Electronic Arts and Visceral Games have released the official launch trailer to their newly-released third-person actioner, Dante’s Inferno. The game chronicles Dante’s journey into the various circles of Hell to find the soul of his beloved. You can find more info out on Dante’s Inferno at the game’s official website.
The Olympic Winter Games conjures up thoughts of national pride – our country’s team winning the gold and showing the rest of the world exactly what our athletes are made of. That’s what SEGA and EuroCom have tried to do in Vancouver 2010, their video game representation of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
PRESENTATION
Vancouver 2010 features a pleasant, vibrantly-colored user-interface, mirroring the colors seen in the logo for the upcoming Winter Games. Navigating the menus is simple and effective, never leaving you at a loss for where a particular feature or mode can be located. Unfortunately, beyond this pretty menu system, the game does not feature any of the pageantry or spectacle that goes hand-in-hand with the games. There is no career mode, no lighting of the flame, no real visceral connection to the games themselves or what it would be like to participate in them. A ‘career mode’ would have benefited this game greatly, perhaps showing the story of an Olympian from flame lighting to closing ceremony. Without this, the various events, while fun, feel isolated from one another.
This brings us to the selection of events included in Vancouver 2010. While the box claims there are 14 different events in the game, many of them are slight variations on one another and feel mostly the same. Missing entirely are some VERY important events such as curling, the biathlon, and figure skating. Furthermore, in some of these events, you are only given the option to only play in either the male or female categories. Why you could not choose the gender dynamically is beyond me – there really isn’t a whole heck of a lot of difference between the two variations.
This may sound like a lot of negative so far, however when you get down into the events that are included, you will have a good time playing them. They are a lot of fun and, when placed into the first-person perspective, you will really get a sense of speed and excitement while going through them. I especially liked the representation of the bobsleigh.
Also a definite positive are the game’s online and ‘challenge’ modes. While playing online is fun to compare your scores in the various events with your friends, the various challenges offered by the challenge mode do a lot to keep things exciting and moving forward.
GAMEPLAY
Something that Vancouver 2010 has going for it in spades is being easy to pickup. Each of the games you will take part in don’t require very complicated control schemes to compete. Usually, you only need to hit a couple of buttons in a specific sequence or steer slightly with the left and right triggers. Thankfully, like the classic game of ‘Reversi’, while it is simple to pickup the game can be very challenging as there are a ton of nuances in each event.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Visually-speaking, Vancouver 2010 is a crisp and rich representation of the Winter Games. Beautiful, snow covered landscapes and vivid signage and costuming will grace your screen. Unfortunately, the crowds seem a bit wooden and are not up to spec with the rest of the graphic elements in the game. Thankfully, your character is very well-detailed and will express his or her satisfaction with your run through an event with the appropriate body language.
The game’s first-person perspective is incredible and will really give you a sense of exhilaration and an appreciation for what some of these athletes experience during their trials. Between going what seems to be mach 2 in the downhill slopes to flying through the air in the ski jump, the game has a lot going for it in the graphics department.
In-game music is a great, upbeat mix of songs that will keep you fueled and playing. Some of them, from artists like Fallout Boy and Fairweather, will make you want to take them along in your iPod to listen too while driving… Be careful with that one, I was once known to hit triple-digits while blasting Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone, but I digress.
While taking part in the events, the sound of rushing wind, skis on snow and ice, and a whole lot more will grace your ears. Going back to the pageantry and spectacle portion of this review for a second, it would have been nice to feel more involved with the Olympics rather than just randomly doing an event by including a commentator as a person would hear watching the events on television. Aside from this, the game audio is very well-done.
OVERALL
SEGA and EuroCom have attempted to capture the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with Vancouver 2010. While they did not succeed in this goal outright, they did succeed in creating a nice smattering of isolated events that you will enjoy taking through the online and challenge modes. The game looks really nice, is easy to pickup, and the events are fun to play through.
Electronic Arts is finishing up their dev diary series on the various circles of Hell featured in their newly-released actioner, Dante’s Inferno, by talking about the ninth and final circle: Treachery. This is the circle where Lucifer himself sits in wait for Dante to make his try for his dead beloved, Beatrice.
One of the hottest new electronic categories in recent years is the netbook computer. Small PCs, usually running low-powered processors give people the perfect portable computing solution. Unfortunately, most computer bag makers have not yet caught on to this fact and keep churning out larger notebook bags. Skooba Design has released a solution for the netbook-toting masses with their Netbook Messenger Bag.
Featuring a very small form-factor, measuring 14.5’L x 12’H x 3’D and weighing only 24.8 oz, at first glance you might think the bag was toy or a child’s bag. You would be wrong as, despite the bag’s small size, it can carry quite a number of items in its many pockets and pouches. In the main storage area, you will find a netbook storage pouch as well as a smaller pouch for your cables and AC adapters. In the netbook pouch, you can fit a netbook with a screen size of 10.1” to 10.5” inches. This bag is really designed for the smaller netbook, as larger netbooks and even small laptops will have to fit in the storage area that the two main pouches are housed in. Doing this, however, is not the way Skooba had designed the bag to be utilized and could result in unexpected events. I would like to have seen the netbook pouch be made of a stretchy neoprene material that would hold netbooks up to 13” inches in size. This extra room would have let most of the netbook marketplace use the bag comfortably.
In front of the main storage area, you will find a slightly smaller storage pocket, useful for holding CDs, small file folders, etc. And, in the front of the unit under the front flap, you will find three small storage pouches perfect for computer mice, MP3 players, phones, or any other similarly-sized devices. Along with these three device pouches is a netted pouch for cables or whatever you like along with a larger, zippered pocket for other items of interest.
Beyond this already-impressive mass of storage pockets, the bag still has some surprises in store for the user. On the front-flap of the bag you will find a small, zippered pocket useful for carrying one small electronic device such as MP3 player or small digital camera. On the side of the main storage area you will find an inconspicuous zipper leading to a pull-out water bottle pouch, and on the right side of the bag you will find a pouch useful for holding objects the size of a few pens or even a binaca tube – hey, at conventions like CES, clean breath is a MUST! Skooba even saw fit to put a thin pouch down the backside of the bag, perfect for the latest issue of your favorite geek or gaming magazine.
Being that the bag allowed me to travel with a lot of light devices, such as voice recorders and my Zune, I felt very comfortable walking around the various halls of the 2010 CES, and found everything very easily when I needed to quickly access them. We will definitely be including the Netbook Messenger Bag in all of our event coverage from here on out.
The Skooba Design Netbook Messenger Bag makes for a great place to store your small netbook computer for any need, whether it be school or even the Consumer Electronics Show where we took it. For a very economical $49.95, you will be hard-pressed to find a better bag for your small netbook computer.
*DISCLOSURE: Skooba Design sent GamingShogun.com a Netbook Messenger Bag to review for this article.
EA and Visceral Games have released a brand new trailer for Dante’s Inferno titled ‘Descent’. The trailer shows Dante heading straight into the fiery pits of hell and quite frankly I want to join him. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think on our forums. Dante’s Inferno is available now in Europe and will be released in North America on February 9th.
Square Enix and Avalanche Studios have released a brand-new trailer for their upcoming third-person actioner, Just Cause 2. Just Cause 2 continues the story of Rico Rodriguez, this time bringing his own brand of freedom the island of Panau, which is under siege by dictatorial forces. The game is due out March 23rd on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC platforms.
KOEI has announced that the demo for their upcoming tactical action game, Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce, is now out on the Xbox LIVE Marketeplace and PlayStation Network. The demo allows players to try out single and multi-player gameplay, providing a good survey of what to expect in the full game release which takes place on February 16th.
Funcom has released the first trailer of in-game footage from their upcoming MMO, The Secret World. Set in a variety of environments, but all pervasive with Lovecraftian-attitude, the game will feature three secret societies or factions which will battle it out for control of our world and the dark forces which inhabit it. In this new ‘Kingsmouth Trailer’, we are treated to what appears to be a zombie outbreak in what would otherwise be a ‘normal’ US town.
Electronic Arts has announced that it has purchased airtime during the Super Bowl on February 7th to show a commercial for its upcoming third-person actioner, Dante’s Inferno. The 30-second commercial spot will promote the game’s February 9th release on the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms.
Dante’s Inferno tells the tale of a man trying to save his love from an untimely demise by actually going through the many circles of Hell to find her.
Star Trek Online has officially-announced that its servers have gone live, not just to the head-start customers, but to everyone. This means that once you get your game downloaded and installed by way of whatever retailer (online or other) you purchased from, you should be good to go. However, know that the pre-order goodies have been slow-going as some retailers are not distributing their redemption codes until this afternoon. So, sit tight and at least get your character created in the meantime.
While we ready our full review of the game, checkout our recent preview article.
