violeta27ram: November 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption top VGA Nominations

Mass Effect 2 tops the 2010 Spike TV Video Game Awards with 10 nominations in nine categories including Best RPG, Best Original Score, and Best Performance by a Human Female.

Red Dead Redemption follows closely with eight nominations in multiple categories such as Best Action Adventure Game, Best DLC, and Best Graphics. Call of Duty: Black Ops scored eight nominations in seven categories including Game of the Year, and Best Multiplayer.

The 2010 Spike TV Video Game Awards air on December 11 at 8 p.m. ET. This year's awards show features reveals of three games including Batman: Arkham City, BioWare's next game, and Guillermo del Toro's game project with THQ. To learn more about the VGA's, visit www.spike.com/event/vga. The full list of nominees follow below:

Game of the Year:
Call of Duty: Black Ops
God of War III
Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2
Red Dead Redemption

Studio of the Year:
Treyarch
BioWare
Blizzard Entertainment
Bungie Studios
Rockstar San Diego

Best Xbox 360 Game:
Alan Wake
Fable III
Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2

Best PS3 Game:
God of War III
Heavy Rain
Modnation Racers
Red Dead Redemption

Best Wii Game:
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Metroid: Other M
Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best PC Game:
Fallout: New Vegas
Mass Effect 2
Sid Meier's Civilization V
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Best Handheld Game:
God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP)
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
Super Scribblenauts (DS)

Best Shooter:
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
BioShock 2
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Halo: Reach

Best Action Adventure Game:
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
God of War III
Red Dead Redemption
Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best RPG:
Fable III
Fallout: New Vegas
Final Fantasy XIII
Mass Effect 2

Best Multiplayer:
Halo: Reach
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Best Individual Sports Game:
EA Sports MMA
Shaun White Snowboarding
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11
UFC Undisputed 2010

Best Team Sports Game:
FIFA Soccer 11
Madden NFL 11
NBA 2K11
MLB '10: The Show

Best Driving Game:
Blur
Modnation Racers
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Split/Second

Best Music Game:
Dance Central
DJ Hero 2
Def Jam Rapstar
Rock Band 3

Best Soundtrack:
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
DJ Hero 2
Rock Band 3
Def Jam Rapstar

Best Song in a Game:
"Basket Case" - Green Day: Rock Band
"Black Rain" - Sound Garden, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
"Far Away" - Jose Gonzalez, Red Dead Redemption
"Goldeneye" - Nicole Scherzinger, Goldeneye 007
"Won't Back Down" - Eminem, Call of Duty: Black Ops
"Replay/Rudeboy Mashup" - Iyaz & Rihanna, DJ Hero 2

Best Original Score:
God of War III
Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2
Red Dead Redemption

Best Graphics:
God of War III
Heavy Rain
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Red Dead Redemption

Best Downloadable Game:
Costume Quest
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Monday Night Combat
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Best DLC:
BioShock 2: Minerva's Den
Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

Best Independent Game:
Joe Danger
Limbo
Super Meat Boy
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

Most Anticipated Game:
Batman: Arkham City
BioShock Infinite
Gears of War 3
Portal 2

Best Adapted Video Game:
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1 - 4
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
Transformers: War for Cybertron

Best Performance by a Human Male:
Daniel Craig as James Bond in Bloodstone 007
Gary Oldman as Sgt. Reznov in Call of Duty: Black Ops
John Cleese as Jasper in Fable III
Martin Sheen as Illusive Man in Mass Effect 2
Nathan Fillion as Sergeant Edward Buck in Halo: Reach
Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Sam Worthington as Alex Mason in Call of Duty: Black Ops

Best Performance by a Human Female:
Dame Judi Dench as M in 007 Bloodstone
Dancia Patrick as Herself in Blur
Emmanuelle Chriqui as The Numbers Lady in Call of Duty: Black Ops
Felicia Day as Veronica in Fallout: New Vegas
Jennifer Hale as Commander Sheppard (female) in Mass Effect 2
Kristen Bell as Lucy Stillman in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Yvonne Strahovski as Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2

Got any tips, corrections, or feedback? Contact GamePro's news team or follow this article's author on Twitter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameProVideoGameAnnouncementNews/~3/zsZonW3Vh1w/

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Operation Flashpoint: Red River Hands-On

We check out a campaign mission and defend the front lines in Last Defense mode.

Despite increasing competition in the genre, the Operation Flashpoint series has carved out an identity for itself, taking a more realistic approach to modern-day first-person shooters. The latest game in the series, Red River, continues that trend with an approach that creative director Sion Lenton calls "authentically cool," meaning that most of what you'll see in the game has its roots firmly planted in a realistic depiction of combat, but it's all integrated in a way that makes the experience more accessible for newcomers and more entertaining on the whole.

An immediate example of this comes into play with the modifications you can make to each of the four classes available--rifleman, scout, grenadier, and auto rifleman. The rifleman is the jack-of-all-trades of the group, making the class ideal for multiple types of combat situations. The scout is a long-range specialist who can spot enemies at great distances and make effective use of sniper rifles. The grenadier is a close-combat specialist equipped accordingly with weaponry and skills. And finally, the auto rifleman can flourish in a support role, laying down suppressive fire for squadmates. As you progress through the game, you earn experience points that can unlock a variety of items, including new scopes for weapons as well as special skills (or modifications), such as enemy weapons specialist.

The reason that the enemy weapons specialist modification sticks out, as opposed to something like marksman training, which increases long-range proficiency, is that it reveals how Codemasters takes a very real element of combat and implements it in a way that makes perfect sense in gaming terms. When you come across an enemy weapon in Flashpoint, there's a good chance you won't have much luck with it, and there's also a very real possibility that it will continually lock up on you simply because you haven't trained with it. But by gaining experiencing and enabling the enemy weapon specialist modification, you can pick up these weapons and have more success with them.

Some modifications will improve your reloading times or accuracy by limiting how the reticle jumps around when firing. Of course, this makes it seem as though less-skilled soldiers will have trouble hitting their targets in the game early on. Fortunately, as a part of making Red River more accessible, the game features tools to help novices, such as aiming assist and snap-to targeting that make it a little easier to jump in and play well, but seasoned players can turn these features off completely if they want more of a challenge and a more realistic gameplay experience.

Even without such features, newcomers will find Red River more accommodating. In the first mission we saw, called Human Terrain, a squad of Marines (joining Alpha and Charlie squads) flies into a small section of the in-game reproduction of Tajikistan--the focal point of Red River's campaign--where they must escort a convoy to a dam to provide infrastructure support. While touching down, Sergeant Knox gives some general tips as to what to do in case things go wrong, and while they're couched in military vernacular, they're easy to understand and follow. When it comes time to issue your own orders to squadmates (which can be controlled by three other players at any time since the whole campaign supports co-op), you'll find an equally easy-to-understand command radial that sections off complex orders into four distinct areas--maneuvers, tactics, suppression, and follow. Orders are also context sensitive, so what you see when pointing to an open field will be different from what you see when pointing at the side of a building.

Red River makes extensive use of the EGO engine's visual bells and whistles.

It's not long before you have to make extensive use of these orders in this particular mission. Enemy insurgents have taken up positions in the buildings that line the road, making the convoy a relatively easy target. You can move your squad up the sides of the road, taking cover at various points to shoot enemies positioned in between buildings and on rooftops. What makes this a little more nerve-racking is that the AI will change and adapt based on your tactics, and enemies will not hesitate to take advantage of a situation and flank you if the opportunity arises. This mission also reveals how important it is to move forward in a logical way--if you try to just run up the street with your squad, there's a distinct chance that you won't last more than a few seconds. Enemies will appear on your radar, but those dots represent their last known position and not their current one, so while you may have your sights set on a certain spot, there's a possibility that the enemy lurking there has moved and found cover elsewhere--unless, of course, he's on a rooftop.

If you happen to get injured over the course of a mission, it's important to heal yourself as soon as possible. Not only can you bleed out if a wound isn't attended to, but other sorts of injuries also affect physical performance. If you get a leg injury, then that has an adverse effect on your ability to sprint. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to heal yourself (and your squadmates will heal you as well), since you just hold down the corresponding button and wait, but this also makes you incredibly vulnerable because you can't shoot or run while healing. Needless to say, it's important to find some decent cover. Upon completing the mission, Lenton told us that Operation Flashpoint: Red River is an infantry-focused game, and therefore, you won't be piloting helicopters or other fancy vehicles. That's not to say you won't ever get the opportunity. Later missions will have you driving Humvees and jeeps (which have been designed with the help of Codemasters' Dirt driving team), but the emphasis is placed on on-foot action.

With that, we then moved into Last Defense mode, one of the four special Fireteam Engagement modes. This mode has you and your squad (which, again, can be played cooperatively with four players) holding a defensive line against wave after wave of PLA (People's Liberation Army of China) soldiers. Each successive wave becomes more difficult to deal with as more soldiers appear with more firepower, including tanks. Fortunately, you have an unlimited cache of ammunition at your disposal (provided you remember to run back to the cache to stock up) as well as mounted guns. You'll also have access to more powerful anti-vehicle weapons, but ammunition for these is limited. We used the scout glass for the duration of this mode and found it pretty easy to pick off enemies in the first few waves with the DMR (Designated Marksman Rifle) and other weapons available, but as additional waves came in, it became much more difficult to keep up. Eventually, PLA soldiers overwhelmed our position by using a combination of flanking and sheer force. This mode features a point system for individual play as well as team play, adding a little competitive spirit to a game that doesn't have competitive online modes.

Fireteam maps are crafted specifically for their corresponding modes.

At this point, it's clear that Codemasters has been listening to fans of its previous games and has implemented some features that the audience thought were lacking in Dragon Rising. It's also clear that the team wants to make the experience accessible to all sorts of shooter fans without sacrificing the series' dedication to delivering an "authentically cool" experience. Operation Flashpoint: Red River is scheduled for release in spring 2011.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Operation Flashpoint: Red River Hands-On" was posted by Giancarlo Varanini on Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:07:11 -0800

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/operationflashpointredriver/news.html?sid=6284434

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Battlefield: Play4Free Hands-On

EA's latest shooter takes the best bits of Bad Company 2 and brings them to a free-to-play audience.

While Electronic Arts' free-to-play Battlefield Heroes offers a fully fledged Battlefield experience, for some, the cartoonlike graphics and over-the-top power-ups were too far removed from reality. With Battlefield: Play4Free, EA is ditching the cutesy style in favour of a grittier and more realistic experience, which takes place in a modern setting. Though the leveling system and marketplace from Heroes make a return, the classes, weapons, and gameplay have been borrowed from Bad Company 2, making a game that EA says should appeal squarely to the "hardcore gamer." We went hands-on with the game to see if it can live up to EA's lofty expectations.

Looking at the feature list for Battlefield Play4Free, you'd be forgiven for thinking it had been ripped straight from Bad Company 2. You can choose from classes such as soldier, medic, and engineer; use vehicles such as tanks and planes; and battle with up to 32 players online. Many of the maps also come from Bad Company 2, along with weapons and visual design. However, the RPG-like levelling system from Heroes is still present, albeit with different career paths. Instead of gaining power-ups for your character, you now work your way through ranks, all the way from infantry to special ops. Each time you level up, new weapons and abilities are unlocked, which you can use to upgrade your character.

In our brief hands-on, we played a capture-the-flag mode. It took place on a dusty map filled with sand, war-torn houses, and wide roads, which were perfect for driving tanks on. Playing as American soldiers, we battled our way to flagpoles and secured them from the enemy. While capturing a flag, we had to fend off tanks and enemy soldiers, who were raining down bullets and shells on our location. The game felt instantly familiar, and players with any experience with Bad Company 2 will feel right at home. The same precise shooting and character movement were present, and there was no indication other than the visuals that we were playing a free game.

Yes! Right in the face.

Though the visuals were impressive for a free-to-play title, with plenty of detail in the environments, weapons, and explosions, they lacked the crispness of the game's retail predecessors. EA explained that this allowed it to run on low-spec hardware, so even gamers with old PCs could get in on the action without upgrading. Like Heroes, Battlefield: Play4Free will use purchasable battle points, allowing flush players to buy vanity items such as character costumes, as well as more practical items such as boosts, which let you temporarily gain more experience points. Fortunately, powerful items won't be purchasable, so players won't be able to buy their way to the top of the leaderboards. Battlefield: Play4Free is due for release in 2011, with a closed beta launching later this year. Interested gamers can sign up over on the official site.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Battlefield: Play4Free Hands-On" was posted by Mark Walton on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:03:25 -0700

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/battlefieldplay4free/news.html?sid=6283522

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Kirby's Epic Yarn Multiplayer Hands-On

We cooperatively thread our way through Fire Land with Kirby and Prince Fluff.

You might already know that the world Kirby ventures through in Epic Yarn is entirely made of fabric and various types of yarn. As such, objects in the environment can be scrunched, unzipped, and unfolded much like actual cloth to reveal hidden beads and patches to collect. You probably also know that it's one of the most adorable games in recent years. And you probably know that it's a platformer with easy-to-use controls (performed by holding the Wii Remote sideways), but what you probably don't know is that Epic Yarn's cute and cuddly exterior hides an often complex action game that requires skilled teamwork when playing cooperatively with Kirby's ally, Prince Fluff.

Fluff and Kirby have the same abilities. Both can lasso onto enemies and usually turn them into projectiles that they can throw, and both can turn into a variety of different things during the course of standard gameplay. For example, they can turn into parachutes to glide after a jump or transform into a small car to get a quick boost of speed for longer jumps. Additionally, Fluff and Kirby can turn into a weight by pressing down on the D pad--a useful skill for smashing destructible platforms underfoot. The only trouble is, at least when it comes to cooperative play, that both Fluff and Kirby can use these things to interact with each other, which often ends with unintended results. In other words, remember how easy it was to mess with other players in New Super Mario Bros. Wii? It's kind of like that in Kirby's Epic Yarn.

Granted, the intention of the cooperative mode isn't to purposely doom your in-game partner. In fact, with two players, it's a little easier to collect more beads because they all go to one pile and not to individual players, which then makes it easier to earn the required number to earn a badge and advance to a new level within any given area. Likewise, it's easier to find and collect hidden items, some of which can be used to deck out Kirby's house in the hub area of the game. But it's also possible to just enter a shop and buy items for his pad as well. Lastly, two players can often help each other out when Kirby and Fluff turn into vehicles.

Fire Land takes you from the pyramids to an active volcano.

In two of the Fire Land levels, we saw two vehicles: a fire truck and an off-road vehicle. When Fluff and Kirby turn into fire trucks, they're separate and can fire separate streams of yarn from their hoses that push back fire, which spews from the ceiling. However, in the off-road vehicle, Kirby and Fluff become one, and much like the robot (one player controls the robot and its missiles while the second player controls the giant arm with the boxing glove), both players can control separate aspects of the vehicle. It seems that one player can give a slight boost in speed while the other generally controls jumping and other mechanics. At any rate, the vehicle sections are some of our favorites in the game already, and we can't wait to see more of them.

But with all of that in mind, there's one other thing two players can do: Pick each other up and throw each other. In some cases, this is pretty useful because picking up another player can be used to help one player reach a spot he or she was previously unable to access. Additionally, throwing your partner becomes a nice alternative weapon in a pinch when there are no other alternatives available. But as you can imagine, it can also be used for evil, throwing Fluff or Kirby into a pit or water trap, only to see one of them struggle.

Control the fire truck's hose by tilting the Wii remote.

Thankfully, Kirby's Epic Yarn is pretty forgiving about death. Much like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, when one player dies, he or she comes back onto the screen, floating until he or she has found a safe spot to touch down. There a few points where we witnessed this firsthand due to some surprisingly difficult obstacles scattered throughout the levels in Fire Land. In one particular level, you have to race rising lava to the top of a volcano where you eventually have to tie off its mouth by pulling a thread closed (there are a couple of smaller volcanoes where you have to do the same thing). We also saw some nods to Super Mario Bros. 2 with quicksand sections that require you to successfully navigate falling layers of sand, and of course, there are dust storms that can sweep you up and toss you into the air.

This is all really just touching the surface of what Kirby's Epic Yarn has to offer. From what we've seen so far, the game offers linear paths toward bosses (such as the boss named Hot Wing in the Fire Lands area), but there are side levels you can unlock and play through as well. Additionally, you can unlock minigames that put your skills to the test in old levels, but now, they have special objectives to meet and usually an allotted time in which to meet them. We'll have more on Kirby's Epic Yarn before its October 17 release.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Kirby's Epic Yarn Multiplayer Hands-On" was posted by Giancarlo Varanini on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:00:09 -0700

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/wii/adventure/kirbysepicyarn/news.html?sid=6275959

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Daily (Stale) Bread: The news we didn't post on October 21st, 2010

New release plans were revealed for three of the year's biggest selling game products -- the Nintendo DSi and Wii, as well as Angry Birds. A handful of other worthwhile stories fell through the cracks, but we've plucked them out and placed them in this morning's daily stale bread.

10/21--We're in the wrong business

Al Roker: Shred

AJ: Is it just me, or is Al Roker better at the board-based Tony Hawk games than anyone in the office?

Dave: It's pretty funny that Tony's talking about making good business decisions while his skateboarding franchise continues to ride that peripheral into obscurity.

Netflix Streaming Video Is 20 Percent of Peak US Internet Traffic
Will: Netflix has gone from crowding mailboxes to overloading servers.

Tae: 20 percent of all internet traffic? Considering how often I see Dave's Xbox Live status showing him watching Netflix, I'm surprised it's not higher.

Dave: Hey, Battlestar Galactica is a long show.

HomeBilly Joel DLC for Rock Band 3 Confirmed, Coming December 14 [UPDATE: And More This Spring!]
Dave: As jazzed as I am to see "Movin' Out" coming to Rock Band, I'm a little bummed that it won't be out in time for Umloud. Oh well. I'll have to butcher one of the other 2,000-plus songs.

Chronicles Of Shakespeare: Romeo & Juilet

AJ: So somebody's making a Romeo and Juliet game. That's strange enough, but the game is about Shakespeare making Romeo and Juliet.

Dave: It still has a better chance than most movie licenses...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameProVideoGameCultureNews/~3/qIshXwohzoc/

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CD Projekt, Metropolis vets form 11 bit studios, a development house that plans to focus on digital distribution

Members of CD Projekt (The Witcher) and the former Metropolis Software (They) have formed a new development house, 11 bit studios.

Based in Warsaw, Poland, 11 bit plans to digital distribution. According to spokesperson Tom Ohle, who also represents CD Projekt, in an e-mail to GamePro, "Essentially, the target is all-digital distribution platforms. PC for sure, as well as the Apple stuff and consoles."

According to the statement released by 11 bit, its team members have worked on games for Atari, Interplay, Monolith, and Ubisoft. They plan on releasing information on their first title next week.

"The games industry is constantly changing, and there is a tremendous opportunity for independent developers to succeed and to push the boundaries of gameplay on digital platforms," said Grzegorz Miechowski, managing director of 11 bit studios, in a prepared statement. "We're going to create games that introduce unique gameplay mechanics, carry high production values, and are, most importantly, fun for both hardcore gamers and more casual players."

UPDATE: 11 bit studios spokesperson Pawel Miechowski answered a few questions about the new development house, including explaining the origin of the company's name. "Bits are always even: 4-bit, 8-bit. 11 is not even; it's unpaired. So by 11-bit, we wanted to point that we are independent. We're something odd, unusual -- and that's it; because we want to make unusual games based on our personal ideas, the games we do are simply the games we love."

Projects members of the new 11 bit team have worked on include Infernal, Gorky 17 (Odium), Knight Rider 2, Starmageddon (Project Earth), and a brief stint on The Witcher 2.

Miechowski says they've come up with tech to create multiplatform games. "That depends on a project's -- let me say -- shape. If we all decide that a game fits [the] iPad touchscreen gameplay style, we will do that."

Got any tips, corrections, or feedback? Contact GamePro's news team or follow the author on Twitter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameProVideoGameAnnouncementNews/~3/JmhHai25QVI/

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Monday, November 29, 2010

de Blob 2 Updated Hands-On Impressions

We roll around Prisma City and release the shackles of repressed people in our first look at the high-definition version of this revolution painter.

Just before the Electronic Entertainment Expo kicked off this year, we got our first glimpse at de Blob: The Underground. Several months on, we're getting our follow-up peek, and two things are immediately obvious. The first is that the game has had a name change, dropping its "Underground" moniker; second, it has made the (previously announced) jump from the Wii to a slew of more powerful hardware platforms like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The latter meant that this time around, we put down the Wii Remote and picked up an Xbox 360 controller to gauge how well the game has made the leap.

We're pleased to report that a few finicky control and gameplay niggles aside, the game has transitioned well, already looking crisp and playing well in high definition. Our demo picked up near the beginning of the story and focused on a level dubbed The Senate. Comrade Black, under the pseudonym of Papa Blanc, was in the process of rigging the Prisma City election. Our cutscene introduction included all the de Blob hallmarks of unspoken, Lego-esque slapstick humour, and we watched as the INKT Corporation performed a litany of evils. Civilians were slapped across the face, beaten with truncheons, and had their choices made on their behalf by intrusive robotic hands as they attempted to cast their votes. The result was a landslide victory for the nasty candidate, and it wasn't long before things turned a shade of gray as the normally bright, cheery denizens were at the centre of their own coloured exsanguinations.

We leapt into action as Blob, an amorphous pile of paint hell-bent on stopping Black's inauguration and saving the day. As we were dropped into the familiar wide streets, a lone Raydian was standing defiantly before a row of tanks. It was a sobering, iconic image in what was an otherwise fun and lighthearted game, but despite the numerous homage and pop culture in-jokes, developer Blue Tongue Entertainment maintains that there's no political or social commentary agenda at play.

Our first job was to disable the black and white artillery before us. We did this with one of the new attacks at Blob's disposal--a barrage rush performed by targeting with the left trigger and tapping the right. We needed to be quite close to the enemy to land the move, but once within range, it obliterated the tank, leaving a plume of smoke in its wake. Destroying the handful of armaments opened the gates to the zone and granted access to the more free-form painting we've come to know and love.

Mission objective collection points appeared as coloured question mark balloons dotting the landscape, though you can go about your business at your own pace. You're at the mercy of the game's timer, but as was the case in the original game, it can be extended by freeing trapped Raydians and painting whole blocks of buildings. Electrified bases of buildings will drain your paint and deal damage, but by jumping to higher ground, you'll be able to paint some sections. Each paint colour is linked to a matching musical score, such as wah wah guitar, brass instruments, and DJ scratches.

Quests sent us scaling buildings using suction jump pads and scooting along skywalk platforms before unlocking a police station in need of infiltration and liberation. Once inside, the game's ordinarily 3D third-person perspective shifted into a 2D side-scroller. De Blob 2 will include more than 100 of these flatter levels, each with its own unique layout and puzzling elements to negotiate as you ride platforms and paint surfaces. Completing the challenge returns you to ground level. Targeting proved to be a slight hurdle both while indoors and out, and while you can whomp your body down on enemies to defeat them; you will need to release and then press the left trigger again to lock onto your next target. The lock snaps quickly, but it's particularly frustrating when attacking small groups, and you sustain damage while attempting to finish off the strays.

Back in the wide world, our job was to get from one built-up area to the next, travelling over water. Though perhaps not as threatening as the concept of a pit filled with chainsaw-wielding babies or acid-spitting leprechauns, it was still a precarious balancing act because the water below removed Blob's paint, returning him to a vulnerable, neutral-coloured state. The situation became considerably more frustrating when we were repeatedly mind controlled by an unseen enemy, leaving us with only a repeated button mash to regain our senses. Time and time again, we fell prey to the wet stuff below. The issue was further compounded when structures required certain colour combinations to be painted, resulting in multiple return trips to repaint sections painted before colour pots were available.

De Blob 2 is already shaping up as a worthy successor to 2008's Wii hit, bringing back all the fun of messing with paint and adding some much needed variety with its new 2D gameplay. You can get messy with it on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and DS when it splashes onto shelves on February 22 next year.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"de Blob 2 Updated Hands-On Impressions" was posted by Dan Chiappini on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:24:25 -0800

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/deblobtheunderground/news.html?sid=6283900

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Analysis: Is net neutrality good for gaming? UPDATE

A group of game developers publicly support the FCC's push for net neutrality, but what does net neutrality mean for gamers? We break down the jargon on both sides of the debate.

The FCC has been working since October of 2009 to establish "net neutrality" guidelines. In a nutshell, net neutrality means that all service providers must allow nondiscriminatory access to all lawful content and must consent to all reasonable requests regarding the disclosure of service management information to ensure that all customers receive equal broadband access.

These new guidelines follow four key freedoms established by the FCC in 2005:

Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice (subject to the needs of law enforcement.)

Nowhere in any of this are video games mentioned -- but net neutrality does have an impact on online games. Leveling the Internet playing field might have serious consequences for online latency; but at the same time, demanding transparency from all ISPs protects developers from getting slapped with unfair fees.

Here's how the debate breaks down on both sides:

The Case For Net Neutrality

Last Thursday a coalition of game developers met with FCC representatives to show their support for net neutrality guidelines and urge the FCC to prevent ISPs like Comcast from segregating the Internet based on a multi-tiered broadband price plan. The developers (among them Christopher Dyl of Turbine, who worked on Lord of the Rings Online) asserted that all modern multiplayer games have been developed for the current Internet infrastructure, and that "balkanizing" the network based on ISP preference would be "a substantial drag on innovation because it would divert resources from development" of future titles.

Without federal oversight, service providers might intentionally degrade or throttle data traffic to encourage customers to upgrade their service plan."

"All we want is transparency and protection against discrimination; if you're making or playing a game, you want to know what kind of data your ISP will block and why," says Dan Scherlis, former CEO of Turbine and producer of Asheron's Call. Speaking to GamePro, Scherlis pointed out that "without net neutrality guidelines your ISP is free to shake down developers with access fees, stalling innovation and pushing smaller games out of the market entirely."

Scherlis and other advocates of FCC regulation are encouraging gamers to support net neutrality out of a very real fear that your ISP may begin limiting access to select websites or imposing bandwidth caps in the near future. Multi-tiered service packages (in which a provider like Time Warner might offer preferential access to Internet services and increased bandwidth caps in return for higher fees) are a very real possibility without federal oversight, leading to a possible future where an ISP charging extra for the ability to play games online is just as acceptable as Microsoft charging for an Xbox Live Gold Account is today.

Without established net neutrality guidelines we also risk fragmenting the online gaming market; if service providers are free to throttle bandwidth we may soon see an Internet segregated by competing telecommunications companies. Allowing the FCC to enforce Scherlis' twin standards of transparency and equal access would prevent platform exclusivity deals like those made by Microsoft and Sony from erupting between Internet service providers like Comcast and Time Warner.

The Case Against Net Neutrality

Supporting net neutrality may seem like the obvious choice for consumers interested in open access to the Internet without fear of regulatory oversight; by deputizing the FCC to enforce a free and open Internet, consumers protect themselves from exploitation with blanket provisions against censorship. But consider that putting the FCC in charge of how ISPs do business implicitly condones Internet regulation by expressly permitting a government regulatory body to punish companies offering preferential service.

Gamers are totally unable to hold the FCC accountable for its actions, and that's a terrifying thought."

"The Internet landscape will look radically different in ten or twenty years, and we'll be stuck beneath the same regulations the FCC is currently creating," says Ryan Radia, Associate Director of Technology Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Radia told GamePro that "99 percent of Internet customers have never and will never suffer discriminatory treatment; allowing for mistakes to be made encourages innovation by helping Internet providers understand what the market is capable of."

Radia is referring to mistakes like Comcast's attempts to throttle "excessive traffic" by blocking BitTorrent data transfers without informing customers. In 2008 the FCC decided 3-2 that such throttling was illegal, slapping Comcast with the first cease-and-desist order ever issued based on net neutrality guidelines.

Such active federal oversight is precisely what the detractors of net neutrality fear, because giving the FCC jurisdiction over what is and is not fair use of the Internet may lead to more stringent regulation in the future. Most net neutrality proposals expressly forbid service providers from prioritizing data traffic based on content. "The best way to guarantee equal quality of service is to ensure providers have no incentive to keep their general service inferior," says Scherlis. "Without federal oversight, service providers might intentionally degrade or throttle data traffic to encourage customers to upgrade their service plan."

Thankfully the data traffic generated by online gaming (whether on Xbox Live, PSN, Steam or any other service) is comparatively sparse next to heavy lifters like BitTorrent downloads or streaming video; gamers only need to exchange the most basic information between client and server to ensure that all players have an accurate play experience. Unfortunately, the fast-paced nature of online gaming renders even a momentary traffic disruption or data loss blatantly obvious to a player.

"I'm a pretty hardcore gamer, and when I score a headshot I expect it to count," says Radia. "Barring ISPs from offering prioritized traffic means more delays, and gamers notice congestion much more readily than the average consumer. In the absence of net neutrality guidelines, service providers are free to experiment with competitive service plans that minimize game lag."

This spectre of game-breaking lag haunts every multiplayer experience, and developers have spent the last ten years creating multiplayer games that mitigate or eliminate data loss on an unregulated Internet. If net neutrality legislation passes and the FCC begins preventing your ISP from prioritizing select data traffic, lag may become a serious problem as gaming traffic gets pushed to the back of the bus (figuratively speaking) to make way for bandwidth hogs like BitTorrent.

Many financial conservatives and free market advocates are opposed to net neutrality laws because they interfere with the ability of a free market to self-regulate; in the absence of government oversight the invisible hand of the market will slap down ISPs who treat their customers poorly (with censorship, traffic throttling or excessive fees.) By allowing the FCC to regulate the Internet, many fear we may be eliminating a minor inconvenience today in exchange for significant government censorship in the future.

"We should be concerned when a regulatory body attempts to expand its power, no matter the reason," says Radia. "The FCC is staffed by bureaucrats and not elected officials; it means gamers are totally unable to hold the FCC accountable for its actions, and that's a terrifying thought."

UPDATE: Seven months after this story ran, Google and Verizon held a conference call to jointly announce a net neutrality proposal the companies put before the FCC. Here are the finer points:

Neither company favors paid prioritization.
Transparency is a major principle for all online services.
They view wireless (mobile) and wireline internet connections as separate entities.
The FCC should and will have clear authority in the space with the ability to impose $2 million fines on bad actors.
This is not a business deal between Google and Verizon -- just a policy push, where they hope to set an example backed by the FCC for other internet service providers to follow.

Read a liveblog of the conference call here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameProVideoGameAnalysisNews/~3/UO8gQ0bRav0/

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Tales of Graces F Hands-On Impressions

We take a trip to the forest and slay some beasts with the help of a lonely boy and his loyal friends.

Namco Bandai's Tales franchise has come a long way since it was first created in 1995. The console fantasy role-playing game series now spans 12 titles and four animated works, a celebration of anime and Japanese culture featuring a handful of charming, childlike characters that populate an array of colorful fantasy environments.

Tales of Graces is the latest title in the series, released in Japan on the Wii in December last year and coming to the PlayStation 3 later this year (named Tales of Graces F). The game follows protagonist Asbel in his quest for greater strength and wisdom (did we mention it was a Japanese RPG?), a journey we were able to share with him during our recent hands-on session with the PS3 version of the game at Tokyo Game Show 2010.

The Japanese-only demo began with a cutscene depicting our tiny heroes battling an enormous flylike creature before making a rather narrow escape. The game takes place on Efinea, a planet dominated by three kingdoms competing for the right to rule. After losing a close friend, Asbel, the eldest son of a feudal lord, enlists in a knight’s academy in his kingdom’s capital to learn to better protect those he loves. After his father’s death, Asbel takes his place as a feudal lord and the adventure begins.

As in other Tales games, Tales of Graces doesn’t use a traditional world map; rather, you journey from town to town using interconnected locations, parts of which you have to unlock to proceed. During our short demo, we travelled around in a forest locale; our path was blocked in several directions, and only by doing battle with several of the forest creatures could we unlock new directions.

Entering battles proved easy enough: We literally had to walk into the creature we wanted to fight. Although Asbel was journeying alone during our demo, once we entered a battle, we found his friends came to his aid. During battles, you can switch among these different characters using the D pad; characters come with their own individual abilities and weapons.

Because the demo was in Japanese, the battle system was a little hard to grasp. The first few battles were tutorials, where we learned the artes attack (artes being a substance used by the people of Efinea) and something called the burst attack. The game uses the SS-LMBS (Style Shift Linear Motion Battle System); in this system, each character can choose between two different fighting styles. The set of moves using artes are predetermined; however, you can also choose from another set of attacks and switch between the two in the middle of a battle. Don’t ask us how this is actually done because we couldn’t figure it out.

We did figure out that characters can free run (L2) and do a nifty 360-degree side step around enemies (square button plus the direction you want to go in). The demo was very lenient and taught us how to choose between our assigned weapons (triangle button), but once again, we got lost in the language barrier and could only work out that at least one of the weapons was a sword. As for the others, we couldn’t tell (one looked like a chess board and another looked like an ironing board, but we’re guessing that’s not correct).

As we progressed through the forest, we found the battles got harder, with more creatures to fight, and the game demanded a set number of combos to gain the experience points needed to progress. This was rather fun: The battles were not hard, and the bright colors and lighting effects made the whole thing visually pleasing.

After our demo ended, we took a sneaky look at our neighbor and saw a screen where you can assign the experience points earned to different character attributes and abilities, but we had to leave it there because the line to play the game had already stretched around the corner.

Given the Wii version of Tales of Graces sold 143, 215 units in its first week of sale in Japan, we have no doubt the PS3 version is setting the same course for success.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Tales of Graces F Hands-On Impressions" was posted by Laura Parker on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:21:37 -0700

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/wii/rpg/talesofgraces/news.html?sid=6276339

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Tales of Graces F Hands-On Impressions

We take a trip to the forest and slay some beasts with the help of a lonely boy and his loyal friends.

Given the Wii version of Tales of Graces sold 143, 215 units in its first week of sale in Japan, we have no doubt the PS3 version is setting the same course for success.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Tales of Graces F Hands-On Impressions" was posted by Laura Parker on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:21:37 -0700

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/wii/rpg/talesofgraces/news.html?sid=6276339

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Nail'd Multiplayer Hands-On

This over-the-top racer laughs at every law of physics you can dream up.

Later this month, publisher Deep Silver and developer Techland will release a game called Nail'd. It is, at first glance, a title that could suggest any number of genres. Is it a carpentry simulator? Is it a game about arresting criminals? (One can imagine a cop handcuffing someone while shouting, "Hey criminal! You got nail'd!" It helps to imagine him with a mustache.) But if you've been following our coverage of this upcoming title, you'll know that it is, in fact, an off-road racing game. More specifically, it's an off-road racing game in which realistic track design and scientifically accepted principles of physics are mere suggestions for the game to violently scoff at. With a bit less than a month to go until release, Deep Silver invited us for one last look at the game to see what players can expect out of the multiplayer side of things.

Nail'd is a game with a terrific sense of adrenaline but not necessarily a terrific sense of speed. The frame rate is solid but not great, so it doesn't quite feel like you're tearing through a track at obscene speeds. However, the ridiculous track design compensates for that and then some. Imagine if someone drew a racetrack on a flat sheet of paper and then proceeded to crumple it up. You're effectively racing inside that crumpled sheet of paper, with severe dips, harsh angles, and a mind-boggling sense of what's up and what's down. Adding fuel to the fire is a boost system that lets you trigger a temporary uptick in velocity, but it's a system that encourages driving like an utter maniac because of how the boost pickups are scattered throughout the tracks. So, in summary, Nail'd isn't exactly a simulation racer, but it doesn't suffer for that.

The game's multiplayer offering is a bit more straitlaced than its driving model. Among the handful of game modes are the likes of Simple Race, which is a basic start-to-finish contest in which the first player across the finish line takes the crown. Then there's Free Race, which gives everyone a fixed amount of time and judges the single best lap time as the winner. Then there are more objective-based modes like Stunt Challenge, which asks you to rack up the most points by using boost to get the most out of massive jumps. And finally there's Detonator, which is a mode that randomly puts a bomb on the back of your vehicle, and we're pretty sure the only way to get rid of it is to drive like even more of a maniac. Altogether, what you have is a decent mix of game modes, though it's hard to escape the feeling that Techland could have gone a little more over-the-top with the rule sets to match the eccentricity of the driving itself.

There's a nice variety to the track environments you'll be racing through. You'll compete in places such as a picturesque Mediterranean seafront, a misty wooded forest, an arctic glacier, and an active volcano. The major theme linking all these tracks is the aforementioned absurdity of the track designs, huge ramps, and numerous branching paths. In short: it's an arcade racer through and through. Come back for our review when Nail'd is released on November 30 to see if the rest of the game can live up to the ridiculous driving.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Nail'd Multiplayer Hands-On" was posted by Shaun McInnis on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:26:19 -0800

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/naild/news.html?sid=6283842

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Tales of Graces F Hands-On Impressions

We take a trip to the forest and slay some beasts with the help of a lonely boy and his loyal friends.

Given the Wii version of Tales of Graces sold 143, 215 units in its first week of sale in Japan, we have no doubt the PS3 version is setting the same course for success.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Tales of Graces F Hands-On Impressions" was posted by Laura Parker on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:21:37 -0700

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/wii/rpg/talesofgraces/news.html?sid=6276339

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Analysis: Blizzard's real problem with Real ID and the way to solve it

One week ago, Blizzard announced plans to change its forums, requiring users to post under their real names using as system called Real ID. Six solid days of backlash from its community and mass media attention later, Blizzard backed off on Real ID.

Real ID is a feature for use across all of its Battle.net network of forums. It displays a user's real name and through optional settings, other identifying details about that person (their created characters in different Blizzard games, for example). The purpose of Real ID, Blizzard says, is to bring players closer together outside of the game and to cut back on negative and inappropriate posts in the forums by removing the "veil of anonymity" from would-be trolls. Even though Blizzard now says it won't require users to post on the forums under their real names "at this time," the Blizzard Real ID site is still live.

Things are quiet now, but the Internet is still seething. Many people from World of Warcraft players to Internet historians still express a sense of betrayal and confusion at Blizzard's decision to shake up the forums. Most aren't willing to accept the original explanation Blizzard provided for the Real ID move, that the forums were a hostile place filled with flame-baiting and trolls badly in need of a purge. Some even hypothesize that Blizzard wants to introduce Real ID as part of a Facebook Connect integration strategy and that this isn't the end of the anonymity argument.

Whatever the reason for Blizzard's desire to change, it's obvious that there's a disconnect between Blizzard and its community. Join us for a closer look at the fracture point.

Howard Rheingold (pictured) teaches a course on virtual communities at Stanford University which this reporter once had the privilege to take. Speaking to GamePro about Blizzard's Real ID misadventure, the university lecturer lays out the role of anonymity in online communities.

"Now if you're in a virtual community that's about substance abuse or maybe spousal abuse, there are reasons to be anonymous for reasons of safety," he explains. "[I]n some circumstances, it's fairly clear from observation that anonymity can be toxic -- like political forums or others where people simply slander each other all day long behind the shield of anonymity."

But a game, Rheingold says, is about being invested in an alternative life. Maintaining that in-game persona and suspension of disbelief is as important to gamers as it is for a recovering drug addict to hide his struggle from potential employers. You could (and perhaps somebody at Blizzard did) argue that the forums exist outside the game world, and therefore are governed by different rules -- but something of the gamer's persona follows them to the forums and that's where the identity lines blur.

"The identity thing has to do with the separating of oneself from the critical identifiers," F. Randall Farmer says.

As a social media strategy consultant, "co-inventor of the virtual world and the avatar," and architect of half dozen virtual world platforms and dozens of virtual worlds, he's had a long time to look at the intersection between a person, their online community, and their account information. While working as an online community strategic analyst at Yahoo for a period of five years, he watched many online communities form and disband and one of the things he followed very closely was the rise of the ratings system -- something else Blizzard wants to introduce into its forums.

"I found this interesting thing that tied in with identify that was really important," he says. "We'd ask people to fill out a review of a restaurant or a movie or whatever. And there was a lot of contention about when to ask the user to log in because you had to says this review was written by such-and-such, a Yahoo user. We found that even if we asked them to complete the review before they logged in -- now that they've invested all this time -- that there was a 90% abandon rate on the login screen. When we asked them why they consistently told us the same thing: 'I didn't want to be harassed by spammers.'"

If people were willing to throw away as much as an hour's worth of work in writing a review just because they were afraid of spam -- a fairly benign irritation compared to the scathing rant of a troll -- Farmer sees it as no small wonder WoW forum users lost their proverbial minds over the possibility of having their real names appear on the site.

"When I saw the Real ID proposal, I was in complete shock," Farmer says. "That's so much more information than people were refusing to [share] on Yahoo. It's like the [controversial immigration-related] law in Arizona. Like, 'show me your papers!' when you want to post. It's changing the standards of interaction."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameProVideoGameAnalysisNews/~3/8yDQgl21Emo/

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Snoopy Flying Ace developer working on online game

Snoopy Flying Ace developer Smart Bomb Interactive is working on a browser-based flight-combat game featuring dogfights with customizable airplanes.

Published by UTV True Games, Sky Legends features biplane and triplanes. According to spokesperson Mika Kelly, Sky Legends is inspired by Smart Bomb's surprisingly successful Snoopy Flying Ace (though Snoopy isn't in the game) and "a combination of Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky and the steampunk genre." The game features multiple factions and three classes of planes, and players can also play against mercs. Items improve the planes, weapons, and pilot skills. The game's free-to-play and scheduled for the first half of 2011. Kelly says players who "spend money" can unlock weapons faster or game modes sooner as well as renting items to test them out before making a final purchasing decision.

Got any tips, corrections, or feedback? Contact GamePro's news team or follow the author on Twitter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameProVideoGameAnnouncementNews/~3/40-cAgHEttE/

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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Updated Hands-On

We tear through the Sports and Performance series events in the first Need for Speed from Burnout studio Criterion.

Need for Speed publisher EA is frank about the position of its premier racing series, that is, in the doldrums, after some recent lacklustre offerings. "We were beating up the franchise," says Patrick Soderlund, EA senior vice president. "We wanted to come back from [Need for Speed] Undercover." The decline was attributed to an unworkable one-year development cycle--"You can't make quality that way," he says--and so development duties for this latest instalment went to Criterion, the British studio behind the Burnout series.

We talk to EA's Patrick Soderlund about Need for Speed's "first real comeback."

With its racing game pedigree and a longer development period in hand, Criterion settled down to making Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which Soderlund describes as the 1998 PlayStation game (Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit) built for a new generation.

Accordingly, cops-versus-racers action is the hook, and Criterion is well suited to deliver it. The multiplayer modes centre on aggressive, top-speed, eight-driver chases, with players cast either as illegal racers or as the Seacrest County police, who are dispatched to shut them down by any means necessary--with those means ranging from barging them off the road, to spike strips, to electromagnetic pulse weapons. The career mode, on the other hand, is split between that of the racer and the police. You can independently make progress on either side, unlocking events and vehicles for each and earning the bounty you need to reach wanted level 20 (as a racer) or rank 20 (as a cop).

The racer's career is mapped out as time trials, races, duels, and hot pursuits pinpointed across West Coast USA Seacrest County--a state that conveniently spans timber forest, desert, canyon, valley, snowy mountainside, and sandy seafront. Career challenges for the police differ, adding the likes of the chase-and-takedown interceptor event. The developer has declined to go open world; locations are discrete and routes straightforward, with the occasional side route that may or may not be a shortcut.

To protect and swerve.

The game is keen to remind you it is "powered by Autolog"--an overarching social network that links your experience to that of friends, tracking your accomplishments against theirs, sharing photos, and recommending events to try. And though Autolog is the chief innovation in Hot Pursuit, it will still be the core action--that is, the actual driving--that carries the day, or not. It has been up to the task so far, with great drifty arcade handling set off by handsome environments and, as you'd hope, even better-looking cars.

As a racer in career mode, your first vehicles include the sports series' Porsche Boxster Spyder, the BMW Z4 sDrive 35is, the Mazda RX-8, and the Nissan 370Z, and then, as you progress into the performance cars of the second series, you gain access to motors such as the Maserati Gran Cabrio, the Jaguar XKR, and the Alfa Romeo 8C. As a cop, you start out with the classic Ford Crown Victoria and then graduate to a highway patrol Subaru Impreza WRX ST1 and beyond.

Before you reach the rarest and fastest cars in the uppermost series, you get a taste of what's to come in preview events. These time trials temporarily loan you one of the most exotic models: a Pagani Zonda Cinque, for starters, followed by a Porsche 911 GT3 R5, and then a McLaren F1. Hooning down a highway through a snowfield at 200-plus miles per hour in the latter makes the earliest drives feel practically leisurely. Some events in the performance series are designed specifically to showcase car types, pitting American muscle cars against each other along a desert highway, plus Italian convertibles alongside a beach, and German all-wheel drives on a stormy night on wet roads.

Risky chaser.

The familiar, Burnout-like handling is accompanied by Burnout's trademark spectacular crashes and bodywork-crumpling slow-mo instant replays. These come thick and fast in the most aggressive career events, between the feisty AI and the constant incentive to drive into oncoming traffic; your nitrous boost is refilled by slipstreaming other cars and driving in the wrong lane. Play feels agreeably accessible; the crashes, if they don't wreck you, are spectacular hiccups rather than race-losing, controller-clenching disasters.

Accessibility extends into the game's steady tick of unlocks and levelling. Though finishing a race in the top three will land you bonus experience points (bounty), these can be picked up all over the place, with encouraging onscreen pop-ups for dodging police roadblocks or nearby crashes, for reaching top speed, for wrecking a cop, and so on. That accessibility, combined with Criterion's eye for quality and detail (the eclectic soundtrack mixes Pendulum, M.I.A., Plan B, and Bad Religion), should serve it well upon launch in November. EA will be praying the studio has turned out what Soderlund calls the "first real comeback for Need for Speed."

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Updated Hands-On" was posted by Jane Douglas on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:05:12 -0700

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/needforspeedhotpursuit/news.html?sid=6283324

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