Well boys and girls, it’s May 24th and that means DiRT 3 is out. After tons of coverage by our very own James Ireland after attending the press event in London just a few short weeks ago, finally the game is here. This is just a quick unboxing of my copy. Sorry about the terrible quality, but I was using a cell phone and for whatever reason it looks like shit upon uploading. But never the less here is the unboxing and expect my review to be posted up soon. Ciao!

Releasing tonight is one of the most highly anticipated games of 2011. LA Noire, developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar, whom is best known for the Grand Theft Auto series and last years blockbuster hit Red Dead Redemption. LA Noire is set in 1940’s Los Angeles, where you play as flat footer Cole Phelps, who is voiced by Aaron Staton of Mad Men fame. LA Noire promises to stray away from the familiar path of other Rockstar games where you would play as a rebellious character who doesn’t always obey the law. Instead the law is on your side as you work your way through case after case solving murders.

One of the biggest innovations being brought to this game is the seriously advanced facial capture technology that has the ability to pick up on every single twitch and muscle movement in the actors faces as they provide their vocals. The way this translates into the game first off is the amazing graphics. Secondly though is the gameplay element which is greatly affected by this technology. We will actually be able to interrogate witnesses and try to pick up on whether or not they are telling the truth. Your ability to read people could greatly affect if you catch the murderer or if he slips between your fingers.

LA Noire for me seems like a no brainer. You can usually tell if a game is good or not before you pick it up and on this one I’ve got a great feeling. I will be at the midnight launch tonight and will play as much as I can before tomorrow morning when I write my review. So don’t forget to check back in see the final verdict for LA Noire.

SPOILER WARNING

The game will be set in Constantinople, which will be split into 4 huge districts (Constantin, Beyazid, Imperial and Galata). Another key point to note is that Ezio will be over 50 years old in the game. There are lots more. You can go through them below.

• The bulk of the game is set in Constantinople which will be split into 4 huge districts (Constantin, Beyazid, Imperial and Galata)
• You’ll also visit Cappadocia
• Ezio is over 50 years old in this game
• Ezio has a new item called the hook blade which allows him to use zip lines throughout the city. UBI says that it speeds up navigation by about 30%
• You can also use the hook blade to reach out and pull enemies in for a combo
• Ezio can now make bombs through a crafting system. UBI says that there are over 300 bomb types
• They’ve modified the control scheme so that circle/B will control the hook blade and triangle/Y will control project weapons and bombs
• Eagles vision has become eagle sense. “Eagle sense let’s you focus on a character and see where he’s been,” Amancio says. “You’ll get an approximation of where he will go. If you’re able to detect the path a guard will take, you can run ahead, set a bomb, and create a trap or an ambush.”
• They’ve expanded on the Borgia Towers concept in order to create a new system. Throughout the city there are Assassin’s Den’s, you’ll need to complete various assault scenarios in order take down the Templar presence (UBI says that there’s more variety than in the Borgia Towers). Once you obtain a den you’ll be able to upgrade the buildings in that region along with adding zip lines across the rooftops. You’ll also be able to change the guards from being hostile to neutral.
• You can lose control of you dens as you gain notoriety. You’ll be able to send your own troops after the templar’s if you’re unable to make it back to the specific den that’s being attacked. You can do that by making it to any of the other dens that you currently control. You’ll also be able to install a master assassin to control a specific den and you’ll never have to worry about it being taken over.
• The assassin leveling mechanic has been increased from 10 to 15
• In order to make the world more immersive they’ve done away with traditional side missions in favor of random events. For example you may be traveling through a city and notice a shop owner being robbed or a little girl asking for help
• They’re using a new type of capture facial technology called Mocam that GI describes as an “intriguing amalgamation of traditional animation, performance capture and the fascinating new style of performance on display in games like LA Noire.”
• Desmond is placed back inside Animus where he finds a safe mode called the ‘Black Room’. You’ll be able to access Desmond’s lost memories through that back door
• The gameplay during Desmond’s game is described as narrative-fueled puzzle sequences. “Through the manipulation and creation of geometry with the game world, Desmond seeks to reintegrate the splintered layers of his subconscious.”
• Multiplayer is returning but this time they’re trying to give more focus to the narrative since that’s a big part of AC
• You’ll be able to custom your character appearance and weapons as well as create guilds.

The masters of horror are here to turn your console into a complete horror fest. Suda 51 and Grasshopper Manufacture are working on one heck of a game called Shadows of the Damned and we got a chance to play an hours worth of the game back around one month ago. Finally, we can finally talk about it. Watch the video below.

In 2060, the Sun began emitting incredible volumes of energy from the coronal layer, pummeling Earth with solar flares and inundating the planet with radiation – Earth’s magnetic field was a miserly defense against such an onslaught.

Arable land quickly diminished; wastelands became more common and vast; major cities were either evacuated or received an unsustainable influx of refugees; quickly it became apparent that the only chance for human survival is the wholehearted concentration into space technologies, and an eventual colonization of extra-terrestrial lands.

So did we band together gallantly to save our common species?

Did we put aside our differences in search of a common resolve for this immediate threat of extinction?

No. We’re human beings and we did what comes naturally: we fought for resources and scrapped over the husks, and when we managed to create sustainable ecosystems in space, we began fighting for resources all over again…

 

The Mining Wars happened.

 

Miner Wars is in development by Keen Software House using the gorgeous VRage Engine. The game takes place in space around the year 2081 and is a 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) space shooter with destructible environments, a single player and co-op mode and a Miner Wars MMO in development. You can build bases, fully customize your ship, battle other players and loot their equipment, set up ambushes, undergo missions, explore asteroids for rare materials that can be sold or turned into ship upgrades; the universe is yours to do as you please.
The game boasts to having many different elements including:

 
• Unique mining ships: (from smallest to largest, fast and slow, large cargo, huge shields…)
• Weapons: 20 (volcano cannon, guided missiles, mines, gravity bombs, tunnel buster…)
• Ammo: 20 (armor piercing, explosive, high velocity…)
• Drilling devices: 5 (pressure drilling, thermal drilling, saw, nuclear drilling device…)
• Equipment types: 50 (various radars, jammer, X-ray, engines, enhancing drugs, armor, med kit, auto targeting…)
• Factions: About 10 main factions with 25+ playable factions in the MMO.
• Ore types: 50 (iron, uraninite , helium 3, gold, diamonds, …)
• Asteroids: Who has the time to count them?
• World size: Unlimited in every direction.

 

With the destructible environments, nothing stands in your way. It’s quite possible to blast a tunnel in an asteroid, using it as a hiding spot for your loot, or lay in wait for some unsuspecting poor bastard. Whilst playing this game, one thing came to mind; EVE Online without the skill structure, more fast paced, fully controlled and first person view. In this game there are no levels to grind out, no skills or talent trees to plan out; just you, your ships weapons, and your own luck.

Mining seems like it will play a heavy role in this game, I don’t know why it’s just a hunch.

With over 50 different types of ore, each with a value whether it’s economic based or valued as an important ship upgrade, mining will be essential and probably the blood flowing through the veins of this game. You can mine in the alpha now but it appears it’s just there for show and to get a feel of how it’ll work.

I am not raping this asteroid.. okay I am raping it ..of it's natural resources. BOOSH!

There’s a lot of focus on the customization aspect; heavy customization. You can open the menu to check out the different ship classes (Miner Ship 1-10, Talon, and RIGJ), weapons, tools, ammo, even engine. Now since this isn’t full release, none of this serves any use whatsoever as it isn’t available but it is a nice tickle to your sack at things to come.

Roll the die and choose one, it doesn't matter anyway.

 

As I’ve stated, this game is currently in pre-alpha so as far as the story mode goes; it doesn’t. Upon starting the story mode you’re left inside a rather large asteroid and maneuvering around will lead you into ambushes from drone NPCs. You can either navigate your way through or just blow the piss out of the whole damn thing and fly out.

Reminds me of prom night, which hole should I enter?

Either way, the choice is yours and its unscripted things like this which make the game very promising. There is an ally bot you can pick up and I recommend in doing so because the enemies are rather relentless, if you can find them. Some of them are so holed up into an asteroid it took me tens of rockets and at least an hour of weaving in and out of the spider-holes before one would appear on my dick randomly like a herpes outbreak. Luckily my ointment..err..ally bot was there to help me out.

FRIEND BOT 2 COMIN' TO SAVE THE DAY! ROCK YOUR WORLD! KILL SOME BITCHES!

Maybe I’m just a moron and missing something important but I have yet to find the purpose in story mode. I’ve killed all the enemies in game, flown around until I’ve shoved my mouse up my ass just out of sheer boredom, even reset the solar-wind a few times just because; nothing. The real fun to be had in this alpha is the Sandbox mode.

Sandbox basically puts you into the middle of space with a horde of enemies in front of you. They don’t engage you until you fly closer to them so this will give you some time to plan out your slaughter. You do have some friendly bots to fly alongside and will help with the destruction but they’re not really needed, the enemies are pretty easy.

This mode is great to get a feel of the combat and hone your skills until the game comes out in late 2011 on the PC and XBOXLive Arcade. You can currently pre-order the game for PC now over at the Miner Wars website

In a dimly lit and eerie venue in the heart of London, EA played host to the launch event for Dead Space 2 at The Crypt on the Green, Clerkenwell, London. We were there and not only did we get to play the Multiplayer but we also got to play the first chapter of the single player campaign. Unfortunately we cannot write about the first chapter until after the 26th January 2011 and even if I were to write about it, I couldn’t possibly tell you how this ties into the second game as a deep scratch unreadable disc error prevented me from completing the original Dead Space in vue of the event taking place, so naturally I was gutted about that.

With the disappointment behind me, I focused on the Dead Space 2 multiplayer. One of the biggest questions by the fans of the game is that whether Dead Space 2 multiplayer was anything more than an afterthought, just something to bung in the box and add some extra value to the games asking price. Our verdict, well read ahead. It maybe worth noting that once again you’ll have to use the dreaded EA Pass, so if you want to play online buy the game new or prepare to cough up around £7-8 for the priviledge.

Before checking out the multiplayer I decided to sift through the menu’s and see if there was anything interesting to find. Well, between alternating as Engineers and Necromorphs you will actually rank up. These ranks will sometimes award you bonuses to be used in the following round, but it would appear some type of criteria is required for this as we couldn’t replicate these bonuses very easily. It’s something we’ll know upon getting the full game code whether it’s a one time or COD like perk that can be added each game. Secondly I noticed that dependent on the ranking, you’ll also be able to unlock different armour for Issac and his cloned engineers. A nice way to diferentiate on the battlefield but EA will have to come up with some other unlockables such as guns to keep our attention, as clothing options simply aren’t enough.

So how did the game play? Well, we played two different game modes. We played an Attack/Defend style game where the Engineers had to blow up a construct fuel cell to blow a particular part of the ship up to stop the Necromorphs fully taking over the ship, whilst the other game mode saw us opening up indvidual areas to help Engineers to safety away from the Necromorph in a more survivalesque type multiplayer mode. This took place on two different maps. What we can tell you about the maps is that they enable different classes to excel, there are plenty of narrow corridoors to feel the pressure and all of the maps have that Dead Space uncomfortable visual tones. From the maps we’ve played there isn’t a great deal to say about them, unlike other shooters the focus really is more on the Necromorph classes as opposed to the map designs, so I can’t personally see any hardcore players adopting to the Dead Space 2 multiplayer as the shooting multiplayer arena of choice.

Playing as Humans

In the Dead Space 2 multiplayer session it was very difficult to tell whether comorardare and tactical team play becomes instrumental in winning the match, what we will say though is that throughout the course of playing several hours of MP is that the Necromorphs had a high percentage of wins, now that is not to say that the Necromorphs are overpowering, not in the slightest, I felt the balancing was absolutely fine. The reason why the Necromorphs kept winning is mainly down to the fact that most of the people playing didn’t realise that there were actual objectives, something we never realised until a fellow journalist cottoned on to it. Playing as an Engineer there is very much one default player type, you have the laser cutter and you’ll also have the space machine gun. The plasma laser cutter can be altered to single or tri-shot and the machine gun sprays a satisfying tear of bullets to disable the Necromorph with real aplomb. As long as you keep your distance you’ll be fine. Head squashing also is the order of the day to fully kill off your foes.

Playing as the Necromorph

This is where the game gets interesting and where we believe the core strategy of the game is going to come from. In this build of the game the Puker was available to play, many other previews of the multiplayer did not have this class to use, so take a look below to get our opinions on it. Necromorph species obviously do not have any guns, so they need to make up for that by getting in the face of the enemy combatent. We felt that a slow approach behind the Engineers was the most effective and you’ll have the opportunity to button mash your way to a kill if your opponent is caught unaware. So what are these classes like to play?

Puker – The puker is quite a stocky and ugly bastard but at the same time provides the longest range attack for the Necromorphs, projectile vomiting ranges from 1-2 metres in the game map, so it proves pretty effective to run the Puker behind a Lurker for a dual pronged heavy attack. This pretty much goes for most of the classes, teaming up is essential. If you loved Gears of War, you will love the initial strategy required to be successful at Dead Space 2.

The Spitter – Once again a decent range but with less volotile projectiles, hit your enemies with the spitter consistently and the damage pays off. The Spitter is also pretty agile and can avoid quite enemy fire and move out of the danger zone pretty much on cue.

The Pack – These are the freakiest things available in Dead Space, these are pretty much babies with a severe lust for human flesh. Because of their size it makes it harder for the Engineer to target them, kind of like Oddjob in Goldeneye 64. Using The Pack can be extremely dangerous, especially if your enemy is already caught in a crossfire and his attention is somewhere else.

The Lurker – I did wonder whether they’d include a Necromorph that could crawl along walls and that’s what we have with The Lurker. It’s a cross between a ticker from Gears of War 3 but without the exploding capability, instead you have excellent jumping ability to latch onto Engineers heads in an attempt to button mash a kill. The Pack also have this ability perhaps with one of the sickest finishers we’ve seen, pulling out the spleen of Engineers, it’s totally sick and unforgiving.

The whole experience plays pretty steady, I could have sat their happily for several more hours honing in the attack skills of the Necromorph or really go zen deep picking off limbs as an Engineer. EA haven’t just thought about Dead Space 2 Multiplayer, it’s clear that it was fundementally the very core idea to implement since Dead Space 2 production started. The event took place five years to the day that Dead Space was drawn up, I don’t think anyone at Visceral or EA ever imagined that Isaac has become a household name along the lines of Master Chief or Nathan Drake, but he has and I can tell you right here, right now – Dead Space 2 is not to be missed.

At the Dead Space 2 event last night we got an extensive look at the whole Dead Space brand. Starting off with Ian Milham the art director behind the game. Unfortunately due to embargo we were unable to show you video footage of the first chapter.

Please see the below press release from Bulkypix.com   “A review of this release will be coming soon…”

STORYLINE

At the dawn each new millennium, Astrolunia sees its Moon die and the world is thrown out of balance. The goal of the game is to safely loft a new moon to take its place in the heavens. It may sound simple enough, but, well, like all good physics games, the challenges in store for you will keep you coming back for more time and again.

A Moon for the Sky is a pick up and go game, fun to play either when you have a few minutes to kill, or to take on the 18 level saga. The game has two qualities that make it very addictive to play: it’s simple and it’s aggravating.

As you progress through the 18 fun levels you find more and more obstacles around which you have to maneuver through to secure the new moon into its orbit. Or, take on the Endless Mode to challenge and track the progress your friends or even the whole world on the leaderboards to see who is the best at raising the Moon up to the sky.

FEATURES· Simple gameplay mechanics and easy and funny gameplay
· High quality graphics and unique physics
· 18 fantastic levels and progressively difficult missions
· A zen and relaxing atmosphere mixed with sweet melodies
· Endless mode for relaxed gameplay to see how high you place the moon in the sky
· Many elements to unlock
· World ranking through Game Center

WHATS NEW- Unlock new moons priority for the new Winter environment
- 5 new levels
- Menus are faster
- No more loading when you restart your level
- Small lines drawing are more precise
- Better fps for iPod 1G and iPhone 3G.

With the 2010 holiday shopping season edging its way closer and closer, game developers have already begun the mad dash to release all the big triple “AAA” titles we have been waiting for. During this time a lot of my friends ask me what games I will be getting, or should they pick up Medal of Honor or Black Ops. So I thought I would type something up letting everybody know what games I personally am excited about picking up before Santa rolls into town.

First, I want to point out the titles I already have purchased that will be big sellers for the holiday. Of course we have to start with Halo: Reach. An absolutely amazing game with a lengthy, albeit difficult campaign and an extremely addicting multiplayer experience. This is a game that will probably be on every kids X-Mas wish list if they don’t have it already. If you haven’t picked this game up already I want you to push aside that rock you are living under and get your ass to the store promptly.

More recently, this week in fact I picked up Enslaved and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Now I have to say coming in to this weeks releases I was super excited about Enslaved hitting my 360 disc tray. But after playing both games I was quite surprised to find out the game I just can’t hit the eject button on is Castlevania. The story is so captivating and visual set pieces take your breath away at almost every corner. With a campaign that takes around 24 hours to complete and possibly close to 100 hours required to get full gamerscore, I think it’s safe to say I will be coming back to Castlevania time and time again after the calendar year has ended.

Although I haven’t been able to stop playing Castlevania that’s not to say that Enslaved isn’t a good game because it really is. The graphics and gameplay mechanics in Enslaved are extremely tight. This is a truly gorgeous game that should be enjoyed by all. This game has so many interesting gameplay dynamics that I don’t have time to mention them all in one paragraph, but let’s just say Enslaved is a unique game. If you took Uncharted and put it in a Japanese developers hands this is what you would have gotten, minus the guns because Namco decided to give the games hero, Monkey, a retractable staff to quickly dispatch enemies with fluid melee tactics.

Now that I have gotten those games out of the way, let’s talk about what games I will be picking up in the coming weeks. To start things off we have Medal of Honor, an attempted revamp of the series that looks to move from their traditional setting of World War II into a more modern era with a controversial setting. Medal of Honor (2010) takes place in terrorist ridden Afghanistan in 2002. On the single player side of things you play as three characters. First you have the tier 1 operator, then there is the Army Ranger, and lastly you will spend a third of your time as a gunner on board a helicopter providing support to ground troops below.

Medal of Honor also promises to have a quality multiplayer experience. EA has chosen to have its DICE studio, which are responsible for this years Battlefield: Bad Company 2, develop the multiplayer side of things. While this may sound strange to have one team make the game and have a separate studio working on the multiplayer exclusively I think a lot of people will be surprised once the game is released on October 12^th in the U.S. and on Friday the 15^th in UK.

If western shooters aren’t your thing and you haven’t picked up Halo or Medal of Honor than you may want to take a look at a little game called Vanquish, developed by SEGA. The Japanese made third person sci-fi shooter promises to be a fast paced and gun toting thrill ride. Taking its inspiration from games like Gears of War, you will notice some similarities between the two. It should be noted however that SEGA has done something very special with the genre and should be noticed by everyone. This game got absolutely zero coverage at E3 and little to no marketing, at least in America. With what could possibly be a sleeper hit for 2010, Vanquish is worth a look from everyone. You can download the demo now for free on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Vanquish hits store shelves October 19^th and 22^nd in the U.S. and UK respectively.

If you thought the next big game I was going to mention was Black Ops you would be wrong. Because there is a pit stop we must first make on October 26^th. Two weeks before the biggest launch in gaming history, I am going to be grabbing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II as well as Fable III. I personally can’t wait to get cracking on both of these games. I already have a bride to be for Fable, hey Sophie, and I am hoping this game drives home with a heavy story and recovers from what I considered to be an epic fail in Fable II. While part two was good graphically and in the gameplay department the story seemed to lack something. It started off with this amazing cut scene where your sister is murdered and you are left to fend for yourself and then nothing happens. You grow up and level you character through thirty some odd hours of gameplay only to get to a final boss fight that you win by pressing one button and firing a single bullet. Fable III needs to wow me and from what I have heard so far it should.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is the direct sequel to the original game by the same title. We will finally get to find out what happens after Starkiller learned the truth about his past and was thrown away by Darth Vader who chose to stick with Sidius despite the fact that Sid himself tells you to kill Vader. With light sabers akimbo, Jedi mind tricks, and increased Force powers I can’t wait to get a hold of this game.

Alright, finally its time to talk about Call of Duty: Black Ops. Call of Duty (COD) wouldn’t be COD without multiplayer. In an attempt to keep things fresh and fans happy, Black Ops developer Treyarch looked to bring customization to the COD universe. We can finally customize everything from our load out, to our character’s appearance, all the way down to what color the red dot sight is. But at the end of the day it’s still COD and every douche with an internet connection will be playing this game come November 9^th. This in my opinion is the downfall of COD. The game is way too accessible and easy to pick up which ruins what otherwise would be a solid multiplayer experience is ruined by twelve year olds hacking servers or just general noob gameplay like camping, using grenade launchers, and sprinting around like a fairy with its wings cut off and not firing a single shot the entire match. So why am I looking forward to Black Ops? Because all these idiots will be playing it, which means I can finally go back and enjoy Modern Warfare 2 for the first time in months. Other than the soon to be failed multiplayer, Reznov and Zombies are back so we can rejoice about that. Fail of Duty: Black Ops will launch world wide on November 9^th.

For the 2010 gaming calendar that wraps it up for me. After Black Ops I will be eagerly counting the days until Dead Space 2 in 2011. This has possibly been one of the best years for video games in a long time. There have been dry patches, mainly the summer, but the year started off so well and is finishing on a good note with a slew of Triple A titles coming out. I think its safe say a lot of kids will have a stack of games under the tree this year or if you’re Jewish you could ask for a game for each night. LOL. For reviews on all the games mentioned here and all news leading up to their releases keep checking back here at wedotech.net, part of the wedo network.

Oh and just a quick P.S. If you think I forgot to mention the Kinect I didn’t. It looks like the biggest pile of shit to hit the gaming world since the Virtual Boy and Power Glove. Besides that don’t forget to comment about what games your excited about getting and please feel free to tell me to fuck off if you think I am wrong about something, I love a good debate. Happy Holidays.

Thanks to our web artist Hendy for donating the articles feature picture.

For those of you that are not psyched up for the release of New Vegas in 2 weeks, Obsidian Entertainment have been posting a series of diaries showcasing the story, art design, sound and in-game factions. Be warned though that a few of these give away some storyline details (especially the opening)

New Vegas comes out 22nd October in the UK and 19th October in USA

Growing up I bypassed the SNES and hopped straight onto the N64. One night when I got bored of F-ZERO X one of my sister’s boyfriends decided to bring a SNES over, what is that SNES I hear you say? The pronunciation of the console sounded down right stupid. SNES (Sneeze?) WTF I said, no actually I didn’t because that meme wasn’t around at the time. I’m not so sure what I said but who cares I was too busy discovering that if you play with your dick it pleasured you at the time. Anyway, one thing that did draw me away from leaving cheese maps on my pyjamas was Donkey Kong Country.

Now for the rest of you that are still here and are not disgusted by the opening paragraph lets get down to business. Donkey Kong Country was a fantastic game by Rare. It epitomised how much fun a co-op platformer could be. It epitomised the graphical horse power that the SNES really had and it also forged way for signature characters that Nintendo at the time never knew how popular that they’d become. Following on from Donkey Kong Country were another two sequels all of astute quality and some follow on games for the handheld systems which retained the same addictive platform based game play.

Nintendo needed to act at E3 and it did. It was in real risk of alienating their core followers, so they decided to answer the call of their followers and bring modern day returns to games that haven’t seen the light of day for some time. Donkey Kong Country: Returns is one of several games that is seeing the revival. At Eurogamer there were four stages available to be played, we played the opening stage which had a flying Galleon ship, plenty of jungle and Aztec heads spitting bananas out of their mouths. The usual niceties were there, Diddy Kong being smashed open early on in the level and being shot out of cannons in the latter end of the level, it reminded you of something familiar, something you loved.

The major changes are the extra graphical horsepower, this has enabled Nintendo to dabble with a 2.5D style which has you playing in foreground and background platforms throughout the level, the game also looks a lot sharper and features some nice destructive properties such as the crate smashes and thumping through blocks. To 100% complete the level you had to collect all the Jigsaw pieces that are hidden throughout plants and bricks and also the word KONG. The controls require a little getting used to. To use the finite controls of the game they require a little skill (such as the barrel roll jump) but once you get the feel of the controller again (which you will have to, because their hasn’t been much worthwhile playing on the Wii for awhile) you’ll soon get to grips with it.

One thing Nintendo does better than any other company is the subtle details and the hidden gems that you will find through exploration and just playing with the game world. At one point I got Kong to crouch down and blow the buds off dandelions which produces coins, jigsaws and other paraphernalia. These little touches are what make a good game great and Nintendo are on to another well polished licensed game that’ll draw those on the fence to buy the machine. I enjoyed my time with the game I was smiling when I found something new and every time I did die, I never felt frustrated that I’d have to start at the last check point. Donkey Kong Country: Returns is no ‘banana’ skin, it looks pretty safe for good review scores.

IMPRESSIONS BASED ON CODE PLAYED AT THE EUROGAMER EXPO WHICH TOOK PLACE BETWEEN; 1^ST-3^RD OCTOBER 2010. THE EUROGAMER EXPO IS THE UK’S LARGEST VIDEO GAME CONSUMER EXPO.

Since the announcement that Crytek would be working on the sequel for their highly regarded Crysis series I couldn’t help but punch the air. Even more so when I found that it was to be multi-platform. There was something about that futuristic shooter that looked so sublime, the destruction physics and then the benchmark of what it achieved graphically really topped it off.

To find its way on the Xbox 360 would be an interesting affair, for it is the Xbox 360 version we tested. You are put right into the middle of a war torn city, most of the power is cut and enemies are perching in multi-storeys ready to pick you off. The game visually meets that of Killzone 2 or at least it appeared to and the iron sights and the feel of the gun feel spectacularly similar too. As I tried to navigate the particularly difficult marker map on the HUD I eventually found my way to a cut-scene of a sky scraper falling down to the ground. Within an instant the game threw connotations to the dust and debris kicked up from the implosion of the WTC building as you were engulfed in a brown fog with zero visibility. As the dust settled you found your way towards a bridge and more enemies were waiting to take you down.

The enemy A.I isn’t great, I often found them squatting in the same spaces never moving once they had been found by my sights. So the intelligence most certainly requires some improvement before I can really recommend this title. As mentioned earlier the HUD is an issue. You’ll find that some of the objectives take place on multi-storey buildings. Unfortunately the HUD navigation never makes it truly clear whether your marker is above or below. I know it is early days for Crysis 2 but it has a real long way to go to be reaching the heights of quality. The biggest issue we found was the frame rate, during clustered sequences sometimes it would slow down to less than ten frames per-second resulting in a tense battle brought to its knees by the engine suffering to keep up with the action.

Crysis also suffers from texture loss. When approaching the bridge it disappeared below me, the game in places is just buggy as hell. The good thing is that the shooting feels good and when the frame rate is running fine the fire, particle and lighting effects are really impressive. However I do feel that EA would have been better off not allowing this code to be playable at Eurogamer as it could result in more negative publicity than good. If it can get all these bugs fixed by crunch it could quite easily be the best looking game the Xbox 360 has ever had.

IMPRESSIONS BASED ON CODE PLAYED AT THE EUROGAMER EXPO WHICH TOOK PLACE BETWEEN; 1^ST-3^RD OCTOBER 2010. THE EUROGAMER EXPO IS THE UK’S LARGEST VIDEO GAME CONSUMER EXPO.

We’ve been to the arctic and we’ve been to the desert, now it’s time to arrive at the city. This is no ordinary city. This is an abandoned city (not and M&S city) that has been hit by ravaging earthquake tremors. This sets the tone for the single player hands on that we had. The track had as falling into subways and narrowly missing skyscrapers falling at the foot of us. Sometimes falling buildings would change the path of the race and dust will obscure the view of the road ahead. Motorstorm Apocalypse looks to be the most fun the series has had to date and you know what? It’s in 3D. Gone are the strategic elements of certain car types per race track, it’s all a focus of survival, quick reactions and mental dexterity. Being quick can be the difference between a win and a crash that sets your car back into last place.

Some things don’t change though, the boost system runs exactly the same as before, with the possibility that you could tee-total your car if you rag it too much. It always makes for a tense finish if you are neck and neck at the chequered flag. Motorstorm Apocalypse has really been marketed for the stereoscopic 3D that it supports and from what we played it was highly entertaining. You get a real sense of depth and the cars back end feels really close to you. Flying objects come throttling towards you and out of the screen, whether it cones, pieces of paper of general shrapnel there will be times where you’ll close your eyes thinking it will hit you. It does come at a cost however. Graphically Motorstorm seems to have taken a step back, it’s now wide knowledge that in order to produce Stereoscopic 3D at a decent frame rate it has to be knocked back down to 720p and with that in mind it takes away from what Motorstorm was about originally, harnessing the power of the PS3 and how damn good the graphics were.

Is the cost worth it? If they can sharpen the textures of the objects hurtling towards you, then yes. If they do not sharpen these areas up I’m afraid the game will be too much of a step back graphically for people. The experience is thrilling and Motorstorm Apocalypse most definitely sets to bring more fun to a series known for being more technical and unforgiving and for us that is a good thing. It shows that 3D once fully established is an enriching experience in gaming and don’t forget you can play the game at a higher frame rate and with better definition if you don’t want to play the 3D version, so it’s all good. The game isn’t due to hit the shelves until next year, but when it does it’ll be releasing at a time where it could be ripe pickings for a new racer to be on the scene.