Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, is in development and set to release on November 10, 2009. It was officially announced by Activision Blizzard on December 3, 2008.

No co-operative play will be included in the campaign of Modern Warfare 2, unlike the previous installment. In the Game Informer article, Infinity Ward stated that co-op campaign detracted greatly from the cinematic effect of the game no matter how they tried to implement it. However, a new mode of gameplay, called Special Forces mode, will include co-operative play. Special Forces mode will include several fast-paced action missions similar to Mile High Club which will be of much higher difficulty than normal campaign missions and will lack real stories.

It has also been stated that NPCs will carry customized weaponry, similar to multiplayer.

In at least one mission, enemy soldiers will be amongst non-combatant civilians, forcing the player to discern between civilians and militia soldiers.

Modern Warfare 2 is to feature Russia once again in political turmoil. Makarov, a political leader coming from the shadow of Imran Zakhaev, plots to cause a chain of events that would threaten global security. The plan made by Makarov is deemed dangerous enough for Task Force 141, led by Cpt. Soap MacTavish, to be deployed to Russia. There, the force must fight its way through near-white out conditions. After escaping the scene on snowmobiles, Task Force 141 is later deployed to Rio De Janeiro to capture an arms der linked to the plot, eventually being led to the barren lands of Afghanistan. But the intel Cpt. Soap MacTavish and the rest of Task Force 141 is receiving is likely inaccurate, as even they do not understand the danger of the sinister plot.

On May 10th, a promotional video for Modern Warfare 2 was unveiled on TNT. Multiple weapons were shown in the video, all of which are listed above, along with weapons shown in the Game Informer article. On May 21st, a second promotional video was shown on GTTV. Both of the two videos were pieces of the large trailer that was to be released on May 24th, to which an Infinity Ward developer responded, "The extended trailer which launches on ModernWarfare2.com on Sunday will be 5x the amount of content.".[3]

Sure enough, the full length trailer topped off at around 2 minutes with more gameplay than was previously shown. The trailer's debut was so popular that the official Infinity Ward forums were crashed for nearly ten minutes, due to the flood of people.

Making certain superhero videogames must be difficult. Some guys, like Batman, are just regular people with lots of money and awesome gadgets, and they can still die. But what about nearly immortal characters, like Superman? The Man of Steel has kryptonite to make him a little more "human," but Marvel's undying bundle of anger, Wolverine, can survive almost anything (or at least put himself back together after being torn to shreds). Wolverine's latest adventure X-Men Origins: Wolverine, does a great job of making you feel like the nearly invincible mutant, but it doesn't quite provide a story to match.

Like the title indicates, Origins details Wolverine's beginnings...well more of the origin of his name and adamantium frame. The character's true origin began in the 1800s. Regardless, Origins' five-chapter tale alternates between the present (mostly the Weapon X facility) and three years in the past (in an African jungle), setting up a frame story that slowly but surely drives the narrative forward. After act three, however, things start to get weird; for every question the game answers, it brings up two more. Other popular mutants, like Gambit and the Blob, make brief appearances, but their cameos only confuse the tale of flashbacks further. By the end, the game has set up so many loose plot threads that it leaves no choice but to try and wrap them up in a confusing mishmash of explosions and overlong battles.



But you're playing this game for one reason and it's not for a Dickensian retelling of Logan's history; it's to do what "he does best": tear people in half with reckless, bloody abandon. And that's what Origins gets right. The camera cinematically sweeps around the battlefield, and the game throws the action into slow motion whenever you execute an especially violent decapitation. And almost every enemy can succumb to getting ripped apart at the torso or a messy decapitation. The combos are simple, and button-mashing usually works just as well as any type of strategy. But the game always makes you feel like an effective killing machine.

The guys you're killing, however, get old pretty fast. Both the "past" jungle levels and "present" facility chapters pit you against the exact same enemies, reskinned to fit their surroundings. It's even more off-putting when you start fighting mutants. How many blade-wielding, four-armed dancers exist in Wolverine's world? Apparently several hundred. Boss encounters, while they force you to change up your battle strategy a little, are simple exercises in running around in circles, leaping on your opponent's back, and slowly whittling away at their health bar.



But to ease the grind of fighting the game's endless parade of cloned grunts, Origins incorporates a few adventure-like qualities (leveling up, equipping new powers, choosing which skills to power up). While it adds a sense of purpose to the slaughter, it's also a bit misleading. You can constantly upgrade your strength and stamina, but the enemies always seem to take the same amount of punishment. And it makes the cut-scenes, where Wolverine effortlessly slices through skin, bone, and concrete walls that much more jarring. How do the same enemies take so much more damage when they're in-game? By the end of Origins, I was hoping to have created a Wolverine who could swing a fist and immediately send limbs flying, rather than a character that feels about the same as he did at the beginning of the game.

Origins also occasionally throws in some nonsensical platforming sections to slow things down. Suddenly, the camera feels like less of a thrilling addition, and more like an annoyance whose purpose is to make you die. Leaping precariously between platforms or girders with Wolverine's inexact jumping is one thing, but some scenes force you to run toward the camera, away from some cataclysmic danger, usually while avoiding obstacles at the same time. Screw up: You die, and start over (though invisible walls tend to keep you from taking too many unnecessary leaps to your doom).



The game has unlockable costumes, which is a nice change if you get tired of looking at Logan's A-shirt attire, but neither costumes nor battle damage carry over to most of the game's cut-scenes. One second you're dressed as the classic, yellow-and-blue suited Wolverine, the next you're looking at your character in jeans and a white shirt -- all the more strange since most of the scenes take place in-engine, not as separate, high-rendered cinematics. It's the oversight to little details that ultimately detract from the game the most. Sure, Wolverine takes battle damage, exposing gaping chest wounds, protruding arm bones, and a bare skull. But his pants are always perfectly intact. Maybe Levi's Jeans has a secret deal with the Wolverine game: the pants can get a little bloody, but they can't sustain damage -- like a racing game where none of the cars can show any scratches or dents.

While Origins doesn't seem to have any game-breaking bugs, I still ran into spots that had me walking in mid-air or grabbing onto invisible ledges. Even the final boss encounter forced me to spend part of the battle running around in the sky, just trying to get back to the battlefield. The game never locked up or dropped me through a floor, but it still has some pretty big glitches for a finished product. And, this is a minor detail, but Origins doesn't have subtitles. If you want to turn down the game's constant shouting and battle noises, you'll also miss out on everything the characters are saying.



As a mindless, button-masher that puts you in control of the eternally angry Wolverine, the game provides some simple fun. But it quickly devolves into a mediocre Tomb Raider/God of War mash-up of balancing across precarious ledges, quick time events, and moving crates around to solve "puzzles." Origins isn't bad at what it does, but what it does isn't very ambitious.

Although it has been a few months since EA released Red Alert 3 for the PC and Xbox 360, the publisher is just now putting the final touches on the PlayStation 3 version of the real-time strategy game. While the game has trailed the other versions, EA has taken the extra time to polish up the conversion and add content to give PlayStation 3 owners some love. We recently had the chance to get a look at a work-in-progress version of the game, dubbed Red Alert 3: Ultimate Edition, and get our hands on it for a bit to see how it's shaping up.

If you missed Red Alert 3 last year, here are some highlights. The game is the third entry in the Command & Conquer spin-off series that takes the real-time strategy action and drops it into an alternate past. This time out, the game's story has a lot of fun with time travel and mixes up the technologies of the different playable factions. Thanks to a time-travel-fueled assassination, the American, Russian, and Japanese nations have taken some interesting development paths. Mechs, cyberbears, and all manner of borderline-zany units are tossed into the game's pool of infantry and vehicles.

The PS3 game will have all the content found in the original 360 and PC games, so plan on campaigns for the Allies, Soviets, and Rising Sun factions, each with increasing difficulty levels and high-quality video cinematics starring some big-name talent. In a welcome twist, the campaigns will support online co-op play, replacing your AI co-commander in offline play with a human one. In addition, the game will feature an online skirmish mode for you and three friends, which is just two shy of the PC game's six-player support and is on par with the 360 multiplayer. On top of all the content found in the original 360 and PC games, the PS3 version will feature the content found in the PC Premiere Edition of the game, which includes documentaries, a soundtrack, bloopers, video unit profiles that offer useful information, and excerpts from the Battlecast programming the team has been running for a while now. The meaty additions actually come close to filling up the game's Blu-ray disc.



Beyond the game content, there are a few extra odds and ends of note in Red Alert 3: Ultimate Edition. First, the game will feature trophies, 50 in fact, which are the same as achievements in the 360 version and are spread throughout single-player, skirmish, and online play. Second, the game doesn't contain any of the content from the upcoming expansion pack for the PC. We asked about DLC for the game and were told it has yet to be determined. Finally, our third bit of info is a heads-up on the game's install, which is shaping up to be 3.8 gigs.

Control is on par with the approach taken in the 360 game. The game uses a radial menu and it maps controls across the Dual Shock in an intuitive fashion that works really well. While it's still not a replacement for a good old keyboard and mouse, it's probably one of the best ways to do an RTS on a console.

Though Red Alert's controls haven't seen much tweaking, the visuals have. The Xbox 360 game was basically fine, but it was a bit muted. The PS3 game, however, benefits from sharper textures and a markedly brighter color palette, putting the game closer to the impressive look of the PC game. On the performance side of things, the action looked to be smooth and didn't hiccup, although we didn't get a chance to flood the map with units.

Based on what we saw and played, Red Alert 3: Ultimate Edition is looking like a shinier conversion of the PC game with a good number of extras. Given that the number of real-time strategy games on the PS3 can be tallied on one hand, the game is a welcome addition to the system's library. Red Alert 3: Ultimate Edition is slated to ship at the end of March for the PlayStation 3.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 Ultimate Edition Trailer

With all the critical acclaim for the Watchmen comic series and all the hype surrounding the new movie adaptation, it's possible that folks might have certain expectations for the new video game set in the same universe. However, if you are hoping to find some of the comic's depth and maturity here, or are looking forward to reliving your favorite scenes from the movie, you will be sorely disappointed. Watchmen: The End Is Nigh is a shallow beat-'em-up game set years before the events of the comic. Its narrow scope may disappoint some, and the Watchmen veneer isn't very deep. Yet thanks to lively, brutal combat and impressive visuals, Watchmen: The End Is Nigh is a fun, fist-flinging romp for the few hours that it lasts. The $20 price tag is a steep one, but for anyone who enjoys a good old-fashioned beat-'em-up, The End Is Nigh delivers.

Pretty much all you do for the entire game is beat up bad guys, and the combat is good enough to stay fun throughout. Whether you're playing as Rorschach or Nite Owl (the only two playable characters), the fundamentals are simple: light attack, heavy attack, block, and throw. Peppering your opponent with attacks works well, and there are some nice animation touches that make even this basic combat enjoyable. Throwing enemies is particularly delightful, whether it be into a crowd, off of a ledge, or into a wall. As you progress, you'll encounter tougher enemies that block your basic attacks, so you have to use the various combos you learn along the way in order to stun them or knock them down. These combos add new animations to the mix and are generally a bit nastier than your normal attacks. However, the best animations are the finishers, which you activate by matching the button prompt that appears over the head of a weakened enemy. The camera zooms in during these brutal flurries, allowing you to appreciate every blow. While Nite Owl's no slouch, Rorschach is the clear standout here: his finishers are so manic and so vicious that you can't help but cringe and cackle with delight as he just keeps hitting a guy who is clearly unconscious.



Basic attacks, combos, throws, and finishers make up the bulk of your fighting move set, but Rorschach and Nite Owl have a few other tricks up their sleeves. They can each counterattack easily, disarming any armed opponents and positioning themselves for a strike. Rorschach will even hold onto these weapons, and his brutal finishers get even nastier when there is a crowbar involved, though watching him wield a knife like a bludgeon is a bit silly. Each hero also has two special attacks that drain energy from a meter in the corner of the screen. Rorschach can do a short bull rush or freak out and do more damage for a short period of time. Nite Owl's grenade stuns anyone nearby, and he can use the electric charge in his suit to zap a large radius of foes.

As you fight your way through the rough areas of town, you'll encounter a few different breeds of thug and lowlife, some tougher than others. It's easy to die if you get yourself surrounded and try to punch your way out, but judicious use of counterattacks and special moves should be enough to get you out of any tight situation. There are throwaway actions here and there, like lever-pulling or valve-turning, and an oddly tricky lock-picking minigame that seems a bit out of place in a game that's all about brute force. Despite these extraneous tasks, a creeping sense of repetition looms over The End Is Nigh, and it's possible you'll grow weary of pounding your way through wave after wave of goons. Though the game mixes up your enemies' fighting styles in order to make you use your entire arsenal, the action can often teeter on the edge of button-mashing boredom. Those inclined to revel in the perverse joy of cracking skulls will be able to keep repetition at bay, but the relatively simple gameplay will quickly wear thin for others.



For all its merits, the combat wouldn't be nearly as fun if it wasn't paired with top-notch graphics. The sharp character models are fashioned after the movie costumes, and the smooth, realistic animations make the action exciting and extremely satisfying. You'll chuckle when Rorschach jams his hands in his overcoat immediately after furiously maiming an entire biker gang, and both he and Nite Owl pack a wickedly pleasing punch. There are occasional physics-based oddities, especially when throwing your enemies, but the animation is still consistently impressive. The detailed environments provide a rich setting for your beatdowns, and stark lights and deep shadows (occasionally too deep) create a dramatic look. The quasi-animated cutscenes provide a few pages' worth of story across the six chapters of the game, and the sinister machinations at work fit nicely into the Watchmen universe.

Though you can have some split-screen fun with a friend, it's baffling that there is no online cooperative mode. That would have made the $20 price tag a little easier to swallow, but as it stands the price feels a bit greedy. Those inclined to tire of repetitive gameplay will find the price of entry too high, but there is some value here. The impressively animated combat is fun and brutal, and the sumptuous environments provide the perfect pugilistic playground. The many unlockable combos and achievements provide some replay incentive, and the combat is surprisingly fun to come back to even after you've beaten the game. Though it may be shallow, overpriced, and likely to disappoint anyone hoping for more weighty fare, Watchmen: The End Is Nigh is ultimately a simple, well-crafted game that will please those looking to dish out some good old-fashioned beatdowns.

Review By Chris Watters, GameSpot

Since its advent nearly 13 years ago, the Star Ocean series has challenged the role-playing game norm with its real-time battles and sci-fi trappings. Despite what appeared to be the series' conclusion with the unconventional revelations seen in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, it has returned in prequel form on the Xbox 360 with a newly overhauled and better-than-ever combat system. Though it features a weak, cliche story and characters you may want to launch out of the airlock, its fantastic and engaging battles, simple yet fun crafting system, and bevy of bonuses make Star Ocean: The Last Hope worth your time.

In the latter half of the 21st century, humankind all but nukes itself into nonexistence, forcing the survivers on Earth to look to the stars for a new home. As Edge Maverick, a first-generation member of the Space Reconnaissance Force, you start off on your mission to explore the galaxy for a suitable new home and are drawn into a battle for the fate of the galaxy when you encounter a mysterious and destructive force that threatens all life. Of course, that's nothing that a can-do attitude, the support of your friends, hidden inner powers, and the occasional all-too-convenient plot twist can't handle as you race off to save the day. Sound familiar? Star Ocean: The Last Hope doesn't have a very original story, and its frequently ridiculous plot points and consistently dreadful dialogue don't help to make it any more memorable, especially when it forces half-hour-plus cutscenes on you with alarming frequency. Luckily, you can skip these epic events at any time (though oddly enough, they can't be paused) and read through condensed text synopses to make sure that you didn't miss anything too terribly important.



The formulaic nature of the story is further compounded by the cast of characters, themselves an off-the-shelf mixture of walking, talking space opera and anime cliches. You've got the hopelessly idealistic leading man, who is full of an infinite (and often misplaced) trust in others; the self-deprecating childhood-friend-slash-possible-love-interest; the emotionally repressed, scientifically minded space elf; the busty, scantily clad staff-wielding sorceress; the overly affectionate underaged cat girl; and more. Though the members of your misfit crew do undergo some fairly heavy changes as the game progresses--both as part of the standard narrative and in optional cutscenes and events--it's always in extremely predictable ways that ultimately fail to break them out of their original molds.

Despite these shortcomings, The Last Hope is a fun and engaging game thanks in great part to its deeply engrossing and highly addictive combat system; if the story is the heart of a Japanese RPG, then the battles are its soul, and Star Ocean's shines brightly. Monsters appear on the field, and once engaged, they're fought completely in real time with a party of up to four characters. You actively control one of your crew members and navigate him or her around a wide-open battlefield, dishing out damage at your own pace, while the others act according to basic AI routines that you've given them. At any time, you can switch over to manually control anyone who you have deployed, and you can even swap out active characters with reserve ones at your discretion. Every single character plays vastly differently, and it's fun and engaging to experiment with each character in order to find the play style and party combination that works best for you.



Though the battles can get frantic, they don’t all come down to button mashing, especially when you're taking on bosses. These major battles in The Last Hope often play out like simplified versions of encounters in an massively multiplayer game such as World of Warcraft. Each boss has a specific strategy that can be followed to take it out--though it's not necessary to follow these tactics if your party is powerful enough--and figuring them out during the fight will make your life a whole lot easier and dramatically reduce battle times. Another concept taken from online games is monster aggro, or aggression. Though enemies will wander around the battlefield, you can draw aggro from them with attacks or by using specialized skills for doing so, which is useful for pulling a monster off of your physically weaker magic-slingers to give them a chance to cast their powerful spells. Once you have aggro and the monster gears up for an attack, if you dodge out of the way with the right timing, you can break its line of sight on you, leaving it temporarily confused and open to special counterattacks called blindsides. Another powerful tool at your disposal is Rush mode, which can be activated once you've taken or dealt enough damage to grant you an array of bonuses and the ability to chain attacks together with other party members.

Perhaps the most interesting part of battle is the bonus board. By performing specific tasks in combat, such as defeating enemies using only skills or killing two monsters with one blow, you add a tile to this onscreen grid that grants you an extra reward at the end of battle based on your achievement. You can have up to 14 such bonus tiles active at any one time, and these carry over from fight to fight; by carefully manipulating the types of bonus tiles you have, you can customize extra rewards that are given after every single encounter. With this, you have the flexibility to power level your characters, grind for cash or skill points, minimize the number of restorative items that you need to use, or all of the above in any combination. It's possible to lose your bonus tiles, but if you exercise good judgment in combat, they shouldn't be too difficult to keep for as long as you like.



When not in battle, you're exploring a series of open, outdoor locations that range from beaches to deserts to snow-capped mountains and beyond, as well as the occasional puzzle-filled dungeon. These beautiful-but-dangerous environments often contain resource nodes that provide valuable plant life or raw materials if you've got a crew member who can harvest them. These supplies and others earned through battle (or bought from stores) are then used to fuel your research in the simple-but-powerful item creation system. By finding item formulas in your journey or forming research teams and thinking long and hard enough, you can invent recipes for new weapons, armor, items, and even decorations for your ship. Once you gain the right ally, you can further customize your equipment by synthesizing the properties of other items in your inventory to generate some truly powerful gear.

The Last Hope features some top-notch visuals in its huge, open, and highly detailed environments, its abundant cutscenes, and its anime-inspired character models, but it also has a few notable issues. Sadly, the game has only a handful of unique monster designs, and it palette-swaps and reuses them ad infinitum. It's also exceedingly difficult to play on an SDTV thanks to incredibly hard-to-read text and muddied graphics. Sometimes just looking around you is an exercise in frustration thanks to the awful camera system; it zooms in ridiculously close at times and doesn't seem to know what to do whenever you're in a narrow hallway or traveling down stairs or a steep decline. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about The Last Hope is that all of the game's characters have a doll-like, glossy-eyed dead look to them, further accentuated by their complete lack of human emotion or expression. Besides being creepy, this makes supposedly emotional scenes unintentionally hilarious or just plain awkward to watch.

The game’s frequently awful voice acting makes it even harder to connect with the characters. At its very best, The Last Hope's cast will make you groan. At its worse, they're absolutely unbearable. Anyone hoping to escape the lackluster dub will be disappointed to hear that the original Japanese audio is not preserved here, though you do have the option to turn off battle quips from individual characters. Celebrated composer Motoi Sakuraba returns to lend his talents to the Star Ocean series once again, and though the voice acting doesn't work, his soundtrack is perfectly suited to the various locales visited, situations faced, and battles fought.



When it's all said and done and you've finished the game, there's still plenty more to do. Besides offering two unlockable difficulty settings, there are tons of side quests to complete, items to create, recipes to discover, bonus dungeons to explore, and bunnies to race. The Last Hope also has Star Ocean: Till the End of Time’s coliseum system, which lets you sign up for solo or group fights to battle your way up the ladders for prizes. You can collect dozens of battle trophies for each character by performing specific tasks with them in combat. And if you actually are interested in the story, there are multiple endings to see based on the relationships that you form as Edge Maverick throughout the game.

If all you're looking for is a strong, narrative-driven role-playing adventure, Star Ocean: The Last Hope isn't going to do much to satisfy you. But despite its deficiencies in this area, its huge number of extras and its addictive, deeply strategic and tactical combat system make it a lot of fun.

By Lark Anderson, GameSpot

Star Ocean: The Last Hope Opening

The first-quarter siege on gamers' wallets continues this week with an array of high-profile releases, but none is bigger than Halo Wars for the Xbox 360. Set for a March 3 release, the real-time strategy take on Microsoft's sci-fi first-person shooter franchise marks a bittersweet milestone for developer Ensemble. Halo Wars will be the Texas-based studio's first foray onto consoles, but also its final finished game, given that Microsoft shut down the developer in January.

Although that sad news could assure Halo Wars a place in gaming history, Sega's new real-time and turn-based hybrid strategy game is guaranteed to be historic. Developed by The Creative Assembly and set for release on the same day as Halo Wars, Empire: Total War for the PC is set in the 18th century. Beyond allowing would-be world conquerors to muck around with the history books, Empire also introduces naval combat to the studio's trademark Total War franchise.



Empire: Total War isn't the only game that Sega has up its sleeve this week. The publisher is also shipping Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP and Sonic and the Black Knight for the Wii, both with a March 3 release. The latter game adds sword-based combat to the Sonic franchise, whereas the former tells a new story in the Phantasy Star Universe series, nestled between the events of the original and the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion.

Those aren't the only games on deck this week; Major League Baseball releases are stepping to the plate on every major system. 2K Sports has MLB 2K9 headed for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC, and PlayStation 2, and DS owners are getting a swing at MLB 2K9 Fantasy All-Stars. Sony is also swinging for the fences with MLB 09: The Show on the PS3, PS2, and PSP. All of the baseball games are set to charge the retail mound on March 3.

Also taking off on that packed launch day is Tom Clancy's HAWX for the Xbox 360 and PS3, the first installment of the author's Ubisoft games to take on air combat. Set in the near future, HAWX lets players fly the unfriendly skies in a variety of high-tech jet fighters. The PC edition of the game is expected next week.

For a full list of the week's game debuts, check out GameSpot's New Releases page.

Call of Duty: World at War is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 2. It is the fifth installment in the main Call of Duty series. The game is set in the Pacific theater and Eastern front of World War II. The game shipped in North America on November 11, 2008, and will ship in Australia on November 12, 2008, and in Europe on November 14, 2008.



The story focuses on the final battles of World War II in the Pacific and Eastern Europe involving the United States, the Empire of Japan, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. It is told from the perspectives of a Marine Raider and a Red Army soldier, and is based on several historical battles, including the Makin Island raid, the Battle of Peleliu, and the Battle of Berlin. The multiplayer portion of the game contains various game modes, and contains a leveling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons and rewards as they progress, which was originally implemented in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. A new feature to the Call of Duty series is the co-op mode, which can support up to four players online and two offline.



Story
One part of a level entitled "Makin Raid" shows an Allied prisoner of war being tortured by the Japanese before having his throat slit by a katana. The player's character witnesses this scene and is later rescued by US Marines who liberate the camp. Two other levels show the player using the machine guns on a PBY Catalina to attack a Japanese naval fleet, and the beginning of the Russian campaign. In that level, the player and a Russian sniper attack German troops under the cover of a bombing raid.



Gameplay
World at War will feature a more mature theme than previous installments in the series. Swimming will be introduced to the series. While in water, the player cannot sprint and will only move at half speed. Flamethrowers, introduced in Call of Duty: United Offensive, will appear alongside flammable environments. Vehicles (i.e. Tanks) will also be reintroduced in this edition of Call of Duty. The game will be more open-ended than previous games in the series, as there will be multiple ways to complete objectives.

Multiplayer
World at War will have cooperative gameplay with up to two players via split screen on consoles, or four players online, for the first time in the franchise. In addition, the Wii version will also feature splitscreen multiplayer. All console versions of the game will use a perk system similar to that in Call of Duty 4. Activision has also confirmed that vehicles will be usable in multiplayer. Six multiplayer modes have been announced including team deathmatch and capture the flag, among others.



A special online co-op mode involving Nazi zombies is unlocked once the player completes the single player campaign. In it, up to four players must attempt to defend themselves from limitless waves of undead Nazi soldiers. With each kill and successful hit, players earn points that can be used to purchase weapons and fortifications to further defend themselves.

Call of Duty: World at War Trailer (HD)

Gears of War 2 is a tactical third-person shooter video game in development by Epic Games and to be published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for the Xbox 360. It is the sequel to the critically acclaimed best-seller Gears of War, and was announced by lead designer Cliff Bleszinski during the February 20, 2008 Game Developers Conference. The game will use a heavily upgraded version of the Unreal Engine 3. During E3 2008, a worldwide release date for the game was set for November 7, 2008.

In Gears of War 2, the Locust have found a way to make giant emergence holes capable of destroying entire cities at once. Marcus Fenix and the rest of the COG Delta Squad are now drilling underground to "take the fight to the Locust." In a teaser of the first scenes of gameplay of Gears of War 2, COG soldiers engage in battle with a large army of Locust as they travel to drill into the underground region. Comic book writer Joshua Ortega says, "The stakes are raised. This is humanity's last stand. Everything is at risk. Nothing is safe."

Gameplay
The demo at the Game Developers Conference indicated that much of the core gameplay elements that were central to Gears of War (a third-person game that has a heavy emphasis on using protective cover rather than "run and gun" style game play) would be present in the sequel.



John DiMaggio, the voice actor of the game's main character, Marcus Fenix, confirmed to IGN that players would be able to fight the large Brumaks in Gears of War 2. He also revealed there will be a deeper story with new characters, new weapons, and new enemies. The game will also include the ability to duel with an AI or human opponent when both use the chainsaw attachment of the Lancer rifle, as seen in the 2008 Game Developer's Conference promotional video, later confirmed in informal interviews with developers and a Game Informer preview. Epic released a gameplay video which revealed the player may now use "downed" enemies as shields. Bleszinski confirmed also that players who have been injured can crawl as a final desperate attempt at life. Players would tap the 'A' Button to crawl faster. The level of blood and gore will also be increased, for example, when the player is close to death, wherever he moves there will be trails of blood behind him. This is the same for enemies, and the opponents who've been used as a meat shield. There will also be more ways to kill an opponent, such as punching them while they are downed, using the sniper rifle as a sledgehammer, or using the torque bow as an axe.



The cover story in the May 2008 issue of Game Informer revealed several new gameplay features. Players can now play on individual co-op play settings. One player may, for instance, play on Casual difficulty while the other teammate plays on Hardcore. A "communal combat system" will adapt to give a player at a lower difficulty an equivalently fair challenge as the player at higher difficulty. The player will be able to maintain multiple save files that work with the drop-in/drop-out co-op features. There will also be a fourth difficulty level that is a level below Casual; senior producer Rod Fergusson admitted that — for the first game — "We overshot on [the Casual] difficulty and a game that was a little harder than we intended." Some of the Xbox Live achievements can be completed through both play in single player and multiplayer mode, such as achieving 1,000 headshots. New enemy creatures are planned on being added, including one described by Cliff Bleszinski as one "that [makes] the Brumak look like a baby panda bear." In a developer's video, Cliff Bleszinski stated that Gears of War 2 would feature "drop in and out" co-op in the campaign. Another feature included in the game is an optional mature content filter, which when active makes blood appear as sparks and removes harsh language from the dialogue.



The collection of COG tags has been expanded to include the collection of story-based items such as personal letters and medical records, and a "war journal" will track which collectibles have been found and where missing ones can be located. The cut-scenes will also use the better facial rendering technology of the Epic engine, and will use more dramatic angles for the conversation, as well as using a video screen on Jack (the all-purpose robot used by Dom) to talk with their commanders "face-to-face."

New weapons have been announced as well as the return of weapons from the previous game. The accuracy, function, and power of several weapons has been altered, and all grenades can now be used as mines by placing them on walls or floors, and will detonate when approached by enemies. In addition, players can now be knocked over by the concussive force of a nearby detonating grenade. Cliff Bleszinski has also announced that there will be more vehicle missions in the campaign than before, such as the Centaur Tank which Cliff describes as a "tank with monster truck wheels." Players will also be able to ride a Brumak in the game; previously, the Brumak could only be fought by the player as an enemy.

Multiplayer
Gears of War 2 features an upgraded multiplayer mode that will allow up to ten users to simultaneously play. X360 magazine reported that Gears of War 2 will contain at least three new online multiplayer modes, called "Guardian," "Wingman," and "Submission." "Guardian" is essentially a modified version of "Assassination" from the original Gears of War, but allows players to continue fighting after the leader has been killed, but losing the ability to respawn. "Wingman" splits all ten players into five teams of two, where both members of a team play as the same character. "Submission," formerly known as "Meat Flag," is a version of capture the flag in which players attempt to "down" an enemy controlled by the game's AI and move its body to their team's base to earn points. A Halo-like matchmaking system will be utilized for the online multiplayer. In a GameTrailers TV E3 special, it was confirmed that bots will be available in multiplayer, but this feature was not elaborated upon.



A new co-op game mode was confirmed during Microsoft's E3 2008 press conference; called "Horde," this mode allows up to five players to fight off waves of attacking Locust together.[1] Horde Mode will not feature bot support as in competitive multiplayer, and can be played alone. The Locust attack in waves of multiple enemies which become more difficult as players progress.

Cameras in the multiplayer modes have also been improved significantly. Rather than static views from different points on a map, the new Battle Cam allows players to pan around a map as the camera focuses on areas of intense fighting, and the Ghost Cam allows a player to roam freely around a map. A photo mode will also be featured, with each photo taken by a player rated on the amount of action in the shot.

Regarding multiplayer-specific achievements, certain achievements such as getting a defined number of kills with a weapon have been altered. For example, to get an achievement which requires 500 kills with a weapon or 500 headshots, only the first kill or headshot made by a player in a given multplayer match will count towards the achievement. Cliff Bleszinski mentioned that this change was to emphasize the objectives of a multiplayer mode.

Awards
Gears of War 2 won several awards following its presentation at E3 2008. IGN gave it Overall Best Shooting Game and Overall Best Graphics Technology of E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game Best Action Game of E3 2008.

Gears of War 2 Trailer HIGH QUALITY

The long-awaited fourth entry in the Street Fighter series. Street Fighter IV features a mix of returning favorites such as Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Guile along with new characters created for this game, such as Crimson Viper, Abel, El Fuerte, and Rufus. Characters and environments are rendered in stylized 3D, while the game is played in the classic Street Fighter 2D perspective with additional 3D camera flourishes. Six-button controls for the game return, with a host of new special moves and features integrated into the input system. Mixing classic genre-defining game mechanics the franchise is known and loved for with all-new, never-before-seen gameplay systems, Street Fighter IV brings a brand new fighting game to fans the world over.



October 9, 2008 - Street Fighter IV represents a throwback of sorts to the style of gameplay players may remember from Street Fighter II. We had a chance to sit down with Capcom general manager Yoshi Ono to discuss some of the changes with the home versions of the game, which will be appearing this winter on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. To specify, that means before spring 2009, not necessarily this year.

He says Street Fighter IV is an attempt to give the franchise more of a mass appeal. Speaking through a translator, he said, "By the time we got to 3 and the refinements of 3 and all the way to Third Strike, we kind of shrunk the market on our own by increasingly aiming for the hardcore gamers, making it increasingly harder to get good at it ... Third Strike was kind of the pinnacle ... this is what we can do with Street Fighter, we've done it, we really couldn't go any further. We just put a lid on it and set it aside. To be honest, inside the company the general way of thinking was that it was probably done and that there probably wouldn't be a new Street Fighter." Ono went on to describe how during interviews for other games he was constantly being approached by the press and asked when a new Street Fighter was going to be made, and others within Capcom heard the same questions.



"Eventually we did manage to convince management that people really want to play it, it's not just the hardcore. By the time we finally got them convinced the gears started turning and we decided ... I don't want to use the word 'casual' because that's a loaded word, but we decided to make the game less hardcore, less focused on the true experts, and something a wider variety of people could pick up and play."

To accomplish this, Capcom decided to implement a 'focus system' which would allow for a different style of gameplay without making things too complex. Essentially, the system requires players to hit two buttons which work to absorb or an incoming attack and then, depending on timing, dish out another. Ono says lessons were learned from Street Fighter III's parry system. "That was a really cool system and it was fun as hell if you actually know how to do it and you actually are able to use it properly. Unfortunately the amount of players that really know how to use it and can do it every time on purpose, and can go from the neutral stick position to tapping forward in that literally a fraction of a second timeframe, it's really fun but there's not so many people that can do it. So we wanted something that would be a little more accessible to more people."



Ono continued, "The three keys for going into the focus attack system, one would be that it's easy to execute. Rather than relying on split second timing ... let's just make it two buttons. Anyone can push two buttons. Secondly you had to see immediately on the screen the results. You had to know that you did something. Parry wasn't such a flashy effect. If you did it wrong, you would just get hit and you wouldn't really know anything had happened. So it had to be visually obvious to the user." Activating a focus attack in Street Fighter IV is made quite obvious, as the character changes color along with other special effects. "Thirdly, it had to have depth. It couldn't just be as simple as hitting two buttons and watching something happen. There had to be multiple ways to use it. You can string it together in the midst of other moves, you can cancel out of it, etc., so it's really where the depth comes from."

The conversation then turned to what elements of Street Fighter in general were important to preserve for this version. "Street Fighter has always been about ... reading your opponent's moves and predicting what they're going to do next, kind of a rock-paper-scissors thing. So with this guy, every time he's landed from a jump he's thrown a fireball, he'll probably do that again so I'm going to do this to counter that. It's all about that kind of gameplay, so the focus attack system takes that to the next level. You have another tool in your toolbelt to trick the other player."



As for how the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC versions could differ, Ono said the idea was to give everyone the same experience at home. "It's been so long since there's been a Street Fighter, we don't want to mix up the message and make multiple versions of it ... We're not going to have hardware A is going to have this extra character and hardware B is going to have this extra character."

Ono did mention Capcom was leaning towards Games for Windows -- Live support with the PC version. "We're leaning in that direction ... It's a little too early to say for sure," he said. Downloadable content is definitely on the schedule, though it won't be in the form of other characters. "We don't want it to be something that affects gameplay or balance ... something more cosmetic, perhaps. If you look at the arcade game it links with Japanese mobile phone networks so you can earn points in the arcade ... and then purchase items, but nothing that affects gameplay. We really want everyone to have the same balanced experience."



Though for the home version several new characters have been revealed that aren't in the arcade version, such as Sakura, Capcom is still keeping a few up its sleeve. More will be revealed in the future, so keep an eye out. It also sounds like a few extra modes will be in the game for the home versions. Ono said it won't be just arcade and versus, but whatever is eventually included is still being worked on and therefore he didn't want to say anything. Bonus stages, such as barrel or car smashing, won't be in the game, however, as Ono says there isn't enough time to get it in there and Capcom would rather get the game out than delay it to add bonus modes.

Before the interview was over, Ono gave us some perspective on the Street Fighter franchise in general. "Looking at the pattern up until now, it seems the even-numbered Street Fighters have the casual appeal, the odd numbered Street Fighters are more hardcore. [Street Fighter 1] doesn't necessarily have a hardcore image, but try and throw a fireball on purpose in that game and you'll see just how insane the timing is. Then SFII spread out a little more and was easy to play. SFIII kind of went back to the roots and got hard again. IV is easy. Maybe if there's an SFV we'll go back the other direction and be more hardcore again. It's kind of early to say. Looking at the pattern right now, that would make sense."
by Charles Onyett on IGN.com

Street Fighter 4 E3 2008 Trailer

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is an upcoming 2008 real-time strategy video game in the Command & Conquer series published by Electronic Arts, and the first game in the Red Alert sub-series since Yuri's Revenge, released in 2001. Announced on February 14, 2008, the game is currently under development by EA Los Angeles for Microsoft Windows-based PCs and Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 version was announced, but EA stated that the production for this version had been "put on hold", and now may not be released, due to difficulties with the system's architecture.

The game takes place in a parallel universe in which World War II never happened and the Soviet Union rose instead as a threat in the 50s. A massive world war is ongoing among the Soviets, Allies and a new third faction known as the Empire of the Rising Sun, which is derived from Imperial Japan.



We're still months away from the release of Command And Conquer: Red Alert 3, but that's not stopping EA from trying to work fans into a lather with these new, gorgeous screenshots of the series' trademark Soviet war machine in action.

EA has yet to reveal a proper release date for the game, but they have mentioned that the title is planned to appear on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well as its native PC platform.

These new screens look great and the water effects are gorgeous, but am I the only one noticing the Tesla Boats in the first picture? Who was the genius who signed off on adding electrical discharge weapons to a vehicle that floats on millions of gallons of ridiculously conductive fluid?








Red Alert 3 features a fully co-operative campaign mode where the player can team up with another player, or one of several AI characters such as Major Giles, a stiff upper lip British commander, to complete the campaign. The game has been promised to retain both the style and action-oriented gameplay of the Red Alert series, and the fast-paced gameplay of the latest C&C titles.

The first Red Alert revolved around an alternate World War II between the Allies (including Germany) and the Soviet Union, with some high-tech esoterica, such as GPS, weaponized tesla coils, force fields and limited time travel. Red Alert 2 featured a Soviet invasion of USA with tanks, conscripts, gargantuan airships and psychically dominated anti-ship giant squid; its expansion, Yuri's Revenge, escalated matters up to UFOs and communists on the Moon. Executive producer of Red Alert 3, Chris Corry, has confirmed that the game will further differentiate the playable factions from each other and "[play] up the silliness in their faction design whenever possible". The Soviets and Allies have a mix of old and new units and technologies. New Soviet units include armoured attack bears, Tesla boats known as "Stingrays" that can also travel on land, making them a replacement for the Tesla Tank, anti-infantry spider-like tanks called "Sickles" that have the ability to jump over terrain elevations and an amphibious transport unit called the "Bullfrog" that evacuates its passengers using a large "man cannon". The Allies receive a new Tanya unit that is equipped with a "time belt", allowing her to transport herself to the past in order to regain health, and "Cryocopters", unarmed helicopters equipped with powerful freeze and shrink rays. The Empire of the Rising Sun has giant transforming mecha, ninjas, a psychic schoolgirl and submersible planes.

Secondary abilities are to be common to each and every unit in the game, although how each ability is employed may vary slightly between units; some may be toggled on and off, others may apply instantly and some may have a cooldown, requiring a period of time to pass before the ability can be activated again.

Naval warfare is still present. Corry has stated many units are now amphibious, trading effectiveness for increased flexibility compared to ground-only units. In addition, the unit called MCV featured in almost every Command & Conquer RTS, is now able to move and deploy on water; this makes placing buildings on bodies of water (excluding barracks and war factories) possible and players who "ignore the ocean [are] likely forfeiting a significant part of their potential economy to their opponents". Further stressing this is the fact that, despite some campaign maps being entirely land based, all multiplayer maps will have significant bodies of water in them.

Full motion videos featuring real-life actors will be featured in the campaign mode. Filming has begun since the scheduled date of April 2008.

Red Alert 3 Official Trailer


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Finally, with the conclusion of the Star Wars films, the rise of the Empire can be explored. The entire Star Wars universe has been unleashed, and the first major story will be that of the Secret Apprentice. Recruited by Darth Vader, brought into power, and sent out to hunt more than just Jedi, you will play that Apprentice. And whether you're a Star Wars nerd already in an uproar because there are more than two Sith or if you don't know Han Solo from Kit Fisto, in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed you will get to see LucasArts deliver on a tempting promise. With amazing new technology and the full power of the fully operational LucasArts licensing machine, you will get to "kick ass with the Force." The developer invited me out to its San Francisco studio to show me how.



That's not true! That's impossible!

As the Apprentice, you'll secretly serve Darth Vader. These aren't the gentle teachings of Obi-Wan; it's more like torture. Concept art shows the Apprentice's arms bound with chains, forced onto his knees. Darth Vader watches as the Apprentice assembles a lightsaber with only the Force. Later, more fully in touch with his power, the Apprentice is tooled up and armed with his lightsaber but still has shackles on his neck and one of his arms. The shackles, like the ones binding Obi-Wan in Episode II, have blue energy bolts shooting from them. Throughout the game, Darth Vader's influence will haunt you.

But Vader isn't recruiting because he's a sweetheart and thinks you deserve superpowers. The Sith lord is recruiting because he needs lots of dangerous people found and murdered. Executing Order 66, Vader will send you on missions to eliminate the remaining Jedi in the galaxy. During my demo, I got to see the Apprentice take on enemies in some sort of TIE Fighter construction facility. The facility floated in space, numerous horizontal rings stacked one over the other. Two group were at war inside of it, and so was the Apprentice's first target.

The familiar white insect-samurai armor of the Emperor's elite, the Stormtroopers, flashed everywhere in the space station. In fatigues and coveralls, a group of so-called "proto-rebels" was attacking them. All around the interior of the facility, the two groups were at war. Vader didn't want anyone, in particular the Emperor, finding out the Apprentice was there, so the Apprentice had to wipe them out ("all of them"). It's in the methods of murder that LucasArts' new technologies will really let you feel the power of The Force.

As in a few highly regarded Star Wars games, at some point moral choices will come up, but the gameplay of destruction has never been pushed as hard as this before. Morals, schmorals, this is what we've always wanted to do with Force powers. Psi-Ops was cool, but using Force Pull, Push, Choke, Lightening, Dash, Storm, and your lightsaber in tandem creates more potential for sheer heinousness than ever before.

A number of intertwined technology systems help sell the action. Each character has, essentially, a central nervous system. LucasArts calls this Euphoria, and it grants the enemies a real self-preservation instinct that plays out dynamically, instead of through a small set of action/reaction pairs and canned animations. Meanwhile, a tech called Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) allows many physical objects to behave with nearly absolute realism. That means wood splintering, metal bending and then snapping, railings snapping under too much weight, and so on. These two systems will interact to create dynamic behaviors like enemies grabbing out to save themselves from falling (and perhaps failing to get a grip because they're too slow or their armor too heavy), enemies fearfully backing away when you slash wildly with your lightsaber, and so on. All of this realism should help sell your powers like never before; plenty of games have let us play as Force users, but never has it felt so potentially out-of-control and deadly as it does here.

Back in the facility's interior hangar, Stormtroopers threatened the character with a peppering of blaster bolts from above. The Apprentice simply reached out and ripped the support struts out from under their walkways a section at a time: DSS in action. The Imperials didn't even have time to react before they died, but their comrades on the ground of the TIE hanger moved in to avenge them. While being picked up with the Force, the first armored warrior flailed, trying to get some leverage. The Apprentice flung his lightsaber; the game's targeting system makes it easy to make sure that the lightsaber goes to the same target that the Apprentice is floating. Even as the crimson red saber pierced the soldier, the Apprentice fired a searing series of Force bolts, the electricity tearing into the victim's body. With a last downward command, the Apprentice slammed the doomed Imperial into the deck in the midst of his fellows. The trooper finally exploded via a Force Lightening bomb, which wrecked horrific harm on the other cowering shooters.

The level provided other chances to deliver on what the concept art and E3 pre-vis video have promised. Rising into the air, power surging around him, the Apprentice effortlessly cleared a group of closing proto-Rebels with a blast of Force energy in all directions. The sealed blast doors warped and bent under the impact, but held. The Apprentice stalked to them, his animation already iconic, and smashed them open with a Force Push. The metal doors literally bent, although in this early build their glass can't shatter. That's coming, though.



Out in the massive TIE construction area, a mass of empty space was bounded only by the far exterior walls of the facility. Rails full of nearly-done TIE fighters spanned the massive room. This is one thing that'll be in every stage: piles of renewable resources to trash with the Force. To make up for the missing glass in the blast doors, the demonstrator wandered to the edge of a walkway where active TIE fighters screamed across the facility. (Yes, it was so large inside that space fighters were the patrol craft.) It took a few tries and more Stormtroopers than the few that were nearby, but eventually he succeeded. Throwing one of the nearby crates smack into a TIE fighter, the ship exploded as it fireballed down into darkness.

Power! Unlimited Power!


Although the TIE stage is far from complete, it's just one example of some of what's coming in Spring '08. Other environments will include the organic world of Felucia and the junk world of Raxis Prime. Each world will give the Apprentice different weapons - in the TIE facility, Stormtroopers and crates were common ammunition. On the junk world, stories worth of debris and wreckage will provide plenty of choices for destruction. The world of Felucia is nearly a mystery, although I'm already dreaming about flinging enemies into the maws of carnivorous plants.

New characters will include the samurai-themed Jedi General Kota (whose hunt took us to the TIE facility) and the female Zabrak (that's Darth Maul's race, newbs) Maris Brood. She wields dual lightsabers with tonfa-style hilts, whereas the Togruta Jedi Master Shaak Ti will command rancors against you. Your ship, the Rogue Shadow, will be piloted by a female Imperial officer named Juno Eclipse, who will also fulfill the role of love interest at George Lucas' suggestion that one be included. In Star Wars style, a wise-cracking robot will be involved in some way, although I hope that it's funny in an "I'm an assassin droid" way, not in a "Not funny Jar-jar Binks" way. In any case, if you like the new characters, you'll be pleased to hear that there are book, toys, and comics on the way as well.

It's hard to overemphasize how much potential DMM and Euphoria bring to the equation. Merely flinging an enemy towards, say, the ruins of a ship on Raxis Prime isn't necessarily enough. Euphoria will have him grabbing at his environment as he flies, desperate for purchase, and DMM means that if he gets a grip, he may well bring whole walls down. Force-pushing a heavily armored soldier into a wooden pillar could result in a lot less pillar, possibly bringing down the building around them (and possibly you).

A Rose By Any Other Name...


One concern, simply because it's so nebulous at this point, is the story itself. You will play as Vader's apprentice. You'll be recruited to help him slay Jedi, and also to aid him in overthrowing the Emperor, but we don't even know your name yet. We do know, however, that Force Unleashed will begin bridging the gap between Episode III and Episode IV. We know your lightsaber style uses a strange reverse grip, like a knife-fighter, with the blade pointing behind you when in neutral stance (although reflecting blaster shots happens unimpeded and automatically).

And although this is most assuredly, "not an RPG, not the next Knights of the Old Republic," you will still face moral choices throughout the game. This will let you follow story paths in which you gain control of the Empire, lead the Rebellion, cast your own lot, or possibly other choices. It's easy to see potential here and get excited, but getting excited about Star Wars stories based on their astounding technologies has burned me the last three movies, so I'm withholding judgment for now.

For those playing on the PS2, PSP and DS, the situation is a little different. Without the muscle to run Euphoria or DMM, the "last-gen" versions will instead offer unique perks. The PS2 and PSP versions will have an identical extra level, and their gameplay looks remarkably close to the previously mentioned Psi-Ops, but with the option to hurl a lightsaber at people. You'll still follow the same story, and play the same even-in-the-beta-build awesome looking Apprentice. ODE physics will be in place, counting in at five soft bodies and ten rigid ones.

More interestingly, in a spat with a mini-boss, the player gets to cut down an AT-ST in a God of War style button-pressing mini-game. In this sequence, the Apprentice slashed the AT-ST off balance, then leapt up, grabbed hold of the huge walker, fired a blast of dark lightening at the cockpit, and then simply reached in through the pilot's cockpit window with an ignited lightsaber and slashed open anyone unfortunate enough to be inside. It was impressively dramatic and powerful, even without the power of next-gen driving it. The DS version will likewise have "cool stuff" with the touch pad, and the PSP will definitely include ad hoc multiplayer.

Last year's E3 trailer was just a teaser for what we'll see in SWFU. The Euphoria engine and DMM should combine together with Havoc physics to create an unreal experience. Even last-gen games should have something worth looking forward to. George Lucas' green light and direct input means this isn't just the next Star Wars game, but the next chapter in the Star Wars saga. If LucasArts can live up to the promise of its new technologies and story, Force Unleashed could even be the best Star Wars game yet.

By Patrick Joynt-GameSpy.com

Star Wars The Force Unleashed Launch Trailer


STAR WARS The Force Unleashed - GAME PLAY

Though it was announced a few months ago, it wasn't until recently that we finally got to see Ghostbusters with our very own eyes. At Sierra's press event we got our first look at Ghostbusters for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

We were told from the get go that what we were looking at was a very early build and served more as a tech demo that anything. One of the first things we noticed was that there was absolutely no HUD on the screen. The producer informed us that the Proton Pack would actually work as the in-game HUD with various lights and meters representing health, power etc. The tech demo that was shown took us to the New York City Library where books and chairs as well as tables were being thrown around the room with the beam from the Proton Pack. Everything was rendered exceptionally well and we were shown how breaking down chairs and tables resulted in random destruction – meaning that if you destroy three tables, they will all break apart differently so it becomes very life-like. At one point, extra cars, books and other items were dropped in from the ceiling to show us that the Infernal Engine could handle everything without hiccups. There were no dips in frame rate and the action remained smooth. A slime tether was used to fling cars and bodies around the room while also demonstrating how you could tether various items at once. I must say that this portion of the demo was pretty impressive and graphically, it looked very good.


Towards the end of the tech demo, a monster was created using hundreds of books in the library's basement and you have to use the Proton Pack to break him down piece by piece. After defeating the monster, we were taken outside of the library to the New York City streets. The game showed over 1500 people all at once on the screen, each with their own individual A.I. As people walked down the street, they all had different movements, never bumping into each other but reacting to everyone around them. The producer simulated some action on the screen that caused the crowd to panic. Some of the people ran away while others moved away, giving you room to do your dirty work.


After the tech demo, we were finally shown some real gameplay from various portions of the game. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow was shown roaming the streets while the Ghostbusters blasted away at his arms and chest. Just like a marshmallow, Stay-Puft burned and roasted wherever he was being attacked – cool stuff. We were then shown a demonstration for catching ghosts. The PK emitter will detect ghosts which is when you Proton Pack gets put to good use which includes features like the Dark Energy, Freeze Beam, Shot Blast, Neutron Generator and the Slime Tether. Of course before you can capture ghosts, you have to beat them down and wear them out while making sure they don't take over certain objects which give them powers. In the PS3 version, you can get a hold of a ghost and shake the Sixxaxis controller to shake them about and slam them against the ground or walls.


You can play with three other A.I. members or you can get some multiplayer going with online co-op which includes specific missions as well as mini-games. Whether with A.I. teammates or real life friends, the other Ghostbusters can help you out by throwing down ghost packs or adding their beams to yours – sometimes necessary to catch certain ghosts.

The game will also feature all of the voices from the original cast though I'm sorry to say that ECTO 1 will not be drivable in the game.

Though the demo was brief, what we got to see from such an early build looked very good and appears to be headed in the right direction. The producers tell us that they're aiming for a Halloween 08 release. We'll have further impressions of the game when we get some hands-on time with it.

This preview original from 411mania.com Posted by Ramon Aranda

Ghostbusters The Video Game Trailer

Star Ocean 4 Description
The newest Star Ocean follows Edge Maverick and friends in this epic sci-fi RPG. Though little is know about the specifics of the game it looks as though up to four party members can enter the battle field, a change from the series's usual three. With the ability to control your own space ship and land on multiple planets, SO4 looks to be a rich adventure.



The Star Ocean series is making its debut into the "next-gen" era. So far, things are looking out of this world.
One of the more surprising parts of Tuesday night's Xbox 360 RPG event in Tokyo was Star Ocean's new graphical style. Developer tri-Ace has made the transition from PS2 to Xbox 360 mean quite a lot, by using the hardware to achieve a more realistic, Final Fantasyish (think fantasy armor made of sci-fi materials) look, as producer Yoshinori Yamagishi explained:
"...Star Ocean for PSX only had 2-D characters and then for the PS2 the characters were made in 3-D because the hardware enabled them to evolve in that way. For the Xbox, this is next generation hardware and obviously there's brand new technology and new abilities that can be put into the game that tri-Ace had held off on prior [to now] because the hardware was not able to handle it."



The story is not a continuation of Star Ocean 1, 2, and 3, but rather a prequel to the trilogy, "...depict[ing] how Star Ocean came to be." In fact, during development the dev team was calling it Star Ocean 0, but changed it to 4, with the official subtitle of "The Last Hope" to avoid the negative connotation of zero. WWIII pretty much levels the world with a heaping helping of "weapons of mass destruction" so mankind heads out into the stars to escape. Looking at the amazing view from the spaceships in the CG trailer, you can't help but think how unrealistic that portrayal is-a zillion stars glowing brightly in what is scientifically mostly empty space-but it's so breathtaking you don't mind.



When asked whether the title was Xbox exclusive, Yamagishi replied, "I think your question probably translated to, 'Would it be coming out on the PS3 as well?' and the answer to that is here are really no plans, nothing set in stone at the moment. We can't say right now that it will come out or it won't come out for sure. It could go either way." He did confirm that it will be on 360 first, sometime in 2009 for Japan.

Preview by Emily Balistriery

Star Ocean 4 Trailer