EA Shows How Medal Of Honor Is Not Just Another WWII FPS
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsMy memories of Medal of Honor traditionally involve the Saving Private Ryan -esque level depicting D-Day, or highly scripted (and action-filled) gunfights-as-rollercoaster moments. So it’s pretty darn weird to see the new Medal of Honor take place in a period other than World War II, and on top of that, to see a pretty low-key (and downright stealthy) mission as opposed to a blazing shootout. Executive producer Greg Goodrich recently stopped by to show off a mission, and briefly talk about the new direction for Medal of Honor. Sure, this install maintains MOH’s core ethos of being a serious and realistic depiction of military combat — it just happens to also be the MOH that takes place in the modern day, carries an M-rating, and has two development teams working on different aspects, to boot.
SOCOM 4 Hands-On Preview
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsMany of us here in the office got our first hands-on with the new PlayStation Move today and its (somewhat necessary) add-on, the Sub Controller. There were a number of tech demos on display at the event (look for our video recap for more impressions), whereas the only “real” game on display working with the new Move was the recently announced SOCOM 4 . And while I personally won’t be hanging up my DualShock3 and trading it in for a Move after my first impressions with the product, it’s still an impressive display on what can be done with this new device: decent motion control for a hardcore game. The PlayStation Move controllers themselves are very similar to the current set-up of the Wii Remote and its Nunchuk: The right-hand controller controls your head/gun/firing while the left-hand controller handles your movement with an analog stick. Each controller has a trigger as well; the left-hand’s trigger operates as a “go-into-cover” function, while the right-hand’s trigger fires your selected weapon (for the sake of the demo we were only able to use a machine gun). There is even an “action” button in the middle of the Move that, when pressed, would have you look down the sight line of the rifle — making the motion sensitivity increase.
Scrap Metal Review
Written by from on March 10th, 2010 | 0 CommentsBanging things into other things has been a major form of entertainment since the pilot episode of “Caveman Jackass” back in 20,000 B.C. There’s just something endlessly appealing about controlled destruction. So, if you’re stupefied by slaughter, dumbfounded by demolition, and enthralled by evisceration, you’re sure to be tickled by Slick Entertainment’s new XBLA title, Scrap Metal . Sitting somewhere between a straight-up arcade action title and a lightweight racing sim, Scrap Metal has drawn comparisons to Rare’s R.C. Pro-Am — but the similarity to that old classic is mostly skin deep. Really, Scrap Metal’s casual-game veneer hides a robust (if somewhat overly sensitive) physics engine, more levels than a Byzantine ziggurat, and a grip of imaginative set pieces. Both multiplayer (Scrap Metal offers local and online) and single-player are challenging without being too intense, offer plenty of tweaking without being overly detailed, and feature charmingly over-the-top graphics.
Scrap Metal Review
Written by from on March 10th, 2010 | 0 CommentsBanging things into other things has been a major form of entertainment since the pilot episode of “Caveman Jackass” back in 20,000 B.C. There’s just something endlessly appealing about controlled destruction. So, if you’re stupefied by slaughter, dumbfounded by demolition, and enthralled by evisceration, you’re sure to be tickled by Slick Entertainment’s new XBLA title, Scrap Metal . Sitting somewhere between a straight-up arcade action title and a lightweight racing sim, Scrap Metal has drawn comparisons to Rare’s R.C. Pro-Am — but the similarity to that old classic is mostly skin deep. Really, Scrap Metal’s casual-game veneer hides a robust (if somewhat overly sensitive) physics engine, more levels than a Byzantine ziggurat, and a grip of imaginative set pieces. Both multiplayer (Scrap Metal offers local and online) and single-player are challenging without being too intense, offer plenty of tweaking without being overly detailed, and feature charmingly over-the-top graphics.
Five Reasons Why Mafia II is The Godfather Game We Should Have Gotten
Written by from on March 10th, 2010 | 0 CommentsThe open world crime simulation genre (if you can even call that a genre) has always been the most logical one to use to bring the 1940s and 50s world of organized crime seen in The Godfather to life in videogames. Neither of EA’s actual existing games based on Mario Puzo’s epic story ended up being that great though for a number of reasons. In 2002, even before those games had been released, Illusion Softworks was able to craft a rich period piece that evoked memories of some of the best mafia-based movies ever made called, appropriately enough, Mafia . This year, 2K Czech (the renamed Illusion Softworks) aims to deliver its second entry in the series, Mafia II , set for release in Q4. After a hands-on session with the upcoming game where I got to play through an entire mission, I get the idea that Mafia II is going to be the Godfather/Goodfellas/Bugsy game I?ve wanted all along, and here are the reasons why.
Four Ways Civilization V Justifies Its Existence
Written by from on March 10th, 2010 | 0 CommentsYou don’t mess with Civilization . If you aren’t a Civ fanatic already, then you should know that Civilization is a veritable cornerstone of PC gaming; it’s a franchise that defines the turn-based strategic experience, that exemplifies the “intricate systems interacting with each other to produce addictive gameplay” motif, that invented the “just one more turn” phrase within PC gamers’ minds, and is often named the best game in PC history. Civilization titles are rare — the “okay, this is pretty much the best one, there’s no way to do but down after this” game that is Civilization IV came out way back in 2005. So it’s no small feat for Firaxis to be making Civilization V . Fact is, with a series this storied and iconic, the developers can’t simply get away with making it look prettier and making the number bigger. They have to make a game that makes the five year wait worth it, especially after its near-perfect predecessor. So what will Civ V do? From a recent, 20-minute demonstration, here are four major changes that V is making to justify its existence.
True Crime: What Happens When A Developer Wants To Make The Departed Into A Game
Written by from on March 10th, 2010 | 0 CommentsThere’s a pretty bizarre moment in the original True Crime: Streets of LA where it transforms from an expected hip-hop laden urban crime game into a poor knockoff of Big Trouble In Little China. Instead of remaining consistent, the game decided to stop having you take on thugs, and started having you fight zombies, dragons, and flying skulls. Well, I can safely say that even though I’ve only seen a small snippet of the upcoming (and subtitle-less) True Crime , from the way executive producer Stephen van der Mescht describes it, there won’t be a crazy “why did I go from shooting guys to punching dragons?” moment in this next installment. In fact, True Crime is a complete reboot. Not only is it an entirely new game and locale (not an unfamiliar thing, since the previous two games changed main characters and switched from Los Angeles to New York), but an entirely different developer, United Front Games (the studio behind the upcoming
God of War 3 Review
Written by from on March 8th, 2010 | 0 CommentsDebates over its final boss fight aside, God of War 2 ’s ending made for good theater: Greek Kratos rode on the titan Gaia’s back as she scaled Mount Olympus in pursuit of a gods vs. titans face-off with Zeus and friends. It served as a big cliffhanger — literally or not, depending on your taste for puns — which set up God of War 3 as the final game in the trilogy. Looking back on that ending now, it seems clear that the developers knew what they had in mind for the third game all along, but at the time it left a lot open to interpretation. Would it be an entire game on the side of the mountain? Or might Kratos participate in some kind of War of the Monsters -style spin-off?
Resonance of Fate Is Secretly A Tactical RPG
Written by from on March 5th, 2010 | 0 CommentsResonance of Fate would like you to believe that it’s a conventional roleplaying game. The exploration elements are there, and so is a degree of dungeon crawling; but a certain degree of freedom doesn’t change the fact that tri-Ace has apparently crafted a cleverly disguised tactical-roleplaying game. It certainly isn’t Final Fantasy Tactics , but I would say that it has more in common with the likes of Valkyria Chronicles than it does Final Fantasy XIII . These feelings echo some of the sentiments I expressed after my last hands-on experience with Resonance of Fate during TGS 2009. At that time, I also expressed concern over what appeared to be bland art design and featureless dungeons. Following Sega and tri-Ace’s most recent visit to the 1UP offices though, I feel confident in saying that Resonance of Fate has established a unique identity for itself — in particular, it seems to have much more of a sense of style and humor than I was previously lead to believe.
Lunar: Silver Star Harmony Review
Written by from on March 5th, 2010 | 0 CommentsLunar: The Silver Star has seen several remakes over the years, but the last time the series went portable, in Lunar: Dragon Song , it flopped commercially and critically. Regardless, Game Arts had remade the original Lunar again, and this time for PSP, as Lunar: Silver Star Harmony ; as it should, this version hews closely to the PlayStation’s Silver Star Story Complete , with all of that game’s excellent, animated cut-scenes. But other than that, from the overworld maps to the backgrounds, the game has been remade, effectively recapturing all the things that made the original so good (and also retaining a few of the things that made it so frustrating). The writing is more subdued, though it still tries to be funny — you’ll read the occasional anachronistic line about a character using a phone or something else ridiculous to try and get a laugh. But the team at XSeed excised most of the pop-culture references for a more straightforward translation.