The newest evolution of racing games

The developers of The Crew have an unusual take on their new IP that features fast cars, deep customization, and miles and miles of the United States to traverse across and race within. Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections insist that despite its trappings that would suggest an open world racing game in the same vein as the latest in the Need for Speed series or Forza Horizons, The Crew is actually an MMO RPG.

When first presented with this concept at a recent Ubisoft event, I was a little skeptical that a racing game could be classif??ied as such, given that it doesn't necessarily involve giant monsters and upgradeable weapons, and certainly bears no fantastical setting. However, after getting an hour long hands-on with the new game and witnessing the number of ways that this separates itself from its ilk, I could definitely see how it could be deserving of this different classification.

In The Crew, your vastly upgradeable and customizable car is your weapon. The giant monster you perpetually bat??tle is the road, in several different kinds of events and spanning a seemingly large storyline across five enormous regions of the United States.

And like all MMO RPG's, The Crew is so much better with friends.

The Crew (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
Developers: Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: Fall 2014

Previews so far have shown that the "world" for The Crew is incredibly vast, as it spans across the entire continental United States. During a small presentation, we were shown the actual, virtual space of their version of the United States easily dwarfs many other open world games. To put it into perspective, the entirety of Red Dead Redemption fit easily inside one or two states. Their virtual versio?n of the United States includes five regions, such as the West Coast, the South, and a mountain region that includes the Rockies.

Importantly, virtual world space is worthless if it's not implemented in a way that engages the player, especially in a vehicular game with miles of scenery (Fuel comes to mind as one failed example.) Fortunately, the developers of The Crew are making sure that your mileage matters. When in the game's free roam mode, you can easily access an overhead map that is pretty much like looking at a Google maps version of the virtual United States. You can even zoom down? close and see terrain, individual buildings, and cars on the road. When you zoom out, hundreds of little symbols appear all over -- on just about every area of the map. These symbols represent varied missions, short skill challenges, and collectables. 

The first race I had a chance to check out took place in Detroit, and included a few key shortcuts, including one that cut along a train track and returned to the road just as a train came to nearly clip my car. The race wound through an old factory ground, and mostly on a dirt road. I first played it solo against AI opponents, and then played with my "crew" of other journalists, who really played dirty and soon pushed me into seco??nd place ?(and themselves into dead last, fortunately for me and unfortunately for our team.) I could quickly see how playing with a trusted friend or two would be a much more profitable affair.

At any rate, upon completing the mission I was awarded a car part and sent it back to my garage, since it wasn't at the same "level" of my car. The attainment of car parts upon completing missions and challenges is what makes The Crew have an RPG feel as you're constantly upgrading the overall level of your car while juggling the stats of each pa?rt you're given. This is especially important in terms of the chassis and engine, as every part you gain for those respective vehicle sections will help improve the overall speed and durability of your car. Usually, a gold part of a lower level might actually give you a better boost than a bronze part of the level you're currently at.

The race in Detroit was a more standard race, though soon after completing it I was introduced to the other "missions" that varied the gameplay quite a bit. One mission that made me nostalgic for Rockstar's Smuggler's Run involved chasing down an off-road vehicle over scenic hills and dunes. The g??ame automatically switched my vehicle to a more off-road-friendly (Raid) vehicle in order to keep up in the race.

Another mission involved a checkpoint race where the police caught on and forced me to evade their presence and road blocks as I sped across highways. A couple of the missions I played seemed to be for the sole purpose of advancing the storyline, such as one where I was tasked to bring a character to a specific location within the time limit. After completing this particular mission, I was given a cutscene that continued the whole "illegal street racer taking on the United States" storyline that The Crew seems to be going for. The story itself doesn't seem yet to be entirely memorable, but the gameplay that leads into cutscenes is certainly solid. Granted, I was only given a brief taste of the actual underlying story of the game, thou?gh no one I know plays a racing game for a unique and engaging story. It's all about the adrenaline.

Driving from mission to mission could get boring easily if you were forced to just look at the pretty scenery. In The Crew, you're likely to encounter several skill challenges along the way?. These are events that are triggered simply by driving through them at spots along the map. Some skill challenges task you with careful driving, forcing you to smash through small glass barriers placed closely together and leading you off the beaten track, while others demand you to speed through a certain area of the map while avoiding traffic collisions and obstructions along the way. Interestingly, time of day can really matter for both challenges and missions, as the flow of traffic in a given area changes during certain points of the day, such as during evening and morning rush hours. Although I didn't get a chance to see it, weather such as rain or snow can also play a factor, especially in regions like the Roc??kies that face heavy snowfall.

In terms of online gameplay, at any given time you'll be playing with seven other players, and three of those other players can be your constant crew. The game's server will host eight players in near vicinity while also ??showing all other players on an overhead map. As players drift in and out of your region, they also disappear from your server, so that gameplay is constantly fluid and fun. Of course, this changes if you're rolling with your crew, who stay on the same persistent server with you.

Your crew is also an important component of the game, as you can roam around with them or take on any challenge or mission at any time, and you all benefit from winning. The crew leader usually chooses which events you'll all be playing, and notific??ations appear that allow you to immediately fast travel to the location where everyone is to race. If you're not the crew leader, you can sti??ll run an event by the leader to approve so that everyone can have the option to play the missions they want to play.

The vehicles themselves are an incredibly enjoyable part of The Crew, as they should be. At your garage you can apply all sorts of performance and cosmetic changes, including decals, paint jobs, and racing stripes. Of course, some licensed vehicles limit your use of these cosmetic "upgrades" -- so you'll nev??er see pretty pink butterfly stickers plastered all over an Aston Martin, for example. For shame.

As you apply upgrades, you're able to take your car porn to an entirely new level. At any time during your customization process, you can manually run the car and steer in "demo" mode. The coolest aspect of ??this is that if you're working on the engine, the car strips away the outer elements and shows you only the parts of th??e engine you're working on, and you can actually watch the pistons working away. This is also a great educational tool if you're not a car buff, as it gives actual meaning to different car parts -- especially where they are and what they do within the car.

The best part of the cars in my personal opinion is that the developers were thoughtful enough to add a realistic cockpit view, and it's quite nice to use as you race or roam freely around. Some might remember my contentions with a certain game for taking away this feature from its original incarnation. When done well, cockpit view is such a great way to further immerse the player, and I can imagine it becoming a standard feature ??of all racers as we wade into VR territory. For me, if a racing game allows for a good cockpit view, that's the only way I'll race.

A few other features include "collision ??tolerance" that keeps the game from ruining your experience in traffic so that clipping another vehicle doesn't take down your car, and damage modeling that smashes up the car in realistic detail. I do have to note that in the version of the game I played, there were some collision?? glitches that caused another car to go spinning off erratically, and graphically the game is still needing a bit of polish as I noticed some pop-in and a couple of ugly textures here and there. However, one thing PlayStation 4 owners might be happy about is that reportedly, anti-aliasing will be used in that version of the game, making for a possibly prettier and smoother version over the Xbox One.

Small graphical concerns aside, I came away excited for the fall release of The Crew. I know I will spend several hours with the game, whether roaming around to simply explore iconic areas such as The Rockies or Las Vegas, taking on skill challenges and racing against other players or my own ghost, forming my own four person crew to take down others in races or skill challenges, or progressing through the missions of each region and taking on racers throughout the entire United States.

The Crew is truly shaping? up to be the MMO RPG of racers, and it will possibly take up more than a hundred enjoyable hours of your time.

The post Huge open world an?d endless c??ustomization define The Crew appeared first on Destructoid.

How this 'sequel' improves upon the original return

When Retro Studios' Donkey Kong Country Returns released for the Wii in 2010, I was ecstatic. Since I was 13 years old when I played Rare's original Donkey Kong Country for the first time, I marveled at its solid platforming and varied level design. Returns proved? to be as solid in gameplay ideas as the original franchise, and when it was re-released in 3D for the 3DS, I did not hesitate to purchase? it again.

Next month, Retro Studios is releasing a sort of sequel to Returns in the form of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. After experiencing a solid four-hour chunk of the game that gave me enough time to get to the very end of World 4, I am glad to report that Tropical Freeze won't be just another by-the-numbers sequel, but an engaging addition to the revamped franchise that adds some intriguing new mechanics while taking out minor annoyances of the original Returns.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U)
Developer: Retro Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Release date: February 21, 2014 (North America and Europe)

If you've seen any of the trailers for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, you probab??ly are familiar with the basic storyline of the game. Donkey Kong and family are enjoying his birthday when a cold breeze from the north arrives, heralding the arrival of the Horkers of Skyrim...or at least sea lions and other arctic marine animals wearing Nordic equipment, known as the "Snomads." This serves as an intro to an adventure of island-hopping through six distinct islands, rife with platforming challenges and mine cart levels.

Also revealed at various shows such as E3 and PAX 2013, the cast of playable characters includes Diddy Kong and his signature jetpack move, Dixie Kong with her helpful ponytail hover, and now Cranky Kong with his walking stick that works rather similarly to Scrooge McDuck's cane in DuckTales. Each level varies with the characters on offer, though ofte??n the barrel containing them will be a multi-character barrel that switches between all three, giving you the option to choose how you want to approach a challenging part of a level. Cranky Kong's cane is especially helpful in areas where the ground is filled with spikes, though you do still have to time your jumps w??ell so that you take no damage each time you land.

One of the changes that I'm personally most pleased with in this latest iteration is the complete removal of the Super Guide, so players can collectively say goodbye to Professor Chops, the checkpoint pig popping up and annoyingly waving a flag to signal that you suck as a videogamer. In his place is a much more revamped shop, curated by none other than good old Funky Kong and his wifebeater/tight jean shorts combo and rad shades. In HD, you can see his funky fur im??pressively well, and he kinda comes off as the awkward uncle who never really got past that phase in the eighties when being totally bodacious was in.

However, his shop is most ex??cellent, as it carries two new colored balloons -- the green balloon that is essential for saving you from pitfalls at opportune moments in more challenging levels, and the blue balloon that helps you breathe underwater for longer. Another cool addition is a capsule machine that drops out a capsule for a few coins. Each capsule unlocks figurines that you can rotate and view in your Extras menu, including the cast of characters and enemies like the commonly-seen "Tuff Tucks" -- tossable penguins with cute little helmets. The shop has a few other power-ups as well,?? including extra barrels full of monkeys so that you don't have to go into a level alone if you need that extra help.

Though there is no online co-op mode for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, there will be online leaderboards that are dedicated to speed-running levels, as well as a single-player Hard mode that unlocks ??after you beat the main game at least once. The representatives on hand were hesitant to divulge much information on what hard mode entails, though more information was promised in the near future.

In terms of level variety, Tropical Freeze has it in spades. The first island world, "Lost Mangroves," is a swampland with some really cool levels, including one of the first returns of the Donkey Kong silhouette levels. This time around, if you're traveling with Cranky Kong, his stunning whi?te beard is visible rather magnificently next to DK's bright red tie. The level itself is appropriately swampy, with bright green hues and silhouetted huts.

After this world, you're trave?ling through a pastoral landscape with windmills and giant Alphorns (Alpine Horns) that you must jump across in some really great platforming challenges, as well as a Grasslands/Savannah island that is facing the elements half the time and also a return to the underwater levels in "Seabreeze Cove." As one of the coolest levels I played in Island World 3, "Bright Savannah" involved out-running a windstorm that is tearing the level apart around you, so that your platforms are basically whatever may be blowing about in the wind at any given moment. The game is filled with exciting sequences like this, and even when I lost about 30 of my balloons in one challenging area, I still had absolutely no urge to put the controller down.

As in Donkey Kong Country Returns and in the original franchise, each level contains tons of bananas to find, secret areas everywhere, "KONG" letters that open up secret levels, and of course the occasional mine-cart or rocket-barrel section. The musical scores of each level created by veteran David Wise are wonderful, with a great new standout found in level 2-1. The tune is "Windmill Hills," and it evoked the mood of the theme song to Cheers, with a bit of a folksy country vibe. The wond??erful score to the underwater levels is back and revamped, and I wished I could listen to it more at the event as I heard it over the sound of other journalists playing on other systems.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest joys of Tropical Freeze are the boss battles. All of the bosses,? including the Viking Sea Lion of the first island, are in no way slouches, and involve understanding their independent move-sets and weaknesses to lob things at them or jump on them and take them down. They also get more dangerous as you take them down, switching up their attacks in intelligently designed ways that keep you guessing at how to properly end them. One of the bosses actually made me think of boss levels in shoot-'em-ups that require you to avoid incessant enemy fire and find brief safe spots before implementing your attack.

There is one small concern that I feel it necessary to air, and that is in playing on the GamePad. As in all of the games before, grabbing onto things requires holding onto the bumpers while manipulating the joystick and jump button, and on the very wide GamePad this is immediately apparent as a recipe for some serious carpal-tunnel, especially since the game is such a challenging and relentless platformer. Furthermore, requiring you to hold down the gr??ab button just feels awkward on the GamePad, and I found myself forgetting to do so several times on tough levels before I'd wise up.

After playing for about an hour on the GamePad I had to shake my hands just to give them a bit of proper exercise, and decided it was a good time to sw??itch controls. Fortu?nately, several control options are available, including the Wii Remote by itself or the Wiimote and Nunchuk combo, though personally I would highly recommend playing with the Wii U Pro Controller, as it just feels right in one's hands and is perfect for challenging platforming situations.

The biggest thing I want to stress about my four-hour playthrough is that even though Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze is very similar to Returns in terms of general gameplay design, it is shaping up to be a worthy successor due to its varied levels and? smart changes to gameplay design. It also looks beautiful on a huge HD screen and the levels seem to run silky smooth.

The challenge has also been increased in only the best way possible, so that deaths are never frustrating because of controls or other problems with level design, but simply because they operate on that addictive "one more try" quality that only the best platformers ach??ie??ve. I'll definitely be picking up my copy in February to see Donkey Kong and family through to the cold, bitter end.

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Making magnificently terrible decisions

As much as I love Bioware's style of creating compelling companions and giving the player agency to make choices that ultimately affect the overarching narrative, I have never been able to get into the Dragon Age series, no matter how much I've tried. This might be because I started with Dragon Age 2, and ended when I tossed my controller in disgust at the combat that seemed at turns frustrating and ti?resome. I knew that beyond the repetitive battles there existed a truly interesting story with well de?veloped companion characters, but the spawning waves of enemies seemed like such a lazy design choice and I couldn't forgive the game for wasting my time in that way. 

Coming into Dragon Age: Inquisition, I was skep??tical of just how Bioware had changed the formula and if the series could appeal to someone like me, spurned by the most recent game and not invested enough in the lore to care deeply about the series to see it through. After a special hands-off demonstration of the newest iteration in the series,?? I came away not only incredibly impressed with just how different the game played, but also with how well it seems to have hybridized elements of several different genres in such a successful way to renew my interest once again.

I may even be convinced to force myself to actually play the second one through, just to appreciate everyth?ing the series has to offer.

Dragon Age: Inquisition (PC, PlayStation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
Developer: Bioware
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released:  TBD/Q3 2014
MSRP: $59.99

One of the immediately apparent changes in Dragon Age: Inquisition that separates it from the earlier examples in the series is that the game has truly opened up in? a significant way. Huge, beautiful vistas spread before you -- and while the world isn't open in the sense that you can wander anywhere, you are given a very large area to explore and the developers are working to encourage exploration as much as? possible by figuring out ways to get the player's interest to wander from the main path of their objective.

The graphical quality of Inquisition is absolutely breath-taking. The demo I was shown opened up as the main character (The Inquisitor, as you are known) climbed up a hill towards a beautiful vista point as a light rain fell and dripped off of his armor. Gone are the dead, grey hills of Free Marches and the generally foggy surrounding areas and in their place are the vast mountains and massive deserts of the many areas of Ferelden. There are?? also caves aplenty that actually seem interesting to explore, and really great little graphical touches, such as a point where the main character trudges up a muddy hill and ??is impeded in his progress while also getting some of the mud on his armored boots

 Very soon after this point the Inquisitor and his companions face of a few of the Dark Spawn. While watching our representative take on the opposing force, I noticed that the realtime combat seems incredibly fluid in a way that the earlier games just didn't quite achieve. Also really awesome was a weapon ?that the player used that worked like Scorpion's Kunai and snatched enemies from afar in such a similar way that I wanted to shout, "GET OVER HEERE" quite a few times during the combat. Of course, the player can switch to any character and use their weapons or magic,?? and some of the other stuff I saw on display was equally cool, such as some incredibly destructive fireballs and Varric's (fixed) interesting looking crossbow ...thing.

Bioware has really focused on creating an open and engaging experience by presenting your character with very difficult decisions?? that affect the game in such a monumental way that whole are?as with quest lines may be shut off from you while others open up depending on the choices you make. During the demo, one of the choices presented was to either fortify Crestwood's Keep or help save the town itself (or save both if you have the resources, or ditch both if you feel like being a jerk). The presenter chose to ignore the town as it was attacked and instead fortify the keep.

A later cut scene showed the terrible cost of this decision, as one of your companions leans down on one knee to assess the grisly casualties. Much further into the game, you are presented with other choices that open cool new areas for you to explore and are only availab??le to you depending on the earlier decisions you've made. In one such demonstrated instance, a chasm that was once filled with noxious gas can be cleared out and fully explored, but at the cost of opening an e??????????????????????????ntirely different area.

Beyond the realtime combat is the strategic element of directing your companions in the battlefield. Much of this has also been vastly improved, as you can pause a battle at any time and direct your group in a fashion that is very reminiscent of games like XCOM. Instead of the frustrating 'realtime strategy' battle system that the earlier games use, Dragon Age: Inquisition works ??as a game where you can swi??tch up to play as one of your companions on the fly in a way that comes off more like a third person action game.

Or, alternatively employ the ability to pause your battle, rethink each member of your groups' actions carefully, set up magical traps,? and then launch back into the exciting combat. It all seems to work so seamlessly that battles are no longer tedious slogs with waves of cookie cutter enemies, but experiences that require you to make specific decisions about ??your approach every time.

If there's one thing that Bioware stands for, it's player choice. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Dragon Age: Inquisition. From the seemingly small surface things that are being brought back such as full armor and weapon customization of all of your companions (or choosing a male or even female Qunari as your Inquisitor), to the really big gameplay elements such as character decisions that question your definition of morality, everything that Bioware is creating for Inquisition show that they understand that you are ess??entially defined by your decisions.

Even if they're terrible sometimes.

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See a couple of your favorite Disney characters IRL!

During a recent press event with Disney Interactive, I got a chance to look at how Disney Infinity will transla?te to mobile devices. The publisher is planning to release two separa?te apps, one for iOS devices and later for Android and Windows devices, and one exclusively for the iPad, from second generation or later.

Tomorrow, the Disney Infinity: Action! app will be available for iPhones and iPads. Within the month it will also be available on Android and Windows devices. This app is basically an alternate-reality camera toy that allows you to interact with three Disney characters from Disney Infinity.

Mr. Incredible, Sulley from Monsters Inc., and (animated) Jack Sparrow are the featured characters in this particular app. The main meat of Disney Infinity: Action! involves taking video captures that play back real footage while the characters perform various actions. Though the characters themselves are free to interact with and have their own sets of props to play with, each 'video action' costs a certain number of c??oins that can be won wi?th daily check-ins and Facebook posts, or bought with in-app purchases.

You're given at least one video action per character for free, though if you want the really fun ones -- such as the actions that involve all three char??acters in some way -- you have to use your coins. The app reminded me of "Action Movie" on iOS devices, in how it bl??ends real iPad/iPhone video footage with CGI effects in small film clips.

Fortunately, this app is not the only connectivity plan for mobile devices and Disney Infinity. Think of it more as a fun little distraction with IAP befor??e Disney Interactive reveals the real iOS (think iPad) app for the game.

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Becoming the Invisible Predator

A common pattern for when a successful single-player IP has turned into a series is to tack on a multiplayer bit of some form. Unfortunately, when this happens, the multiplayer portion is often a half-assed attempt thrown in simply to appeal to a key demographi?c. Usually this po?rtion is handled by a separate studio to varying degrees of success, and may have little relation to the main game.

In the case of Batman: Arkham Origins, I'm relieved to tell you that while there is a new multiplayer mod?e in the game and it is being developed by Splash Damage studios, "Invisible Predator" online mode is an incredibly fun and appealing addition that works within the storyline framework and is a great addition on its own merit. During a recent playthrough in the Blackgate Prison map, I got a chance to see how it all works and just how badass it is to be Batman against live players.

Batman: Arkham Origins (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U)
Developer: Splash Damage Studios (Multiplayer)
Publisher: Warner Brothers Interactive
Released:  October 25, 2013
MSRP: $59.99

In a presentation by Alistair Cornish, the creative Director of Splash Damage, the two core elements of the Batman series that have attributed to its success are a merging of fighting in the great free-flow combat system and becoming an invisible predator to stealth takedown enemies when things get too hot for the Bat. The developers wanted to really focus on bringing over these elements when creating a multiplayer mode, and thus "Invisible Predator" mode was created.

You play as a character in one of three teams. Either you're part of a group of?? three within Bane's or Joker's gang, or else you can play as Batman or his loyal sidekick, Robin. As part of a gang, you're tasked with taking on checkpoints and holding them down against the rival gang while also keeping your eye out for Batman and Robin swooping down from the shadows.

As Batman or Robin, you are the "invisible predators" who try to intimidate both gangs from taking any checkpoints. This is achieved by va??rying your takedowns (Silent, Grate, Gargoyle, or Gadgets) to fill up the Bat Symbol in the center of the screen. While the gang warfare primarily plays out similarly to any other multiplayer game with checkpoint matches, the truly interesting twist comes in with the addition of the heroic masked vigilantes. After pl??aying a round as one of Joker's gangsters -- taking some checkpoints and getting some easy kills off of Batman and Robin, the next round saw me as Batman and I soon realized the true potential of the Invisible Predator mode.

As Batman, you are given Detective Vision and a few of your trusty gadgets including your Batarang, smoke pellets, and explosive gel. The gangsters get their own version of Detective Vision known as "Enhanced Vision"  that runs on a limited recharging battery power and can easily be scrambled. They also have various weapons such as assault rifles, pistols a??nd shotguns. Batman and Robin are not capable of using any of these weapons as would be expected, though they are entirely capable of one-hit knockouts provided they choose their attacks wisely.

Much like in the single-player campaign, there are vents a-plenty for the duo to lurk in and take out thugs from underneath. Also like the single-player, it is entirely possible to grab a thug from a ledge? high above and quickly and quietly dispatch him before anyone is alerted. The controls to get around as Batman and Robin versus the thugs may take awhile to get used to as you no longer can rely on the usual multiplayer run and gun style. Instead you play in a way very similar to the single-player campaign. Once you're familiar with how to play as the vigilantes, the gameplay opens a whole host of exciting and fun scenarios against the rival gangs.

Of course, no gang operating under a super villain would be complete without an appearance by the main men themselves, and another cool feature of the Invisible Predator mode comes in when one of the thugs is able to switch to Bane or Joker (in a way similar to the? Big Daddy switches in BioShock 2's multiplayer, but better handled). This opportunity arises at certain times during the match and any thug from their ??respective team can become Bane or Joker provided they make it to the meeting location in time.

Though I didn't get a chance to really see Joker in play during my matches, I tried to take down Bane both as an opposing thug and as Batman, and both times were met with my bitter end as Bane'??s incredible strength made shor?t work of me before I could get in first for the kill. I wish I did have a chance to take down Bane though, as taking down the super villains gives a large intimidation bonus.

Somehow ?I ended up being Batman for at least three different matches, so I got a chance to really get a feel for playing as the main vigilante, and it only took a short matter of time before I was leaping from ledge to ledge, observing rival gangs at war, and swooping down to pick off members before their buddies were alerted. Even though I didn't get nearly as much time with the multiplayer in general as I would have liked, the time I did have with it was thoroughly enthralling and I could already imagine the intense matches with players who have had enough practice playing both sides.

Much like in other multiplayer games, progression in each match works towards unlocking different skins, costumes, and enhanced abilities. I didn't get a chance to see upgrades beyond cosmetic changes, but what I did see ??was pretty cool, ?such as outfits for different eras of Batman and Robin and a great deal of customization options for your generic thug from each gang.

My overall impressions of the Invisible Predator mode for Batman: Arkham Origins are quite high after only a couple hours of hands-on t??ime, and it's something I'm looking forward to now.

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Not quite stealthy, but still fun

In a recent hands-on with Splinter Cell: Blacklist, I had a chance to see exactly what our other editors have been excited about regarding both the game's single- and multiplayer components. I spent a little time with a couple of single-player missions set primarily in the Middle East in broad daylight, and then jumped into a few Spies vs. Mercs rounds in a Hacker's Den before finishing out with a co-op m??ission with another journalist through Eastern Iraq.

Much of what I played was familiar territory in regards to gameplay conceits of both the series and of similar games in the genre, and the Spies vs. Mercs mode remains as strong as ever, but the mission I actually came away the most impressed with was the one spent with a complete stranger that had us both workin?g together to complete a number of objectives.

Though the?? co-op missions don't demand the precise stealth of earlier titles, they are still incredibly fun and actually do require some tactical skills.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U)
Developer: Ubisoft Toronto / Ubisoft Shanghai (Wii U)
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released:  Ausgust 20 2013 (NA) / August 22, 2013 (EU) / July 25, 2013 (JP)
MSRP: $59.99

A group of monitors at Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Blacklist event were set aside specifically for co-op missions, and as a PR rep pointed me and another random journalist towards opposing monitors, we 'suited up' with our headphones, tested our audio connection, and jumped into the game proper. We had never met before, and now we were to rely on each other's judgements to make it through the mission. Cue immediate anxiety about scre??wing up and pissing off my teammate, or vice versa.

The game started in Mirawa Iraq, and I played as a supporting agent (I believe it was Isaac Briggs, but without any real investment in the character it could've just as easily been Charlie Cole, whose missions revolve around assault tactics) while my co-op partner played as Sam Fisher. We began at the top of a precarious mountain trail leading towards a small outpost and a bridge, tasked with taking out the bridge with C4 after clearing the outpost of hostil?es.

What immediately became apparent about the co-op missions is that? stealth is still pretty necessary, although not to the point of frustration. At one point, as I aimed my gun over a fallen tree to get a clean shot on an enemy -- I somehow misfired,? alerting everyone in my area.

"Oh. Shit," I spoke over the headset. "?We're probably sc??rewed. I alerted them."

"I got it," my co-op partner said, and then as I became the perfect decoy, I watched him take down each surrounding enemy one by one, until I could dispatch the last couple near me. A few kills later, and a guy with a riot shield appeared from nowhere and began trudging towards my partner. I t??ook the opportunity to sneak around and snap the guy's neck.

This s?cenario actually replayed itself a couple of times throughout the mission, with our roles reserving each time. After we took down the bridge by planting the C4 on the trucks parked on it, we began heading to a village fill??ed with snipers, and each of us took different routes to distract our enemies. My co-op buddy soon got overwhelmed and cornered from within the village, and I took the opportunity to become Rambo Sam Fisher, blasting enemies from above the rooftops, before slinking off into the shadows to stealth kill the last couple that were giving him trouble.

Curiously, the next large segment of this mission became a lot less focused on stealth, ??even as day turned to night. While one of us was tasked with making our way through a heavily guarded segment of the village, the other was required to support with UAV drone bombings from above. This segment absolutely required one partner to mark enemies for execution, as not all enemies appeared in the UAV radar, and several heavies in the area needed priority marking for a nice bomb blast to deter them. After getting halfway through this area, the roles swit?ched so that each player got a turn at either support or making way through the village.

While this area was a lot of fun, it played a lot more like an entirely different Tom Clancy game -- Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, to be exact. While other editors have mentioned the homogenization of genres that Ubisoft seems to be going for in this latest Splinter Cell game, nowhere has it been more apparent than in this particular section that really had little to do with stealth and everything to do with?? tactical bombing strikes.

Soon after this portion? of the level, our mission ended and unsurprisingly our approach was deemed primarily 'assault' by the endgame stats meter. My co-op buddy and I congratulated each other on a job well done and wandered off our separate ways. I have to give it to Ubisoft for making co-op accessible and fun enough that two strangers could become strong teammates without either getting overly frustrated at the other's incompetence. While the gameplay may not be the approach to stealth that diehard fans expect out of the series, it's still solid and enjoyable enough on its own merits to be worth a look.

Oh, and if you're not a fan of co-op but still want multiplayer in your Splinter Cell, at least Spies vs. Mercenaries is still as tense as ever. I played a couple rounds as both the Spies and Mercs, and found myself dying a ton because of?? my lack of stealth ability and/or aiming my weapon a??gainst my foes. So there's that.

The post Cooperative mayhem in Splinter Cell: Blacklist appeared first on Destructoid.

Killing innocent creatures has never been this cute

I don't know about you folks, but I don't think I could possibly be more excited for Pikmin 3 right now. Yesterday I had a chance to get a full hands-on with the game at the Nintendo of America offices for an hour-and-half playthrough of the single-player campaign -- or "Story Mode," as it's called -- an?d I came away laughing heartily with a big dumb smile on my face.

Pikmin 3 is gorgeous, adorable, strategic, fun, and surprisingly ... quite gruesome. But what really makes it such a charming game are the excellent little touches that Nintendo has included to both gameplay mechani??cs and graphical sheen.

Pikmin 3 (Wii U)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released:  August 4, 2013 (NA) /July 26, 2013 (EU) / July 13, 2013 (JP)
MSRP: $59.99

Pikmin 3 starts with a horrible accident, as often happens in the Pikmin series. In 20XX, the planet Kopai is on the brink of extinction, with dwindling food supplies due to a lack of planning. In an effort to find another planet with the necessary resources, the inhabitants send out unmanned scouts to? neighboring regions of space. When they receive a signal of another planet with possible resources (PNF404), they send out three intrepid explorers. Unfortunately, just as the ship is finally about to land, it crashes and shoots Charlie, Brittany, and Alph to different sections of the planet.

Your quest begins as Charlie awakens on a snowy tundra filled with giant mushrooms. Your first e??ncounter with Pikmin are those of the yellow variety, and through humorous dialogue an??d adorable cutscenes, Charlie is acquainted with the little guys who he will lead further into the planet's darker regions.

The beginning section with Charlie serves as a tutorial of sorts, and it teaches you how to use your controls to whistle for the Pikmin to follow you, to throw them at things, and to disperse them. I was told that Nintendo has really stressed and encouraged the use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck with the GamePad acting as a supplementary device, and after remembering the excellent controls in Pikmin 2, I could immediately see why this was still the preferred control method. Of course, both GamePad with TV and off-screen GamePad control? methods are available, and the off-screen mode seems to work just as int?uitively as expected.

Pretty soon I was busy taking down mushrooms until I was urged to keep moving further in the interest of time. I went through a little cave area where enemy creatures hid in the dark un?til Charlie threw some Pikmin at the glowing mushrooms nearby, activating their g?low and causing damage to the enemy creatures.

After this, Charlie rounds a corner and comes upon something ominous that surprises him, at which point the gam??e switches to the next character. You are then introduced to the young Alph, who has landed in a more tropical setting.

Without spoiling too much, this area is filled with flowers, butterflies, and plenty of Bulborbs. This is ??also near where you acquire Brittany, and the game re?ally begins to open up.

With two or even three commanders, the puzzle-solving elements of each level become ever more complex. Just as in earlier Pikmin games, you switch between your Pikmin with different elemental powers to solve area puzzles, but now? you also switch between two or three commanders, who can help by getting tossed up to hard-to-reach areas and then tossing their Pikmin even further, or else just splitting off and allowing? the player to multitask and collect objects and fruit for further propagation and survival before the day ends.

Early on, you are introduced to the rock Pikmin. These guys are pretty great, as they cause a lot of damage when thrown -- especially to cryst??alline or glass objects and walls. Curiously, rock Pikmin are not immune to fire, as I learned pretty quickly when battling a certain kind of fire-breathing enemy type. However, when they do become flammable, their suffering is absolutely adorable. F??ortunately, a quick whistle gets them back in order.

While progressing through the days and collecting fruit, I learned that one of the most important tasks in the Story Mode is to simply collect fruit for survival, and that as long as you've collected enough fruit to make another bottle ??of juice to drink, you'll have another day of survival. This is Nintendo's way of making ??the game both accessible to newcomers to the series yet still challenging enough for more veteran players.

Just as in previous iterations, the game progresses by days rather than strictly by levels, and even boss battles may?? get interrupted by the end of a given day. Fortunately, the damage you do to a boss carries over to? the next day, where you can recall what Pikmin you have left and even find a way to propagate more before heading back out to battle again.

Speaking of boss battles, that first battle with the armored centipede creature is both epic and incredibly challenging. The boss charges you and your Pikmin and causes them to go flying every which way. If the huge creature captures a flock of the little guys in his huge pincers, you need to move quick with some rock Pikmin to cause him to knock them all awa??y.

I lost a ton of my poor little red and rock Pikmin during the battle, but there was some consolation in watching the hilarity of it all in the overhead map replay mode on the GamePad that shows Pikmin represented as colored dots going wild around the equally manic boss with his own iconic representation. Eventually, I was able to smash enough of the boss' armored shell and throw my red Pikmin on his fleshy bits to take him down. His death wa??s both satisfying and daintily terrible. I took a picture.

Beyond the actual gameplay, Pikmin 3 is rich with features that can be accessed via the Wii U GamePad. The in-game camera had to be one of the features that  I had the most fun with during my playthrough. As you might rememb??er, this camera function was featured on a Nintendo Direct at the beginning of the year. This camera is controlled entirely by the GamePad, and allows you to capture photos of your Pikmin in their natural environment (or anything else from your captain's perspective) and post and caption those photos in Miiverse.

After taking several hilarious photos of the Pikmin acting quite smug in front of frightening creatures or just falling over in various precious poses, I could already see how much fun I'll be having with posting and captioning goofy photos to Miiverse when the game launches. Part of what makes taking pictures such a fun si?de diversion is the HD sheen and graphical capabilities that give the Pikmin so much more life and express??ion than they've ever had before. They lay around lazily, stand at attention, or just generally look like the cuddly little sentient plant beings they are.

As my allotted playthrough time of Pikmin 3 neared its end, I wanted nothing more than to jump right?? back into my game and further explore the Story Mode. I wanted to attack harmless creatures like butterflies and larvae to further expand my species, aim for the whites of the eyes of my enemies, destroy as many mushrooms as possible, and send my Pikmin?? army before me to ravage the land.

August 4th cannot come soon enough.

The post Pikmin 3 is so adorably gruesome appeared first on Destructoid.

Less cockpit, more douchiness

Codemasters' original Race Driver: Grid was -- and still is -- a pinnacle of automobile racing games. Back when it was ??released in 2008, I spent literally hundreds of hours with the game trying to rack up cars, medals, sponsors, and good teammates.

From its excellent utilization of a very real cockpit view to the smart implementation of teammates that you could choose to hire or fire, the game took on sim racing with a slig??h??tly more arcade approach. Races were fantastic and exciting, but you needed some real skill to truly progress through the game's lengthy main campaign.

Fast forward to present d?ay, ??and Codemasters has finally heard the clamor of fans like myself and responded with a sequel to its shining star.

Unfortunately, the cries for a true champion seem to have gotten loss in the noise for a quick and dirty 'seq??uel' that barely gives a nod to its predecessor.

GRID 2 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [reviewed])
Developer: Codemasters Southam
Publisher: Codemasters
Released:  May 28, 2013 (NA) / May 31, 2013 (EU) / July 25, 2013 (JP)
MSRP: $59.99

On the surface, Grid 2 is still a beautiful race for the finish line with hot cars and plenty of thri??lling matches against ag??gressive AI opponents that will give as good as they take.

Unfortunately, beyond these surface details, the actual game suffers deeply from sequel-itis. Ignoring the glaring issue of a complete lack of cockpit view for the time being, there are many other smaller problems with Grid 2 that surmount to something that falls way short of what the first game?? even aspired t??o be.

The first thing one has to understand about this game is that it follows more closely in the footsteps of Dirt 3 -- or even the series spin-off Dirt Showdown -- with all pomp and circumstance, and then notches up the douchiness just a bit more to really get on any gamer's nerves. Instead of having the game narrated by managers who give constructive criticism and generally have a positive vibe, you're left with a middle manager of your promoter, the mysterious Patrick Callahan, who might as well be the Illusive Man for all of his underling's dickishn?ess. Your narrator relishes in taking credit for your wins, talks creepily about how he can't wait to get into your new car, and admonishes you for a 'mistake' even when it has actually helped y??ou out in your race.

The biggest issue with this new narrator is that he is implemented sloppily -- he's inconsistent and unhelpful throughout. In one ??ra?ce, he told me more than three times that my front wheel was damaged and thus I would have performance issues, even as I crossed the finish line in first. In the next race as I drove my vehicle like a bumper car against guard rails, he was mysteriously silent until he spouted a generic line about getting ahead of the pack early.

In fact, the narrator will even spout lines more suitable to a completely different event, such as telling you to get ahead of the pack when you're the only one in a time trial ??race. Between this shitty, inconsistent narrator and lazy interface issues that show all of your opponent drivers saying the exact same thing about the next race?, the game reeks of a certain kind of laziness that its predecessor would not dream of attempting.

Another example of how Grid 2 seems to want to destroy your enjoyment of it comes from the fans in each race except for the World Series Race events. I can't count the number of times I took a sharp turn and noticed that the cardboard cutout fans all seemed to be incredibly bored with anything aroun?d them, at times not even facing the track and on their cell phones. I guess this was supposed to be a nod towards realism, but it's the wrong kind of realism as it destroys the whole idea of playing games for escapism where you're supposed to be the rising star, not some asshole on a race track that's being promoted by an even bigger asshole.

The noises from the fans themselves are outright bizarre, and I could swear that around just about every other curve was the drunk chick from Family Guy, yelling out a very inebriated "WOOOooOoooo!" I'm not really sure why the fans are as terrible as they ?are besides a certain kind of cynicism, as the game doesn't rely on winning actual currency but instead garnering social currency, and even at beyond four million fans it seemed like many of my races still had a lot of bored, terrible people?.

Before the game was released, the new "Liveroutes" system was touted as something fresh and original, an idea that had never been introduced in racing games before. The thought behind this new system of randomized turns in the tracks of certain races was that it would truly test your reflexes and skills as a racer. While I actually did enjoy the Liveroutes racing during my time with Grid 2, I found it to be the easiest event to? complete throughout. Even up until the late game I was able to get several seconds ahead of the second-place opponent long before the race ended.

At first, I figured it was because I've gotten relatively skilled behind the virtual ?wheel -- but as I lost tragically to events in other disciplines, I started to get a feeling that the whole Liveroutes thing was still a bit undercooked. I'm not sure whether it was Codemasters' intention to make the AI during these races become dum??ber to appear to be more 'real' or whether they actually do struggle more with randomized tracks, but in any case, the biggest disappointment I had with the new system was that it didn't really challenge me in the same way other events did.

And speaking of the other events, while the one big positive I can say about Grid 2 is that the races are generally still pretty solid and fun, the difficulty curve is all over the place, even within the same discipline. This was also present in the first game, but with so many choices then, the player had a lot of agency to practice ?or skip certain events altogether until he or she was skilled enough to move on.

Here, the first three seasons of races move in a very linear fashion, forcing you to beat a race in a certain discipline before opening up the series. This becomes a barrier to entry for races that aren't even necessarily as challenging as the first race in the first discipline. When the game introduces Togue, that first race is a complete shift in difficulty from earlier races and I nearly threw my controller through the TV screen in frustration ?at the sudden change. Imagine my surprise when I finally mastered it and decided to try the next Togue event for shits and giggles, only to realize that it was a cake-walk compared to that first one, and not because of my own improved abilities.

Further expounding this issue is the unfairness of the AI drivers. While I actually love aggressive driving and really dug the first Grid for the way it was implemented within the spectacle-filled races, I really hate what they've done with it in this game. The drivers now find the absolute cheapest moments to take you out, and their vehicl??es are ALWAYS heavier than yours, even when you're driving a muscle car and they're in a dinky formula one-type go-kart.

I spent hours in several races attempting to repeat the exact same move that a driver pulled on me to destroy my race, o??nly to see myself ping-ponging off the other car's tank-like exterior. I believe it was only once that I actually managed to take down another car, though I took my??self down in the process. The car even flipped and as I watched him disappear helplessly in my rear-view mirror, through some black magic he got back on the track and caught up to me, only to take me out of the race completely just before the finish line.

Of course, I have to also mention the lack of cockpit view and how it affects the game, because no matter what Codemasters might argue, it? changes everything in a fundamental way. The lack of that view from behind the steering wheel really kills the realism of the first game. While hood view is a tolerable enough substitution,?? for some reason the developers decided to make just about every car hood incredibly shiny and reflective (despite whatever paint job the car has), so that EVERY LITTLE THING is reflected on the car hood.

While it's a very pretty idea for a tech demo, in an actual race it is incredibly distracting and doesn't really add anything useful to the game. Added to this is a much floatier handling in just about every vehicle, whether they're balanced or drift vehicles. The game plays a lot more like a Need For Speed/Ridge Racer hybrid than its o??wn roots, and though it makes for a more accessible game, it also disappoints with its further lack of simulation.

When the dust settles, Grid 2 serves as a solid enough racing game with generally strong opponent AI. What it does not serve as is a worthy successor to the first game -- instead offering a stripped-down version of itself that is filled with lazy design, unfair AI opponents, special ESPN 'live' broadcasts that no one really asked for, and to top it all off, its bizarrely irritating narrator and loudly drunk or completely apathetic ?fans. If this is what racing in the modern age is, maybe it's time to hang up the helme??t and find another hobby.

The post Review: Grid 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Get your Wii controllers ready...

During this morning's special E3 Nintendo Direct, Iwata announced that the multiplayer for Platinum Games' The Wonderful 101 will include up to five people playing simultaneously. That's one more than the usual four, for? those of you with difficulty counting.

Also mentioned? this morning was an in-game shop where players can purchase upgrade skills. The game releases August 23rd, and it's looking to be a fast-paced and fun superhero romp.

The post Wonderful 101 has room f??or FIVE in multiplayer mode appeared first on Destructoid.

Sony holds true to its word this time

In step with previous efforts and vocalizations regardin?g its desire to make its next console open to smaller developers, Sony ha??s announced support for several independent teams and their games on the PS4.

A few of the announced games include Klei entertainment's Don't Starve, Ragtag Studio's Ray's the Dead, the Young Horses' game Octodad, and an interesting-looking shmup called Galak-Z. Naturall?y, Sony has pla?ns to extend its support in the future.

Brief gameplay snips of the indie titles accompanied the announcement, and the future of the indie scene on the PS4 is looking mighty promisi??ng.

The post Slew of indie titles announced at Sony’s conference appeared first on Destructoid.

You're drunk at our BBQ...

Go Home Dinosaurs! is a game that will draw immediate comparisons to Plants vs. Zombies. From its cutesy art style, to? its carefully constructed tower defense-based gameplay, much of this iPad experience will recall hours? playing the beloved PopCap title.

Fortunately, the similarities work in its ?favor. What comes of?f initially as a casual experience for younger gamers soon reveals itself to be a challenging and fun affair that will test both your careful planning and your quick reflexes with its active tower defense gameplay style.

Go Home Dinosaurs! (iOS [reviewed], PC)
Developer: Firehose Games
Publisher: Firehose Games
Released: May 9, 2013 (iOS) / March 14, 2013 (PC)
MSRP: $4.99 (iOS) / $9.99 (PC)

In Go Home Dinosaurs! you are an adorable little gopher tasked with protecting your barbecue from those dastardly prehistoric monsters of the? game's namesake. Each level can earn you up to three steaks from your barbecue, and each hit you take from the incoming dinosaurs causes you to lose a steak through the dynamite rigged next to it as a last stand against the opposing forces.

In many cases and especially in the later levels, the player will find great challenge in figu?ring out exactly how to preserve every one of those three delicious steaks. Why a gopher is cooking steak for his family or why he even coexists with dinosaurs is questionable, but irrelevant for the sake of the incredibly? fun gameplay.

The game has tons of humor and charm to spare, as each unit you place on the battlefield to help protect your barbecue spouts lines paraphrased from cult classic and popular movies  such as Full Metal Jacket, The Warriors, Aliens and even a few r??eferences to other videogames (some gro??an-inducing, such as the 'arrow to the knee' riff from the gopher in the game's store).

At times, the game threatens to be cloying because of the constant r?epetition of these lines by your gopher squadrons, but thanks to the constant progression and inclusion of new units, you're mostly treated to more fun references as you get f??urther along.

The gameplay itself is incredibly fast-paced for a tower defense title. The little gopher you control can actually defend against dinosaurs by throwing rocks when you move him close, but you'll be spending most of your time with him (her?) collecting coconuts from trees in much the same way that you collect sunflowers in Plants vs. Zombies. The dinosaurs move along a pre-determined path, and it's your job ??to set up defenses along this path to pr??operly eradicate the giant lizard menace.

The dinosaurs themselves are cute and dopey, they come in a wide variety of Stegosauruses, T-R?exes, Pterodactyls, and others with varying attack patterns and speeds, and they can be absolutely relentless in their single-minded determination at times. The defense units you receive also vary widely and take up a certain amount of space and a type of shape on the battlefield, so it's necessary to plan carefully before each round to make sure you get the right kind of defense units?? that will actually provide useful against the dino onslaught.

For example, in one of the later stages, I found a great strategy against the dinosaurs by setting up a couple of 'snow-thrower' g??opher units that damage and slow down incoming forces and come in the most aggravating tetromino (zigzag) size for the battlefield, as well as a couple of 'boombox??' gopers that slowly deplete enemy health within a certain area. With little room to spare, I chose to use my favorite instant power-up, a robotic gopher team that pops up wherever needed to attack enemies and collect coconuts for a limited time.

Truth be told, for a good number of the levels I relied on this team for that extra little push, especia??lly during moments in most levels when the dinosaurs rush the BBQ i??n great numbers. In a way, the instant power-ups you earn primarily through collecting coins at the end of most levels feel a little like cheating, as they don't require too much strategy beyond when to use them.

In this sense, the game might seem to appeal more to a younger audience who may need the extra help. Don't be fooled however, as there are certain levels in the late game where surviving with all three steaks truly relies on timing your use of the power-ups in conju??nction with the defense units and which ones you decide to use.

Go Home Dinosaurs! will last you at least eight to ten hours if you're a skilled player, and certainly more if you're a younger or less familiar gamer. With its 4.99 asking price for a total of 60 levels, the game certainly gives you enough bang for its? buck, and with adorable characters and often smile-inducing one liners, you'll be returning to it often for a tower defense experience that starts out casually and then truly challenges your brain and reflexes.

The post Review: Go Home Dinosaurs! appeared first on Destructoid.

Hardcore strategy with the simplest of interfaces

When Frozen Synapse arrived on PC in 2011, the indie game wowed strategy enthusiasts with its incredibly compelling ?tactical gameplay. Complex strategy arose from a very simple interface and the most rudimentary of graphics, proving that pure, intelligent gameplay will win over ?graphical fidelity time and time again.

Fast forward two years later, and the tactical experience has been ported over to iPad, a device that caters to a huge audience and most often specifically towards a more casual gaming subset. In the case of Frozen Synapse, the success or failure of this port really depends on whether it appeals to a la?rger crowd through ease of use and a faster pace.

Frozen Synapse (iOS, PC)
Developer: Mode 7
Publisher: Mode 7
Released: May 2013 (iOS)
MSRP: $6.99

Let me admit something right out of the gate: I am absolutely terrible at Frozen Synapse. While I really enjoy the strategic action that requires some remarkably precise planning and careful deliberation of every move of the oppo?sing force, I am clearly not a good tactician. No one should ever hire me to plan their stake-out mission or to save the president's daughter from the Ganados.

If you're looking for a review of the game itself, look no further than Maurice Tan's review from when the game initially came out on PC two years ago. However, what I will tell you about is how the interface works with a touch-based screen, and the ease with which one can jump on multiplayer matches.

Frozen Synapse is primarily for the hardcore strategy crowd, so it's interesting to see it ported over to the iPad, a device usually scorned by gamers for its more casual approach to 'strategy' affairs with popularized games such as Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies. The only element that I can find casual in Frozen Synapse, however, is in how quickly each match plays out -- or in my case?, how quickly my units blunder into another rocket or shotgun blast.

I cannot discount the game through my own i??nability, as the tutorials certainly give even the most casual player enough information to go on to understand the basic mechanics. I will mention that while consulting ??walkthroughs during the single-player campaign, I noticed that certain levels take some serious trial and error before you can plan your moves as you really need to understand the layout of the level and exactly where your enemies are coming in from.

Speaking of the campaign, this mode is an excellent set of scenarios with an interesting sci-fi storyline ??that guides you through the different types of gameplay, including hostage negotiation, escort missions, and straight-out skirmishes. Each round plays like an ?deadly game of chess, where the player plans his or her moves for each unit, and can even review those exact moves by pressing a 'play' button before actually submitting anything for the next round.

During the planning phase, you can see the initial location of your enemy but there are only simple clues given to what they're planning to do next. This dynamic element attributes to what makes the game so compelling, as the AI is intelligent and will not give you much room for error, if any at all. Part of the strategy also lies in understanding your different units and their capabilities, such as a h??eavy with a rocket launcher, a machine gunner, or a unit with a shotgun. Every move that you make within one turn is crucial to your success or failure, so missteps are harshly punished with the quick deaths of your squad and a "Mission Loss" scre?en.

On the iPad, this sort of turn-based gaming works incredibly well with the touchscreen. During the planning phase of each turn, the UI sits along each side of the screen, with options such as "Make Waypoint," "Aim," "Duck," and "Engage" and their corresponding 'ca?ncel' actions that allow you to quit a certain action before continuing on with the next one. All it takes to plan a move is a touch of an individual unit with your finger and then any number of the corresponding interface commands so that you can get your unit aiming towards the enemy while advancing to a position and then ducking behind cover, or simply engaging an enemy from across the room before heading to another location, and so on. It's all relatively quick to learn and understand, and beyond the tutorials, the easiest way to figure it out is simply through experience, and especially through reviewing all of your moves before submitting them.

One small concern that I've had with my time with the port arises when I'm doing some quick, decisive planning and my units are very close to each other. Because of the nature of the iPad's touch-based gaming, it can be easy to select the wrong unit or simply get confused at which unit you're actually commanding. Fortunately, there is an ability at the bottom of the screen to sift through units manually, so that you can figure out which one you're commanding for every move. At times, it may even be easier to simply start by sifting through each unit this way as you make your plans, so that you don't touch random areas or enemy units by accident in an attempt to exec?ute a basic maneuver.

On the multiplayer side of things, Frozen Synapse really shines with the number of options at your disposal. You can find a quick match of the game's modes (and corresponding 'dark' modes that mix up the gameplay a bit by making your enemy only visible by their last known position) with other users online, and through the turn-based gameplay, a game can last however long you and your opponent have the time to commit to it. In the offline section, you can also create instant skirmishes against A.I. that are wonderful for practice, as the enemy units are still as intelligent as ever and will make short work of you if you're not careful with your moves. You can even play locally with friends around you in the hotseat mode if you so choose, making the game great for long trips with?? friends and family who enjoy careful strategy games.

The only iss??ue I've found with navigating the multiplayer portion of the game is when you go into tournament mode to create a tournament, the initial screen appears to be impossible to leave. "Create tournament" comes as an option twice, though you can click the right side option, which I presume is supposed to be "close screen"  so you can return to the main selection screen where offline and online play co-exist. Other than this odd interface issue, the multiplayer is generally pretty easy to understand and get around.

If you're looking for a serious strategy game on a device that often caters to a more casual crowd, look no further than this excellent port of Frozen Synapse. All of the work that used to be done with careful mouse ?clicks has been made even more user friendly and smartly integrated with the touch screen, everything loads quickly, and I've experienced no cras??hes in hours of playtime. The gameplay also remains intact in its challenge and pure tactical enjoyment.

The post Impressions: Frozen Synapse for iPad appeared first on Destructoid.

Lagging behind the finish line

When the OUYA was first revealed on Kickstarter last July, my curiosity was instantly piqued. Being the kind of gamer who values sheer fun and general style and aesthetic over pure graphical processing power, the more I read about OUYA, the more infatuated I became with the idea of a cheap, open-ended ?console that would allow independent developers to unleash their crazy ideas upon the world.

This is perhaps why at approximately 3:00 in the morning of August 29 I decided, "What the hell?" and threw down the requisite cold hard cash to become ?a part of gaming history, even though the OUYA creators were well beyond their initial goal of just under a million bucks -- already breaking that amount eight times over and then?? some.

Fast forward?? to early May, two months beyond the promised date for when early backers would receive their console, and the small, admittedly s??leek device sits among all of my other much larger and more intimidating consoles, waiting for its day in the sun.

And if I'm to be perf??ectly honest, that little Android go-getter is probably g??oing to be facing a long wait.

Right out of the box, the OUYA is a device that quite literall??y screams, "Give me a chance!"

The moment ??an early backer opens their little shoebox, they are greeted with a large red insert with lettering that tells you in bold white, "THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING."

While it's a nice gesture, believing and seeing are two completely different realities. As soon as you pull away this insert, you're greeted with the sleek little console and the controller. The controller is positioned in such a way as to make it appear broken, the intent obviously to show you that the batteries go beneath the controller's faceplates -- but the vibe it immediately gives off is that you've just purchased a third-world country knockoff of other, more popular consoles.

The Console: So far, so good

The OUYA itself is a small, quiet little device. Etched on the side of the early backer units is a list of the largest contributors to the Kickstarted project, including Minecraft's Notch. So that's pretty neat.

The console has an HDMI port, a regular USB port, a micro USB port, an Ethernet port, an audio out jack and the adapter plug socket. It's a relatively simple little piece of hardware, and turning it on is as straightforward as pressing the button that take?s up most of the real estate on top of the device.

I actually like the design and simplicity of the console. It fits in well among my other beastly devices, and it doesn't demand that its presence is known every time I boot it up. If I had one nitpick to make, it might be that my chosen Blue Rigger heavy-duty HDMI cable makes it pretty difficult to keep the tiny console standing normally the way it's supposed to, but this is more of a personal complaint since the box it came in provided a perfectly good, albeit somewhat short HDMI cable. I just happen to prefer my own more durable, longer cables.

The OUYA Interface: Not quite sophisticated...

Unfortunately, the 'cheap knock-off' vibe of the OUYA never really goes away upon boot-up. While the console provides you with everything you need to get started for the first time, including the requi??site adapter, HDMI cable, and even batteries for the controller -- the initial boot-up after a required ten- to fifteen-minute update reveals an interface that is so simple and so laggy that it calls back the early days of the Xbox 360 dashboard.

You are given four main options: Play, Discover, Create, and Manage. These are pretty self-explanatory, and have also been covered before so I won't bore with all of the details. Most importantly to gamers, within the Discover option you're given various categorizations of downloadable games, such as Staff Picks, Genres, Favs, and finally the Sandbox which are basically games that are either recently uploaded or haven't really gained th?e attention of other games.

In my experience, a lot of the games?? in the Sandbox section are probably not going to garner much notoriety except maybe for how terrible they a??re. But I'll get to that later.

The upside of all of this is that downloading games and apps is a relatively painless process, and it unsurprisingly resembles the same sort of process of downloading games to a Droid phone and instantly launching them. The majority of games on offer are also pretty small affairs and don't generally go beyond 100 MB except in cases where the Tegra 3 chip is using its graphical processing power to output some relatively impressive graphics -- if you set your expectations within reasonable limits.

The Controller: Lag and then some

After first booting up my OUYA and launching into my first couple of games, I quickly learned a few of the controller's fatal flaws. The first is the fact that it's a Bluetooth wireless controller, and not an incredibly great one at that. There is noticeable lag in most games, and it can be really frustrating in downloads like Canabalt that require fast-paced manipulati??on of the buttons to get through the never-ending obstacles.

The lag isn't even totally consistent, either -- in some games it is a constant issue, though in others (e.g. Beast Boxing Turbo) it is barely noticeable except for when anything blocks the path between the controller in your hand and the device itself (such as, o?h I don't know, a coffee table, or this computer I'm writing this on...). Completely weird issues with control due to lag also pop up from time to time and threaten to completely ruin the experience. Lag issues seem to be improving day by day, though after extended play the interface and some of the games still seem to get bogged down by lag.

The second big issue with the controller is how the magnetic faceplates sit upon the main body of? the thing. Because of the looseness of the faceplates, the face O, U, Y, and A buttons tend to stick under them, causing an immediate issue that disrupts way too much playtime. The faceplates themselves do a good job of staying in place, but the controller's design fails because of the extra space in the faceplate button holes that allows the buttons to stick under them. Julie Uhrman has noted this issue and has promised the the company is working on further renovating the controller for launch to deal with it, but only time and the hands of more enthusiastic (read: younger) gamers will tell if the magnetic faceplate thing is even a good idea to begin with.

A final issue with the controller is the touch sensitivity of the front pad. The pad works as a barely functioning fingerpad, with an onscreen cursor only sort of following your finger movements. You can certainly get through menu prompts with this pad by double tapping on them, but just getting the cursor to hover above the menu prompt is a huge fight to get it to do what y?ou want.

The one positive thing I can say about the ?controller is that the company definitely got down the basic form and correct heft of the thing. It feels good to hold, and because of the aluminum faceplates, it has a heaviness that is just about right on target with other console controllers. Besides the actual functionality issues, the controller avoids most  pitfalls that would continue the 'cheap knock-off' theme.

So that's good, I guess? Moving on.

The Games and Apps: triumph or tribulation of the indies

For having 104 games available at launch, it's rather disconcerting that about 10 of those games currently on display are at a level that actually seems feasible for enjoyable play. A great deal of the games that you'll find on the OUYA (primarily in the Sandbox section) feel similar to so many Xbox Live Indie throwaways. They're games made by beginning d??evelopers that are barely playable and not very fun. In a way, I suppose this should be expected as par for the course -- one can only hope that if the OUYA does ??succeed financially, more good indie developers will be attracted to the thing and thus much better choices will be available.

This isn't to say that there are no good games available. The problem that comes with these valid choices falls in the free-to-play model that the OUYA has adopted. In some cases, you'll get a chance to play a few minutes of the game bef??ore it begins demanding money from you, whether through in-app purchases or in simply asking you repeatedly to buy the full game even before the demo is over.

In many ways, playing OUYA games reminds me of when I was a kid and I'd buy a floppy disc of 101 shareware games from Fry's Electronics, and most of them would be total shit but then you'd find Commander Keen, and it'd be fun until the demo session expired and you'd either have to figure out how to get money out of your parents to pay for the game, or you'd learn from a friend how to crack the game and get the full version by other means. In other word??s, the pay model used feels like taking a few giant steps backward.

Speaking of illicit means of downloading games, the OUYA offers a few emulators for systems such as the NES, the SNES, the Nintendo DS, and the N64. Admittedly, I did check out the SNES and N64 emulators, though only for SCIENCE and only with roms of the games I own already on the Wii and Wii U's Virtual Consoles. The N64 emulator outputs gorgeous HD visuals though as expected it functions erratically and has severe sound issues, while the SNES emulator works pretty well save for the controller lag rearing its ugly head yet again. Regardless, there have certainly been better options in the past on the? old Wii's? homebrew channel for those really into the whole emulation scene.

Among all of the mediocre to terrible choices for g?aming, a few diamonds do shine through. Oddly, the games that I find myself returning to still are the games that keep it very simple yet have great gameplay mechanics and no noticeable controller issues.

A few of these games that I'd personally cast the spotlight on are Vector, an already free flash runner on PC that feels very much like a two-dimensional Mirror's Edge, and my personal absolute favorite, No Brakes Valet, a hilarious experience with incredibly simple DOS-like graphics that tasks you with parking a ton of cars i?n a lot by trying to both control them and slow them do?wn as they go careening in from the left of the screen.

No Brakes Valet is?? especially notable because it exemplifies what I believe the OUYA should be all about -- games that can be played with friends on your TV that focus on having fun and aren't too concerned about impressing you with graphic??al prowess.

Similarly, there is another experimental 'game' that I can imagine being great fun with a group of drunk friends (and one that caused my partner to repeatedly declare that it was 'possibly the stupidest game he had ever played') called The Amazing Frog? -- an experience in which you try to guide a frog around his world of bouncy castles, fans, and explosive cars/barrels with often hilarious results. Your frog can either run forward or jump, and pretty much everything it does is incredibly clumsy. The point of the 'game' is to try to get the poor guy to go flying as far as possible. It's weird and purposeless in the same way as Noby Noby Boy, but also can be pretty hilarious.

Currently, there are only a couple notable apps on the system, but I'm happy to report that they work rather well. Twitch.tv has an incredibly quick boot-up and streams pretty nicely, though the interface leaves a bit to be desired. Tune In Radio shines as a really great app to find both radio stations and podcasts, and it works as expected. The apps on the?? OUYA get me excited for what will be released afte??r launch, as this little system may become my go-to for Netflix and other streaming services.

Conclusion: Maybe we should believe harder...

If the OUYA can truly improve its sloppy, inconsistent, and ultimately laggy controller and work on professionalizing its interface a little bit, there may ??be hope for the cheap little console yet. The? open-ended developer friendly nature of the device is enticing, not so much for me developing anything personally as I threw my programming coat up on the rack at the age of 13 with the advent of C++ over QBASIC, but for anyone else with an interest in developing and releasing games without dealing with evil publisher overlords.

The possibility of developers releasing awesome, simple experiences on the machine in the future excites me to no end, and I hope that the OUYA does succeed if for no other reason than to allow talented devs another outlet to? ??rise from obscurity.

About the lag, though -- it's simply got to go or t?he thing's going to most certainly crash and?? burn when released to a wider, less tolerating audience.

The post OUYA impressions: Hands-on with the early backer?? unit appeared first on Destructoid.

Adapt or be squished

The Apple App Store seems to be filled with a glut of endless-runner/platforming games and their ilk these days. From excellent ventures such as Canabalt and Rayman Jungle Run to more suspect knock-offs (Here's lookin' at you, Ham on the Run!), ?the average consumer is certainly not ??lacking in choices for the genre.

In this over-saturated market, it takes some truly remarkable elements for a game of this  genre to thrive and stand out among its peers. BADLAND seems to be aiming to do exactly that, as the game appears at first blush to be yet ??another "watch the screen scroll ??to the left and occasionally mash at it to keep your character from facing certain doom" rehash that any iPad, iPod, or iPhone owner has played a million times before.

Fortunately, BADLAND has some really wonderful things going for it that firmly places it a few notches above its peers in this stale genre. The addictive gamepl??ay already built into the genre is just the frosting on a deliciously deadly cake.

BADLAND (iPhone, iPad [reviewed])
Developer: Frogmind Games
Publisher: Frogmind Games
Released: April 4, 2013
MSRP: $3.99

BADLAND draws you in from the beginning with a trippy silhouetted art style and an ambient soundtrack -- both vaguely reminiscent of the eeriness of Limbo. The colorful, bizarre background flora that stands as a stark contrast to the bleak foreground silhouettes and some of the spacier music choices are also reminiscent of the obscure '70s animated film Fantastic Planet.

You're not given much of a story to go on, except that you seem to be a furry little hedgeho?g/popple (remember those?) creature that almost comically flaps its futile little arms/wings to get across each stage. There's something else about a dead rabbit creature hanging upside down and his friends hidden in the background and some sort of race of robot creatures that look like giant metal eggs, but that's all simply background detail and doesn't ever truly get explained.

The first couple of levels seem straightforward enough, as they see your character barely scraping b??y deadly spikes and dangerous plant life to get to the vacuum pipe at the end of the stage. However, it only takes a few more levels before you start to witness the various power-ups that completely change up the gameplay and at times almost ditch the endless-runner style to focus more on quick-paced puzzle platforming.

One of the most notable power-ups that aids you throughout the game is the ability to instantly clone your character, either into one other little fuzzball or several others, all huddled together and at the beck and call of your finger taps. Think of your clones as your community of species. As you pass through giant spinning razor gardens and stomping machinery bits, you're going to watch in horror as a few of your community is sa?crificed so that the faster and better controlled may live to see another difficult puzzle.

In the beginning, this seems like an obvious handicap in completing the harrowing levels, as you watch a massive slaughter of your community only to notice a plucky one or two always survive and get funneled through the deadliest traps. Yet as you make your way through your first day of existence from dawn to night, you start to come across more devious setups that require you to split the?? paths of your communities in myriad clever ways.

For example -- you may be forced to let one of your fuzzballs sacrifice itself for the greater good by taking a path that means certain death, but also opens a switch to release the rest of your community from a blockade ahead. Add to this the great?? variety of power-ups you'll receive and traps you'll desperately try to avoid, and you quickly get an idea of the tense and fun puzzles you might face in a single level.

A few of these power-ups include some that make your fuzzballs grow larger or smaller, some that make them bouncy or sticky, and others that slow down or sp??eed up time. The levels the??mselves are designed in a manner so that no power-up is wasted; nearly every one of them is one you'll need to use somehow, or at least will make the next section a little easier to get through.

Much of the fun that comes from BADLAND is from the anxiety it will cause you in narrowly avoiding an insane deathtrap with your last fuzzy after watching a whole mess of clones explode throughout a rough patch of poisonous plants. LocoRoco this game ain't, as it's nearly impossible to save ALL of your community and so it becomes quickly necessary to ??focus on the ones that you just might be able to save and let the stragglers fall by the wayside or get burst into pieces by razors blades, gears, or j?avelin spikes.

The game itself isn't exactly lengthy; I was able to finish the main set of stages in a few sessions. As mentioned before, it's split up into levels that go from dawn to night. This equates to four worlds with different art styles (dawn, noon, dusk, night) and ten levels in each. However, there are two important elements? for replayability after getting to the cred?its. Namely, the three-egg challenges in each level, and the ridiculously fun multiplayer.

The challenge eggs are like how stars are handled in games like Angry Birds, where you are awarded more for doing better in the stages. However, these particular challenges tend to be more specific to stages, from egg challenges that demand you to?? best the level in one single try, to others that ask you to keep a set number of clones alive by the end of the level-- not nearly as simple a task as it would first appear.

Beyond this is the multiplayer, which is handled on a single screen and seems best suited for an iPad. Up to four players can pick a fuzzball of their very own, each with silly names and cute or w??eird characteristics, such as the o??ne-eyed Cyclo or the irritated looking Fury. These fuzzballs are thrown into a level together, with each quadrant of the screen serving as the player inputs.

The goal of the multiplayer is survival of the fittest, with the fuzzball that actually makes it the longest getting the lion's share of points, as well as? added points for all for power-ups and clones picked up. I played the multiplayer more than a few times with my partner, and it proved to be a fun and addictive diversion that depended on skill just as much as on sheer luck.

Though $3.99 seems like a high asking price for the typical iOS game, BADLAND is more than worth it with? a beautiful, challenging single-player and fun multiplayer component, and the added bonus of more levels and a? furthering of the mysterious story coming in a later update.

The post Review: BADLAND appeared first on Destructoid.

Smooth like butta'

After smashing a few hundred cars and winning a fair share of brutal races in the hours of time spent in Need For Speed: Most Wanted for the Xbox 360, I was more than happy for t?he opportunity to check out ?the recently released Wii U version.

This particular version has been toted as having the best graphics, perh??aps sort of a nebulous claim considering the fact that graphical differences between the three consoles are usually incredibly minor this lat??e in the 'HD' generation.

What I did not expect was that it's not necessarily an overhaul in graphics that you'll notice between this version a?nd the other console versions, but an overhaul in how the game actually runs ??and how it plays with a new and enhanced GamePad interface.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted U (Wii U)
Developer: Criterion Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: March 19, 2013
MSRP: $59.99

Need For Speed: Most Wanted U is ??undoubtedly a beautiful game. It may take some adjustment of the brightness or contrast of your particular screen to hit the sweet spot, but on most? HDTV screens this version will definitely impress you with its prettiness.

Granted, there are still some ugly, muddy textures found in the city of Fairhaven and these pretty much exist on all of the console v??ersions, but overall the game shines as a visual spectacle and the cars look hot. It's important to note, however, that a still frame is not going to give you a good judge of the touted graphical superiority of the Wii U version, unless you're very keen on technical details and/or anal retentive about slight graphical differences.

Instead, what you'l?l notice immediately is how much smoother the game runs compared to the 360 version. I spent hours switching between both version on my TV set, and what I consistently noticed was that a ?great deal of the frame rate hiccups that stutter the game in the 360 version are pretty much absent in the Wii U version. The tossup here seems to be the same issue plaguing a lot of Wii U games these days -- load times tend to reach up to the minute mark, especially when first booting up the game.

However, once you're racing around the pristine city streets and picturesque mountain roads of Fairhaven, you'll rarely get stopped up by frame-rate issues. The only real cases of noticeable lag happen when a ton?? of things are going on at once, such as getting pursued by a bunch of cop cars while causing a huge accident with several racers in front of you. Otherwise, the game runs silky smooth and once you start getting the faster cars and better nitro upgrades, the sense of speed is wonderful.

Besides the nice frame rate improvement, Most Wanted U's greatest asset is its use of the GamePad, which implements the new 'co-driver' mode. In a sens?e, this mode is a sort of cheat mode. It lets you or whoever's around  play a minor god, changing the time of day to evening or morning, disrupting cop cars as you see fit, changing your car's model and color outside of races, or even just turning off traffic.

You can also use the GamePad either exclusively to drive or to assist someone else driving who ??is using the Pro controller. The ability to disrupt cop cars with the GamePad is especially notable, as it makes it much more fun to drive to each race and take in the scenery without needlessly getting trapped in another insane cat-and-mouse game every single time you speed past the police.

All of the other shortcuts from the other versions remain, such as giving total power over tweaking gameplay control down to button assignment??s, or jumping straight to each race without the boredom of driving to a checkpoint every time. The biggest differences here are minor improvements, such as being able to play exclusively off of the GamePad, or even being able to use the GamePad as a miniature screen while still using your pro controller to drive.

This may seem a bit silly considering the fact that most players will want to play off their HDTV, but anyone living with a partner or kids knows that this isn't always possible in the face of compromise and it's wonderful to still have a pretty sweet-looking game run on the GamePad screen without sacrificing your preferred controller for racing games. You can play the gam?e exclusively on the GamePad, but it may feel awkward to control, and even more so with the? included motion options unless you're really going for the sim experience.

The online mode of Need For Speed: Most Wanted U is just as much chaotic fun as the other versions, immediately calling back the awesomeness of Burnout Paradise's free-form challenges and social multiplayer component. Just as before, you can jump into public online play or private matches between friends and find yourself competing in a variety of challenges, from sprint races to long distance jumps.With the Wii U version, there's also the expected social ability to pause the game to post on?? Miiverse whenever you feel like it, though the game never nudges you or otherwise bothers you to do so.

Overall, I have to admit that I'm returning much more often to the Wii U version than my copy on the 360. The game runs smoother and most importantly smartly gives you the option to clear away the annoyances of constant cop?? chases when all you wa?nt to do is drive around Fairhaven at reckless speeds and steal hot new vehicles to illegally race with.

After all, isn't that the way it should be?

The post Feeling the Rush in Need For Speed: Most Wanted U appeared first on Destructoid.

If it ain't broke...

Five long years have passed since the original Race Driver: GRID offered racing fans an excellent hybrid racer with edge-of-your seat thrills in a great variety of racing styles. While the DiRT series has branched out a bit in GRID's absence, it has never really fulfilled the great scope of the robust experience since its primary focus has always been on rally racing and showy tricks rath??er than a great variety of races w?ith aggressive A.I. opponents.

GRID 2 is finally on its way. In a hands-on preview of a few races with Codemaster's Senior Executive Producer Clive Moody, I had a chance to s??ee just what has evolved for the sequel -- and what has fallen by the wayside.

GRID 2 (PC [previewed], PlayStation 3,  Xbox 360)
Developer: Codemasters Southam
Publisher: Codemasters
Release: August 20, 2013

My hands-on preview involved three separate styles of races. These included an elimination-style street race in Barcelona, a BAC Mono car Red Bull Ring track race in Europe, and a checkpoint street race in Chicago. I spent a good deal of time with each race, as I was determined to come in first each time. It took quite a while to get back into the feel of the GRID series with its realistic physics mod??elling and aggressive A.I. opponents, but once I?? got back into the swing of things, I felt right at home.

The races felt very familiar to those found in GRID in terms of high-speed tension and careful maneuvering around hairpin turns. In fact, the biggest and most exciting notable difference that I ??found throughout th??e races came in the opponents' artificial intelligence.

If you thought the other drivers were aggressive in the first game, be ready for some very c??lever moves by other drivers. In both of the stree??t races, I was knocked out a few times by a well-aimed nudge while taking on a turn. You can bet that I used every hairpin to my advantage for this exact same purpose.

Beyond this, much of GRID 2 remains incredibly faithful to its predecessor. However, ?some important tweaks to the formula have been made, and whether these work for or against the game ??really may depend on your own preferences.

The new Liveroutes system

As Cl?ive Moody puts it, "Liveroutes is a mechanism by which we can -- in real time -- dynamically and seamlessly change the route that you're driving. The corners change [so] as you're going around a circuit you come back to what may have been a left turn, now it goes straight on, or now goes right -- so you get a real unpredictability with the racing."

The core principle behind Liveroutes is that it keeps the "unpredictability of open-world races" while still focusing on the close and aggressive nature of the GRID series.

During my playtime, I didn't notice the Liveroutes system in action though I did notice that there were a lot of points in streetbound races (Chicago and Barcelona) where I could choose between two lanes that broke up the drivers. At the same time, this caused the tension to ramp up even more a?s the drivers that I faced off against now scraped my bumper into some pr??etty hairy turns.

Sponsorships remain, Teammates are gone

The structure of GRID 2 differs greatly from GRID primarily in its focus on a fictional character known as Patrick Callahan who is a self-made multimillionaire looking to kick off an exciting new Motorsports series. With help from the player and sponsorships, the idea is that you're the star being promoted by Callahan as you make your way (thanks in part to broadcasting by ESPN) to becoming world famous. Due to this structure, GRID 2 will not have the same focus on teammates. In fact, teammates have been taken out completely, so gainin??g money through a teammate's better driving skills is no longer an option.

In my discussion with Moody about how sponsorships work, it became increasingly clear that GRID 2's structure seems to be aping the structure found in the DiRT series, most notably in DiRT 2 and 3. Much like in that franchise, as you gain prestige, you also gain access to better sponsors with h??igher payouts and better liveries to flaunt on your chos??en vehicle.

Personally, I don't mind this structural change too much. While I did enjoy the process of hiring ??and firing teammates based on their skills and how much money they made me when I failed to do well in a particular race, I trust in Codemasters to still retain a similar sponsorship model that doesn't focus primarily on winning. As Moody reassured me later, sponsorship challenges focus once again on a variety of goals,?? from taking no damage to overtaking a specific opponent within the race regardless of final standings.

I also asked about whether 24 Hour Le Mans would be making an appearance, and Moody told me that it was something the team was still tossing around, dependent on fan reaction. Personally, I wouldn't miss its absence. As much as endurance races are great for hardcore racing fans, GRID is the most enjoyable when taking on different styles of racing with tough oppon?ents.

More Realistic Damage Modeling

In a European Red Bull Ring race that featured small, lightweight, and barely street-legal vehicles known as BAC Mono cars (think Formula 1 meets go-kart), I took a few misjudged turns and really smashed up my vehicle. Moody took the opportunity to demonstrate how the damage modelling system in GRID 2 has really advanced since the first game.

In the first GRID, a lot o?f emphasis in damage modeling was focused on body deformation. However, the developers came to the realization that not all vehicles are made of the same material and therefore they won't fall apart in the? same way.

In the carbon-fiber vehicle I was racing in, I witnessed large chunks and smaller pieces of the vehicle simply break away and fly off. I asked Moody if the damage modeling would be only cosmetic or if it would be internal as well, and he explained that unlike the first game, GRID 2's internal damaging would be entirely optional, though he suggested the? best experience involved putting full damage modeling on.

No Cockpit View

One of the biggest draws of the first GRID that really appealed to hardcore racing fans was the excellent cockpit/driver's seat view that allowed you to see from directly behind the driver's eyes, rather than out on the hood of the car or as some floating viewpoint in front of the car. Though this view had been implemented in racing games before, GRID really brought?? it home with the way the driver reacted and certain camera?? tricks to make you really feel the impact of collision or an awkward turn.

Sadly, GRID 2 is lacking this feature and it is certainly no accident. As Moody told me, "We knew we'd get fan backlash ...they need to just get their hands on the game and play it...the core principles of GRID 2 are still there, and we're sticking by it."

In the preview of the three different race types (road, street, track) I was able to check out, I couldn't argue this fact. The racing is still aggressive with improved A.I. and the game still straddles that perfect line between all-out arcade racer and pinpoint precise simulation. I spent a good 20 minutes just racing before ??I even realized that I hadn't switched between views to get an idea of what was there.

I have to admit that I will miss having that amazing driver's seat view and I find its absence a little curious. I just hope that the developers really have focused great effort into the thrill of the races themselves in lieu of designing a cockpit view for each and every car, and that this isn't just an excuse for focusing efforts on more onerous ideas, such as a future deluge of DLC that would've already been on the disc in GRID.

From an overall impression, I'm optimistic about GRID 2 and can't wait to get back into some thrilling races all over the country, including my own favorite place to drive: the California coastline. The first GRID provided a racing dream for me, as I absolutely loved a game where being an aggressive driver is not just encouraged but essential as the A.I. reacts realistically and will take you out on a hairpin turn. From what I previewed in GRID 2, this same cor??e el??ement remains perfectly intact, with even smarter A.I. opponents.

The post Preview: The four major gameplay tweaks in GRID 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Chestbursting excitement!

Before going out to view Prometheus, I felt it necessary to watch the first three Alien movies again to get a more cohesive feel of the universe. After coming away from this marathon viewing, I noted once again how different in tone the three movies are to each other while still managing to weave a compelling narrative. My personal favorite of whole series is decidedly the original Alien, as the movie ratchets up the tension in great scenes of psychological stress between the crew members of the Nostromo, and then eventually it all pays off in a str?ucture very reminiscent of most modern day slasher films.

I bring this personal preference up primarily because after getting some hands-on time with Aliens: Colonial Marines, I feel more than a little conflicted about the game's tone. While the fan service is doled out in helping heaps -- especially in regards to Aliens -- the ?actual single-player experience seems a little mired in convention?.

Aliens: Colonial Marines (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Wii U)
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: SEGA
Release: February 12, 2013

Aliens: Colonial Marines takes place sometime after the third film, though it sticks much closer in theme to Aliens. The game begins with your?? team responsible for investigating the Sulaco after it reappears above the atmosphere of LV-426. Upon investigation, you come across Weyland-Utani mercenaries lurking throughout the doomed ship. Immediately this turns into all-out warfare between your ship and the? Sulaco, and you and your crew end up crash-landing on the moon right near the presently overrun Hadley's Hope colony.

Fans of Aliens will immediately take in many details that tell the chronology of events, such as the turrets used by the original Colonial Marines, now spent of their ammo, or the computer used by Bishop (who is back again, of course)?? to try to gain access to more of the colony's interface. It's? all there, and it's all certainly neat to take in. But then, the Xenomorphs arrive.

The single-player campaign starts to give a sense of Déjà vu to any seasoned FPS player. The aliens themselves are not really frightening, not even in the "monster closet" sense like the creatures in Doom 3. This may be because much like the original marines, you have a ton of firepower. Of course, the demo I played had nearly everything already unlocked -- though as per suggestions, I stuck with the weapons you would normally have at this moment in the game. While the aliens certainly looked cool, they didn't necessarily act with any sort of real predatory A.I. as I mowed them down and cleared the area a coupl?e of different times while running back and forth to finish objectives.

Going further into the ruined depths of the colony had both high moments and low moments. After helping Bishop set up motion trackers and defending the main comms area, my character and one other marine were tasked with going even deeper into the colony, at which point I was given a?? smart gun to take down any of the Xenomorphs we might come across. Of course, a huge Xenomorph attack was pretty much telegraphed at this point, so when the swarm came I wasn't exactly shocked. The smartgun also took down so many Xenomorphs with auto-aiming ease that I felt like I was playing any number of other shooters that involve heavy guns and swarms of enemies. Yes, the Xenos were dropping from the ceiling and leaping from dark corners, but they were essentially cannon fodder for a short period before the objectives changed and urged me to move on.

The H.R. Giger style of Alien constructs really came into play soon after this point though, as our characters ventured deeper into the infestation and got a good look at the strange squi??rmy shiny looking metallic "architecture" of the Xenomor?phs environments. The demo soon ended after this point, just as soon as things were starting to get truly fresh and interesting. To be fair, slowly making our way through this environment with the motion tracker had it's fair share of tension.

The biggest issue I have with what I've seen so far is in the fact that the human menace of the Weyland mercenaries seem to be more of a challenging opponent than the Xenomorphs. The aliens don't seem to have very adaptive A.I. and don't re?ally hide out so much as wait for you to chance up??on them. They seem at this point to exist solely to jump at you and quickly get mowed down.

This is allayed quite a great deal within the multiplayer structure of the game where I? had a chance to play two similar modes: Escape and Survival. I came away much more excited for the multiplayer than the single-player and its desire to feed so much fan service while somehow forgetting to add fresh elements of game design to the mix.

In both of these obje??ctive-based modes, you play as either a team of human marines (with one spawn and you're out unless revived quickly by a teammate), or a team of Xenomorphs bent on killing the humans before they can finish their objectives.

The marines play as expected with the usual weapon loadouts and upgrades we've seen with many other FPS games, just set in the Aliens universe. The Xenomorphs, however, have three different classes -- soldier, spitter, and lurker? -- and they're all generally based on closer quarters combat.

As the Xenomorphs, you can jump to ceilings and walls and crawl through vents while your vision is altered to see the marines in the level very clearly. You also have special upgradeable moves depending on your class that integrate a little strategy into the different modes. Soldiers are your basic melee-based attackers, while lurkers leap from the shadows, and spitters live up to their name, spitting acid like the hissing Xenomorphs in Alien 3.

The gameplay in multiplayer is fast-paced and genuinely fun, and playing as the marines can actually be a much more tense experience than what I witnessed in the single-player campaign. You're constantly ambushed by the opposing Xenos if you're not l?ooking over your shoulder. Getting killed feels especially punishing, as you're forced to watch the comrades you've let down get picked off by the opposing team, one by one.

Perhaps the reason the multiplayer appeals to me so much more than what I witnessed of the single-player campaign relates back to personally liking the movie Alien more than Aliens. I prefer my Xenomorph horror of a less blunt and in your face kind, and more of a psychological thriller wherein yo??u're faced with some dangerous unknown and must actually struggle to find a way to survive.

As for Aliens: Colonial Marines, as a total package this should be a solid enough shooter to appease all sorts of fans of the series, but it's also a retread of many outdated and familiar gameplay mechanics. Maybe some day, Gearbox will make an open-world thriller of a game based off exploration of LV-223 in Prometheus. But until that time, I believe that if nothing else, Aliens: Colonial Marines will at the ve?ry least be a decent franchise tie-in that continues the canon of the series.

The post Hands-on with Aliens: Colonial Marines appeared first on Destructoid.

Oh, glorious GamePad

When Trine 2 was initially released, I was excited to check it out on Xbox Live Arcade as I had heard many good things about the first one and its open-ended, puzzle-platformer gameplay. Unfortunately, as mu??ch I was entranced by the beautiful graphics and character-swapping mechanic, I quickly learned that the conso??le versions were really not the way to go -- the floaty physics and the need to manipulate objects in the environment made for a very frustrating time.

I can't speak for the PC or Mac versions of Trine 2, since I never had a chance to actually see how ?improved the controls might be with a mouse and keyboard, but I can certainly tell you that the recently released Wii U version is an absolute joy to play on the hybridized Wii U GamePad, floaty physics be damned.

Trine 2: Director's Cut
Developer: Frozenbyte
Publisher: Frozenbyte
Release: November 18, 2012
MSRP: $19.99

If you're planning to pick up Trine 2 on the Wii U in the near future, know that you'll probably find it? a much more enjoyable experience if you simply ignore playing it on your HDTV. The graphics are still as beautiful as ever, but the gameplay itself really affords itself to the GamePad's touchscreen controller.

To begin with, the game plays like an interactive storybook, with each chapter starting with a delightful narration of the three characters you're tasked to play as. It's easy to find a spot to curl up with your GamePad as though it's your favorite book and continue playing through the game, while also alternatively posting to the Miiverse on your progress. Personally, I enjoy simultaneously solving the Trine 2's various puzzles while either trolling the Cabela's Dangerous Hunts community or checking in on the Dafoeniverse (i.e. Rabbids Land).

The graphics on the GamePad still retain their beauty, and I would even argue that they look better than on my television since having less screen space makes the intricate background details reall?y stand out. In a way, the smaller screen space also helps to hide any rough spots that may appear on a much larger screen. Of course, your own results may vary depending on how your TV is configured.

The real shining piece of this new edition of Trine 2 comes in the touchscreen integrated gameplay. Playing as the wizard is no longer a frustrating and boring attempt to move conjured boxes from one point to another -- instead, you draw the laziest crude square possible to conjure a box, and ??then simply move it around the screen with your finger.

As you upgrade the wizard's capabilities, it becomes readily apparent that this is a great boon to puzzle solving, as stacking multiple boxes or conjuring and placing ?planks is no longer a hassle. Need to position the box better? Simply use the digital pad to rotate the box while moving it to your preferred spot with your finger.

Similarly, the female thief character shoots her bow with touchscreen controls while her grappling hook can be controll??ed by the ?right shoulder button. This makes getting around the environment to take out goblins and other enemies much easier, as you swing to a safe spot while aiming with a finger at your enemy and letting arrows fly. While the knight can fight with touchscreen controls, I found it easier to rely on the shoulder buttons as well for melee attacks and later used the touchscreen for hammer throws and longer-range attacks.

Of course, if you absolutely hate any sort of touchscreen control, the option to rely completely on t??he old-fashioned controller setup is still present. However, most of the time, you may rely on a hybridized version of th?ese two choices. Just know that if you plan to play while watching the action take place on your television, you'll probably need to rely on using the standard controller -- you might get neck strain after looking from the touchscreen to the TV screen multiple times.

The important takeaway about Trine 2: The Director's Cut is that this game seems almost like it was made for the Wii U. While the physics still either help or hinder you depending on the puzzle you're trying to solve, so much of the frustrations regarding the gameplay mechanics are allayed by touchscreen controls, and furthermore actually make the game a real joy to play.

On the Xbox version of the Trine 2, I hated the wizard because it seemed like so many puzzles relied on his conjuration?? skills and clunky box manipul??ation. Here, he's my absolute favorite character to play as because -- this may be surprising -- his powers actually make you feel like a wizard, conjuring boxes and planks with movements of your finger and then moving them around the environment through touch control.

Trine 2: The Director's Cut is a definite must-buy for new Wii U owners, even if you've bought and played through the game before. It's a great addition to your digital library that is instantly accessible and great for playing either in long sessions or short bursts, as you use your three characters to solve puzzles across beautifully detailed landscapes filled with frightening and wondrous creatures. It doesn't hurt that besides the massively improved gamepad control, this "Director's Cut" version also features the Goblin Menace expansion pack w??ith six new levels as well as an exclusive Wii U level and the excellent online multiplayer that allows you to play through the story cooperatively with the touchpad controls.

The post Impressions: Trine 2: Director’s Cut on the Wii U appeared first on Destructoid.

Amazing game, touchy port

When The Last Express was first released in 1997, it was consid??ered an incredibly engaging mystery set on the Orient Express as it traveled from Paris to Constantinople on the eve of World War I.

In many ways the game was far ahead of its time, but what really pushed it ahead of its peers (and even some current-day titles) was the way it progressed through real time as you tried to solve a murder mystery among a diverse set of characters with varying nationalities and motives. However, The Last Express was also a commercial flop when it actually released and was soon forgotten by? the gaming culture at large despite its brilliance.

Last month, an iOS port was released, and I finally had a chance to play through this endearing game for myself and truly understand why it was such a critical darling. I just wish the finicky touch controls didn't keep impeding my immers?ion and enjoyment.

The Last Express (iOS)
Developer: DotEmu
Publisher: DotEmu
Released: September 27, 2012
MSRP: $4.99

In The Last Express, you take on the role of Robert Cath, an American adventurer who is dashingly handsome, fluent in various languages, and burdened with a questionable criminal past. In many ways, Cath fits into the Indiana Jones archety??pe -- even to the point that in one very Indiana Jones-ish combat scenario I could've sworn I heard the Wilhelm scream as an enemy died.

Cath boards the Orient Express as an unknown, sneaking onto the train via motorcycle and quickly discovering that the friend he was expecting to rendez??vous with has instead met his own mysterious demise. The game quickly sets you off onto a sort of choose-your-own-adventure, where you find yourself wandering the various corridors of the train and becoming either a passive or active participant of the events taking place around you.

Even when playing casually on an iOS device, The Last Express will easily draw you into its immersive and self-contained universe. Characters pass by in narrow hallways, giving you a look and their pardon as they pass. People?? mill about in their rooms or in the restaurant car. And at various times you can eavesdrop on their conversations or actively become part of them.

Of course, you don't actually have options as to what you will say -- Cath as a character is pretty self-assured and needs no help from our fourth-wall prodding -- though your choice to engage in conversations or ignore key characters will have a dir?ect ef?fect on your playthrough.

The graphics are incredib?ly simplistic and the animations aren't even full-frame at times. Somehow, this simplicity is actually to the game's benefit. As you move about the train and watch characters interact, movements and gestures seem incredibly lifelike because of their familiarity -- it sort of feels like watching a si??mplified Renoir come to life. I know this sounds a bit pretentious, but I was honestly surprised by how such basic palettes and colors could tell such a deep and at times even emotional narrative.

Normally, games that contain a murder mystery plot with overarching political intrigue really bore the shit out of me, but where The Last Express succeeds is in truly putting you in the moment. Every minute that passes is another minute towards your last destination, after all, and that final stopping place may change with your decisions from moment to moment. I can honestly say I have never felt the immediacy of my surroundings and actions in the same way as I did while playing through The Last Express. In one playthrough you may develop a love interest, help to defuse conflicts both petty and political, and develop alliances ??and enemies? with various key players onboard.

Granted, even though there are mu??ltiple ways to end the game, it?? seems that there is only one true sequence of events that leads to the "good" ending. Honestly, though, I'd be hard pressed to call any of the endings "happy."

I've spent?? a lot of time gushing about the game itself -- I admittedly missed this?? gem the first time around, so it was exciting to play it in whatever format was available. However, the particular platform it's been released on has some incredibly frustrating issues, and I can't brand the game with a glowing review without considering the worthiness of it as a port.

Touch sensitivity is a tricky beast for games ported to iOS, though successfully ported point-and-click adventure games have certainly come to mobile devices before. In complete honesty, I simply can't consider The Last Express among them. This may change with an update down the line, but as of now the game has an incr??edibly finicky touch control system.

I played The Last Express on a 3rd generation iPad and found myself practically fighting with the controls at nearly every juncture. Icons on the screeen represent directions for your character to turn, though they could have been wingdings for all of the worth they had in actually getting my character to move properly. If I pressed on the button signifying "?right," half the time the game would do the exact opposite. Pressing the button to move forward one frame would often send my character into a sprint, bypassing everything until the next traincar.

These controls were especially frustratung during combat sequences, which play as proto-QTEs where you have to press the right direction with proper timing to survive dangerous fights. I nearly gave up in frustration during one of the late game battles because of this system. It took not only proper timing? but bashing on the on-screen directional arrows and hoping they registered with the intended move.

People often generally complain about touchscreen control and how awful it is for most mobile games. I argue stongly against this contention, as I have played so many awesome games with incredibly responsive controls that run the gamut from simple puzzle games (Ichi) to more complex adventure games like Swords & Sworcery that have the same familiar point-and-click interface. The Last Express falls on its face with ??the port's touch implementation, and this is really a s??hame. While I certainly accepted a certain amount of archaic control scheme frustration, I was surprised at how little work it seemed was actually put into making sure the game worked -- at least on an iPad. This was especially surprising given I was playing through on a device with ample screen space.

Fortunately, The Last Express does have a good checkpoint system that even allows you to rewind time and play from an earlier train?? stop if you failed or missed something along the way. I suppose this and the newly implemented hint system are the major saving graces of this frustrating port. In every other way, it remains faithful to the original -- at least as far as I could surmise.

I'm torn on this game, as I would normally give a game of this scope and brilliance a perfect 10, but my constant fight with the cont??rols really did mar my enjoyment.? Perhaps it's because the game is supposed to be playable on both iPad and iPhone, though from others' responses I've noticed it really only works on a smaller device.

At the end of the day, I'd highly recommend picking up this relatively inexpensive version of The Last Express regardless, even if that means biting the bulllet with the control scheme and dealing with those frustrations. It's a piece of videogame history and a shining example of what can be done to create an experience so much more immersive than the Heavy Rains of today. I ju???st can't rate the port as highly as I'd rate the core experience itself.

The post Review: The Last Express (iOS) appeared first on Destructoid.

The original Far Cry was an incredibly fun experience, with a varied deadly tropical landscape and relatively intelligent A.I. opponents for the time. The gameplay was both challenging and continuously engaging, and made me a fan of the series from early on. I even played and enjoyed the lowly console port spin-offs with long names, such as Far Cry Instincts: Predator.

Then Far Cry 2 came along, and my l?ove affair slowly died. Though I appreciated the vast landscapes and the reactive environmental effects such as spreading grassland fires and seeing the sparse glimpses of wildlife that ran away when it noticed y??ou, I found the missions to be paced too far apart and the constant traveling to be burdensome at best, and an absolute bore at worst.

When I began to hear more about Ubisoft's latest foray into an expansive first-person shooter environmen??t, I held a few concerns that the gameplay would feature much of what we've come to expect from the series'?? recent iteration, including the long periods of traveling and a storyline that wasn't very engaging.

At a recent Ubisoft extended hands-on press event for Far Cry 3????, I quickly learned that the experience far exceeds those expectations, and the series may in fact be back on track in returning to what made running through tropical environments and causing chaos so much fun in the first place.

Far Cry 3 (PC [previewed with 360 controller], PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: December 4, 2012

Far Cry 3 starts with a bang -- quite literally, as M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" accompanies? a montage of your character and his friends having an "extreme" vacation at a tropical island named Rook Island, the environment you'll be spending your next several hours in. The montage ends suddenly with a seeming graphical glitch, and the camera pans away from a smartphone where the montage was running as a movie that you're being shown by Vaas, the island's resident psychopath. You find yourself ??caged like an animal next to your brother, Grant. Apparently a former marine, he quickly takes control of the situation as soon as Vaas turns his back. Grant loosens his shackles and frees you from yours, and as Vaas leaves Grant distracts the posted guard to come over and then brutally kills him.

Pretty soon, you find yourself sneaking through an encampment of V??aas' guerrilla soldiers. This section of the game plays as a tutorial of sorts, teaching you how to throw rocks to distract guards and sneak through areas without being seen. Admittedly, the PC build I played crashed a few times through this part because of unforeseen graphic driver compatibility issues -- though this turned out not to be too bad, as each run through afforded another look at the incredibly detailed environment.

Graphically, the game shines the most in all of the seemingly insignificant things that the developers have crammed into each area, and this especially shows throughout the intro tutorial. As you hide be??hind walls and under ??boulders, you notice both mundane things such as chickens running about or the minutiae of the small village you're in, as well gruesome events such as hanged prisoners and at one point in the distance you see Vas himself picking off the rest of the survivors with a handgun point-blank.

I won't spoil too much about what happens after this, but some time passes and you wake up and find yourself under the concerned care of Dennis Rogers, a Liberian National who has found community with the warriors of Rook Island and your allies. At this point, the game opens up and I feel this is where I really got a sense for how Far Cry 3 plays.

One of the first real missions I played involved finding a nearby broken down radio tower and fixing the signal for the village that has taken you in. The mission was simple enough -- I had to find a way to the radio tower and then climb up it to repair the main electrical box. Of course, on the way there I got a little distracted with the local fauna and picked a fight with a few wild hogs. After getting my arm nearly bitten off, I managed to kill this small group of hogs and skin them for their hides. You're even treated to a skinning animation that's just a touch more gruesome than the one found in Red Dead Redemption, though it seems to go by much faster.

Climbing up the radio tower presented one little concern I have about the game. While normal movement including running and jumping around seem to be pretty fluid, there are certain areas where you climb upwards and the only way to actually access them is to get to special points where you can press a button to go into an animation. This is a little archaic in terms of character movement -- especially among so many games including even the most recent Zelda where climbing up a surface is incredib?ly fluid, but at least it did generally work well enough that I wasn't too bothered by it in my playt??hrough. It's certainly been the same way in past games of the series, but I suppose I was a little surprised that stilted movement like this hadn't been taken away completely.

The radio tower mission revealed itself to be the start of several similar side missions that I could embark on later. Similar to Assassin's Creed, each time you make it to the top ??of a new radio tower you open up more of the map. This includes points of interest and routes to your next checkpoint. This was definitely a helpful mission, as it cleared the way to later missions involving collecting various wild plants and animal hides.

Collecting these sorts of things is a much more focused and rewarding affair than in the past. Various plants can be mixed to give you herbal health remedies, ??as well as boosts to your defensive capabilit??y and to your accuracy when hunting. Animal hides are great for upgrading your backpack, as well as strengthening your weapons and supplies. Some collectibles -- often called "fetish" items in the game -- are good mainly for selling at your home base or any market for a pretty good price in order to upgrade weapons and armor or buy new ones.

Soon after a few introductory missions in the game, Dennis guided me towards Dr. Earnhardt's mansion to possibly rescue Daisy -- one of the friends from the beginning of the game who had also been kidnapped. Earnhardt is a bit eccentric himself, a possibly mad scientist who sends you on a mission i??nvolving finding a mushroom in a cave full of toxic fungi. This is definitely one of the trippier sequences in the game??, and after playing through it, I hoped there would be more varied missions involving the good doctor.

One thing I noticed pretty quickly as I traversed the map is that Ubisoft is really making an effort this time to fill the map up with -- well, just more of everything that the last game lacked. There are side-quests to be found all over the place, including ATV checkpoint races to d?eliver supplies and small self-contained story missions like one I played involving two star-crossed lov??ers and a whole mess of pissed off monitor lizards. There are all kinds of possibilities for emergent events, as all sorts of animals roam freely and actually obey the laws of nature.

The most exciting event in the g?ame happened during one of these emergent moments. I had just finished a pretty meaty mission involving tons of combat in a rusted out ship. After using some stealth and then later a whole lot of molotov cocktails (I'm happy to say that the realistic burning effect is still present), I had completed the mission successfully and was just sort of wandering around when I happened to wander right into an enemy encampment.

As I hid under a deck so as n?ot to alert the guards, I noticed a little icon on the screen informing me that if I shot at cages, I'd let the animals in them out. I didn't really see any cages, so I crept closer until I was right underneath a guard. Finally, I noticed some sort of tropical and probably useless ostrich-looking bird sitting in a cage. Just as the guards became aware of me, I shot the cage for the hell of it and watched as one?? pissed-off cassowary wreaked havoc on the guards and was soon joined by a couple others. I took this momentary distraction to high-tail it out of the camp and made it about a half mile away before I was joined again by some soldiers in jeeps.

At this point my health was waning, so I popped a few shots with a semi-automatic I had looted from a guard earlier and then waited for sweet death. The screen was turning red and my breathing was becoming more labored. I crawled to a bush to let myself breathe my last breath and suddenly the guards seemed to focus their attention at something else. As my health began to regenerate, I crept closer and realized that the pack of cassowaries had followed the guards and were once again di??shing out vengeance!

I honestly knew little about cassowaries before Far Cry 3. After playing the game and watching them literally kick the shit out of guards and then later kick me nearly to death, I learned from Wikipedia that they are in fact just as dangerou??s as depicted in the? game and have even been known to disembowel other animals. I think cassowaries are my new favorite animal now, replacing the honey badger.

Emergent moments like this popped up throughout my playthrough and made the game that much more compelling and fun to pl??ay, whether I was focusing on one of the main mission objectives or just running over animals becau?se I was on a wild killing spree.

Far Cry 3 seems to offer a very dark and possibly somewhat complex story about a ruthless psychopath and many other dangerous characters around the island. It also offers one of the more entertaining open-world experiences I've played in awhile. I was chased by sharks, spit at by monitor lizards, bitten by wild hogs, and kicked in the guts by cassowaries while passing through areas of both allies and foes and picking up supplies and new missions along the way. The game does a great jo?b of blurring the line between what are the "important" main missions and what are entertaining side missions that you might wander into simply because you happen to be close by.

The game also features a huge variety of upgradeable weapons and many ways to travel about the island, as well as areas where enemies will attack you and areas where you can just chill at with your allies and buy new stuff. I came away from my playthrough believing that above all else, the Far Cry ser?ies has returned to its roots in terms of offering a great number of creative ways to cause chaos and have a ton of fun while doing so.

The post P?review: How cassowaries saved my? life in Far Cry 3 appeared first on Destructoid.

The trailer above details two of your main allies in Far Cry 3. Dennis Richards is a Liberian National who has found a home among the Rakyat tribe that lives on Rook Island. During my own playthrough that will go up tomorrow, I mostly deferred to him for the main story ??missions.

The other ally, Citra, is the leader of the tribe, and she probably kicks a ton of ass. I have a feeling that Citra will introduce you to some of the more challenging and rewarding missions i?n the game. I see a lot of crossbow action and rad magical pow?ers in your future with her.

The post Get acquainted with the allies of Far Cry 3 in t?his?? video appeared first on Destructoid.

Born Ready Games has a vision to revive large-scale space combat as a viable genre in the vein of games like Wing Commander and Freelancer. With their new PC venture Strike Suit Zero, the company is poised to do exactly that.

Taking place in various reaches of space, Strike Suit Zero sports an excellent soundtrack by Paul Ruskay of Homeworld fame and an objective-based mi??ssion structure that will deeply affect the final outcome of the game.

During my extensive hands-on time, I had a chance to check out two huge missions that involved several dogfights and a few tough battles against huge frigates and other large ships. In both of these missions, I had a chance to really get a feel for the Strike Suit that the game is named for; a transforming ship that doubles as a massive mech suit??.

Strike Suit Zero (PC)
Developer: Born Ready Games
Publisher: Doublesix
Release: TBD

You may have seen the trailers for Strike Suit Zero floating around here and elsewhere on the Internet, and the glimpse of giant mechs may have gotten your mind to imagining some heavy duty ground combat sections. This may be a bit misleading, as I was informed by the developers that Strike Suit Zero only takes place hovering thousands of miles? above ?any sort of solid ground, if anywhere near it at all.

However, I would definitely urge you not to be disappointed by this n?ews, as the primary transforming mech suit more than makes up for it with its incredible versatility in space warfare. Even with a pre-beta build that we had a chance to play??, the combat was both challenging and engaging.

In the?? first mission we previewed, the first large-scale battle took place against a great? deal of smaller ships. This helped me get a feel for the basic controls, which are generally mouse and keyboard controls with a few adjustments relating to boosting and extra movement in the Strike Suit. Gamepads and joysticks are also supported, though I stuck with the typical PC controls.

The mission's storyline involved coming to the aid of a destroyed Earth base in the midst of a massive civil war between colonists possessing a powerful technology and those still remaining patriotic to the planet. The sense of a large battle taking place was in? full effect, as ships on my side engaged in dogfights while I tried my best to keep hordes of enemy ships in my line of fire.

With a press of the spacebar, my ship would quickly transform into its mech state -- provided I had enough "flux." In this mode, I could hold down the right mouse button to paint several targets and release it to let go of a barrage of missiles that destroyed several targets at onc??e.

The Strike Suit also can dash quickly out of the way of incoming enemy projectiles in full 360-degree movement, and shoots powerful machine gun bursts as its primary weapon. Flux is gained by taking down enemies in chains, and it is entirely possible to s??tay in this more powerful mode provided you can keep chaining kills and refilling your flux bar.

At one point during the session, a comparison was made regarding the space combat to Max Payne -- which I found a little strange at first, but a??s soon as I figured out how to effectively use the Strike Suit, this comparison completely clicked. As you're battling enemies, you learn quickly to switch back and forth in rapid bursts between your mech suit and your regular ship to effectively store flux and keep enough p??ower stored for stronger enemies.

One of the biggest strategies -- especially in the later parts of the second mission we previewed -- can be found in quickly switching to your mech suit to paint a few targets and dodge a few missiles before switching right back to your normal ship mode and boosting out of harm's way. This definitely did give off a similar vibe to Max Payne's bullet-dodge mechanic, as it was all about the best timing to get into a special mode before painting several targ??ets and leaping out of the way.

As mentioned before, the game was still in a pre-beta stage so although there was narrative and storyline built in, it was given to ?us by a hastily Photoshopped and distorted picture of a young and much maligned male pop star as a space commander with a robotic female voice.

Of course, we ?were told? to ignore this early build stuff, but in a weird way, it sort of worked. Granted, I'm sure the actual narrative will be handled much more professionally but like early screenings of movies where character dialogue has some odd kinks to be worked out, it was still sort of fun to see some effort put into getting the story and dialogue at least set into place.

Overall, I really believe Strike Suit Zero will do an awesome job in reviving the space combat genre for those who grew up with and loved games like Wing Commander. It has intelligent, tough enemy AI and a great Strike Suit advantage that prepares you for the challenges ahead with powerful defensive and?? offensive abilities. The eerie, otherworldly soundtrac??k is certainly no slouch either.

The post Preview: Strike Suit Zero and space-based mech warfa??re appeared first on Destructoid.

At the Sega Booth during PAX Prime 2012, I was able to get a quick demo preview of The Cave, an u??pcoming puzzle platformer coming to both consoles and PC by Ron Gilbert and Double Fine. From first impressions, I immediately appreciat??ed the graphical style and humorous attention to detail.

T?he demo I playe??d gave me only a small glimpse of the direction the game is going in, though I came away slightly wondering at the overall difficulty of the various puzzles considering the way the game plays as opposed to Gilbert's more traditional adventure games.

The Cave (PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, PC)
Developer: Double Fine Productions
Publisher: Sega
Releases: Early 2013

The Cave is a game that features seven eccentric characters: a Hillbilly, a Knight, Creepy Twins, a Time Traveler, an Adventurer, and a Monk. You play as three of these charac?ters, and apparently in the actual game your choices in this matter will affect the kinds of caves yo??u'll be exploring, as each character is looking for something special to them (such as the twins seeking out their lost mother).

Therefore, you may have to play through the game more than once to solve all of the puzzles and play out the characters' stories. You control a single character at a time, and as you progress through levels, you'll find yourself switching between them in a style reminiscent of Gilbert's Maniac Mansion in? order to solve puzzles with appropriate timing.

When I began the demo, the cave for which the game is named gave me a brief welcome and tutorial, and I was free to wander around the vibrant, beautifully rendered environment. Based on first impressions, I noticed that all of the characters moved around at a pretty quick pace that isn't usual to an adventure game, and that solving puzzles generally relied on finding objects in the environment and using them on other objects to progress deeper into? the world. There is no rea??l inventory management and the game plays like a platformer rather than a point-and-click adventure game.

A good example ??of this: as I ran around with my knight, I found a fuse box that was powering a sort of claw machine over a pit of spikes. I knew from earlier in the level that I needed the fuse itself to power up some vending machines, though I wasn't entirely sure what good this would do me. Getting the active fuse required first finding something to stop it from being live and dangerous, and so I went to an earlier point in the level and grabbed a bucket from a well to come back and catch water that was dropping onto the lively fuse. Once I got to the vending machines with the fuse, one of them dropped a hot dog. My knight picked this item up and carried it with him.

At this point, the need for your other characters starts to come into play. I knew that I couldn't go further into the level without getting eaten by a gia??nt monstrous lizard creature, and I also knew that the tasty hot dog would play into this whole equa?tion somehow.

Between myself and the giant lizard was a dead??ly pit of spikes, so I decided to climb up and see if I could lure the beast right into the pit. Before using the hot dog, I realized I could possibly use the claw machine to grab the lizard when it came out to investigate. I brought my knight up to the top level of the cave where the mechanics for the claw machine sat.

I quickly realized that without the fuse, the machine was no longer active, so I got my se??cond 'set' of characters into play, and brought the twins back to the vending machine to retrieve the fuse. I knew better than to drop the hot dog now, though I could imagine that if I had and needed another one, I'd have to use my third character to bring it back before taking the fuse out of the machine again with the twins. It's this sort of item management that will surely play a key part of solving puzzles in the game.

Once the fuse was back in place, I threw the hot dog onto the spikes. Still no dice. The monster needed to be alerted to its meal. Fortunately, at the same level as the spike pit was a bell that could be rung. The solution to the puzzle lay in bringing the knight up to the mechanical claw's main gearbox while using another characte?r to ring the bell. As soon as the lizard was alerted by the twins and wandered out to invest?igate, the knight pulled the lever, the claw descended, and soon one bellyaching lizard hung high in the air -- safely granting the characters passage.

This is where the demo ended, and it didn't exactly give me a great idea of the exact scope of the game. I solved the puzzles pretty quickly and they tended to feel like the sort of puzzles we've come to expect from both the adven?ture and puzzle-platformer genres.

Having said that, my time with the game was certainly enjoyable and the brief demo left me intrigued as to wh??at the cave itself will symbolize for the various characters and their quests.

The Cave will ?be released in early 2013 for PC, PSN, and XBLA.

The post Preview: Solving simple puzzles in The Cave appeared first on Destructoid.

As PAX wound down to its final hour, I happened to walk by the Microsoft booth once more on my way out and noticed the Xbox Live Arcade game State of Decay finally had some space for me to get a quick runthrough as the convention closed down. I had been meaning to check it out these past thr?ee days but because of the long lines and the amount of other things going on, I just hadn't had the chance.

I'm incredibly h?appy that I f?inally got an understanding of what this title from Undead Labs is all about.

Forget tired zombie apocalypse games. State of Decay is a persistent, open-world where your choices actually matter and finding inventive ways to eradicate the zom?bie menace is only one aspect of the experience.

State of Decay (Xbox Live Arcade, PC)
Developer: Undead Labs
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release: TBA 2013

From what I've read about State of Decay around the net, a lot of comparisons have been made in terms of gameplay to Day Z, the well-received mod built off of the Arma 2 engine. While the game has simulation aspects that may hearken back to the Day Z mod, the similarities generally end there. Also, the game has gone? through a name change and turned into a completely single-player experience since it initially began.

The story of State of Decay begins when your character returns from a fishing trip only to realize that the world he once knew is gone, and in its place is a nightmare of hungry undead corpses. As soon as your character finds and befriends a survivor, y??ou're able to switch between your main character and the survivor, and as you discover more survivors, you begin to build a community that may fend off the zombie apocalypse together.

A death in State of Decay is permanent; when a survivor dies, there is no retry button. This survivalist element affects everything in the game -- just about every resource is finite, though as soon as you have enough survivors, you can begin to build an actual, physical c??ommunity and stock ammo and defenses.

The world in State of Decay is persistent. Yo?u can leave the game and your survivo??rs only to come back later and learn that your need for food and ammo has increased dramatically, forcing you into an emergent side quest.

The game will have a general story arc with about 10 to 15 hours of play in the main quest line, and an infinite number of hours (depending on luck and skill in surviving) in the emergent open world. Diffe?rent survivors have varying skills as well as character attributes that affect their friendship with you and with t?he other people. An example of this was explained to me in the form of a character who might have the trait of being a selfish asshole and a supply hoarder, but he's your best sharp-shooter so you sort of need him on the team.

With my hands-on PAX preview, I took control of a female survivor named Maya. The build I played was still early, so the graphics weren't super polished, but the intent and gameplay were certainly there. I decided I wanted to get into some trouble, so I jumped into a police car and drove past my community safe zone in?to the wilderness.

The first thing I learned about killing zombies in vehicles is that an open car door is a gre?at way to take down a few extra walkers, provided you're not driving slow enough to let one of them grab on.

After running through zombies for a few rounds, Maya's police car was nearly totaled, so I ditched it in some bushes and found myself wandering through the underbrush -- right into the eager arms of several moaning corpses. Using my character's melee weapon (a??n axe), I chopped and sliced several zombies before deciding that if I didn'?t move soon, I'd be overwhelmed.

Maya made it back onto the main road and jumped into a car just as it began to rock with a ton of zombies crawling all over it. I ?steered her further away from the zombies and got back out into the open with a few molotovs in hand.

During my scuffs with the z?ombie hordes, I saw one huge brutish zombie and was told by the PR reps that he was certainly one to watch out for. He began to advance towards Maya before he freaked out and started attacking what looked like other zombies, until both I and the developer on hand realized his object of "affection" was actually other survivors.

Watching the brutish zombie pummel one of the poor survivors was rather brutal, even when it glitched a little and the survivor was frozen against a lamppost in a near fetal position for a little while until the brutish zombie managed to grab him again and pl??ay with him like a cat's toy.

??I was so mesmerized by the plight of the other survivors, I didn't notice the zombies that had shambled up behind me, and very soon I was overwhelmed. Watching the zombies feast on Maya was also gory, and it signaled the very end of PAX and consequently the end of my hands-on time.

Everything I saw and heard about State of Decay made it sound and feel like an incredibly promising title. The game is still in a relatively early stage and, as such, def??initely showed some very rough edges, though the most important aspect for now -- the pure intent of the developers' vision -- shines through even after just a few minutes of gameplay.

With help from a developer who has an intimate knowledge of the MMO structure, State of Decay is looking to offer a completely novel, persistent open-world experience. The fact that this is planned to be released as an Xbox Live Arcade game in the interest of working to??wards an amazing MMO experience further in the future is just? icing on the cake.

The post PAX: State of Decay is not just another zombi??e game appeared first on Destructoid.

The Xbox 360 indie scene is filled with a ton of throwaway games and "experiences" that incorporate your Xbox Avatar into the gameplay. It's not surprising that Microsoft's own Avatar Motocross Madness for Xbox Live Arcade sits in a neglected corner at PAX next to the much-more-frequented Tomb Raider and Forza Horizon booths.

Admittedly, I walked by the empty game booth a few times before my curiousity got the best of me and I decided to finally take a look. In a few minutes of play, I got the impression that Avatar Motocross Madness might b??e a bit more robust than what? you might expect.

The main game mode I checked out involved a rac??e in an Egyptian desert environment, called Dynasty City. The full game will have three different main locations -- Egypt, Australia, and Iceland -- and about four races at each location, for a total of 12 races.

What immediately struck me during ?my hands-on was that the vehicle handling wa??s pretty tight, and that steering and performing tricks felt natural.

In Avatar Motocross Madness, you gain boost through performing tricks in a simplified version of the trick/boost reward system seen in games like Pure. The tricks generally seem to be your standard motocross set, though getting in a timely lan?ding does play an important role lest you face a nasty crash and penalty that halts the game for a moment?? before letting you get back into the race.

The racing seems fairly well balanced, as I felt like I was being challenged?? enough to keep things interesting throughout the track. It took actual skill to keep up, rather than the sort of rubber-banding A.I. that games of this nature often employ.

Avatar Motocross Madness also has a free-roam mode that immediately brought to mind hours I once wasted driving around in Smuggler's Run or even the earlier MX vs. ATV series for PS2. In this mode, you wander around the desert environment gra?bbing coins and collectibles. I was told that although ??there was a time limit in the demo shown at PAX, the actual game would have no such restriction.

Another mode absent from the demo that is sort of like the free-roam mode is called Trick Session, where you compete against the ghosts of other players or against A.I. bots to get the most tricks in a timed free-roam session. While Avatar Motocross Madness certainly doesn't seem to stray from an expected formula, I came away from the demo actually enjoyin???g my time with it.

To be completely honest, I stopped by the neglected booth a couple more times during the weekend just to get a quick fix of a genre that I tend to love as a pick-up-and-play experience. As much as I absolutely hate most titles I've seen t?hat incorporate Xbox avatars into their gameplay, I feel it'd be a shame not to mention this game as a genuinely enjoyable one that's not too cas??ual and not so hardcore that it gets to be frustrating.

L?et's just hope the price point will match the experience when the game releases in 2013.

The post PAX: Avatar Motocross Madness is actually decent appeared first on Destructoid.

At a closed-door screening, Gearbox's Mike Neumann officially unveiled the previously described fifth character class, Gaige the Mechromancer. Unsurprisingly, Gaige more or less looks like her concept art as realized in the cel-shaded world of Borderlands. A very brief gameplay demo followed that introduced Gaige's main perk: a follower called Deathtrap that's sort of an apparition of?? a mech (however that works).

Deathtrap is a powerful, legless, floating robot that Gaige sends out to clobber her rivals, and he only gets more powerful as you upgrade your perk skill tree. At his most powerful form, Deathtrap looks menacingly spiky and can use a "Deathclap" skill that explosively?? sets his enemies on fire and/or electrocutes them.

The attendees of the demo also had a chance to watch an incredi?bly quick battle between the nearly impossible raid boss Terramorphous the Invincible and four of the devs. Neumann barely assured everyone that Terramorphous isn't even the biggest boss in the game before the massive tunneling creature made short work of the players and the gameplay demo was over.

Aft??erwards, we were all ushered to the main gameplay area of PAX to get the same hands-on that is o?pen to the general public. Finally, I personally had a chance to check out Salvador the Gunzerker and had a blast double-wielding a variety of assault rifles and pistols against waves of enemies before I was tapped on the shoulder and asked to move on for the 50,000 other PAX attendees waiting in the two-hour line.

The post PAX: Borderlands 2 Mec??hromancer character unveiled appeared first on Destructoid.

I've always had a complicated relationship with stealth games. On the one hand, I love sneaking around and plotting out how I'm going to take out every enemy in a given room. On the other, I get frustrated easily when a game has very specific goals in mind for me and I can't really deviate from the norm without ruining the playthrough. This is why I love the more action-oriented stealth series, such as Deus Ex or Assassin's Creed, and why I shy away from the Hitman series and others t??hat force too much tria??l and error.

Recently, I had the chance to sit down at a coffee shop with Nels Anderson, the lead designer of Klei Entertainment's upcoming Mark of the Ninja, and get an understanding of not only how the game will bring stealth into ?a two-dimensional world, but also how it will engage players who may find hardcore stealth games difficult to play because of their lack of player cues.

From the interview, I gleaned that Mark of the Ninja may be the kind of stealth game that introduces a whole new audience to the genre without compromising what makes the conc??ept of stealth fun.

Destructoid: So I've seen a few preview trailers for Mark of the Ninja and from what I can tell, it's stealth game with a sort of Assassin's Creed vibe set in a two-dimensional environment. Where did the idea for this come from?

Nels Anderson: Well, 2D stealth games -- they don't really exist, right? There are like, maybe three others ever. Only one of which even existed when we started [Mark of the] Ninja. So, we had to do a lot, a lot, a lot of design work to just figure out how to do this stuff, because, what's the fundamental hiding act?ion of a 3D stealth game? "Like, oh a guy is coming my way, I'm going to go hide in a corner." Except in 2D, of course, you don't have any corners.

Ha, yeah exactly.

So for me, the initial design process was really ?about looking at 3D stealth games -- the kind of games that I love -- and then deconstructing them almost, like figuring out why they made the decisions they did, and then pulling that up a level, and then translating that back down to 2D. A lot of these games are about control of space -- where is the space that I have access to and am affected in versus the space that's controlled by the guards, by their control paths, or vision or whatever. So it was kind of like, "How do we do that in 2D instead?" So it just ended up being a lot of iteration, experimentation, "Oh look, a thing doesn't work!" Just ??turning that over and over again until we finally got the thing pointed in the right direction.

In the preview trailer, I noticed one of the big things you do for example is use a grappling hook to get out of the way...

Right. So one of the main stealth "things" -- because you don't have stuff on the same plane to break up line of sight (no corners) -- one of the ways we got at good stealthiness was giving the player's ninja a lot more movement abilities than the other agents, so things like the grappling hook where I can do very precise point-to-point movement. You can climb on the walls, you can climb on the ceilings, all that kind of stuff. You can't break line of sight by, say g??eometry; we can get you out of line of sight instead by you being way more navigable than the enemies are.

Right. Kind of on that same note I noticed light and shadow came into play in the trailer -- how much does that affect gameplay?

Yeah, that comes into play as well. Like I said, I like stealth games a lot. But, I also understand how they can be inaccessible for some folks because a lot of those core stealth elements that you really need to understand to effectively play the game -- they're all kind of opaque. It's like, "I'm going to make a noise ... is that guy ??over there going to hear me?" You just try it and then, ope, he does, and then he shoots you in the face.

Yeah, it's a lot of trial and error at times ...

Even with light and darkness, it ends up just bein?g some HUD element, right? Like, there's a light jam or some kind of meter or whatever. And that's fine, that works, but kind of because the game is in 2D, it's already a little more abstract. You're not embodied in the character if it's first-person or even third-person 3D. So we can put things in the world that may be a little more abstract without it seeming like this exogenous element that's really artificial.

So things like light and darkness, for example: we wanted to make it very very expli?cit when you're hi??dden and when you're not. Whenever you're in darkness, the whole character's build is completely different so he's mainly black with a few red highlights and a white outline all around him. In light, you can see all the dark blues in his costume, there's no white outline, you can see the flesh tones, so it's really really obvious. 

We did the same thing with all the noise systems in the game -- that's a big part of the enemy's perception model. They have what they can see, but also what they ??can hear. Visualizing what someone can hear, which is a weird thing to think about, is tricky, right? Most games don't bother, or like, there will be a "Ring!" in the world or something. We wanted to make it really really explicit, so that any time a noise is made in the game that the enemies can hear, we literally put an effect on the screen that's this big blue expanding ring that goes out the distance that's how far the noise is going to travel. So you break a light, this thing comes out of it ...

So it's like more of a visualization then. I see how the two-dimensional aspect of it makes it so it's much more of that kind of visualization rather than relying (strictly) on spatial aspects. That sounds really interesting, like a nice twist on the formula.

Right. Because it's in 2D ... I don't know how you could visualize that in 3D, it'd be like a big, weird dome or something. Anyhow, be?cause it's more abstract you have a little more space to play around with there. Part of the reason I like stealth games is that you can play very intentionally. That's what those games are about. Fundamentally, you're undetected and the world is just kind of running. It's up to you to poke and perturb it as you see fit. Which means you end up formulating plans, "I'm gonna go over here, then this guy is going to react and start walking this way, so then I can go over because now he's over there, blah blah blah." But to get to that point, you have to have a pretty good understanding of how all the systems of the game are working. 

So it's kind of like, let's just get people to that as quickly as we can -- not to make the game easy, but we wanted to make an underst?anding of those core fundamental stealth system just a tool you have at your disposal along with the grappling hooks and smoke bombs and stuff like that. So it's like, these are things I can use to play and to solve these problems in ways I personally find interesting. That was a major design objective where we didn't want to make the gam?e seem like puzzles where you have to find the "one" solution -- the only solution that works. It was very very edifying because we had to playtest the everliving hell out of this. We did more playtesting on this -- by order of magnitude -- than any other game we've made ever. Which is good, but it was edifying near the end, when one of my buddies was playing it; he's not a developer but just a good friend of mine who plays a goodly amount of games. When he played it he was like, "When I finished that bit, it felt like there were lots of other things I could've done."

So, hopefully there are lots of other peop??le who feel that way because that was sort of the goal. It's like, "Here are these tools you have your disposal. Use them as you wish."

It seems like Dishonored is coming at that from kind of a similar point. It seems like Harvey [Smith] and Raph [Colantonio] and I come from? a similar place -- really intentional play, player empowerment, and all of that. "Here's how stuff works. Use it as you see fit."

So then, what is learning curve as far as level progression goes? Is it going to be pretty quickly that you're given a lot of tools, or ... ?

It's definitely not the case that two levels in you've got everything. Things get more and more doled out. From the first two or three levels, you get the core things you're going to get. The way we approached the game, there aren't like explicit easy, medium and hard settings. When all of the enemies die in one hit because you're sneaking up and stabbing them, you can't just give them more hit points, it doesn't work, right? So instead, what we ended up doing is that every level has three sets of explicit optional goals. They're totally optional but they kind of encourage you to experiment with other mechanics systems in the game that you might not come int?o if you're just playing it straight ...

So what's an example of these kinds of optional goals?

One thing might be "Get from point A in this level to point B without ever breaking a light." Other ones are like "Find a way to te?rrify this guard using this particular item."

Oh I see, so those kind of specific stealth goals ...

Yes. Some of them are broadly, "Any time in the level, do this" while others are more specificall??y "in this chunk of a level, do a thing."

So those are what we call the "Seals." There are also ... every level has three hidden scroll?s ... The game does have explicit levels with a start and end point, it's ??not like a full, open, totally connected Metroidvania thing -- but there is a good amount of branching and diversity in the paths within any particular level, sort of to reward being explorative ...

Explora-tative? Exploring ...

Uh ... (laughs)

To do more exploration, every level has three of these hidd??en scrolls in it which kind of tell some of the backstory in an audio log sort of way. Except they're all written in haiku, which I think is totally awesome. And then every level has point-scoring tiers, "For one star ..." so to speak, this many points then that many points, etc.

Even in designing that, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a dominant play style in terms of how the game rates your ?performance. Because that's basically what points do no matter how you gu?ssy it up or change it. When the game gives you points for doing a thing, that's basically the game saying you did the "right thing." I thought it very important that we didn't bias the game toward one particular play style or another. So whenever you stealth kill an enemy, you receive an amount of points but by the end of the level, for whatever enemy you didn't kill you could potentially receive a similar amount of points. You aren't penalized for trying to play the game a single way. 

It ends up being, "Approach this thing in the way you find it interesting ..." not "Do it this way because that's the way we po?int you to ..."

Right, so then what is the main storyline? I haven't really ...

Yeah, we haven't been talking about the story a lot just because mechanically there'??s so much to explain up to this point, but we definitely want to talk about it from this point going forward. The high-level is you're part of a nin?ja clan that has survived until the modern day. Obviously back during Japan's warring states period ninjas really existed but after that they sort of ... they went back to farming or whatever.

We had this notion that there was one clan that survived and the did it because they found this?? strange flower. And what this flower does is, it can be ground up and made into tattoo ink. And whenever someone receives tattoos they get strange powers. It's nothing like ninja magic supernatural powers, more like height of human possibility -- like you're an Olympic athlete in fifteen events. But what they also unfortunately discovered is that anyone who receives these tattoos is also slowly driven insane. 

So they end up ritualizing this so someone only recei??ves these tattoos in times of great crisis, like when the clan's very survival is threatened. And then after the clan's survival is assured, whatever champion is selected is asked to ritually kill themse?lves to ensure they don't become a danger to the clan.

Of course, the game opens with you -- the player character -- being the one ??selecte??d to receive the tattoos because the clan is facing those times of crisis. So that's kind of the narrative thrust that carries through the game.

So will that play into the story itself, like as far as when you get further in the levels will the tattoos sort of affect you at all, or can you talk about that ...?

Obviously, I don't want to get into pure spoiler territory, b?ut we very intentionally made ?the decisions we did with respect to all of that stuff. It's not like just a throw-away, "This in a cut scene!" sort of thing.

It certainly plays to ... games like Shank and Shank 2 are super pulp, the??y're like a Rodriguez/Grindhouse action game, which they're totally what they're supposed to be, but with this, we wanted to have something still very stylized but with a little more dramatic heft.

With the mechanics and game dynamics and narrative and the tone, all that stuff fit together very n??icely. That core power dynamic in stealth games is about this interplay between strength and weakness. When I'm in my element, I'm strong, I'm powerful -- but when I'm not, I'm also very vulnerable and exposed. That's what that whole tattoos thing are about; it gives you all these abilities, but ultimately at this great, terminal cost. So it's like, let's make sure all this stuff points in this good, cohesive direction.

_{[Mark of the Ninja comes out on Xbox Live Arcade on September 7 and may possibly later arrive on PC.]}

The post Interview: Defining 2D stealth in Mark of?? the Ninja appeared first on Destructoid.

Tactical role-playing games gained a more mainstream momentum with titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem on the Nintendo DS due to their bri??ght, friendly graphics and user friendliness.

After more notable hardcore strategy RPGs came onto the scene, the whole genre (along with most traditional Japanese RPGs) abruptly got neglected in favor of the new influx of Western RPGs that often includes a focus on ??action-oriented gameplay and flashier graphics.

In this new climate, it's a bit unusual to find Rainbow Moon as a recent addition on the PlayStation Network, as the game sits firmly within the traditional constraints of early SRPGs. Despite its vast universe and diverse customization options, Rainbow Moon fails to mak??e a splash in a genre that deserves a much-needed revival.

Rainbow Moon (PSN)
Developer: SideQuest Studios
Publisher: EastAsiaSoft
Released: July 10, 2012 
MSRP: $14.99

Rainbow Moon's story begins rather abruptly with the main prot??agonist, Baldren, getting warped through a magical portal into a new wor?ld by his arch-rival Namoris. Baldren is blamed by the locals for all of the monsters appearing lately, and it becomes his duty to find his rival and most importantly, get back to his home.

In several hours of gameplay, the main story never really deviates from this, nor does it add any sort of intrigue or wonder to the world as a whole. One of the biggest crimes of Rainbow Moon's story is that characters you gain along the way are gen??erally collected unceremoniously through fetch quests, and aren't really given any sort of interesting backstories.

In fact, the game generally progresses through a series of fetch quests that make the mechanics of Rainbow Moon show through early on and wear thin quickly. There isn't much voice work in the game, eithe?r, though the little bit of it you'll find can get grating and old before long (the healer, who you'll rely on throughout the game, is an especially irritating example of this).

Of course, story isn't the primary draw of strategy RPGs and where Rainbow Moon does admittedly shine is in the actual battle-to-battle gameplay. The combat takes place on large grids where each character has a basic attack and special attacks gained through scroll purchases and leveling up. Like most SRGPs, the combat plays out like an ever-shifting game of chess, where each attack needs t??o be planned intelligently in or??der to maximize hits and defend properly.

Sometimes enemies drop bags of loot, and a risk/reward system comes into play in moving characters to the loot locations while still in battle in order to maximize the potential of the type and amount of loot you gain through battles. Loot plays a big part in Rainbow Moon, as a good chunk of the game is devoted to managing your resources so that you use raw materials to upgrade your weapons and equipment??, or simply sell the materials to get better equipment.

There are many other more passive factors that ??may come into play during a battle, such as the type of weapons your characters use and their viability against enemy weapons, or your positioning on the battlefield and skills that may enhance your party through smart placement. The game has an incredibly gradual learning curve; passive skills barely even play an important role in the first few hundred battles.

In fact, the biggest downfall of Rainbow Moon is that it takes it just a bit too easy on the player. You can save absolutely anywhere as long as you're not engaged in a battle, and if you do die, it becomes not much more than a slap on the wrist, as you aren't really punished for death beyond having your health and mana points completely drained and forcing you to seek out a healer to spend hard-earned "Rainbow Coins" to bring your condition back to normal. This might provide its own challenge if the healers weren't nearly always within very close vicinity; tougher dungeons generally become frequent returns to the closest healer inst?ead of any sort of strategic stocking of your suppl?ies.

Despite all of my complaints, there is certainly something to be said about Rainbow Moon's main gameplay: like comfort food, it is easy to digest and always reliable. I found myself going back to the game for second and third helpings not necessarily because I believed the game would show me something new and innovative, but because the familiar strategy and loot grab ??elements made the gameplay generally engaging and dare I say it -- even fun.

However, after around 20-30 hours of a repetitive grind-quest that found me repeatedly leveling up to take out enemies in a given area and defeat a boss only to approach new enemies that would require another few hours to once again level up and do the same, I still saw no engaging story in sight and my interest waned. I had acquired several characters in my party and had even leveled up their skills and given them new skills, and yet knew of no interesting backstory for any of them or any truly comp??elling reason to why they were aiding me on my quest.

Admittedly, I don't believe I got anywhere near finishing the game in my hours of playtime, though in many ways, the game feels a lot like a casual iOS title in that it doesn't demand too much of the player other than their time. If the game had an engaging story and actually felt more like a "game" than a procedural chore, I would have been committed to finishing it properly. Instead Rainbow Moon offers you the gameplay you love, with none?? of the charm or interest.

The post Review: Rainbow Moon appeared first on Destructoid.

The history of the Worms franchise is a long and storied one, spanning all the way back to the very early days of gaming. In an interview with Andy Davidson, the main creator of the original Worms game, I was given insight into exactly why the s??eries has been such a lasting success. I also got an extensive hands-on look at the newest iteration being brought?? forth by Team17 for consoles and PC.

With Andy back on the team for Worms: Revolution and a new 3D engine, this latest title looks to offer fans the same excellent strategic 2D gameplay the series is known for while also appealing to new players with a great, polished look and entertaining water physics that add to the strategy and humor of Worms.

Worms Revolution (PC [previewed], PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade)
Developer: Team17 Software Ltd.
Publisher: Team17 Software Ltd.
Release: End of September (PC), TBD (PSN, XBLA)

Genesis of Worms: In the Beginning...

The earliest genre of a strategy game in the vein of Worms appeared sometime in the '70s, with a simple demo program on the Apple II known as Artillery.

This early prototype featured two pixelated squares meant to represen?t tanks facing off against each other on a very simple battlefield. The game featured actual physics that showed th??e trajectory of your projectiles as you shot at the opposing tank.

Meanwhile, across the pond, a slacker student was designing his own form of Artillery on a graphing calculator while trying his hardest not to sleep through his mathematics class. As Andy Davidson tel?l??s it,

"...The earlies??t form was on a Casio graph-plotting calculator -- we were meant to be doing maths lessons and everything, and I had a little bet with my mate. He said, 'I bet you can't make a game on that.' and I said, 'I bet I can.' ...?it was just a basic artillery game, similar to the ones on the Commodore 64...and I showed it to him and he said, 'How the hell did you do that?' and looking back, I'm not sure how I did it -- but that's how boring maths was at school."

When Davidson got his hands on an Amiga computer -- especially popular in the UK in the '80s -- he ported over h?is little project onto his school computer, and even began to add his own features, such as the bottomless water ?pits that caused instant kills, and "little things running around" that you could individually name. As his game ideas expanded, fellow students became obsessed with the game -- often to the frustration of his teachers.

"It was purely a game for me and my mates rather than to do schoolwork; college-wo?rk and everything ... eventually it got people skipping lessons to play it. Th??e corner of the art room was basically anarchy -- all you had was people shouting at each other, explosions going off. My form teacher eventually banned it, he just went, 'I never want to see that bloody game in school again.'"

At th?i??s point, Andy Davidson decided his dream was to get his game published.

"So then instead of going to university, I thought -- this is what I want to do. And with it being banned, I knew there was something in there. If a song's been banned, it's usually good?. If a film's been banned, it's usually good. So I told them, 'I'm not going to go to University, I'm going to?? get my game published.'"

My form teacher turned around and said, 'Andy, you're good -- but not that good.' Which was, you know, Cheers for the encouragement. S?o that drove me on as well..."

From this point onward, Davidson rewrote and tinkered with his pet project while working in an Amiga shop. He chose to use worms instead of tanks because at that point in game's history worms hadn't been featured as charact?ers yet, and because Davidson knew he could keep it simple and retain humorous animation?s using the annelids.

Davidson offered his customers a chance to play his game, making them unwitting testers who would often spend hours in the shop just to keep playing "Total Wormage."

"...I wanted people to like the game who hated video games, I wanted to create a reall??y social thi?ng -- because that's what it was, for you to play with your friends."

At a London Computer Show known as the ECTS (European Computer Trade Show), Davidson brought his game forward to be considered for publishing and found a home with Ocean Software and development Team17. The original Worms was published in 1995 on the Amiga personal computer,?? and later ported to other electronic devices.

Worms Revolution: The Approaching Flood

Davidson left Team17 after working last on Worms Armageddon for PC because he didn't really like where the series was going. Some time after his departure came the first (somewhat disastrous) foray of Worms in 3D, and then several reiterations of Davidson's basic ??formula.

Interestingly, exactly 17 years have passed since Davidson has returned to work on the series, and with Worms Revolution he and Team17 hope the game will appeal to a larger audience through its new gameplay engine and polished graphics. I had a chance to play a round with ?Davidson to get an idea of what this next iter??ation will add to the series.

The first immediate noticeable change is the sense of scale in the game. Wi??th three-dimensional implementation, the worms appear in an environment more suited to their size while animals and people wander around as giants in the background. One of the first environments I saw was sort of an underground bunker in a mound of dirt at a farm. Other environments include within a sewer, on a beach, and in a scientist's "spooky backyard."

The 3D implementation will also be important for a few special weapons, such as one that Davidson showed me where one of the original Worms of the series zip-lined into the foreground and was able to a?im at a specific area of the map to blast the opposing team with a grenade.

The environments are still structured very similarly to earlier games for strategic purposes, though w?ith a new water physics implem?entation they're formed in such a way to make it fun to let water splash around and flow fluidly through tunnels and across barriers.

The water physics are the biggest new mechanic draw to the series, as two of the water-specific weapons included a water-balloon grenade and an air strike of water balloons that can flood an area, someti??mes washing nearby worms into the ocean depths.

During my preview, I pelted Davidson's team of worms with several water balloons, slowly drowning at least one of them while pushing the rest just barely to the brink of death. The water physics add an interesting new wrinkle to the strategy as you can try to push the opposing worms towards explos?ive objects, chemically noxious beakers, or the bottomless sea itself. The water moves fluidly and realistically through the map, flooding areas and causing turn-based damage to worms who sit mindlessly under it.

Another strategic implementation is the use of different classes of worms. Wh??en the player customizes his/her team of worms, they can choose between four classes for each worm. These classes include a tank type that can both deal and take a lot of damage but moves very slowly; a scout type who moves quickly through the level and can tunnel through dirt quickly but is highly vulnerable; a brainy type who offers health to his teammates and also can set up turrets; and finally, the stock soldier type that most players are already ?quite familiar with.

The worms seem even more exp?ressive than before, as they squirm and wriggle a bit more realistically through the environment and make hilariously dumb faces at the realization of imminent death. The new engine makes everything seem more cartoonish and expressive, in?cluding the background animations and player deaths.

Worms Revolution includes four basic game types, including a campaign mo??de with about 40 specific missions, a deathmatch mode, a classic mode for hardcore gamers who want the original weapon set, and a new "Fort" mode, where each team has their own uniquely themed fort, and the strategy is found in deciding whether to infiltr?ate the enemy fort or defend your own as you lob projectiles at one another.

I played a single deathmatch round with Andy and we both blasted each other with a few well-aimed shots of water and shrapnel and misfired a few others with often hilarious results. Though the match was a close one, Andy proved his worth as both a gamer and a developer and won by taking my team down with some incredibly well-aimed hits. The new water physics proved to be a blast to mess around with, and the overall gameplay still retains the same addictive sense of strategic mayhem that has made the Worms series such a last??in?g gem from the earlier days of gaming.

Worms Revolution is planned to be released at the end of September on Steam for a??round $15.00 and later on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network for an equivalent price.

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