1. The narrator for this trailer was amazing
2. Banjo and Kazooie are guest characters racing along awesome characters Eggman and Ryo

Check out the trailer before I lay down the smackdown on what is sure to be a bargain bin contender a few months from now.

Ok, so one of these characters is definitely not from the Sega universe but at lease Banjo and Kazooie have raced in cart games before. Banjo must have been the victor of Diddy Kong racing and surely beat the other laughable characters in Banjo Pilot. So Microsoft thinks they can boost sales of the Sega franchise by crossing it with the Nuts N Bolts "Rare Bear Banjo".

Oh, I'm sorry Microsoft and Rare, you trust Sega to make a good modern Sonic game? It's gimmicks like including exclusive 360 characters that indicate the core racing will be boring or poorly executed. It doesn't make sense how 4 Avatar friends can run faster than vehicles. Why do I have to assume that Sonic will be a speed character when stats should really come down to the vehicle's performance? Why is Tails able to fly in a plane while Banjo can't compete on foot with the Talon Trot? Tails should be broken since he can just avoid all attacks and take some major shortcuts.

I love Banjo and Kazooie, but I know this game is just a cash in for nostalgia purposes. I mean who doesn't love to see Sonic, Ryo, Ulala and other classic characters in 3D HD. I want to race with them just as much as people wanted to avoid the 360's that were bundled with Sega Superstars Tennis.

In conclusion, I'll make sure to get my "paws" on some "premium high Performance Power-ups". The "Yes!" at the end of the trailer was barely comparable to Captain Falcon's "YEEES". I'm still waiting on Rare to make triple A caliber games again, but I know their time has passed. Maybe a Killer Instinct 3 with outstanding visuals and gameplay could resurrect their status with the hardcore gamers instead of Microsoft directing them toward the casual route.

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by BlueZero

Welcome to the world of Bayonetta! Some witch cult has some impure child and has considered her an outcast. Someone rescues the girl named Bayonetta from the bottom of a lake. Next, she battles the blond haired woman in the red dress because that woman decided to fight the outcast as her witch challenge. Enter boss fights so seamless and fast, that they shine as a molding of Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. I thoroughly enjoyed the Japanese demo and spend almost 30 minutes playing to the end. Do note I wrote this write-up before the English demo came out; enter the demo spoilers:

The demo starts out with Bayonetta learning all her seductive moves in the Tutorial level. Here, we have the triangle button be her physical attack with her hair and magic attacks. The square and circle button do her ranged weapon, which in the demo is either pistols or a shotgun. The X button allows Bayonetta to jump and double jump. The R2 button allows her to dodge and it’s an important part of the game. L2 switches her stance between the default pistol and the shotgun/sword stance. L1 is the taunt button which raises her special bar if you are fighting enemies. R1 is your special move button you hold while pressing the face buttons. R1 + triangle seemed to be the best move with the sword to get around quickly in the air. Since I am writing this hands-on preview a few days after I played the demo, I can see what sticks in my memory.

Action games live or die by their controls and speed. The most impressive part of the game is that her moves are so well animated and flow well with her combat. She doesn’t feel stiff like other action games. She can go instantly from physical attacks to a ranged attack and can interrupt any down time from a move with an instant jump. The frustrations of slow Devil May Cry 1 (DMC) moves has been replaced with the fast action of Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Unlike Ninja Gaiden, the angels are not throwing a billion things your way or getting some super cheap grab move, not yet at least. The dodge button is very liberal in going into the bullet witch time. I appreciate that Bayonetta actually dodges the attack with the blade or whatever traveling under her instead of some games where the items clips through the person and it is hidden with a lot of sparks (God of War). A unique move for the game is a 360 rotation of the control stick plus a projectile button. This puts her into a frenzy of firing and you can aim her attacks from over the shoulder. The attack was very useful.

The game speed seemed to be locked at around 30FPS unless the game was doing cinematics like boss intros or some Bayonetta in game cutscenes. Again, Sega has done a decent job getting the game to run well. Yeah, the comparison videos show that there is more color in the 360 version of the game. When I was playing the demo, I didn’t think “Oh, these textures are kinda murkey and the colors could be more vibrant”

The demo starts off with Bayonetta on a train after a brief video about her back story. She just sits there until the train stops and she leaves. The other people in the world are represented as shadows for some reason. I’m going to assume that the angels make people oblivious to the battle between witches and the angels; the battle between magic and time as hinted in the trailer. Then some magical voice starts talking to her and I didn’t think it was important.

As soon as you can control Bayonetta, you will notice that the camera controls are extremely slow and must be immediately changed to mid level so you can rotate the camera to see enemies. She likes to walk with one hand on her hip and runs full force at maximum run. Even when she is in the air, she will put a hand on her hip while she is firing with the square button. The creators have done an excellent job making her look sexy while she is fighting. She can strafe enemies and faces them at a kind of angle that makes it look like she is dancing with them. When she does her double jump, I was surprised that she has magic butterfly wings that give her extra height. When she lands, magical looking butterflies come from her impact. Her dodge move is a very high flip which if done enough makes her do a really high jump and go into a recovery mode where she can’t move for like a second. I see this intention to prevent spamming the dodge move for easy witch bullet time where all enemies are slowed for a few seconds.

Bayonetta exits the train station and can destroy pots and objects for Sonic looking rings. I’m not sure their purpose, I assume they will be used to buy new moves/items ala DMC. When she gets outside, the angels come out of the heaven. They are introduced by a cutscene and their name written in a book which flies away. The introduction of the enemies with their name written in a book might get old if they do that for every enemy we meet. There are a few ground and air enemies. Since I was playing on the Normal setting, the highest level allowed in the demo, there was a danger icon before each attack and I had to do my own combos.

After the enemies, a boss demon enemy appeared. He had a red spot on his back. The Japanese text did not make it easy for me to understand that I could use her Torture move to finish the boss. As you dish out the pain, your torture/special meter starts filling up. When it is full, Bayonetta’s body glows purple and you can press L3 to unleash a finishing move. The finishing move against the boss is a huge dragon head emerging from Bayonetta’s hair, which is naturally the source of a woman’s power, and then doing “Megatons” of damage to the angel.

Fast forward through the demo to the next boss fight. As soon as Bayonetta gets on a suspended bridge over a cliff, another angel comes from the pit and starts grabbing onto the bridge. Bayonetta unleashes her stylish moves and near the end, the boss actually rips the bridge from the world and eventually tosses it with her on it. The player has to press the jump button and she lands with a graceful picture of her landing. The boss returns as she walks toward a door on another bridge and drives her back to a platform. The rest of the boss fight builds suspense with the platform getting more cracks and the boss is hanging off the edge swiping at Bayonetta. Once you whittle down the health bar, you get to do another finishing attack with the dragon hair spawn.

The game next loads a fight with the blondish woman from the trailer. The fight takes place in a rectangle room and can go on all surfaces. This boss fight is quite challenging as the other woman can guard most of your attacks. When I fought her with the sword style, it was much more difficult than using the normal style. Dodging her attacks doesn’t enter witch bullet time because both people are witches I suppose. If you manage to beat her, then the demo ends and shows a brief trailer.

To sum the game up, Bayonetta is not a full witch probably because a witch had a daughter with a regular human. Thus Bayonetta is an outcast and the witch council doesn’t want to accept her in their clan. Also for some reason this blond hair witch wants to fight Bayonetta as her initiation ritual. Yeah, that’s going to really show off your mettle battling half a witch. My opinion is that the creator is going to make a sequel to this game, thus the story is going to not be tightly wrapped up at the end. Yeah, Bayonetta is most likely going to beat down the angels, but it’s not going to be conclusive. I'm going to be buying it day one anyway.

*Images from the Official Bayonetta Website and the Bayonetta Flickr Account.

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by BlueZero

Perfect Dark on the N64 set a new standard for first person shooters when it came out. Rare needs to release good games so they decide they can remake the game for Xbox 360's Live Arcade. The visuals look slightly upgraded and I hope the porting team does a good job of replicating the revolutionary, but now outdated gameplay to the 360. Continue reading to look at the new screenshots the developers have released to increase my personal hype.

Here is a little background prior to the pics. It seems that 4J Studios is handling the port. They promise online and offline multiplayer with 1080p and 60FPS. Straight off the bat, I challenge that the 360 can render a true 1080p image. The game will probably be upscaled from 720p knowing the development trends on 360. If the studio can pull off a true 1080p video, which should be possible since this is ancient technology and a computer can render the base game as high as possible. I have to be skeptical because I don't want a poor port of one of my favorite games.

Right-click and view the picture for excellent quality. Images have been formatted to fit our 800 width blog

I'll start with my personal favorite screenshot. Observe the very nice looking face of the DataDyne guard woman. She actually looks like she is wearing earrings and I'm digging her white pants. The textures of the city and the desk look excellent for the source material.

Next, look at the next gen Carrington Villa. Perfect Dark sure is not rendering any next gen shadows when you look outside the windows. This requires some soft shadows! The lighting in this screenshot is also poorly done in comparison to the other screens. I would expect there to be more light flare on the roof next to the light source rather than far away. I'm probably nit-picking too much but this is a screenshot the marketing team released and I have the right to judge their game. The edges of the objects in the room are good; they are smooth enough to remind me that real objects are not jagged.

Moving on to what appears to be the outside of start of the first Area 51 mission, I am again hit with the poor shadows. Why can't they be more diffuse so they aren't as sharp and I don't see lines. There should be a new shadow/darkness engine created to give more contrast. Since this is one of the newer screenshots, I doubt the programmers will spend the time to fix the shadows.
Another thing with the picture is how horrible the ground texture meshes with the wall textures. It looks like they didn't even try to make it match. I can't even tell if the ground is supposed to be snow, it looks more like mashed potatoes.

Now here are some exciting alien screenshots. 4J Studios and/or Rare are taking some chances by upgrading the character textures. Some like Elvis look excellent with the eyes looking like alien eyes should. The Skedar texture is decent and is what I would expect from an upgrade.

Take a look at that FarSight! Now that's a bold style for what is the cheapest weapon ever created. I actually like the new design and I hope the developers slow down the "autoseeking" secondary fire for competitive multiplayer.

The game featured an incredible single player campaign with high production values and visuals. You know that thing called Co-op play that Gears made "popular"? Yeah, Perfect Dark accomplished this back on the N64 with splitscreen 2 player cooperative or counter-operative. Man it was sweet to control enemy characters in the counter-operative mode. My friends had no idea how evil I could be to thwart Joanna's objectives.

The splitscreen screenshot shows off decent textures and nice lighting. What are still being denied the face of the next gen Joanna. Hopefully the developers increased the audio quality so the characters don't sound like they are recorded through an ancient microphone.


In conclusion, based off the screenshots, it appears the game has taken an excellent step forward with the new character textures. In contrast, the shadow engine needs to be revamped so it is not directly porting the light cells of the N64 generation. The shadows in the screenshots confuse me because the DataDyne and the interior base shots look great. Then I am smashed against a tide of shadows arbitrarily ending with solid lines. Please add soft shadows to the game or allow a special next next gen lighting option for true dynamic lighting.

I would buy the game if I had a 360. Unfortunately, I can't justify a purchase of more than $100 to play a classic I could play on my 64 or elsewhere. So the port gets my praise, and my money if I can access a 360.

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by BlueZero

I like the detail Infinity Ward put into the game. There are actual dead bodies in the mall scene instead of the usual empty mall. This means that the terrorists may be striking at random throughout the United States. Most likely the mall is still in Washington DC.

One of the people in the trailer looks like the USMC guy who was near the warpig Warpig. I think his name is Ssgt. Griggs and he had the awesome deep voice. In this trailer he shows up around 1:18. At least I think it is him. Also, my money is that at 1:03 that the guy in the boat to the right is our favorite character with the amazing mustache. Yes, that means that Price is back! There is no way that man could remain critically injured or even die. His mustache gives him the Perk Juggernaut in my mind.

There are more sections where the player is on rails. This new trailer shows that the main character can drive with one hand and fire with the other. This mechanic was shown in one of the earlier trailers when the guy was on a snowmobile.

The graphics in the first 15 seconds of the trailer are incredible. The soldier is very well rendered with many details. I hope that the engine really does pump out the color and the details throughout the rest of the game. This trailer had a lot less color than the first trailer. This is worrisome.

I hope that the Washington DC mission has you rescuing the President from a hostage situation. Why else would the soldiers be trying to get into the White House. Another possibility is that the terrorists have control of the giant RED BUTTON AKA US nuclear defense/offense systems. Either way, we know for a fact that DC is pretty much no longer a tourist destination unless people like looking at a warzone. It would be impressive if there were multiple endings based on your actions but I doubt they would include it.

Overall, the DC landscape is very well detailed. I'm still getting the game when it comes out on PS3. Yes, I used the trailer with the 360 logo. The 360 version is going to sell the best anyway. I'll be owning people with the easiest multiplayer community, the so-so PS3 competitive FPS players.

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by BlueZero

September 18th, 2009 is going to be my favorite day of September. Majesty 2 and Batman Arkham Asylum both are coming out on that day. I'm not sure what I am going to do because I NEED both games and will buy both games as soon as I can. It's going to be a tough decision for which game I should play first. Let me start off by explaining why I am very hyped for these games. It's been such a long time since I was excited for any game, much less a PC game.

Majesty 2 is a day one purchase just from the fact Paradox Interactive has secured the old narrator, kept the old humor, and seems to be remaining faithful to the original gameplay. I didn't know the game was actually coming out this month until I saw an advertisement when I booted up Steam. Thank you Steam, I'll just be picking up the physical disk. Also, since I already have Majesty and its expansion pack, I don't need the digital pre-order bonus.

Frankly, I am picking up this game without reading any reviews. My decision is based on Paradox Interactive being a reliable studio, my love of the Majesty franchise and the inclusion of the old narrator. I hope the multiplayer this time doesn't drag on forever with healers being overpowered and a huge bounty on the enemy castle not being enough to end the match.

Batman Arkham Asylum has been out on consoles for about a month and I have restrained from playing the slightly inferior, PhysX-less version even though the game is very well received on consoles. The graphics and presentation of the game are top-notch. I've watched about 3 hours of gameplay when my friend was playing the PS3 version. I might start the game on the PS3 so I can play the Joker Challenge rooms and get the Home space, but I will primarily be playing the game on my new PC.

The inclusion of the real voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy and my favorite Joker, Mark Hamill means it will be an audio treat. I love Batman the Animated Series and have enjoyed the more adult oriented dialogue from the early parts of this game. The fact that it is on the Unreal Engine on PC means that the mod support for this game is going to be amazing. I expect to see full mods of other superheroes using this game engine. I'm very excited about mods and the modding community will provide much more support than challenge room additions.

At the end of the day, I will buy both games. Majesty 2 being similar to the original Majesty making me want to buy the sequel. Batman Arkham Asylum has been hyped as one of the best superhero video game adaptions ever created. At least I can afford buying both these games as there hasn't been any games I have bought recently. Red Faction Guerrilla comes out on PC on the 15th of September, but I am going to probably get around to playing later.

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by BlueZero

Starting with the beginning of the trailer, I observed that they brought back the old voice for the renegade forces. At the 20 second mark, it can be seen that one guy got 4 kills from an airstrike or missle. It must be very easy to get since there is a lot of explosions going on in the map.

The game is also giving out a lot of points for kills. When the person gets the four kill streak, they get 100 points and also have the perk of using an Airdrop. The five kill streak is a Predator Missile. The player doesn't use it because they need the trailer to be dynamic and stopping to aim a airstrike/missle isn't action packed. 50 points for picking up a flag and a base of 50 points for a kill put the point system into perspective. It appears a player gets 20 points for an assist kill. 250 points for capping the flag seems low for the 100 points he got for the 4 kill streak.

As for new weapons, I like that they have included a newer rocket launcher which can be seen on the left side of the HUD which details the kills. It seems to have a lot of splash damage as the main player was hit near the top of the stairs and it seemed to hit near the bottom. Many of the new names of the guns can be seen by pausing the trailer when the main player steps over a dead body. At 1:06 for example, there is some gun named the TAR-21 FMJ. The main character appears to have C4 and maybe a mine which can be seen in the lower right of the HUD. People are using riot shields at the start and end of the trailer. These people don't die in the trailer so maybe Infinity Ward is signaling that they will over overpowered like in Counter Strike.

The player is using a MP5K when he switches at the 49 second mark. This gun seems overpowered and the MP5 was overpowered in Call of Duty 4 for being available at the lower ranks. The new gun seems really powerful. The lack of a melee kill in the trailer was disappointing because I wanted to see the new animations.

The end of the trailer once again shows off FourZeroTwo. He is using an aimbot to get so many sniper kills. The knife icon in the lower screen shows that the knife must be a special weapon like C4. I like the UAV icon in the corner as well. The biggest shocker at the end is that Infinity Ward has created a true host migration to cover the "Host has ended the game" annoyance from CoD 4. The main player sneaks up behind the sniper and perfectly lines up the throwing knife. Enter the BUZZKILL!, which is where you stop the enemy short of a killstreak. 175 points is a lot of poinst for a kill and this Bullseye achievement. I'm going to be getting a lot of Bullseye kills if the knife is a decent weapon. Also, the knife is gone after being used so it looks like it is a one time use item unless you can pick it up again, which I hope you can. Throwing knives are the staples of great games like GoldenEye and Perfect Dark.

In case you haven't noticed, Modern Warfare 2 is an instant buy for me on PS3. I could get it on PC, but I know that there will be too much competition and cheating like there was in Call of Duty 4. Plus the PC version costing $60 is a ripoff since Activision just wants more money. Regardless, there seems to be enough new content here that the multiplayer can outshine Infinity Ward's last game of the year.

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by BlueZero

Starcraft II’s single player gameplay focused upon two missions from the Terran campaign. You essentially play as Jim Raynor who will be strategizing and leading his men to fight against Kerrigan, Queen of Blades, and apparently the Protoss too.

Now, I was never a big fan of Starcraft, so if you have a problem, notice the title of the blog?

The gameplay trial began with a cinematic showing Jim and his crew fleeing from Mutalisks. The cinematic is rendered through the in-game engine and looks amazing.
After that, you enter a hub screen reminiscent of old point-and-click adventures games. Depending on what you click, Jim will discuss what they are or interact with the person. During this Hub, you have access to the Cantina where you can hire mercenaries, the Amory where you can buy upgrades (stim packs, automatic turrets on your bunkers, increased healing by Medics, etc.), the Lab where I didn’t go ‘cause I only had 20 min. per trial and wanted to try the missions, and the Bridge where you can access missions. It’s an interesting tidbit to add, and after some tinkering, it becomes second nature. But if you want exactly what StarCraft gave with the mission overview in the beginning, be sorely disappointed.

Missions:

There were 2: “Evacuation of Agria” and “Tooth and Nail.” During each mission, you gain access to a different new unit. Agria gives firebats, and Tooth and Nail gives Marauders.

Evacuation of Agria
An escort map where you lead civilians along a set path to escape. Fricken’ hard. I didn’t have time to finish it, but it feels that it’d take a while to beat. You have to build firebats/marines/medics to guide the civilians, and you also have a side mission to pick up chrysalis (I have no idea) with SCVs.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember firebats’ splash damage hurting your own units. It didn’t happen now.
Unit size has been increased to 32 per group, but I never amassed that many. Instead, I got my ass handed to me by zerglings and hydralisks.

Tooth and Nail
A collection map where all you have to do is fight up to a Protoss relic guarded by the Protoss and their giant Stone Templars – Statues of Templars that come to life and hit like no other. You get Marauders for this map. They kick ass. Significantly easier than the Evacuation of Agria map.
Mineral mining has been reduced from 8 to 5. Gas collection has been reduced from 8 to 4. I didn’t check on the unit prices because I was too busy killing me some Protoss.

The campaign and gameplay for single player is shaping up quite nicely.

Fun Fact:
At the Cantina, there’s a hologram on the top left of a female dancer. The dance is the Female Night Elf’s dance. Hilarious.

Fun Fact 2:
I was looking the most forward to D III, but after trying the single-player demo of SC II, screw D III. SC II!

Best Part:
Micro-management is much easier this time around. Unit pathing and unit collision actually works! (My friend pointed this one out.)

Worst Part:
I tried clicking the medic to get all the voice samples, but all I got were 2. I’m sure there’re more, but it would’ve been nice in the trial.

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by Shihnong

Diablo III is a hack n’ slash computer game continuing the story of Blizzard’s Diablo series. The gameplay trial takes place in Act II, which was another desert area (remember Diablo II Act II?).

Diablo System:
Diablo III uses very few button for actual gameplay mechanics. Keys 1-5 are used for instant skills. 5 is used for potions, which I thought Blizzard removed but instead downplayed with large cooldowns. These skills for 1-4 are not targetable (so far as I’ve tried). They are instantly used upon your character’s location.

The mouse is still your main mode of access to the game. Left clicking is your character’s normal attack (Monk disincluded). Right clicking is a special attack (usually consumes mana). There are two slots for right clicking, which can be alternated with the tab button.

The health orbs dropped from enemies are scarce, and instead, health regeneration is added into the game. You still have to be careful with fighting though.

When leveling, you still receive the talent choice, but there are no more stat choices. It’s a very streamlined system meant for all people to try.

The inventory has been updated and holds more spots. Potions stack together in your inventory.

On the character equipment sheet, two additional slots have been added: pauldrons and something in the bottom right corner, which was inaccessible during the gameplay trial.

There is no more stamina/run bar, so you always move at the same speed (which is fast enough to get around places and slow enough to not run past your objective).

Graphics:

Pretty but it wasn’t anything spectacular. Explosions and gore effects are really pretty looking.

Characters:

I only tried the Monk and the Witch Doctor because I’m assuming the other two are staples that haven’t really changed that much.

Monk:
The monks moves look really cool. His normal left click attack is an upgradeable 3-hit combo. On the 3rd hit, he hits with AoE (area of effect) damage and causes enemies to explode in a cloud of blood and gore. The monk has a channeling shield, which I used against a dervish (imagine a tornado) and died. Not the brightest idea on my part, but without the shield, the dervish knocks you back and you take less damage. He also has an AoE blind that causes enemies to miss. He has an additional combo for right clicking that hits more enemies for less damage. And his really cool ability was a flurry of punches where the Monk disappears from the map, making you immune to damage, and reappears around an enemy 7 times, striking them all over. If you miss right clicking an enemy with that, your monk just strikes air. It’s a long animation too – about 7 seconds, so your friends could kill all the enemies in that time.
My monk didn’t seem to regenerate health and was perpetually getting his ass kicked. Weird part? My Witch Doctor regenerated faster than my monk…

Witch Doctor:
Fricken’ sweet.
Summons zombie dogs and spiders. Throws explosive skulls. Fears the crap out of enemies by donning a giant spectral mask that scares them away. Hilarity. Never ran out of health. Almost always had Mana.

Diablo III is shaping quite nicely, but the Monk doesn’t seem to be that amazing of a class.

From the gameplay video, the Monk will eventually be able to knock back ranged attacks (a cool ability), but I didn’t even come across any ranged enemies.

Coolest Part:
Timed dungeon. The dungeon is collapsing on you while you’re looting.

Worst Part:
The health orbs appeared above an enemy’s head while I was killing him, and then, the enemy died and no health orb dropped. Confused.

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by Shihnong

The gameplay trial at Blizzcon for WoW: Cataclysm only displayed the new starting areas for the Worgen and the Goblins.

I only tried the Goblins area, and it was vibrantly lush.

Gameplay wise – nothing new in WoW. Some interesting quests were implemented like becoming a Goblin Weedwacker.

It doesn’t feel any different, which is a good and bad thing. With a game like WoW, differences cause people to complain (Blizzard always bashes on Ret Paladins whining on the forums for every change). But at the same time, with something as large as Cataclysm, I’d expect some heavy changes. Unfortunately, these changes are mostly to the world design and quest locations.

Graphics are the same as the Lich King except with the inclusion of terrain phasing, which I did not run into during my short time with the game.

So far, Cataclysm’s new area won’t bring anything new gameplay wise to WoW.

Blizzard did say they want each new area to have a great story and an amazing cutscene that rivals the Wrathgate.

Best part: Watching my Goblin rocket jump forward.

Worst part: Landing with the Goblin and having to wait a moment before running again.

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by Shihnong

As most people already know, the big announcement for Blizzcon 2009 was the unveiling of the next World of Warcraft expansion: Cataclysm.

*Spoilers*

The Lore:
With the Fall of Arthas at Icecrown Citadel (patch 3.3) and the end of a long campaign against the scourge, the heroes will return to their lands, but they will not find it the way they remembered. The world will be sundered by the reemergence of a dark foe, twisted and tormented by the words of the old Gods. It will be the day of the dragon, Deathwing, and the world will forever be changed.

What does this mean?

With the new expansion, Deathwing has returned to the world of Azeroth to bring all life under his reign. He bursts from the Elemental Plane of Earth: Deepholm with such unimaginable strength that the lands themselves will be shifted.
Everything you remembered about the way the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor looked from Vanilla WoW to what it looks like currently - gone. The world has changed with Deathwing’s reemergence. A prime example is that the Barrens, currently an enormous zone that ranges from level 10-30ish, will be split into two zones: Northern Barrens and Southern Barrens (not sure of the exact title). Southern Barrens will look like a lush oasis. Another example is how Desolace, a dreary land ruled by cruel winds of death, is now a heavily forested land because the ocean waves have now nourished into the lands. The world will be different. There is also a new addition to phasing – terrain phasing. As you progress, the world will change with you.

Seven new zones will also be opened.
• Gilneas – the home of the Worgen (the new Alliance race – more on this below)
• Lost Isles – the starting area of the Goblins (the new Horde race – more on this below)
• Sunken City of Vashj’ir – an underwater zone once the home of Lady Vashj – underwater combat similar to land combat.
• Deepholm - the Plane of Elemental Earth magically linked to Azeroth after Deathwing’s reemergence. The Cataclysm hub much like how Dragonblight is Lich King’s hub.
• Uldum – a hidden desert land (think Egypt) once ruled by the Titans.
• Mt. Hyjal – the reviving world tree is under siege by Ragnaros (yep, he’s not dead –merely a setback) but being defended by Malfurion Stormrage (geek out! He’s back!)
• Twilight Highlands – the final zone where Deathwing has settled.

Within these seven zones, there will be all new dungeons and raids such as the Abyssal Maw (Elemental Plane of Water), Grim Batol, the Halls of Origination, Blackrock Caverns, Fireands, and Skywall.

And for all those out there who’ve wanted this for the longest time (Sarcasmancer…), they’re adding in Heroic Deadmines and Heroic Shadowfang Keep. Celebrate.

They’re adding a new PvP zone called Tol Barad, which will be a combination battle area and daily quest hub. Blizzard called it the Isle of Quel’Danas and Wintergrasp rolled into one. During the battle, all quests stop. When the battle ends, the quest hub reappears for both factions, but the winner gets access to special daily quests and possibly a dungeon (unconfirmed speculation – there’s a prison there both sides want access to, so I’m guessing there’ll be something inside like another Archavon or other).

Three new battlegrounds are being added as well as a rated battleground system. The rated battleground system allows players to gain arena gear without participating in the arena. This works by playing in the weekly rated battleground, and every week, it will be a different battleground for easier control.

Characters and Leveling:
Blizzard is implementing a whole slew of changes in gameplay.
There is now guild leveling. Your guild will gain levels based on the top 20 guild experience earners of the day. Experience is gained from PvP/Raids/Groups (all must be 75% guild members)/boss kills/etc. Experience is changed to currency and allows your guild to purchase guild heirloom recipes and talents. Guild heirlooms remain with the guild, so if you leave your guild with their item, the item is returned. All members of a guild who have a guild heirloom tailoring recipe will be able to learn and make it. If they leave a guild, however, they will be unable to make the heirloom again. Talents for guild leveling include examples:
• Penny Pincher – repairs cost less
• Everybody’s Friend – removed reagent cost for raid buffs
• Cash Flow – earn more money from enemies
• Mass Resurrection – durr.
• Name-Which-I-Don’t-Remember – summon all raid members to you.
Guild talents will affect the entire guild.

Character changes are intense, so scary stuff first. These stats:
• Mp5
• Spell Power
• Attack Power
• Defense
• Armor Penetration
• Block Value
Are all gone. Instead, Spirit is mana regeneration. Intellect also boosts Spell Power. Attack Power only mattered for agility based characters so agility is now 2 attack power. Defense will appear in talent trees to make tanks uncrittable. Armor penetration sucks. Block Value will be a straight % reduction. Stamina, however, is going to everyone in volumes. Plate HP for everyone!
Talents will also be undergoing changes. Many passive abilities are being removed from talents such as Cruelty (5% crit on warriors).

And here comes the good.
Talents will be getting a new ability called Mastery. How this works:
If you put more points into a talent tree Then You gain a passive bonus

Fairly simple. There are 3 tiers of mastery for each talent tree:
1. Increase damage/healing/tanking/etc.
2. Stat-like increases (haste/crit/etc.)
3. Something unique to your spec, which is further modified by mastery bonuses on equipment
Talent trees no longer require scrolling and show all 3 at once.
These changes are implemented to allow a fun choice in talents. It will make the experience unique to each player (Blizzard hopes).
Along with mastery comes the new secondary profession Archaeology, which allows players to find artifacts and relics that give rewards and begin the brand-new, end-game feature known as Path of the Titans.

Path of the Titans is a customization that is not dependent on class. There are so far 6 titans that you can eventually align yourself with. These alignments allow for different skills and bonuses to be attributed when you receive an item known as an “Ancient Glyph.” The Ancient Glyph goes onto your glyph tab as normal, but these are not class specific and will be earned by everyone. They are currently planning to reach 10 ranks for the Paths of the Titans (10 glyph spots), but they will release them slowly over time (money money money!)

And the penultimate gameplay factor – reforging! Reforging allows you to cut a stat on an item in half (Blizzard said in half, I’m wondering if you can eventually choose amounts) and place it into an unused stat on the item. If you have stamina and intellect, you can’t change stamina into intellect. It has to be an unused stat. Plate HP mitigated!

The level cap is raised to 85 and oh, flying mounts usable everywhere! Other interesting tidbits – new race/class combos such as the Tauren Paladin, the Gnome Priest, and the Dwarf Shaman.
Warlock Soulshards aren’t in the bag anymore. They’re under your health and mana UI bars.
Hunters don’t need mana and get Focus energy. Focus regenerates at 6 per second, but different abilities allow the regeneration to increase.
Ranked spells/attacks are now gone. Spells and skills scale according to your level.

The New Races:
Worgen
Faction: Alliance
Starting Area: Gilneas:
The land near Lordaeron that shut itself away when the scourge arrived. Unfortunately, they summoned the Worg(?) to fight the Scourge, but they became cursed themselves. The Night Elves bring them into the alliance.
Talents:
Darkflight – faster movement speed for a limited duration
Viciousness – 1% increase in damage
Aberration – reduce curses and diseases’ duration by 15%
Flayer – skinning + 15 and no knife needed

Goblins
Faction: Horde
Starting Area: Lost Isles:
The Goblins of Khazan were enslaved by the Twilight Cultists (Deathwing’s henchmen) and are shipwrecked. They meet the Orcs and join the Horde.
Talents:
Alchemy bonus + 15 and greater efficacy of self-made potions
Rocket Belt or Rocket Jump – Choose to leap forward or send a rocket at your enemy (shared cooldown)
Time is money – 1% haste
Best deal possible – always get highest discount

Racial traits for the other races will also improve to mitigate the awesomeness of these two races.
Overall, the expansion sounds to improve upon and streamline WoW’s experience for gamers. I’m excited to see the new content. With only a level cap of 85, Blizzard somehow finds ways to mitigate its own limitations with such awesome developments.

Ridiculous crap I can’t believe:
Ragnaros and Onyxia aren’t dead. Merely setbacks. Welcome to the world of comics and retcons. I will admit I don’t know much Blizzard lore for any of their series of games, but I’m still shaking my head at this.

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by Shihnong

Alas, the console versions get no such features. (Except for the PS3 Joker missions). Considering my buy, it is likely that I would go with the PC version for its superior PhysX potential, as well as 1080p or greater resolutions.

Unfortunately, all is not great. The movies in the PC version are like Resident Evil 4's for PC in that they are all pre-rendered movies, despite being made in the engine. This means when playing at 1080p or more, you will still have 720p movie cutscenes. Disappointing. Hopefully they'll fix that for the final version. Also, with or without PhysX, various objects are plants are stuck to their positions on desks. Only the papers are moveable, as when hit they will transform into PhysX papers, if PhysX is enabled. This is one problem I had with Mirror’s Edge, and the various objects I couldn’t push around.

This makes you think why the PC version has been delayed. If the console versions are being released first, that means the assets are done, so that isn’t holding it back. Furthermore, since the PC demo has already been released, WITH PhysX effects (they aren’t programming them in later), that means the engine is up and running [Especially since it is based off the Unreal 3 engine, which has been on computer in quite a few games now]. I think the main reason the PC version is being is so that the publishers can sell lots of expensive copies on the consoles, and avoid mass piracy hitting their sales. Then later, once they have sold a lot of legal copies, they will release the “superior” PC, which will then be pirated, and bought (though perhaps in fewer numbers than the consoles) at cheaper prices.

I'll have to see how much changes on the finalized PC version.

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by Zott820

I am still really liking the large amount of color in the game. There also seems to be better physics in the multiplayer. I played the Call of Duty 4 today and I forgot how smooth the framerate is in singleplayer. I rarely play that anymore; I completely focus on the multiplayer. Martydom is the greatest thing ever invented. When I play old FPS games, I expect a grenade to go off when I die to celebrate my death.

I digress from the topic. The trailer shows off the ability to bring down the fire from the heavens with the gunship. If you didn't play Call of Duty 4, then you missed out on an excellent simulation of the disconnected gunship gunner who picked off enemy targets. It looks like your character will be defenseless while manning the gunship computer. I still expect it to be WAAAAY overpowered since you need a 11 kills spree. I'm good for that if the helicopter continues to be cheap as well.

What now FourZeroTwo? I like InfinityWard's sense of humor at the end of the trailer. Everyone knows FourZeroTwo as the PR guy. He's gotten a little fame as the mouthpiece of Infinity Ward. Looks like he just got a gernade in that mouth and someone just got revenge!

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by BlueZero

I like Codemasters as a developer. I believe they helped create DIRT and GRID, and these were both excellent racing titles. FUEL is their newest game which takes place in what appears to be a wasteland. I just classify it as a lighter version of whatever Fallout 3 would do as there didn’t seem to be any buildings in the demo area. I enjoyed the demo, but it wasn’t anything radically different from the other racing games I have played for me to buy it. I have the same kind of feeling like the Infamous demo where I know it is a good game but I don’t want to invest the money to buy it new:

I’m going to keep this preview short since there is a demo available, at least for PS3, and people reading this article have a good chance to play it for themselves. For those of you without next-gen consoles, let me fill in the gaps. The game promises to be the “worlds largest racing environment at over 14,000 km squared created from satellite data”. It apparently represents some region of North America that I couldn’t makeout from the game. A lot of these types of racing games have very short words to describe their racing: DIRT, GRID, PURE, FUEL, ect. The story surrounding the game is not well defined, but I’ll just assume that there are a ton of scavengers who decide to waste their precious FUEL to fund races through badlands.

I fired up the demo at a friend’s home at chose the race option, whatever it was named. The first thing I did was go into person and vehicle customization. There were not many options available in the demo, so I moved on to the first race. I had to choose Expert difficulty since that’s how I roll. After a brief loading screen, the game shows the other bikes already lined up ready to race. There is a brief cutscene of a huge transport helicopter flying in with my character and motorcycle attached by wires. The helicopter drops off the motorcycle in midair. Again, this just shows how crazy people are in this world for such a gaudy entrance. None of the other racers got their own helicopter, why does my character deserve one? It’s not like I couldn’t drive up there on my own. My guess is that you can somehow select races from anywhere in the world and that the helicopter transports you there directly.

The race started and made clear that you can find your own path to the checkpoints. I decided to go off-road for most of the race because I don’t like roads. At one part, there is a burned forest where a few fallen trees are still on fire. Using the side of the trunk, my bike used it like a ramp and got some good air. There seems to be some sort of automatic trick system that doesn’t affect the race. Most of the tricks were very similar and I had no control over performing the tricks. I can see people playing online finding the optimal path and never deviating from it. This was the problem with Motorstorm and one of the reasons why it became boring online. I would have liked to see a random landmass generating feature since the loading screen says something like “generating world”.

Most of the race I was 7 / 8 because I was testing out the game. When I was able to get into 3rd place, all the other drivers were able to pass me right before the finish line. There is a strong rubberband system in place so that if you are way behind, there is a chance that you won’t get last. If you are in the front, there is nothing stopping the bikes from zipping past you on the straightaway at the finish line.

Since I knew I wasn’t going to win, I decided to go around the finish line and drive into the person on their bike celebrating their victory. I was almost able to drive them off into the water, but ended up there myself which just equals a respawn.

Once I completed the race, I had the option to do a free roam of the world. This is a little misleading since this is a demo and there were parts of the world that I wanted to explore, but were unable due to the world getting too yellow. The area I was trying to go to was a small island looking landmass that I should have been able to reach if the game didn’t have artificial limits. I bet that in the full game I wouldn’t have been able to access this area either since I wasn’t running into the demo’s red box on the map.

There were a lot of snowtrucks driving around. They seemed to have no purpose other than to suggest that the world was not apocalyptic. I didn’t see any of that amazing weather that the game was hyping in the demo. No weather = no tornado ripping things up = disappointment.

The max speed on the bike was around 80 MPH. It was a little unrealistic to be going around 70 MPH and not falling off the bike as my character went off sheer cliffs.

This game really could have benefited from boast. That would have FUELed my interest more. I would have liked to see some destruction and more use of physics. I didn’t really get a sense of vehicle damage since I mainly played the bike. Being the biased person I am, there wasn’t enough excitement during the race; I had to make my own fun like always.

This game really could have benefited from boast. That would have FUELed my interest more. I would have liked to see some destruction and more use of physics. I didn’t really get a sense of vehicle damage since I mainly played the bike. Being the biased person I am, there wasn’t enough excitement during the race; I had to make my own fun like always.

* Images from FUEL game website

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by BlueZero

If I had an iPhone, I would NOT buy it since I have already bought it twice, once for Gamecube and once for Wii. Capcom has to stop riding those coattails and fix the Resident Evil franchise since 5 didn't live up to my hype.

I bet these few enemies on screen was the equivalent of Dead Rising on Wii. Capcom called that "port" a Resident Evil 4 lite with the same controls and more emphasis on individual kills. I think Dead Rising Wii failed to render enough zombies to make people panic.

More information and screens are on the AppBank site: Resident Evil 4 iPhone. Note that the site is in Japanese.

My original discovery of this video is credited to Joystiq.

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by BlueZero

A game all about cake is a sure recipe for yummy fun. Take games like Portal, which never lied about the cake waiting for you at the end. That’s why it was such a good game, it wasn’t the portals, it was the allure of cake. For Fat Princess, you are tasked with retrieving your princess from the enemy. I got to play the beta at a friend’s house a while ago and this newest trailer sparked further interest to write about the game.

I’m assuming that Fat Princess has developed further than when I played the beta probably a month ago. I didn’t see the princess being locked in the floor jail in the beta. Also, when players are turned into chickens, I don’t remember having the ability to peck as an attack. I just remember that I found an abuse for the chicken potion. I choose the bomb class and pick up the chicken potion. I then throw it at my character’s feet and turn into a chicken. Then you get on your team’s catapult and launch toward the enemy castle. Since you are lighter as a chicken, you can get on top of the enemy’s castle room basically in an area where you shouldn’t be. You can then drop bombs down on the helpless people and it is really difficult for people to kill you. At the same time, it is really hard to kill the other players since the bombs are weak.

By far the most “broken” class is the warrior since two hits from the blade is basically death. Then you respawn and have to select a class by going to the appropriate “factory” and putting on the hat. I like that you can pickup a new hat and change classes instantly, but having to pick up your first hat to even have any class is poor design. It takes too long for me to select the warrior or mage guy hat and put it on. The designers didn’t realize that they should just spawn people with hats; even random hat assignment would be fine.

The builder class is pretty boring. You can cut trees and put the lumber into buildings to construct. You can build buildings. Both give points, but this support role is without any action. Whoo hoo, I just upgraded a class building so we can have mages, great, my team doesn’t play the mage class. The main perk anyway is the chicken potion which you want to throw at enemy players to severely weaken their health. There are potentially powerful buildings which could be built like the catapult and ladders into the enemy castle. The resource management could be fun, but this class won’t be seeing much direct combat when out getting resources. Cake was my primary resource to feed our captured princess.

Another really cheap class, at least in the beta was the mage. I don’t understand why people don’t use it more often. Yes, the “white” mage has a freeze attack which slows the people down in an area effect. The true power comes from freezing, and then following up by changing to the “dark” form which lets you leech life and do damage. This attack seems to be particularly powerful although I did notice that after a while, the enemy wasn’t taking further damage if he weren’t already dead.

The archer was decent for ranged combat but not with the rifle. The arrows were the more effective of the two attacks. The rifle fire wasn’t very powerful and took far too long to fire. Archers would get destroyed by the might of warriors one-on-one.

The princess dynamic is the best part of the game. She starts off skinny in her prison. Then you find random cake in the world and take it back to the princess to feed her. She plumps up nice and good. Repeat till she maxes out her waistline so she is harder to carry back to the other castle. The problem here is that the princess should have a logarithmic scale for fatness. She plumps up fast and then tapers off, but can still gain more weight. I don’t like the artificial limit on fatness; it’s just not natural in a game or otherwise. Gluttony is a sin for a reason because we as humans can eat to epic proportions 400lbs+. How can the princess be a glutton if she maxes out I estimate around 200lb. That’s not fat by any modern American standards.

Another part of Fat Princess is the graphical style. As you can see in the trailer, there is a lot of blood for what appears to be a cute game. The graphics are pretty sharp in the trailer. I believe the game runs at 720p, but when I was playing the game, I was playing it on a ~42’ LCD 1080p TV. On this higher graphical level, the game didn’t look as crisp as the trailer (naturally) so when I saw the recent trailer, it made me think that the graphics were further polished. This could be true, but I don’t think the graphics have changed a lot.

The sound in the game is really good. The narrator in the trailer reminds me of the narrator from the Majesty series. Some of the phrases from the trailer come directly from the game like “Your princess has been captured.” Not much really to say beyond that the chicken sound effect is really good.

I am very tempted to buy this game from the PSN. I enjoy the strategic elements of the game like my creative use of the catapult. I am also attracted to medieval setting, the comical storytelling from the trailer, and carrying fat princesses. Plus there is a throwback to Resident Evil 4 with a Merchant style “Welcome Stranger, I got a lot of good things…” I wasn’t expecting that on a loading/menu screen.

If Fat Princess is 10 dollars, I will instantly buy it. $15 and I will have to think a little harder. $20 and I won’t buy it. The promise of cake and princesses is only so alluring. CAKE FOR EVERYONE!

* Images from PlayStation Blog Flicker and Playstation.com Fat Princess Webpage. You can always right click and view image for a large full-screen view.

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by BlueZero

Samus is in a suit. A METALLIC FULL BODY SUIT.

So when I saw this trailer – I was shocked. Sure, we’ve seen Samus out of her suit before in Zero Mission and whenever players died in the 2D Metroids, but we’ve never seen her before in civilian clothes.

Okay, I can deal with civilian clothes, but are they rewriting the series?

It seems like the powersuit isn’t some Chozo legacy for her. Instead, we see it constructed onto her. What is this? The Starcraft II teaser? And now she’s some agile killing machine capable of decimating hordes of enemies in some form of ridiculously styled gun/whip play. Samus lassoes over Space Pirates and fires a missile directly into their maw and continues on her merry destruction. I’m all for crazy action games – but Metroid isn’t supposed to be one. I’m not sure if these are cut-scenes, quick-time events, or what-not, but the game does not look to be immersive. I remember playing Metroid/Super Metroid and feeling the utter terror of being marooned alone on a desolate world where everything was hostile. It was creepy. To add to that hostility, Samus could only fire and jump with upgrades to grapple swing and eventually space jump. Samus is mobile, but she still felt like a tank. Now, she’s lassoing things, whipping, and decimating them with ease. The first Prime game nailed the atmosphere – it was creepy, dark, and seamless (except for some minor transition scenes). The seamless experience is absolutely necessary to be immersive.

Unfortunately, the new Metroid seems to eschew that atmosphere and immersion for pure action. It seems Samus moves on a mixture of a 2D/3D plane. She leaps right and left but also forward. At one point, she’s even running toward the players. But suddenly, we are given a first person perspective. They seem to be taking the Ninja Gaiden battle system and applying it to Metroid. She seems to still fire similarly to previous 2D Metroid games, but that doesn’t congeal with her newfound nimbleness in leaping over enemies and blowing them away. The new Metroid blends in too many alternate gameplay mechanics to really provide any form of immersion. It provides on style rather than atmosphere - eschewing the lonely ruins Samus explores for pretty action. Team Ninja has taken my favorite Nintendo series and turned it into a remnant of its Hayabusa clan. That saddens me.

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by Shihnong

Drake doesn't seem to spend much time in the bleak snow. The first trailer for this game showed that his train crashed and thus he was the sole survivor. The guy in the trailer must save him and take him to Tibet. He seems to be a spirit guide and have a large amount of knowledge about the stone that gives great leadership. My bet is that the stone allows a person to control people in leadership through biology.

The thieves seem to all be British or originate from Europe. My guess is that the villain is the leader of the Thieves and that Drake is once again helping the bad guys without knowing it. That's the way developers like to roll.

Elena looks good and I'm glad that they are including her in the game as I was worried the woman in red was going to permanently replace her.

I expect a Sullivan versus tour guide fight. I want Sullivan to be a character that hangs out with Drake more often as he is really cool.

Drake also likes to attract a lot of helicopters in the trailer. Seems like Naughty Dog have created an even more cinematic game compared to the first Uncharted.

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by BlueZero

Words are a very difficult way to express my emotions surrounding the announcement of the third Golden Sun Game for the DS. I knew Camelot was working on it, but I needed an official announcement to know it existed. I am a rabid fan for Golden Sun 1 and 2. Golden Sun 3, with the announcement of 3D graphics, will truly be a representation of what the DS is capable of and set the bar for years to come. Here is some analysis of the trailer:

Click below for super high resolution concept art

First, this looks like a new area not from the first two games. The graphics are hard to judge from the low quality of the trailer but the 3D graphics range from poor (the door of the house) to amazing (the summons). The setting for the game seems to be ruins. I'm not sure if Issac and the gang are going to hunt down Alex underground or what the plot is.

I just know that Camelot can do a lot more with the DS hardware for audio. From my point of view, the music in the trailer was nothing special. Probably because it is in low quality and the music is a repeat from the first and second games. Please bring full orchestration to the game Camelot. You do wonders with synthesized music, but go the extra distance and make the audio something special that people won't have to remaster.

The person walking around the 0:10 second mark seems to be a new character or else it is Felix looking much different from the prior games. It is also possible that it is Issac since between these scenes the person has a scarf like Issac's. The person around 0:22 is Issac from the trademark blue clothes and yellow scarf apparel.

The summons at the end of the video look like they are still rendered in real-time like in the prior games. I see they have brought back classic summons such as the woman firing the arrows. Except this time they have upped the ante with much more arrows being fired.
—

Concept art is created by Camelot, makers of Golden Sun. Rumor has it that the characters shown are decedents of the original party.

Golden Sun DS E3 Gameplay

(Old gameplay video was taken down, found another one)
The person recording the video is put off by the battle being automated and toggles the power in what seems to be internal frustration. I'm not sure if I like the new summon effects prior to showing the summon. There really isn't much for me to comment on further from the gameplay video other than I hope Camelot doesn't force a lot of touch screen usage.

My E3 dreams have been furfilled! Thank you Golden Sun and may you rise again!

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by BlueZero

The big question this Summer is: which game will be the better superhero/supervillain game? On PS3, it is superhero combat between inFamous and Prototype. To me, they both seem like they are the same game with my opinions quickly shifting preference between the two. I decided to download the inFamous demo and here is what I have to say:

My first impressions:
The electricity grenade, like all grenades in all games throughout history, is too powerful. If it goes off next to your main character, it’s going to kill you instantly. If it goes up a little further from you, it is still going to kill you. When you are “inFamous” aka the Dark Side, you are still able to be killed by electricity grenades but it is harder since you get 5 mini ones instead of one that kills instantly. Spamming the grenade is the great way to win the game as long as enemies aren’t shooting you from the tops of buildings.

If you are a superhero in the same vein as Static Shock, it doesn’t make sense that your own electricity, or even any electricity should kill you. The main character can suck out a bajillion Watts (my name for the crazy amount of electricity he absorbs) from the city to recharge his energy but his own grenade, his own mini electricity spawn, is far too much for him. To put this in perspective, the electricity grenades are the main character’s undoing. Cole, the main character, can create something more powerful then himself to vanquish his enemies but can’t come in contact with it. This is exactly the reason to show some restraint in close combat but it seems too unrealistic for this game setting. Yet, I’ve had times where I stick a grenade on another superhero enemy guy and he teleports next to me killing me instantly. C'est la vie I guess.

Also, if you are going to make a superhero with electricity, you got to follow the precursors in superhero lore. This means making homage to the relatively useless Static Shock (who was the token black hero for cartoons. I mean how could he even save Superman from Kryptonite in that tag team episode, he can’t even save himself from a cold). So Cole at least has the ability to hover Iron Man style for a stylish descent. Yes, this is a good step but where is the flight? I like the ability to grind on electricity rails and hover, but this game needs a little flight to take it to the next level, which won’t happen. You know they could explain flight in the same way that Static Shock flew on his manhole cover. Cole should just jump on some electricity source that is portable (maybe a casino slot machine or random car, anything with a little juice) and then be able to fly as long as he has energy or the object has energy. This would prevent his flight from being too overpowered. I really want flight to speed up moving around the map.

Electricity is the ability to make electronic things move faster, yet the game seems to shy away from this. Yes, you have to stand on the train to get it going with your body electricity but there is a problem. I want the ability to make cars, trains, anything that moves “overload” with electricity which makes it go really really fast. I think this should be a special ability to “overload” objects and your abilities. Maybe I want to overload my hover ability to temporarily fly or my one grenade to wipe out a large block. I would have a special meter that builds over time from accomplishing objectives like dispatching enemy gangs or healing people.

inFamous Mission 1:

The first mission is very boring with the demo telling you to control a train and get it out of the area since people are aboard. So you do the awesome thing of moving the train with your body only to discover that tiny switches below the train track are not on so the train won’t move. I don’t like this plot device. I don’t want the train to stop.

inFamous Mission 2:

More inFamous Missions:

You get to be Heroic again and have a lightning super move by pushing d-pad up. Lightning comes from the sky and moves away in a line. It can kill people on roofs. It is awesome. Now this is what I am talking about using electricity correctly. This mission asks you to stop/destroy a truck that is getting away. At the start of the mission, the super lightning move almost destroys the truck and one more finishes it quickly. This is where the demo ended and the trailer of “real ingame footage” began. I just played the demo, so why do I need to know the trailer footage is ingame?

Minor Gripes:

• Enemy shotguns are too powerful, Cole’s recoil makes it hard to recover with any move. The game fails to tell you the edges of the mission, so there is no way to know other than intuition..

• “Abandoning mission…” Screen fades to black and you restart the mission if you leave the developer's unmarked mission boundaries.

• Train use is not good in demo. I do like the ability to grab on moving trains. I hope they have good missions involving trains that don’t force you to stop

• “Karmatic Shift” is where Cole switches polarities between Good and Evil. He switched in the demo to show off the different moves but I guess it could happen normally in the game. I’ve read that you can’t remain neutral so you will be forced to make a choice throughout the game. In the demo, it seemed impossible to change polarities by beating up the populace or by killing bad gang people.

• The difficulty is kinda hard on “easy”.

• Physics are also decent but environment (like fences) not destructible.

• Cole hates water!

Pros

• inFamous electricity and effect sounds are great.

• Graphics are decent for PS3.

• Explosions are great with no slowdown.

• Particle effects are good.

—-
For me, inFamous is a rental game because I don’t see longevity. I did have fun with the demo though as it kept me entertained for about an hour Longevity for me is destructible buildings (Mercenaries 2) or some amazing online pay for this game. It builds on the great Crackdown building climbing mechanics for orbs (here shards?), adds the powers from the Force Unleased, but doesn’t add things like building destruction or over the top stylish uses of your powers. Maybe I want to use a radio tower as a lightning rod to amplify my powers and destroy a building. Or maybe I want to do a little Static Shock flying to get some altitude before I comet back to earth with an earth-shattering impact. Yeah, I don’t think that will happen in this game. I’m glad the demo was robust and lengthy to allow a more detailed hands-on preview. I think the game will do well, but it’s not going to be my game of choice this Summer/Holiday.

As always, I welcome comments loving or blowing my criticism out of the water.

* Pictures taken on my TV tuner 480i. Tuner doesn't support HD except for over the air digital.

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by BlueZero

Take for example the narrator. This fellow has done an amazing job of delivering his lines. He really makes me feel like the main story will be deep and complex enough that some brazen traveler would tell the epic around a campfire. These are the kinds of signals I am receiving from such a great voice.

The villain guy, or so I think he is the first villain because RPGs never have the shown person be the cause of all the disaster. It is always some bigger, more powerful, more evil force that is working in the background that only shows itself at the end to be beaten by the main hero. The villain's voice is good, I can't complain.

The main character's voice is heard briefly at the end of the trailer. His voice is decent. I'm glad they didn't make him sound whiny or too young sounding like other RPG heroes.

Getting the voices right for English localization is a bane of Japanese game creators. They either realize that finding the right people is too expensive or THINK they have the right people and we end up with very odd sounding people delivering dialogue that is translated directly from Japanese.

I can wait until TBA or at E3 when they give a release date of probably September/October/November of 2009. I have been careful to avoid watching any gameplay from the released Japanese version because I want the game to be fresh. The only "gameplay" footage I have watched was the main character customization which is very deep.

I'll be picking up this game when it hits, whenever it is. This is the first JRPG that I am really looking forward to playing. Potential flaws with the game from other trailers and videos I have seen is that the fighting combo system is not as amazing as the first trailer made it out to be. That first trailer was complete CG; the fighting I have seen could become repetitious with the same moves being used often. Regardless, I am still sold.

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by BlueZero