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Tester
Written by paladin
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Last Updated on Thursday, 15 January 2009 14:18
XCN E3 Hands On
Written by Play2Compete
Thanks to XCN we got some hands on time with some of the top games at E3, including Gears of War 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier and Medal of Honor to name a few. So read on to get the low down on this years top games.
At the beginning of GOW3, Dom is farming. Why? No idea – Cliffy didn't go into detail, but we guess it's a sign of the post-apocalyptic society the characters now live in. This doesn't mean it's a wasteland – footage we've seen is a lot more colourful (there's some gorgeous textures too) and the environments are very varied. Expect to see forests – but not too many, since Cliffy says they're hard to do well, and not worth doing if you don't do them well – and towns “like in Spain, with Stucco roofs and so on – think of Seville.”
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He talked a bit about the teaser trailer. The city/area in it is called Char, and was absolutely nailed by the Hammer of Dawn strike. Cliffy said the inspiration for the appearance of it was the excavations at Pompeii.
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Girl Gears – the dark haired one is called Stroud, and looks pretty hardcore. The weapon you saw her using in the E3 demo is a Pendulum Wars era sword bayonet. Cliffy explained that the rationale behind the chainsaw bayonet is that to properly stick a locust with a traditional bayonet you need a ten foot run-up. However, weapons and ammo are so scarce in Gears 3 – since there are no factories left, this being 18 months since the end of Gears 2 – that they have to use whatever weapons they can find, including ones from museums, dumps and so on. He did confirm that this wouldn't be a game mechanic, so you won't need to scavenge (random fact: he hates it when games have food as a mechanic). Ammo will be limited in quantity but not ridiculously so.
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The new bayonet has a variety of 'executions' – fatalities, basically – and the locust have new ones as well, including the one from the demo where it rips off someone's arm and then beats them to death with it, something Epic have wanted to do “since the first Gears of War”.
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What next? This is the last game in this cycle he says, but the Gears universe is rich and deep enough for more games. They're concentrating on Bulletstorm for the moment though, and while he doesn't have any immediate plans for Kinect he said that as a developer, his “curiosity is piqued”.
At this point some French dude who was there – not one of our team – started slagging off Gears 2 multiplayer. That was not okay by Cliffy's rules; he mentioned the six Title Updates and multiple apologies Epic have made for the matchmaking issues, and pointed out that Gears 2 is consistently in the top ten most played Xbox LIVE games.
I actually felt quite embarrassed for the French guy since he got shown up quite badly, he obviously hadn't played the game since it first came out; it just goes to show how dangerous it is to talk about something you don't know about.
After Cliff had finished shredding the hapless journalist a Microsoft PR guy called time on the meeting and we left, picking up bits of French journalist on the way out. Overall, Gears 3 looks fantastic, and should deliver the 'bigger, better & more badass' experience we've come to know and love. Release day can't come soon enough!
Being a massive Bad Company (the first one and the sequel – I like BC before it was cool!) fan, I was already very excited about the new Onslaught Mode (think Firefight, but a lot better) coming to BFBC2 later this month. Unfortunately, BC2 is a comparatively old game – ancient in terms of this industry – and therefore unlikely to be present at E3.
Imagine my surprise then when I found a booth in the lobby – a booth that was not only Battlefield: Bad Company 2, but running it in Onslaught Mode, and without even the smallest queue! The booth was there to promote EA's Gun Club – a hub website that will presumably eventually draw together the stat tracking and unlocks from their various shooters, similar to Ubisoft's Uplay. However, we were there for one thing only – and we got straight onto the consoles.
Let's get this out of the way first: Onslaught Mode is hard. Admittedly, playing it standing up, with the sun shining on the screen and pumping music blocking out the in-game audio, is guaranteed to make it more difficult than playing it at home in my man-cave. Still, that only partly excuses our failure to complete the mission; the seemingly improved enemy AI, large quantities of armour and cleverly laid out maps all added up to make Onslaught extremely difficuly. It's a testament to DICE's skills that it never felt cheap – each completed objective felt like a real challenge had been beaten, and each death – and there were many – felt like the result of being outplayed rather than cheap game design.
The maps are modified versions of maps or level areas currently in the game, and the weapons and classes are all the same, so I won't go into the details of that. There was no word on whether the experience points would count towards multiplayer unlocks but my assumption is that it will, which would be a good thing given that it's easier to rack up score in this mode than online. At 800 Microsoft points, this is definitely a must-buy for me, and should be a must-buy for everyone else as well.
This closed-doors session was a walkthrough demo, so while we didn't actually get to play it we did watch someone play through a section of the game while a developer explained what was happening on-screen. The demo opened with the tag line “sooner than you think” which suggests Ubisoft is going for gritty, near-future realism. As a result, it was a bit disappointing to discover that the enemies you're fighting are the same clichéd “Russian Ultra-Nationalists” who seem to pop up in just about every modern shooter these days; evil Russians hardliners are apparently this generation's stereotypical Nazis.
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This was quickly forgotten once the game started though. Everything looks amazing, even in it's unfinished state the incredible detail jumps out of the screen at you, and aside from a few jaggies here and there it might just be the prettiest modern warfare shooter yet. That's before you get to the cut-scenes, too – afterwards we argued over whether the cinematics were live-action video or renders, with the final consensus being that they'd been created using the in-game engine. Photorealism is a dangerous word, and one that been twisted and overused by all types of fanboys; however once it gets to the stage where it's difficult to work out whether what you're seeing is game footage or actual people, well, that's a good day.
The demo involved the Ghosts ambushing a pack of would-be ambushers who are lying in wait for an American convoy, though how that fitted into the main story wasn't clear. That didn't matter though, the real purpose of the exercise was to showcase the look and feel of the game, as well as demonstrate the complex systems – some new, some old – without which it wouldn't feel like Ghost Recon. To the descriptions!
Optical Camouflage. This video game stand by has been given the Ghost Recon treatment, running on rechargeable batteries and not usable while shooting or running. It look very cool, though my impression was that it worked a bit too wel; you can clearly see the silhouette of your soldier despite the suit, so it seems a bit ridiculous when he walks right up into a guards face without being noticed.
Weapon customisation. Everyone's doing it, and so they should be. The MRB – a gun the developer described as the games “signature weapon” - has had a lot of thought put into it's design, but it's only one of the 30 weapons available. Customisation is apparently heavy and varied, but they weren't forthcoming with the details.
Particle effects! These were pretty hot. The demo seemed to overuse them slightly - probably out of a totally reasonable sense of pride – and it may seem like a minor point but they were especially noticeable.
There's a big emphasis on co-op, the whole campaign is four player -co-operative and there are some great tricks you can do when you're working together, including this thing where everyone's bullet paths show up as blue lines, allowing for co-ordinated takedowns of large groups.
I have a confession to make here, I've never been a Ghost Recon fan. Both of the first two games were before my time, and although I once borrowed the second one off a friend, it failed to grab me (dare I say it...I thought it was too hard). Having seen this game, that's completely changed - I'm hugely excited to play the finished product. Sadly the developer said there was no official word on a beta or demo, but even without that taster the hype our brief session built up will be enough to carry me through to release.
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I didn't get to play all the Kinect games there, in the case of Dance Central because I simply didn't have the guts. However, I had a session with most of them, and those that I didn't play I was in the fishbowl booth (surounded by gawping attendees) for, so I feel pretty qualified to comment on the device, and what we can expect come November. The hardware itself is pretty nice; they claimed the units on show were not complete but I doubt any major revisions will be made in the next few months. It's thicker than it looks, viewed from the side it's nearly as big as a baguette, but obviously much shorter lengthways. The form factor is decent though and it's not going to look obtrusive or out of place in any but the most minimalist of living rooms.
One other thing about that is that they've been saying you need to be at least 160 centimetres from it for it to work. In fact, to get a smooth experience it's more like two metres, and anyone with a room that doesn't allow a distance below 170cm or so will be out of luck. Bedroom 360's will most likely be alright for gesture menu functionality, but don't expect to be bowling in the little gap between your bed and the desk.
The final general observation I'd like to make is that lag is near-nonexistent to nonexistent, and a huge improvement over last year. I didn't notice it in any of the games I played, and I'm not convinced by reports that it's ever-present or even there at all. But that's enough about the hardware, let's talk about some games!
Kinect Adventures & Kinect Sports
Enjoyable but repetitive minigames. I can see these getting old quickly, and while of course it depends on exactly which – and how many – games you get in the final package, this isn't anything you haven't seen before. That said, the interface is very intuitive and Kinect is a perfect fit for this stuff, with no ridiculous waggling necessary. Bowling especially was a lot of fun and the competitive modes make this a great option for parties. Be prepared to get a bit hot and sweaty though – it's energetic stuff. As long as the collections are of a high quality and sufficiently varied, these will doubtless be the best way to play mini-games alone or with other people.
Kinectimals
I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that this was the Kinect game I was looking forward to most, and it didn't disappoint. It's impossible not to be overwhelmed by the cuteness of the creature you get, and naming it and teaching it tricks were a pleasure. However, immediately after the demo the doubts set in: where's the win condition? What's the challenge of it? The animal can't die or fight, no other felines will appear in his or her area (there are no co-op or multiplayer modes). The demo guide claimed multiple areas could be unlocked, but when pressed on this – is there a desert? Can the animal swim? - admitted that the other areas were the same kind of grassy island terrain, except for the grassy and slightly hilly “mountain” area. Teaching the pet tricks, or getting it round an obstacle course were simply a case of doing the action yourself, and since there are surely a limited number of interactions – and no way of competing against other players – what will the bordeom threshold of that be?
There's no doubt that this will be the best, deepest and most polished pet simulator available once it's released; the game looks great, runs smoothly and has some excellent functionality (for example, plush felines will be sold with Kinect-scannable tags on their collars, once scanned the animal will appear in the game). However, this sort of thing isn't aimed at people like me, and so I can't quite understand the appeal. That's not to say that my heart didn't melt the first time I called the tiny tiger's name and he answered, but as a serious game? I'm still unconvinced.
Your Shape
Again, I'm hardly the target audience for this and quite frankly, would never buy a fitness “game” in a million years. In fact, I wouldn't call this a video game any more than Google Maps is a video game, but for what it is it's impressive stuff.
The accuracy with which it captures the shape and detailing of your body are impressive, and the game's aesthetic is nice in a bland, inoffensive way. That said, the character models in the exercise demonstrations are dreadful and while I know that's not what anyone looks for in a fitness game I don't think that's an excuse for last-gen sloppiness.
That said, the things that people do look for in fitness games are there in spades, and very well implemented. The AI is a slave-driver, determined to force you to do the exercises exactly right, and ready with the praises when you do so. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say that this game is going to do very well; people who aren't into games but live in a house with an Xbox will be into it for it's slimming and toning properties since it's easily the best fitness software I've ever seen. Still, as I said it simply isn't a videogame, merely a piece of software that happens to run on a gaming system, like Facebook or Twitter.
Joy Ride
The elusive Big Park title that dropped off the radar after last year's E3 is back with a vengeance. Making full use of the Kinect controls, Joy Ride is a fun experience let down by some control sloppiness, something that I'm excusing for the moment since something that requires movements as precise and tight as racing games do will always feel sloppy the first time you try it on a new control system. That was true of thumbsticks, it was true of keyboards and it was true of D-pads; Kinect will surely have the same learning curve.
The controls are very simple; you turn an imaginary wheel to turn, lean into corners to drift, and make a firm in-out motion with both hand to both. To do tricks you lean while in mid-air and depending on the direction you do the appropriate move; it's impossible to mess these up since the car will always bottom-out once you're within a certain distance of the ground. The track we saw was an enjoyable but simple jungle track of a type codified twenty years ago, but that's not a bad thing; those designs are classic for a reason. There are no brakes, and acceleration is automatic.
What to say about it... it's okay. It's okay! It's a fun, mindless little racer that works well with the Kinect controls. The problem with it is that I still feel the controller, with it's multiple buttons and highly precise inputs, is a far better control system for a racing game. This feeling is compounded by the fact that I've played Joy Ride with a controller already, and to be honest it was a lot more fun that playing it with Kinect. What could've been a deep, addictive cart racer (and it would have been free!) has turned into a decent but predictable casual game, and while the end result isn't bad, you can't help wondering what it could've been.
Dance Central
By far the most impressive game on display, Dance Central re-affirmed a faith in the Kinect hardware that had been shaken by the mini-games and fitness software on display elsewhere. Here is a game that appeals to both casual and hardcore, that is fun on easy mode if you play in little bits, or deeply rewarding if you session it on expert. Cool art style, great soundtrack, innovative gameplay – it's like Rock Band all over again, and that is a very good thing.
The principle of the game is so simple, yet so ingenious that it makes it very clear that Kinect is both here to stay, will be immensely popular, and will have some brilliant games. The fears engendered by the lack of originality in the other titles – that Kinect games will just be controller games, but not as good, or casual games, but not for us – are completely laid to rest after seeing Dance Central; this is a game I want to play, this is a game I want to have in my house, this is a game I would have a go on if I saw it at someone else's. What Harmonix have done is looked at the platform and crafted a completely new experience for it that wouldn't be possible anywhere else, and is a perfect fit for the hardware. Every other dance game out there looks incredibly lame and silly (I can't imagine how many publishers had their screwface on after this was announced). You couldn't do this with a controller, and you couldn't do it with other types of motion-based gaming, this is a Kinect experience through and through, and one that shows off the system's potential more than any other. Seeing this fills me with hope for the next couple of years; they aren't going to be a wasteland filled with rehashes and casual games after all. With studios like Harmonix on board, the future for Kinect is bright.
Where to begin. I've been following Rage off and on for a while, since it's always worth keeping an eye out for something to scratch that post-apocalyptic itch. id Software is a studio with an incredible pedigree as well, of course, but the market for post-apocalyptia is heavily saturated at the moment, and the bar has been set very high by a number of excellent games that have been released over the past two years. As a result, Rage has been very much a 'maybe' game, something it was worth being aware of but not worth getting excited about, the sort of game you buy when there isn't anything really great coming out for a while.
I was completely wrong.
Rage is quite simply beautiful. The textures are just out of this world, so far beyond anything we've seen before and - due to some proprietary tech on the id engine - the textures don't repeat, so you don't get the cookie-cutter areas and buildings you see in so many other open world games. The developer presenting the demo was clearly very proud of this, claiming that everything you encounter in the world, every hut, barrel and bandit, was deliberately and carefully placed just exactly there.
The style of the game is similar to Borderlands in that it's colourful and cel-shaded, with character and object models clearly delineated against the background. However, because the graphical fidelity is so much higher than on Pandora, the effect is totally different. The buildings, weapons and vehicles look amazing, and the elegantly animated bodies and faces of the NPCs are far more believable and immersive than pretty much any other post-apocalyptic game out there; in fact across the entire genre spectrum there are very few titles that can measure up to Rage when it comes to looking good.
We saw a small variety of enemies – some bandits, including a hilarious British-themed gang, some mutants and an enormous behemoth – some driving and vehicular combat, and a number of weapons, mostly guns (with excellent modeling) but also a three-armed boomerang similar to the one in Dark Sector. This was a brutally powerful weapon but one that required very precise aiming, and suggest that there will be a strong, balanced mix of weapons in the final game. On top of this, guns and vehicles are all customisable, leading to more RPG elements in a title that was once touted purely as an FPS.
The mission in the demo involved reclaiming the well of the eponymous town of Wellspring from a gang of bandits. This allowed the developers to show off the town itself – a cross between Megaton and Fyrestone – which was a glorious shamble of alleyways and shanty-town shacks, begging to be explored.
While I hesitate to recommend a game based purely on a heavily controlled walkthrough, especially one so far from launch, I was simply blown away by what I saw. The attention to detail is staggering, the game looks fun as hell and the developers are clearly both in love with their work and confident in it's quality. Rage was both the biggest surprise of the show, and the game that I'm now looking forward to the most; so my final comment has to be that this is a game you need to watch. It's going to be a big one.
Tanner and Jericho are back, but after the universally reviled third outing “Driv3r”, the Driver series has taken a step back, had a long hard look at itself and aimed for a proper return to form. The game is still in Alpha, so while the graphics are fairly low quality at the moment and the audio is horrendous, all the low points of the demo were acknowledged by the developers, who told us that the issues we noticed would be gone by release. Here's the run-down:
Three camera angles (bumper, in-car and close cam).
60fps. And that's not “60fps when there isn't much going on”, that's a consistent 60fps all the way through.
120 fully licensed cars across the whole spectrum, from muscle cars to Italian racing thoroughbreds.
Dynamic vehicle damage (this was rather impressive in action),
Accurate map of the city with real landmarks. They've taken out the boring bits, or tweaked them to make it interesting, but overall the city is true to life and an excellent re-creation.
Same arcade-style handling – the developer said the game is supposed to feel “like Hollywood”, and it has to be said, it does.
You can't run people over. All the pedestrians in San Fransisco have super human reflexes.
Brutal slow-mo crashes
Cool tail-light trails, so you can easily see who you're following or chasing.
Literally thousands of characters, each with their own little big of dialogue.
I left that bit till last because it deserves some explanation. The way you get missions in Driver: San Fransisco is through a new ability called “Shift”. A single button press and you are treated to a birds-eye view of the area around you (this has progressive levels you can unlock, ending with the ability to look down on the entire city). Once in this view you can zoom in on a car, then tap X again to jump into the car. In online modes that's it, but in the single player, jumping into a car means you take over the body of either the passenger or the driver, at which point you start one of the game's missions. To anyone else in the car, it's as if the other person is still there – you still look like yourself as far as you can see but to others you look like the person whose body you've occupied.
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Now you may be thinking that this is all getting a bit science-fiction, and frankly, it is. The explanation for this amazing ability is that you were involved in a car crash just prior to the start of the game, which left you in a coma. When you woke up, you were able to jump into other people's bodies at will. It's a clunky and unnecessary explanation that could have been done a lot better, but the mechanic itself is very cool.
We got to test this in the one multiplayer mode they had running, which involved several “hound” cars trying to stay in the line of a “hare” car's tail-lights. Doing so racked up points, with the first to a hundred winning the round. At first it was fairly standard, with people ramming each other's cars and driving frantically to stay just behind the “hare” car; however we soon realised that the Shift ability meant for a much more interesting interplay. If you were losing a battle with a bigger car, you could easily jump into a truck and overpower them. If you span out and fell too far behind, you could shift ahead and get back into the competition easily. You can lurk in the overhead view until a fast, desirable car came up, or even jump ahead of the “hare” car and lie in ambush. A whole new dimension of gameplay opened up and we all took advantage of it, leading to a seriously enjoyable, frantic few minutes that more than matches up to experiences such as Burnout Paradise. If the rest of the game is up to that standard, and if the minor flaws we noticed are gone by release, then it's definitely a must-buy for me.
Video games have been around a long time. It's not something we're normally conscious of in this frenetic industry, where today's bestselling title is a tenner in the bargain bin tomorrow, and everyone is relentlessly focused on the newest game, the next big tech, but occasionally something happens to make you realise that this isn't a new medium by a long stretch – and the relaunch of Monkey Island 2 is one of these.
The last few years have seen a large number of the greatest titles of yesteryear dug up and resurrected, through straight ports, remakes, “homages” which are usually anything but, or re-masterings; this last category being the one into which Monkey Island 2 falls. I won't bother to discuss the gameplay or storyline, since it should be familiar to you (and if not there are a ton of resources which can fill you in). Instead, allow me to introduce on what is by far the best treatment of a classic title I've ever seen.
To start with, the graphics and controls have been overhauled, and the text dialogue replaced with proper speech. The original MIDI soundtrack has been recreated through proper recorded audio, and the overall package seems far removed from the original. So far so usual, but what sets Monkey Island 2 apart is an unusual trick the developer called “switching”. This is the ability to jump from the smooth HD graphics back to the original pixellated look of the game, at will and at any time. Not only that, but you can easily switch to the original point'n'click controls, the original MIDI music, and replace the voice acting with just on-screen text. What this means is that you can choose to play the game exactly as it was in the original, or in it's completely new and updated form, or in any combination of features in between. They've also made a couple of other changes to the gameplay that again you don't have to use; one is a button-press that highlights items that can be interacted with, the other a three-tier system of hints that can be accessed by the impatient or unsure player.
On top of all this, there is a developer commentary from Ron Gilbert, Tim Schaffer and Dave Grossman, recorded recently at LucasArts and “the first time the three of them had looked at Monkey Island together in 15 years”, according to the developer. The brief snippet we heard suggests this will be lighter in tone and rather more interesting that more developer commentary (though proof of this will have to wait till release day) and they reminisce and discuss over some interesting material that didn't make it into the final game. They've also added an amazing archive of never before seen concept art that is unlocked gradually as you play, and these high-res scans show something fascinating: the game's new HD graphics are true to the original artist's vision from 1992, far more so than the pixellated original could ever hope to be, however carefully it was done. The developer old us this was intentional, and that the first few weeks of the project had been spent tracking down any and all materials relating to the original development, to try and bring the characters to life in a way that hadn't been possible before, but to bring them to life in the way that the original developers would have done if the technology had been capable.
This is so much more than a remake then, this is the ultimate fan-service, a respectful and authentic homage made by people who love and understand the original game. Other developers working on re-releases should take note; this is the best – and only - way to do it.
It's definitely Firefight – by far the best thing about ODST – but so much more shiny and high-res, benefiting from the same huge graphical improvement the rest of the game has seen. The short version: it's Halo, and exactly as you know it; but that isn't a bad thing since it's such a fantastic series anyway.
The long version: aside from looking great, the main differences are the weapon rebalancing, and the new weapons Bungie have added to the game. New weapons available in the demo include:
Target Locator (mark a target and it gets bombarded from orbit)
Concussion Rifle (explosive plasma rounds)
Fuel Rod Gun (Shoulder-borne Covenant rocket-launcher thing. Pretty powerful, and deeply satisfying)
The two maps we saw were “Waterfront”, a night map set near a reservoir, and “Beachhead” a map set in a park. Both were brightly coloured maps with lots of grass – standard Halo fare but rendered in glorious HD technicolour. The “Generator Defence” mode – also available in the beta – isn't particularly original or exciting, but the second mode, called “Rocketfight”, was hugely entertaining. You can get the same pickups you get in the rest of the game, and zipping about with a jetpack while raining rockets onto the hapless aliens below isn't going to get old for a long time. There is also a “Default Firefight” mode, which lasts for one set, as well as a “Firefight Classic” mode, which is same kind of endurance challenge as in Firefight in ODST. On top of this, you can customise Firefight to your liking by editing the wave properties (enemy types, skulls, the components of the “boss” wave), the length of the match and what weapons, traits and settings (respawn times, lives, loadouts and so on) the players have, as well as things like generator attributes if you're playing Generator Defence.
I have to confess I actually played several sessions of this, it was that good. I'm not going to get into the comparisons but if you want an idea of how it feels, imagine a cross between Call of Duty and Battlefield, with all the best aspects of each.
The show floor pods were all running team deathmatch, on a map set in an Afghan village, but I also got to try out a Battlefield-style mode where you set charges to destroy objectives – enormous fun and the best mode in the Bad Company series so it's something I'm very glad they've included. The game doesn't look at all like Battlefield though, even though it's running on the same engine – the UI and art style are completely different, although the weight and speed of the controls will be instantly familiar to any fan of DICE's most recent work. That said, the game looks gorgeous – very detailed, excellent textures (with on or two glaring omissions that will presumably be ironed out before release) and excellent weapon and character models (those beards!).
There were three classes available – seemingly with fixed loadouts, though I imagine that was only the demo – Sniper (a sniper class), Rifleman (a standard infantryman) and Spec Ops (a light scout). In terms of play style it's fairly fast, faster than Battlefield but still not up to the ADD pace of Modern Warfare. Weapons damage is towards the hardcore end of the scale, it only takes a couple of shots to die but on the bright side, that means you only need to put a couple of round into someone to kill them. The guns and classes seem well balanced, as far as it's possible to tell from a short demo, and the vehicles are... well, there weren't any in the demo so I don't know about that. My one gripe with the game is that at two points in the objective -capturing variant I died for no reason, with a “-10 points” for suicide adding insult to injury. I wasn't the only person to experience this, but thankfully it's the kind of bug that gets picked up in testing, so don't expect to see it in the final game.
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Taste is subjective of course, but I enjoyed it enough to queue up again, and again after that. The good news is that starting next week you can see for yourself; codes for the beta are being given out by retailers (and possibly online), which can then be redeemed at http://medalofhonor.com/beta – hopefully see you online!
It's reasonable to expect Gears of War 3 to bring the classic single-player, co-operative and online modes we've seen in the first two games, and so it does. However, just as Gears of War 2 included the innovative new co-op mode “Horde”, Gears 3 has a new online game type that is... actually, kind of weird. Good, but weird: it's BEAST MODE.
You don't have to write it in capitals, it just feels like it should be. BEAST MODE!
The name is an accurate description. This new mode is a kind of reverse Horde, where you play as the locust attacking the humans, and instead of different weapon pick-ups or loadouts you get to choose which locust to play as. There's a token system in place with which you 'buy' a new locust each time you die, with bigger ones costing more.
The E3 demo consisted of only four rounds, and each one had different locust available (whether this is a feature in the game or just a demo trick to get people to try all the classes is unknown at this point). The classes available were Tickers (the only class available in all the rounds), Wretches, Kantus, Armored Kantus, Serapede (which is a big centipide that spits electricity), a standard locust with grenades and a shotgun, Diggers, Boomers and Mulchers (these are all Boomer-type locust, but with different loadouts) and the Beserker. On top of this there were a number of greyed-out slots on the locust selection screen which suggests a wide variety of available creatures. Epic have created a good interplay between the classes, with each having different strengths and weaknesses, as well as an emphasis on teamwork – for example, the Kantus can heal downed locust but needs to be protected while he is doing so.
The only map in the demo was a ruined temple of some kind, a well-designed area with plenty of cover and flanking opportunities, all of which were put to good use by the enemy. The AI is extremely impressive, and very well equipped, with turrets, fighting drones and even the Hammer of Dawn making an appearance. Everything ran very smoothly, with the only minor flaw in the three rounds I played being a moment where I clipped through a roll of barbed wire. However, that did put me in melee range of the last human, and the satisfaction of beating him to death with his own arm more than outweighed the glitch! The game looks amazing, colourful – but not too colourful – and highly detailed. I'd go so far as to say it looks better than Uncharted 2, and for my taste it certainly has a better aesthetic. All in all, this looks to be a great addition to the Gears canon – it's just a shame it's so long till it comes out!
It's very difficult to judge open-world, open ended role-playing games like Fallout: New Vegas when playing them in anything other than the ideal setting. Single player RPGs are by and large solitary experiences, perfectly suited for long sessions on the sofa, with the more you put into the world – the more exploring you do, the weirder the things you try – the more you get out of it.
This bears repeating now because the setting of the Fallout: New Vegas pods – at the back of the noisy, busy and brightly-lit Bethesda booth (and then later in a downtown LA club) was hardly conducive to enjoyment. To compound the issue, the demo was fairly linear, with an ever-present staffer hovering over your shoulder telling you what to do and where to go next; and thereby completely missing the point of Fallout. Certain quests were not available, or hugely foreshortened; the easiest way to progress was to select the conversation option “press demo” that had been shoehorned into various dialogue trees. All in all, not a very Fallout experience.
However, this only makes the opinion I formed during my brief time with the game even more impressive. The short version – it's brilliant. It's perhaps unfair to compare two games on the same engine but with a two year gap between them, but if the demo area represents the overall quality, New Vegas will not only match its predecessor but surpass it – and by quite a long way. The colours are brighter and the textures more detailed; the game looks fresh and crisp. The weird waxy faces both Oblivion and Fallout 3 suffer from have been replaced by something that actually looks pretty human. The quality of the writing is exceptional.
The demo took me into a casino, then jumped to a New California Republic base. After a brief fetch quest – where I got the chance to test a number of new weapons and enemies – I got the option of working for the NCR or another faction, Ceasar's Legion. Choosing to go with the Legion, I was dispatched on a mission to assassinate a number of key NCR field officers, which I duly did. This provided an opportunity to see the factions system in play – it works, and works well, though the traditional RPG failures of instant notoriety and enemy omniscience are still present.
I also got the chance to see the new iron sights mode on weapons – which is great – and we discussed the customisation system. What's interesting is that the developer has managed to massively improve the combat - withdrawing the total reliance on VATS even the toughest FO3 characters had – yet still retain their artistic vision. This is a hardcore game, a traditional RPG that will go as deep as you want or need, which is to say, deeper than Fallout 3. The cause of this is partly the people working on it but also partly because Obsidian had a head start – it's been a short development cycle but they didn't have to build or tweak an engine, and all the systems are in place (your character still has a Pip-boy, a fact they elegantly explain away by making the doctor - who saves your life at the beginning of the game – a former Vault-dweller).
The best thing about Obsidian's head start is the familiarity it gives the user; all the controls are the same, all the systems for health, travel and inventory, all the basic underlying principles of the game-world that would otherwise have to be learned. In this sense it's an expansion, but the size, setting and massive improvements make this so much more. If you liked Fallout you'll love this, and if you didn't, well, there's a good chance you'll love this anyway. I haven't seen as much as I want to of the game, but to be quite honest I won't have seen as much as I want to till I pass the 150-hour mark (the map is of a similar size to Fallout 3's, but there is more stuff to do in it). This is definitely one to watch... though I'm sure you knew that already.
Possibly my most anticipated game of the show was indie platformer Limbo – a black and white visual symphony that I thought, going into E3, could be the next Braid. Having played it, that thought has changed into a certainty – it's polished, clever and original, with a wonderful aesthetic, atmospheric sound and visuals and some clever and varied puzzles.
The best news is that the game is out this year, having been in development for three years by a team called Playdead (http://www.playdeadgames.com) who have never numbered more than nine staff at once, and often several less than that. Limbo will be one of the titles featured in the 2010 Summer of Arcade, and since we're well into summer now it surely can't be long before the game is out.
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Meh... it's difficult; I've been so impressed by this game and I really want to talk about it, but at the same time I don't want to spoil anything or give anything away; a title as good as this deserves to be protected from spoilers. Suffice to say – you're going to want to play this. Start planning now.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 June 2010 08:55
Tournament Of Legends - E3 Screenshots (Wii)
Written by Play2Compete
HAWX 2 Q&A
Written by Play2Compete
What are the new gameplay elements in HAWX 2?
The key idea driving the development was the idea of offering the true feel of modern air conflict, with all of its various experiences, like watching a wall of anti-air guns through night vision, using a precision bomb on a target, refueling your plane in mid-air, take off and landing, using carriers and so on. It was important for us not just to include these new features, but to integrate them into a convincing world and to improve the look and feel of it, to render more authentically what aerial warfare in the modern era is like.
So we have built a complete experience that includes the iconic moments present in the collective memory and also the trends in the military development.
Have you done any improvements concerning the graphics?
We are using the top solution available, GeoEye hi-res satellite imagery. Our environments are huge – 130km x 130km – which is what you need when you give players the freedom to sprint around at Mach 2. They offer some spectacular and diverse vistas, including mountains, deserts, mountainous coastal regions and some well known cities, like Cape Town. We also manage to add a great deal of detail where it matters – for instance you will be able to see people going about their jobs in the bases where you take off.
Are there any connections between HAWX 2 and other Tom Clancy titles? Maybe Ghost Recon: Future Warrior?
You can expect to fight along a very familiar team at some points in the game supporting and protecting them as the accomplish the different missions.
Are you planning to release DLC after release?
We can’t confirm this info at this point. For sure we’d like to offer interesting content after release
Will HAWX 2 support Playstation Move or Microsoft Kinect?
It will not support these features.
HAWX 2 is coming for PC too. Will this game also use the Ubi Launcher for copy protection?
Is to early too confirm this information but the general policy is to use copy protection at thispoint.
So HAWX 2 is going to be an action game. Have ever thought about developing a simulation?
However HAWX 2 is not a simulation, since it was important for us that the game can be played by people that aren’t experts at flight games, but it can also be enjoyed by flight enthusiasts. We focused on the feeling of authenticity and plausibility both in the gameplay and in the story, without turning the experience into a juggernaut of detail.
HAWX 2 is driven by the latest military evolutions and forecasts in terms of hardware, tactics and technology. We made sure that we incorporated key moments that the public will recognize from real world conflicts, such as precision bombing using smart ammunition. We took into consideration for example the ascent of the UAV as an effective reconnaissance and attack platform.
The first HAWX took place between the events of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 and EndWar. Does HAWX 2 have plot connections with other Tom Clancy's games too?
The storyline in HAWX 2 starts in the Middle East, in the near future. The HAWX squadron is deployed in the Middle East, where insurgent activity is showing a rise both in the level of activity and in the violence of it. With new insurgent leaders rising in several hotspots of the world and a number of nuclear weapons belonging to Russia being mysteriously stolen, a storm is brewing and the HAWX are sent to the center of it. There are connections with other events in the Tom Clancy universe, but revealing them now would spoil our surprises
What is the involvement of Tom Clancy in the storylines of the HAWX series?
Tom Clancy is not directly involved at this point in the HAWX series. However, we are creating an experience that is very much Clancy, because we have access to all that past experiences and his long-term vision. This means first and foremost a realistic and thought provoking scenario involving elite military teams and operations to solve a near future conflict
With the first game you guys seemed to stand out from Ace Combat and your own Blazing Angels. Now your franchise is well established, what do you guys want to achieve with this sequel?
Well, like everyone, we want to evolve. It is not our intention to remain comfortable, ‘established’ as you put it, – we will always move forward and will always make sure that each new game that we make is better than the previous one.
The first game was known for giving the players the chance to adjust the kind of controls between difficulty levels. How realistic will the control of the planes be in the sequel?
This wasn’t really the case – HAWX offered some choices related to how certain gameplay elements controlled, but overall it was an unified experience and this is what we have here too. We did increase the level of realism in certain ways, though. We tuned the physics in lots of small ways and you will, for instance, see gravity and airflow have a more natural impact on the plane.
The main addition in HAWX 2 arsenal is the precision weapons. Can you give us some details about it?
The main new addition to the player’s arsenal is the inclusion of precision weapons, which allow him to aim and designate the location of the strike with perfect accuracy. There are several such weapons, including a missile that the player can control while in flight.
Precision bombs are a very important part of a jet pilot’s life in the modern war and this is why we wanted to have them represented in the game. They work like you’d expect – you activate this mode and switch from piloting the plane (which continues to fly on auto-pilot) to aiming the precision bomb or missile. You aim the weapon and mark the spot on the ground that you want to hit. The bomb will hit exactly that spot. The trick is that you are quite vulnerable when you do this and in some mission you have to fire quickly and then get back to pilot in time to dodge attacks.
Landing and taking off seems to be important facts in the gameplay side of HAWX 2. Can you tell us how they work?
Everything is an organic part of the game and fits naturally with the other elements of the system. To take off, you taxi to the take off position, line up, accelerate and pitch up when you reach the right speed. To land you open the landing gear, line up with the runway, slow down and slowly bring the plane down. All of this is done with the same controls as the normal flight and is connected seamlessly with the rest of the game. You can even land during a mission to get more ammo, then get back in the air and continue the fight.
Why do you think the dog fighting genre is so unpopular these days?
‘Unpopular’ is quite a strong term. Games in the genre have sold a few millions of copies in the past few years. Sure, it is not as popular as the first person shooter genre, for instance, but it still is a healthy niche. You can see there is still interest in the world of aerial warfare from the fact that related elements have started to crop up in more and more military shooters these days. I think a problem with flight combat games recently has been exactly the over-emphasis on dogfighting – sure, this is the bread and butter of air combat, but there are also many other interesting things going on in air combat and too few flight combat games have touched upon them. This is why we wanted to incorporate a large number of experiences that we know are attractive and are all related to the modern mythology of aerial warfare, rather than have the player simply navigate from dogfight to dogfight.
Can you guys tell us something about the new projects of Ubisoft Romania?
All we can say at this point is that we want to deliver the best possible experience with HAWX 2. We got some fresh projects for sure, but nothing that we can comment about right now.
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