Holy crap...I was expecting this game to be good, but it's just downright amazing. Check the review I wrote below.
I haven't had this much fun playing a new game probably since I got Resident Evil 4 for Christmas a couple years ago. And the online play--unparalleled. SOCOM II is still the king of online shooters, in my opinion, but this game is absolutely fantastic and so much fun to play.
You NEED to get this game.
Shortly before traveling to Leipzig, Germany, for the 2006 Games Convention, where Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is being shown for the first time, we paid a visit to Eidos' San Francisco office for a first look at the game. Currently in development at Io Interactive--best known for its Hitman series and for 2003's Freedom Fighters--Kane & Lynch is a squad-based third-person action game that promises to combine the best features of those games with a particularly dark, character-driven storyline. We didn't get to take the controls on this occasion, but in the space of 20 to 30 minutes, we saw more than enough to pique our interest.
;)
Assuming the role of Kane, you'll be tasked with completing dangerous missions for The Seven all over the world. You'll invariably be accompanied by Lynch (who can be controlled by a second player in the game's co-op mode), but the two of you won't always have the same objectives--at least going into a mission. In the first level that we saw, for example, Kane was required to infiltrate a Tokyo nightclub and kidnap the daughter of a powerful Yakuza boss, but Lynch was kept in the dark about the mission until moments before he was told to throw the unconscious woman over his shoulder and follow Kane out of the club.
The nightclub interior was reminiscent of similar locales in Hitman: Blood Money, but with a much more crowded dance floor, and it had some superb disco lighting that pulsated in time with the music that was playing. The music in the version of the game that we saw, incidentally, was a track from the Chemical Brothers, but in the finished game, the club will play original music on all three of its dance floors. One of the first things that we noticed as Kane and Lynch moved through the club was that they weren't able to simply run through the hundreds of dancers occupying the floor. Rather, the pair had to move through the crowd slowly, and Kane could often be seen dropping a shoulder or turning sideways to get past people without just pushing them out of the way.
It was a different story once Kane and Lynch had the club owner in their custody, though, as they needed to make a quick exit and had security guards attacking them from all angles. The guards were all wearing white jackets, which made them quite easy to distinguish from the regular club-goers, but the lighting was changing so dramatically from one second to the next that the guards were occasionally quite difficult to see. The guards went down convincingly when they were shot, but the thing that impressed us was that Kane was able to clear a path through the dance floor simply by firing shots into the air and scaring the clubbers.
The other level that we saw during our demo started on top of a Tokyo skyscraper, where Kane, Lynch, and two accomplices were disguised as window cleaners. Their mission on this occasion was to retrieve a briefcase from a boardroom, which we watched them do by rappelling down to the correct floor, placing a bomb by the window, and then doing battle with a dozen or so security guards in an impressively destructible environment. The portion of the mission that we saw looked like it was a lot of fun to play, but more than that, it served to show off a number of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men's features that we weren't previously aware of. You don't get any kind of health bar in the game, for example, but you'll know when you're close to death because the screen starts to turn red and the third-person camera skews at an awkward angle. You'll regain health slowly simply by avoiding enemy fire for a period of time, though we're not certain if first-aid kits or similar appear in the game. What we do know is that when you die (or have a near-death experience, at least), you'll be treated to snapshots of Kane's life flashing before his eyes, which is surely one of the most ingenious ways to tell a character's backstory that we've ever seen. We also know that characters in your group who are taken down can be brought back to life if an adrenaline shot is administered quickly enough, and your relationship with your colleagues will determine whether or not they try to save you in that situation.
;)
When you're in control of your group, you'll be able to give them orders simply by looking at a target area or person and then pressing either a move or attack button. Tapping the button will give the order to one man (or two, if you have a full squad of eight), while holding it down for a couple of seconds will issue the order to the entire group. Your colleagues won't always have the same agenda as you, though, so don't be surprised if they leave you in the lurch once they've completed their own objectives. While you're attempting to retrieve a very specific item, for example, half of your crew might be interested in nothing more than grabbing some loot for themselves. You'll be able to keep an eye on your colleagues using the only heads-up display that appears onscreen at all times--a small box with colored shapes for each colleague, which lets you know how healthy they are and what their current action is. If a member of your group (yourself included) is in serious danger, you might also be treated to a brief picture-in-picture shot to alert you. The one instance of this that we saw was the view through an enemy's sniper scope with Kane in its sights, at which point the Io Interactive representative playing the game knew to get behind some cover quickly.
Last month, we checked out THQ's MX vs. ATV Untamed on all six of the platforms shipping this year. Our previous hands-on time was fairly short, and we didn't get a chance to experience much of the single-player campaign, save for a couple of races in each vehicle type. With the game scheduled to appear on shelves in mid December--just in time for Christmas--we've taken one last look at the game before it arrives on store shelves.
The build we saw last month was still in a preproduction state, but it was stable and complete enough to give us a good indication of the final version of the game. The code we're looking at this time around is not that much more advanced, with what we can only assume have been minor bug fixes and gameplay tweaks since we saw it last. Now that we've played the game on a few occasions, the real hit-home feature is that the vehicles feel genuinely different to control depending on what you're driving. The moto ****handles and feels totally unlike the ATVs, and hopping into a dune buggy again completely changes the way you'll need to drive the track and navigate environmental hazards. It might not sound like a big deal, but we've played enough off-road (and indeed on-road) driving simulation games to know it's worth pointing out when it does occur. Rather than use one stock-standard physics model and rework the art of the tracks to give the illusion of variety, MX vs. ATV Untamed makes you feel like you're switching games when you swap vehicle ****s.
Another huge feature of Untamed is the almost total rewrite of the competitor AI you'll encounter as you race. Rather than clump in sections on the track, acting as a rolling barricade to stop you from passing and taking the checkered flag, the other bikes, quads, and cars will really make you work for it, weaving through each other, cutting you off, and having accidents on the same landings and hairpins you will. It results in plenty of track debris, and we can't tell you how many times we were landed on by an overzealous rider looking to push it just that fraction too hard and causing us to crash.
The preload mechanic is the bread and butter of racing in Untamed--learn it, live it, love it. Being able to successfully launch and land will not only keep your competitors at bay, but will shave valuable seconds off your lap times. Properly timing a preload is the difference between doubling and tripling jumps and rolling over them like a rank amateur in dud surf.
The PlayStation 3 version of MX vs. ATV Untamed includes Sixaxis support, giving you the option to hold the right trigger to accelerate and then steer by twisting and turning the controller to move the vehicle. Each vehicle has its own parameters and handles quite differently. This means that larger vehicles such as monster trucks are easy to drive because they hold their line quite well with a large wrist turn, but it also means you won't be able to maneuver quickly away from oncoming hazards or other drivers. Bikes, in comparison, are quite twitchy, and a sharp wrist flick can send your bike spinning like a top.
Eager MX vs. ATV devotees need wait only about another month before the game goes on shelves in North America. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are quite similar, both visually and in terms of gameplay, but whether or not Sixaxis will be enough to push gamers trying to make a decision between the two versions remains to be seen.
Last month, we checked out THQ's MX vs. ATV Untamed on all six of the platforms shipping this year. Our previous hands-on time was fairly short, and we didn't get a chance to experience much of the single-player campaign, save for a couple of races in each vehicle type. With the game scheduled to appear on shelves in mid December--just in time for Christmas--we've taken one last look at the game before it arrives on store shelves.
;)
The build we saw last month was still in a preproduction state, but it was stable and complete enough to give us a good indication of the final version of the game. The code we're looking at this time around is not that much more advanced, with what we can only assume have been minor bug fixes and gameplay tweaks since we saw it last. Now that we've played the game on a few occasions, the real hit-home feature is that the vehicles feel genuinely different to control depending on what you're driving. The moto ****handles and feels totally unlike the ATVs, and hopping into a dune buggy again completely changes the way you'll need to drive the track and navigate environmental hazards. It might not sound like a big deal, but we've played enough off-road (and indeed on-road) driving simulation games to know it's worth pointing out when it does occur. Rather than use one stock-standard physics model and rework the art of the tracks to give the illusion of variety, MX vs. ATV Untamed makes you feel like you're switching games when you swap vehicle ****s.
Another huge feature of Untamed is the almost total rewrite of the competitor AI you'll encounter as you race. Rather than clump in sections on the track, acting as a rolling barricade to stop you from passing and taking the checkered flag, the other bikes, quads, and cars will really make you work for it, weaving through each other, cutting you off, and having accidents on the same landings and hairpins you will. It results in plenty of track debris, and we can't tell you how many times we were landed on by an overzealous rider looking to push it just that fraction too hard and causing us to crash.
The preload mechanic is the bread and butter of racing in Untamed--learn it, live it, love it. Being able to successfully launch and land will not only keep your competitors at bay, but will shave valuable seconds off your lap times. Properly timing a preload is the difference between doubling and tripling jumps and rolling over them like a rank amateur in dud surf.
The PlayStation 3 version of MX vs. ATV Untamed includes Sixaxis support, giving you the option to hold the right trigger to accelerate and then steer by twisting and turning the controller to move the vehicle. Each vehicle has its own parameters and handles quite differently. This means that larger vehicles such as monster trucks are easy to drive because they hold their line quite well with a large wrist turn, but it also means you won't be able to maneuver quickly away from oncoming hazards or other drivers. Bikes, in comparison, are quite twitchy, and a sharp wrist flick can send your bike spinning like a top.
Eager MX vs. ATV devotees need wait only about another month before the game goes on shelves in North America. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are quite similar, both visually and in terms of gameplay, but whether or not Sixaxis will be enough to push gamers trying to make a decision between the two versions remains to be seen.
Much has been written about World in Conflict's multiplayer gameplay. After all, with the conclusion of the recent multiplayer beta test, players had a chance to check out the game's cool twist on real-time strategy gameplay. Rather than build bases and gather resources or micromanage huge armies, you take part in a team game, playing an important role on a World War III battlefield. However, we haven't really had a chance to check out the game's single-player campaign. So when we got a work-in-progress version of the game recently, we dove right in to find out how the single-player and story are shaping up. Please note that the following includes slight plot spoilers.
;)
World in Conflict is about what might have happened if the Soviet Union had decided to go down fighting in 1989 rather than collapse internally. The Red Army invades Germany and Western Europe; thus, US forces are rushed in to reinforce its allies. However, with its forces away, America is vulnerable, so the Soviets invade the West Coast, landing in Seattle. It's a heck of a premise for a game, but we were surprised to see where everything goes from there.
You play as Lieutenant Parker, a promising young officer in a battalion headed by the fiery Colonel Sawyer, and serve alongside the brash Captain Bannon. World in Conflict spends a lot of time developing these characters and the overarching plot, which itself seems fairly ambitious, as it seeks to tie together this global conflict. The story is told through stylishly drawn cutscenes and Alec Baldwin's narration. Baldwin's narrator talks from the perspective of one of the participants in the battles, so he sounds like a soldier writing his memoirs. As you'd expect from an actor of Baldwin's stature, he's excellent in the role.
We played missions from the middle of the single-player campaign, but they weren't set in the US. Rather, the first mission was set in France, and it's a flashback to the early days of the war, prior to the invasion of Seattle. The Soviet Union wiped out the US Sixth Fleet early in the war, paving the way for an amphibious invasion of Southern France. Your American unit is sent to assist the NATO forces attempting to repulse it, paving the way to liberate Marseilles.
Each mission features primary and secondary objectives. While the latter objectives are optional, they can be very helpful, as the Marseilles mission shows. Your first objective in the mission is to seize a key lighthouse facility atop a seaside bluff, but you only have 25 minutes to do it. These kind of timed objectives are common and add an appropriate amount of tension because you don't have a lot of leeway to experiment. If the clock is ticking down and you're running out of time, you have to start gambling. On the way to seize the lighthouse, you can also seize a vineyard to accomplish a secondary objective. Those aren't required, but doing so can often help you out by opening up new drop zones (by which you can receive reinforcements), as well as additional units. Capturing the hill allows you to also recapture some antiair units, which will be a bit helpful later in the mission.
;)
Once the lighthouse is secure, it's on to the next objective, which is to clear a village at the base of the hill where the lighthouse is located. If you seized the aforementioned vineyard, you'll get a couple of heavy artillery units. These are basically rocket launchers that can absolutely shred buildings and units. If you played the multiplayer beta, then you know that artillery has an impressively long reach to it, so you deliver devastation from a distance. If you station the artillery atop the hill, you can use your ground units to slowly advance and act as spotters for artillery fire. Thankfully, there's not much issue with collateral damage in the game, so you can literally destroy a town to save it. Once the village is cleared, your next job is to fortify it in preparation for a Soviet counterattack. This is done by stationing units in various objective points, which slowly fortifies them with machine gun, antitank, and antiaircraft positions. You then have to withstand waves of attacking helicopters and armor, but if you're smart, you'll have dropped a repair vehicle onto the battlefield to bring damaged units back up to full health. If you can survive that, congratulations are in order because you've accomplished the mission
LEIPZIG, Germany--Halo 3 may be darn near finished at this moment--we're talking a matter of days, according to Bungie's Brian Jarrard--but that doesn't mean the famed developer is finished revealing new features to be included in this massively anticipated sequel. At Games Convention, we got to take a first look at the Forge, an unexpected but very welcome surprise inclusion in Halo 3 that will let you tinker with every aspect of your multiplayer maps short of the basic level geometry itself. It's one-part level editor, one-part Garry's Mod, and it looks like it's going to make for some particularly madcap multiplayer experiences.
;)
You can use the Forge mode all by yourself if you just want to tinker with Halo 3's maps, but it supports up to eight players in a game simultaneously, so you and all other players can be editing the map at the same time as you're slaying within it. It works like this: You jump into a multiplayer map as a normal playable character, so you're still running around as Master Chief with a gun sticking out from the bottom of the screen. But you can jump into "edit" mode at the touch of a button, which essentially turns you into a floating camera that you can fly all around the map at will. (In a multiplayer setting, your character will turn into a hovering Monitor like 343 Guilty Spark when you're in edit mode.)
So what can you do in edit mode? It would be more appropriate to ask what you can't do. You'll have access to the full list of weapons, vehicles, power-ups, spawn points, and everything else that you as a player can use in some fashion in the main game, and you can spawn any of those into the environment whenever and wherever you like. Feel like laying waste in a scorpion? Drop it in right in front of you. You can't add as many scorpions as you like, though; each map will have a specific memory budget, represented at the bottom screen with a dollar figure and also a bar graph. Each item you add to the map subtracts a little from the budget, so you can only add to the limit of the remaining memory. Of course, you can always delete other objects if you want to add something else.
The Forge will obviously be great for customizing a map extensively while you're offline, and once you've saved a new configuration, you can upload it to Xbox Live for all other Halo 3 players to access. But as we mentioned, the Forge also serves as a multiplayer mode of its own. You can have a full competitive or team-based game going, with each player still able to freely access the edit mode. So you can pop in any vehicle, weapon, or power-up that suits the situation at hand, which means you'll see battles quickly escalating as players attempt to one-up each other with better and better weapons and items. Furthermore, you can delete other players' spawned objects the same way you can delete your own, so if you're fast enough on the controls, you can erase that warthog or scorpion before the other player even has a chance to use it. The implications for potential hilarity in this mode are obvious, we figure.
;)
Given that the Forge lets you create saved films just like the multiplayer and campaign modes, the potential for interesting fan films with this tool is huge as well. The game isn't actually saving any images with these films, just positional data that the engine can use to render and replay your movies on the fly, which naturally makes the uploads and downloads for these films very small. However, you can save screenshots of the game and upload them to Bungie's Web site, and we were pleased to find out that these screenshots will actually be of higher resolution than the 720p resolution the game renders at (one-and-a-half times bigger, to be precise). We foresee a lot of gamers applying Halo 3 wallpaper to their computers after release, thanks to this feature.
During the Forge demo, Jarrard took the opportunity to show off a few of Halo 3's new vehicles and weapons that we didn't get to see in May's multiplayer beta. There's the brute chopper, which does in fact look like a big gnarly motorcycle with an enormous front wheel. He said it will play similarly to the ghost, but best of all, it has a boost ability that you can use to literally plow through most other vehicles of similar size. Then there's the brute's prowler, a beefy hovering vehicle which is basically like the Covenant's version of the warthog. It's got a manned, rear-mounted turret similar to the warthog, but this one can also accommodate two passengers, one on each side in addition to the driver, so you get to transport four players in total.
On the weapon side, we saw the new firebomb grenade, the last of the game's grenade types, which explodes in a burst of flame and then leaves an area of fire burning around its detonation point for a few seconds. Similarly, we saw the new flamethrower, which Bungie has been trying to include in a Halo game since the first one was in development. This one shoots a jet of burning fuel, which you can also paint along the ground to leave a trail of flame just like the firebomb. The flamethrower can overheat if you use it too long, though. Then there's the gravity hammer, a wicked-looking, long-axe-type weapon used by the brute chieftans in the campaign mode. This is similar to the energy sword, except it also does a good amount of area-of-effect damage every time you connect with it.
;)
One of our favorite new weapons is the mauler, which is basically a one-handed shotgun that you can dual-wield. Obviously, it's not going to pack the same punch as a full shotgun, but the principle of the weapon is the same, and we figure popping off shots from two of them at once will give you a pretty good chance of scoring some hits. Finally, we saw a deployable energy shield that only provides protection on one side, rather than the 360-degree coverage of the bubble shield. The advantage of this one-sided shield is that you can fire through it with human projectile weapons. However, it will still stop Covenant energy weaponry, so this thing ought to be especially handy during the campaign mode.
And speaking of that campaign, we saw some more of it that's new since E3. Specifically it was the third mission, entitled Tsavo Highway, which sees Master Chief starting off in a bombed-out human marine bunker, after which he jumps into a warthog to proceed toward an unknown destination. Given that the Covenant has already begun its full-scale assault on Earth by this time, the ruined highway was full of enemy forces, making the way forward difficult. Master Chief had to hop out of the warthog several times to engage grunts and brutes coming in on Covenant drop ships. Jarrard spoke about the campaign's difficulty settings while showing us the level. In essence, it sounds like easy and normal will be more accessible than in the past, while heroic and legendary will be even more difficult (if that's even possible, in the case of the latter). He recommended that anyone with any previous Halo experience at all should play the game on heroic their first time through, since there will be drastic differences in enemy placement and density.
As we've reported recently, Halo 3 is "99.9 percent" finished, and Jarrard confirmed that Bungie is literally a handful of days away from stamping its seal of approval on what will undoubtedly be one of this year's biggest game releases. Check out our Halo 3 launch center to get all the details on the game before next month's launch date.
This could be a proof of concept design (in which case it looks successful to me) or it could be what we've been hearing about for the last several months. Rumors have been flying that The Big N was about to release a new portable device, hot on the heels of their DS. We were pretty up in arms around here about it. Why would Nintendo step on their own product? This could be the answer. I hope this is the answer.
Yeah, it looks a little clunky, but the DS and PSP have already lowered the bar on ease-of-portability.
Whether or not this is fake, I think Nintendo would be smart to release something like this.
1. While the PS2 might've won this generation given its installed base, the Gamecube was technologically superior. A PGC would be much more superior compared to a PSP.
2. Hardware is continually getting smaller. Compare the original PS2 with the PStwo. Nintendo could easily make things smaller than cramming the current GCN into a portable shell.
3. The Revolution is backwards compatible. While you might think it dumb for game makers to support this system, it would actually be very smart. You already have an installed base, even if it isn't as big as the PS2, that can play your games on the GCN; you have potentially more who make the Revolution their first/next system. Your development cost is pretty low when you consider you have 3 systems supported right off the bat (with some tweaking for multiplayer).
4. WiFi capability allows the PGC to communicate not only with one another, but also with the Revolution (which also may work with the DS).
This could be fake, but it could also be concept art of a future portable. I would be more likely to buy one of these than a PSP (or DS). A lot of potential. If only it were real.
It isn't playing an audio CD FYI. That's a gamecube disc. The closed cover lists at the time 'GAME DISC - Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker', while the track reads off an mp3. Possibility of it having a mem stick slot of some sort I'd imagine.
Also, if you look at the screen you'd see it's 'deep dish' **** so the controls wouldn't touch the screen. There's a deep enough gap if you look so it'd fit comfortably.
One reason that makes me think 'FAKE!' is the fact that there's a WiFi connection logo on the inside upper left of it. Why would they do that, when only one gamecube game supports online play... And only like other games (kirby's Air ride, mario kart DD) support LAN gaming?
That and wtf would they bother releasing this? They mocked PSP for its battery consumption, and with a screen this big / optical drive, it'd destroy the battery just as fast. That and the gamecube is only $100, this would probably run $200 or so. The games would cost $50 for new titles, and no exclusive library. Sorry folks, not happening - although the picture does look nice.
Listen up people, WiFi makes a lot of sense. Why wouldn't you want to include WiFi??? Ever think that Evolution might be able to communicate with Revolution??? We already know Revolution will have WiFi out of the box, so ANY Nintendo portable that comes out in the future WILL have WiFi. WiFi has 3 uses in this situation:
1. Communication with Revolution
2. Wireless multiplayer with other Evolutions
3. Online multiplayer
The DS has WiFi. This concept almost gets everything right in what Evolution should be. Of course gyroscopic control is in there too but you just can't see it. 
BTW who said this WiFi will only be able to play *existing GCN network enabled games*???
Also remember that Revolution IS backwards compatible with GCN, so future GCN titles will be able to take advantage of the built-in WiFi on Revolution AND Evolution since both could play GCN games. These new WiFi enabled GCN games could also work on a standard GCN with a new WiFi adapter.
Why would the game need to be redesigned in order for a second wifi unit to work as a second controller/display? All you have to do is send the video signal and controller signal over the wifi connection. That's mostly a hardware issue, not a software one. It certainly wouldn't require any re-writing of existing games.
The GCA (or whatever it would be called if it existed) would listen for another GCA in the area. The bootup menu would allow you to connect other units to yours as a second controller, provided they weren't already doing something else. Let's say GCA-1 connects GCA-2 as its second controller.
Now GCA-1 listens for controller signals from GCA-2, and constantly streams video information to GCA-2. It can do all of this at the hardware level, not changing anything about the game software. To the game, you just have a second (or third, or fourth) controller plugged in. If you have multiplayer, then the units share the bandwidth load for the video signal.
Honestly, that's not a difficult thing to do in hardware and bios.
The adventurer known as Lara Croft has been raiding tombs on video game consoles for years, and she celebrated her anniversary earlier this year with Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a reimagined version of the first cliff-jumping, puzzle-solving, pistol-firing game that started it all. Ms. Croft's commemorative adventure is now headed for the Nintendo Wii with some new features that are intended to take advantage of the console's unique control scheme. However, from what we've seen, the game will not give up any of the action from the original Tomb Raider: Anniversary, so don't worry--the game isn't being picked apart to shoehorn in a bunch of gimmicky controller stuff. You'll still do plenty of jumping, climbing, sleuthing, and shooting.
;)
For the uninitiated, Tomb Raider: Anniversary is an enhanced version of the original Tomb Raider game from 1996, complete with Lara's updated abilities and considerably better graphics than those from the original PlayStation era. As in that game, she'll explore three different areas in Greece, Peru, and Egypt, performing death-defying feats of acrobatics by climbing craggy cliffs and leaping across chasms, and defending herself from hostile enemies, including ferocious jungle beasts, by dodging their attacks and, in some cases, filling them full of lead from the handguns she wields in each hand. She'll also be required to solve various logic puzzles to unlock the gates to the next area as well as discover hidden treasures and secrets along the way.
As mentioned, Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the Wii will offer the same content as in the previous versions of the game, plus an additional three hours of content in the form of enhanced puzzles and, possibly, a few new secret areas that are designed around the Wii Remote's capabilities. For instance, rather than simply picking up and collecting ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to solve later puzzles, Lara will actually carry a kit with archeological tools that will help her put together clues. By wagging the controller back and forth, for example, you can help her uncover hidden secrets from dust-covered pillars with an archeologist's brush, as well as use charcoal pencils and paper to make rubbings of various carvings.
The Wii Remote will also help Lara explore her environments in ways that the developer hopes will seem intuitive. She'll carry a flashlight to explore dark areas, for instance, which can be focused by the controller to give off a higher-intensity beam to uncover hidden secrets. In addition, Lara's trademark gymnastic leaps will be executed by flicking the remote to make her jump, shimmy across ledges, and swing. Her grappling hook, which she can use to swing herself up onto high ledges, will also be controlled with a flick of the wrist (assuming your wrist is attached to a hand holding a Wii Remote).
When the going gets tough, Lara can go ballistic with her two handguns, which can put down most enemies with a few good shots. Once the bullets start flying, you'll use the controller to actively aim at her targets while the camera locks on to the direction she's facing. This seems to put much more emphasis on the shooting action, but still leaves her free to dodge while firing in case things get too hairy.
;)
Otherwise, Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the Wii looks as though it will offer all the action and content from the previous games, and considering that those turned out quite well, this version shows a lot of promise. It doesn't hurt that the game looks good, either. Lara has a stylized look that stays true to the original artwork that depicted her 10 years ago, the environments all seem colorful, and the parts of the game we saw ran at a brisk and consistent frame rate. This version should pack in all the action you've come to expect from a Tomb Raider game, plus an innovative control scheme built around the Wii Remote. The game is scheduled for release later this year.
NASCAR 08's box touts the fact that EA's NASCAR series is the number one selling NASCAR franchise. Nowhere on the packaging does it tell you that it's the top-selling franchise because it's the only NASCAR franchise. However, the fact that there's no competition is made apparent as soon as you play. It's extremely light on features, online play is lacking, and its visuals do little to take advantage of the power of the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. NASCAR 08 is a competent racing game, but you can't shake the feeling that it would have been a whole lot better if there had been a competing NASCAR game out there.
NASCAR 08 features a solid number of tracks and almost every driver you'd want. The only major driver who's missing is Carl Edwards, but there are some notable track omissions, including Mexico City and Montreal. You can race a full, half, short, or custom season in the Nextel, National (Busch), or Craftsman truck series. You can race a season in the Car Of Tomorrow--but it's just one and done--there's no career mode.
;)
Instead, there's a new mode called the chase. You start the chase as an unknown driver and your goal is to earn a contract by completing license tests. Each license is separated by track type. There's a license for super speedway, speedway, Car Of Tomorrow short track, Car Of Tomorrow speedway, Car Of Tomorrow road course, and Car Of Tomorrow super speedway. To earn a license you must complete 10 tasks, which teach you the basics of NASCAR racing. You'll learn how to draft, slingshot, and avoid wrecks, follow racing lines, as well as how to maintain your speed through difficult turns. The game uses some handy visual aids that show a car's draft and the optimal line around the track, so it feels very friendly to beginners. Once you've completed a license, you'll be offered a two-race contract with a racing team, and if you fulfill that contract, you can then race a season with that team's car. The chase is certainly a good way to introduce the sport to newcomers, and it's nice not to have to race through all of the lower-tier circuits as in previous years, but it's still no substitute for a proper career mode.
It's a good thing the chase is such a good teaching tool because actual races can be quite challenging--for both good and bad reasons. One area where NASCAR video games differ from most racing games is that one small mistake can mean the difference between finishing first and finishing last, even if you have damage turned off. This makes every lap important and maintains the intensity of the races. Never has the ability to be perfect been more important than in NASCAR 08. The game is best played with a steering wheel because the default controls are extremely touchy, making it nearly impossible to race in a pack. If you don't have a steering wheel, you can adjust the linearity and responsiveness of the controls to make them more forgiving. This makes the game much more playable. You can also use the Sixaxis' motion controls to steer. This works OK, but isn't a substitute for a wheel.
Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about the game's artificial intelligence, which is quite poor. Drivers don't seem to have personality as they did in previous games, but they do all seem hell bent on wrecking you. Depending on which course you're on, opposing drivers will just as soon run into the back of your car as they will pass you. This isn't bump drafting either. They'll do it when they're clearly the faster car, they'll do it in turns, and they'll do it when you're racing three wide. They say "rubbing is racing," but when it routinely costs you the race, it gets pretty frustrating, especially when the CPU doesn't seem to wreck very often.
Once you've come to grips with the controls and have gotten used to the CPU's "love taps," there's a solid racing game to be found. Races are generally close and though some may dismiss NASCAR as "just turning left," you can really feel the difference from one track to the next, so it pays to practice. If you do make it into victory lane, you can choose to celebrate by tearing up the infield and doing doughnuts on the track. That never gets old. There's also a fair amount of tweaking you can do to squeeze the most performance out of your ride. You can even share setups online, but these adjustments are mostly optional, though they are beneficial against tough competition. It's too bad that the ability to customize your car's looks isn't as deep as your ability to customize its performance. You can choose from a handful of different paint schemes and colors, but once again, you can't pick a number under 100 or create custom designs.
One area that really should have benefited from the move of one generation of consoles to the next is online play, but that didn't happen. There are leaderboards, but there are no leagues. You can race against up to 11 other players on the Xbox 360, but we were unable to connect with another player on the PlayStation 3. Should you connect with another player on either system, you'll find that it's rare to find a full field and that it seems to take a very long time to start a race. Eventually you'll get to actually race, which is a good thing, because the racing is solid and lag isn't a huge problem. One small issue from the offline mode, which is exacerbated during multiplayer because of the tendency to wreck more often, occurs when the game waves the yellow flag before wrecks are actually finished. This means that unless a wreck occurs right in front of you, you won't have to deal with trying to weave in and out of it, which is kind of fun. More importantly, it means that you never get to pass the wreck, and as a result, you'll be behind the people who just wrecked during the following restart.
;)
The other area where you'd expect NASCAR 08 to really take advantage of the Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware is its visuals. But that didn't really happen either. The frame rate is nice and smooth, with day turning to night during some races. The smoke and dirt effects are also pretty good, but mostly everything else is underwhelming. The tracks look decent but come off as rather bland, and they don't look much better than they did on the last generation. There's quite a bit of aliasing on both the tracks and cars. Cars look OK, especially when you can check out all 43 of them in line during a restart, but you rarely get to enjoy them much. Car damage looks nice during replays where you can really watch the cars fall to pieces, but because every little bump causes your car to suddenly show damage, it doesn't look very realistic when you're racing. The audio isn't much different from before. The cars sound great, while your crew chief does an adequate job, even if he sounds bored and routinely falls behind the action.
NASCAR 08 isn't a bad game; in fact, it's fun once you get the hang of it. Its biggest problem is that it's not noticeably better than last year's game and there aren't any compelling new features. If really want a NASCAR game and it has to be on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, then NASCAR 08 is worth a look because, quite frankly, it's your only choice. But if you own any NASCAR game from the past few years, you might as well stick with that one.
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