On The Docket For March

The month of March looks to be the first big month of the year with several sequels to top notch franchises, and a new IP trying to carve out its own place in the FPS market.

Fight Night Champion

First 'M' Rated Fight Night

 Fight Night Champion is the next in the Fight Night series, and features a re-designed right stick punching scheme meant to simplify things for the user while also giving better controls over the punches you want to throw. The game also features a story mode alongside the expected career mode, and has added some nice ESPN presentation. Check out the SG Sports video review here.

Fight Night Champion releases March 1, 2011.

Crysis 2

Is Your PC Ready?

 Crysis 2 is the sequel to the game that made many PC owners sad as it feasted upon the insides of their computer. I expect much of the same this time around, but if you're stuck on consoles Crytek has finally been nice enough to develop a game for the console owners, and has it looking great. 

Crysis 2 releases March 22, 2011.

Homefront

Beware Korea

 Homefront is the second title from Kaos Studios, a team made up of people behind the famous Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat mod. The game takes places in 2027 where the Koreans have successfully invaded America (say what?!), and you play the role of a freedom fighter. Despite trying to give users a great single player story the big draw will of course be multiplayer which will put a lot of focus on large scale vehicle combat.

Homefront releases March 15, 2011.

Dragon Age II

Rise To Power

As stated before, Dragon Age II is  the sequel to Bioware's 2009 hit RPG, and one of my most anticipated games of the year. Expect faster combat, flashier moves, and more blood then the first game. For my demo impressions click here.

Dragon Age II releases March 8, 2011.

Shift 2: Unleashed

Awesome Helmet Cam

 Shift 2 is the next game in the Need For Speed series, and arrives only a few scant months after the release of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. Shift 2 is the simulation title in the Need For Speed lineup, and will be directly compared with the likes of Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport. All the pre-release trailers have shown off exciting in-game footage, a great helmet cam view, and touted the realism such as bringing in real life drivers.

Shift 2: Unleashed releases March 29, 2011.

MLB 11: The Show

 

Real or Fake?

 The MLB series from SCE San Diego Studio holds the crown for top baseball game, and many would contend top sports game period. MLB features some of the best graphics around, realistic game play, and outstanding presentation. Even if you are not a baseball fan (like me) it may be worth giving the game a shot for the Road To The Show mode.

MLB 11: The Show releases March 8, 2011.

Leave any questions or comments here on the blog, or e-mail me at curseofspin@gmail.com

Dragon Age II Demo

With Dragon Age II roughly two weeks away, EA decided to grace us gamers with a demo of the game this past Tuesday for the usual suspects (PS3/360/PC). Even though I have yet to finish Dragon Age I decided to risk the spoilers, and jump into the demo (PS3 Version), and get a taste for how Bioware has revamped the game for the its second iteration.

The first Dragon Age released to a whole lot of critical acclaim, but one thing kept coming up as negative. It was a dated game plain and simple. I remember seeing a page posting for Dragon Age back before the 360 launched if that is any indication of how long this game was being worked. Despite the age of the engine behind Dragon Age it certainly played well in spite of low quality graphics, and in some ways it was the sequel to Baldur's Gate II the hardcore fan had been wanting. So they feasted upon Dragon Age, and those who partook of the PC version were treated to a dessert of varying mods to make the game easier, harder, or just give you stuff to do.

Now on to Dragon Age II. Coming across previews the big thing I gathered from Bioware that they wanted to focus on for the sequel (besides building lore), was improving the fluidity of the combat. I played the first on PC, and combat was simply a question of selecting an enemy and going into auto-attack while activating your character's special abilities. If you were too far away your character just kind of shuffled his way towards an enemy, and bumped around people as he tried to fit his way in. Dragon Age II has ratcheted up the action by having you mash on an attack button to continue your assault. Once you're close enough to an enemy your character engages in some kind of animation to maneuver him into position a lot faster (warriors have charge ability called "Scythe"). To go along with this theme of more action the blood and dismemberment seem to be a lot greater (though the first did not lack for blood splatter), and the special abilities seem a lot more over the top. All this leaves me with much more of an action rpg feel, but I will have to check out the PC demo to see how these changes have effected the stop and pause tactical feel the first Dragon Age had.

Of course the graphics got an overhaul both technically, but also artistically. I struggle for a word to describe how I think of the graphics, but maybe smooth works. The game isn't pushing for a photo-realistic look so the artistic flair of the redesigned Qunari, or the re-worked Flemmeth model looks really nice, and I'd say gives them more character instead of just looking like any other NPC with maybe a unique hair style.

As far as what you will get to experience in the demo is a short two sections of game play with some of the back story thrown in. The first section I surmise is the beginning of the game which involves the main character, Hawke, and his family fleeing from Lothering at the time the Blight consumes in it in the first Dragon Age. The second game play piece takes place in a new location several levels on down the line in the city of Kirkwall.

Other changes to the game include being able to only play a human. This seems to be the trade-off you have to deal with to have a main character who has voice work as the day of the silent protagonist is pretty much dead (even my parents mocked the first Dragon Age for having no voice work). Dragon Age II has also adopted a Mass Effect style conversation wheel though it should be noted that the middle option seems to represent a sarcastic comment rather than the neutral choice in Mass Effect.

So will the hardcore folks who cut their teeth on the likes of Baldur's Gate be happy with the changes to the game play? Honestly I doubt it after having peeked at the Bioware forums every once in a while. The game is making a move toward more accessible game play, and broader appeal like Bioware is doing with the Mass Effect series. I can't say that I blame them. In this economic climate you have to be able to bring in a bigger audience to stay a viable studio development costs for these games being so high.

Leave any comments here at the blog, or e-mail me at curseofspin@gmail.com

Another Game Down

My backlog quest continues as I finished my run through Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

Trip & Monkey

Effectively my journey through Enslaved started late Sunday evening, and ended around brunch on a Monday. Of course time was taken in between to gather plenty of sleep. Either way, Enslaved is a short game, and I might have been a bit upset with it if I had not acquired it via a sale.

Length of adventure aside, the team at Ninja Theory built an enjoyable tale that centers heavily on the relationship between protagonists Trip and Monkey. The game starts with Monkey escaping a crashing slave ship, and waking up to find that Trip has slapped a slave headband on his head to force him to help her get home. A begrudging relationship grows into one where the characters truly begin to care for each other, and thanks to great voice acting, and very nice facial animation so does the player.

I was really amazed at Ninja Theory pulled off in regards to facial animation since this is a game running on the Unreal Engine. On top of the facial stuff the world of Enslaved was also very nice to behold with junkyard locales, to cities overgrown by vegetation, and desert wastelands. I will note that were a few times that the frame rate in the game dropped, and the texture pop-in of the Unreal Engine did surface from time to time, but certainly not enough to mar the beauty of the game.

The combat of the game is very simple, but it works. A lot of mashing on the light and hard attack buttons, with some dodge rolling or blocking involved. A counter move can be purchased, but I rarely made us of it. A few sections become shooting heavy as you use Monkey's staff to fire off stun blasts, and plasma energy to take down your foes. Very simple, but not every game needs to have some complex combat system to make it enjoyable.

For me Enslaved really shines when it gets into the platforming, and the last few chapters have some great set piece environments to traverse. I will say though that the platforming is easy mode. The next thing that Monkey has to grab is always highlighted so you just have to move your joystick in the direction of the of the next handhold, and press the jump button. Also, you don't have to worry about coming up short, or flying off to the side of a jump as Monkey automatically makes the canned animation jump. Is it easy? Yes, but it takes out some of the frustration I've had with the likes of Assassin's Creed and inFamous where sometimes your character makes this really awkward off target leap leading to your death when those games feature a heavy magnetized system as well.

My final thoughts on Enslaved are that it is worth playing through once, but maybe only on a rental due to length. I was most impressed by the voice work, and facial animations of the game which really help carry the story over. While it won't rank very high on my all time game list it should certainly be considered if you have nothing else to play.

Leave any comments here at the blog, or e-mail me at curseofspin@gmail.com

What I've Been Up To

Hello there my faithful blog readers. Much apologies to missing an update so long, but at least I was playing some video games during that time, right? Right!

Mafia II

Once again I find myself playing through a game I added to my backlog at the end of 2010 with my PS3 purchase. Mafia II probably had a lot of hype to live up to with its following from the critically acclaimed first Mafia game (PC more than console ports). I never played the first game, but I was certainly excited to delve into the life of a mobster.

What I enjoyed most about the game is the setting as it takes place partially during the 1940s, and 1950s America in the fictional Empire Bay (an analog for New York City). I had fun snatching up any old model car that looked cool so that I could cruise around to a shop, and buy a nice tailored suit. This does bring me to a negative regarding the game.

I think a lot of previews for this game would have people thinking Grand Theft Auto with an alternate setting, but honestly this is a very linear open world game. The structure of Mafia II is mission based where the main character wakes up in his current residence, answers a phone call to meet someone about a mission, goes to complete the mission, and then you're informed to return home and go to sleep to finish the chapter. Now certainly you can ignore the mission during the course of the chapter to go explore the city, but honestly there isn't much you can do in the city. It's limited to robbing store, stealing cars, customizing those stolen rides, buying some clothing, and maybe stopping in for a bite to eat.

So in those regards it does feel like the time spent crafting a big open world city were wasted, but it is what it is and the city certainly still provides great atmosphere for you to soak in. Game play is your standard on foot third person shooter controls, and features a button press cover system. I did struggle to aim, and that might be due to my low comfort level with the PS3 controller (most of my shooting is done on a 360). It did seem to me that the aim-assist was inconsistent. There were times where I'd pop up out of cover to fire a few rounds, and have the reticule line up for a perfect head shot while other times I found myself staring a few inches off to the side of even the body of person I was trying to shoot.

Mafia II is not a very difficult game as I made it through on hard mode without many struggles up until the final two chapters of the game due to some design decisions. Mafia II uses a sparse check point system which can make things frustrating if you've just spent several minutes clearing a room, and then moved outside to a cut scene where you die once the action picks back up. Maybe we've been conditioned to think a cut scene (a break in action) equals a check point for progress?

My other frustration came from interesting enemy placement in the final two chapters combined with the increase in damage that accompanies raising the difficulty level in games. I suffered cheap deaths from trying to walk down stairs with no safe approach. I suffered a death because an enemy hopped a wall to an area that I didn't think was accessible, and sat around until I had it and walked up a set of stairs. Part of this might have been eased if enemy locations showed up on your radar. It's an omission that I could have forgiven if the developers had not taken the time to make sure police cars, and on foot officers were well displayed including the direction they're facing.

Overall the game was very enjoyable for me despite frustrations, and I found the story very enjoyable even if I felt bad about the stories outcome (Hmmm, same thing happened with Heavy Rain). The next thing I have to figure out is how many trophies do I want get from it by tracking down the 50 Playboy centerfolds (only accessible in specific chapters, tracking down over 100 wanted posters (accessible at any time), and making the decision to buy the DLC centering around the main characters childhood friend.

Leave comments on the blog or e-mail me at curseofspin@gmail.com

My Favorite Super Bowl Ad

It gets bonus points for being so damn creepy

On The Docket For February

February is certainly not a heavy month for gaming, but it does feature a couple of games that should be big sellers, a sequel to a well received racing game, and another title that might see huge sales due to an attached beta.

Killzone 3

Helghast

 Killzone is one of Sony's flagship franchises, and their only first person shooter. After a lukewarm reception for the first title on PS2, developer Guerrilla Games rekindled hype for the franchise with a beautiful trailer for Killzone 2 as part of Sony's E3 announcement for the PS3.Killzone 2 arrived in February of 2009 to great review scores (91% on Metacritic). Now we are presented with Killzone 3 which should provide more of the great game play gamers fell in love with in Killzone 2, and of course the title will feature Move support. Expect a beta to release sometime early in February.

Killzone 3 releases February 22, 2011.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Dormammu

Back in February 2009 Capcom released the long awaited Street Fighter IV. This resulted in what I feel was a resurgence in the popularity of fighting games. It was followed up by releases of BlazBlue (from the creator's of Guilty Gear), and new entries in old fighting game stalwarts Tekken and King of Fighters. Well this February we get to see the next chapter of another fighting game monster and that is the one and only Marvel vs. Capcom franchise. It took ten years, but the fans finally have something new to turn to.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 releases Feburary 15, 2011.

Test Drive Unlimited 2

More Open Miles of Driving to Come

The big selling point for the first Test Drive Unlimited was giving players a detailed open world recreation of one of Hawaii's islands for them to speed about while always being connected to online events and races. The second game shifts to the Mediterranean of Ibiza, and will even feature a story this time around. Other new additions include dynamic weather, day and night cycle, damage modeling, and players will also be able to return to an updated version of the island from the first game.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 releases February 8, 2011.

Bulletsorm

You can't talk about Bulletstorm and not mention the Epic Edition for the 360. Why you may ask? Because it includes access to the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta (a tactic we've seen used with Halo 3: ODST and Crackdown). That tactic is going to generate huge sales, but I really feel like this game is going to be a whole mess load of fun on its own. The goal of the game is to get a high score. How you do that is by picking up ridiculously overpowered weapons, and combining them with your characters other abilities to generate outlandish death sequences. The only limitation is your creativity. There is a demo up on the XBL Marketplace (unsure about the PS3) so give it a look.

Bulletstorm releases February 22, 2011.

Once again, leave a comment here on the blog, or e-mail me at curseofspin@gmail.com with your thoughts, ideas, and feedback.