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.
The game story develops with help of a unique system called Mental Echo - the ability to penetrate another character's memory and change the actions taken by that character in the past. This can involve saving people's lives by taking over their bodies in their memories and changing the course of history.
One of the available gameplay videos shows the protagonist enter the memories of a cow carcass, thus reliving the final moments of the animal in a slaughtering house before being decapitated.
The game, being set in an arctic setting, employs body heat as a health meter - the player must use heat sources (such as lights or stoves) to replenish health.
Cryostasis takes place in 1981 on a nuclear icebreaker called the North Wind, which has become shipwrecked near the North Pole. The main character, Alexander Nesterov, is a Russian meteorologist who must investigate what happened onboard the ship. But he’s not alone, and the North Wind is now plagued by dead crewmen who have undergone a bizarre metamorphosis due to the effects of the incredibly cold climate. Alexander must try to unravel the mystery of the ship captain’s death and discover whether it was the cold or possibly, something far more sinister.
The game is the first to make use of Nvidia PhysX real-time water physics as displayed in a tech demo of the game engine.
Cryostasis has so far received mixed reviews. Resolution Magazine described the game as "tense, frequently innovative and attractive," and claimed that "its shortcomings are definitely outweighed by its strengths," awarding it 78%. Eurogamer was slightly more critical, awarding the game 6 out of 10 and stating that "it's not quite creative enough - its environments fall into a monotony of samey rooms and bulkheads - and its combat is too clunky to be delicious." PC Format meanwhile award the game 83% and called it "A beautiful, yet flawed gem that offers up a thoroughly unique experience."
Cryostasis doesn't utilize multi-core CPU support, and thus makes it difficult for many players to play the game smoothly. This is uncommon as most modern games take advantage of multi-core CPUs. The issue has been discussed in the official game forum.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars- First Official Trailer
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Hands-On
The game takes place in the Liberty City you've come to know and love, complete with Dukes, Broker, Bohan, and Alogonquin boroughs. While the locations are familiar, you're going to be looking at them from an entirely different perspective. The most obvious change in GTA:CTW is the game's camera. It falls halfway between the classic top-down view of the original Grand Theft Auto and that of an isometric third-person action game, with the camera zooming in and out as dictated by the action onscreen. The environment initially appears quite flat, but once we found out we could twirl the fixed camera, we saw buildings and vehicles rendered as full 3D objects. Our Rockstar tour guide explained that while the city is modelled as closely as possible on the maps from its console big brothers, some minor tweaks had to be made to accommodate the new gameplay. Therefore, while you'll drive under overhead train tracks (which become transparent as you pass below) there are no split-level roads. Progressive game streaming also means that despite the city's enormity, you'll never bump into a load screen while crossing zones or driving across town to complete a mission. Pedestrians have their own individual AI routines, and following them around you'll observe them heading to and from work, eating hotdogs, and getting into fist fights with total strangers on the road. Full day and night lighting cycles and dynamic weather effects are also present here.
As the game's name suggests, Chinatown Wars focuses largely on Asian crime syndicates and rival gangs scrapping for turf control. You play the role of Huang Lee, the son of a syndicate boss who is killed during a triad power struggle. The game opens with you returning home to Liberty City to meet with your uncle, Wu "Kenny" Lee, to pass on the family's Yu Jian sword--a priceless family heirloom Huang's father won in a card game.
Animated cutscenes with accompanying text explain the backstory as you make your way home. On arrival at the airport, you meet some of your uncle's bodyguards, but before you can even get your bags off the carousel, a bloody shoot-out takes place and you're hit. Left wounded and presumed dead in the back of a car, you regain consciousness in time to find out you're being disposed of as your vehicle careens off the road and plummets into the harbour. It's here that the actual gameplay begins, and you'll immediately be introduced to some of the new stylus-driven interactions with the game. Naturally you'll need to escape the rapidly sinking car, and with doors notoriously difficult to open underwater, you opt to smash the rear window. You'll do this by rapidly stabbing at the DS's touch screen to chip the glass. Though it didn't appear to be velocity sensitive, a few strikes were enough to get us out of our waterlogged coffin and back on dry land.
Naturally, the first thing you want to do is get to your uncle's place and fill him in on the details. This is a GTA game, so there's no real surprise that since your ride is totalled you need to liberate one conveniently sitting at the docks. During our time with the game we stole some cars with screwdrivers, but we also found some with electronic security systems that needed to be hacked before they could be started. Once you get to Kenny's restaurant, Sum Yung Gai, you'll find out that the family sword has been stolen. A subplot unfolds, and though he's family, Kenny seems set on finding the sword not to rightfully return it to your kin, but to pass it on to triad mob boss Hsin Jaoming, with the purpose of winning his favour so as to assume his role when he retires.
Kenny hooks you up with an apartment that you use as your central hub for day-to-day activities. Here you'll be able to manage your contacts, take jobs, and store your drug stash. Once completed, any mission can be replayed at will using the whiteboard at your apartment. Though we didn't see the stats and scores in action, we were told that they will hook directly into the Rockstar Social Club, so you can compete with and compare yourself to friends as well as share in-game items. Given that the mission length tops out at around 10 minutes each to maintain the portability of the game, you'll also have a PDA that lets you save while out and about as well as line up missions without retuning to home base.
All the vehicles we came across included GPS to help point you towards where you need to go. There's also the option to turn on a giant yellow arrow indicator so you can stay focused on the road and not your minimap. The GPS will calculate the fastest legal path to your objective, but you can always take your vehicle off-road through parks or back alleys. The system is also smart enough to redraw on the fly if you deviate from the suggested path or take a wrong turn. Burnouts make a return, and by holding the B and Y buttons you'll streak fire and whip the rear of the car around with a temporary speed boost. It's incredibly useful for getting out of a pinch in a hurry or to take out errant rival gang members who are in the way. Multiple radio stations make an appearance in each car, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding cruising or fleeing tunes to suit whichever situation you find yourself in.
Controls are handled using the face buttons. X will let you enter or exit vehicles, B accelerates, Y reverses, and the right shoulder button locks up the handbrake to perform tight turns. The D pad is used to steer. When you're on foot, the A button shoots your selected weapon (chosen by opening a submenu on the touch screen), which can also be fired while inside cars for drive-bys. The right shoulder button locks onto targets. Like the gameplay, the city is interactive, and if you take the time to search red dumpsters scattered around the capital, you'll often find weapons and other goodies.
We saw several missions during our time with Chinatown Wars. The first, Streets of Rage, introduced us to a crooked cop named Wade Heston. Trying to both crack the Korean Wonsu Nudong crime family and keep the Internal Affairs department off his back, he seeks out your help. A hot tip tells you the gang might have your family sword, so it can't hurt too much to team up with Wade even if you have different agendas. After finding his apartment abandoned, we got an e-mail from Wade telling us that he was caught in an ambush. Once we located him, we faced a miniboss fight of sorts that saw us pinned down behind a wall in an alley as a guy with a minigun ripped the place apart. Since running out would get us shredded, we used grenades to stun the guy before scampering between cover and eventually taking him out. It's not the most complex puzzling we've seen, but it's a nice addition to straight run-and-gun shooter gameplay.
The second mission we played had us protecting a shopfront from a firebomb attack by rival gang the Spanish Lords. After barricading the street by stealing cars and parking them strategically at the choke points, we waited for the gang to turn up. The action kicked off pretty quickly after their arrival, and we were involved in a heated gun battle. Setting cars on fire with a hail of bullets proved to be particularly helpful to keep them at bay. It was then simply a case of picking them off from range with our assault rifle.
The third mission, One Shot, One Kill, saw us driving a limo to a hotel to perform an assassination. Once we had parked and entered the building, we found a briefcase. Inside was a rifle in pieces and in need of assembly. By dragging and dropping the pieces together with the stylus, we got the basics assembled, but we still needed to rotate the stylus to screw in the barrel, insert the cartridge, and attach the scope. Moving into a first-person perspective, we were given instructions on acquiring the target--a man in a white shirt--and lining up our shot. Naturally, once we had completed the deed we attracted a little unwanted attention. We were immediately awarded a three-star wanted rating and needed to find a car to get the hell out of Dodge.
The wanted system for CTW has been changed up a bit. Instead of outrunning cops until they get bored and go away, each star rating you add increases the number of police cars you'll need to destroy before you can get away. Running them off the road or into oncoming traffic to cause head-on collisions usually does the job, and you'll be off scot-free soon enough.
Drugs play an integral role in this game. They're your primary source of income, and by buying and selling them across the city you'll build up your cash reserves, which you can then use for buying weapons. Illegal trafficking isn't without its dangers, though, and the game features its own mini-economy. Buying low and selling high has never been easier, and by following the upwards-pointing green arrow when trading one type of drug for another you can turn a tidy profit. Video cameras scattered around the city make trading near them risky and increase your chances of being caught but also up your profitability. Like with GTAIV's pigeons, you will need to destroy the cameras to achieve 100 percent game completion, and while doing so reduces your risk of getting busted, you'll also bring down your ability to earn. Trading with other dealers is never smart when within eye line of the police, but wherever you do a deal there's a possibility it could go sour, forcing you to flee if you want to keep your wares.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars looks to be a unique take on the well-worn franchise while adding a new twist to the control system and interactivity with the city itself. You don't have long to wait now, with the game due to hit shelves in mid to late March this year.
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
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
Let's start with the game's customization and editing tools, which are being expanded greatly for The Sims 3. In The Sims 2, there were only two body types ("normal" and "fat"), a handful of preset skin colors, and a handful of preset hair colors. There was a fairly robust set of tools to tweak facial features, primarily based on preset options (a bunch of preset eyes, preset noses, and so on); the most detailed likenesses were created by advanced players using tools outside the game (such as Adobe Photoshop). However, in The Sims 3, facial features will pretty much all have various sliders that will offer much more in-depth tweaking options.
The Sims 3 will also have sliders that will let you choose customized gradients for skin color (to better represent different ethnicities, as well as blue-skinned aliens, green-skinned witches, or what have you); gradients for primary and secondary hair color (for those talented stylists who really want highlights in their hair); a slider for body type that will let you choose how lean, muscular, or fat your characters are; and the new "create a style" swatch tool, which will let you edit and save various color patterns, and then apply them to anything in the world that has a pattern. If you care to, you can make a sim with a leopard-print shirt, a rideable leopard-print bicycle, and a leopard-print refrigerator. (We actually checked on this last part, and we're pleased to report that the leopard-print bicycle totally works.)
Buy and Build modes have been tweaked in The Sims 3, and neighborhood lots will also work differently. Previously, furniture for your house was sorted by function and type; now they'll have a revamped room-specific sorting list as well. The larger part of the story of the Buy and Build modes will be the use of create-a-style to paint all of your furniture, as well as your house, with whichever patterns you want as freeform wallpaper and carpeting--such as with, let's say for the sake of example, leopard print. (We tried this, and you can absolutely have leopard-print sofas in a room with all leopard-print walls.) Swapping in custom-built items created by the fanatically loyal Sims community will also be made easier in The Sims 3 with a built-in application that runs out of the game's launcher (as opposed to having to quit the game, open up a Web browser, and pulling up the "Exchange" community site, which is being updated to include YouTube-like and Facebook-like functionality, such as blogs, friends lists, favorites lists, and user ratings). In addition to uploading and downloading furniture, customized sims characters, and housing to and from the community site, The Sims 3 will have an in-game movie-making tool that will let you upload and download videos to and from the Exchange. More details on that at a later date.
Furthermore, outdoor lots have been changed so that there will now be only one huge, continuous neighborhood (rather than the separate neighborhoods of The Sims 2), within which time is constantly running. Likewise, your neighbors' lives are constantly changing concurrently. The neighborhood view in The Sims 3 has been changed to be an actual real-time 3D space that shows context-sensitive icons that tell you exactly where you need to go if you plan to go out to a gym, restaurant, store, recreational area, or wherever else. Like in The Sims 2, there will be outdoor "lots" outside of your sims' homes where you will still, in fact, send your sims to work out, have a romantic dinner date, buy groceries, or just play in the park. The difference is that in The Sims 3, the neighborhood view is actual 3D space, so you can seamlessly move from your house to a lot, or from one lot to another, without having to hit a loading screen. In fact, if your have a bicycle or car, your sims can immediately hop on and take a ride; if not, sims will be equipped with a mobile phone that they can use to automatically call a taxi to whisk them away to where they're going in real time (not by sitting on a loading screen until they magically reappear at their destination).
There will also be new public events in The Sims 3, such as music concerts, movie premieres, pool parties, barbecues, sporting events, outdoor fishing, and the most civic-minded public activity in a Sims game to date, attending a public protest at SimCity Hall, where your sims can voice their discontent with the administration's legal mumbo jumbo by angrily shouting their own nonsensical "simlish" mumbo jumbo.
The management of sim characters and relationships will also be tweaked and streamlined for the sequel. Previously, you had to manage each of your sims' "motives" (personal needs) such as hunger, fatigue, and needing to go to the bathroom; many of these needs are now automated, and if neglected, sims will take care of themselves. You'll also be able to drag and drop garbage items into the trash to keep your house clean (rather than having to order your sims to manually pick up each old newspaper and clear each dish).
And previously, your sims would start relationships with their neighbors by using "socials," various types of social interactions such as chatting, telling jokes, and so on, and you'd raise or lower your relationship with another character by repeatedly doing either something that the other character liked, or didn't like, until your relationship number reached 100 (the highest level) or -100 (the lowest). In The Sims 3, as we've mentioned in our earlier coverage, you can't simply choose to "chat" with another sim 87 times until he or she falls in love with you; you'll have to vary up your responses, and you'll have different conversation options available depending on your character's personality traits (for instance, having the "evil" trait will let you literally steal candy from a baby) and even on your character's career path (for example, aspiring politicians can ask for campaign donations).
One of the biggest changes in The Sims 3 is the "traits" system, which helps you determine your sims' personality (previously, you used sliders to select how messy or neat; active or lazy; shy or outgoing they were, and that combination would assign your sim an arbitrary horoscope sign, such as Leo or Taurus, that determined personality). Another of the biggest changes is the new-and-improved goals system, which has expanded way beyond The Sims 2's "aspiration" system (which gave sims a handful of daily goals to work toward filling a fulfillment meter to "platinum" level).
You can choose up to five "traits" for your adult sims that will define their personalities, how they interact with their neighbors, what kind of career paths might be more suitable for them, and which characters might be more or less compatible with them. EA's Sims team has done a great deal of fine-tuning on the design of these traits to ensure that they work for different kinds of Sims players. For ambitious players who want all of the advantages, traits such as "ambitious," "schmoozer," "charismatic," and "genius" can give you a head start along certain career paths and put you in a better position to be popular in the neighborhood; for players who are more interested in either creating purposely disadvantaged characters, or creating characters who resemble people they know in real life, there are disadvantageous traits such as "absent-minded," "inappropriate," "unlucky," and of course "insane."
In fact, here's a full and complete list of the 65 traits in The Sims 3 for you to look over: absent-minded, ambitious, angler, artistic, athletic, bookworm, brave, can't stand art, charismatic, childish, clumsy, commitment issues, computer whiz, couch potato, coward, daredevil, dislikes children, easily impressed, evil, excitable, family-oriented, flirty, friendly, frugal, genius, good, good sense of humor, great kisser, green thumb, grumpy, handy, hates the outdoors, heavy sleeper, hopeless romantic, hot-headed, hydrophobic, inappropriate, insane, kleptomaniac, light sleeper, loner, loser, loves the outdoors, lucky, mean spirited, mooch, natural cook, neat, neurotic, never nude (yes, from Arrested Development), no sense of humor, over-emotional, party animal, perfectionist, schmoozer, slob, snob, technophobe, unflirty, unlucky, vegetarian, virtuoso, and workaholic. Enough traits for you?
Along with new traits for your sims, The Sims 3 will have a revamped life-goal system built around "lifetime wishes"--a single long-term goal that you can choose for each of your sims that will eventually grant that character ultimate happiness. You build up to lifetime wishes with periodically updating regular "wishes," which take the form of basic tasks that will unlock minor rewards and increase your sim's overall morale with a "moodlet"--a minor condition that contributes to your characters' overall mood. Evil sim just stole candy from a baby? Ahh, that's a good moodlet: +15. Having to listen to the annoying sound of the crying baby? Ugh, that's a bad moodlet: -15. Working toward your lifetime wish will win your sims "lifetime happiness points" that can be spent on extremely powerful items, such as a teleport pad, or on astoundingly superhuman abilities, such as iron bladder, a complete immunity to having to go to the bathroom. No, seriously.
And here's a full list of the game's 32 lifetime wishes: professional author, world-renowned surgeon, become a superstar athlete, CEO of a megacorporation, hit movie composer, heartbreaker, rock star, the tinkerer, become a master thief, forensic specialist: dynamic DNA profiler, become an astronaut, master of the arts, perfect mind/perfect body, gold digger, star news anchor, living in the lap of luxury, jack of all trades, surrounded by family, renaissance sim, chess legend, the culinary librarian, golden tongue/golden fingers, international super spy, super popular, presenting the perfect private aquarium, celebrated five-star chef, illustrious author, swimming in cash, the perfect garden, leader of the free world, the emperor, and become a creature-robot cross-breeder.
And that's a lot of new stuff going from The Sims 2 to The Sims 3. We're looking forward to playing this new sequel and trying out everything that it has to offer--and it'll offer quite a bit. The Sims 3 is scheduled for release in June.
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 unique controls are at the core of Big Bang Mini's appeal. Unlike traditional shoot-'em-ups in which projectiles are fired from your ship, Big Bang Mini lets you launch fireworks from anywhere on the touch screen. Simply flick the stylus as if you were lighting a match, and a shot will light out along that trajectory. As your foes appear on the top screen, you are free to bombard them from any and all angles with fireworks galore. Shots that destroy enemies will explode in a colorful spectacle; however, shots that don't hit anything will explode when they hit the edge of the screen, raining down dangerous debris on your vulnerable ship. This danger pushes you to make more accurate shots, a goal easily accomplished thanks to the responsive and accurate stylus controls.
In fact, the controls are so responsive that errant strokes can get you into trouble. In addition to launching fireworks, you control the position of your ship with the stylus: just touch it and drag the stylus to move it wherever you like. If you try to launch a shot too close to your ship, you may end up moving it inadvertently. Likewise, a desperate swipe to move your ship out of danger can result in a badly aimed shot and a dangerous explosion. Big Bang Mini demands precision in both firing and maneuvering, two separate but equally important tasks. And you won't just be moving your ship to avoid danger: each destroyed enemy releases a falling star. If you collect enough stars to fill up the meter, you pass the stage. Balancing the necessary firing, dodging, and collecting is engaging and exciting. It can also be tricky, but fortunately the first few levels provide a smooth ramp-up in difficulty, ensuring that Big Bang Mini doesn't have the difficult point of entry that many of its genremates boast.
As you progress through the nine levels of the Arcade mode (each with nine stages and a boss), you'll encounter new power-ups and hazards. In one level, you can create a vortex that will absorb enemy shots by swirling the stylus around, but stiff winds will affect the trajectory of your fireworks. In another, you can lay down a reflective mirror shield with a horizontal swipe of the stylus, but certain clouds (which normally absorb your shots) will reflect your own projectiles right back at you. The beauty of these power-ups and hazards is that they are complementary, so as you become more powerful, the level becomes more dangerous. Big Bang Mini gives more as it demands more, and this makes each new level freshly challenging.
In addition to new challenges, each level brings a new, wildly different presentation. From the neon techno pixel landscape of the Egyptian-themed Luxor, to the bawdy colors and trippy musicians of Rio de Janeiro, each level in Big Bang Mini is a treat for the eyes. Attractive backgrounds scroll by smoothly, and the unique (often bizarre) enemies and explosions are a pleasure to look at when you can spare a moment. Underscoring these impressive visuals are some excellent musical tracks that range from snappy electric beats to mellow atmospheric melodies. The level of artistic quality and variety in Big Bang Mini is truly impressive, and the presentation alone is reason enough to recommend the game.
As if stellar presentation and exciting core gameplay weren't enough, Big Bang Mini offers a number of extras to keep you interested. At the completion of each stage (bosses excluded) you'll get the chance to complete a bonus stage. These are connect-the-dots minigames that will light up the top screen with a firework constellation should you succeed. Each level features a different twist (some quite clever), making these bonuses a pleasant palate cleanser between stages. Completing the Arcade mode is no easy feat, but doing so will earn you access to the Mission mode. This mode imposes tough challenges on stages you've already played, so you might be charged with clearing a certain stage within a time limit, using a certain number of shots, or never missing a shot. These conditions force you to adapt your well-honed strategy, so even skilled players will find a challenge here.
For those players who prefer to match their skills against human opponents, Big Bang Mini offers two ways to do so. The Challenge mode harks back to Big Bang Mini's shoot-'em-up roots and is the only mode in which you'll earn points. The core gameplay mechanics are the same, but the enemies, visuals, and music are completely new. Once you perish, you can post your high scores to online leaderboards and see how you stack up. If you prefer a more immediate competition, the Versus mode lets you challenge another DS owner to a shoot-out with only one game card. In Versus, you hold the DS sideways and shoot volleys of fireworks at your opponent on the other screen. Various power-ups and environmental hazards spice things up, and battles can get very heated, especially given that players can tap each other's projectiles to send them rocketing back where they came from. These extra modes provide great opportunities to flex your competitive muscle, while the unlockable Relax mode (watch and control fireworks displays) and Alarm Clock (actually cool, thanks to the stellar music) offer fun rewards for dedicated single-player play.
Big Bang Mini is an excellent shooter with an innovative control scheme that will please newcomers and veterans alike. To fully experience each level's uniquely awesome aesthetic and face the delightfully clever end boss, you simply must play the game all the way through. Once you've done so, there is plenty more to do whether you thrive on competition or just want to live it all again. Add it all up, and you've got one of the most accessible, most entertaining, and most attractive DS games in recent memory. Then consider the $19.99 price tag, and it's a no-brainer: Big Bang Mini is a must-buy.
Review By Chris Watters, GameSpot
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.
No one could have suspected that the sequel to 2004's Killzone would be this good. Killzone 2 is a tremendous package, offering an exciting campaign and terrific competitive online play, neither of which create new paradigms for first-person shooters, but rather set new standards in subtle but significant ways. From groundbreaking visuals to well-crafted multiplayer maps, most of Killzone 2's individual elements stand out in a crowded genre, making its meager attempts at storytelling easy to ignore. PlayStation 3 owners looking for a shooter to keep them busy for the rest of 2009 and beyond need look no further: The fierce action will keep you glued to your television screen for some time to come.
What makes Killzone 2's single-player campaign so much fun? First and foremost, the weapons are a lot of fun to shoot, even the standard assault rifles that form the core of your loadout. The M82's effective scope makes zooming in on your target a breeze, yet this rifle is effective at close range as well, establishing itself from the beginning as a formidable firearm. The LS13 shotgun is also powerful and rewarding to fire; though you may only shoot off a foe's helmet with other weapons, you'll watch entire heads explode with a single blast from this close-range powerhouse. The bolt gun is another favorite, skewering enemy soldiers onto surfaces and exploding a short moment later. Though you're traversing a sci-fi setting, your weapons are decidedly modern-day, from the sniper rifle to the vicious flamethrower, with one exception: the lightning gun. This mighty instrument showers enemies with overpowering jolts of electricity, and though it's not available for long, it makes short work of robotic and humanoid foes. Each of these weapons feels just right; fantastic spurts of blood, outstanding animations, exquisitely detailed weapon models, and explosive sound effects fuse seamlessly and give a satisfying sense of impact every time you land a shot.
Although there's a great variety of weaponry, you won't encounter that many different kinds of enemies as you fight your way across the war-torn landscapes of the planet Helghan. As in the original Killzone, your enemies consist largely of Helghast soldiers, yet though this limited selection led to monotony in the past, an assortment of factors in the sequel hold tedium at bay. The action is constantly pushing forward, leading you from one quality scripted event to the next and pitting you against bright AI opponents that have a remarkable grasp of battlefield tactics. These soldiers put up a fight and exhibit authentic behavior as you rain bullets on them. If you set your sights on a soldier peeking from behind cover and fire off a few rounds in that direction, he'll patiently wait until all signs of fire have vanished. Helghast will flank you and shoot blindly from behind cover, and should you toss a grenade in their direction, they'll quickly scatter. You'll normally be fighting alongside a computer-controlled teammate or even entire squads of fellow infantry. Enemy AI is just as concerned with your comrades as it is with you, so you'll never feel as if you have a bull's-eye plastered on your forehead, as is common with many other team-based shooters. As a result, Killzone 2's thrilling large-scale battles unfold dynamically and offer a legitimate challenge while rarely feeling unfair--a frustrating rocket-heavy final battle serving as the only exception.
Some excellent turret sequences and other segments also provide welcome variations on the shooting theme. At one point, you'll climb into a robotic shell and mow down infantry and tanks with machine gun fire and rockets. The way your transparent protective shield exhibits cracks as you take damage and the remarkable fire and smoke effects that light up the screen add to the excitement of the level. In another fun and visually stunning sequence, you'll use an antiaircraft turret to take down squadrons of enemy fighters. Even operating a standard turret is more appealing than you would expect, which is a result of great map design and well-scripted enemy entrances. If you're just using your standard arsenal, missions are diverse and engaging. You'll take aim at tanks (and in one boss fight, a hovering aircraft) using Killzone 2's potent rocket launcher, and you'll fight your way through a besieged air base in which winding corridors and intersecting passages have you battling multiple enemies on multiple levels.
Most levels take their cue from the usual first-person shooter formulas, and though it takes place in the spacefaring future, Killzone 2 feels more akin to a modern-day day FPS by way of its standard weapons and mostly humanoid enemies. It's an interesting blend of two disparate sensibilities that works far better than in the original, and it's further ripened by gameplay touches that feel authentic within that framework. Movement and turning speeds have a real feeling of weight, which is appropriate considering the heavy armor burdening you. This can make the controls feel somewhat sluggish at first, given that you take a moment to gather momentum. It doesn't take long to get accustomed to this sense of overall bulkiness, though, and it's consistently delivered across multiple mechanics. For example, when you jump, the way that you bend into the leap and cushion the landing with another slight crouch feels surprisingly realistic. That weight also informs movement in and out of cover. Killzone 2's cover system is solid, and it never removes you from a first-person viewpoint. Though some objects can obscure your view if you try to take potshots from behind them, sticking to cover and leaning out from behind walls is generally effective and intuitive.
Whether you go for a pop-and-shoot approach or just gun your way through, the mission design keeps you constantly moving from one objective to the next. The quick pace is one of Killzone 2's finest facets; battles don't wear on too long, and they aren't so brief as to be anticlimactic. Like many other shooters, mission objectives often involve turning a crank or pushing a button. In Killzone 2, this may mean rotating the controller to simulate the onscreen activity. These moments feel unnecessary and ironically disrupt the sense of immersion, but as tacked-on as they are, the actions are too brief to be especially annoying. You'll also use your gamepad's motion sensitivity to stabilize the sniper rifle, though the implementation here is subtle and therefore relatively harmless.
It's a real pity that there is so little context for the exceptional action. If you're familiar with the original Killzone, you'll at least have an idea why the ISA (International Strategic Alliance) is attacking the Helghast homeworld; if not, it's clear that as Thomas Sevchenko, you are on the side of the good guys--just not clear why they are the good guys. The dialogue is rudimentary (a discussion regarding sandwiches jumps immediately to mind), the characters forgettable, and the plot serves purely as a thin framework to move you from one environment to the next. Yet the cutscenes are top-notch, and unlike their counterparts in fellow PS3 shooter Haze, there's nothing intrinsically offensive or wearisome about the fist-pumping grunts at the core of the story. The story isn't deep or involving--it's just there, neither enhancing nor diminishing Killzone 2's action.
That action is enhanced by groundbreaking visuals that elevate Killzone 2 to the head of its class. Both technically and artistically, this is a real stunner. You'll first notice the obvious expressions of its technical prowess: environments jam-packed with objects and textured architectural details, pipes and crumbling rebar jutting from dilapidated buildings, and gorgeous lighting that drenches market squares and sandy battlefields with an incandescent glow. As you peel away the visual layers, your appreciation will only grow. Soldier animations are the best in the genre: Enemies move so fluidly during battle, and shift from cover to firing stance so smoothly, it's clear that meticulous attention was given to making each limb move authentically. Even the smallest details are striking. Raging fires react to the wind as it blows through the level, lightning flashes across the gloomy skies, and billows of smoke so thick you could choke on them cloud your view--but never so much as to be a gameplay annoyance.
These visuals coalesce beautifully to give Killzone 2 a cohesive look that relies as much on its art design as it does on its technology. A subtle grain filter, a good amount of motion blur, and deep color saturation give most levels a dank, overcast ambience, and asymmetrical architecture and other small stylistic touches make Helghan feel more like a grim alternate-universe Earth than a completely foreign world. The sound design offers an equally intense palette. Explosions are obnoxiously loud, and the din of gunfire spreads across the map. The largest battles, such as one that rages across a decrepit bridge, sound intensely chaotic, and the crack of lightning bolts on Blood Gracht may cause you to jump out of your seat. The stormy soundtrack rages at all the right moments but gets a bit overwrought, which befits the hammy voice acting more than it does the layered sound effects.
Although the campaign is over in eight or nine hours, many levels are eminently replayable thanks to tough enemy AI and multiple difficulty levels, and the game makes it easy to revisit specific sequences within its mission menu. But what gives this shooter legs is its fantastic online play, a fun and competitive extravaganza that issues a constant stream of benefits. Like the most recent Call of Duty games, Killzone 2 rewards you with bonuses as you play, which in this case can mean new weapons, extra grenades awarded upon respawning, and most intriguingly, entire classes. This is done not only via a leveling system that pushes you ever closer to the next reward, but also with ribbons earned by completing specific tasks, such as getting a certain percentage of your team's kills. These bonuses are earned separately from leveling, which makes for two layers of online play enhancements to keep you ever addicted.
These dividends flow in a seemingly endless current, though they aren't the only facet of online play that will keep you gripping your controller; the team-based gameplay itself is outstanding, which serves as reason enough to stick with Killzone 2. The modes themselves offer few surprises, what with variants on Team Deathmatch (Bodycount), Conquest (Capture and Hold), and Capture the Flag (Search and Retrieve), among others. Rather, matches are unique because these modes are strung seamlessly together, forcing teams to move from one objective to the next with barely a breather in-between. Up to five modes mesh into a single game, which keeps teams on their toes and spreads hotbeds of action about the maps. In a single match, you're likely to band with teammates in an exposed courtyard, navigate tight walkways as battles rage in the artificial gulley just beyond, and defend an objective in a claustrophobic alcove. It's unlikely that you'll have trouble finding players online to join you in one of Killzone 2's 32-player engagements, but should you be so inclined, you can fill out the games that you host with up to 15 AI-controlled bots. You can even practice offline in one-off matches with those same bots if you prefer.
The eight maps included are exceptional, largely because they are flexible enough to make every mode feel like a natural fit for the precise layouts. Aspects such as the varying spawn points of the propaganda speaker in Search and Retrieve, and the vulnerable locations of capture points in Capture and Hold, provide focused hot spots and send you to every nook and cranny of the maps. Be prepared to think vertically because the pathways wind up stairwells, through hidden tunnels, and across balconied walkways. The addition of techniques available to each of Killzone 2's seven classes makes the ensuing action even more dynamic. An engineer's turrets can make Pyrrhus Rise's natural chokepoints even more treacherous, whereas a cloaked enemy may pounce on you as you navigate Tharsis Depot's constricted walkways. All the while, visual flourishes such as floating embers on Visari Hammer and distant artillery fire on Salamun Market keep the mood oppressive.
Additional features flesh out the robust online play. You can join other teammates in a squad, a la Battlefield 2 and Enemy Territory, a feature that lets you coordinate attacks with ease. Full support for clans and clan challenges should make Killzone 2 a natural destination for competitive teams, and you can use killzone.com to schedule clan matches and tournaments. But whether you're a lone wolf or a clan enthusiast, you'll be happy to find a mostly smooth online experience, with only rare and short bouts of visual slowdown and online lag. In light of this extraordinary suite of online options, it's a pity that there is no cooperative play, and the single-player campaign seems ripe for such an addition, given that you're usually accompanied by an AI teammate.
You'll have to look to the inevitable Killzone 3 to find out if developer Guerilla can dig any diamonds out of this series' rough narrative. Otherwise, Killzone 2 is an exceptional first-person shooter, not because it does anything particularly new, but because it does everything extraordinarily well. There's certainly no doubting its graphical superiority, but though its moody visuals invite incessant superlatives, it's the tight, electric action that will make this an off- and online haven.
