Electronic Arts and Visceral Games have released the official box art for their upcoming Dead Space 2. Dead Space 2 continues the story of sole-survivor, Isaac Clarke, who barely escaped the USG Ishimura after it was invaded by an organism which transformed the station’s inhabitants into Necromorphs. It is due out next year on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows PC platforms.
Check After the Break for a larger image of the box art!
The third dimension in the multi-dimensional Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions has been revealed. In Shattered Dimensions, players will fight as Spiderman in his many different incarnations, from a noir-style black and white dimension all the way to 2099, as these screenshots show. Each incarnation of Spiderman will feature different abilities and the mixing and matching should make for an interesting experience, to say the least. Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions is due out this September.
Via AGB
Checkout the rest of the screenshots, After the Break!
What could have been just a passing rumor has turned out to be true as IGN has released a preview of SEGA and The Creative Assembly’s upcoming Shogun 2: Total War. Thought to be set for announcement at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in just a week and a half’s time, looks like the NDA was lifted early, possibly in light of the announcement leak. The GamingShogun crew has a special, behind-closed doors appointments set with SEGA, at which time we will bring you more info on this as well as the rest of their E3 showings.
Shogun 2: Total War Debut Trailer
A great spy story is something that game developers have not really been able to do, especially in Western markets. Now, I am not writing of spy stories a la Splinter Cell or 24: The Video Game – games such as those are too serious for the genre of spy story I am looking for. In my spy dreams, I am not Matt Damon playing Jason Bourne – I am Sean Connery as James Bond – Brash, suave, and not afraid to kick evil mastermind ass after bedding the ‘crush of the week’. Despite being somewhat ‘thin’, Alpha Protocol’s story and protagonist were exactly what I was looking for…
Alpha Protocol is based on a skill point system. There are skills in each weapon category (pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and machine guns), including melee fighting, as well as useful skills like ‘Stealth’. As your character gains levels, you will outfit him as you see fit, hopefully making him a more efficient spy in the manner you wish to play it. However, at the start of the game you are pretty much skill-less. You wake up in what appears to be some sort of medical facility and fight your way out to find it was an initiation of sorts by a top secret US spy organization known as Alpha Protocol.
From your first conversation in the game with a mysterious voice on a PDA, the game’s conversation choice system comes into play. Throughout your various interactions with other characters of the Alpha Protocol universe, you will be presented with a radial menu asking how you wish to respond in the upcoming line of dialogue. Your options range from ‘Suave’ to ‘Aggressive’ to ‘Professional’ and each label does an adequate job of describing your upcoming response. There were a few times, however, a label did not mean what I thought it did and my character said something I did not want him too. In that respect, it’s a lot like real life and all the times we stick our proverbial feet into our own mouths.
As you go on your first assignment, it is clear that nothing you have been told about the situation is what it seems. From the climax of this first operation you basically act as a rogue agent, working to uncover the truth while evading both your enemies as well as your own government. From this point, you can either take on allies from unlikely sources or arrest and/or kill many of them. Be warned, however, that in the spy game one hand usually washes the other and those contacts you are friendly to could be instrumental in the conclusion of the game’s storyline.
During missions, gameplay is handled in an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective that you have definitely seen in other games. Gunplay is handled well, but the skill-based system means that even if you are a good shot in terms of actual mouse-usage, which I am, you may not hit what your reticule is on. I wish they would have gone a little more Mass Effect 2 on this end than Mass Effect. However, if an Alpha Protocol 2 is made, maybe they will. You have access to various weapon types, from pistols to assault rifles, as well as neat gadgets like remote mines and shock traps. This part of the gameplay is quite neat as these traps can be attached to walls. Attach a trap to a wall, run for cover, then use the sound generator to lure enemies to your location. Before you know it, your trap will be sprung and enemies will be lying on the ground, incapacitated (or burnt to a crisp if you used an incendiary trap).
In addition, every weapon has multiple ammo types to use. The pistol, for instance, as the standard rounds, tranquilizer rounds, and steel core ammunition. Also available via the game’s marketplace are new weapons and armor as well as upgrades for each. In a cool tie-back to the story, the selection of items changes depending on your relationship with various arms dealers as well as your physical location at the time.
Visually, Alpha Protocol ranges from average to above-average. It never blew me away with eye-popping graphics, but the game consistently provided me with enough visual flare to continue playing. Alpha Protocol’s audio work is above-average, with a multitude of environmental effects. The voice work in the game tends to be believable, if not slightly wooden at times, but they did a good job overall. Enemy soldiers do tend to have diarrhea of the mouth
You will also get the option, every so often, to select a handler for your missions. A handler, for the spy game-initiates, is a person who sits on the other side of a small LCD screen on a PDA and walks you through your mission tasking. Each handler will give you a different bonus to your abilities should they like you enough.
This brings up the relationship system between various characters and Michael Thorton. These conversation choices will either raise or lower value of your relationship with the other characters. Say something they like – you get a +1, otherwise, a -1 or 0 point change in relationship. This actually works rather well as the entire course of a conversation can change if the other person likes or dislikes you. Don’t think you need everyone to like you, either. Get an enemy mad enough at you and they might make a mistake, giving you a prime opportunity to take action.
The dialogue in Alpha Protocol is not all that novel, nor is its delivery. However, it is by no means ‘bad’ and makes for quite an enjoyable experience on the PC platform. I have heard console gamers say that they have run across a number of technical glitches. Thankfully, I came across no such demons in the PC build of the game.
At a slightly later point in the game, the world opens up and you are given the choice of three very different locations to visit and investigate. The game adapts wonderfully, no matter what sequence you explore them. SEGA and Obsidian have done a fine job in that respect.
Where Alpha Protocol falls short is in its unpolished feeling. The gameplay just never feels like it works 100% as planned. That may sound a bit esoteric in terms of description, but it is a hard thing to quantify. Even the level design is often mundane and linear, with the exception of a nicely-put together rail yard sequence where you have several options on how to play through it. There is a simple cover system, but it does not work smoothly enough to be reliable all the time. Sometimes my character would be right up against a wall and the space bar, which activates the system, would not work. I would have to run away from the wall a ways, then back to it and the cover system option would be available.
In effect, Alpha Protocol feels like you are playing out an episode of the USA Network’s television series, Burn Notice (ed. note: Can we get more Psych, USA Network? Come on!). There is even a handler who refers to you as ‘Mikey’ in the same style as the character Sam does on that show. Alpha Protocol is a popcorn spy-flick, and whether you choose to go as an ex-soldier, ex-field agent, or even mercenary skill-build you will have a great time playing it through should you look at it as such. There are just enough plot twists to keep things interesting and the interweaving aspects of the game make you want to replay it with different choices to see how things turn out. Those players looking to be Daniel Craig as James Bond, Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, or even Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer will be disappointed.
My hope for Alpha Protocol is that SEGA keeps the campy spy storylines and creates a series of downloadable ‘episodes’ that we can continue to play and enjoy after we finish the main campaign.
The taming of the ‘Old West’ is a period in American history not handled well by many developers. Titles like GUN, Lethal Enforcers II: The Gunfighters (ed. note: yeah I went there), and Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive all had their good points to be sure – but most left you feeling a bit empty as their flaws revealed themselves. Red Dead Redemption is the first game set in this time period that has effectively made me feel as though I was staring in a ‘Man with No Name’ style Western film.
GAMEPLAY
In Redemption, players take on the role of John Marston, a former-outlaw-turned-farmer who has been pushed into service for the government to take down an old gang ‘buddy’ of his. This will prove far more difficult than it looks as in their first meeting, John is shot – several times… Thankfully, you are taken in by a caring individual and, once healed up, you begin your hunt again.
After a series of what really are tutorial missions, you begin to learn the basics of surviving in the Old West of 1911. Sure, electricity is being brought to towns via wire but the world is just as dangerous as ever. The game is presented in third-person perspective with the camera primarily in an over-the-shoulder style, but it can also be swiveled in 360 degrees with the right thumb stick. Movement is controlled via the left thumb stick with the left trigger drawing your weapon, or lasso, and the right trigger firing said item. While the control layout is simple, you character and horse tend to move in arcs, making hard turns towards a goal when right up next to it a bit difficult. Also, horses tend to do fine on main streets, trails, and open plains of the map – but when you get them into confined quarters with boxes, rocks, and other various obstacles they tend to get ‘touchy’.
Once opened up, you are free to explore most of the very large game world. You can certainly choose to follow the main storyline from character to character, but that is not the best strategy in playing Redemption. For one thing, you need money. Ammo for your basic repeater and revolver tends to be easily-acquired. However, if you want to purchase anything else, such as medicine or maps, you will need more cash. One of the most profitable ways of doing this in the game is to take bounty missions and going on a hunt.
While bounty missions are exciting and involve lots of shooting and looting, they are not as numerous as I would have desired them to be. This leaves us with door number two: hunting. Put away your animal rights for this one, as in the wilds of the game world you are free to stalk and skin game for parts that, depending on said part, can be sold in towns for a handsome some. Plenty of animals in the wild will hunt you as well – so stay on your toes. There is nothing like stalking a herd of deer only to get blindsided by a cougar! Hunt enough and you will develop a sense of what animals like to hunt where, as well as their general behaviors. You can even lay out bait to attract game to an area.
Walking around the mesa may be fun, albeit time-consuming, but riding on a horse will certainly yield you faster travel times along with a fun all its own. You can tame wild horses with your lasso, which involves a small mini game where you balance on the horse while it attempts to buck you from its back, or you can buy thoroughbreds in general stores. There are a large variety of horse breeds in this game, each with their strengths and weaknesses. You can also shoot from your horse which can give you a tactical advantage of peering over rocks or other obstructions (or just while moving in general). Of course, you are a larger target on horseback, but nothing is perfect.
As the story progresses, you will unlock even more map to explore as well as more technology to purchase. Upgrading your weapons is always a good idea, and you will wield anything from a standard repeater and six-shooter to a military sniper rifle and semi-automatic pistol. Heck, there is even a super-powered buffalo rifle to buy if one was so inclined – which we are…
There were a few bugs to contend with out on the range, and I don’t mean mosquitoes. I experienced a couple random console crashes while playing, and sometimes my random encounters, which will be touched on in the next paragraph, inexplicably ended in a failure even though I could clearly see that the objective had not been failed. Some players have reported invisible characters and wonky cut-scenes, however, I did not experience that in my play-though of Redemption.
Adding an extra element of cool to the title is the dead-eye system, which puts the game into a sort of slow-motion where you can target multiple shots over a very broad number of shoot points on enemies as well as other objects. For instance, if you get into a gun fight with a bounty but do not want to kill him, you can disarm him by targeting his shooting hand. The system works well and adds to the feeling of speed and lighting fast reflexes that your character is supposed to possess. Once the enemies have been targeted, the rapid fire of your guns shredding targets is quite enjoyable to watch.
When out exploring, whether in town or in the wilds, you will often come across random encounters to take on. These can be anything from saving a prostitute who is getting roughed up by a John to rescuing a merchant under siege by outlaws. At one point on the way back from very successful hunting trip, I ran across a wagon that had been tipped on its side. A woman in skimpy garb stood near the trail yelling for me to help her. So, being the kind Samaritan that I am, I stopped. Without spoiling anything for you, let’s just leave it at things were not all as they appeared and some men had to die that day… These encounters make the game world all the more engrossing and, between that and the storyline in general, make for a great multi-grain bread with which to wrap this sandwich of Western awesome in.
GRAPHICS
Red Dead Redemption features some of the most beautiful graphics I have ever seen on a game console before. I would have thought after playing it that I was running it on my gaming PC – they are that good. From the artfully-detailed characters to the numerous species of animals you encounter – from horses to armadillos, everything looks (and acts) realistically.
Even the landscape is a character in and of itself. From wistfully-blowing tumble weeds to cacti, rocks, and shrubs littering the game world, there is a sense of being there, as it were. Nowhere better is this sense of realism and envelopment seen than the aforementioned characters, shrubs, etc are matched with the game’s weather systems. After only about an hour into the game, I was pretty far out West in the game map, completing a mission. Just as the mission was completed the weather began to ‘go south’ and a storm let loose its wrath upon the mesa. The sloshing, shallow puddles, rain drops on the virtual camera lens, earth-shattering thunder and lighting which actually does ‘roll’ across the game world. It is spectacular.
Here is a clip of video from YouTube showing a bit of Red Dead Redemption’s storm effects:
AUDIO
If the game’s story and gameplay are its slices of bread, the visuals are certainly its peanut butter – then its audio is clearly the jelly in this sandwich of rad. In short: it’s incredible. From ambient environmental noises to civilian chatter and main character voice work – it is all exceptional. Even during the storms, hearing the rain fall and thunder roll is awesome to say the least – especially when paired with the aforementioned visuals.
The only matter I have with the voice over work is with the delivery of John Marston himself (voiced by Rob Wiethoff). He seems to constantly be doing an impression of Jason Lee from the television series My Name is Earl. Now, at first read you may take me for a fool. But, watch an episode of the TV series and listen to Lee, then listen to Wiethoff in Redemption – you will hear my point.
MULTIPLAYER
As if the single player adventure were not enough, Rockstar Games has added in a whole slew of cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes for you to sink your wooden teeth into. In Free Roam, up to 16 players can explore the entirety of the game world, forming posses and taking missions. These missions will yield you experience which can be used to unlock various character customizations – from weapons to your actual character model itself. This multiplayer character goes with you no matter the match, etc, so don’t worry about losing your progress just because you left to another Free Roam server. Furthering this multiplayer experience, Rockstar Games is already developing cooperative missions for players to undertake (the first DLC pack to be free). The multiplayer game in Redemption has so much content that it could almost have been a game in and of itself.
OVERALL
Hands-down, Red Dead Redemption is an incredible game – easily the best Western-themed game developed to date, and one of the most-engrossing as well. You are bound to hear a lot of praise on this one – it is all deserved. This one is not worth renting – it is worth buying, so get out there and spend your pesos, buck skins, and cougar claws on this one right away!
*DISCLOSURE: Rockstar Games sent us a copy of this game for the purpose of this review.
Microsoft and Bungie announced this morning that their upcoming HALO: Reach would be released in most parts of the world on September 14th. Gamers in Japan, however, will have to wait until September 16th. Furthermore, the statement went on to tout the success of the beta test, which saw more than 2.7 million participants. Gamers have wondered why the two companies have chosen now to announce the release when E3 is only a few weeks away.
Could it be that Microsoft wants their E3 showings to be more Project Natal-focused? Only time will tell!
This has been making the rounds today – German musician Michael Wendler’s new video taking on what appears to be a sci-fi theme, featuring him wearing the armor of a spartan from Halo (as well as many other references from the genre). Enjoy! If you can…
Additive Interactive has announced that George A. Romero’s App of the Dead will be hitting the Apple App Store at some point soon. The application will allow users to zombify pictures of yourself and others with over 20 different zombie ‘features’ (cuts, scars, gore). It also somehow allows you to ‘shoot’ the zombies you make. Social networkers can also upload these zombie creations to their FaceBook and as well as other sites for all to see. No word yet on pricing.
Looks like Activision has been busy trademarking several unannounced Call of Duty title possibilities! Call of Duty: Future Warfare (parts 1 through 3), SecretWarfare 2 and 3, SpaceWarfare 2 and 3… Tons of titles – will be interesting to see what actually gets made and what stays on the corner of the proverbial white board.
Via Superannuation
Looks like when yours truly and TheJester attend the Project Natal Experience on the Sunday before E3 in Los Angeles, we will be treated to a special performance by Cirque Du Soleil – so sayeth an email from Microsoft today. Now, I am not a huge fan of the ‘circus’, but, it is worth noting that while I am trying out the full launch-lineup of Natal titles that there will be acrobatics going on all around us!
Stay-tuned for more E3 2010 news as it breaks!
