1.10 Cache & framerate info

If you are annoyed by the music, or sound effects that play while you are at the main menu, and not in game.
Press the following codes to disable them: (Typing them again will enable them)

Code	Effect
Ctrl+M	Disable/Enable the music while at the main menu.
Ctrl+S	Disable/Enable the sound effects while at the main menu.

Players X

In single player

Hit Enter
Type "/players x" (without quotes)(X= a number between 1 and 8)
eg. /players 4

Code	Effect
/players 7	Extremely hard to kill monsters
/players 3	Good difference
/players 5	Hard monsters
/players 2	Little difference in Difficulty
/players 8	Maximum diffculty/Nigh impossible to kill monsters
/players 1	No effect
/players 6	Very difficult to kill monsters
/players 4	Very noticable difference

Contributed By: KevynKross

Random Cheats

Note: you can type in all of these codes again after they are in effect to turn them off. If it is one of the /players cheats then you have to type in the code "/players 1" to set it back to 1.

Code	Effect
soundchaosdebug	Every sound at once.
/fps	Show frames per second.
/nopickup	Won't let you pick up items unless you press ALT. This helps in cluttered areas with a lot of lag.

Contributed By: HawkeyeCH13

Target line codes

Right click on your Diablo II desktop icon. Left click on the shortcut tab. Enter the code in the target line after the quotes. make sure there is a space between each code , and a space between the last quote and first code.

These codes currently work as of the 1.11b patch.

Code	Effect
-act1	Create a new level 1 character in Act1.
-act2	Create a new level 16 character in Act2.
-act3	Create a new level 21 character in Act3.
-act4	Create a new level 27 character in Act4.
-act5	Create a new level 33 character in Act5.
-npl	Doesn't preload anything.
-nosave	Never saves the game.
-ns	No sound driver is loaded.
-w	Opens the game in a window.
-skiptobnet	Skip directly to BattleNet login.
-opengl	Uses the OpenGL graphic renderer in game.

Contributed By: Red_Bird_of_Cha

Easter Eggs

Diablo 2 Commercial

With the D2X disk in you computer click on the "My computer" icon. From there you should see the D2X shortcut picture. Right-click on it and select Open. Inside there is a file called D2COM_01. Double click it to watch the semi-funny 30 second D2 commercial.

Contributed By: D2_Balk

Every Sound

To hear every sound recorded for Diablo 2 press ''enter'' in a game to open the chat box and type in ''soundchaosdebug''

Contributed By: Jeff Andonuts

Secret Cow Level

Just like the Secret Cow Level in the original Diablo II, the Secret Cow Level is in LoD as well. You must have beaten Baal on the difficulty you want to make the portal for though.

1. Go to Rogue Encampment
2. Insert a Wirt's Leg and a Tome of Townsportal into the Cube and Transmute.
3. Enter Portal.
4. Fight Cows.

The cows CAN be difficult to kill with melee characters, so be careful. Paladins and Sorceresses are always helpful here.

The cows do not give good experience, but the chances of finding good runes/gems/equipment is better than most places. Also, most of the ''stashes'' and ''chests'' here are good drops as well.

WARNING: If you want to make the portal again, DO NOT KILL THE COW KING. If the Cow King is killed in a game where you made the portal, you WILL NOT be able to make the portal for that difficulty anymore.

Contributed By: Andrea Blackheart

The game changes the difficulty depending on how high the number is. (1 being the easiest, 8 being the hardest.)
It's the same effect as being on B Net and having more than 1 player. The game's enemies get harder, drop better, and give more experience. This also affects bosses, so the /players 8 on Hell Mephisto's drops are incredible.

This doesn't effect immunities on monsters, and works in all Difficulties and all Acts.

Publisher:Activision Blizzard
Platform: PC
Developer:Treyarch
Genre:Modern First-Person Shooter
Release Date:TBA

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Co-op makes its series debut in World
at War, and we take it for a spin in the Pacific and Berlin.

With Call of Duty: World at War, developer Treyarch is aiming to bring the series back to its old stomping grounds while simultaneously venturing into unfamiliar territory. In addition to exploring the frequently overlooked Pacific Theatre, World at War will be the first in the series to offer co-op gameplay. It's a feature that will support up to four players online and two-player split-screen offline. We recently had the opportunity to see how this addition to the series is coming together by taking a spin through one Pacific level and one Berlin level. Our most recent look at World at War began where the game does, during an escape from Japanese captors on the Makin Atoll. As the game's introductory level, this one had the player going on a tense hike through darkened jungles where guerrilla Japanese soldiers would frequently pop up from unexpected hiding spots. This time around, we got to see a very different chapter from later in the game. Based on the Battle of Peleliu, the Pacific battle with the highest casualty rate from the entire war, this level features a massive fight complete with tanks, autocannons, and more than a few inappropriate uses of the flamethrower courtesy of our first gleeful hands-on session with the game.

The Peleliu level begins with a relatively quiet walk through a swamp before building up to a full-scale battle. You and your team are trudging through knee-high water when they notice a downed plane. One soldier goes to inspect the remnants for any survivors when a sudden ambush of Japanese soldiers comes spilling out of the vegetation. The squad fights through this scuffle and makes its way out of the swamp and into a wide-open field of tall grass and the occasional palm tree. This is where we got to take over a controller, and we immediately felt at home with Call of Duty's familiar, responsive control scheme.

One of the ways Treyarch is looking to put a twist on those familiar controls is by giving you access to previously unseen weapons. Right from the beginning, our character was equipped with a flamethrower to flush out enemies hiding in the trees and tall grass. We put it to use early and often, torching everything in sight and watching the tweaked Call of Duty 4 engine handle flaming scenery as blazing grass slowly gave way to charred earth. The flamethrower is a lot of fun to use, though we have the sneaking suspicion it may be a little overpowered. Much of that is because there's fuel gauge for it; you simply wait for it to cool back down when you've been using it for too long. Either way, it's a blast.

Peleliu is a textbook example of Treyarch's desire to showcase some of the more epic battles from World War II. It almost caught us by surprise how quickly this chapter escalated. At one point we had to clear enemies out of a wrecked building, only to emerge on the other side in a full-blown tank battle. Staying alive required hiding behind the friendly Sherman tanks as they slowly inched forward, then jumping into the foxholes to find rocket launchers to take out the enemy tanks. A moment later, we rushed a group of soldiers stationed on an autocannon and wound up using it to take out nearby antiaircraft guns. At random intervals throughout this conflict, we'd see airplanes come crashing down to earth, trucks on fire zooming past us, and general mayhem at almost every turn. It's clear Treyarch is aiming to push the limitations of the current-gen hardware as far as it can in order to deliver massive, chaotic battles.

The actual co-op doesn't seem to change the way you play the game very much. You won't encounter any puzzles that require specific roles from each player like the spotlight scene from Gears of War. Rather, you're helping one another out through good, old-fashioned teamwork. Because the difficulty is ramped up in co-op, you won't be able to run around Rambo-style quite as easily as in single-player. You'll need to stick close to your teammates in order to survive, working as a group in close proximity.

After completing Peleliu, we had the chance to turn our co-op attention toward Berlin with a chapter called Eviction. Ironically, despite the return toward a more traditional Call of Duty setting, this level gave us better insight into some of the new directions World at War is headed. Right from the beginning, your squad of Russian soldiers encounters a few of your countrymen, who clearly have less than friendly intentions. They have a German soldier surrounded, pleading for his life, but just as quickly as you stumbled upon this scene, the Russian in charge of this other squad takes out his pistol and puts and end to the German's pleading.



A darker retelling of World War II's brutal realities is one of Treyarch's primary goals. In addition to these heartbreaking scripted moments, you'll notice more realistic violence. Damage models have been enhanced to display the loss of limbs, blood will flow more freely, and enemies will writhe in agony when caught on the bad end of one of your Molotov cocktails. A further boost in realism is provided by the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine, which expertly renders the effects of bullets passing through various surfaces. This means you have to be suspicious of every cover you hide behind, especially wooden ones. At one point we tried taking a breather behind an overturned wooden table, only to see an area dangerously close to our face erupt in splinters and sawdust courtesy of a nearby German's shotgun.

As we progressed through burned-out Berlin apartments and underground tunnels, we eventually made it out onto the streets. The skies above Berlin were dark and gray, dumping rain onto the fight below. It was a bit of a surprise, having just come from a sunny Pacific setting, but not as much of a surprise as the music that began building up as we pushed deeper into the Nazi-filled streets. Rather than the triumphant, orchestral score we've all come to expect from Call of Duty games set in World War II, this particular scene was accompanied by a gritty industrial rock track. It was a little jarring at first, but we wound up being pleasantly surprised by how well this music worked. The dark, aggressive feeling of the music was a great accompaniment to the dreary and violent look of this scene.

In addition to basic co-op, another, more incentive-based option will be available. Known as competitive co-op, this setting borrows all the customization and rewards from the multiplayer and places them in a story setting. Points are awarded for killing enemies, you can use your perks, and everything you unlock here is carried over to the multiplayer side. Seeing the points pop up above an enemy's head is a little startling in a story setting when you first try out this mode, but it should go a long way toward adding replay value to the campaign.

Our hands-on session with World at War has revealed to us a game that feels at once familiar and shockingly different. The action is pure Call of Duty, that familiar blend of sprinting, hiding behind cover, and looking down the sight of your gun to blast a group of enemies. But from the way those enemies react to gunfire to the ways they plead for mercy when all hope is lost, this is a different depiction of World War II from what we've all previously seen. It's a little more brutal, a little more grisly, and generally more realistic in the way it portrays the horrors of war. It's clear this isn't quite the same World War II we've come to expect. Whether or not that novelty can hold up for the duration of an entire campaign is something we're eagerly waiting to discover.

Publisher:Capcom
Platform: PC
Developer:GRIN
Genre:Sci-Fi Adventure
Release Date:TBA

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Capcom lets us try some bionically enhanced rumbling in the upcoming update of its platforming classic.


Have you ever wondered what would happen if a pack of bionically enhanced supersoldiers were thrown into an arena packed with weapons? If so, Capcom is offering one potential answer with the multiplayer mode in Bionic Commando. While we've covered the single-player game extensively since its announcement last year, we haven't had the chance to try its multiplayer mode just yet. This changed recently on a recent visit to Capcom where we had the chance to swing and shoot in the multiplayer demo that's going to be shown at Leipzig this week. Although the demo was a little on the thin side, with one level and one game mode, it gave us an idea of what to expect from the game.


The demo, clearly meant for a Euro audience with its German text, provided a small portion of a ruined city that met our deathmatch needs. Although the final game will support online play, the demo was set to a local LAN game. The matches we tried varied in number of players, although the final game will support a maximum of 10. While Capcom isn't releasing any new info on the additional multiplayer, reps told us to expect a greatest hits of multiplayer action that should include such fare as King of the Hill.

The action was what you'd expect from a deathmatch game in the BC universe: running, shooting, and swinging, with some bionically enhanced punching thrown in for good measure. To help out with the killing, there were several different pickups strewn throughout the level. Green pickups restored health in varying amounts. Armor pickups granted some added durability and let you take some more gunfire before dying. However, the more important pickups are weapons. In the demo, we were able to grab a shotgun, grenade launcher, sniper rifle, and machine gun. Each weapon comes with limited ammo so efficiency is key, especially in the case of the grenade launcher, which is a one-hit kill if aimed properly.

Of course, a multiplayer game wouldn't be much without control, and BC offers a solid system. You'll move with the left analog stick, although hitting the D pad will let you turn in 90-degree increments, which can be key during a close-quarters fight. You'll aim and change your camera view with the right stick. Clicking the right stick tightens up your view for fine aiming. When you've got a sniper rifle equipped, clicking the right stick zooms in your view. You'll jump and pull your arm's line in with the A button. The B and Y buttons are for melee attacks when you want to get up close and personal. The left trigger will shoot your arm's cable out, while the right trigger fires your equipped weapon. The right bumper will open up a radial weapon menu so you can use it to pick your available weapon of choice or quickly equip the next weapon in line when tapped.

While the weapon business was pretty typical, we really liked how the arm was worked into the mix. In addition to the standard melee punches, you can use your arm to pull off special attack combos. One, called a punch-up, lets you juggle an opponent in the air then jump up and smack him down. Another, a zip-kick, uses your arm's cable to latch onto a foe and slam into him at high speeds. Better still, you can use your arm's cable to keep hold of an enemy and slow him down--allowing you to better aim.

One thing to note on the demo we played is that, while the action was playable and fun, there was actually quite a bit not in yet. On the weapon front, the tarantula rocket launcher, which lets you lock on to and fire at multiple targets, as well as proximity grenades, will be included in the final game. More importantly, there is the adrenaline system, which will let you charge up a meter that will let you perform various powerful special moves with the arm.



The demo we played ran well, although it had the expected array of rough edges here and there. The environment had a good amount of detail and featured plenty of places to use your bionic arm's cable for swinging. The character models were a bit on the plain side, but we reckon there will be some measure of customization in the final game, along with more variety in models. The special effects for the weapons were coming together, although they were still a bit understated for our tastes. Still, incomplete status notwithstanding, we were pleased to see the game run so smoothly.

Based on what we played, Bionic Commando's multiplayer will offer a solid dose of face shooting and bionic-arm-enhanced mayhem. The deathmatches seemed fine, although the size of the level we played in begged for a full 10-player match. The control is good and tight, especially the things you can do with the arm, while the pickup selection is modest but effective. From what we can tell, Bionic Commando's multiplayer is shaping up to be a nice complement to the single-player game. Bionic Commando is slated to ship later this year for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Look for more on the game in the coming months.

Publisher:Telltale Games
Developer:Telltale Games
Genre:Adventure
Release Date: Apr 11, 2008

Game Information


Number of Players: 1 Player

Minimum System Requirements

System:Pentium IV 1.5 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Drive Space:1500 MB
Other:Windows XP/Vista

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Everyone's favorite freelance police return for five more escapades crammed with the surreal stories and offbeat jokes that make these games instant adventure classics.

Santa going postal, staking an emo vampire, and taking the Soul Train to hell are just a few of the insane moments crammed into Telltale Games' absolutely hilarious Sam & Max Season Two. This outstanding compilation pulls together the last five episodes in the ongoing adventure series starring Sam, a McGruff-style dog sporting a suit and fedora, and Max, a murderous, smelly rabbit. Most fans have probably already played these games, as they have been released online over the past year, but if you missed these games when they were first released, the low price and ton of extras make this collection worth the purchase price.

Anyone who loves classic adventures will have a great time with these surreal, zany shorts. Sam and Max fashion themselves as "freelance police," private detectives who get into one zany mess after another while trying to solve crimes in a zany cartoon world. This means that all of the tales here are laugh-out-loud funny, yet also dark and more than a bit disturbing. You should probably just enjoy the pop-culture jokes riffing on everything from The Exorcist to The Mod Squad and skip putting too much thought into the delightfully twisted minds who came up with the game's bizarre yarns.

But the puzzles themselves aren't as off the wall as the insane stories of the adventures included here. Your tasks are generally based on common-sense logic, even though the end goals deal with nutso objectives like exorcising Santa Claus, figuring out what Charles Lindbergh and D.B. Cooper are doing as babies on Easter Island, and checking out the absurdly bureaucratic Hell LLC. There is a structure to everything that Sam and Max do, so you don't have to fool around with nonsensical adventure game logic or collect a bunch of worthless junk to use at some future date. Tasks are always focused around picking up just a couple of key objects and using them in the right places, nifty conversation trees with consequences to each dialogue choice, and arcade minigames where you do things like box rats and race cars. Everything flows along at a great pace, and your duties are mixed up so that you never get bored with one style of puzzle. Even if you do get a little weary of the sheer strangeness of everything, machine gun pop-culture jokes about the real world keep you grounded and laughing. The biggest design issue is too much backtracking, in that you have to frequently drive back and forth between episode locales and Sam and Max's home office and surrounding neighborhood to solve quests.

The look and sound of the missions are striking. Visuals are done in a Saturday-morning-cartoon style, with lots of bright kiddie colors blended with sharp edges. Everything is just a bit askew, like you're viewing Sam and Max's world through a funhouse mirror. Style is everywhere, right down to the opening and closing credits of each episode. The only drawback to the visuals is the camera angle, which is a little too close to the action in many scenes and can't be manually rotated past its on-rails 2D position to look all around the 3D landscape. Audio effects are dead-on, from the restrained insanity of Max's voice to the 8-bit arcade music played whenever you have to deal with the obsolete computers that operate the Pimplecar Garage.



And when you finish up the adventures themselves, you can check out the extras that make this compilation something of a director's-cut version of the original download-only games. Over four hours of audio commentary are included, along with the "Sam & Max Nearly Save Christmas" cartoon short and a bunch of random collectibles such as trailers, outtakes, and concept art. None of this is absolutely essential, and the Christmas short is already available free online, but taken altogether you've got a sizable grab bag of extra goodies for collectors.

The only disappointment in Sam & Max Season Two is that it ends too soon and leaves you wanting more. Each episode can be played through in just a couple of hours, although you would be best advised to drag out the experience and check out everything you can click on for the extra laughs. This series is a great example of how much creativity, intelligence, and humor can still be poured into this classic genre. So, bring on season three.

Publisher:Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PC
Developer:Bethesda Softworks
Genre:Role-Playing
Release Date:Q4 2008

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Bethesda came to London to show off more playable Fallout 3, and this time we took a brand-new path through Washington's postapocalyptic landscape.

Fallout 3 is an open-world action game, so our second play through the area that we saw during E3 was completely different from our first. Given that our first visit to Washington, DC was spent taking in the postapocalyptic scenery, we raced to the nearest town to experience dialogue and side quests the second time around. The one hour of playtime that we had still felt way too short to completely satisfy us, but we also had time to explore an abandoned subway and come across a local trader. If you're new to this game or the Fallout series in general, then we recommend reading some of our earlier previews to cover the basics, but for now, this is what we did in our most recent play-through.

We started the demo at exactly the same point as we did at E3, emerging from the vault in which our character had spent his short life. You come out of the darkness blinded by the sunlight, but once the blur dissipates you're left with a crisp vision of the devastated landscape. We were playing the Xbox 360 version, so we pressed the B button to call up the Pip Boy, the in-game computer that shows your inventory and map. The map is blurry and featureless at the beginning, so it's difficult to figure out where to go, but we headed east to what we thought would be a settlement. Bethesda says that if you can see something in the distance in Fallout 3 you can go there, but you'll have to explore the landscape on foot before you can press a button to automatically transport between locations.

Delving into the Pip Boy, we found some more cool options to play around with. There are two radio stations, Enclave and Galaxy News, which have opposing political stances and mixes of music. Enclave is very serious and patriotic, playing famous American anthems to encourage patriotism while assuring its listeners that they'll help to rebuild the country's schools. Galaxy is a more laid-back and personal station, with tales about survivors punctuated by soulful tunes. The radio-station idea may have been pioneered by other open-world games, but hearing Billie Holiday while exploring this decimated city is a chilling experience.

As we entered the first town that we could find, we came across a small boy named Bryan Wilks who was trying to find his father. Fallout 3 uses a dialogue system that's based around morality, so you can choose to be sympathetic or dismissive when you come across individuals. We're not usually that friendly toward strangers, but in the interest of seeing some of the side missions, we decided to play nice with the kid and help him find the father. As he went and took refuge in a nearby diner, we pushed on through the town to have a look around.

The town was overrun with fire ants: huge, mutated insects that spewed fire at us if we got too close. The sound that these creatures made--a sticky but squeaky noise that sounded like plastic rubbing together--echoed through our headphones for most of our playtime, and they were tough enemies to kill. The standard combat system works with the left trigger to zoom and the right to fire, but our low experience level and low-powered rifles made it difficult to kill them. The best thing to do was use the VATS mode, which lets you pause the action and target individual parts of the enemies' bodies. You can do this only a limited number of times before you run out of power, but it's by far the best way of killing enemies, or least incapacitating them by taking out a limb.

In addition to using VATS, it helps to talk to people to get advice on how to kill enemies. We headed over to the diner to talk to the boy about the fire ants, and he relayed something that his dad had told him: always aim for their antennae. We also found that you can turn the ants against each other by running around so that they spew fire at each other. It's worth noting just how adult this game is; even the young boy repeated the "F" word without batting an eyelid. He called the enemies in question the "f***in' ants," something that we've not really ever heard said by a minor in a video game before. Thankfully, the voice acting in Fallout 3 is pretty good, at least with the few characters that we came across.

After searching around, we came across the boy's father, who was unfortunately lying dead on the floor of his house after being attacked by the ants that his son had been so recently been expressing his disapproval of. Sad as it was, the world of Fallout is harshly low on resources, so we had to scavenge what we could from the body and the rest of the house. Although it was obviously of little help to him, he'd stashed plenty of ammunition and a Chinese assault rifle, which was a much better weapon for taking out the remaining fire ants than our standard sidearm. Stocked up, we returned to meet the boy and give him the bad news. We had three responses to choose from: "Bryan, I'm sorry, but your father is dead," "Your father's dead," or "Sorry kid. Your old man is ant food." We decided to switch from good cop to bad cop and go for the last option, which was met with a response of, "You're an a**hole."

After taking this short side quest, we went and explored as much as we could of the world. We headed down into the Marigold Station subway, and it seems as if the same expansive design philosophy applies as much underground as above it. We didn't wander around too far because we wanted to see more above ground, but it looks like you'll be able to walk through the tubes to get from station to station. The only downside is that there are even more ants below ground than there are above, and this can get slightly annoying when you're in a confined space with a limited amount of ammo.

Above ground once again, we started to head out of town and toward downtown Washington, DC. We knew that we wouldn't make it there in the short time period that we had, but we figured it was a good direction to head in. We started to come across some new enemies such as the feral ghouls, which are humanoid characters that had obviously been affected by radiation. We also encountered a trader with a hut full of goodies and a couple of dogs, although considering that we didn't have any money, we couldn't buy any of the items that he was offering. We had a quick look through the catalogue to find the usual guns and ammo sitting alongside boutique items such as cameras and, somewhat strangely, washing detergent. We couldn't resist trying to steal a camera and then shoot one of the dogs, but we certainly didn't make it far once we did. We were low on ammo and health by this point, and the other dog chased us down while the trader himself fired at us from afar, eventually killing us and forcing us to reload the game.



As night fell in-game, the last place we made it to was the Capitol Wasteland. The wasteland was populated by what appeared to be other scavengers whose weapons made them even tougher to fight than the previous town's ants. Locked in our own little world with headphones blocking our hearing, we didn't notice the Bethesda PR man until he'd sat down right next to us. We tried to get some more time, but having already taken nearly double our allotted half hour, we had to vacate the console.

There's no doubt that Fallout 3 is an incredibly promising game and, some minor combat annoyances aside, it completely immerses you in its ruined world. Bethesda has gone on record to say that the planned downloadable content will be for the PC and Xbox 360 only, and unfortunately there'll be no multiplayer in the game. The huge scale of the game also makes a demo impossible, according to the publisher. But it's not all bad news; with a planned Q4 release, the team is pretty much finished on the story and is now just applying the finishing touches. We've been promised another look at the game at Leipzig, and Bethesda will be making another trip to the UK before release, so keep your Pip Boys ready for more on Fallout 3 soon.

Publisher:Electronic Arts
Platform: PC
Developer:id Software
Genre:Modern First-Person Shooter
Release Date:TBA

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What caused the world to end in id's upcoming postapocalyptic first-person action game? We find out.

They knew the asteroid was coming, but no one expected total destruction. After it was confirmed that the asteroid would collide with Earth, the leaders of humanity secured a deep underground bunker. Its sole purpose was to house the future of the human race, leaders who would eventually rebuild the planet after the cataclysmic explosion.


The asteroid hit, destroying a large chunk of the planet, presumably wiping out all life on the surface. The survivors were supposed to open the doors of the bunker to a ruined planet and begin reshaping society on a new Earth. When they finally set foot on the surface, they quickly discovered they were not alone. Mutants stalked the desert wasteland, looking for their next victim, and were filled with rancor and hostility and what could only be described as...rage


At QuakeCon 2008, we got our first details on the story behind id's upcoming first-person action game. Id also showed off an extended version of the Rage trailer that debuted at E3 earlier this month that put a larger emphasis on driving and racing. But most of our new information came in an interview with id producer Tim Willits, who painted a somewhat clearer picture of a game heretofore described simply as a postapocalyptic shooting/driving hybrid. Rage is much more than that, he says.

In addition to vicious mutants roaming the desert wasteland, several human factions have formed in makeshift cities across the land. You play as an as-yet-unnamed character who emerges from the bunker to restart society, only to see that many of these factions have their own vision of how to implement the new world order. Some are friendly, but many are not, and one in particular has risen to power and is attempting to put a stranglehold on the rights and freedoms of the survivors. Willits likens it to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. You'll travel from makeshift city to makeshift city, learning more about each faction as you progress through the main storyline.

Willits also pointed out that Rage is not an open-world game in the vein of Grand Theft Auto IV. Instead, id wants Rage to be a cinematic, story-driven experience that sucks you in and doesn't let go. But that doesn't mean you won't have choices. While Willits didn't elaborate on a possible conversation system or multiple endings, he did say that Rage will open the door to mission choices.

As seen in the many id Tech 5 demos and recent Rage trailers, driving will play a very large part in Rage. Over the course of the game, you'll accumulate several different vehicles that can be customized to your liking. In the latest trailer, we saw dune buggies racing on a desert track, armed with mounted Gatling guns and machine guns. Willits said these vehicles will become an extension of the player, so expect plenty of options for customization.

Multiplayer is still in the design stages, but both Willits and id technical director John Carmack said that cooperative play is in the works, with the possibility of sharing vehicles with a buddy. While competitive multiplayer wasn't mentioned specifically, it's difficult to imagine Rage without some sort of deathmatch and/or racing modes from the creators of Quake.



At the QuakeCon 2008 press conference and keynote address, Carmack confirmed that the content of Rage would exceed two Xbox 360 discs yet would fit on one high-capacity Blu-ray disc for the PlayStation 3. Since it's not cost effective to release a game on three discs because of material costs and a hefty royalty fee levied by Microsoft, Carmack said they would have to sacrifice the quality of the visuals on the 360 in order to fit the game on two discs. Unless Microsoft is willing to work with id on the disc royalty fees, the PlayStation 3 version will simply look better, Carmack said.

Be sure to check out our complete video interview with Willits as part of our QuakeCon 2008 coverage. Like all id games, Rage will be released "when it's done."

Did you ever think plant-eating cells would evolve into religious zealots? We find out in our exclusive time with Spore.

Evolution is a long, slow process, and its effects sometimes aren't noticeable for millions of years. In Spore, it takes about 15 minutes. We visited EA Maxis this week as part of our ongoing coverage leading up to the game's September 7 release date, and we played through the cell stage up to the final moments of the tribal stage as our creature evolved from single-celled organism to fire-wielding biped. Someday we'll conquer the planet and then the galaxy in the civilization and space stages, but today, we'll walk you through the first half of Maxis' hybrid strategy game.


Your first decision is one of the most important and will affect everything down to the design of your spaceship a billion game years in the future: Do you eat meat? Carnivores are more aggressive than their vegetarian cousins in Spore, and the simple act of eating animal cells instead of plant cells will lead species to be more hostile. That said, evolution in Spore is at your fingertips, and one mating call will take you to the cell creator tool, letting you completely reverse the direction of your evolution should your gameplay tastes change.



Once you decide on your diet, you choose one of several planets to play on. You have the option to begin from any of the five phases, should you want to skip the rather simple cell stage which, in some ways, plays more like a casual downloadable game. Indeed, after a meteor crashes into the ocean, seeding it with life (that's you), your first and only goal is to survive, swimming about using keyboard controls or the mouse, chomping on floating pieces of red meat, or green plants if you chose to play vegan (we didn't). With each piece of food you eat, you gain a point on the progress bar and grow slightly in size.

You're not alone in the primordial soup, however. Other cell creatures are fighting for food as well, and some are a lot bigger than you. To succeed, you have to avoid larger creatures that see you as nothing more than an afternoon snack and go after smaller creatures, many of which are user creations straight out of the Sporepedia. When you take out a competing organism, they will often drop new body parts that are added to the creator tool.

Then, by clicking on the mating call button, you swim up to a friendly cell of the same species--which are now everywhere as you begin to assert your dominance of the primordial soup--and make a baby cell. You can outfit this next generation with any of the body parts you've collected. Our new cell transformed from a friendly little guy with a pair of spikes to a poison-spitting, electrocuting ball of doom in just one generation. With significant DNA points and such evolutionary advantages, our cell was now ready to advance to the creature stage.

This stage takes you to an abridged version of the Spore creature creator, already available for $10 for dedicated mad scientists hoping to create the master race. Only this time you have just one evolutionary category to choose from: legs. Attach them to your cell and then crawl forth to land as a smaller fish in a bigger pond, a theme common in each Spore stage. Our creature was outfitted with a poison stinger, two electrical nodes, a few spikes, a pair of eyes, and carnivorous, flesh-ripping beak. After we advanced to the creature stage, a handy timeline popped up displaying each of our new generations and their evolutionary advancements over hundreds of millions of years.

Each stage will introduce an increasing number of strategy elements; the creature stage begins with a land map and home nest. The nest is where you can regain health if injured and recruit clan members of your own species to join you on a hunting party, the humble beginnings of civilization. As a carnivore, the only way to advance is to eat other creatures.



Thankfully some of the creatures are much less evolved than you, equipped with only legs and mouths and as easy to eat as an apple on the ground. Most species that you encounter, however, are more advanced than your own, and in these cases it's not advisable to go in chomping. Instead, change your "stance" from aggressive to friendly, and you'll open a new batch of diplomacy actions such as sing and dance. Some species are inherently aggressive and will attempt to eat you, forcing you back to the nest to wait for a hundred million years of evolution and growth before you're strong enough to take them on. Others enjoy a good song and dance and will be impressed by your creatures' performances. This little minigame is the base of all diplomacy for future generations.

Speaking of future generations, body parts litter the environment in the creature stage and are added to the creature creator pool for use after each mating call. When an egg hatches with your new modifications, the entire species will have been edited. Also, the baby's parents will teach you new moves such as strike attacks before letting you out of the nest to hunt. Continue to impress neighboring species or eat others into extinction to fill up your progress bar. This opens up more slots for clan members, but as you progress to the tribal stage, the need to be more organized becomes clear.



Soon, the alpha member of your species discovers fire. He grabs a stick and pumps it into the air in triumph, attracting other members of the species. They are impressed by his bravado and decide to follow his leadership as chieftain. Welcome to the tribal stage.

At this point the evolution of your creature is complete. Now you begin to learn the use of rudimentary tools and to craft ornate clothing. Members of the tribe gather around a makeshift village that consists of a hut and a fire. This is also where you gain the ability to command tribe members, selecting them much the same way you would select a unit in a real-time strategy game. As primitive hunters and gatherers, your first goal is to find food. Simply point and click on one of your tribe members and order him toward a food source such as wild animals or fruit trees. He will automatically collect the food and bring it home to your stockpile.

Food in the tribal stage acts as currency, used as gifts to wild animals in order to domesticate them, offered to rival tribes as a peace offering, or used to make new babies as you grow your tribe. It can also be used to purchase new huts for the village, unlocking new tools. Fishing spears, throwing spears, battle-axes, flaming torches, and musical instruments all become available, but there isn't room for everything. Hunting and gathering tools are useful for everyone, and fishermen armed with spears are much more productive than those using their bare hands--or whatever appendage you designed back in the creature creator. But more aggressive tribes may want to fashion weapons for midnight raids, while friendly folk might instead craft musical instruments.

There are five rival tribes in this stage, and you progress by either recruiting them to your cause or killing them off. Aggressive tribes will want to offer rival chiefs a gift of food, after which the tribes will become "ambivalent" to your presence, buying you time to build up resources and transform your tribe into an axe-wielding army. Then, when the time is right, gather a massive party, kill the rival chief, destroy their main hut, steal their technology, and eliminate the tribe. To commemorate your victory, add a totem piece to your camp.

Of course, Spore is simply one of the cutest games to appear this year, so many players will want to avoid violence and make friends with other tribes. To do so, you equip your tribe members with musical instruments such as maracas and didgeridoos. Then, make your way to the rival tribe village and talk with the chief. Be sure to switch your posture from aggressive to friendly so the tribe doesn't mistake your caveman orchestra for a hunting party.



When you talk to the chief, a musical minigame will unfold, and the other tribe will ask you to play one of three musical instruments. Simply answer them by pressing 1, 2, or 3 on the number keys, and the tribe will love your performance, offering to become your allies. New allies, like conquered foes, mean one more piece of totem for your pole.

Even after you've conquered the land with music, axes, or both, your tribe will need further organization. It's time to get civilized! We'll be back with an in-depth preview of the civilization and space stages soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out direct feed of Spore in action.

We get our first look at what destroying Venezuela is like in a multiplayer setting.

Mercenaries 2 is a game that has received plenty of coverage over its rather lengthy development cycle, but thus far little of that coverage has dealt with the highly anticipated cooperative multiplayer. We have heard that it will be a seamless experience in which the joining player simply drops in and out of the host player's session. The players will run around Venezuela blowing up everything they would in a normal single-player mode, but with the added benefit of being able to revel in all that destruction alongside a friend. We're pleased to say we finally had the opportunity to experience Mercs 2's co-op mode at yesterday's EA Showcase event in Redwood Shores. But we're even more pleased that this feature is every bit as simple and fun as we expected.



Mercenaries 2 is a game that has received plenty of coverage over its rather lengthy development cycle, but thus far little of that coverage has dealt with the highly anticipated cooperative multiplayer. We have heard that it will be a seamless experience in which the joining player simply drops in and out of the host player's session. The players will run around Venezuela blowing up everything they would in a normal single-player mode, but with the added benefit of being able to revel in all that destruction alongside a friend. We're pleased to say we finally had the opportunity to experience Mercs 2's co-op mode at yesterday's EA Showcase event in Redwood Shores. But we're even more pleased that this feature is every bit as simple and fun as we expected.

Quite possibly the premiere cross-dressing detective adventure game set during the French Renaissance.

Catherine de Medicis is not happy. Having read a prediction by the famed prophet Nostradamus that she would outlive her husband, King Henry the II, as well as her three children, she begs the prophet to break the terrible curse forever and help her beloved family members to avoid their terrible fates. Unfortunately for her, Nostradamus is too old to leave the house, so the task falls on his daughter Madeline to unravel this 16th century mystery.



In Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy, the latest adventure game from developer Kheops Studio, you'll point and click your way through the French Renaissance, searching for clues to help Catherine de Medicis. Cosmopolitan as they may be, French society at this time still does not consider women to be the equal of men, so Madeline will often be forced to disguise herself as her brother Cesar to progress in her investigation. Sadly, playing the part of Cesar requires a lot more work than you expect from a simple adventure game.

In our hands-on time with Nostradamus, we spent hours searching Madeline's home for different components of Cesar's disguise. Rather than keep his clothes in his bedroom like a normal French dignitary, Cesar's clothes are scattered about the entire house, and you'll be forced to pixel-hunt for his boots, pants, wig, hat, glasses, shoulder pads, and a piece of cloth that flattens out Madeline's, um, bosom. As was the fashion at the time, Cesar also happens to wear a goatee, which poses a problem for Madeline as the nubile young maiden doesn't have the capacity to grow facial hair. So you'll have to head to the kitchen and whip up a coloring cream concoction out of water, oil, beeswax, and clay.

Adventure fans should get a kick out of most of the puzzles, although it would have been nice to have a little extra assistance for new players. After creating this cream, Madeline says she will take it to her father so that he may apply it. But when you try to give Nostradamus the cream, he doesn't accept it and won't give a reason why. We were forced to wander the estate, clicking on every possible clickable item to get a clue as to where to go next. Sadly, we never found one, and Madeline remains stuck at home, unable to solve the mystery. At least there's an oven in which you can bake bread, if you so desire.

When you eventually do put on the disguise and make it outside to the streets of Salon de Provence, the citizens will react differently to you depending on whether you're dressed as Madeline and Cesar. We know this because publisher Encore stopped by the office to give us a brief demo, which showed Madeline getting crushed by stone as a tunnel caved in. But when you equip a shield on her head, she'll make it through safely. Madeline also has a tool kit of items such as a magnifying glass and tweezers, as you'll often find yourself examining crime scenes. Think CSI: Salon de Provence.



So far, it appears there's a fair amount of trial-and-error gameplay in Nostradamus, so you'll need to really think about your next move in order to be successful, even if the game gives you no indicator that you should think about your next move. Those looking for a challenging adventure game, look to Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy.

We explore a few new nooks and crannies in this upcoming massively multiplayer game from the creator of Dark Age of Camelot.
At a recent EA press event, we took the opportunity to squeeze a few new details out of developer Mythic Entertainment on its upcoming massively multiplayer game, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The game is currently in a beta-test state with thousands of loyal testers from the fan community pounding awaat it nightly and with more beta testers to come thanks to the preorder offer that EA Games has attached to the collectors' edition, which will let early adopters into the beta in advance of the launch (and will also nab them exclusive character customization options, quests, and items).



In advance of our coverage of the beta, we got a few new details on some of the game's features, such as its fully customizable interface, which lets you click, drag, and resize every single interface window in the game, from maps to chat logs to everything else. Apparently, certain parts of the interface, such as the overland map, have been programmed in the LUA language, and Mythic will encourage you to create customized art for those interface elements.

We also had a chance to take a peek at some of the lair areas that will be hidden throughout the game. These will be out-of-the-way areas where exceptionally powerful and rare foes hide out of plain sight and guard exceptionally powerful loot. We had a chance to see two such lairs; the first was hidden on the border of a competitive realm-versus-realm zone (where players from different factions can freely clash with each other) and was locked away behind a stone gate, outside of which were various shaped stones embedded into the earth just in front of the entrance. The door itself will be locked, and the flat, ground-level stones arranged in a ring around the entrance apparently represent a puzzle that you will need to solve to open the gate. Another lair was hidden in a remote corner of a misty river basin that seemed mostly deserted and was separated by a small set of foothills. However, persistent players who explore every inch of the area may discover the means to climb up the first set of foothills to discover that a set of fallen logs lead the way to a row of shattered tree stumps that can be crossed with well-placed jumps that lead to a final hidden path to the lair of a mighty and ancient foe who summons backup to defend its treasure. Yes, Warhammer Online will have a jumping puzzle.

However, none of the game's lairs will have any kind of duplicate content or puzzles, so there will be no one-size-fits-all solution to unlock all of them. Though Mythic was gracious enough to show the entrances to two of these lairs, the studio was understandably reluctant to comment about the number and location of them in the game. There will, however, be "more than 20" lairs hidden throughout the world, and in addition to offering the opportunity to fight a unique enemy and win an exceptionally powerful weapon or item, finding lair locations will unlock sections of your "tome of knowledge," Warhammer Online's in-game journal. Players who enjoy exploring will definitely be rewarded for their troubles when they discover lairs, but the hidden enemies that lurk within will generally be exceptionally strong, and a stout group of adventurers will usually be required to conquer them.



Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is currently in a beta-testing state and is scheduled for release worldwide in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on September 18.

We strap on the skates and start making plays happen in our look at the EA Sports Hockey League in NHL 09.

One thing's for sure about this year's NHL game from EA Sports: It won't be lacking for features. Sure you've got your standard single-player games, but NHL 09 will also feature a new Be a Pro career mode where you'll play the role of a hockey hopeful looking to make a name for yourself in the AHL and, eventually, the NHL. Online, the game will feature full six-on-six play across 12 different consoles, online leagues, and--perhaps the biggest online feature in this year's game--the recently announced EA Sports Hockey League. During a recent trip up to EA Sports' Vancouver studios, we got a chance to strap on the skates and take a few shifts in the EASHL to see how this feature is coming along.



Essentially Be a Pro mode played online, the EASHL feature will let you take your created character and play online on teams made up of other players' created hockey pros. You'll use the same character you create in the Career mode, and all of the attributes you've built offline toward your character will apply to his performance on the ice in the EASHL. This is particularly important when picking the role you'll play on the ice, as we'll explain below.

In addition to playing with full six-on-six teams online, the EASHL will let you organize hockey "guilds" with your fellow puck fans (and if this is beginning to sound like a on-ice version of World of Warcraft, that's no accident; the developers at EA Canada commonly refer to the EASHL feature as a burgeoning sports MMOG, one on which the team intends to build for years to come in future versions of the NHL series).

While we didn't get an extended look at how the guild system will work, we did get into an online EASHL game, which looks to be a snap. Players congregate in a lobby until the game is launched, wherein players are then given the chance to claim their positions on the ice. During our time with the game, a team composed of gaming press took on the development team, and when it came time to claim a position, it seemed like a mad scramble to choose an offensive position.

Based on the character we had hastily created (a tall, hefty "play maker"), we quickly snapped up the left wing position, hoping to use our player as a passing expert who would make things happen in front of the net. It brought to mind the potential problems the "catch as catch can" nature of choosing your position might pose for regular EASHL fans. After all, there will be a certain segment of the NHL 09 fan base that looks to create and play defensemen (and a smaller segment that will be brave enough to live between the pipes as goalie). However, it seems that the more casual fan might want to only play in center or on the wings. Will we see lots of last-minute dropouts if players don't get the positions they want?

Regardless of this potential problem, you'll need to play whatever position you play carefully. As with the offline Be a Pro mode, NHL 09 will give you lots of feedback during the game on how you can improve your play on the ice, including a big blue arrow that will point out where you need to be if you get out of position, as well as handy (and often insightful) tips during intermission detailing what you did right or wrong in the previous period. If you're a shooter, you might be praised for taking lots of shots; if you're defenseman, you'll want to make sure you're laying plenty of hits on your opponent--or else you'll hear about it from the coach.



n our session against the EA developers, it was interesting to watch our team dynamic evolve during the course of the game. When the puck was dropped at the beginning of the game, it was like Pee Wee Hockey, with every player heading directly for the puck and virtually no positional play on the ice. Because we were all playing in the same room, our communication was a bit easier than it will be in the final game, where people will be talking (or more likely yelling) into headsets calling for the puck in their individual living rooms. However, as the game continued, each player got a better feel for what was required of him on the ice (thanks in no small part to the aforementioned feedback). In our case, we were able to make some nice passes, including one gorgeous two-on-one dump to our center that nearly resulted in a goal. We even managed to light the lamp on a handy one-timer in front of the net.

Sure, the EA devs were probably going easy on us--we won the game handily--but that didn't take away any of the pride we felt as we skated out onto the ice to accept the applause of crowd as the third star of the game. While the EASHL is just one in a full suite of features in NHL 09, it seems to be the one with the brightest future as the series progresses, and we look forward to following its progress. NHL 09 is scheduled for release on September 9; look for more on the game in the coming weeks.

Publisher: THQ
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Volition Inc.
Genre: Modern Action Adventure
Release Date: Oct 14, 2008

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The original Saints Row certainly didn't revolutionize the sandbox action genre, but in playing it safe, the game pulled off a successful imitation of the Grand Theft Auto formula while still managing to introduce a handful of novel features. Right from the get-go, players were introduced to an impressive and seemingly limitless palette of character customization options. It probably goes without saying that Volition will take that ability to obsessively mold your protagonist and carry it over to Saints Row 2, but now they've expanded the customization options to your entire gang. In addition to a few side missions, we recently took a glimpse at some of the ways you'll be able to design your ideal fraternity of criminals in Saints Row 2.



Once you've escaped from prison and recruited a few followers, you'll be given the option to tinker with your gang's overall appearance. The most noticeable change is in the gang's style. With this option, you can choose a visual theme for the followers you see roaming the streets--both lieutenants and thugs--from a pretty hefty list. Among the wardrobes we saw were those listed as '80s, Body Guards, Pimps n' Hos, and last but certainly not least, Ninjas. If you want your gang to look stern but classy, Body Guards might be the look for you. If you want an army of underdressed ladies hanging in your crib, Pimps n' Hos would be a safe bet. But if you're anything like us, you'll immediately choose the Ninja style and never look back.

With this option selected, all the thugs that belong to your gang will resemble stealth assassins of the night. So as not to stand out from your cronies, you can go into your own wardrobe and select your own ninja garb. If you really want to get into the spirit of things, you can also change your fighting style to the Ronin technique. This will change the look of your attacks to more of a nimble martial arts technique--as opposed to the street-tough look of your default character's punches. Thus, with our ninja cycle complete, we could move onto the other gang options.

These additional options include choosing an official gang taunt, graffiti tags, and the types of vehicles you're buddies will be driving. Gang taunts range from vulgar gestures (think everyone's favorite amateurish first-person shooter celebration) to comical Irish jigs. The graffiti tags are all authentic-looking designs, courtesy of one of Volition's concept artists, who we're told has a background in the tagging arts. And finally, the vehicle options let you choose the models, designs, and features of the cars you'll undoubtedly be stealing from your own comrades whenever you need a quick lift.

Once we had our gang done up to suitably absurd levels, it was time to test out a few of the game's side missions--or activities. We went with a pair of stronghold missions: goals where you need to find a rival gang's base and cause a huge ruckus. The first mission had us taking to the air in an attempt to destroy a rival gang's drug farm. Your character sits in a helicopter with an assault rifle in hand, and your goal is to blow up every last structure in the complex from on high. Once you get that done, it ends with you running down fleeing Cadillacs filled with armed thugs doing their best to make a successful escape from your rampaging ways. When successful, you're shown a newspaper clipping (Headline: "Hippies Mourn Loss of Drug Farm") that will adorn the walls of your crib. It's a wistful token of nostalgia, as well as a functional teleport, that gives you the ability to go back and replay that mission whenever you like.

The other stronghold mission we tried involved taking on a gang of a slightly higher stature. Rather than busting up a field of hallucinogenics, this one required plowing through a warehouse, stealing a large sum of money, as well as blowing up all their trucks and airplanes. The action itself feels similar to most third-person shooters, but a variety of guns and death animations help make things interesting. Most strategy requires knowing which weapon to use and when to crouch behind cover to let your health regenerate. The tricky part was the second stage of the mission, where you exit the warehouse and find yourself on an airport tarmac. Thugs are shooting at you from all over, but with the handy aid of a satchel charge and rocket launcher, you can take them and their vehicles out with enough effort.



The demo we played was on the PlayStation 3, which gave us our first opportunity to see how the Sixaxis controls work. We tested this functionality on a racing activity, which was a time trial where you need to race through the sewers on a jet ski. The motion controls were a bit more fidgety than we would have liked, but they became easier to deal with as we progressed from the confines of the sewer to the wide-open ocean. At the very least, the Sixaxis controls are purely optional because you can turn them off whenever you like.

Minor control issues aside, Saints Row 2 is looking like a worthy follow-up to its well-received predecessor. It may not be the towering artistic achievement that Grand Theft Auto IV turned out to be, but with even more features added to a game that already boasted lots of hidden surprises, the city of Stilwater should offer plenty to see. You can expect to see the game released on October 14.

Publisher: EA Sports
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: EA Sports
Genre: Basketball Sim
Release Date: Oct 7, 2008

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While EA Sports' upcoming NBA Live 09 is going to be full of new features, the recently announced Dynamic DNA feature seems to be the big one on the list, if only judged by the developer's recent press events. The new feature--which keeps the virtual players in the game playing just like their real-life counterparts thanks to complex scouting data and downloadable updates for the game--was first introduced at E3 2008 during EA's press conference. Yesterday, EA threw its annual summer press event, where once again NBA Live 09 and Dynamic DNA took center stage, and we had a chance to play the game to see how the feature is coming along.



Along with presenting five real-life NBA stars (Andre Iguodala, Rudy Gay, Brandon Roy, Andrea Bargnani, and Live 09 cover athlete Tony Parker), on hand to check out the game, record some motion capture, and chat with the media, EA once again gave a quick presentation of the DNA feature, which looks to capture the real-life tendencies of both individual players and entire teams. Players are broken down not just by their hot spots on the floor, but by their tendency to move left or right on a defender at any spot on the court, as well as their propensity to shoot.

In addition, the DNA data will record what kind of play a particular player prefers to run--everything from isolation, to pick and roll, to off-ball screens. Combine all these tendencies and you'll have a pretty complete picture of how a player competes. For example, in NBA Live 09, Tony Parker is noted as a pick and roll ball handler, one who rarely shoots from outside, instead preferring to shoot from the left side of the baseline and who likes to move left at the top of the key. Like Parker, Brandon Roy's DNA pegs him as a pick and roll ball handler; unlike Tony, however, Roy is more dangerous on the right side of the baseline, but is liable to go left or right on a defender when playing on the left side of the hoop down low.

What does this kind of information do for you as a player of NBA Live 09? Well, perhaps most obviously, careful study of a team's players will let you better understand how to be effective with them. There's no point in trying to take three-point shots with Iguodala on the right side--he's pretty ineffective there. However, he's got a hot spot beyond the three-point line on the right that you can exploit. Understanding your team will help you better call smarter plays on the court. If you know Brandon Roy likes to run the pick and roll, you can get him in position to make the most of his talent.

For the truly serious, the DNA feature will be an ideal way to scout opponent teams controlled by the Live 09 AI. After all, unlike a human opponent (especially a skilled one), who can't be as easily predicted, the Live 09 AI players will play as their tendencies compel them. So if you've got a crucial division game with a playoff spot on the line, a little time scouting your opponent's tendencies is time well spent.

In terms of gameplay, NBA Live 09 feels much like the Live you've come to be used to. Live 09 is still not a very fast game, and players don't always get downcourt as quickly as you might expect them to. In addition, the ball still tends to feel a bit floaty at times, especially during long passes that don't always go in the direction you might have intended (if you're not familiar with it yet, you'll do well to acclimate to icon passing as soon as possible). You can see the work the development team has put into branching animations in the game--it's now easier to interrupt animations, such as passing out of an ill-advised shot attempt--and while there's still more work to be done, development is indeed progressing.

Live 09 also has some new control wrinkles to note. First is a new free throw mechanic. The last few games in the series have used the right stick for free throws. That's been replaced this year with button shooting. When you take your free throw, a small horizontal meter appears on the backboard. To start your shot, hold down the shoot button. The meter begins to move left to right and, to make your shot, you have to let go of the shoot button when the meter reaches the green zone. Depending on a player's shooting ability, that green zone will be smaller or larger. To add to the challenge, your multiplayer opponent can choose to rattle you by "buzzing" your controller with the rumble feature. We're not 100 percent sold on the new system--free throws seem more automatic for real NBA players (Shaq excluded) than they are in the game--but at the very least it seems a bit better than the old system. Another new shooting wrinkle is the return of timed shooting; you now need to release the shot button at the top of a player's arc to maximize your chance of making a shot.

You can call plays by pressing the left bumper and choosing the play you wish to run from a pop-up menu that appears. A faster play call option is the Y button (on the Xbox 360 controller); pressing it will automatically call the "best" play for that situation based on your team's DNA data. You can also bring up a player's hot zones by clicking on the left stick (though we wish the information would come up a bit quicker than it did in the version we played; the slight lag between the press of the button and the appearance of the hot zones was frustrating).



After a game is done, you'll get a complete breakdown of your player stats, as well as a thorough DNA report of every player on the floor--though it occurs to us that this is really a breakdown of how you played the game, not necessarily a reflection of the actual player's tendencies. Then again, learning your own tendencies probably isn't all that bad a thing, especially if it makes you a better player in the end.

We've seen a lot of the Dynamic DNA feature and, while it seems like a neat addition to the series, we're ready to see what the rest of the game has to offer. After all, NBA Live 09 will also feature a hoops version of the suddenly ubiquitous Be a Pro mode; and we hope to see how the online play has progressed since last year's promising postrelease addition of online team play. Stay tuned for more on these and other features as we continue to follow NBA Live 09's progress in the coming weeks.