tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73522481168531412582024-10-12T13:20:17.863-07:00games reviews and informationsbazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-66321942334748115522011-09-17T13:40:00.000-07:002011-09-17T13:40:00.770-07:00<P><IMG height=202 alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomBODYCOUNTScreenAsiaFishingSlum3976285size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>There was a time when arcade games were one of the most successful genres on consoles. Epitomised by the likes of Daytona USA for the SEGA Saturn and Time Crisis for the original PlayStation, the arcade cabinet to table-top console port effortlessly drew hard-earned cash from wilful gamers' pockets all over again as they set out to discover just how close their home system could get to the industry-leading visuals of a cabinet machine. Limited content and the lack of a half-decent story were of little concern in those days – it was all about recreating the buzz of an arcade emporium in the comfort of your own home with the aid of a much flimsier light gun or racing wheel and minus the compulsive injection of 20 pence pieces. It's hardly shocking, then, that in an era where arcade cabinets near extinction in the UK (they cling on in the seedy backwaters of motorway service stations and seaside piers) and console games like Call of Duty pack tens of hours-worth of blockbusting content onto a single disc, the arcade gaming experience is struggling to compete.</P><br /><P>Activision would have you believe that the reason Bizarre Creations' Blur (a game we gave 9/10) was so commercially unsuccessful is because gamers aren't interested in arcade racing games anymore, while classic arcade shooter series like Time Crisis (3 & 4 were released on PS3) have been critically ripped apart this generation. Perhaps the best example of an arcade shooter in recent times was Bizarre Creations' The Club, which met a lukewarm reception from critics in 2008 (again, despite a high score from TVG). You see, we love arcade games here at TVG and we love a good arcade-style combo system, which is exactly the kind of experience Codemasters' Bodycount is aiming for. The whole game is based around a combo multiplier that builds in number as you headshot and frag enemies. With little room for a notable storyline or punctuating set-pieces, this score multiplier effectively becomes the centrepiece to Bodycount's gameplay.</P><br /><P>Contrary to our initial impressions during the last preview, it's not the lineage of Bodycount's destructible environments from Criterion's 2006 shooter, Black that form the game's primary focus. Sure, blowing up an explosive canister will take out a few foes nearby, and arcking a grenade into the top floor of a wooden guard tower can bring it to a satisfyingly splintered heap, but it's not the propellant of Bodycount; it's more a supporting member of the cast. Drop a trio of mines at the feet of some enemies on patrol, however, and watch as one gets stepped on and detonated, combusting all nearby fuel cans into a x5 multiplier flurry of kills, and you begin to get a picture of where the appeal ultimately lies. Again, as we pointed out during a recent hands-on, the destruction is actually very formulaic and abundantly predictable, which is arguably as it's supposed to be in an arcade shooter of this type – Battlefield: Bad Company 2, however, it is not.</P><br /><P>But while there is an</P><br /><P> <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescombodycountannounce0270611size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>obvious tiering of destructability to the levels – with their red oil drums, fuel cans, and gas canisters – which is semi-excusable in all its arcade trashiness, that doesn't make basic oversights like shoddy AI and lazy level design acceptable just because it's an arcade game. And we're not talking about dull, jack-in-the-box AI that's shoddy just because it's so one dimensional; we're talking about schizophrenic AI that fails to make any consistent sense throughout the entirety of the game. Enemies will land grenades on a 50 pence piece right next to you on every throw, and whole platoons will know your precise location at all times (no matter how much cover you hide behind), constantly showering you with bullets leaving little room for respite. And yet, at other times, they'll fail to notice you standing a few metres in front of them, or they'll get stuck in a feedback loop as they attempt to negotiate a wall by repeatedly walking into it.</P><br /><P>But if the AI is glitchy, then the level design is just downright cheap. Most levels resemble a mediocre multiplayer map more than they do a precisely orchestrated single-player layout, while the objectives are as colourful and stimulating as sawdust. Many of the 18 levels are so small, in fact, that the developers often resort to making you retrace your steps and activate a beacon or some such in the same general area that you blew up a command console five minutes earlier. The recycling of assets leads to repetitive colour schemes and environments, and Codies even has the cheek to reuse the same maps on multiple levels. We certainly felt a bit ripped off by all of this by the end of the game – even though the single-player campaign may take towards 10 hours to beat, the actual content on show seems to be more fitting of around half that game time.</P><br /><P>Perhaps the score multiplier could appease our frustrations over all of these shortcomings though; perhaps it could resurrect a poor example of a dying genre. Regrettably not. It isn't as if there's anything overtly offensive about the score multiplier, or that it's broken in any way; it's just that it doesn't quite fit together particularly well. It's a bit like Orlando Bloom really: he seems like a nice enough guy and we don't have anything against him, but he just doesn't play the role of a hero convincingly – you get the feeling that he just wants to pop down the street and buy some organic pesto from the deli. Similarly, Bodycount's multiplier should be about freneticism and chained kills but it just hasn't been balanced enough to achieve this. There's no time limit on the multiplier, which encourages an overly methodical approach, and this is then made worse by the fact that any regular gun kill breaks the chain. So, rather than risk an attempt at a headshot, you'll end up darting around the levels dropping copious grenades and mines (which are dispatched plentifully from downed enemies) to keep the multiplier up. At times you'll end up using explosives more than guns, which comes across a bit backward to be honest – the resulting gameplay just doesn't quite ring true. When you compare Bodycount's system to the variation, scope, and balance of Bulletstorm's 'Skillshots', for example, it really does pale in comaprison.</P><br /><P>We haven't been able to sample Bodycount's multiplayer on the review code provided, but the details are fairly straight forward: competitive multiplayer comes with deathma</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomBodycountpb00775676size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>tch and team deatchmatch modes for up to 12 players, while a co-op mode that has you fighting off waves of enemies across an enclosed map in the now standard Horde/co-op Zombies style helps to bolster long-term appeal. A further Bodycount Mode, which grades your scoring performance in each single-player level and sets it against ranked leaderboards, adds a touch of replayability. All in all though, none of this helps to save Bodycount from being one of the poorer FPS titles so far this year. It's not the worst – that achievement goes to Duke Nukem Forever so far – but it's uncomfortably close nonetheless.</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Bodycount/review-16679.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-59813843708111829432011-09-17T08:42:00.000-07:002011-09-17T08:42:00.321-07:00<P>If some of Darksiders' gameplay elements felt a little... familiar... at least it can't be denied that it had a visual style all of its own. Joe Madureira (of Marvel Comics fame) crafted a distinctive look for his Zelda/God of War hybrid and it paid off, with the first game in the series shifting over 1.3 million units. With a sequel looming on the horizon, TVG sat down with Daniel Isaac McGuffey, Creative Manager for THQ, to find out more about parallel time-lines, Death, and the Apocalypse.</P><br /><P><STRONG><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomHeavyHitter76108size6551500.jpg" width=360></STRONG></P><br /><P><STRONG></STRONG> </P><br /><P><STRONG>Let's talk about the setting of the game. Why have you chosen to set it at the same time as the first one?</STRONG></P><br /><P>We want people to understand that the Darksiders world is much larger than what they saw in Darksiders I, which all happened on Earth. There's a complete alternate dimension - which we showed a little of today - in the Abyssal Planes, and we want to really explore that, and also set up what's to follow with the four horsemen. We do want to get them all in eventually, but we feel it's really important to showcase each of them one at a time, and show you what makes that character special, show you their motivation, show you their tool-set, how this character moves; traverses; interacts with the world, so the best chance to introduce Death was within that time-frame because of his motivation at the moment, which is to redeem his brother. We didn't want to completely remove War from the story either and just make it completely Death focused because we know people found War endearing and we want to connect the two together, so that's part of the reason why we're doing it in a simultaneous time-frame.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So will you be revisiting some of the events of the first game from another perspective, and meeting up with War as you go through?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Without divulging too much, yeah, there will be some crossover, and you will get a little more insight into what happened in Darksiders I via Darksiders II.</P><br /><P><STRONG>In terms of the new mechanics, what sort of new puzzles can we expect?</STRONG></P><br /><P>We do want to bring back some of the items you had in the first game. You saw the Ghost Hook, which functions a lot like the Abyssal Chain only it has some of Death's sort of signature traversal added to it, so he can get more mileage out of it and use it in different ways. However, he can also use it like War could, so you can use it in combat, pulling enemies towards you, or pulling yourself towards enemies. We wanted to refine the gear experience, so while there were six pieces of gear and a bunch of passive abilities you could get in Darksiders I, this time what I will say is, there will be only three gear items but they will change, evolve and level-up so that they will gain abilities as you go along. We want to keep players from having to go back and forth between menus equipping items; we want you to have the full tool-set available to you at all times once they're all made available to you, and be able to switch between them very fluidly without having to equip and unequip items. So while initially it seems like there will be fewer, they're much more nuanced and robust than what you were able to play with in Darksiders I.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So what are those three gear items? Are we talking equipment or weapons?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Well some of them will function as both, so they will all have a primary function but some of them will have a combat function as well. You saw the Ghost Hook, I don't think we're talking about one of the other ones yet, but there will be a return of the Portal Gun, so the Void Walker will be returning, but it's going to have a lot of different functionality that we didn't see in Darksiders I - it's definitely getting an upgrade.</P><br /><P><STRONG>How extensive will the customisable loot and armour be?</STRONG></P><br /><P>It's super extensive. War had the Trimmer Gauntlet, and Death's Scythe - essentially two different secondary weapons. We want to give the player a chance to get into combat in exactly the way that they feel comfortable with. So if they want to use really light weapons where they can get into combat and do a lot of damage up close, then we want to offer them those; if they want to do really heavy damage with much slower weapons, we want to offer them those. So we have multiple classes of weapons: we have axes, maces, we have melee weapons - which resemble gloves that have claws on them - we have hammers, different pole-arms, broadswords, and those will all have different effects on them. You can expect to see a really vast selection of weapons that will even get different benefits based on the armour that you equip. So there will be sets that you can find - you can find sets of armour that have weapons that correspond and vice-versa.</P><br /><P>S<STRONG>o will you be able to carry all those through into the multiplayer?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Into multiplayer? We're not talking about multiplayer at the moment.</P><br /><P><STRONG>But there's going to be multiplayer?</STRONG></P><br /><P>I don't think we're quite talking about what we're doing yet with the connected elements.</P><br /><P><STRONG>Can you talk about co-op at all?</STRONG></P><br /><P>We do have a few different things planned, but right now it's just not something we're talking about.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So you've mentioned that there will be other characters, other than Death, in the game - we've got War - is there going to be Fury as well, is that right?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Fury and Strife are the other two horsemen, and we're not talking about what their significance is in the game yet.</P><br /><P><STRONG>See I always thoug</STRONG></P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomScarabHulk76109size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P><STRONG>ht it was Famine and Pestilence...</STRONG></P><br /><P>Part of Joe Madureira's involvement is that he has a remarkably different take on things. If I were to tell somebody to draw a tree and Joe to draw a tree, what he does is not going to look anything like what anybody else would do, and that's what he brings to the game. He's going to make Death and War look different to what anybody else would've imagined, and likewise, these guys - Joe and some of the other guys at Vigil - didn't think that Pestilence and Famine sounded like cool characters to play as, so Strife and Fury just fit more into the universe.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So obviously the game's going to be on Wii U as well - can you talk at all about the unique features that that version's going to have?</STRONG></P><br /><P>The team's still designing those. Because the hardware's so early and the team's only had a very limited time to work with the hardware, we're still determining what the most beneficial things to provide for the Wii U user-base will be, but it certainly will have most likely different interface capabilities than all of the other SKUs will have.</P><br /><P><STRONG>There's been talk about possibly releasing a comic book and a movie based on the series. Is there any more news on that?</STRONG></P><br /><P>There most certainly will be a comic book, and as we get closer and closer to the launch of Darksiders II you'll be hearing more and more about that. At THQ - I don't know if you know Danny Bilson, or THQ's mantra... it's one of trans-media - supporting games with products that make sense. Whether that be a movie or a comic book, we want to pursue those options as long as Dan... you know, obviously Darksiders is a game of incredible mind-share and quality; the art, the universe, is something the team works very hard on. So, if a movie makes sense, and upholds the vision of Darksiders, and makes sense in the grand scheme of things we'll do it. If it were just a play for publicity or revenue, it's not something that interests us. We're going to do it when it makes sense to do a Darksiders movie, but yeah, if those elements come together then you can expect to see one. </P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Darksiders-II/feature-16610.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-44316904884469594102011-09-17T06:59:00.000-07:002011-09-17T06:59:00.659-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomTheAscent76110size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>Darksiders II is a sequel in space rather than time. You play as Death rather than War, at the same time, in a different place. And who wouldn't like to be Death for a while? Reaping and pillaging is why we play games after all. To sate our repressed barbarous desires; to smash open an other and smear his blood across our naked chest. To have cool scythes.</P><br /><P>Death approaches a huge bell atop a barren, craggy outcrop. He takes a moment to admire his jet black locks in the sheen of his scythe before arcing round to slice the bell into two juddering halves. An enormous floating fortress of rock and dread descends into view, as a pair of monstrous skeletal wyrms unfurl ahead of it.</EM></P><br /><P>War is a bit slow and lumbering anyway. A bit of a tank; good for soaking up blasts and crushing civilians, but not exactly nimble; not like Death. One minute you might be queuing up for bacon croutons in Lidl, the next - fatal heart attack. That's stealth. And if you were Death (are you?), you'd also be a bit miffed if your brother (War) got banged up on false pretences for a crime that wasn't really his (ending the world early). You might even set out on a quest to clear his name. In fact you will (did/are), in Darksiders II.</P><br /><P>Summoning his undead steed, Death leaps down upon the serpent's rocky back, and charges toward the fortress.</EM></P><br /><P>Death is considerably more agile than his brother, scurrying up and along walls to reach far off ledges, and swinging across chasms with his whip-like Ghost Hook. In combat, Death fades and counters; he can't block - he doesn't need to - and relies instead on sneaky evasive manoeuvres to outwit his opponents.</P><br /><P>Comparisons to God of War (combat) and Zelda (puzzles) were made with the first game, and they will certainly be made with the second. Despite its unique visual style (courtesy of X-Men comic artist, Joe Madureira), Darksiders is a series which perhaps borrows more than it innovates. Vigil are certainly making a much bigger game this time around however, with each of the four realms in the sequel containing as much dungeon content as the whole of Darksiders I. A central town (such as the fortress Death is currently charging towards) acts as a hub in each realm, populated with a range of NPCs offering side-quests and the promise of rare loot.</P><br /><P>Bursting into the throne room, Death demands an audience with The Lord of Bones.</EM></P><br /><P>"My lord is busy tending his realm," cackles his skeletal aide.</EM></P><br /><P>"You must bring back the head of his champion to earn his counsel."</EM></P><br /><P>"I shall embark upon... the fetch quest," sighs a dejected Death, before trudging to the Champion's Arena and glaring at a statue with a few missin</EM>g horns.</EM></P><br /><P>"O  frabjous day! a fetch quest within a fetch quest. Guess I'd better go get those missing horns to summon this bloke, that's how it normally goes after all. Ho hum. Off to this conveniently placed dungeon over here I suppose."</EM></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>The dungeon we we</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomAirJuggle76102size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>re shown featured a few simple puzzles (e.g. rotate laser emitting statue to hit receptor across room) and a fair amount of good old-fashioned scrapping. Death wields his dual scythes with aplomb, occasionally fusing them into a single weapon when ending a combo to deal more damage. Brief flashes of his full 'Reaper' form occur during combat, and a range of magical 'Wrath' abilities allow Death to cause damage from a distance, like summoning a flock of eyeball-pecking crows. In addition to his scythes, Death will have access to a huge range of weapons throughout the adventure - including axes, spears, broadswords, and gloves with spiky bits on. Loot pick-ups (with the exception of quest items) are randomised, with foes dropping various unique stat-boosting pieces of armour. Darksiders II will also feature a full skill tree, allowing you to customise Death to your preferred play-style as you level-up. It won't be possible to max-out the skill tree in every direction, so you'll need to tailor your armour-bonuses, skills, and weapons to create a synergistic combination - choosing defense boosting armour and skills if you favour a slower hammer weapon for example.</P><br /><P>As the final horn slotted into place, the arena floor began to tremble. A trail snaked its way through the dust towards the reaper. But it was no match for Death. He tore the skull-worm out of the ground before it could strike, felling it with a single sweep of his scythe.</EM></P><br /><P>In addition to the array of weapons and armour available, Death will gain access to three pieces of equipment during the adventure. Although the first game had six such items, each piece of gear in Darksiders II is said to have multiple functions and a far wider range of uses. Death's Ghost Hook allows him to latch onto high points and swing through the air, but also functions as a hook-shot, reeling in enemies or pulling him rapidly towards gargantuan foes. The Void Walker, which generates portals, will also be making a return, albeit with significantly revamped functionality.</P><br /><P>The silence was all too brief. Before Death stood the champion, a mighty Golem formed of rock and bone. The beast roared with rage and, ripping out its own head and spine, lashed out - obliterating the gallows Death had been standing on moments ago. Death answered with a flail of his own, latching onto the beast's detached cranium with his Ghost Hook, and sent the Golem crashing into the ground.</EM><BR><STRONG></STRONG><BR><STRONG>Vigil is remaining extremely tight-lipped about any potential multiplayer modes, but have hinted that Death might cross paths with the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse on his travels. Although the ending to Darksiders I suggested the possibility of co-op in a sequel, comments from the developers seem to suggest that this might be something they're saving for a later title in the series - and</STRONG><STRONG></STRONG><STRONG> given that Darksiders II runs parallel to the first game, its ending isn't all that relevant anyway. There's still much work to be done at this early stage - adding the promised in-town npcs, and building many of the side-quests </STRONG><STRONG></STRONG><STRONG>and bosses - but the distinctive Marvel-esque aesthetic is already confidently established, </STRONG></P><br /><P><STRONG><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomGuardians76106size6551500.jpg" width=360></STRONG></P><br /><P><STRONG>with chu</STRONG><STRONG></STRONG><STRONG>nk</STRONG><STRONG></STRONG><STRONG>y, col</STRONG><STRONG></STRONG><STRONG>ourful character models striding through the game's intricately sculpted, monumental environments. Hopefully Vigil will be able to come up with some distinctive gameplay to compliment Darksiders' distinctive visuals by the time it ships.</STRONG><BR><STRONG></STRONG><STRONG></STRONG><BR><STRONG>"So I'll just finish off this fetch quest then shall I..?"</STRONG></EM></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Darksiders-II/preview-16605.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-18869401286027635532011-09-17T05:59:00.000-07:002011-09-17T05:59:00.160-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomdeadisland-all-all-screenshot-02474489size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>It was never going to be representative of the teaser trailer, was it? Anybody who really thought the video short (which premiered across the web in February and subsequently won its creators, Axis Animation, a Cannes Lions Award) was going to resemble Techland's actual game code should have had their head examined. Simon Pegg may have liked the teaser, it may have been the top trending topic on Twitter for a day, and game commentators predictably made a fuss about the film's infanticide imagery, but ultimately it was just an impressive CGI short that did what it was supposed to do: drum-up interest in the game. Dead Island, the game, is about a zombie infestation across a luxury holiday resort in the tropics and here is where its similarity to the teaser trailer ends.</P><br /><P>Sitting down to actually go hands-on with the game, it feels like many of Techland's previous projects: it's very rough around the edges and the gameplay mechanics are a little, well, odd. For a start, whoever came up with the idea of basing such a huge portion of Dead Island's combat around melee weapons is either mildly crazy or a borderline genius (perhaps both). First-person games that rely on melee combat aren't usually attempted by developers and there's a very good reason why: it's usually rubbish. Melee is great as a supporting act (Master Chief's rifle butt, for example) but not as the star player simply because the perspective doesn't lend itself to slog-fests and close quarter engagements. First-person means that it's more difficult to check what's coming up behind you, while melee combat can't easily be varied into combos and it's also more difficult to judge the reach of an axe or hammer when you're swiping it haphazardly in front of your eyes (third-person, it would seem, is better at aiding depth perception). </P><br /><P>And yet somehow, much like with Techland's last title, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, the game still manages to be enjoyable despite this lack of refinement. It's the minor touches, such as the ability to combine various weapons and objects to form new instruments of zombie slaughter, which make the combat interesting. A sticky bomb and a knife, when combined together, make a knife that explodes once it's been stuck in a zombie (particularly useful when thrown), while razors and a baseball bat combine to form, well, you get the point. The sheer range of the melee weapons is equally impressive: knuckle dusters, morning stars, meat cleavers, machetes, and axes to name but a few of the many, and they're all upgradeable to new levels of zombie dicing strength when you've accrued some money to spend.</P><br /><P>Regular refurbishment of each weapon adds an element of survival to the mix. Unless you spend a bit of dosh fixing that mace before you go out on a mission, it's liable to cease functioning once you've crushed the skulls of a handful of zombies with it. And then there's the option for ranged combat with these melee weapons too: once a horde of zombies becomes too much to handle, you'll often resort to throwing everything you've got at them until the last thing you've got left is a med-pack, which you'll probably lob at them for good measure anyway. The lock-on system works well for this and Techland has made sure that there's a price to pay for lobbing weapons at zombies by removing the item from your inventory once you've done so. The only way to get it back is to return to the zombie corpse you've impaled and dislodge it from the bloody torso, which ensures that you can only use the throwing option sparingly if you want to</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomdeadisland-all-all-screenshot-059-E3jpg76070size6551500.jpg" width=360> </P><br /><P>have any hope of survival.</P><br /><P>That's not to say that guns don't play a role in the game at all. One playable character from the range of four specialises in ranged weapons and firearms, for example, and we did find the odd AK-47 dotted around the game world during our hands on session. It sort of makes sense, I suppose: how many assault rifles would you find on a luxury holiday resort anyway? On the other hand, presumably maces wouldn't be that commonplace either but that's hardly the point. The tendency towards melee combat, at least in three of the four character classes, does distance Dead Island from the likes of Left 4 Dead. It gives the zombie gaming genre a fresh feel, which is something that Techland has always done quite well in the FPS genre with Call of Juarez despite the many deficiencies elsewhere. And the open world setting, one of Dead Island's key selling points, also makes for an original experience.</P><br /><P>Yes, there are problems with that open world: running through the procedurally generated packs of zombies without confrontation is pretty straightforward. Many of the necromancers will follow you for quite some distance despite your best attempts to lose them, but then again a lot of them seem fairly unperturbed by your presence as you sprint through the shady alleyways between each villa. During a straightforward FedEx quest, like the one we did during our hands-on, this 'run away!' tactic is perhaps a little more successful than it should be, but then it's a balanced alternate tactic to some extent as well. Techland has implemented a stamina bar so that you can only run so far and are more liable to damage from attacks when the bar is drained, so there are disadvantages to the flight rather than fight approach. Additionally, if you use the tactic too excessively then eventually you'll be left with more zombies on your tail than you know what to do with. All in all, the game seems to work out a solution to these problems fairly solidly and isn't unbalanced even if it is a little wobbly. One thing we did notice is that a lot of the game environment we played through was cordoned off by concrete walls with Biohazard signs, so it'll be interesting to see just how 'open' the island of Banoi is in practice. Nonetheless, the game world we played in offered plenty of opportunities for exploration through missions and side-quests that were approachable in the usual non-linear fashion. </P><br /><P>Those varied classes that we mentioned earlier do help to add elements of strategy and variation too, as do the range of zombies. Xian Mei plays the assassin class and can be used to sneak past zombies without them noticing, which is perfect for flanking while characters like Logan (the all-rounder) and Sam B (the tank) bulldoze through an onslaught of the undead. Meanwhile, the aforementioned firearms specialist, Purna can use ranged attacks to lighten the load. From zombies on fire to zombies emitting noxious gases, and charging zombie mini-bosses restrained by straightjackets, the variation in enemies then manages to put the various playable character classes to good use.</P><br /><P><BR><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomdeadisland-all-all-screenshot-063-E3jpg76074size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P><BR><STRONG>Technically speaking, Techland is getting a lot of the core elements right with Dead Island: there's an original premise with gameplay that's both well varied and balanced (just about), so if the Polish studio can focus o</STRONG><STRONG>n shoring up some of the game's production values and overall sheen, then it could even have mini-blockbuster potential when it launches in September.</STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Dead-Island/preview-16601.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-51049344652428117722011-09-17T04:12:00.000-07:002011-09-17T04:12:00.234-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom2981DXHRDLCKeyArt76577size6551500.jpg" width=350></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>Following the official announcement last weekend, Square Enix Europe has now served up a couple of extra story details on Deus Ex: Human Revolution's 'The Missing Link' DLC while dropping the first batch of screens for the content (shown at the bottom of this article).</P><br /><P>The details are a little spoilerific, so if you're yet to finish the game's story then avert your eyes now... 'The Missing Link' takes place towards the end of the main plot, where Adam Jensen goes 'radio silent' with Sarif Industries and boards a freighter ship.</P><br /><P>During the main campaign, gamers are shown a cut-scene where Jensen climbs into a stasis chamber of sorts and then the next scene you see shows him exiting the ship three days later and entering a complex where the ship docks. </P><br /><P>'The Missing Link' tells the story of what happened on that freighter ship, where Jensen is tortured by Belltower agents and robbed of his augmentations. As a result, gamers effectively have to build a new set of augmentations from scratch. New story elements, characters, and environments are promised – the DLC is scheduled to arrive some time next month.</P><br /><P>"We are very excited for Deus Ex: Human Revolution fans to be able to further develop Adam’s journey in the game with The Missing Link DLC," said David Anfossi, Producer of Deus Ex: Human Revolution at Eidos-Montreal. "Gamers will be able to experience a vulnerable side of Adam like never before, which gives the overall game a whole new dimension. The Missing Link propels players into compelling gameplay, beginning with Adam being temporarily stripped of his use of augmentations, new, visually stunning environments and the continuation of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's conspiracy rich story.”</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution/news/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution-DLC-Screens--Details-16672.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-11102916928034026042011-09-17T02:54:00.000-07:002011-09-17T02:54:00.209-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDRVSFS008CSTannerPrisonVan75040size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>Some games are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. If Driver: San Francisco is going to aspire to any of these categories, it'll be the middle one. The title certainly won't be born great, such is the disappointment of former instalments in the series - for the same reason, it seems unlikely that anybody is going to be thrusting greatness upon it. This leaves achieving greatness as Ubisoft Reflections (formerly Reflections Interactive) strives to reinstate the Driver name after a series of poor design choices in the three major instalments following its 1998 debut. And as far as we can see having sat down for a sizeable hands-on with Driver San Francisco's multiplayer and opening single-player act, Ubi Reflections has been working very hard to produce a game of formidable polish.</P><br /><P>Take, for example, how far the code has come since we first saw it this time last year. At the centre of the gameplay is a 'shift' dynamic that allows you to teleport freely between any car in the game's open world (we'll explain why later). In our first hands-on with the multiplayer this time last year, the bird's eye view of the city that you used for shifting was featureless and colourless. Buildings and roads were uniformly grey, almost as if the game was in a proof-of-concept stage at the very start of development. In the current build though, this bird's eye view is fully rendered with all the textures and colours that you'd see from the default driver's perspective. The developers were taking on a hefty task with the innovative 'shift' dynamic - smoothly rendering a full open-world with no noticeable drops in frame-rate or pop-up is a daunting prospect at the best of times - so it's great to see that they've been refining and optimising the process so successfully over the last twelve months.</P><br /><P>For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the development of DSF though, here's a quick recap: it's billed as a return to the classic gameplay of the original Driver, where the focus was squarely on driving - gone are the GTA-style on-foot sections and gunplay of subsequent sequels. The hook, though, is this 'shift' dynamic. Ubisoft Reflections makes sense of it by placing Tanner, who returns as protagonist, in a coma after a coming together with his long-time adversary, Jericho. Within that coma, Tanner learns that he can shift into any car across the city of San Francisco and embody the driver at that vehicle's wheel. Across the game's main story, Tanner uses this ability (unawares he's in a coma) to infiltrate Jericho's gang and embody his various henchman as they complete jobs for their ringleader. With these details alone, DSF is already the most story-focused pure driving experience in any game of recent times, but it's the variation that Ubisoft Reflections appears to be managing through all of this that's particularly striking.</P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>During a couple of hours with t</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDRVSFS009ShelbyGT500ChasePortAreaLogo71593size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>he single-player, we experienced everything from car chases (as both cop and criminal) to illegal point-to-point street races, one mission where we embodied a journalist trying to capture footage of reckless driving, and another where we had to rescue a kidnapped woman in the boot of a car (the key was to take out the kidnapper's car with oncoming collisions by shifting to cars just in front of him). The gameplay hook of shifting really has allowed Ubi Reflections a wide range of tools to flesh out a discernible plot and the studio clearly hasn't shied away from the challenge. Each vehicle you shift into with either a side or story mission attached to it has discernible characters on-board with plentiful lines of dialogue and even minor back-stories to flesh out. There's the driving instructor who bullies the confidence out of his teenage student until Tanner embodies the young boy and scares the living daylights out of the instructor with some crazy driving antics, or the street racer who's trying to win some cash to send his younger brother to college. The scope and breadth of what's going on here is as fresh and invigorating as it is technically impressive.</P><br /><P>Of course, no Driver game comes without its focus on American muscle car-style handling, and what better location to frame that than the series' original setting, San Francisco, where Steve McQueen's antics in a Ford Mustang have made the film Bullitt so enduring over the decades. True to the game's heritage, handling is weighty through the corners with a focus on handbrake turns and rung-out drifts. The steep hills of San Francisco make for plenty of ludicrously airborne moments as you chase down the game's various objectives, all of which is then latched onto a Burnout-style currency system. Driving into oncoming traffic, time spent jumping, and drifting all add to the amount of money available for buying new cars and parts, while 'boost' and 'ram' gameplay perks that emerge as the game goes on do manage to keep the driving experience fresh.</P><br /><P>From what we've seen of the multiplayer, shifting lends itself as well to the gameplay here as it does in the story missions. Two modes were on offer during our hands-on, one of which was a variant of tag and the other your basic cops and robbers experience. In the tag mode, one player has a trophy and all other players have to steal it off them - the person who holds the trophy longest wins. Shifting has obvious advantages here as you scurry to shift into a vehicle as close as possible to the trophy holder and take them by surprise. The cops and robbers mode, on the other hand, pits numerous cop players against a single robber and, once again, using shifts strategically as a group of cops will soon have the target car pinned into a corner. Ubisoft Reflections has promised 19 multiplayer modes in total (11 online,</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDRVSFS007MPTrailblazerLogo71591size6551500.jpg" width=360> </P><br /><P>the rest split-screen) which is a pretty tantalising prospect, although it'll be interesting to see how many of these turn out to be variants on a theme.</P><br /><P><STRONG>As the arcade driving game genre misfires on current-gen consoles, it's refreshing to have Driver San Francisco come in and fill that void with all kin</STRONG><STRONG>ds of refreshing ideas across its gameplay and storyline. There are genuinely shades of Burnout's previous-gen bril</STRONG><STRONG>liance here.</STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Driver-San-Francisco/preview-16614.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-89045787099929559112011-09-17T01:37:00.000-07:002011-09-17T01:37:00.267-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom76565Scan203DS.jpg" width=250></P><br /><P>True to rumours that emerged around a couple of weeks ago, Nintendo has a new attachment in the offing for its 3DS that will add a second analogue thumbpad to the handheld's existing design.</P><br /><P></P><br /><P>The news comes from leaked scans of Japanese gaming mag Famitsu (thanks, Kotaku), which clearly show how the add-on attaches itself as a cradle to Nintendo's current 3DS model. As well as a second thumpad, the attachment will also introduce a trigger button to the right shoulder of the 3DS control suite.</P><br /><P>Andriasang broke the news originally, reporting that the first game to utilise this underslung peripheral will be Monster Hunter 3G (a 3DS version of the Wii's Monster Hunter 3). </P><br /><P>Nintendo's stock rose last month when investors learnt of a pre-TGS announcement that's set to take place on September 13th, so presumably that's when the company plans to drop all of this news. </P><br /><P>More as we get it but, in the meantime, check out this neat list on Kotaku of the attachments that Nintendo's released for its various consoles over the years.</P><br /><P><STRONG>Update:</STRONG> Nintendo has now officially confirmed the 3DS attachment, telling Kotaku, "We can confirm that Nintendo plans to release the Circle Pad attachment, but Nintendo's regional subsidiaries will make further announcements about its availability at a later date."</P><br /><P>You can bet good money that this "later date" will be next Tuesday, September 13th...</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Nintendo-3DS/news/Dual-Thumbpad-Add-On-For-3DS-Spotted-UPDATE-16667.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-90341915613065821242011-09-17T00:02:00.000-07:002011-09-17T00:02:00.352-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomscreensshortlist-1076642size6551500.jpg" width=350></P><br /><P>Project RedLime has finally gone public: EA's deal with Chronicles of Riddick developer, Starbreeze Studios, that was set to reboot a classic EA franchise has culminated in the official announcement of Syndicate for an early 2012 launch on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.</P><br /><P>Positioned as a reinvention of the mid-90s strategy game from Peter Molyneux's Bullfrog studio, this 21st century reboot will swap the isometric perspective of the original for the ubiquitously popular first-person shooter genre.</P><br /><P>Syndicate tells the story of Miles Kilo, a prototype agent for mega-corporation Eurocorp. The game's 2069 setting depicts a dystopian corporatocracy where other companies such as Cayman Global and Ascari vie for control of the American marketplace alongside Eurocorp.</P><br /><P>There's a whiff of Deus Ex about all this, as EA explains that everything in Synidcate's world is digitally connected (people included). It seems guns and frag grenades aren't the limits of players' weapons either, as DART 6 bio-chip technology will apparently open up bullet-time powers and upgradeable hacking capabilities (referred to in the press release as “chip breach gameplay”).</P><br /><P>Precisely where EA and Starbreeze is going with Syndicate remains purposefully vague at this stage, although this wouldn't be the first classic, isometric strategy game to be re-imagined as an FPS in recent times – 2K Games' XCOM reboot is also due for release early next year.</P><br /><P>“We are excited to finally reveal what we’ve been working on the past couple years,” says Mikael Nermark, CEO of Starbreeze Studios. "It's been a great experience working with EA, and an amazing opportunity for us to use our expertise in the first person shooter and action genres to bring back, and reignite, the signature action/espionage gameplay of Syndicate.”</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Syndicate/news/EA-Announces-Syndicate-Reboot-16674.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-17285762841753155802011-09-16T22:30:00.000-07:002011-09-16T22:30:00.197-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomE3ES0376021size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>There are a few things the Japanese love in their games; stylish but lanky heroes, brilliantly white school girl panties, and one long and near incomprehensible story line. These are things you should unashamedly come to expect when you pool together a dream team of Japanese talent, write a check and leave them to create the type of game they’ve always wanted to make. And yes, it’s absolutely mental.</P><br /><P>But we’re not talking Bayonetta levels of insanity here, and forget the knickers; El Shaddai is something completely different. It could be interpreted as a strange journey into a Japanese developers’ psyche or – and most likely - a middle finger to the now domineering Western games market. No hulky space marines, guns and brown with bloom to be seen here. It’s a mix of psychedelic platforming and third-person action with a storyline you’ll need to take notes on.<BR>As we mentioned, the Japanese love a confusing story and it's one hell of a tale to tell. Inspired by the Book of Enoch, the plot sees seven angels sent to earth to live with humans. The angels end up falling in love with humanity and, rather than taking a passive role and watching over them as God had intended, they end up introducing angelic technology into humanity. </P><br /><P>The humans end up worshipping the angels, rather than God, and end up creating a new species called Nephilim, who for some reason look like walking custard monsters. God’s not a fan of the Nephilim and asks Enoch, God’s scribe, to remove both the Nephilim and the angels who had failed him. </P><br /><P>Eventually, as Enoch, you’ll end up in the Tower of Babel on Earth. The tower was built by humans in celebration of the angels and El Shaddai takes place on the many levels of the tower. It’s all very unclear at the beginning, and it almost tries its best to confuse you further when you lose the first fight. Instead of a gamer over, it rewinds right back to the start where an altered version of the opening begins to play. On top of that, it offers alternative endings depending on how you play. While it doesn’t immediately penalise you for dying, allowing you to jump straight back into the action, certain deaths can affect the eventual ending and whether it’s good or bad depends on your overall skill during the whole game rather than specific choices. </P><br /><P>El Shaddai offers an environment that constantly changes perspectives and play styles. One minute you’ll be rushing forward and tackling the occasional battle, the next you’ll face challenging jumps in a cutesy side-scrolling platformer or even end up driving a motorbike in a nostalgic homage to Final Fantasy VII’s escape sequence in Midgar. These changes offer a good range of what the engine can do but the overall simplicity of the sections we played felt a little underwhelming. It’s perhaps a case of too much variety in a short amount of time, something we’re hoping the main course should rectify.  </P><br /><P>Stripped completely bare of any HUD, El Shaddai is a game you can play or watch with equal measures of enjoyment. It’s another entry for the games as art debate and one that takes its art very seriously. So much so, that the development lead is non</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomE3ES1176027size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>e other than artist Sawaki Takeyasu, famed for his work on Okami and Devil May Cry. It’s the first time he’s ever had control over a games story or gameplay mechanics but one we should be paying attention to.</P><br /><P>Perhaps having an artist so involved in the game as a whole might explain the overall simplicity El Shaddai radiates. Unlike Devil May Cry, which offers a decent array of weaponry to play with, El Shaddai has only three. The weapons offer more than rock-paper-scissors styled advantages in battles but also affect platforming abilities. The Arch, a sacrosanct blade used to slice foes up also allows Enoch to glide after jumps. The Gale, a ranged weapon that also grants the ability to dash, and lastly, the Veil, which acts as both a shield and close proximity damage dealer. These weapons are gained during battles where you’re forced to steal and purify them from the many enemies you meet in the game or by picking them up in certain sections of each level. Weapons can dull and you’ll have to purify the weapon should it become infected from repeated use. </P><br /><P>While each weapon offers a specific tactic to winning fights, they are also instrumental in passing some of the more difficult side-scrolling platform sections that require the special abilities each weapon offers. There were points during our demo that were impossible to progress through with the weapon we had equipped. Luckily there is usually an essential weapon drop near these sections but we can imagine that won’t always be the case. </P><br /><P>Battles are reminiscent of Prince of Persia, where you have a small area to circle around as enemies approach you, as well as the handy instant revive option should you lose a fight. As expected, you can jump, dodge and attack but most of the time you’ll mash the buttons until something awesome happens. While no specific combos are displayed in menus, you can time your button pressing right and perform combos. It’s a system of self-discovery rather than trying to teach you an array of moves over the over, but one that could often leave a deeper understanding of combat to the comfortable repetition of a few basic moves.</P><br /><P>It’s the visual style that sets El Shaddai apart from the rest though. Changing from soft cell-shaded 3D environments, harsh dark futuristic highways to 2D cartoon-like side scrollers, the art constantly evolves during your journey. In-engine and hand drawn cut-scenes mash together, and unlike the cut-scenes of Mirror’s Edge, which felt removed from the world, El Shaddai’s mix of traditional and modern art styles blend seamlessly. </P><br /><P>It not only offers sheer joy for your visual taste buds but also offers a new dynamic to platforming. Perspectives can be mixed and what appears to be a hole is in fact a platform. We died twice during the demo by falling off what appeared to be a straight bridge but was in fact a long</P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomE3ES1276028size6551500.jpg" width=360> </P><br /><P>hole on the road - it makes basic platforming feel fresh and exciting.</P><br /><P><STRONG>This is exactly what El Shaddai appears to be, a fresh injection of platforming goodness and a creative tour de force t</STRONG><STRONG>hat set it apart from the ubiquitous gun battles and space marines of contemporary Western titles. El Shaddai is already out in Japan with a European release set for this September. </STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/El-Shaddai-Ascension-of-the-Metatron/preview-16592.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-2334432191208366812011-09-16T20:47:00.000-07:002011-09-16T20:47:00.782-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomF12011WIPSilverstone176044size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>This year's Formula 1 season has been a paradox so far; it's been as unpredictable as it's been predictable. On the one hand there have been more overtaking manoeuvres in the sport than we've seen for decades, a comeback from last place to first in 30 laps (Jenson Button in Canada), and tyres that perish more quickly than fairy dust in a vat of sulphuric acid. On the other hand, one driver has won six of the first nine races and pretty much secured the Driver's Championship already, barring a monumental reversal of fortunes. That driver's name is Sebastian Vettel.</P><br /><P>Exhibiting the same kind of skill for 'race management' that his countryman, Michael Schumacher mastered during his heyday, Vettel has effectively made the lead for races uncharacteristically dull given all the madness going on behind him. And it's the FIA's implementation of new regulations such as the Drag Reduction System (DRS), re-introduction of the Kinectic Energy Recovery System (KERS), and Pirelli's infamously precarious tyre compounds that have created this madness, long may it continue. Given the impressive attention to detail in Codemasters Birmingham's attempt at the sport last year, it'll come as no big surprise to hear that DRS, KERS, and the Pirelli tyres have all been lovingly recreated in F1 2011. Readers who paid attention at E3 this year will probably know this already, and are also probably aware of the other headlining new features on Codemasters' crib-sheet:</P>A new Co-op Championship mode.Split-screen multiplayer.16 player online multiplayer and full 24-car grids with AI drivers making up the difference.<br /><P><BR>The marketing focus is clearly on multiplayer this year. It's all part of the 'Go Compete' tagline that Codies has added to last year's 'Be The Driver, Live The Life' mantra. But this is all just swanky new bodywork really - the kind of stuff that you can put on the back of a game's box to sell it but will not necessarily result in core gameplay improvements from one year to the next. For that you've got to get a good look at what's going on under the hood - has the handling improved? What's the driver AI like now? Have they been significantly reworked from last year and, more importantly, does this result in sizeable improvements to the experience?</P><br /><P>These questions were foremost in our mind as we sat down to an extensive hands-on session just prior to last weekend's British Grand Prix. Rigs with full steering wheel and peddle arrays glazed the demo hall, as did one of Team Lotus' F1 cars from last year - Lewis Hamilton's brother, Nicolas (an accomplished racing gamer himself and competitor in this year's Renault Clio Cup, which supports the British Touring Car Championship) was also present at the event. We went toe-to-toe with LAN multiplayer, split-screen, and single-player experiences and can say whole-heartedly that F1 2011 is exhibiting the kind of steps forward over a one-year dev cycle that you'd expect from EA's gigantic FIFA team.</P><br /><P>Driver AI is the first thing</P><br /><P> <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomF12011WIPSilverstone376046size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>that struck us. It's noticeably quicker through corners, more aggressive with overtaking opportunities, and more likely to take a defensive driving line into corners when you're right on its tail. The AI was already impressive last year but, as we outlined in our review, it still suffered from some age-old racing game shortcomings (particularly the problem of getting bogged down in single-file through slow hairpins, allowing you to leapfrog multiple positions). These problems have now been consistently ironed out and effectively relegated to the sidelines. It's abundantly clear that Codies Birmingham has been working particularly hard on the AI's corner quickness, and this is the real difference maker.</P><br /><P>It'll add so much to the career mode that the dev team introduced last year, where the goal in your first season was merely to finish in the points rather than win races. Now, with a recognisable concertina effect between you and your opponents as you enter and exit corners, the game has really nailed the sensation of painstakingly chasing down the car in front of you. It's this kind of thing that makes a fight for 10th place in a slower car just as exciting as going for the win in a McLaren, so it looks very much like the core improvements to AI will have a recognisable trickle-down effect through the modes this year.</P><br /><P>Handling has also had a lot of attention lavished on it. Despite some gamers' detractions from last year's handling system, in our opinion it was still a solid representation of the sport. In F1 2011, it's once again a system that subscribes to the Codemasters code of being as widely playable as it is realistic, but there's also a more natural feel to it this year. Senior Producer, Paul Jeal has been quick to point out how there's more tangible understeer and oversteer this year and we're inclined to agree. The balance of the car through corners is more noticeable so the rear-end won't violently snap away from you with minimal warning quite so much. We also noticed a lot more understeer into corners, particularly in low-speed turns with an adverse camber where the car is likely to lose a lot of its front-end downforce. Hopefully Codemasters can now take advantage of this in the mechanics of car setups so that there's more inclination to fiddle around in the garage this year.</P><br /><P>But the improvements don't end here. Producers, Paul Jeal and Stephen Hood showed some comparative trackside shots of F1 2010 and 2011 at the press event, and there were significant differences. Looking down on Spa Francorchamps' Eau Rouge corner from the top of the hill, screenshots of F1 2010 showed a relatively bare hillside with a uniform grass texture. In F1 2011, on the other hand, the same shot revealed all kinds of flora. If we knew anything about botany then we'd be reporting back to you with tales of azaleas and hyacinths - as it is, we're just going to say there were lots of pretty flowers and shrubs. And the split-screen multiplayer that we mentioned earlier was silky smooth in our play-test, while also managing to retain an impressive amount of graphical detail from a full-screen, single-player view.</P><br /><P><BR><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomF12011WIPSpa176047size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P><BR><STRONG>It's all representative of a game that really is coming al</STRONG><STRONG>ong in leaps and bounds over 12 months of development time. Codemasters' budget can hardly be comparable to </STRONG><STRONG>the sort of money EA spends on improving FIFA year-over-year, but the kind of leaps forward in design and content are comparable between each series. If y</STRONG><STRONG>ou loved last year's F1 game, this will be one to buy again this year. If you didn't play F1 2010, then you're in for a sumptuous treat when F1 2011 releases this September 23rd.</STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/F1-2011/preview-16594.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-46823515525648582482011-09-16T19:12:00.000-07:002011-09-16T19:12:00.650-07:00<P>It's fair to say that we were a little underwhelmed by the Career mode in FIFA 11. EA's new feature combined the previously separate Manager and Be-A-Pro modes from FIFA 10, but effectively lost a lot of the details and nuances of each mode in the translation. In-depth stats from the Manager mode fell by the wayside, as did international call-ups from the Be-A-Pro mode; Backroom Staff were ripped out, as was the Player Form feature that debuted in FIFA 10. FIFA 11's career mode appeared to make two modes half as good, and then combine them together into a single offering. Not only did you feel like there was less content on offer, but that content felt shallower and less football-savvy too (who actually starts their career as an inexperienced, 18 year-old player manager of Man Utd anyway?).</P><br /><P>At the very least though, EA Canada won't simply be re-boxing the same Career mode from FIFA 11 with all the relevant updates this year. There's clearly been a concerted effort to turn the mode into something resembling a more cohesive managerial experience this time around. "With the second year of Career mode, what we really wanted to get to was a more authentic way of being a manager in particular," FIFA's Producer, David Rutter told us. "It's been really focused on the manager experience this year, to try and experience some of the things that happen to real managers in the real-world based around real-world situations."</P><br /><P>After a short stint of hands-on time with the mode, there's certainly some substance behind these claims. One significant addition comes in the form of Youth Scouts, which first have to be hired from a pool of hopefuls and can then be set to the task of recruiting decent young players for your side. "Send a scout away and they'll come back with some recommendations but they're vague," explains Rutter. "Send them again and they'll come back with a greater sense of accuracy but, the more times you do that, the more chance there is of another club stepping in and taking them."</P><br /><P><BR><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomFIFA12X360CareerModeArsenalPlayerprofile2WM76002size6551500.jpg" width=375></P><br /><P><BR>Player Interactions are another step forward this year, where members of your team will express their disappointment at not getting enough games, a lack of achievement at the club, or a wage dispute. This all forms part of a new Player Morale system, although you'll receive similar interactions from players who've received injuries as well. During our play-through, a slightly dismayed Raul Meireles informed us that he'd received a knock during a previous game but hoped to be fit for the next match. It was little more than a text box that popped-up in the menu screen, but it's a neat little addition nonetheless so long as it doesn't get arduously repetitive. </P><br /><P>Another area that's been highlighted for improvement is the transfer system. In addition to a new transfer deadline day that offers multiple advances in one day (allowing multiple rounds of negotiations to take place) rather than the previous system that treated deadline day like any other, EA has also promised a more believable system for transfer/contract negotiations with other players/clubs. "They're sometimes high-balling, sometimes low-balling. Sometimes they'll high-ball then low-ball; sometimes they'll low-ball then high-ball to try and interact with you in a slightly unpredictable but realistic way," said Rutter.</P><br /><P>Our experience with this side of the mode was limited once again, but even the examples it did throw up were a little dubious. Teams such as Inter Milan, Chelsea, and Olympic Marseille all offered bids for Jamie Carragher, two of which showed examples of low-balling with Chelsea offering £3.5 million and Inter Milan offering £5.5 million against a £6.5 million valuation for the player. The new system does appear to throw up more realistic negotiations then, but the question you've really got to ask yourself is why two of Europe's biggest sides would be interested in spending big money on a 33 year-old central defender whose best years are long behind him. </P><br /><P>The caveat at this point, of course, is that the build demoed to us by EA was a work in progress and not representative of the final game - many improvements are left to be made. But it's worth remembering that these kinds of shortcomings frequently sold FIFA 11's Career mode short and broke any sense of suspended disbelief that the game successfully built up elsewhere. One of our gripes with FIFA 11's mode was how CPU teams tended to loan out their experienced first-team regulars, and these sorts of shortcomings were still painfully apparent during our hands-on. When we booted up a game as a player manager in the FIFA 12 build, our board of directors suggested that we loan out a young hopeful for more match experience when that young hopeful just happened to be our Virtual Pro. Unfortunately there was no option to respond to their suggestion with the remark, 'Are you drunk or stupid?'.</P><br /><P>Regardless of all of these additions for FIFA 12 though, perhaps our main concern is that so much of what made the previous Manager and Be-A-Pro modes so good still won't be coming to the Career mode in FIFA 12. "I know that international management in particular is one of the biggest questions that we get asked - it's not in this year," Rutter confirmed. "Ultimately it boils down to simple prioritisation issues - bang for buck, what do we think</P><br /><P> <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomFIFA12X360CareerModeArsenalClubNewsExtendedWM76001size6551500.jpg" width=375></P><br /><P>matters most? Sometimes we put things in that benefit the game in a way that isn't immediately obvious to people; they might not see what the cool stuff was."</P><br /><P>"Last year it was the underlying competition engine. Most people don't care about that kind of stuff but for us it was a really big accomplishment and we didn't make a big song and dance about it because we knew nobody would be interested in the technology that we're using to pump the tournaments round..." Rutter said. </P><br /><P>"...In the meantime people are saying, 'Where is this? Where is that? I wanted my this, I wanted my that,' and everyone has every right to want exactly what they want, it's just sometimes we can't do it and we can't do it because it's not quite at the top of the priority list, or it's just that the amount of time and effort that would go into doing it would take away something far more important. Some people missed some things, some people loved over stuff. Ultimately we're trying to just make the best game we can."</P><br /><P><STRONG>We have no doubt that EA Canada is making the best game it can, or that this year's Career mode will be better than last year's. For us, it's looking like it still won't offer the depth that the previous Be-A-Pro and Manager modes had separately in FIFA 10, but at the very least it's building towards a more immersive managerial experience. The folks at Sports Interactive don't have anything to worry about quite yet though.</STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/FIFA-12/preview-16589.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-56194791847578417712011-09-16T17:40:00.000-07:002011-09-16T17:40:00.831-07:00<P>While Eurocom's Goldeneye Wii-make was never in danger of threatening the classic status of the N64 original, it nonetheless proved to be a robust study of Rare's seminal shooter, re-cast in modern FPS conventions. With an HD port now confirmed for Xbox 360 and PS3, TVG spoke to Activision Producer, James Steer, to find out more about Bond, Stealth, and Goldeneye 007: Reloaded.</P><br /><P><STRONG>Why the decision to bring it over to the HD consoles?</STRONG></P><br /><P>When we were originally thinking about making a Goldeneye game it felt right to make that game for the Wii platform because of the N64 heritage, but when we were developing the game and we started showing it to the press, retailers, and then eventually to the public, it became clear that that wasn't enough, and that people wanted to be able to play the game on PlayStation 3 and  Xbox 360. The problem is that we needed to update the engine for that, and we wanted to be able to deliver 60 frames a second gameplay, 16-player online multiplayer, and photo-realistic graphics. We had the game team at Eurocom concentrate on making sure the Wii game was the best game they could </P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>possibly make, while all</P><br /><P> <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom2462GoldenEye2000720Reloaded20-20cell20phone76088size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>the technology team were able to develop an engine for us to deliver, so when the game team were finished making the Wii version they could roll off. Hence this year we'll see the release of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So when you were designing the original, the engine was designed with a port in mind straight away?</STRONG></P><br /><P>No it was totally separate. Eurocom work with a separate technology team, because that's the best way - those guys can go make the best tech possible - the gameplay guys are just concentrating on the game. So they can then go and push the graphics engine as far as they can, and the team can just make the best game. Then they come to merge at some point, but while they were making the Wii version we didn't really want to disturb them... so we were like, 'You make sure this game is the best, while the other team worries about the engine.'</P><br /><P><STRONG>What's changed for the port? Are there any new single-player levels in the campaign?</STRONG></P><br /><P>No. The storyline is the same as the story we had updated for the Wii - so we had Bruce Feirstein take the original movie and update it for 2010 to make it relevant. So rather than being about the Cold War it's more about the banking crisis so people recognise it. Because we're introducing Daniel Craig's Bond to the story, we needed to update the story as well. In terms of the actual levels you'll play through in the single-player campaign, they are the same. Obviously every level's been massively updated: new geometry, new textures, new animations, new effects, audio, and a completely new AI system - so the way that they'll play will be completely different to the Wii version. And obviously we've added the MI6 Ops which is an entirely new gameplay feature that wasn't on the Wii, so that's kind of adding over ten hours worth of gameplay - very different style, from Assault to Elimination, to Stealth, to Wave Defense - something for every type of player. For people that like to be defensive, they can challenge themselves by playing those missions and trying to post a really high score, whereas someone who likes to run and gun can go and play Elimination. Multiplayer has also been completely updated to support 16 players: new modes, new maps, new characters, new weapons. We really haven't left any of it alone; it's been completely updated.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So even new animations? Did you get Daniel Craig's body double back in the Mo-Cap studio?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Yeah, we have some more footage of that and we've updated all the animations in the game. Eurocom have their own motion capture studio on-site, so it's really handy for them because they can just get actors in, get them to perform the animations, and they have their pipeline that gets them into the game really quickly, so it's very handy really.</P><br /><P><STRONG>I see - so you brought him back and recorded new ones for the updated version as well?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Yeah.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So in terms of the MI6 Operations mode, where are the levels from - are they sort of sections of the single-player?</STRONG></P><br /><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom2465GoldenEye2000720Reloaded20-20Dam20FPS20reload76091size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>They're a combination of some of the single-player levels, some of the multiplayer levels, and some new; whichever worked well in the game. The level designers go and look at the levels and think 'Actually, that would make a nice kind of arena for say, Wave Defense'. So it's a combination. Some maps have been updated because they've needed to be made larger because they now hold 16 players, so there'll be some maps that people with the Wii game will recognise, some that will be updated entirely, and some that are completely new.</P><br /><P><STRONG>And there are four modes - are they going to be available on every map?</STRONG></P><br /><P>No. There are specific maps for specific challenges.</P><br /><P><STRONG>So each one has maybe one mode per map?</STRONG></P><br /><P>Yeah, well, there are ten different challenge missions within the MI6 Ops feature. Each one has a leaderboard attached to it so you can be the best at playing say, 'Memorial Defense', or maybe 'Jungle Elimination'.</P><br /><P><STRONG>But then there wouldn't be say a Jungle Assault, or a Jungle Stealth for example?</STRONG></P><br /><P>No, we've picked the environments and the maps specifically for that style. </P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/GoldenEye-007-Reloaded/feature-16604.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-29238892062203031872011-09-16T15:57:00.000-07:002011-09-16T15:57:00.255-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom2472GoldenEye2000720Reloaded20-20Severnaya20FPS20silencer76098size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P>Eurocom's Goldeneye 007 really stood out (for a Wii shooter). It had a solid single-player campaign (for a Wii shooter), compelling multiplayer action (for a Wii shooter), and top-drawer graphics (for a Wii shooter). Crucially, there was a sense that Eurocom had genuine respect for the N64 classic: they understood the importance of stealth in the single player level design, and knew that four-player split-screen was a multiplayer must-have. Naturally, it was never going to eclipse the lustre of its Rareware forbear, but (for a Wii Shooter) it was very good indeed.</P><br /><P>It even fared far better (critically at least), than Activision's other high profile Bond game, Blood Stone. In fact, the failure of Blood Stone, and relative success of Goldeneye 007, proved if nothing else that releasing a Bond game without a strong license tie-in is a risky proposition, particularly if the gameplay isn't exceptionally solid.</P><br /><P>And so we come to Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, a PS360 remake of Eurocom's 'Wii-imagining' of the N64 classic, remastered in 60fps HD. But can a game that was 'good for a Wii shooter' possibly hope to survive in the brutally competitive HD FPS market? And with Blood Stone apparently crashing the Bond market last year, does anyone even really want to play as 007 anymore, anyway?</P><br /><P>Eurocom's entire single-player campaign has survived the port intact and without alteration - to the extent that, despite assurances from the team that all assets have been rebuilt for the HD remake ("from the ground up"), it's hard to initially discern much disparity with the Wii version. This is likely more a testament to the confident cinematic direction of the Wii original than an indication of any critical deficiency in the new HD textures and geometry, however. Camera sweeps and level layouts have been faithfully preserved, and the port seems to capture the essence of Eurocom's work - this is, after all, a remake rather than another 're-imagining'. A cursory play-through of the snowy Severnaya level reveals that the visceral melee take-downs of the Wii original are still intact, with the choice of carnage or subtle stealth largely left to player preference (on lower difficulty levels at least).</P><br /><P>Nods to the N64 original abound; the camera still pans round into Bond's head at the start of each level, the sniper rifle is still in that first tower of the Dam section, and 007 even rolls off a few asides which reference dialogue from the original game and movie.</P><br /><P>"Just like old times," he whispers to 006 as the pair silently subdue a pair of guards at the start of the Dam map (a line originally from the end of Facility in the N64 original - but we won't nitpick when a developer is tapping on the fourth wall). </P><br /><P>It's not just like old times, of course. <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom2462GoldenEye2000720Reloaded20-20cell20phone76088size6551500.jpg" width=360>Pierce Brosnan is replaced by Daniel Craig, and Eurocom's Goldeneye has entirely new, Wii-made levels - with Bond writer Bruce Feirstein updating the story to focus on the banking crisis rather than Cold War fallout. Feirstein wasn't the only Bond talent to be drawn to the game; 007 composer Dave Arnold and Craig stunt double Ben Cooke were drafted in to supply music and motion-capture footage as well (for Goldeneye: Reloaded, Eurocom has apparently summoned Cooke back to their on-site motion-capture facility to record additional animations specifically for the port). Naturally Eurocom's gameplay reflects the advances in FPS mechanics that have occurred over the last decade, with grenade indicators, instant-kill melee attacks, regenerating health, and even the ability to aim and move concurrently all making it through to the port.</P><br /><P>New to Goldeneye 007: Reloaded are a set of single-player challenges based on reworked sections of the campaign and multiplayer maps (with a few entirely new ones thrown in too). There are ten challenges in total, ranging from Assault and Elimination missions to more exotic Stealth and Wave Defense maps (which charge you with sneaking undetected through a level, or defending an array of computer terminals from waves of AI opponents). An editor is also planned to facilitate custom mission creation, with players selecting from a range of maps, victory conditions and A.I. to set their own challenges. Activision claims that these modes will add an additional 10 hours of play to the single-player experience.</P><br /><P>But single-player action is only one half of any successful Goldeneye game. The port team are completely rebuilding the multiplayer portion of Reloaded to accommodate 16-player online matches (up from the Wii version's 8), with re-jigged maps, additional characters and a brand new selection of 'spy-based modes'.</P><br /><P>"We just wanted to do some things that are not straight up deathmatch or team deathmatch," Activision Producer, James Steer, told us.</P><br /><P>"We're using the fact that we are a 007 game to try and do some things that are maybe slightly different to what you might expect of a first-person shooter." Exactly what those things are is currently a mystery, but the prospect of spy-based multiplayer Bondage is an intriguing one. 4-player offline split-screen has been confirmed, and survives the transition to the HD consoles.</P><br /><P>With only a few months until Reloaded's autumn release window, it's clear that substantial polishing remains to be done. Load times, draw-in and the occasional incongruous animation still need addressing, and the stick response on the Xbox 360 build we played felt curiously sluggish. However, such anomalies aren't unusual for pre-Alpha code, and the team are confident that all issues will be resolved in time for launch. No word yet on whether Reloaded will support motion controls ("stay tuned", hinte<IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom2471GoldenEye2000720Reloaded20-20Severnaya20enemies76097size6551500.jpg" width=360>d Steer), but given that the Wii version was built around the option it's not entirely inconceivable.</P><br /><P><STRONG>With upscaled visuals, revamped multiplayer, and improved</STRONG><STRONG> online support, Goldeneye 007: Reloaded could prove to be the definitive version of Eurocom's likeable </STRONG><STRONG>B</STRONG><STRONG>o</STRONG><STRONG>nd</STRONG><STRONG> FPS</STRONG><STRONG>. The game will be up against stiff competition in the latter half of the year, and it remains to be seen whether the promis</STRONG><STRONG>ed 'spy-based' multiplayer modes and new single-player challenges will prove to be substantive additions to </STRONG><STRONG>th</STRONG><STRONG>e core offering. Nevertheless, if Activision invest enough in the rema</STRONG><STRONG>ke, it might just turn out to </STRONG><STRONG>be the second best Bond game of all time - not bad for a Wii shooter.</STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/GoldenEye-007-Reloaded/preview-16603.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-76865769540691854962011-09-16T14:11:00.000-07:002011-09-16T14:11:00.542-07:00<P>“All the character of a corned beef sandwich, with none of the taste.”</P><br /><P>“More interesting than an accountancy lecture. Barely.”</P><br /><P>And these are some of the nicer comments I've had about my writing. People just don't seem to appreciate generic twaddle. It's as though basic competency isn't enough, as though people expect something original or interesting as well. Something moving or beautiful. Something approaching art. Of course, it's hard to produce art when your subject matter is so consistently unoriginal, when publishers insist that 'design by marketing committee' <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom60450276651size6551500.jpg" width=350></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>is a reasonable substitute for artistic vision. It's not surprising that the bearded and obtuse dismiss games as a serious medium when so many titles are so clean-cut and obvious.</P><br /><P>Heroes of Ruin seems clean-cut and obvious, at least superficially. The result of a “merging of ideas” between Square-Enix and developer n-Space, you can't help but suspect it's been dreamt up to scratch a marketing itch rather than a creative one. The art style was designed to have “a broad range of appeal” and largely determined by “focus groups” according to Squeenix producer George Wright, and despite being a multiplayer hack-n-slash dungeon-crawler with randomly generated levels and loot, the official line is that it's an Action-Adventure, rather than an Action-RPG.</P><br /><P>“I think we’ve got a lot more mainstream appeal than just another RPG would or just another action game would have.” n-Space Producer Tim Schwalk has previously bragged (thanks, Siliconera). </P><br /><P>“If I had a copy of this, and I really wanted to play with magic, I could choose an appropriate character. But my buddy who always plays Call of Duty and Madden, he can jump in as a Gunslinger. He’s got bombs and guns, and he’s going to ‘get it,’ you know?”     </P><br /><P>You might not expect a great deal from the story of such a game. Let's see:</P><br /><P>“War raged for over a hundred years until strong, powerful Lords emerged from the fighting to bring a fragile peace to the land. This peace is threatened when one of the Lords, Ataraxis, ruler of the city of Nexus, is taken ill by a deadly curse. A call is sent out, promising rewards beyond measure for anyone who finds a cure.” (From the game's official website.)</P><br /><P>Still, once you scratch the surface, there are a few interesting (if not strictly original) ideas running through Heroes of Ruin. Additional players can drop-in and out at any time; you can choose to let strangers jump in at random, Demon's Souls-style, or simply limit the privilege to selected friends. The difficulty rebalances at each checkpoint to reflect the average level of your current team, and enemies gain new abilities as the difficulty increases, rather than simply getting stronger. Loners can elect to play solo if they prefer (which presumably, they would), but risk losing certain multiplayer-related bonuses. The game's randomised loot is also handled intelligently; walking over dropped armour displays its stats compared with your current equipment, and a simple tap of the d-pad can either equip it or sell it off straight away. Take that, fiddly RPG menus. Cleverly, all the loot you've sold is transmitted via Streetpass so that anyone can potentially buy your old +10 Pants of Destruction.</P><br /><P>Playing as the 'Vindicator' (a paladdin-archetype) reveals a competent if familiar battle system: sword combos can be strung together with a magic-draining (but powerful) dash attack, R blocks, and a quick tap sends you rolling away from danger. Enemies in the demo didn't display any ground-breaking attack patterns or AI, but they're serviceable cannon-fodd<IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom60480576654size6551500.jpg" width=350>er, and the Tibur (Shark-men) stand-out against some other fairly drab fantasy staples. Four character classes will be available in the final game, including a mage-like Alchitect, a  melee-focused Savage, and a Gunslinger that attacks from afar with bullets and bombs. According to Community Manager Kevin Eva, each character has “their own reasons” for embarking on the quest, some of which, he hinted, might not be entirely above board.</P><br /><P>We encountered two mini-bosses during our brief play-through: a skeletal pirate captain with the power to make players (literally) run away in fear, and a conch-wielding Tibur that summoned two horrifying sea mutants, all dark and mangled with extraneous, pincer-like limbs. The final boss, an amiable-looking pink leviathan, could only be summoned once certain key items had been wrenched from the cold, dead hands (fins?) of the mini-bosses – a sensible fail-safe given the randomly-generated layout of the levels. After hacking at his tentacles for a bit, and dodging some hot, salty spume, our pink friend soon came to a sticky end, marking the end of the demo.</P><br /><P>Heroes of Ruin still has several months of development time left. Many of the place-holder NPCs are yet to have their dialogue implemented, and various improvements await the interface and AI (that Tibur mini-boss just glitched nervously from side to side as we hacked him to death). The team is certainly exploiting all 3DS connectivity features to the full, and plans for downloadable daily challenges promise to extend the game's appeal post-release. Although we didn't experience anything particularly original or compelling during our play-through, there's no doubt that n-Space has implemented a number of zeitgeisty features, and the current dearth of original 3DS titles means they're potentially well-placed to find some fans for the game. Nevertheless, questions remain about the originality of the setting, mechanics and design choices on display, and it's unclear whether Heroes of Ruin will prove inventive enough to be of real interest to fans of the genre. </P><br /><P>There's a sense that, despite the clever connectivity options, n-Space might be playing it a little too safe with the rest of the design; there's little evidence of nuance in the combat, and developer comments suggest that puzzles will be perfunctory at best. Balancing such a dynamic difficulty system is going to prove a real challenge, and currently the only real penalty for dying is an annoying trek back to your team-mates caused by some inconsistent check-pointing. Hopefully n-Space will implement some mechanism for players to manually tweak the difficulty, as it seems unlikely that any purely automated system could offer a consistently tense and challenging experience <IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom60470476653size6551500.jpg" width=350>given the varied team-configurations that can arise.</P><br /><P><STRONG>n-Space may still have time to address these issues if they're willing to take some creative gambles (Bastion, as a recent example, managed to integrate difficulty choices within a compelling risk/reward framework extremely successfully) but unfortunately, it's precisely a lack of creative-risk taking that currently poses the biggest threat to the project. By playing it safe, n-Space may be missing an opportunity here, and if there's one thing worse than failure, it's mediocrity.</STRONG></P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Heroes-of-Ruin/preview-16677.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-84580189487065722002011-09-16T13:11:00.000-07:002011-09-16T13:11:00.888-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom761892132455372.jpg" width=350></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>Warner Bros. Interactive has announced that it will be bringing Lollipop Chainsaw (the next game from Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture studio) to the West next year on Xbox 360 and PS3.</P><br /><P>The game was announced in Japan last month via Famitsu, although details of a Western launch and publishing partner had remained unclear until now.</P><br /><P>In what's shaping up to be a typically bonkers Suda51 affair, Lollipop Chainsaw sees high-school cheerleader, Juliet Starling take on a horde of the undead armed with a chainsaw.</P><br /><P>Gore is being toned down with a more saccharine-sweet aesthetic where pink love hearts replace fountains of zombie blood from the raging chainsaw of a butter-wouldn't-melt protagonist.</P><br /><P>It's an interesting change in direction for the studio that brought us Shadows of the Damned in June, which scored 7/10 in our review and debuted at No.31 in its first week on the UK charts before dropping out of the top 40 altogether.</P><br /><P>As with Shadows, famed Silent Hill composer, Akira Yamaoka will handle the musical score on Lollipop Chainsaw, while Hollywood director and writer, James Gunn (Tromeo and Juliet, Dawn of the Dead) has been drafted in to handle the script.</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Lollipop-Chainsaw/news/Lollipop-Chainsaw-Coming-To-The-West-In-2012-16618.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-3938360179478278022011-09-16T11:24:00.000-07:002011-09-16T11:24:00.138-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomMaxCreative01ENGTBC76572size6551500.jpg" width=275></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>It was originally announced at the tail-end of 2009 before descending into a media blackout, suffering numerous delays, and subsequently being removed from Take-Two Interactive's financial reports (prompting some press outlets to raise concerns that it'd been canned), but now Rockstar's Max Payne 3 has been placed back on the release schedules for a March 2012 launch.</P><br /><P>A new press release has effectively re-announced the game, doling out some new screens and story details while it's at it. True to the initial promotion that emerged on the game a couple of years back, this sequel depicts an older, more unkempt Max Payne who's fallen into disrepute somewhat following the events of the last game and is now a private security guard for a rich family in Sao Paulo, Brazil.</P><br /><P>When a gang starts to target the family, Max is forced to re-engage in his classic tricks of bullet-time aided shoot-outs (yes, there will be bullet-time) as he struggles to clear his name and save the family under his protection.</P><br /><P>Rockstar makes mention of Max Payne 3 as a "cross-studio" collaboration in this latest announcement, and TVG can confirm that Rockstar London has been brought on-board the project alongside the Rockstar Toronto studio that was initially commissioned to work on the game. As it did with GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar will also be making use of Natural Motion's expertise with its Euphoria engine for Max Payne 3.</P><br /><P>Despite the long periods of doubt over Max Payne 3's future throughout the last couple of years, a cover article in EDGE earlier this year and a trickle of screens left in its wake confirmed that there was still life in the first Max Payne game to be developed outside of Remedy Entertainment.</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Max-Payne-3/news/Max-Payne-3-To-Surface-Next-March-16670.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-16970632974286207882011-09-16T10:06:00.000-07:002011-09-16T10:06:00.145-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/Avatarjakeneytiri.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>Despite the fact that it's yet to confirm whether it's developing the GPU for the next Xbox, graphics chip manufacturer, AMD has pointed towards the kind of visual detail we can expect from Microsoft's unannounced next-gen console.</P><br /><P>According to an OXM US article (via Examiner), AMD says that the NeXtBox will be able to deliver visual detail on a par with the CGI in James Cameron's Avatar, which is certainly a lofty benchmark to aim for but the headline grabbing claims don't end there.</P><br /><P>AMD went on to say that the AI and physics capabilities of NeXtBox hardware will be able to give every pedestrian in games like GTA and Saints Row an individual character, mentality, and pool of animations.</P><br /><P>Although AMD isn't confirmed as the graphics chip supplier for Microsoft's next-gen console, it does provide the chip-sets for the Xbox 360 so a continued deal is likely. Whether or not that deal has been done already is the real question.</P><br /><P>With claims like those above, AMD might simply be performing a Peacock-like display to Microsoft in the hope that the existing deal will be renewed for the NeXtBox. On the other hand, that deal may already be done and AMD might simply be so excited that it wants to shout from the rooftops.</P><br /><P>Whatever the case, it's quite a gauntlet that AMD has laid down here and if next-gen visuals don't reach that level of fidelity then we all know who to address our angry e-mails to.</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Xbox-360/news/NeXtBox-Graphics-To-Rival-James-Camerons-Avatar-16600.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-196271068944125472011-09-16T08:49:00.000-07:002011-09-16T08:49:00.253-07:00 <P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescom76673Pad.jpg" width=350>Nintendo gave detractors to its 3DS handheld some food for thought at its scheduled pre-TGS press event today, revealing a strong line-up of games for next year's slate as well as a healthy dose of juicy hardware announcements.</P><P>First-up, some news on the 3DS thumbpad attachment that was leaked last week: Nintendo announced that it will be coming to Japan in December for the modest price of 1500 yen (that's just over £12 in the UK) – the add-on will be powered by a single AAA battery.</P><P>There's no word on a Western release date for the thumbpad add-on at the moment, although Nintendo did confirm a bunch of games that will be compatible with the device. We already knew that Monster Hunter Tri-G would be a focus for the attachment's launch, but it's now clear that incoming titles Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D and Resident Evil: Revelations will support it.</P><P>Having sampled those last two games with the current 3DS console, it's abundantly clear that both are in dire need of a second analogue pad (particularly MGS: Snake Eater 3D, which utilises the old trick of placing aim controls on the face buttons). Ace Combat 3D: Cross Rumble, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop, and Dynasty Warriors VS will also be compatible with the attachment.</P><P>In other hardware news, Nintendo has scheduled a November update for the 3DS that will bring 3D video capture to the console for the first time (the handheld is currently limited to 3D photo capture). A new metallic red 3DS will also launch in Europe on September 30th to celebrate one million sales of the console in the territory (Japan will get a pink 3DS in October).</P><P>European release dates for Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 have been shared – they'll drop on November 18th and December 2nd respectively. Nintendo also confirmed that Kid Icarus: Uprising and Luigi's Mansion 2 will miss 2011 and are now due to land next year.</P><P>New Paper Mario and Animal Crossing instalments for 3DS will arrive in 2012 too, as will a new Mario Tennis game that Nintendo announced at today's event. On the third-party side of things, Nintendo was able to announce that Monster Hunter 4 from Capcom is coming to the 3DS. This is a huge deal in Japan where the phenomenally successful series has traditionally found its handheld home on the PSP.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Nintendo-3DS/news/Nintendos-Tokyo-3DS-Event-Wrap-up-16678.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-6913936683393133662011-09-16T07:14:00.000-07:002011-09-16T07:14:00.164-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/n20290909930853803236.jpg" width=250></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>Jon Roberts has spent two years teaching children with special needs and educational problems in Warwick, England. During that time he's also developed music education workshops for the Armonico Consort, a music company from the same area. He is currently finishing a master's degree in Genetic Counselling at Cardiff University, alongside which he has taught at Lindamood-Bell learning process, a centre that helps children with language, comprehension and maths by developing their understanding of visual and pictorial imagery. In the remaining time he has aside from all this, Jon writes articles about video games for TVG like this one...</EM></P><br /><P>Yesterday morning, a small news story appeared that unsurprisingly got lost amongst all the song and dance over News of the World phone hacking, Rupert Murdoch's subsequently unsuccessful bid to take over BskyB, and the attempts to stop him from creating a giant death star that will orbit the world and cause everyone’s face to melt so we will all look like him and Harry Redknapp, presumably. Underneath the story about Murdoch, phones, and newspapers was a report which showed that, in UK schools, poorer students are falling further behind their more wealthy peers in the education process. According to the BBC, a Sutton Trust study found pupils eligible for free meals in schools below national standards were a third less likely to reach GCSE targets than better-off students elsewhere. This follows on from a study in May of this year, conducted by the Confederation of British Industry, which raised concerns over the standard of the basic skills that pupils were leaving school with. Specifically, the organisation's annual education and skills survey also suggested that many employers (44%) have had to invest in remedial training for school and college leavers.</P><br /><P>The trust is launching an Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) targeting this group of children, using £125m of government money and income from other sources. The Sutton Trust says it will aim to focus support on "innovative projects and on scaling-up projects which are cost effective and have the potential to be replicated in other schools." </P><br /><P>I put forward the idea that some of this dosh could be spent on developing video games to help those from poorer backgrounds who are falling behind. If we want to turn kids from dummies into smarties then video games could have the answer. Let me explain why:</P><br /><P>Contrary to the idea that video games are merely violent bloodfests aimed at adolescent piss weasels, there is good evidence to show that they can be used effectively in education, and this is an idea that is becoming more mainstream. In a recent speech to the Royal Society, the Minister for Education, Michael Gove encouraged educators to experiment with using video games to help teach maths and science. This seems like a sensible idea given video games’ rich history of being used in new and imaginative ways.<BR>Take, for example, a study published by the American Medical Association in 2007 which found that video game skill correlates with Laparoscopic surgical skills, concluding that “Video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons.” Going back to 1996, research printed in the Perceptual & Motor Skills journal suggested that reaction times could be improved in children through computer game use. And as far back as 1986 a study in the same journal showed that spatial visualisation test scores can be improved by video game playing. </P><br /><P>Video games are often cited as causes for reduction in concentration levels in children, leaving their attention spans shorter than a hermit’s address book. However, while there is evidence that certain video games can correlate with reduced attention spans, there’s also plentiful evidence to suggest that the opposite is true. For example, Alan Pope of the NASA Langley Research Centre used video games with a ‘Biofeedback’ process (originally used to improve the attention span of astronauts) to reduce the impulsiveness and hyperactivity of children with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Video games have also been used in health care settings. ‘Packy and Marlon’ were characters created for the SNES to help children and adolescents with their diabetes treatments. They were so successful that two new characters have been created: ‘Bronkie the Brachiosaurus’ (for asthma self-management) and Rex Ronan for smoking prevention. Presumably Penisy Pete will soon follow for those with erectile dysfunction. Go to clickhealth.org if you want to know more, although prepare to be disappointed if you expect to find Mr. Pete. </P><br /><P>For me, the evidence that strongly supports the idea that video games can be used to help struggling students from poorer backgrounds is that they are great motivators. Take, for example, Kandie Demarest’s account of her autistic 7 year-old son (found at lessontutor.com/kd3.html). Demarest testifies that, although her son had serious deficiencies in language and understanding, and social and emotional difficulties, video game playing was one activity where he was able to excel. This was ego-boosting for him and also had a self calming effect. Anecdotally my experience of teaching challenging children is that if you find something they are good at you can use it as a hook with which to hang other positive beliefs about themselves.  I used sports and music, and I see no reason why video games should not be the same.  </P><br /><P>Other than providing an arena where young people can have successes, and therefore a sense of achievement crucial to all successful learning, video games have that great motivating factor: they are often good, honest fun. An article in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology points out, “Curiosity, fun and the nature of the challenge appear to add to a game’s education potential.” The value of the joy found in video games – which is so often forgotten – has been demonstrated in the arena of medical rehabilitation. In one case study a video game was used to improve arm control in a 13 year-old boy with Erb’s palsy.  The authors concluded that the game format capitalized on the child’s motivation to succeed and focused attention away from potential discomfort. Pamela Kato writes a good article outlining different ways video games can be used in health care settings - they are divisive and imaginative, ranging from anxiety reduction to helping with chemotherapy symptoms, and physiotherapy. All the applications rest on the assumption that video games can be real, genuine fun and that people want to play them. Fun, educational and confidence boosting. Sounds like they’re worth at least of some that £125 million to me.</P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/OPINION/feature-16595.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-32412106060229418002011-09-16T05:42:00.000-07:002011-09-16T05:42:00.473-07:00<P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomGarcia75078size6551500.jpg" width=360></P><br /><P> </P><br /><P>There are some things in life which you know you shouldn't like. Michael Bay films, Elton John's back catalogue, and Jersey Shore, to name a few. And yet, every now and again something comes along which leaves you conflicted. It may well go against the strongest of your principles but, somewhere within it, you see hope. And, infuriatingly, that hope plants a seed in your mind which grows into a type of dysfunctional affection. And that's exactly how I came to like Shadows of the Damned, against all my better judgement.  </P><br /><P>The bone of contention here (and the word "bone" is especially appropriate) is the tone of the game. This collaboration between No More Heroes' Suda 51 and Resi 4's Shinji Mikami somehow manages to be both intensely, controller-bitingly annoying and yet wonderfully puerile, often at the same time. It's absolutely bizarre. You shouldn't like it. It's the kind of tits, gore and curse-fest that traditionally gets the anti-gaming lobby all worked up like a drunk Mel Gibson in a synagogue. It's the kind of game the doubters will turn to when trying to convince the nation that games can never compete on an aesthetic level with films and television. And so, at least initially, I felt a little snobby about it. But, by the time I got a few hours into the game, something strange happened. I became anaesthetised to all of Shadows' irritating foibles (and there are many) and began to enjoy it for what it is; a solid, if basic, third-person action title which demands that you jettison your brain for the duration. </P><br /><P>The premise of Shadows of the Damned is a gaming classic: rescue the damsel from the demon. We've seen it many, many times. Only Paula is not your average damsel - the game's Latin hero, Garcia Hotspur (yeah, I know) found her in a bin, she dresses like she's auditioning for a sluttier version of The Only Way is Essex and she apparently likes to indulge in the occasional domestic knife attack. The game's triple foreheaded villain, Fleming - king of the demons, has kidnapped Paula and dragged her into the Underworld where he intends to have his mucky way with her for all eternity. Which leaves Garcia and his trusty floating skull sidekick Johnson to follow them to Hell and battle their way to Fleming. </P><br /><P>The dialogue between Hotspur and his rehabilitated demon pal, Johnson, tries hard to keep the mood light throughout. I mean, it tries really hard. You'll hear more dick jokes than a Kevin Smith convention and, for the most part, they fall flat with the writing frequently leaping head first over the taste line and into toilet cubicle graffiti territory. But then, just as you're about to indignantly switch it off and read some Oscar Wilde instead, the game spits out a line like "warn me if I have to f*** a horse to open a door" and you find yourself giving it just a few more minutes. It undoubtedly lacks the satire and wit of Suda 51's previous efforts and at times seems to go out of its way to irritate you, but it's hard to argue that it's not in keeping with the game; the game which at one point has you jump through a tastefully-placed portal between a billboard model's legs; the game which features a gun called the Boner. Which later becomes the Hot Boner. It's overwhelmingly silly, frequently ridiculous, but also self-aware. At least I hope it is. </P><br /><P>But, of course, Shadows is a collaboration and while the dialogue and storyline have a distinctly OTT Suda feel to them, the gameplay, or rather the gunplay, unsurprisingly recalls Mikami's Resident Evil 4. The over-the-shoulder, laser targeting will be instantly familiar to fans of Capcom's survival-horror classic, although Shadows plays like a juiced-up version. Aiming feels a little smoother, and movement a little quicker which is handy because, once you've made it beyond the rathe<IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomPaula75080size6551500.jpg" width=360>r forgiving earlier sections of the game, you'll frequently be faced with multiple types of enemies, each with different strengths and attack speeds. Aiming for the head is pretty essential for many of the enemies and, thanks to the fluid aiming and nice headshot animations, it feels pretty satisfying to dispatch a series of nasties with successive shots to the noggin. Other foes will sport armour which you can chip away at, while some will require you to think about another of Shadows' core game mechanics, the light/dark system. </P><br /><P>Demons, it would seem, are not fond of light and so, throughout the game, you'll find yourself shrouded in the darkness, which causes your health to deplete. So, you'll need to find a way out of it quickly, lest you use up all your booze (yes, booze means health) trying to stay alive. Luckily, each of your weapons has a secondary "light shot" function which, if you fire it at the wall-mounted goat's head nearby, will light up the area. Look, I never promised this was going to make sense. The light shot can also be used to get rid of the darkness that shrouds some enemies, making them invincible to regular ammo. The light/dark mechanic generally works pretty well, adding a puzzle dimension to the balls-out shooter action, but it's hard not to feel like the developer could have made more of it. All too often, you'll find yourself wading into to the darkness simply to shoot a switch that isn't visible in the light, or to find a new enemy's weak spot. </P><br /><P>That said, the level design in Shadows isn't bad. Sure, the environments aren't exactly pretty to look at (it's Hell after all), but they are generally well laid-out. Most are smallish, self-contained dungeons with a couple of locked door puzzles and an array of nasties waiting to pop out and rip you to bits. It never feels particularly demanding to find your way out of a level and their modest size makes it feel like you're progressing satisfyingly through the game. The gun upgrade system has a similar effect. Collect red gems and you can upgrade aspects of each gun such as damage, reload speed and capacity, and the game gives you complete freedom to pick and choose. So if you want to completely soup-up the Boner pistol (yeah, I know) early on in the game you can, or you might prefer to spread out your upgrade gems between all other weapons (you also have a shotgun and a machine gun at your disposal).</P><br /><P>Bigger weapon upgrades can also be gained by collecting blue gems, which can add new functions to your existing shooters, like a sticky bomb fired from the Hot Boner (still laughing?). These blue gems are generally found once you've taken down one of the game's small roster of bosses. While there aren't a huge amount of major bosses, each is provided a decent back-story through fairy tale books dotted around the levels and boss battles themselves are predictably multi-stage affairs. And you won't have any problem working out what to do, as the conveniently glowing red sections on the bosses means you always know what you're aiming at. Sure, it's a hackneyed game mechanic, but the boss battles are pretty enjoyable if a little undemanding.<BR><IMG height=214 alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomFour-to-go75077size6551500.jpg" width=360><BR>And this is probably an appropriate judgement on the game in general: enjoyable if a little undemanding. Seasoned gamers will tear through the regular difficulty level with relative ease and there's not much to compel you into a second play-through. By the end of the somewhat modest campaign, you'll have seen everything Shadows has to offer. And, if you're like me, you'll have had enough of the dick jokes.There are some things in life which you know you shouldn't like. </P><br /><P><A href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Shadows-of-the-Damned/review-16590.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</A></P>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-52707475273464748122011-09-02T10:06:00.000-07:002011-09-02T10:06:00.401-07:00 <P>For those of you who missed it, Bethesda unveiled The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's Collector's Edition at QuakeCon over the weekend alongside 30-minutes of leaked footage from the game, and now the publisher's UK arm has dished out details on the CE's release over here.</P><P>A retail price of £129.99 has been nailed down for the Collector's Edition, which is a touch on the pricey side considering what's on offer (statue, art book, and making-of DVD). When you weigh-up the fact that Batman: Arkham City's Collector's Edition is being priced at £69.99 and includes a Kotobukiya Batman statue, exclusive in-game items, the soundtrack and art book, you do have to ask where the further £60 is going with Skyrim.</P><P>No doubt Bethesda will be quick to point towards the quality of the art book and statue as reasons for the high price tag. Modelled directly from in-game digital files, the statue depicts the Skyrim dragon, Alduin The World Eater perched atop one of the game's many dragon walls and modelled in high-quality PVC. The art book, on the other hand, is a 200-page hardback with a foreword by Todd Howard, Skyrim's Director.</P><P>Bethesda's DVD documentary looks pretty handy too with plenty of exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. UK retailers, GAME and Gamestation are the only two participating stores for this Collector's Edition over here, and it's available for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. </P><P>The premium quality world map of Skyrim had already been announced as a pre-order incentive for the game, so if you're not too bothered by the art book, DVD and statue but definitely want to buy the game when it releases on November 11th, then a standard pre-order is the way to go.</P><P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomskyrimceitemsgfw76217size6551500.jpg" width=610></P><br /><p><a href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim/news/TESV-Skyrim-Collectors-Edition-Announced-Detailed-16631.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-90156854119033125622011-09-02T08:09:00.000-07:002011-09-02T08:09:00.360-07:00 <P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomfifastreetbuenosaires1003l76363size6551500.jpg" width=350>EA Sports has spilt a bucket-load of FIFA announcements over at Gamescom this afternoon, including an all-new instalment in the FIFA Street series as well as a demo date and Ultimate Team details for FIFA 12.</P><P>FIFA Street is in development at EA Canada for Xbox 360 and PS3 with an early 2012 release currently being eyed for the title. This latest instalment in the series will retain the usual focus on over-the-top skills and 5-a-side matches.</P><P>Where FIFA 12 is concerned, a demo will hit XBLA and PSN from September 13th before the game itself hits stores on September 30th and, when it does, EA's Ultimate Team card trading game will be available straight out of the box for the first time since the mode launched in FIFA 09 (previously it's been launched as post-release DLC).</P><P>Those of you who played Ultimate Team in FIFA 11 will be able to access this year's version early. As it did last year, EA is opening up its browser-based Ultimate Team portal and offering free card packs to last year's loyal fans – this will be available from September 20th. In the meantime, check out the FIFA 12 Gamescom trailer below and the first FIFA Street trailer below that...</P><P><OBJECT type=application/x-shockwave-flash height=390 width=640 data=http://www.youtube.com/v/istUJhYecmI></OBJECT></P><P><BR><OBJECT type=application/x-shockwave-flash height=390 width=640 data=http://www.youtube.com/v/DgUPaDFW7kc></OBJECT></P><br /><p><a href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/FIFA-12/news/New-FIFA-Street-FIFA-12-Details-Emerge-At-Gamescom-16641.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-7789174050755164612011-09-02T07:06:00.000-07:002011-09-02T07:06:00.266-07:00 <P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDRVSFS008CSTannerPrisonVan75040size6551500.jpg" width=360>If we’re being honest, we probably weren’t expecting much from the Driver franchise. With Driv3r sporting more bugs than your average rainforest and the follow-up, Parallel Lines, failing to deliver much more than an economy class GTA experience, no-one was really giving it much thought. When we made the leap to the current generation of consoles, we weren’t anxiously anticipating another instalment in a series already running on empty. And so, when the Driver San Francisco press releases began circulating, they were met with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for the announcement of a new National Lampoon’s film. </P><P>But then, something odd happened. Following press events, there were whispers of something a bit different. A bit clever. And more than a bit good. And you know what? The whispers were right. </P><P>Taking place only a few months after the events of the much-criticised Driv3r, this latest instalment begins with Tanner’s nemesis Jericho imprisoned in San Francisco. Ever the fiendish master criminal, Jericho engineers his escape as he’s being transported through the streets of SF. Tanner, one of those 80s style cops who relies almost entirely on hunches, predicts trouble and luckily is nearby when the shizzle hits the sizzle. A car chase ensues and Tanner is involved in a serious collision which leaves him comatose with a nasty looking bruise on his nose. The majority of the game then takes place in Tanner’s unconscious mind in what is quite a hefty nod to policeman-in-a-coma TV serial, Life on Mars. </P><P>And, surprisingly, Reflections has handled the story pretty damn well. While you shouldn’t expect BAFTA material - there’s a lot of the wise-cracking hit and miss humour we’re so accustomed to seeing in games - there are also a number of nice narrative touches that make the game’s storyline pretty interesting. For one, it’s presented as a kind of action TV serial, complete with “previously on Driver San Francisco…” recaps when you start new story missions and a voiceover/evidence board at the end as Tanner attempts to piece together the puzzle and discover what Jericho’s up to. Sure, these are simple, subtle little devices but they all contribute to a decent single-player game that you’ll want to see through to its conclusion. But, of course, the most impressive aspect of the narrative is that it sets up the game’s primary new feature: shifting. </P><P>See, because Tanner’s all unconscious and that - and this whole tale is taking place in his noggin - he can break the rules of physics a little. What this means is that at almost any point in the game, you can leave Tanner’s body behind, float up into the sky of the game’s open world and choose to inhabit the body of another driver. This not only allows Tanner a significant advantage in investigating Jericho, but it also opens up a variety of City Missions to complete. City Missions are basically your side missions in Driver San Francisco and you’ll need to complete a couple to unlock the next episode in Tanner’s story. </P><P>And Reflections has cleverly made sure that there’s a fair amount of variety on offer in the City Missions. With races, police chases, stunts and more, the City Missions rarely feel like a chore, but the nicest touch is that, throughout the single-player game, you’ll encounter the same characters at different parts of their own stories. There are the street-racing brothers, for example, attempting to earn enough money to pay their way through college; or the beleaguered TV stunt show camera crew, constantly under pressure to find (or engineer) some good footage for their show; or the two cops who take it upon themselves to rid the city of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. It’s a smart way to keep the side missions interesting in an open world structure and they’re often as engaging, both in terms of narrative and gameplay, as the story missions. </P><P>But the impact of the shifting mechanic doesn’t stop there. Because you can do it at almost any time (a few missions prevent you from shifting) it opens up a whole world of options to the player that allow them to get a little creative with their driving. In a race fo<IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDRVSFS024IGPaperMoneyChase75047size6551500.jpg" width=360>r instance, rather than simply concentrating on your driving, why not make things a little difficult for your competitors? Perhaps you could take control of some oncoming traffic and try to take them out of the race, or maybe you could find yourself a whopping great truck and park it across the road, hit the rearview button and watch the carnage?</P><P>It’s a wonderfully subtle and inventive system and you sometimes forget that you have it at your disposal, only to think things through for a second and have a “Eureka!” moment. Reflections is clearly quite proud of the mechanic too, showcasing it in a number of shift-crucial missions. While some may bemoan the game’s lack of on-foot sections, I’d argue that the shift mechanic offers so much more to the player and is a genuinely impressive addition to the series. And, let’s face it, it’s not as if the on-foot sections in previous Driver games were any good, is it? </P><P>But, of course, all of this praise for the shifting would be for nought if the driving gameplay wasn’t up to scratch. Luckily, Reflections has managed to craft a driving model that is both solid and will feel distinctly familiar to fans of the series. Car handling in driving games tends to be the boniest of contentions and, gauging response to recently-released demos, opinion seems to be divided. Some may argue that the cars are too geared towards oversteer and drifting, and that it’s all a little forgiving (allowing you to pull off some ridiculous manoeuvres), but this is a Driver game after all. This isn’t about hitting apexes and shaving milliseconds off lap times – this is about weaving through oncoming traffic at 100+ mph, sliding sideways through corners and enacting your 70s cop show fantasies. And Reflections has done a bang-up job with the handling in this writer’s opinion. When you consider that this is all happening at a silky smooth 60 frames per second, you have an adrenaline-fuelled driving experience to deal with. </P><P>If this is all sounding a little too positive for you fans of disappointment (read “British gamers”) there are some annoyances to be found in the game. Some of the mission checkpointing seems a little inconsistent and you’ll frequently have to replay sections of missions so many times that you can memorise the dialogue. Also, while it’s nice to see licensed vehicles in a Driver game for the first time, you get the feeling that a little more work could have gone into making their respective handling models unique. You might also find yourself thinking that San Francisco ought to look a little prettier than the soft focus, hazy offering that Reflections has crafted (well, I suppose it could be the famous SF fog). But it’s safe to say that the good dramatically outweighs the bad in this latest Driver and perhaps the most impressive aspect of the game is its longevity. In the single-player game, as well as the story and city missions, the game map is also littered with driving challenges (or Dares) which will test your skills even further. And there are the collectibles which unlock a series of film-inspired challenges like the Mustang chase in Bullitt, for instance. And, of course, Director Mode returns allowing you to craft some tasty replays of your driving prowess. Or, in my case, lack thereof. </P><P>But it’s the game’s multiplayer modes that will keep you coming back to San Francisco and it’s all credit to the developer that it has ensured the game’s USP – the shift mechanic – remains central to the fun in multiplayer. With a wide variety of game modes on offer (we were sadly only able to try Tag and Trailblazer) there’s a lot to appeal to the online driving fan and shifting adds a new dimension of chaos to the standard competitive driving experience. Creativity is the name of the game and, from just a few minutes online with the game, you’ll witness some fiendish attempts to ruin your race and an awful lot of crunching metal. <BR><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDRVSFS025IGTannerInterior75048size6551500.jpg" width=360><BR>Somehow, it seems as if Reflections has managed to achieve the impossible with San Francisco – it has taken the Driver franchise back to its roots whilst also pushing it forward into new territory and the result is undoubtedly the most complete, polished offering in the series to date. Tearing through the streets of San Francisco, forcing your car into manoeuvres that it probably shouldn’t be able to do with the knowledge that you can hit X and take control of another car at any time is just as fun as it sounds.</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Driver-San-Francisco/review-16656.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-70394674094318679772011-09-02T05:13:00.000-07:002011-09-02T05:13:00.024-07:00 <P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomBODYCOUNTScreenAfricaCompound1176282size6551500.jpg" width=360>On the Xbox Live Arcade this week, EA and Criterion's 2006 title, Black has been reduced in price to 800 Microsoft Points. No doubt it's a price promotion by EA that's been strategically timed to hitch a ride with Codemasters' ramping-up of publicity for Bodycount, which is currently as ramped-up as it gets with the game preparing for launch at the start of next month. Both games share much of the same DNA, not only through a number of developers on Codemasters' Guildford-based team but in the game's overall design as well. Once again, the focus is on guns and destruction; on using destructible environments as a vehicle for gameplay. It was a highly innovative approach to FPS design in 2006 and, actually, it remains relatively underused in current-gen shooters today. </P><P>Some games have utilised destructible cover and limited environmental destruction in recent years, but mostly as an added peripheral feature rather than a gameplay 'pillar'. Where titles have gone balls-out with the destruction (Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Red Faction: Guerilla), they've come across more as showy tech-demos than refined examples of game design. It's fair to say that DICE is one studio that's really nailed destructible environments with its Battlefield games and the proprietary Frostbite tech powering them, although we're struggling to think of another developer with such a skilled hand in this area. Perhaps, then, Bodycount bolts from its shaky foundations almost as refreshingly as Black did over five years ago. The space for innovation in this area remains and the market is just as primed to accept it.</P><P>But there are some added teeth in the jaws of Bodycount's gameplay – it is, in many ways, Black Mark II. A system of scored combos and power-ups places it firmly into Bulletstorm's territory, leaving us to wonder whether it's a coincidence that all of these game titles start with the letter B (our instinct tells us no). Much like People Can Fly's refreshing shooter, Bodycount rewards you for killing people in ever more creative ways: end somebody with a headshot and you'll get a x1 multiplier; melee kill them from behind, or shoot them with your dying breath/the final bullet in your magazine, on the other hand, and you'll ratchet-up that multiplier even further. Although not quite as wide-ranging as the Bulletstorm equivalent 'Skillshots', these varieties of kill do at least encourage you to experiment a bit. It all correlates to a Bodycount score that's tallied up at the end of each level, leaving you with a graded score from A-E that takes additional factors into account, such as how many of the destructible or explosive set-pieces you took advantage of.</P><P>Different types of kills also effect the amount of 'Intel' that spews from the bodies of enemies as you dispatch them. Blue Intel comes from regular kills, yellow from 'skill-kills', and red from chained kills. This Intel is effectively the game's curren<IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomBODYCOUNTScreenAsiaFishingSlum3976285size6551500.jpg" width=360>cy – think of it like XP. As you progress in the campaign and collect more Intel, you'll open up the option to use various support actions which start with a timed period of invincibility and move up the tiers through explosive ammo, radar augmentations and, at the top-end of the scale, an airstrike. Roughly comparable to Call of Duty's perks, these abilities were consistent throughout the three levels of single-player and the Horde-style co-op mode we sampled. Although not quite as cathartic and rewarding as their CoD counterparts, they do at least offer an incentive to play the game as intended, with as much fiery destruction and explosive gumption as possible. But it's perhaps this destructible element of the game that underwhelmed us the most in what was, admittedly, a more broad than comprehensive sit-down with the code.</P><P>For the sections we played through, most of the game environments' destructibility just seemed so... predictable [prestructable? ed.]. There were red oil barrels, outposts constructed out of wood, glass partitions, and the occasional hut that all said, 'Shoot me and I will fall apart/explode'. It was the same setup with Black in 2006, where abundantly clear signposting informed the gamer: 'Rigged set-piece of destruction here'. Unlike with DICE's Frostbite engine though, we rarely came across a level section that deconstructed in a way we weren't expecting, or made us stand back and marvel at the levels of destruction on show. We'd hoped for a step-up in the design from what Black offered five years ago, but instead what we found were very similar blueprints and ideas buoyed by more advanced technology (e.g. materials that break apart convincingly, smoother physics, and more detailed textures). It just didn't feel that creative for a gameplay dynamic that's rife with possibilities and crying out for more innovative thinking. </P><P>All of that said, we did only sample three missions from a total of 18 in the full game, so there's clearly a lot more content in stock that could prove our initial concerns wrong. Codemasters Guildford's Horde-style co-op mode also brings a lot to the table, taking sections from the campaign and using them as maps that you and a co-op partner have to defend from waves of enemies. Defeated waves result in more advanced weaponry and a higher Bodycount score, which can then be posted to online leaderboards for bragging rights. And there's a competitive multiplayer component in the full game too: although limited to deathmatch and team deathmatch modes for 12 players, the prospect of adding human opponents to these destructible environments is a promising one.</P><P><STRONG>Our initial impressions of Bodycount are that it's not quite what we'd hoped it would be. Beyond a staid feel to some of the destructible environments' design, even the gunpla</STRONG><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomBODYCOUNTScreenAfricaCompound6776283size6551500.jpg" width=360><STRONG>y wasn't quite as raucous and off-the-hook as what we'd anticipated given the Black lineage - other than a clever l</STRONG><STRONG>ittle cover system (half a press of the left-trigger peers down the barrel; a full press prompts an almost skittle-like 'lean' out of cover), Bodycount's core-combat felt a touch on the generic side</STRONG><STRONG>. There really is a lot more to see of the game though, so we're reserving judgement for now and hoping for the best come review.<BR></STRONG></P><br /><p><a href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Bodycount/preview-16633.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352248116853141258.post-73689583663099408972011-09-02T03:15:00.000-07:002011-09-02T03:15:00.622-07:00 <P><IMG alt="" src="/wwwtotalvideogamescomDECode76534size6551500.jpg" width=360>It's taken the internet a day or two (you're slipping, internet!), but the code that was posted on Deus Ex: Human Revolution's in-game main menu on Monday has finally been solved by some evidently rather clever people.</P><P>We're not sure quite how the decoders have done it (or, indeed, who exactly they are), but the long and short of it comes down to this Blue's News post (via VG247) and culminates in the website 13311tower.com.</P><P>Apparently some Morse code and GPS coordinates can be pulled from the site's code, with the Morse code revealing the line “11m13clinic” and the GPS coordinates pointing to Ayers Rock on Google Maps (also known as Uluru in Aboriginal legend).</P><P>When used as a password and username respectively, “11m13clinic” and “uluru” unveil the static image shown above-right on the 13311tower.com site (simply click on the All Seeing Eye Illuminati Post-it image on the right-hand site of the splash page to prompt a log-in box).</P><P>Effectively though, this leaves us all none the wiser despite all the ARG chasing. The “Sun 04:28:56” reference in the bottom-left of the image could point towards another reveal time this weekend, although that's a bit of a leap really.</P><P>VG247 claims that it's all an elaborate tease in the lead-up to a DLC announcement that could add an episode featuring J.C. Denton (the original Deus Ex protagonist). The site's source claims that players are prompted to choose a new augmentation setup rather than import a Human Revolution save file to the DLC.</P><P>More detail from the rumour suggests that the new content will be staged on a ship, and that none of the communication support available to Adam Jensen in the main game will be present in this DLC. We'll bring you more as we get it but don't pin too many hopes on these rumours just yet...</P><br /><p><a href="http://www.totalvideogames.com/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution/news/Deus-Ex-Code-Solved-Everyone-Still-Flummoxed-16662.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">View the original article here</a></p>bazigarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18307537721658393623noreply@blogger.com0