket Lint is reporting that Nokia is finally pulling the plug on the N-Gage platform next year. I know, right? I figured they had pulled the plug on that mess years ago. But Nokia is planning to shut down the N-Gage store in September of 2010, and the service side of it--meaning the community features for all of those awesome N-Gage games you're still totally playing--will run through the end of next year.

Of course, the N-Gage service isn't the only casualty here. There is also the robust and not-at-all-dead fan community for Nokia's cellular taco. We floated some questions past the admin of the only N-Gage-focused website worth talking about, sidetalkin.com , to see what he thought about all this.

But first, some history. Sidetalkin.com was the spot for the sidetalkin' crazy of 2004-2005. I loved it for its amazing photos of Frank Provo, but, really, the entire site was amazing. But it was brought to a crashing halt when Nokia released the N-Gage QD, an "upgraded" version of its device that no longer required you to hold phone conversations by holding the side of the taco directly up to your stupid face. As soon as I got my idiotic hands on new QD, we sent off the photo that would shut down the site:

Anyway, here is the transcript of said interview:

Giant Bomb: I figure as the world's foremost authority on sidetalkin', you must have some feelings on this important issue. What will happen to sidetalkin.com in the wake of this important news?

Sidetalkin: I REALLY ANGER THIS QUESTION, it is not nice to me, THE SITE WILL NEVER GO AWAY like a TRAIN that is TWO LAYERS OF STEEL WITH ENGINE POWER BY WHITE GOLD NUGGETS IT CAN’T BE STOPPED…... CAN’T MEANS CANNOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

GB: Do you feel that Nokia was right to abandon something as robust as the N-Gage and/or the N-Gage QD in favor of a software-only solution?

ST: DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU ARE A STUPID MORON WHO DOES NOT HAVE ANY PENS??

NOKIA was wrong 555% and i am angry, THEY REMOVE THE BEST PART END OF SENTENCE PLEASE don’t understand NOKIA ARE MY HEROES BUT THEY ARE LIKE HEROES WHO FAIL TO THE GROUND, LIKE ICARUS WHEN CRASHING INTO THE SUN.

NOKIA™ whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ^_((((

GB: If you were running Nokia, what would you have done differently to ensure N-Gage domination in the marketplace?

ST: Firstable, SOME PEOPLE [[[not my friends]]] WOULD SAY “STEP ONE: NOT MAKE THE CUSTOMER LOOK LIKE INTERGALACTIC RETARDS WHEN USING PHONE"

BUT SCREW IT HOLE YOU GUYS ~~~ THIS ADVICE IS 155% BULLSHITS. SIDETALKIN’ was LIKE A WELCOME TO THE FANTASY ZONE, the WORLDS #1 METHOD TO TALK AND SCREEN FORWARD SIMULTANEOUSLY.

PROOF IS RIGHT HERE: SIDETALKING HAS NEVER BEEN SUCCESSFULLY COPIED BY ANY COMPETITOR!! not even china. BOOOOOOOOOM HEADSHOT w/sniper rifle no cheating

so my advice would be simplest: TRY harder MORE advertising CHEAPER PRICE ALSO better ads FREE SALES AND GIVEAWAYS, finally MAYBE A HIGH-IMPACT STREET TEAM, but i guess it is now too late.

……………………………~~~

HERE IS TRUE STORY NOKIA® GAVE ME MONEY TO PROMOTE NGAGE QD on sidetalking website BUT NOKIA OUT OF PROTEST I WOULD GIVE ALL YOUR DEVIL NAZI MONEY BACK NOW!!!!! would but unfortunately I’ve spent it all

NOKIA HAS LOST ME FOREVER and now I HAVE A MOTOROLA RAZOR :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

RIP SIDETAKLING 1903-2005

<IMG SRC=“ANGELSTEARS.BMP” WIDTH=“32

-Sidetalkin.Com Admin Staff, who may or may not be Cabel Sasser

Most Popular Achievements (10/24 - 10/30)

Jeff — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Oh man, it is so totally November right now. On top of that, daylight savings is over. While that's temporarily good--I got an extra hour of sleep last night--it's longterm bad, because it means I'll be driving home from work in total darkness for the next several months. That's no good.

Last week went by super fast for me, largely because I was out of the office and sort of detached from the regular goings-on. Sounds like a lot of Dragon Age was played while I was out. I'm looking forward to seeing Dave's review of that later this week.

On the achievements front, it's starting to look a bit stale at the game level. That's because of two things. First, the achievements for most of this year's huge big superalphaomega releases are already out there now that Assassin's Creed II achievements are on the site. Also, does it strike you as sort of strange that Modern Warfare 2 isn't on our top ten this week? I'm guessing that'll be the game to replace Borderlands at the top of the list come November 10.

Did you watch the leaked MW2 footage? Looks pretty crazy, right? Actually, I'd recommend that you stay away from all the footage of that game that's going to leak out over the next 10 days. Save the surprises for when you sit down and play it for yourself.

Dude, Borderlands . It just crossed the 5,000 player mark and it's a frickin' juggernaut. People want to know about Borderlands achievements. People need to know about Borderlands achievements. Speaking of which, this is a good time to make a note of our redesigned achievement pages. Here's the new Borderlands page, which sorts in order of rarity, by default. Now you can easily scroll down and, thanks to the way the game doles out points every ten levels, you can see how far into the game people have gotten. 40% of those 5,000 people have gotten to level 30, but only 17.69% went on to level 40. And the level cap? 7.58% of those five grand have lived to see the true endgame so far. And around 30% of players have seen the end of the game... well, the end of the first playthrough, anyway.

We'll probably have more stat-type stuff along these lines for you to play with in the near future. For now, though, here's the top ten most popular achievement set pages on Giant Bomb for last week.

You don't need some fancy preorder rifle to rip up skags.

Top Sets

I'm guessing Killing Floor makes the list this week because they did a free weekend for it on Steam not too long ago. Oh, and keep in mind that the entry for GTA IV also includes the recently released Episodes From Liberty City pack that came out last week. Here's what's new this week.

I wouldn't really call Halo Waypoint a game.

New Sets

Man, I really don't know why Halo Waypoint shows up on profiles like it was a game. Actually, I think I know exactly why it does. Halo Waypoint totals up all of your achievements across all Halo games and gives you Xbox 360 avatar rewards based on your progress. For something to dole out avatar rewards, it probably has to appear on your profile like it was a game. That's my guess, anyway. I haven't matched it to our Halo Waypoint page because A) it doesn't have any achievements and B) our Halo Waypoint page is a concept page. So if you click on HW in your profile, it'll take you to a pretty janky page. I guess I could convert the concept page into a game page, but I'm not sure if we want to do that or not. I'll think about it for a bit.

Not much else out there in terms of new stuff. It's good to see more PC games supporting Steam achievements, though.

OK, as far as the individual achievements go, we've got a clean sweep. It's all Borderlands, all day, all night. I don't think Halo 3: ODST pulled that off during its hot weeks. Very impressive.

SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP

Top Ten Individual

Borderlands - You're on a boat!
Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
Borderlands - Fully Loaded
Borderlands - Speedy McSpeederton
Borderlands - Made in New Haven
Borderlands - Can't We Get BEYOND Thunderdome?
Borderlands - Ding! Champion
Borderlands - And They'll Tell Two Friends
Borderlands - Destroyed The Destroyer

Here's a little Borderlands-specific chart for you. The zigging and the zagging didn't make much sense to me at first until I realized that 10/24 (its biggest day) was the Saturday after the game's release. I guess a lot of you made it a Borderlands weekend.

Borderlands, achievements earned by GB users since launch.

Think it'll hang on for another week at the top spot?

Back To Rapture: Hands-On WIth BioShock 2

Brad — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:00:00 -0800

Some new toys this time around.

Any notions I had that BioShock 2 was going to diverge in a significant way from its inventive, esteemed predecessor went right out the window when I got to sit down and play this sequel from 2K Marin for myself a few weeks ago. The crumbling, art deco utopia under the sea; the crazed splicers; the genetic weapon modifications known as plasmids . All that stuff is back in force. Rapture may have become a nastier place over the decade separating the two games, but it's still familiar territory for anyone who went to the lengths necessary to put Frank Fontaine in his place during their first visit. I would have liked to see a BioShock sequel with a new setting and new themes, perhaps with subtler ties to the original. Then again, I'm not the guy tasked with following up such an ambitious and unique game in the space of only two years, and I can't really fault the new team at 2K Marin for picking up that specific torch and running with it.

If the team hasn't exactly changed what BioShock is, they've at least crammed a lot more BioShock into this sequel. You're going to see more of everything that made the world of Rapture as perilous and exotic as it was the first time around. There's the new hulking, imposing "Rumbler" version of the Big Daddy protecting the Little Sisters this time around. The Splicers have also gotten more spliced in the 10 years since the first game; I saw a burly, ape-like guy known as the Brute that will charge straight at you like a linebacker. Of course, there are more and heavier weapons that are in the spirit of the first game's arsenal but also seem tailored for use by your own bigger, badder Big Daddy protagonist. I especially liked a spear gun that would pin Splicers to the wall with a single shot, leaving them dangling wildly through the game's ragdoll system.

Big sisters ain't as tough as they look.

Then there's Sophia Lamb, the real villain, BioShock 2's brand new antagonist. She's the Andrew Ryan of BioShock 2. But where Ryan's objectivist philosophies excluded and ignored the less capable members of society, Lamb's a collectivist who wants to gather all of Rapture's remaining poor huddled masses to her and restore the failed society to its former splendor. But she's stepping on a lot of toes to do it. Just like Ryan, Lamb is the one who will be piping in over the radio from time to time, taunting you as you make your way to her. She's got minions, like the religious fanatic Father Simon Wales, establishing her empire inside Rapture. He acted as a boss encounter in the hands-off portion of the demo I saw.

The presence of Lamb was the biggest revelation about what I saw of BioShock 2, and it exemplifies the sort of feature-for-feature approach 2K Marin seems to be taking with this sequel, checking off every item on the list of what you need to make a BioShock game. New Big Daddy, new Splicers, new villainous ideologue. There are even some helpful new people, like a fancy Southern gentleman, yapping at you with funny accents over the radio. It even turns out that the Big Sister you've heard so much about, the one that you may have previously thought was the big baddie in this game--well, she's not alone. She's got other sisters. The Big Sisters are Sophia Lamb's enforcers, the telekinetic heavy lifters when things need to get done. But they aren't as tough as you might have thought. I took one of them down at the end of my hands-on time, which was a grueling but not impossible fight. You've got the tools to counteract most everything the Sisters throw at you, if you use them right.

Dual-wielding is the best new thing about BioShock 2's combat.

Speaking of which: getting your hands on a controller, this game feels like BioShock, top to bottom. The feel of the aiming and shooting, the use of health kits and Eve hypos, the Circus of Values vending machines; it's all just like you left it two years ago. By far my favorite improvement to the action is the dual-wielding between handheld weapons and plasmids. You can now fire off your spear gun with the right trigger and then pop off an Incinerate without having to swap between the two. While it still doesn't make much sense to me in the context of playing as a Big Daddy, in gameplay terms this makes the action a lot faster paced. Believable or not, it's something the game probably needed. The hacking minigame has also been simplified so that you're just timing a button press to a moving marker. This doesn't take you out of the action the way the first game's Pipe Dreams-esque minigame did, and helps to streamline the gameplay a little more.

I will give credit to some imaginative level design in BioShock 2, especially the "Journey to the Surface" level that I got to play most of the way through. It was designed as a theme park for the youngsters born inside Rapture that would indoctrinate them against the evils of the surface world. You get to run around a series of big animatronic dioramas, punching little "play" buttons that start an Andrew Ryan voiceover and depict the oppression of some scientist, entrepreneur, or other captain of industry by the evil giant hand of Big Government. Rapture became sort of a character unto itself over the course of the original game, so if 2K Marin is going to go back to that well for the sequel, I'm glad to see they're at least fleshing out that character further.

Rapture hasn't exactly gotten any prettier.

Then, of course, BioShock 2 has multiplayer. The game has free-for-all and team deathmatch modes, and a "Capture the Sister" mode that works more or less like it would with a flag, but looks kind of creepy as you run around carrying a thrashing little girl with you. The game's got the de rigeuer multiplayer bases covered, with persistent character progression between rounds that uses the Adam (or experience points) you've racked up to improve your chosen character, who takes the role of one of several Splicers with a short backstory included. The multiplayer exploits the BioShock trappings in a couple of other interesting ways; you can hack turrets to attack opposing players, and you can research each player's corpse individually with your camera to gain a damage bonus against that particular player for the rest of the match. But then, I never felt like BioShock's first-person shooting was as accomplished as many other games in this category, so the multiplayer didn't completely grab my attention here.

What does have my attention is where this story goes. BioShock 2 may trade heavily on the reputation of its name, and looking at this sequel on paper, you could be forgiven for thinking of it as falling into a predictable pattern that was established two years ago by its predecessor. But sometimes being forced to stay within the lines breeds creativity and ingenuity of its own. Getting to see exactly what it is that 2K Marin does with this tale, trapped within the dank confines of Rapture and situated squarely in the shadow of BioShock's legacy, may prove to be interesting indeed.

Until then, here's an interview we hustled at the hands-on event to fill in a little more detail about BioShock 2.

Here's An In-Depth Look At Disney's Epic Mickey

Brad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0800

In addition to an unveiling currently going on in London ( 1UP has a live blog), Disney Interactive has finally sent out a bunch of new images and information detailing its big under-wraps Wii project from Warren Spector , Epic Mickey . I never would have envisioned Spector to go from System Shock and Deus Ex to Mickey Mouse , but hey, the guy's got the pedigree.

Here's what you came for: the screenshots.

Disney also put out some basic gameplay info and quotes from Spector. (Note: Entirely from the company's mouth.)

Disney Interactive Studios today announced the development of Disney Epic Mickey, an adventure-platforming game with light role-playing elements for the Wii home video game console. The game stars Mickey Mouse who has been re-imagined for videogames by luminary game designer Warren Spector and his Junction Point game development studio. In Disney Epic Mickey, Spector, a life-long Disney fan, taps into Mickey Mouse's rich history along with the characters and worlds brought to life by Walt Disney to create an edgy and unexpected cartoon adventure.

"Mickey is an adventurous and rambunctious mouse," said Warren Spector, creative director and vice president, Junction Point. "I want to bring his personality to the forefront, place him in a daunting world and connect his spirited character with video game players worldwide. Ultimately, each player decides for him- or herself what makes Mickey cool."

In the game's fiction, a sorcerer named Yen Sid creates a beautiful, whimsically-twisted world where Disney's forgotten and retired creations thrive. Originally, the powerful sorcerer from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in Walt Disney's 1940 film "Fantasia" was nicknamed "Yen Sid" by Disney animators, although never named as such on screen. In Spector's game, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit - Walt Disney's first cartoon star created in 1927 - becomes the earliest inhabitant of Yen Sid's Cartoon Wasteland after Mickey Mouse is created. Oswald makes the Cartoon Wasteland comfortable for other retired characters as they join him in this magical land. Years pass, and as Oswald dwells in the Cartoon Wasteland, he becomes resentful watching Mickey's popularity swell. When Mickey curiously stumbles upon Yen Sid's map, he makes an innocent yet terrible mistake and inadvertently devastates Oswald's comfortable world. Eventually, Mickey's mistake pulls him deep into the mysterious Cartoon Wasteland to face the destruction he unknowingly created.

Players use the Wii Remote to wield magical paint and thinner to re-shape the world around them. Paint's creativity and thinner's damaging effect give the player robust tools and empowers them to make choices about how they move through the world. Each player's decisions to use paint, thinner or both dynamically changes the world with consequences that affect the environment, interactions with other characters, and even Mickey's appearance and abilities.

"The core of this game is the idea of choice and consequence, and how that defines both the character and the player," says Spector. "By putting the mischievous Mickey in an unfamiliar place and asking him to make choices - to help other cartoon characters or choose his own path - the game forces players to deal with the consequences of their actions. Ultimately, players must ask themselves, ‘What kind of hero am I?' Each player will come up with a different answer."

Blurring reality and fantasy, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit's role is as significant in the game as it was in real life. The Walt Disney-created Oswald appeared in 26 silent cartoons between 1927 and 1928 for Charles Mintz, who contracted with Universal for distribution. At this time, Oswald was primed to be Walt's first big animated star. When faced with daunting production costs, Walt asked for more money to ensure the quality of the Oswald cartoons. When a deal could not be reached, Walt lost the rights to Oswald and with the rabbit went much of Walt's staff. Among those who remained with Walt was animator, cartoonist and long-time friend Ub Iwerks, and together they created a new character named Mickey Mouse.

The initial concept behind Disney Epic Mickey originated within the Disney Interactive Studios' Think Tank. The Think Tank conceptualized Mickey as a cartoon character thrown into turmoil. Spector expanded and refined Disney Epic Mickey's concept and built the game for a broad audience fully utilizing the Wii and Wii Remote for accessibility and engaging gameplay.

There's also a ton of new concept art for you. Here are some environments.

And... character designs! Zombie Donald Duck is pretty neat.

Am I a big jerk for wishing this wasn't just a Wii game? The artwork and designs going into this are pretty impressive--too bad we won't be able to play through them in high-def. What's your interest level for this one?

Getting Buzzed With Buzz! Quiz World

Brad — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:00:00 -0800

HE'S STARING INTO MY SOUL.

My favorite feature of the newest Buzz! trivia game for PlayStation 3, Quiz World , is that you can't type in your own name.

Whoa there, sparky! Hang on a minute. I'm not regressing into company-shilling apologist mode. Instead of typing in your name, you select from a huge list of monikers that includes common first names and a number of silly nicknames. It's a cool feature because the game's Muppet-headed host, the exuberant but vaguely unsettling Buzz, then verbalizes your name during each round. That's attention-getting and useful for people like me who tend to zone out a bit during games like this. It's also weirdly funny from time to time; "Dude" is a name option, for example, which Jeff rightly pointed out we would all probably respond to.

Along with the preset name selections, there are a bunch of cartoonish avatars including knight, alien, cheerleader, and Snidely Whiplash-looking railroad baron guy with tophat and curly mustache. You can customize these characters with different outfit options and then make them do goofy animations between questions that will get Buzz yapping at you. These profiles are persistent across matches once you create them, and Buzz remembers your statistics and favorite categories to make recommendations in future play.

These people are down to quiz.

Speaking of, there are over 5,000 questions in here, and you pick a specific category from four choices before every round, including things like art history, musical instruments, and '80s television. I noticed the TV category had a strange predilection for Knight Rider and The A Team . Wait, there's nothing strange about that. And would you believe Ryan killed it in the art round? We were playing a mode where you could bet your current points, and his strategy of betting big on every question really paid off when he went from third to first at the end of the round.

Other round types include variations on the answer-first formula, and one I especially liked that had each player's podium raised into the air at a height proportional to their score. As each question's time ticked down, the podium lowered toward a trap door that your character would dump right into if your overall time ran out. That sort of round really levels the playing field, if you can answer faster than your competitors.

From what we played around here, Quiz World is honestly a good, silly sort of fun in a group setting, if you're into trivia games. I think our match actually got a little heated here in the office. It's also interesting to note that, despite the name and the controllers with gigantic light-up red buttons that ship the game, you rarely actually buzz in to answer questions. But who's splitting hairs?

Netflix Streaming Coming To PS3 This Year

Jeff — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:00:00 -0800

This lady is looking at discs.

Sony and Netflix have announced plans to deliver Netflix's instant streaming service, which allows users to watch a gang of TV and movies over the Internet, to the PlayStation 3 . The PS3 will gain support for the feature later this year, and in addition to a Netflix subscription, it will also require the use of disc-based software, which will launch the Netflix interface. Or, at least, it will "initially" require use of a disc, according to the released information, which makes it sound like the feature could be integrated directly into the PlayStation 3 at a later date.

Netflix is making the discs available for free to its members, and those wishing to get on the list for a disc as soon as they're available can do so now at www.netflix.com/ps3 .

This levels the playing field a bit more between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 , which has had built-in support for Netflix subscribers for quite awhile now. Of course, the key difference is that on the 360, you need a paid Xbox Live Gold account on top of your Netflix subscription, whereas it will be freely available on the PS3 to anyone with a PSN account and, you know, Internet access.

It sort of makes you wonder if Microsoft will blink and decide to move Netflix to the Silver side of the wall. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say naaah . Unless the PS3 absolutely catches fire and continues outselling the 360 month after month, Microsoft probably feels like it's in a fairly safe position. OK, that last sentence makes me feel like some sort of analyst-type guy. Like I'm wearing a suit. I've got to get out of these clothes before I turn into a computer!

Oh, and in a related story, I've spent the last several hours playing Uncharted 2 and DAMNTHATGAMEISGOOD.

Most Popular Achievements (10/17 - 10/23)

Jeff — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:00:00 -0800

My name is Jeff Gerstmann and I am addicted to data. There's something about charts and graphs that excites me. And that's why I take a look at the traffic for our achievement stuff every week and share these details with you. That's also why I'm hoping that we'll have some automated charts and graphs to share in the weeks and months ahead.

This week, it's obvious that Borderlands has become quite popular, achievementally speaking. That, combined with the talk that it was selling out in some locations, makes me think that it's going to go on to sell well, which is something that some analysts thought impossible. I guess the real test is if it can maintain its popularity once Modern Warfare 2 is released. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. 3,390 of you have synched Xbox 360 Borderlands achievements to the site. For a game that's less than a week old, that's a big start. That puts it just ahead of Brutal Legend (3,336) and means it's already bigger than Gearbox 's last 360 game, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (2,347).

So with that in mind, it shouldn't surprise you that Borderlands is leading the popularity list this week. But there's more to it than just raw numbers. The achievements in Borderlands are pretty well-designed, with a good mix of things you'll get over the course of normally playing the game and a few things that you'll have to go out of your way to earn. They're good stuff. I'm guessing they were something of a focus, as the company's president, Randy Pitchford , obviously cares about points to some extent. He's got over 81,000 of them, enough to slot him in at #13 on MyGamerCard's celebrity/industry leaderboard .

Gunning down the Crimson Lance: popular since October 2009.

Top Ten Sets

Now that Forza Motorsport 3 is actually out, the achievements are now publicly viewable. Expect Tekken 6 to become viewable sometime soon, since it's due out this week. OK, new stuff. We've got Assassin's Creed II achievements on the site now. Beyond that, nothing too mind-blowing here this week, unless you're a big fan of the Crash Time series.

Please tell me you're not a huge fan of the Crash Time series.

No tricks up his sleeves... right?

New Sets

Assassin's Creed II
Tayutama: Kiss on My Deity
Fairytale Fights
Top Spin 2 (not sure which version this is)
Tower Bloxx Deluxe
Everyday Genius: SquareLogic (Steam)
AI War: Fleet Command (Steam)
Autobahn Polizei (this is a version of Crash Time II)
Tropico 3
Crash Time III

"Kiss on My Deity" is the dirtiest phrase I've ever heard, by the way. Running just behind it at a close second is, of course, "Fleet Command." The individual achievements this week are once again tainted by me posting about the "Ask Him Ref!" achievement on Twitter , but Borderlands is the clear victor here. Also, since we can now properly rename secret achievements, the secret "You're On A Boat" achievement is our #1 this week.

Take a picture, trick.

Top Ten Individual

Borderlands - You're On A Boat (Secret)
Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2010 - Ask Him Ref!
Brutal Legend - Beast Master
Borderlands - And They'll Tell Two Friends
Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
Borderlands - Fully Loaded
Batman: Arkham Asylum - World's Greatest Detective
Garry's Mod - Secret Phrase
Brutal Legend - Boar Bather

Our upstairs gentlemen are working on some site redesign stuff that will manifest in new, cleaner designs for the achievement pages, among other things. It should be easier for you to keep track of alternate versions of a game once they're done. And we're still looking at building some method to manually add PlayStation 3 trophies to the system, since it'd be great to have stuff like Uncharted 2 in there, even if we can't track your progress.

What You'll Need To Run Modern Warfare 2 On PC

Brad — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:00:00 -0800

How to make it pretty.

It's Friday, and here we are, revisiting this week's hot-button game: Modern Warfare 2 . Wait, calm yourself! This time it's all business.

This time, it's the finalized hardware requirements for the PC version, which Activision has just released to allay any confusion. And here they are.

OS: Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor or better supported
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT or better or ATI Radeon 1600XT or better
DirectX®: Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c
Hard Drive: 12GB of free hard drive space
Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Internet: Broadband connection required for Multiplayer Connectivity. Internet Connection required for activation

Excitable readers' attention may be drawn to the last item, which seems to imply that you'll have to go online and validate your ownership to play the game. Whether that includes the single-player campaign remains to be seen, and will depend on the particulars of the IWNet service .

So hey, uh, how about that service? After a few days to digest the news about the new multiplayer setup, are you feeling any better about that stuff?