games xpose

Publisher: Capcom
Platform: PC
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Fantasy Shooter
Release Date: Jul 8, 2008

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PC gamers have to tip their hats to Capcom. With most of the company's major console releases also appearing on the PC, action fans don't need to run to a console to experience third-person action games like the upcoming Bionic Commando and the already released Devil May Cry 4. What you will need, however, is a gamepad.

We plugged in our handy Xbox 360 wired controller for some bloody Devil May Cry 4 action this week; keyboard controls are supported but this game is simply way too fast. Almost immediately--that is, after the awesome opening cutscene of the type that the DMC franchise is known for--we started slicing and dicing through hordes of evil creatures and sending them back to the darkness from whence they came, collecting proud souls in the process.



For those new to the franchise, proud souls are the glowing orbs that you are rewarded with for offing enemies with particularly nasty combos. They act as currency to upgrade your weapons and purchase additional combos. Oh, and you play as Nero, a towheaded warrior armed with his trusty Blue Rose pistol, Red Queen sword, and a demonic arm called the Devil Bringer. To really get a handle on DMC4, check out Kevin Van Ord's review of the console version that was released back in February. We're here to talk about some of the exclusive PC features.

First, there are two new modes. Turbo mode speeds up the action so you'll be sure to develop some calluses on your thumbs as you unleash combos at a ferocious pace--as if DMC4 wasn't already fast enough. The Legendary Dark Knight mode will put your gaming rig to the test because it will up the enemy count, sometimes to more than 100 foes onscreen, so be sure to sharpen your sword. Also, enemies will be located in different areas than the console version, which is a simple change of pace for those who have played DMC4 before, and a good touch if not exactly revolutionary. If your rig is struggling with all of the blood and gore, you can of course customize your graphics settings within the game or try out the new benchmark testing, a series of boss fights that test your rig to see if it's up to the challenge.

Earlier this week we blasted through one of the many boss fights, this one against a demon who thinks he's an angel. Using the Devil Bringer, we latched on to the enemy's face, jumped over his body, spun around, and then unleashed a barrage of aerial attacks followed by a few pistol blasts for good measure. A quick note: Bullets don't usually work on bosses, and they didn't help here. We dodged the demon's impossible-to-block sword attack and the giant gold spears he hurled at us, and then repeated the Devil Bringer combo attack until he was defeated in a gloriously gory cutscene that you have to see for yourself.

The experimentation of the swordplay is really the biggest draw to the combat in DMC4. Timing is everything, and a split-second difference between button presses can change a combo completely. Perfectly executed combos may initiate a deadly finishing move that is so fun to watch you'll wish your rig had TiVo.



Visually, DMC4 looks amazing. The lighting and textures improve on the game's console counterparts, and it takes advantage of the PC platform. The sweeping theatrical cutscenes run at 120 frames per second, which puts the 30fps scenes in the console version to shame. Plus, you can play it in either DirectX 9 or 10. Even though you had to wait until now to play DMC4 on the PC, kudos to Capcom for giving the PC version exclusive content and features that the platform deserves (and for only $39.99). DMC4 is slated to hit stores this July, but you can try it for yourself by

Last year saw the release of Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution, the popular orange-clad ninja's first entry into the world of Wii fighting games. Unfortunately, that particular entry wasn't the most sparkling one. What many saw as a limited cast of characters and a lack of fresh content kept the game from carving out a special place in the hearts of Naruto fans. With Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2, Tomy is aiming to right these wrongs with a new storyline and gameplay modes while delivering a larger, more balanced cast of characters.




Last year's game offered a selection of 20 characters. That number has been bumped up this time around to a portly 35. A light sprinkling of brand-new characters designed just for the game is included in that figure, but the vast majority should be familiar to fans of the series. And at the risk of sounding overly cryptic, we understand that a pair of particularly interesting characters from the show will be making an appearance, but we'll have to wait a bit longer to get firm details on that front.

Besides just adding to the roster, much of the focus this time around has been on balancing characters. The developer found many characters to be a bit overpowered last year, so now it has gone under the proverbial hood with an eye on keeping characters on a level playing field. But when playing as these fighters, you'll find that they still control much the same. The weak attack is done with a remote waggle, while the strong attack is used with the A button. Special hand signs can be done by tracing remote gestures on the screen, which help power you up. In addition, you unleash special attacks after you've built up enough chakra power, which triggers a long, dramatic cutscene in which your character does his or her thing for the camera. Similar moments of dramatic flair are shown when a fighter is knocked from one level section to another because each setting comes with the areas that can serve as battlegrounds. The number of fighting environments has also been bumped up to 15 for this go around.

The Story mode will feature 24 missions and an original plot not seen in the television show or comics. However, certain points in the story will intertwine with what fans have experienced in the series, so it won't be a completely foreign viewing experience. The Mission mode will build upon this number with 300 missions.

Visually, the game looks similar to last year's, but it has a bit more crispness, thanks to newfound support for widescreen displays and progressive scan. It's still far from the prettiest of all cel-shaded Naruto games, but the sheer speed of battles combined with the blizzard of visual effects goes a long way to compensate. We should have more on Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2, including details on the aforementioned characters and a few new gameplay modes, in the near future. In the meantime, Naruto diehards can mark their calendars for a fall release.

There's a popular adage that goes "The future is unwritten," but that doesn't necessarily mean the past is set in stone, either. Plenty of games have played fast and loose with history books to develop an alternate take on any number of bygone eras. One such game we recently had a chance to see is Damnation, a shooter that imagines what it would be like if the American Civil War extended well into the 20th century. You play as Hamilton Rourke, leader of a group of rebels fighting against a powerful industrialist named Prescott, a man who commands an army of mercenaries equipped with technology well ahead of its time.



We had the opportunity to see a demo of Damnation's introductory level, which eases you into the gameplay mechanics with a few tutorials. The first thing that becomes apparent is that Damnation isn't a pure shooter. Like Tomb Raider and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, it combines gun combat with liberal amounts of platforming. Just as often as you mow down waves of enemies, you'll be shimmying along ledges and leaping over gaps. This level, which takes place in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, introduces Blue Omega's philosophy of putting you in a wide-open area with a simple, visible goal made complicated by treacherous terrain. In this case, you see a bridge looming in the distance that you need to get to, but with a slight problem: Between you and that bridge is a seemingly bottomless chasm. You need to work your way along the outlying cliffs and through the run-down buildings that stand in the path between you and the bridge.

Rourke begins by shooting down the chains holding up a drawbridge so he can clear the first gap. Once over, his group of non-player characters spies a zip line stretching across an even larger gap. Your team needs to jump and grab the line, one by one, then slide down to the next area. Greeting you when you land is a group of Prescott's forces, soldiers with glowing masks and powerful guns that display the game's steampunk aesthetic. With the gun combat, you manually aim from the third-person perspective, using a variety of fictional weaponry that feels very futuristic for the turn-of-the-century setting. Adding a slight twist to the combat is your ability to engage a spirit vision, which temporarily allows you to sense where far-off enemies are by rendering them in a glowing red hue while desaturating everything else within view.

The space between these shootouts is filled with exploration sequences. Rourke is quite the athletic adventurer, which is good, because he has all manner of towering buildings and natural obstacles ahead of him. Beyond the usual leaping over long gaps, you'll need to perform various acts of athletic prowess, such as holding onto ledges to perform a backward jump, flipping up walls by grabbing ledges above you as you face outward, and, occasionally, just plain diving through glass windows. In our session, we didn't pick up on anything terribly revolutionary about this platforming, but the animation was slick and the level design looked intriguing. At this point, the climbing and jumping portion is looking much more compelling than the shooting.



There will also be vehicles in the game, but unfortunately, we didn't get the chance to see any of them. Another intriguing feature that was mentioned is two-player co-op. Following Rourke around is his gang of NPC allies, but at any point in the game, you can have a friend assume control of one of these characters. On the down side, it doesn't sound like there will be much interaction between players in terms of platforming. So rather than having one player give another a boost to make it over a large wall, teamwork looks to be more of the communicating and giving directions variety.

Visually, Damnation is looking nice. There's a sort of Wild West steampunk look to the characters and weapons, as well as a great sense of scale given to you as you gaze over the chasm at the beginning of the level, with the Rocky Mountains towering in the distance. The voice acting seems a little stiff at this point, but that may or may not be a product of its early stage of development. Damnation is scheduled for release later this year on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. You can expect to see more coverage as information becomes available.

Playing through Alone in the Dark, you begin to feel a creeping sensation that something is not quite right. This unease is not born of the dark, sinister plot or engendered by your unholy, malevolent foes; rather, it is spawned from the sizable rift between the game's celestial aspirations and terrestrial execution. There are a number of great elements here that are regrettably hampered by pervasive technical shortcomings. This disconnect keeps Alone in the Dark from reaching its full potential, but doesn't keep it from presenting a unique and often rewarding action adventure experience for those with the patience to stick with it.

As the gruff, amnesiac protagonist, you make your way through a disaster-struck New York City into Central Park, where you begin to unravel the many mysteries before you. One of the most intriguing and well-executed elements of this adventure is the inventory and item system. The game allows you only as many items as you can fit in your belt and jacket pockets; and, in a move that visually subverts the convention of the vast yet unseen inventory, you literally open up your jacket and look down to see what you've got. While it's never quite groundbreaking, this subversion does appear in myriad ways throughout the game, and creates the feeling that there is something novel about Alone in the Dark. You experience this feeling of novelty the first time you look down at your limbs to heal your gaping bloody wounds with medical spray, but some of the thrill will dissipate when you watch your blue jeans regenerate along with your flesh.



The limited array of items you can pick up as you move through the world belies the complexity with which they can be combined to serve your purposes. The explosive power of a plastic bottle filled with flammable liquid is obvious, but what if you wrap it in double-sided tape, stuff a bandage in it, light it, and stick it to an enemy? Then you've got a slow-burning Molotov cocktail perfect for blowing up the hive that your spidery foe is returning to. Tape a box of bullets to the bottle, chuck it at a cluster of enemies, and shoot it midair to unleash a decidedly nasty explosion. Poured out all your liquid while immolating downed demons? Grab your knife and puncture the gas tank on a car for a quick refill. There are multifarious possible item combinations, and while you'll generally stick to a select few for killing enemies (flaming bullets, midair explodables, spray-can flamethrower), the game makes you flesh out your repertoire by demanding specific actions to solve certain puzzles.

Most of the puzzles in the game involve vanquishing the evil beings that are now the main inhabitants of Central Park. Since all enemies can only be permanently offed with fire, you'll have to find a way to make them burn, baby, burn. The most straightforward method is to grab a flammable object, like a chair or a broom. Then walk over to any open flame and set fire to the object by inclining the analog stick toward the flame. Wielding the blazing object, you target your foe, set up your attack by tilting the stick in one direction, then strike by flicking the stick in the opposite direction. It's a lot of fun to smack monsters with chairs, shovels, baseball bats, tree limbs and so forth, and the analog stick actions you must perform to do so are a fun approximation of your in-game actions. Alas, this fun is hindered by finicky controls and inconsistent hit detection, so you'll often find yourself merely repositioning your weapon instead of striking, or clanging it off of a wall that you could have sworn wasn't so close.

For practical reasons, you'll end up taking on most of the evil legion with your trusty handgun. Throwing an explosive bottle and shooting it midair is a cinch, thanks to the aim assistance in the form of a glowing trajectory arc and the slow motion that kicks in whenever you throw something. Alternatively, you can pour flammable liquid on your bullets and fire flaming rounds at your foes. Sure, this combo is a bit improbable and the gun should probably explode in your face, but flaming bullets will be the keystone in your monster-battling strategy so it's best to suspend your disbelief. However, firing these babies into monsters won't kill them unless you hit their fissures. These are the livid scars left on monsters by the evil that corrupted them, and hitting them can be a real pain. Combat certainly isn't anything to write home about, but there's definitely some satisfaction to be had in scourging your enemies with flame after bashing them stupid with a heavy pipe.



The few non-combat-related puzzles are clustered early and late in the game. Some of these creative platforming sequences are part of larger, dramatic set pieces, such as your escape from a burning, collapsing building. It's generally pretty clear what path you need to take, but figuring out the necessary actions and carrying them out is still entertaining. Puzzles in which you set fire to things are particularly fun, because the fire looks gorgeous and spreads realistically while the textures on the burning wood change accordingly. The only problem comes when you need to navigate precise paths, because you aren't exactly the most nimble fellow. Since you walk like a goon, you'll sometimes have to maneuver excessively just to interact with an object. This sort of technical awkwardness is not rare in Alone in the Dark.

Maneuvering issues become particularly frustrating when you are trying to hop into a car. Once you manage this feat, you can do some neat stuff like check behind the visor for car keys or slide into the passenger seat to ransack the glove compartment. Actually driving cars is less neat, since the things handle like motorboats and will sometimes launch into the air when driving over the smallest curb. They do take damage, but they do so in such an unpredictable way that sometimes your car won't react much to bouncing off multiple trees, but the next impact will cause the hood, doors, and entire roof structure to explode off the car like a Mythbusters experiment, leaving you with a bizarro convertible.

In addition to the vast and varied Central Park, you'll also adventure through a number of well-detailed indoor environments. These are all well done, and are at their best when integrated with one of the many dramatic set pieces throughout the game. During these events the camera will often pull out to a wider angle, giving you a greater sense of scope and harking back to the fixed-camera roots of previous Alone in the Dark games. There are definitely some missteps here as well, and the dynamic lighting can sometimes turn an immersive environment into a something's-not-quite-right environment. The aforementioned fire is definitely a highlight, but sundry inconsistencies keep the visual presentation from being as stunning as it tries to be.



These visual inconsistencies carry over to the numerous cutscenes, so you'd better be ready for some for some strange hair and wonky aftereffects. Despite the occasional pop-in and imperfect facial animations, the cutscenes do a great job of adding weight to the already dramatic storyline. Playing as an amnesiac man who wakes up in the company of men who mean him harm, you manage to escape and make your way to Central Park where the dark, far-reaching story begins to unfold in earnest. The story doesn't break any new ground, but it's well scripted and provides a few intensely dramatic moments, which are enhanced by mostly on-point aftereffects that imbue them with a filmic quality. The whole game is segmented into chapters and sections so you can skip around to them as if it were a DVD, but with no replay incentives and achievements that reward not skipping, this feature will probably only appeal to folks who get stuck on a tough patch and don't mind jumping ahead. Skippers need not fear too much missed content--every play session and every skip treats you to a "previously on Alone in the Dark" segment that rehashes the pertinent story elements.

Alone in the Dark is an ambitious game that features a lot of cool gameplay and bucks a lot of gaming conventions. Unfortunately, the technical execution does not match this ambition, and the resulting roughness will prove too high a cost of entry for many gamers. Still, if you are craving a game that tries new things with a reasonable degree of success, you'll definitely be able to get some enjoyment out of Alone in the Dark.

While it may be a while before we see another Spider-Man movie, Activision and Northern California-based developer Shaba Games are teaming up to give fans of the superhero something to help pass the time, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. The new game features an original story drawn from Spidey's comic roots, which offers considerably more material to work with than a film. We visited Shaba's San Francisco-based offices to get an early look at a work-in-progress version of the Xbox 360 game to find out what sort of trouble the webhead has gotten himself into this time.



The game's original story appears to steer clear of the polarizing Brand New Day story arc that's been going on in the comics and focuses on Spidey dealing with a big mess. His arch nemesis Venom is back, and this time, the symbiote-powered villain has figured out a nasty new trick: infecting civilians to create clones of himself. Our friendly neighborhood hero is a bit slow to catch on, so before you know it, the city and its residents are under siege. The level of threat presented by the symbiote infection leads local law enforcement to call in SHIELD to help get things under control. Unfortunately, the counterterrorism and intelligence agency's solution is a mixed blessing: Manhattan is quarantined and cut off from the outside world, leaving those inside to fend for themselves. The good news is New York is fairly overflowing with heroes (and more than a few villains); the bad news is recent events have left the city in chaos resulting in a hefty "to do" list for Spidey. To save the day, Spidey will have to assist SHIELD in evacuating the uninfected, as well as work with both heroes and villains to fend off the symbiotes. He'll also have track down Venom and figure out how to undo the symbiote infection running rampant. If all that wasn't enough, Spidey has a bit of extra incentive to deal with the symbiote infection problem: He's been reinfected himself. While this makes for an epically bad day for Spidey, it's fertile ground for the game's premise.

Shaba reps gave us a look at a handful of sequences in our demo to give us an idea of what to expect from the game. The first part of our demo was set in Harlem and found Spidey helping Power Man, aka Luke Cage, defend the neighborhood. The sequence saw Spidey taking on ordinary thugs, as well as destroying cars as part of the mission. One of the key elements to the fighting was Spidey's ability to switch between his standard red and blue outfit to the black symbiote suit on the fly. While the mechanic is similar to the system seen in the Spider-Man 3 movie game, wearing the black suit doesn't have an immediate negative result. Instead, the effect of wearing the suit is cumulative--it will affect how civilians, heroes, and villains will perceive you, as well as interact with you. So, for example, depending on how you've been playing, villains may be more open to partnering with you than heroes or vice versa. From what we saw, the system is along the lines of the morality system in KOTOR although not as set in stone. You should be able to switch which way you lean pretty easily. Besides the moral implications, each suit will have its own unique specialty. The red and blue suit is speedy, featuring assorted web-based attacks, while the black suit is slower but packs devastating power.

As far as combat goes, Shaba was intent on giving the action in Web of Shadows a very fluid and graceful feel, much like Spidey moves in the comics. The battle we saw certainly looked the part with Spidey swinging or leaping around his enemies and coming at them from various angles. Switching between the suits was quick and changed the look of combat. For example, the black suit isn't as big on leaping around as it is on smashing and using tendrils to knock people around. Shaba's variation on Spidey's extrasensory "spider sense" is a way to track enemies by coloring threats in red, while keeping tabs on civilians and helpful characters by coloring them in blue. You'll be able to lock your view on specific enemies, which then makes all your movement relative to their position. From what we saw, this seems to work well for combat, although we're curious to see how the camera behaves in mob-heavy combat.

The next part of our demo showcased another combat type in Web of Shadows: building combat. The levels tasks Spidey with protecting SHIELD forces, who are attempting to airlift survivors out of the city from Venom's symbiotes shambling up the side of the building. The action got crazy as Spidey leapt up and down the sides of the building, fighting the climbing mobs of symbiotes. During this segment, Shaba reps pointed out the game's robust combo system, which uses an onscreen DMC style meter that rates your skills based on how many uninterrupted hits you can get on all your enemies. The longer your combo, the more experience orbs you'll earn. The upgrades will go toward powering up your moves as opposed to granting you all new ones.



The final demo showcased a boss fight with the Vulture, which had Spidey racing after the airborne villain. Given the Vulture's greater mobility in the air, Spidey made constructive use of all the airborne minions zipping around the battle zone. This appears to be due, in part, to the game's swing system, which is based on Spider-Man 3's system and requires you to latch Spidey's webs onto something. However, Web of Shadows looks to be more forgiving and your web will be able to latch onto ample spots.

The sequences we saw looked solid, and we're pleased to see some familiar faces from the Marvel universe popping up. Shaba reps stated that the game will feature an eclectic cast of heroes and villains, some of which have never appeared in a Spider-man game before. How you interact with them will vary based on your current alignment in the game. In some cases, you'll team up; in others, you'll fight. We're curious to see how the game's roster of faces shapes up, given the dearth of options from the comic. This also seems to ask for a multiplayer mode of some kind, but sadly, that's not in the cards as Web of Shadows is single-player only. However, to ensure it's a meaty single-player experience, Shaba is tucking in a host of unlockable content and collectibles to find strewn about the massive virtual Manhattan that you'll be roaming around in throughout the game.

The visuals in the work-in-progress 360 game we saw were shaping up to be in line with what you'd expect. Manhattan looks sharp and populated with a respectable draw distance. The buildings and assorted structures throughout the town create a nifty jungle gym on which you'll be able to swing and fight. The pedestrian and vehicle traffic we saw was a little thin, but we reckon that's to be expected given the premise. Spider-Man is looking good although a bit small in relation to the massive city structures. The supporting cast of characters is about what you'd expect in terms of quality. Big names out of the comics, such as the Vulture and Power Man, are on par with Spidey in terms of detail, while the assorted grunts we saw were a few cuts below. Although it's still in development, Web of Shadows ran at a steady clip and featured some glitzy special effects for Spidey's on-the-fly suit changes, as well as the various attacks they could perform. The game's art style skews a bit older, along the lines of the movie games, as opposed to last year's Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, which skewed pretty young.



Audio in our demo spanned a range, given the game's work-in-progress state. Spidey is as quip-y as ever, doling out one-liners at a fast pace. The Vulture also sounded suitably menacing during the standard prefight villain rant. We also heard quite a bit of work-in-progress pedestrian and SHIELD personnel chatter. Outside of that, the action was complemented by a range of effects for Spidey's attacks. We also heard bits of the game's score, which is coming together well and has a movie soundtrack feel to it.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is looking like a promising action game featuring the webslinging hero. While we have a decent amount of questions around control, camera, and cast, the core gameplay seems to be pure Spidey. You'll be able to swing like a champ, web baddies, and take on villains--which is pretty much what you'd want to do as Spider-Man. Look for more on Web of Shadows in the coming months. The game is slated to ship this fall for the DS, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, and Xbox 360.

From a blind man's perspective, the Wii version of The Incredible Hulk is a mirror image of its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 counterparts. You control the giant green monster in a free-roaming, fully destructible version of New York City. The repetitive missions and devil-may-care structure make the transition intact, letting you wreak havoc on the streets if you feel like shirking your duty to save the city. Though the core mechanics are identical, what little fun that could be had by mindlessly terrorizing the people of New York has been lost in translation. The rudimentary graphics and cumbersome controls eradicate even the simple joys of causing massive chaos. By trying to cram the same sandbox experience onto a system with far less power, the Wii version loses what little charm The Incredible Hulk had. This abject mess should be avoided by even the most diehard comic-book fans.

The story shows Hulk's evolution from local monster who everyone wants out of their precious city to the lesser-of-two-evils abnormality who saves New York from an even greater threat. Half of the cutscenes are told through static screens featuring just a tape recorder and Edward Norton's tired voice, whereas the other half are poorly rendered cinematics that show barely recognizable versions of the stars from the movie. It's hard to get immersed in this tale of alienation and redemption when the actors sound so disinterested in the proceedings.



The visuals in Hulk are absolutely atrocious. The comically archaic draw-in and pop-up from the other versions are even more pronounced here, hindering not only your visibility but your fun as well. When you climb a building and look at the city beneath you, there is nothing but thick fog engulfing everything. It's often impossible to judge how far you must jump to land on the next building because you can't see it, which saps the fun of bounding around the city. When you're walking at ground level, people and cars will pop into view right in front of you and mysteriously disappear when they leave your sight. There is also a lot of clipping going on. You can toss cars straight through buildings, and you'll see Hulk's arm go clean through the backside of enemies, causing no damage. At other times, you'll reach out to grab an object that lies in front of you and it will vanish right before your eyes.

The thriving city that made the other versions fun in short bursts seem to have been overrun by a life-ending plague here. Streets are often completely empty. Where an abundance of cars and people once fled in terror, there are now only a few people and the occasional car lining the streets. The idea of rampaging around a virtual New York City is enticing, but when the population seems to have disappeared, it kills one's desire. It's boring destroying a city if no one even cares.

The control scheme has also made the transition to the Wii, but in a severely crippled state. There aren't enough buttons to properly mimic the layout from the other versions, so you'll have to go through some painstaking steps to pull off your full repertoire. For example, sprinting is executed by holding down the B button on the Wii Remote and the Z button on the Nunchuk, a less-than-intuitive scheme. Even more cumbersome are the super moves, which you'll have to use quite often. Here, you'll have to call up the move of your choice (healing, thunderclap, ground slam, or rampage) by scrolling with the directional pad, then frantically shaking the Nunchuk to charge it up, and finally hitting B to unleash it. Trying to pull off one of these techniques in the heat of battle is extremely impractical.



The camera controls are also awful. You can use the C button to center your view. If you hold it, you can lock on to enemies, which you will need to do if you want any sort of accuracy in your throws. However, the lock-on is completely broken. Not only does it take a solid second before it will recognize that an enemy is in your sights, but the game also quickly loses track of foes if you are attacked or if they move too quickly. If you want to freely move your camera, you'll have to hold the minus button and use the pointer. This method is so imprecise that it's hard to even keep up with an injured pedestrian who is slowly limping past your view. Trying to quickly find a fast-moving enemy or a power-up while falling off a building is nearly impossible. And there is no option to use the Classic or GameCube controller. You're stuck with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combo, and it's clunky and unresponsive.

The story missions aren't loaded with variety, but there are some minigames and statistics-based feats to add a surprising amount of replay value if you somehow get sucked in. There are a number of unlockable Hulk skins to strive for, and you can earn more-powerful versions of your moves along the way. It is rather shocking that not only can you knock down famous New York landmarks, but that you're also actually rewarded for doing so. It's darkly satisfying to destroy Stark Tower or the Empire State Building; it's just unfortunate that the city doesn't react when you raze these structures. Hearing Tony Stark shouting an angry threat at the beast that toppled his home would have given some weight to these unforgivable destructions. Strangely, the Wii version doesn't have all of the landmarks from the other versions. For instance, the Bear Stearns Building is physically located in the game, but it isn't listed by name, and you won't be rewarded with a Landmark token when it's torn down. All told, there are 35 landmarks in the Wii version and 50 in the others.

The Wii version of The Incredible Hulk is a travesty. What little fun that could be had in the other versions of this game has been destroyed here, only to be replaced with glitchy graphics that won't even let you see the city, unwieldy controls that are neither responsive nor intuitive, and a desolate city that somehow makes destruction boring. Stay far away from this game.

Icebreakers are not known for their comfort. With their hulls designed to crush through seasonal ice to keep important trade routes open, icebreakers are constantly lurching and known to roll even in moderate swells. As if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, developer Action Forms has added dead bodies and abominable snowmen to the North Wind, the nuclear-powered icebreaker that serves as the setting for the upcoming Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason.



It's 1968 and the North Wind is trapped in the ice near the Soviet arctic station Pole 21. Meteorologist Alexander Nesterov is stranded on the ship--how he got there, we have no idea. Along with his standard talent as a meteorologist for predicting the weather in the Arctic (100 percent chance of cold), Nesterov is also able to sense the memories of the dead. And of the dead, there are plenty--12 crew members have died on board the North Wind, and Nesterov is in a unique position to enter their memories to set things right.

When Nesterov approaches one of the dead crew, he triggers a mental echo--a flashback of the final moments of the crewman's life. We saw one crewman who had an unfortunate fight with a shipping crane and, well, the crane won. During the mental echo, Nesterov sprinted to the crane control to move the deadly hook away from the crewman. You don't actually go back to save his life, but the spirit is sufficiently moved by your actions in the mental echo to help you solve the mystery onboard the North Wind and, then, go on to rest in peace.

Resources are scarce on the North Wind. We found a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition, but mostly, we had to rely on an ice axe or our mitts to fend off the creatures that inhabit the ship. Somehow, the North Wind has become infested with monsters--monsters that don't like you. One giant mummy creature tried to off us with an axe of his own, and later, another ice monster hurled blocks of ice at us.

In order to survive, you'll have to stay warm. There are pockets of heat scattered throughout the North Wind, from steam pipes to smoldering fires, which can be used to stabilize your body heat, displayed in the lower left corner of the screen. If you lose enough body heat, you won't even be able to perform the simplest of tasks. We futilely tried to open a door for five minutes before a developer kindly walked over and explained the body heat system.



Set in such a creepy atmosphere--a blend of The Thing, The Sixth Sense, and BioShock-- Cryostasis is poised to offer plenty of scares when it's released in 2009. We suggest you bundle up.

Though the Battlefield series has always been known as one of the leaders of multiplayer military warfare, the newest console edition, Battlefield: Bad Company, comes packed with a complete single-player campaign as well. As the name suggests, you are part of a company, Company B, and it's your job to quell the seemingly never-ending stampede of evil enemy soldiers. After playing through the first five levels of the campaign, we come bearing impressions on the transition to single-player combat.

The most noteworthy element in Bad Company's campaign is the sheer destructive ability your weapons carry. Ancient deciduous forests come crashing down with the blast of machine-gun fire, changing the face of battlefields midbattle. The ever-changing aspect of battle adds a level of chaos to the proceedings, and because you can't interact with trees once they've been uprooted, hiding from enemies becomes a quest to find more-permanent cover rather than a tactic of simply hunkering down and waiting out the storm.



The destructive element comes into play away from forests, too. You can also level buildings, though they require a slightly more powerful weapon--grenades--which you can throw against walls and through windows to expose cowering soldiers. Unfortunately, the buildings combust in a predetermined way; we encountered one instance where a gas tank positioned in a corner tore down one wall when ignited, but left another standing strong. Still, even though we couldn't bring buildings all the way down, we could reduce them to little more than freestanding staircases and untrustworthy floors.

Aside from the standard array of military weapons, we were given a few tools that made wanton destruction the most logical strategy for disposing of enemy forces. There are C4 explosives, which can be used not only to destroy objectives (such as a missile launcher), but to destroy enemy tanks and annoyingly placed buildings as well. But even more enjoyable than C4 is the mortar strike. Though our commanding officer told us to use this extremely powerful device to dispose of tanks and other enemy vehicles that are difficult to destroy with normal weapons, we found it more fun to use against ground troops and any object we felt should be razed. Instead of being given a finite number of uses like with the C4 bombs, we only had to wait for the time bar to refill before we could unleash another attack from above. It may be unsporting, but it's so satisfying to blow up one stranded soldier with a weapon designed to decimate a bridge.

The oddest quirk in the campaign is how healing is handled. Unlike many other shooters out there, Bad Company doesn't allow your character to automatically regenerate health. But it does have another method that, when used properly, made us virtually invincible: We could jab a long needle into our character's chest whenever he neared death. There is no limit to how often you can use this important device, save for a brief timer between uses. Like the air strike controller, a time bar refilled whenever we healed ourselves. Bolstered by our speedy recovery, we found ourselves running into battle with our gun put away and the needle out, absorbing bullets the whole time, then thrusting the needle into our chest and finally knifing enemies when we reached them. Combined with the unrelenting destruction, it made for a fast-paced, action-oriented spin on a military shooter.

Anyone expecting a multiplayer-heavy game with a shallow single-player campaign tossed in will be pleasantly surprised by Bad Company. There is real depth here, and with the camaraderie of your fellow soldiers pushing the story, it makes for a riveting journey through a desolate world. With a sprawling combat zone in which you can choose your own path to destroy enemies and well-designed sound that brings the horrors of war right into your living room, Bad Company is something those hungry for military action should keep their eyes on.

Few series are as primed for a primer as Metal Gear. Since its beginning two decades ago, Hideo Kojima's creations have taken more surprising twists and turns than a snake in a spin cycle. On top of that, the last game in the series to hit store shelves, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, was a prequel; it's been seven years since a Metal Gear Solid game actually dealt with Solid Snake's timeline!

Of course, Franchise Player is here to help you slip seamlessly into Snake's skin with a brief rundown of the story, character dossiers, and a glossary of terms. Also, be sure to check out the video for a brief review of the series' central themes; though faces, names, and even decades have changed from one game to the next, these have always remained the same.

X-ray specs reveal bony facts, and that is precisely what this solid eye of a feature intends to do for you. But is this the work of a trustworthy and socially awkward gaming journalist or the diabolical machination of an AI construct intended to bend your memories to its wicked will? Only one thing is certain: It is full of codes. But are they the truth or lies in disguise?




The Story

The story of Metal Gear is extremely simple. OK, that is definitely a lie. But for the sake of sparing you several thousand words (that you'd be better off playing through anyway), it will be put as simply as possible. The overarching conflict in the Metal Gear Solid games is between a man named Snake and a war machine known as Metal Gear. Now, you might argue that the conflict is really between Snake and the villains who seek to use the walking tanks for world domination. But one could counter that the destructive spirit inspiring all of these evil-doers is the omnipotent, missile-launching Metal Gear. It drives them as much as they drive it.

And what drives Snake? Loyalty? Love? Duty? Or is he just following orders? Rather than psychoanalyze him too much (although we see that he likes Castlevania!), let's briefly go over the story so far. The Metal Gear timeline actually begins in Metal Gear Solid 3, where Naked Snake is trying to save the world from his former mentor, The Boss, and a sociopath named Volgin. Naked Snake succeeds only to discover that The Boss wasn't bad after all -- she was ordered to die a traitor. Even though Naked Snake earns the title of Big Boss for his heroics, it seems clear that the death of The Boss has broken his heart. Between this and the original Metal Gear, two things happen: Big Boss decides following orders isn't all it's cracked up to be, and three children are cloned from his genes. One of those becomes Solid Snake.

This brings us to the first Metal Gear, which came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. Solid Snake is working for Big Boss as an agent of an organization known as FOXHOUND. Big Boss orders Snake to destroy a Metal Gear (big scary walking tank) and rescue another agent named Grey Fox. Things go well, until it turns out that the Big Boss is actually the bad guy in control of Metal Gear. He only put Solid on the case because he thought his lack of experience would blow the mission. Instead, Solid blows up the Metal Gear. In Metal Gear 2, Big Boss returns with Grey Fox at his side, but Solid Snake defeats them both and stops Metal Gear yet again. Metal Gear Solid takes place after these events, when another one of Big Boss's cloned kids, Liquid Snake, reforms FOXHOUND and takes over a nuclear facility on Shadow Moses Island. Snake shows up, finds out he has a bad virus, fights a ninja, blows up Metal Gear, punches out Liquid, and rescues a girl soldier named Meryl.

In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a previously unheard of agent named Raiden attempts to rescue the president of the United States from a group known as The Sons of Liberty. Things get hairy, though, when it turns out that the President is also a clone of The Big Boss. His name is Solidus, and he has rocket shooting tentacles and a sword. Solidus reveals to Raiden that he is the leader of the Sons of Liberty and that the world is actually controlled by illuminati known as the Patriots. Also, he's Raiden's father. Kind of. Meanwhile, Liquid Snake's severed right arm somehow manages to take over the entire body of a gunslinger named Revolver Ocelot, which he uses to carjack a Metal Gear prototype and escape.

And now, in Metal Gear Solid 4, you reassume the role of Solid Snake as he attempts to prevent Liquid Ocelot from taking over the world with a huge mercenary army. Unfortunately, you're dying from early onset old age, and you're full of nano machines that probably aren't under your control.

EA's first survival horror game, Dead Space, certainly isn't scared of lavishing on the gore. In fact, the game is so violent that we half-expect to see the disc dripping with blood once it ships this Halloween. Having just hit alpha, the developers have three months left to apply the final touches and then polish it all up for release. Thankfully, it's already shaping up as one of the most visually stunning games of the year, with an engine that promises to deliver the kind of scares that fans demand. Visiting London from its development home in Redwood Shores, the team showed us chapter two from the game and was kind enough to answer our questions as we played.

As the name suggests, Dead Space has a distinctly sci-fi theme--a setting that's in stark contrast to the sleepy towns of most survival horror games. The visual design is clearly influenced by such films as Event Horizon and Alien, as well as even recent video games, such as Mass Effect. However, unlike BioWare's space opera, you'll be alone for the vast majority of time in Dead Space. You play as Isaac, an engineer sent to repair a mining vessel used to farm foreign planets for essential resources. It doesn't take long for Isaac to realise that something's gone horribly wrong, though, and the ship has been overrun by an alien race called necromorphs.



Since he's an engineer, Isaac's fairly limited when it comes to weaponry, but his mining tool certainly comes in handy. The combat hinges on enemy dismemberment, and you'll have to target different areas of your enemies in order to take them down. Isaac's mining tool can be adjusted to shoot energy bolts both horizontally and vertically, which was effective enough to tear an arm or a leg off of most enemies we encountered. As with most survival horror games, ammunition is fairly limited, but you can physically smash enemies in the face if they get too close for comfort. There are other options too, though; we saw a particularly cool weapon in our demonstration where Isaac lowered himself on the ground and raised a weapon that fired bullets in a spiral motion. It was an undeniably cool weapon to clear a room with, though it may have had a strange John Woo feel to it.

While there was a great deal of combat in the level we played, there's set to be plenty of puzzle-solving as well. At the beginning of chapter two, we met a wounded woman who offered us a telekinesis attachment for our space suit. Attaching it to our wrist allowed us to pick up objects and move them around in midair, much as you did with Half-Life 2's gravity gun. Isaac also has the ability to slow down time, which can be a useful way of escaping enemies or solving certain puzzles. One example was a broken door mechanism, which was causing a huge steel door to rapidly open and close. The EA representative laughed at our first attempt at the puzzle because we used telekinesis to lift a dead person and place him in the way of the door. The answer, as it turned out, was to slow down time and run through before the mechanism crushed us to death.

Speaking of death, Dead Space has some absolutely gruesome animations with which to kill Isaac. The team showed us how necromorphs can overpower Isaac at close range, and you have to tap one of the face buttons to try to fend them off. Some of these animations are very impressive--Isaac will drop-kick smaller enemies through the air, but he has to wrestle the larger ones as they take chunks out of his flesh. Isaac's health system is displayed on the back of his suit, and if it gets too low, the enemies will be able to simply tear him limb from limb. Some necromorphs will repeatedly impale you with their claws before ripping your head off, while a larger enemy called Boss the Hunter will just tear you clean in half.

While we don't know too much about the history of the necromorphs, it's clear from a few encounters that they're capable of turning humans into one of their own. As we entered the medical deck, a necromorph dropped from a vent and proceeded to attack a human lying on an operating table. The human, then, transformed into a hideous creature and proceeded to break through the glass to attack us. Thankfully, by that point, we'd found weapons, such as pistols, and were able to slow him down by shooting at his legs before delivering a final shot to the head.



Dead Space is an amazing-looking game, both technically and artistically. Using a custom-built engine, the environments and lighting effects are perfect for a survival horror game. A few artistic flourishes also really add to the atmosphere. The inventory system is particularly noteworthy because it's projected alongside Isaac as a 3D display. It's a striking depiction of the technology of the future because you can pan the camera round and see the menu as if it physically existed. With such a unique visual design, it's no wonder that a comic series is being penned while an animated movie will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray around the same time as the game.

The game also seemed to be running well on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3--this being the first time we've seen it running on Sony's system. If there were a lot of enemies onscreen, things did start to slow down, but that's an area the team expects to concentrate on now that it's hit alpha. A very cool feature that we got to see was the zero-gravity system, which will allow Isaac to walk upside down in the ship. You can walk on metallic surfaces, thanks to your magnetic boots, but you can also disengage and jump across to other platforms. Some other puzzles will revolve around limited oxygen supplies in which you'll have to pass through parts of the ship where the airlock has been broken. The developers are keeping quiet about other environments at this stage, but we hope to see more than just the mining ship USG Ishimura in the finished game.

Dead Space is looking very impressive, and with three months of development left, we're confident that EA Redwood Shores can polish the game even further. Both the developer and the publisher may be new to survival horror, but that lack of experience looks to have given EA a completely fresh approach to the genre. We're excited to see how it all turns out, but we'll no doubt see more of Dead Space in the coming months. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more news as we get it.

We take a stroll through each of the Xbox 360's new maps.

The road to Unreal Tournament 3 has been an interesting one for Xbox 360 owners. Not only have they had to gaze with green-eyed longing at the PC and PlayStation 3 versions available since late last year, they've also had to endure a storm of uncertainty regarding the possibility of user-generated mods existing on the Xbox. While that particular question still remains unanswered, at least those patient 360 owners can look forward to seeing some new content when the port finally arrives this summer. The most substantial addition to UT3 on the Xbox has to be the five new maps being offered. Like a travel guide with a Bio Rifle instead of a map, we recently spent some time in these new environments to see what they're all about.



First on the itinerary is Rails. This map is designed for use in the Vehicle CTF game mode. It's a giant level featuring a wide assortment of vehicles to choose from. Your selection isn't just limited to the Raptors and Mantas other levels offer. No, the big twist here is the pair of rail tracks from which the map derives its name. Each base is connected by these tracks, giving you the ability to sit on a mobile turret and cruise from one end of the level to other while shooting anyone in sight. You don't move very quickly on these turrets, so when you're sitting on the thing you tend to become a pretty easy target. To make up for that, the cannons pack a real punch. The setting has a very Gears of War feel to it, a postapocalyptic urban wasteland that feels simultaneously futuristic and classically European. There are lots of alternate routes through demolished buildings and a river bisecting the level that you can actually swim across if you're up to the task.

Another new map exclusive to the Vehicle CTF mode is Suspense Necris. As the name suggests, this one is an alternate take on the Suspense map already seen in prior versions of Unreal Tournament 3. The difference here is that the map is set following the Necris invasion, so the whole place looks quite a bit different. What began as a level set in a deep canyon with a flowing river and a massive bridge acting as the primary route from one base to another is now in ruins. The river has mostly dried up, chunks of the bridge have gone missing, and rather unfriendly tentacles crawl ominously in the distance. Downtown Necris, a map designed for the Warfare mode, takes on a similar look. It maintains the dense urban feel of the Downtown map, but with an unpleasant, ripped-apart look to it. Both of these alternate maps feature Necris vehicles rather than the Axon fleet the originals have.

The other two maps are both set in frozen climates with more than enough snow and icy water to go around. Cold Harbor is a Warfare map featuring one base set on a seaside harbor and another at the top of what could practically be considered a ski slope. From the outside, the map doesn't look particularly big, but when you begin to explore you'll find a cavernous docking bay leading to numerous underground passageways and elevators that will save you the trouble of traversing the steep, snowy hill. This one is probably our favorite of the bunch. The sheer brutality of the hill gives the map a unique feeling the others don't have.

Finally, there's the other cold-weather map, Koos Barge. As a simple deathmatch or team deathmatch map, it's the smallest of the group. The entirety of the map consists of a single freight ship out at sea. In the distance you'll see other boats bobbing up and down and the faint outlines of snowy mountains. This boat has two levels where you can fight: down in the holds among the shipping crates, and up top on the deck. It's generally to your advantage to stay on top, because while you can jump down below from nearly any location, those stuck below have only a few options to make their way up to the deck. In our experience, we had the most success just hanging out on the deck and picking off everyone down below.

Other new additions to the 360 version include a pair of new characters--a Ronin named Kana and a Liandri named Nova--and the ability to play in split-screen both online and offline. And then there's the downloadable content Epic released for the PC and PlayStation 3 versions, which will all be included in this go-around. You can expect to see Unreal Tournament 3 released July 7.

We explore the first few missions of this oft-delayed but still explosive sequel.

With a career that involves negotiating with warlords and avoiding a near-constant hailstorm of bullets, mercenaries live by a simple but reassuring motto: "Everybody pays." But occasionally, a client will fail to abide by this creed. That's when things turn sour and business partners become enemies. So begins Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, the sequel to a game that earned critical acclaim for its unabashed focus on sandbox mayhem and real-world political themes. We were recently able to play our way through a handful of Mercenaries 2's introductory missions. While brief, it was enough time to see that the formula that made the first game so appealing has been preserved nicely despite the 14,000 kilometer move from North Korea to Venezuela.


The first mission in Mercenaries 2 finds you working for a mysterious but undeniably charming man named Ramon Solano. He's asked you to rescue a military officer who's recently been taken captive by some of the renegade troops running around this fictionalized Venezuela. You start out the mission in style: cruising through the open seas on a speedboat. Pandemic has decided to introduce you to your newfound ability to hit the sea from the get-go because, perhaps, these new maritime vehicles will become a common sight in the game. The world map, which is said to be 8x8 kilometers in size with a 2.5 kilometer draw distance, is covered by a hefty amount of open sea. When not running through condensed versions of such major Venezuelan cities as Maracaibo, Caracas, and Valencia, you'll be bouncing through the waves in between the game's several islands.

After navigating your way through a narrow passageway of seaside cliffs, you'll wind up in a calm bay isolated from the dangers of the high sea. But it's not isolated from soldiers armed to the teeth with assault rifles, so just as you step off the boat, you'll immediately need to engage in some heavy warfare. From here, it's the familiar Mercenaries style of run-and-gun combat. Those who've spent much time with this year's other big sandbox game, Grand Theft Auto IV, may find themselves instinctively reaching for the cover button. But unfortunately, a cover system is not one of the features Pandemic has added to Mercenaries 2. With heavily destructible environments operating under the Havok physics engine, Pandemic decided it wouldn't make much sense to give you the opportunity to hide behind objects that would just get blown up anyways. Still, in our time with the game, we felt like we could really use it.

But one thing Pandemic has decided to work toward is--to quote creative director Cameron Brown--the "world's biggest explosion." A lofty goal, to be sure. And while that may be pie-in-the-sky thinking, you can really get a sense of Pandemic's dedication to ramping up the chaos that made the first Mercenaries so appealing. Even in this first mission, we were given the opportunity to call in an airstrike when met with a tall, stone gate. Once you've unlocked everything there is to get, you'll be able to call in airstrikes using the likes of daisy cutters, manually laser-guided bombs, tactical nuclear bombs, and even a little number called the Mother of All Bombs--or MOAB for short.

Once we got past this gate, it was time to hijack a jeep. We could have had the chance to test out the new Quick-Time Event minigame required to hijack a nearby tank were it not for the fact that our poorly aimed airstrike took out the gate in addition to the tank. But no matter--we were off and on our way, still on the lookout for that captured officer. Cruising through the windy dirt roads of mountainous Venezuela, we ran into several pockets of armed soldiers. Eventually, we found a shanty town up in the hills, divided several times over by a series of switchback roads crossing through the village. Rather than take the road, we decided to test out the destructible environments by putting these shacks in an unfair fight against our jeep. Sadly, the shacks lost. But it's not just the shanty towns that can be taken down. Later in the game, when you make your way to the big city, you'll be able to knock down entire buildings. The explosions in the game look really nice, too. From the sweltering fire effects to the way buildings topple over rather than burst into pieces, the attention paid to making the environment more fun to destroy seems to have worked out well.

Finally, we found our man. The officer, Carmona, was being held in an underground jail cell. We managed to rescue him and bring him back to Solano. But unfortunately, Solano's idea of a reward is to have you killed. He'd been planning on staging a coup to assume control of Venezuela, and with you having just Ramboed your way though scores of armed soldiers, he sees you as a potential threat down the line. But just as the gun is drawn, you take off running and manage to escape no worse for the wear--except for the bullet lodged in your posterior. This opening sequence plays out a little differently depending on whether you choose Mattias, Chris, or Jennifer, but the basic gist is the same: You've been wronged and now you're out for vengeance. This tale of revenge is one of the themes Pandemic has added to the storyline to give it a personal touch rather than having you play the cold-blooded mercenary who's only out to get paid.

In the next mission, you need to find a center of operations. You then kill two birds with one stone by ambushing one of Solano's estates to take it over. While racing to this location, you may discover a few things about the roads: There aren't many pedestrians because most of the locales are occupied military zones and the few there are can't be run over without losing money. It isn't terribly grisly when you do run someone over. This seems to fall in line with Pandemic's focus on exaggerated, over-the-top violence to help maintain the Teen rating for which it is aiming.



But eventually, you'll get your compound and start on a journey that will align you with several warring factions in a war-torn Venezuela that's just about ready to fall apart at any moment. In our demo, we really enjoyed the scope of the new setting. The visibility was surprisingly in terms of distance, especially from elevated terrain. While the visuals displayed some hiccups common in unfinished builds, the actual explosions and demolitions looked great. We'll be looking forward to future coverage so we can further explore the diverse Venezuelan terrain--not to mention some of the more intriguing new features like the ability to create your own private military company and online co-op.

Mercenaries 2 is scheduled for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and PlayStation 2. The primary difference among them--besides the obvious visual disparity--is that the PlayStation 2 version will not support co-op multiplayer like the current-gen versions. You can expect to see the game arrive on August 31.

The sequel to Relic Entertainment's ultraviolent and fast-paced real-time strategy game will offer hard-hitting action and a character-driven story you might expect from a role-playing game.


Preview

Publisher: cdv Software Entertainment USA
Platform: PC
Developer: Ascaron Ent. GmbH
Genre: Action Role-Playing
Release Date: September 2008

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Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is big. If you were to walk from one end of Ancaria to the other, without stopping to collect gold, talk to villagers, or slay pesky goblins, it would take six hours. There are 22 square miles of forest, desert, tundra, volcano, swamp, and island to explore, and that's not even counting the vast network of underground dungeons inhabited by giant monsters that fill your entire screen. Yes, size is important to publisher CDV, as it looks to create an action role-playing game so massive that it will break free of its PC roots and entice console players to get in on the hack-and-slash action made famous by Diablo.



Set to be released later this year on the PC and Xbox 360 with the possibility of another "major console," said CDV, Sacred 2 takes place 2,000 years before the original Sacred. Although there are six playable classes and hundreds of different quests, the basic story is this: Angelic seraphim have been charged with watching over the ancient land of Ancaria. Pleased by the progress of the ancient elves, the seraphim decided to share their secrets of T-energy with the elves. T-energy is the source of all life; it binds us and penetrates us...you know the deal. In a selfish bid to collect all of the T-energy, a faction of elves shattered the harmonious balance of life in Ancaria. Naturally the seraphim that decided to share the T-energy with these greedy elves is in a spot of trouble, and the angelic creature is dispatched from the heavens to right what was wronged. Fallen angel...get it?

We met with CDV and got our hands on Sacred 2 from the beginning. Although playing through the game as a sexy angel is enticing, we opted to jump into Ancaria as the shadow warrior class. The shadow warrior was once a proud soldier, decorated in battle, but was unnaturally raised from the dead against his will. It's understandable that the shadow warrior is grumpy--we don't like getting woken up during naps, let alone eternal slumber. We had only about an hour with the game, so we didn't have enough time to guide the shadow warrior back to the afterlife, but we do know that the six classes' campaigns will take roughly 25 hours to finish each, and that's without playing the hundreds of extra side quests. We did have enough time, however, to summon a pair of skeletal undead warriors to our side in battle to beat up on lowly goblins.

In addition to the seraphim and shadow warrior, you can choose a high elf, dryad, temple guardian, and inquisitor. With the exception of the seraphim and inquisitor classes, you can choose to embark on either a light or dark campaign. While the seraphim is the epitome of good and can choose only a light path, the inquisitor is a great big jerk capable of wielding dark T-energy and scaring small children. Consequently, only the path of shadow is available to him.

The customization options are fairly deep for each class. At this point, you won't be able to create a character from scratch, and we were forced to play as a preset shadow warrior, although CDV is looking into some basic cosmetic customization options to make your character your own. The first important customization choice is to select your own personal deity. Each class begins with 15 combat arts, so you won't have to waste time power-leveling for special attacks. Each of the six deities will unlock an additional five combat arts for you. Throughout the game, you'll find, buy, craft, and trade for pieces of armor like chest plates and helmets. When you accumulate a complete matching set, you'll unlock several combat bonuses.

If you don't want to spend six hours traversing the countryside on foot, feel free to jump on a special mount. In addition to faithful steeds, each class has a specific special mount that can also be outfitted in its own personalized suit of armor. The seraphim charges into battle on a white tiger, for example.

Each of the combat arts can also be tweaked and modified. The seraphim has a lightning attack that can later be changed to spread across the screen, dealing a bit of damage to a number of enemies, or changed into a focused beam of electricity that will devastate a solo enemy. The changes you make on these skill trees will serve to differentiate you from other players of the same class in multiplayer modes.

CDV describes Sacred 2 as being "as close as you can get to an MMO without being an MMO." What that means is that 16 players on the PC or four players on Xbox Live can drop seamlessly into a campaign to play with friends. The enemy AI will automatically increase in difficulty depending on the size of the party, to keep things fair. Because 22 square miles is a lot of ground to cover, you can click on a friend's icon and warp to his or her location immediately. There's also a player-versus-player arena and a player-versus-environment mode, and all statistics earned there will carry over to your character in the campaign, and vice versa.

We jumped into the PC version to play a few quests as our shadow warrior alongside two seraphim controlled by CDV representatives. After warping to their location, we hacked and slashed away with our broad sword at pesky goblins and skeletons. On the PC, you simply point and click with the left mouse button to move and attack, and right click to use one of your selected combat arts. We decided to throw bright green flashes of undead energy, while the seraphim used lightning strikes. There wasn't much to our quest--we simply tracked down some robbers using our compass and beat them down with melee attacks. Soon their gold was ours, we returned the lost loot to the rightful owners, we gained some experience points, and we made Ancaria a little safer for everyone.



We did get a chance to peek at a few of the bosses in Sacred 2 that are so giant they take up almost the entire screen. A giant fire beast, similar to the balrog in The Lord of the Rings, hurled fireballs at us, and later, a giant squid tried to wrap our character in his crushing tentacles. Ouch.

It's clear that action RPG fans will have a lot to do when Sacred 2 hits later this year. While the hack-and-slash combat isn't very complex next to some of the excellent action RPGs we've seen in recent years, the land of Ancaria is packed with adventure, atmosphere, and choice. Sacred 2 takes what made the original game a success and expands upon it in every way.

Solid Snake is back in action, but can the aged and disillusioned Snake save the world again? Keep your Solid Eye fixed on our launch center for the latest news, previews, videos, and our review.


Feature

The Flying Tomato is finally getting a video game courtesy of Ubisoft, and we've got a first look


Preview »

Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PC
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Modern First-Person Shooter
Release Date: Q3 2008

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A mixture of cutting-edge graphics, open-ended gameplay, and sophisticated artificial intelligence made the original Far Cry a hit on the PC. For Far Cry 2, the development team at Ubisoft Montreal is still keeping those essential ingredients--gorgeous, lush environments, tricky AI, and a sandbox mentality--intact while changing up all the surrounding elements, such as the setting, storyline, and characters, to keep things fresh. As a result, when we first got our hands on the game at Ubisoft's recent spring press event, we felt like it was running into an old friend who had recently spent a load of cash on a wardrobe upgrade.



Far Cry 2's story has seemingly no ties to the original game, even if the protagonists in both games have the standard "square-jawed white guy" look about them. In the original, you fought it out in a tropical setting looking to rescue a mysterious woman from harm. In the sequel, you play as a mercenary whose goal is to take down an arms dealer known as The Jackal. Little is known about him, except that he's profiting greatly while perpetuating a conflict in the African savannah where the game takes place. As you hunt down The Jackal, you'll be caught in the middle of various and conflicting interests of multiple factions involved in the war. Which sides you work with and against will go a long way in determining your path through this multifaceted storyline.

The demo on hand at the Ubisoft event began overlooking a green, murky-looking swamp. Our first goal was to meet up with our point of contact, Frank, in a shack near the stating point. He was looking for our help in an operation he was planning, and our portion of it was to take down a nearby radio antenna that was broadcasting propaganda for one of the local factions.

After agreeing to the mission from Frank, we also met up with Warren, one of many non-player characters you'll run into in the game. Far Cry 2's open-ended nature is designed so that you can play the game any way you want--that extends to which characters you help in the game and which ones you ignore. If you decide to help out a character, he might be available to you later as a buddy. By chatting with Warren, he ensured his assistance should things get too hairy out in the field. It wouldn't be long before we needed to take him up on his offer.

As with the original game, vehicles look to play a big role in the missions of Far Cry 2. As soon as we left Frank's shack with the mission in mind, we hopped into a jeep (loaded with a convenient mounted machine gun on the rear) and began speeding toward our destination. Though you always have a map on hand to check for your mission locales, one cool touch is that the occasional street signs you run into in villages will illuminate in the direction of your goal. We made a few turns and, around the last bend, came to our first objective: a walled enemy encampment full of bad guys that were just begging to be filled full of bullets.



The problem with helping those enemies fulfill their bullet-riddled destiny, of course, is Far Cry 2's clever AI--one that demands equal measures of stealth and brutality to overcome. We tried the first encampment several times during the course of our demo with Far Cry 2--everything from the sneaking in and trying to keep things quiet (which didn't hold for long) to blasting though the front gates in our jeep and trying to run down enemies like they were dogs in the streets. Neither approach we took was met with perfect success. Thanks to enemies who were keen to take cover and deadly shots, we ended up dying several times in the process.

It's lucky for us, then, that we had Warren on our side. Because we chatted with Warren before the mission began and he had pledged his support to us, Warren was on hand to revive us, get us moving again, and give us a gun to continue the fight when we managed to get ourselves shot up in the mission. While you can only use these "buddy save" moments once, you can always go back and talk to your friend again to reset it for the next time you run into trouble.
Once you've been revived by a buddy, he'll also be available to help you with cleaning up any remaining enemies on hand. While Warren didn't appear to be the best shot in the world, it was imminently satisfying to flank enemies, catch them in crossfire, and mow them down. Enemy AI in Far Cry 2 is sophisticated enough that it will help out injured comrades if given a chance. So, when in doubt, put a few more bullets in the bad guys.



The goal in the encampment was to blow up a water tank to create a diversion for the enemy, then move further down the nearby river to seek out the radio antenna. Once we took out the water supply with some explosives, we climbed down to the river and found a small boat, which we piloted down a winding section of water. We halfway expected an ambush as we made our way down the river but managed to make it to the shore safely. Then it was up a hill and time to take down another small village full of bad guys.

Things can get hairy very quickly in Far Cry 2. In addition to the aforementioned clever AI, the game features impressive explosion effects and fire that can quickly spread throughout the straw buildings of an African village. We managed to create enough chaos with our weapon load out of grenades and assault rifles to lay waste to the village. Then we grabbed another jeep and headed on to the next stage of the mission before finally locating the radio antenna and taking it down with a few timed explosives.

Though we took a fairly direct route from one objective to the next in our demo with Far Cry 2, the playable area looks to be large enough to allow plenty of variety in how different players will attack the same objective. On the missions we completed, for example, you could take the roads we did, bypassing the river altogether, or cut through a nearby diamond mine to reach the final objective. Naturally, you'll run into resistance wherever you go, but the choice will be yours.

The size of the playable map in Far Cry 2 will grow as you unlock areas, with the ultimate playable area running somewhere in the 50-square-kilometer range. It won't just be dry savannah in the game either--developers are promising a variety of terrain and environments, including jungle, desert, and urban landscapes as well. The mission types will vary too; in addition to "find and destroy" missions like the one above, developers are promising a variety of mission types, such as intimidation, or missions where you must burn a field full of crops meant for an enemy army. In addition there are around 50 side quests which run the gamut from rescuing civilians in hiding to tracking and assassinating specific high-value targets.

Producers were mum on the specific online multiplayer details in the game but did say that the game will include a full map editor on the PC and console versions of the game. We didn't get to see the map editor in action, but we do know that created maps will be a maximum of 512 X 512 in size and players will able to download and rate the creations of others.



Weaponry in Far Cry 2 will include such weapons as pistols, assault rifles, and shotguns, as well as more exotic weaponry, such as flamethrowers, rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices. Bullets will be able to penetrate flimsier materials so that cover won't always keep you safe and, amusingly, some weapons will jam from time to time, and you'll have to give your weapon a few whacks to dislodge it.

Following up on one of the more critically successful games in Ubisoft's recent history is no small task for the developers at Ubisoft Montreal. From what we've seen, the go-anywhere, do-(almost)-anything approach is still intact with Far Cry 2. We're curious to see how the game's main character will interact with the various factions vying for control in the game, as well as how far-reaching decisions you make will affect the storyline. Far Cry 2 is currently scheduled for release later this year.