Review Roundup 2/23

Heavy Rain

"A video game can encompass a multitude of experiences, transforming gamers into the heroes of intergalactic wars or the saviors of underwater civilizations. While the settings and scenarios may be different, most titles use similar gameplay vocabularies to immerse and entertain us. Concepts like shooting the bad guys, leveling up your character, and acquiring new items are so pervasive that they have been inextricably woven into most players’ definition of what it means to be a video game. Heavy Rain forces you to reconsider that definition. It is barely a game in the popular sense of the word, but Quantic Dream’s masterpiece makes groundbreaking strides in storytelling and character development, demonstrating that interactive entertainment still has a deep well of untapped potential."

Napoleon: Total War

"Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “One must change one’s tactics every 10 years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.” The talented team at The Creative Assembly would be wise to heed the words of their latest game’s namesake. Like the European conqueror, The Creative Assembly’s signature blend of turn-based conquest and real-time battle ranks among the elite in its field, but as Napoleon: Total War demonstrates, persistent legacy issues have started to weaken the game’s standing."

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

"Some say that landing second place in a race is simply being the first loser. When you’re Sonic the Hedgehog, however, ranking right behind your long-time rival after over a decade of poorly received titles is a big achievement. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a blatant Mario Kart rip-off, but the hedgehog’s emulation actually executes parts of the kart racing formula better."

Metal Slug XX

"This is nearly an exact port of Metal Slug 7, which released in late 2008 on the DS (read the review here). However, XX corrects the DS version’s ultimate sin of lacking Metal Slug’s trademark two-player co-op. Sure, it’s only local, but I’ll take it."

Risen

"I love the PC version of Risen. In many ways, it's the game that I've been waiting for Gothic creator Piranha Bytes to make for years. It's undeniably European, and may turn some gamers off with its unpredictable difficulty and general disregard for player convenience. It's also relatively polished, toning down the design's ambition to reasonable levels and immersing players in an internally consistent fantasy setting as well as any game to date. This tale of an ancient power waking under the earth, the struggle of two factions, and the little people of society trying to deal with it, is a treat to explore. Charting your shipwrecked castaway's path through the world is as entertaining as it is unlike the genre-standard clichéd ragtag group of unlikely heroes saving the world."

Hands-On With Borderlands' General Knoxx

Yesterday we were surprised to find out that the third DLC add-on for Borderlands, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, was only one day away from launch (for Xbox 360 owners, at least). Usually Gearbox announces its release dates weeks in advance to whip Borderlands fans up into a frenzy for new content. Sometimes a surprise launch can be construed as a sign of weakness, that the developers have a reason to get it out onto the market before anyone has a chance to criticize it. That's not the case with General Knoxx. Boasting an area twice the size of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, an increased level cap, new vehicles, dozens of new enemy types, and a new class of weapons, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is the biggest Borderlands DLC yet. And once I began playing it, I quickly found out it’s also the hardest.

General Knoxx is Gearbox’s attempt to give fans everything they’ve asked for, so it makes sense that it starts with a greater emphasis on story. The new DLC starts where the main game ended. After you opened the vault and destroyed the giant whatever-that-thing-was, Atlas’ military branch, Crimson Lance, began taking over the planet. To accomplish this, Crimson Lance put up barricades on all of the highways to prohibit travel. This angered Moxxi, who returns from Underdome Riot as your ally and a source of missions.

The Atlas Corporation has also put a bounty on your head, as well as all of your teammates. As if the inhabitants of Pandora needed any more of a reason to kill you, the new bounty also attracts squads of Lance Assassins, deadly female ninjas with glowing neon swords that fall from the sky inside giant rockets. In other words, it’s just another day on Pandora.

Why is Brick's bounty so much higher? That's...size discrimination!

I encountered my first squad of Lance Assassins while helping Scooter track down the pieces for one of Knoxx’s new vehicles, the Monster. The Monster seats two players and has both a machine gun and a rocket launcher that shoots multiple heat-seeking missiles. Before I managed to get the vehicle up and running though, I was blindsided by ninjas, who move faster than any other enemy type in the game.

I should preface the rest of my exploits with a few caveats. Being a preview build, Gearbox gave me a character to play as – a level 50 Brick – whom I had no prior experience with. I also had to rely on a handful of guns I had never tried before, instead of my personal weapons cache. Worst of all, I was playing by myself – not exactly the optimal Borderlands experience.

These facts are not to excuse my suckitude, but rather to reinforce how important multiplayer has become in Borderlands. Whereas at launch Borderlands’ co-op was a fun and well implemented feature, at post 50 levels having a strong team and skills and weapons you're comfortable with is a necessity. Trying to play through General Knoxx alone was not only extremely difficult, but extremely frustrating. But more on that later.

I managed to punch through the first group of ninjas without too many problems (though each of the later groups I ran into sported a more-than-formidable boss). After I finished the Monster, I headed down the highway.

You'll spend a lot more time driving in General Knoxx than in the main game

The size of the environments in General Knoxx are impressive, though the parts I saw were mostly barren and looked the same as the desert areas from the main game. Giant mines are embedded in the landscape, and there are a lot more enemy vehicles on the road, but otherwise there wasn't much to look at. After checking out a small shanty town full of the familiar bandits and psychos, I made my way up a dilapidated on-ramp to check out Moxxi’s home. As the video at the end of this article shows, just getting to the front door was a challenge in and of itself.

Hands-On With Borderlands' General Knoxx

Yesterday we were surprised to find out that the third DLC add-on for Borderlands, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, was only one day away from launch (for Xbox 360 owners, at least). Usually Gearbox announces its release dates weeks in advance to whip Borderlands fans up into a frenzy for new content. Sometimes a surprise launch can be construed as a sign of weakness, that the developers have a reason to get it out onto the market before anyone has a chance to criticize it. That's not the case with General Knoxx. Boasting an area twice the size of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, an increased level cap, new vehicles, dozens of new enemy types, and a new class of weapons, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is the biggest Borderlands DLC yet. And once I began playing it, I quickly found out it’s also the hardest.

General Knoxx is Gearbox’s attempt to give fans everything they’ve asked for, so it makes sense that it starts with a greater emphasis on story. The new DLC starts where the main game ended. After you opened the vault and destroyed the giant whatever-that-thing-was, Atlas’ military branch, Crimson Lance, began taking over the planet. To accomplish this, Crimson Lance put up barricades on all of the highways to prohibit travel. This angered Moxxi, who returns from Underdome Riot as your ally and a source of missions.

The Atlas Corporation has also put a bounty on your head, as well as all of your teammates. As if the inhabitants of Pandora needed any more of a reason to kill you, the new bounty also attracts squads of Lance Assassins, deadly female ninjas with glowing neon swords that fall from the sky inside giant rockets. In other words, it’s just another day on Pandora.

Why is Brick's bounty so much higher? That's...size discrimination!

I encountered my first squad of Lance Assassins while helping Scooter track down the pieces for one of Knoxx’s new vehicles, the Monster. The Monster seats two players and has both a machine gun and a rocket launcher that shoots multiple heat-seeking missiles. Before I managed to get the vehicle up and running though, I was blindsided by ninjas, who move faster than any other enemy type in the game.

I should preface the rest of my exploits with a few caveats. Being a preview build, Gearbox gave me a character to play as – a level 50 Brick – whom I had no prior experience with. I also had to rely on a handful of guns I had never tried before, instead of my personal weapons cache. Worst of all, I was playing by myself – not exactly the optimal Borderlands experience.

These facts are not to excuse my suckitude, but rather to reinforce how important multiplayer has become in Borderlands. Whereas at launch Borderlands’ co-op was a fun and well implemented feature, at post 50 levels having a strong team and skills and weapons you're comfortable with is a necessity. Trying to play through General Knoxx alone was not only extremely difficult, but extremely frustrating. But more on that later.

I managed to punch through the first group of ninjas without too many problems (though each of the later groups I ran into sported a more-than-formidable boss). After I finished the Monster, I headed down the highway.

You'll spend a lot more time driving in General Knoxx than in the main game

The size of the environments in General Knoxx are impressive, though the parts I saw were mostly barren and looked the same as the desert areas from the main game. Giant mines are embedded in the landscape, and there are a lot more enemy vehicles on the road, but otherwise there wasn't much to look at. After checking out a small shanty town full of the familiar bandits and psychos, I made my way up a dilapidated on-ramp to check out Moxxi’s home. As the video at the end of this article shows, just getting to the front door was a challenge in and of itself.

Review Roundup 2/23

Heavy Rain

"A video game can encompass a multitude of experiences, transforming gamers into the heroes of intergalactic wars or the saviors of underwater civilizations. While the settings and scenarios may be different, most titles use similar gameplay vocabularies to immerse and entertain us. Concepts like shooting the bad guys, leveling up your character, and acquiring new items are so pervasive that they have been inextricably woven into most players’ definition of what it means to be a video game. Heavy Rain forces you to reconsider that definition. It is barely a game in the popular sense of the word, but Quantic Dream’s masterpiece makes groundbreaking strides in storytelling and character development, demonstrating that interactive entertainment still has a deep well of untapped potential."

Napoleon: Total War

"Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “One must change one’s tactics every 10 years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.” The talented team at The Creative Assembly would be wise to heed the words of their latest game’s namesake. Like the European conqueror, The Creative Assembly’s signature blend of turn-based conquest and real-time battle ranks among the elite in its field, but as Napoleon: Total War demonstrates, persistent legacy issues have started to weaken the game’s standing."

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

"Some say that landing second place in a race is simply being the first loser. When you’re Sonic the Hedgehog, however, ranking right behind your long-time rival after over a decade of poorly received titles is a big achievement. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a blatant Mario Kart rip-off, but the hedgehog’s emulation actually executes parts of the kart racing formula better."

Metal Slug XX

"This is nearly an exact port of Metal Slug 7, which released in late 2008 on the DS (read the reviewhere). However, XX corrects the DS version’s ultimate sin of lacking Metal Slug’s trademark two-player co-op. Sure, it’s only local, but I’ll take it."

Risen

"I love the PC version of Risen. In many ways, it's the game that I've been waiting for Gothic creator Piranha Bytes to make for years. It's undeniably European, and may turn some gamers off with its unpredictable difficulty and general disregard for player convenience. It's also relatively polished, toning down the design's ambition to reasonable levels and immersing players in an internally consistent fantasy setting as well as any game to date. This tale of an ancient power waking under the earth, the struggle of two factions, and the little people of society trying to deal with it, is a treat to explore. Charting your shipwrecked castaway's path through the world is as entertaining as it is unlike the genre-standard clichéd ragtag group of unlikely heroes saving the world."

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx Dated

2K Games and Gearbox have officially announced the launch date for the third Borderlands DLC add-on,The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. For Xbox 360 owners, it's tomorrow.

PS3 and PC owners will have to wait until Thursday to check out the addition, which Gearbox is claiming is twice the size of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. If that’s not enough to entice you, General Knoxx will also pack a new class of “ultra-rare/kick-ass” weapons, and new vehicles – including one that four players can ride in simultaneously (finally!). The add-on will also bump the level cap to 61, and include “almost 30 new villain types,” which will feature beefier AI. Not only does it sound like the biggest DLC pack yet, but it also appears to be made up entirely of requests from the community.

This is the part of the story where we’d say that all Borderlands needs now is an actual story, but according to Gearbox General Knoxx picks up where the original game ends. Could this DLC pack a plot worth remembering? We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out, but here’s hoping we can actually enter the titular secret armory this time around. Until then, check out the new screens below and let us know what you think in the comments secti

DICE Talks Bad Company 2

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is just about a week away from launch and we’ve got a couple of exclusive bits for you leading up to it. The game’s executive producer, Karl-Magnus Troedsson, was on hand recently to talk a bit about the game and what it’s been like moving from the first game to the second. We’ve also build a Bad Company 2 launch hub that you can check out for tons of content including previews, videos, screens and much more. So check out the hub and check out the new video interview below.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Launch Hub

Filed under: News, EA, interview, DICE, Bad Company, Battlefield, Bad Company 2, bfbc2

Disney: Epic Mickey Could Arrive On PS3, 360

If you’ve had your eyes peeled on Game Informer since the site’s relaunch, you’re already very familiar with Disney Interactive’s upcoming Epic Mickey (check out our Epic Mickey hub page for tons of features). While originally touted as a Wii exclusive, word has surfaced from the Las Vegas DICE summit regarding the title going multi-platform at some point in the future.

"The key mechanic [in Epic Mickey] is an ink and paint mechanic", said Disney executive Graham Hopper, regarding the game’s intrinsic link to motion control.

"We have a very large audience base that has Wiis in their home", he continued. Graham also said "that's not to say that we won't go to other platforms [in the future].

Considering both the 360 and PS3 are getting motion control this year, it seems only natural that Disney would consider releasing the game for the consoles. Further strengthening this possibility, Hopper goes on to say "If we started it six months ago we would have potentially thought differently about it." He's likely referring to the developments of Project Natal and Sony's motion control here.

It’s no secret that the Wii’s third-party “hardcore” titles haven’t done so well in the past. Could it be that Disney sees exclusivity on the console as a losing situation? What do you think?

Source: CVG