PC | Star Wars: The Old Republic QA - The Jedi Knight

Get the details on the Jedi knight profession in this upcoming massively multiplayer game that will take place in a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a massively multiplayer game that lets you play as one of many classic Star Wars archetypes from the earlier time period BioWare introduced in its single-player Knights of the Old Republic game. One of the professions you can play is the Jedi knight, a character aligned with the light side of the Force and the peace-loving Republic. We have the details from BioWare's director of production Dallas Dickinson and senior game designer William Wallace.

The Jedi knight, reporting for duty.

GameSpot: We're pleased to be able to reveal the early details on the Jedi knight profession. This is obviously an iconic character class represented by some of the most famous characters in Star Wars fiction. Give us an overview of this profession.

Dallas Dickinson: The Jedi knight is based very much on [Samuel L. Jackson's] Mace Windu archetype [from the Phantom Menace motion picture]. He is a powerful, force-wielding warrior who will be called on to protect the galaxy from a great evil. Players should expect to be involved in a bit of intrigue but mostly to be focused on hunting down and combating the Sith and their representatives throughout the galaxy.

GS: We understand that Jedi knights find themselves in a precarious political position in the world of The Old Republic. The Jedi Order--facing a growing threat from the combined forces of the Sith--has retreated to the world of Tython, which hasn't made it popular among Republic senators. What kind of political and faction-related challenges will Jedi knight characters need to be aware of?

DD: Without giving away too much of the story, all the tensions you outlined will be at play. Many political players in the Republic's hierarchy have negative views of the Jedi and some of them are mistrustful because they feel the Jedi Order has abandoned them. Add this to direct [opposition from] the Sith Empire and you have a class (and a story) that is fraught with challenges.

GS: How will the political position of the Jedi Order affect the experience of a Jedi knight player? What sort of missions will these characters undertake? For instance, in addition to defending the Republic against the Sith, will knight characters have bodyguard or diplomatic missions, like the characters in the Episode 1 film?

DD: Without going into specifics, this is absolutely the kind of work that the Jedi knight is cut out for. There are powerful and important members of the Republic's political hierarchy, and the Jedi are often sent to protect these individuals--especially when those individuals are threatened by the Sith. That said, you can expect a wide variety of mission types as a Jedi knight.

This profession is an excellent choice for players who want to defend justice by whacking things with lightsabers.

GS: The Jedi knight class seems to closely resemble the guardian profession from the Knights of the Old Republic games, possessing such powers as Force push and saber throw. Is it fair to make the comparison between the professions? What kind of player will want to play as a Jedi knight? William Wallace: It's fair to make that comparison. Besides Force push and saber throw, the Jedi Knight gets some abilities similar to the guardian's "Force valor" that give various benefits to both Jedi knights and their entire party, as well as the ability to wield two lightsabers at once. The guardian profession was definitely a major influence on the concept and design of the Jedi knight.

At its core, the Jedi knight is about getting into battle as quickly as possible, dominating the fight and protecting allies. Players who enjoy fast melee combat will identify with this class--there's no passive auto-attack combat here. The Jedi knight has a smorgasbord of lightsaber abilities to choose from as the situation dictates and must continue to evaluate the battle to see whether he should strike hard at one or two targets or swing widely to keep a whole cluster of enemies at bay. Sometimes it's more advantageous to simply push them all back with the Force, take a second to breathe, and then leap back into the fray with both lightsabers drawn. Players who enjoy that kind of tactical decision making in combat will find a lot to like in the Jedi knight.

GS: Tell us about the role of the Jedi knight in battle. How do these characters support their comrades when the going gets tough?

WW: The Jedi knight can fill a couple of roles in combat. In one-on-one combat, the Jedi knight is practically unmatched in melee power. He excels in getting into the fight very quickly by charging into a group of enemies and then has a number of strong single and double lightsaber attacks to damage his enemies and keep them from damaging him. In group combat, the Jedi knight excels at staying at the forefront of the fight and has a number of ways to keep the battle focused on him, letting his allies concentrate on what they do best and also keeping any Sith lightsabers away from unarmored targets. Even if the Jedi knight isn't leading the group, the character is still a valuable asset to his comrades by virtue of his wide range of melee abilities and his ability to augment the party's strength with Force abilities and auras.

GS: And tell us about the role of the Jedi knight outside of battle. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo, for instance, we witnessed the first showing of The Old Republic's group dialogue system. How will having a Jedi knight in your party be a different experience from playing without? Will knights have a Force persuade power, for instance? How differently will other characters think of and treat parties that include a Jedi knight or two?

Mace Windu, eat your heart out.

DD: Many non-player characters react differently, depending on the class of player character talking with them. Some NPCs are impressed by Jedi, while some don't trust them. You will have some different experiences than if you were to play as a smuggler, for example, when talking to seedy underworld characters. And, as with previous BioWare games, there will also be some abilities that players can use to change their dialogue (and story) options.

GS: Thanks, gentlemen.

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"PC | Star Wars: The Old Republic Q&A - The Jedi Knight" was posted by Staff on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:25:13 -0700

PlayStation 3 | BioShock 2 Story and Multiplayer Hands-On Impressions

We spend a few hours exploring the new and old Rapture, learning about the new villain, her effects on the city, and what splicers were like before the first game.

BioShock was an artistically daring game that explored a lot of mature themes, but among the most important was the idea that utopian societies don't tend to stay utopian for long. And as anyone who played BioShock knows, Rapture certainly fit that bill. This once beautiful underwater city was founded by Andrew Ryan as a place for people to pursue their own self-interests without the slightest trace of government or religious authority, but greed and unchecked scientific research soon created a population of citizens whose addiction to genetic alterations drove them to the fringes of sanity. In the upcoming sequel, you will have the opportunity to see the downfall of Rapture from both ends of the BioShock timeline. The single-player campaign is set 10 years after the original and explores what would happen to the city if left festering for another decade, while the multiplayer side will look at Rapture a year prior to the first game to see what people were like during that initial slip into madness. [Spoiler Warning: You'll want to have completed BioShock before reading any further.]

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Those who have been following BioShock 2's development will by now know that the protagonist is no longer an outsider making his way into Rapture. Now, you're playing as the original Big Daddy after he has regained his free will. After having lived the life of a mindless drone for all these years, he is suddenly able to think for himself. This newfound clarity leads him to wonder what exactly has happened to Rapture, and in his confused state, the only thing he can think to do is find the Little Sister he was originally paired with. The journey isn't an easy one, though, because while Andrew Ryan may be gone, there's a new villain in control of the city.

See, a lot has changed in the 10 years since the original game. With Andrew Ryan out of the picture--insofar as someone whose face is plastered all over the city can be considered out of the picture--one of his old political rivals has assumed control of the city. Her name is Sofia Lamb, and she's someone whose ideas reside on the opposite end of the spectrum from Ryan's. She's an altruist with the motto "make the world your family" and believes that it's everyone's duty and obligation to help out the world around them with no regard for their own desires. That's all well and good, but like Ryan, she takes that stance a bit too far and ends up on the extreme end of the spectrum. According to creative director Jordan Thomas, she has taken control of the city by "spinning a collectivist philosophy into a religion for recruitment purposes."

Thomas led a demo focusing on a particularly interesting recruited figure. His name is Father Simon Wales, and he's an Irish priest who has joined Lamb's ranks to help spread her extreme beliefs. Naturally, this is quite a departure from the era of Andrew Ryan, who railed against religion in seemingly every audio log or propaganda poster found in the original game. But like the scientists and artists from the first game, Wales' original intentions became corrupted over time--something visually manifested in his dark, twisted church. From the ravaged altar to the hundreds of candles illuminating incoherent messages on the walls, it's clear that Wales' days as a legitimate priest are long gone, and he has become more of a crazed cult leader than anything else. Wales had evidently been splicing up, too, because he proved quite a challenge during this boss encounter. But thankfully, even the most genetically enhanced priest is no match for telekinesis plasmids and a gun that fires rockets on spears.

After this boss fight came a message from Sofia Lamb. The quick version was that she wasn't going to tolerate anyone going after her associates, so to prove her point, she tried to flush the player out by…literally flushing the player out. Lamb remotely triggered a flood to sweep through the Siren Alley area of Rapture--the city's red-light district, essentially--in an effort to drown the player. This sort of desperate act is a clear sign of what has happened to Rapture since the original game. No longer is Andrew Ryan in charge, still clinging to the hope that his life's work will turn into something great. Instead, we have Sofia Lamb, who's perfectly willing to ravage the city at all costs in order to achieve her goal. As scary as Rapture was then, it's a scarier place now.

Meet the new Brute splicer. He's not a happy fellow.

That's about where Thomas' demo ended, but we soon had the chance to pick up a controller and play through a roughly hour-long section from much earlier in the game. Our objective was a simple one: obtain the incinerate plasmid in order to melt a block of ice blocking a train car taking us where we needed to go. To do so, we had to make our way through an area called Ryan Amusements, a theme park filled with run-down animatronics displays. The park was originally designed to convince children that the outside world is a terrifying place and that they should never leave Rapture, conveying this message with scenes of families having their homes torn apart by the ominous hand of the government, scientists having their work destroyed, or farmers toiling in the hot sun. But over time, the park has become an eerie shadow of its former self, with once-smiling families strung up on nooses and display figures charred from fire.

We began our quest with nothing more than a rivet gun, a remote hacking tool (which lets you hack cameras and turrets from afar), and a Big Daddy drill, but soon we added to our arsenal by finding a machine gun and a spear gun. Like in the first game, each of these guns can be upgraded either with special ammo or by taking them to the Power to the People upgrade stations. But in the sequel, these stations will not only upgrade your ammo efficiency and power, but will also grant a brand-new function to a given weapon once those other traits are maxed out. For example, the rivet gun can be upgraded to fire white-hot rivets that set their targets on fire, while the drill can be upgraded to deflect all incoming projectiles while spinning. We didn't get a chance to upgrade the spear gun, but even in its default state--which fires spears that pin splicers to a wall for an instant kill--it's already quite powerful.

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Over the course of our search for the incinerate plasmid, we managed to get tangled up in a fight against another Big Daddy. These are consensual encounters in which he won't fight you until you attack him, but once you do it's a tough fight. New Big Daddies like the Rumbler are capable of laying down defensive turrets and firing rockets, but thankfully ours was an old-school bouncer model from the original game. After taking him down, we elected to temporarily adopt his Little Sister so that she could guide us around to corpses filled with ADAM, which was what we needed to collect in order to purchase the incinerate plasmid. Once she guides you to the right corpse and starts harvesting, swarms of splicers will attack you and you need to defend her while she does her work. But you can't keep her on your shoulder forever; you'll eventually have to decide whether to harvest or release her.

Soon after picking up the incinerate plasmid, we were greeted by one of the Big Sister characters. These are former Little Sisters who have taken salvaged Big Daddy parts and built their own formidable suits of armor, and they dart around Rapture doing Sofia Lamb's dirty work. They're far more quick and agile than a Big Daddy, making for a different sort of battle. But in our personal experience, they tend to go down much more quickly, as we were able to defeat the one we encountered fairly easily by repeatedly blasting her with incinerate while attempting to keep a good distance between us.

Lastly, there's BioShock 2's multiplayer, which we also had a chance to play. This part of the game takes place a year before the original BioShock and has you playing as a cast of characters who worked as plasmid testers back when the gene-altering technology was still in its infancy. But as these things tend to do, that testing process went awry and turned these people into violent fiends. There are six total characters you can play as in the competitive multiplayer, each with his or her own backstory. There's Jacob Norris, the welder; Danny Wilkins, the dashing former football star; and Barbara Johnson, the widowed housewife. Each can be customized in terms of appearance and weapon loadout, which includes gun upgrades, two slots for plasmids, and three slots for tonics.

It's Team Atlas vs. Team Ryan in multiplayer.

The multiplayer itself is a much more fast-paced combat style than the single-player campaign. As best we can tell, that seems to be a product of modest-sized maps and the borderline zany amount of action going on at any given moment. Some common sights include a player tramping around as a Big Daddy (a special defensive player in the Capture the Sister mode); people suddenly leaping from hidden pathways such as air vents; jets of water shooting from the ground from someone using the geyser trap plasmid; and people whipping out cameras to snap photos of dead bodies to upgrade their future damage against that particular enemy. And of course, there are plenty of guns too. It almost feels like an episode of COPS, if someone forgot to call the police. Think drug-addled crazies running around beating the pulp out of each other so they can get their hands on more gene-altering substances. It's an ugly scene, but, we'll admit, it's a good bit of fun.

No matter which side of Rapture's descent you're looking to see, it seems that BioShock 2 has you covered. Whether it's that eruption of chaos during the early days, or the steady continuation of decay a decade after the original game, you should be able to get a good idea of just how nasty of a place Rapture really is. Expect more coverage leading up to BioShock 2's February 9 release.

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"PlayStation 3 | BioShock 2 Story and Multiplayer Hands-On Impressions" was posted by Shaun McInnis on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:26:53 -0700

PlayStation 3 | Assassin's Creed II Hands-On

We played through the first few hours of Assassin's Creed II to learn how Ezio moves from troublemaker to assassin.

After two years in the development oven, Assassin's Creed II is finally ready to be served next month. To celebrate the game's completion, the development team from Ubisoft Montreal flew out to meet with us in Florence, which is the first city featured in the game. It was a no-holds-barred gameplay session--they let us tear through the first few hours of the game while remaining on hand to answer questions. The game is looking very impressive, with the new locations and the historically accurate setting, and the hours flew by as we played. But, before we begin our preview, here's a substantial SPOILER ALERT: This preview contains some major plot reveals from the beginning of the game.

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Guy Cocker headed to Florence to get the latest information on Assassin's Creed 2.

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As has already been revealed, ACII starts out almost immediately after the first game. You take control of Desmond moments after Assassin's Creed ends, and he's lying in his room when Lucy enters in a panic, covered in blood. She has just minutes to get Desmond onto the Animus, the machine that can visualise his genetic memories. This time, though, instead of heading back to the Third Crusade, he wakes up in Renaissance-era Italy. He is literally born as the new character Ezio Auditore, at which point you have to use the face buttons to kick your feet and shake your hands. Just as your father enters the room to meet his new son, Lucy is interrupted and you both have to escape from the lab.

After running to a nearby warehouse, you meet the new team that Lucy has been working with, who are armed with the new Animus 2.0. She introduces you to Shaun Hastings, the spitting image of actor Danny Wallace, and a brand new Animus machine. Using intel that Lucy has stolen, the team uses the new Animus on Desmond to explore more of Ezio's life, so you jump in the machine to rejoin Ezio as a young adult.

The first proper action sequence is apparently an homage to Scorsese's Gangs of New York. Ezio and his friends get into a fight with a rival family, allowing you to get to grips with the combat mechanics in the game. In the Xbox 360 version we played, you can strike with X and grab with B, which allows you to string basic combos together. You can combine the two to hold enemies while punching, kneeing, or head-butting them, or you can just throw them over a nearby bridge or into other enemies. You can also block, and counter incoming attacks with some brutal combos.

With our adversaries dispatched, our brother arrived to find that we had taken a bit of a beating. He instructed us to raid the bodies for cash so that we could pay a doctor. By going over the bodies and holding B, you can rob people for cash, which is important as money plays a big part in the game. You follow your brother to the doctor, who will heal you completely for 50 Fiorinis. However, he'll also sell you healing vials for a premium of 75F, meaning that you don't have to find a doctor if you're in the middle of a battle.

Once we were healed, the next hour of the game was spent getting to know the family. Your brother challenges you to a rooftop race, your sister asks you to beat up her cheating lover, and your father gets you to deliver important letters. In between, you also perform more perfunctory tasks, such as collecting feathers from the rooftops, which will act as the new hidden collectibles in the game, and visiting your girlfriend, where you press buttons in order to kiss her and undress her.

These introductory missions merely act as tutorials for the fighting and exploring in the game. The real thrust of the story is the framing of your family for treason, which results in your father and brothers being taken away to prison. Once you learn of this, you climb to the top of the Palazzo della Signoria (do a Google image search for this incredibly impressive building) to consult with your father. He instructs you to deliver evidence of your family's innocence to a judge called Uberto. However, the next day, you witness Uberto's betrayal as he leads the public execution of your family, and you see firsthand the horrifying sight of your brothers and father hung to die.

It's not long before you're donning the familiar assassin's outfit and running across rooftops.

Thankfully, by this point you've picked up your father's assassin equipment--the familiar hooded cape, his armour, and his trusty sword. It's not enough to cope with the huge guards that chase you after the execution, but it's enough to give you some protection from regular enemies, who are stronger than the street thugs from before. Combat looks to be a big part of ACII, but there's always the option of running and hiding, as there was before.

At this point, producer Sebastien Puel jumped a little further into the story to show us the fist "dungeon" area from the game. These dungeons will be optional side quests, but they will extend the life of the game considerably, making this a much larger experience than the first Assassin's Creed. These areas are made up of complex physical exercises--the sorts of things you might see in Uncharted or Tomb Raider--where you have to explore the environment and occasionally beat up a guard. In the first secret dungeon, which is the only one in the game that's compulsory, you make your way down to a sarcophagus and find out Uberto's secret plans to assassinate other prominent Italian families.

Jumping forward through the game again, Sebastien Puel showed off another important feature--your villa. This will act as your home space, but it will grow out to be a home for many other people as you progress. Basically, you can build shops, churches, and even brothels, which will attract non-playable characters who will in turn pay a tax to stay there. This will encourage you to improve the area over time, which will increase your income--proving the old business adage that you need to spend money to make money.

While Ezio may be a wanted man, he still manages to run a pretty pimped-out house at the villa. He has rooms where you can install the best art, show off your weaponry and armour, and fight it out in practice arenas to unlock new special moves. This guy sure isn't modest--his bedroom is decorated with portraits of all the major people he has killed, and his immense basement is filled with statues of famous assassins through the ages. You'll be able to install plaques on each of these statues by playing the aforementioned dungeon missions, which will unlock the statue at the centre of the hall--that of Altair, the character from the original game. Your reward will be access to his armour, which is the most powerful in Assassin's Creed II.

The villa is certainly an interesting new twist to the game. You'll be able to ride your horse there if you desire, but acknowledging the complaints of excessive traveling in the first game, the developer has included travel shops around each city that will take you there for 100F--a relatively small amount of in-game currency. We particularly liked the way your family continues to play an important role--your mother is distraught by the death of your father, while your sister takes up residence in the library, where she handles the finances. The developer also explained to us about your uncle, Mario, who will introduce himself to you by saying, "It's-a-me, a-Mario!"

Our final experience was of Venice, but sadly we're prevented from reporting on most of it. The city looks stunning though, and you can steal a gondola on the huge canal--Grand Theft Ezio, as someone joked. We also got to play around with the different groups of people in the city--hiring thieves to distract enemies or stabbing an incredibly annoying guitar player using our concealed blades.

Money plays a large part in ACII, and you can loot from enemies to buy a whole variety of weapons, armour and other upgrades.

Much has been made about the new setting of ACII, and as anyone who played the first game would expect, the environments look stunning. More than 30,000 images were taken of the real buildings in Italy, many of which have made it as textures in the finished game. The buildings are also much bigger than before, such as the Duomo in Florence, and many of the characters actually existed in the time the game is set. No attempt has been made to hide the seedier side of 15th-century life, either. Characters swear at each other and use extremely crass terminology, and you can hire prostitutes to distract enemies if you so desire.

Assassin's Creed II is set for release on November 20 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and in 2010 on the PC. We'll have a full review for you in the coming weeks.

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"PlayStation 3 | Assassin's Creed II Hands-On" was posted by Guy Cocker on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:51:36 -0700

DS | Dementium II Hands-On

It seems like zombies are always involved when we wake up in a strange place with no recollection of how we got there.

When done right, the heart-pounding and sweaty-palms experience of a horror game can be achieved on a handheld as on a console. Dementium II is a follow-up to the survival horror game Dementium: The Ward, which was released two years ago on the Nintendo DS. SouthPeak stopped by our office to give us a quick look at the sequel and go over some of the changes that have been made to enhance the bone-chilling experience. This is developer Renegade Kid's third first-person shooter on the DS, so it's using the same engine that was used for the game Moon earlier this year.

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Like the first game, you play as William Redmoor who wakes up in an unknown place without his memories. However, this time, you're in an entirely different place and your amnesia can be attributed to something else--like brain surgery. Not that this is any more comforting, but the story does pick up immediately after the first game as you try to piece together what just happened. You don't need to be familiar with The Ward to play the sequel, and it won't spoil the ending of the first game for you, so anyone can jump right in to start exploring the mysterious facility.

The opening is a bit of a blur for our character because he is in a drug-induced state as he's dragged from a hospital bed and tossed into a wretched-looking prison cell. Before we could truly admire how despicable our sleeping quarters were, our environment suddenly changed into a warped, sickly green parallel universe where creatures had giant gaping mouths for their faces. The only weapon available at this point was a rusty-looking shank, which fit our needs for the moment. Later in the game, you'll come across more weapons, as well as a trusty flashlight. One of the changes that has been made is that you can dual-wield your flashlight with any one-handed weapon so you're not left in the dark in certain areas. Other weapons include a sledgehammer, makeshift flamethrower, pistol, and shotgun--just to give you an idea of what to expect. As we made our way through the strange-looking corridors, our vision blurred again and we were back in the prison. But this time, we were outside of our cell. Using our small blade, we slashed our way through a few guards and moved on to a room full of problematic patients.

Saving has also been tweaked so that the game now autosaves as you walk through a door, in the event you have to turn off your DS in a hurry. There will be more checkpoints throughout the levels, so you don't have to backtrack too much if you die. Another nice feature is that you can now carry health pills rather than use them instantly or wander around levels when you're in dire need of some. The first boss we fought was a bizarre creature that was basically a huge mouth lined with sharp teeth; it also had four limbs. It would scale the walls and ceiling, then try to pounce down on us. But, then, it would scurry away so we had to run after it. After taking some damage, it would vomit some kind of toxic waste that came with annoying slugs and spew poisonous gas all over the place.

The controls are similar to the previous game, but now you have jump and crouch buttons on the touch screen. You can double-tap to jump as well. The map is now conveniently located on the bottom screen, so you don't have to bring up another screen just to get your bearings. To run, you press the D pad twice in any direction, although it can sometimes be difficult to see how fast you're actually running. Apparently, in hard mode, your speed is dramatically decreased, which will make it a challenge to avoid or run after certain bosses. If you've been playing shooters on the DS, then the mechanics should feel very familiar.

Glowing ceremonial daggers will always come in handy.

Three difficulty settings are also available to you if you want to give yourself a challenge, but there are definitely some tricky bosses in the game that are tough to beat on a lower setting. We had an opportunity to hop into a later stage to tackle a crazy witch that would dart at us in the dark. The flashlight wasn't a huge help, but sound waves appeared onscreen to give us a clue as to where she'd show up next. Her red eyes gave away her location, and we had to time our slashes carefully to hit her. If that wasn't bad enough, as we whittled her health away, she eventually fired multiple beams at us to prevent us from getting too close.

We played with headphones to listen closely to the sound and music, which changed depending on our situation. A dynamic sound system is in place to make the experience similar to one that you would expect on a console. Visually, the game isn't going to compare to a console, but it does an excellent job of providing a disturbing atmosphere for you to explore. As you wander through various corridors, you'll come across puzzles you have to solve in order to continue. In our example, it was a sliding puzzle where we had to shuffle jars around until they were piled up in the right order on the other side of the screen. Some doors were initially blocked, but you can return to earlier areas and later break them down with a sledgehammer.

It looks like Dementium II will have all the tension and gore that fans enjoyed from the first game, so if you're looking for a suspenseful experience as you wait in line or ride the bus, look for the sequel when it is released next February.

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"DS | Dementium II Hands-On" was posted by Sophia Tong on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:47:15 -0700

PC | Aliens vs. Predator Multiplayer Hands-On

We finally got to play AVP's multiplayer mode, including all three factions and a number of match types.

After lurking like a xenomorph in the shadows for a number of years, the Aliens vs. Predator franchise is coming back in grand style. Developed by British studio Rebellion, which was responsible for the classic 1999 instalment, AVP will be heading to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC early next year, and we got a tasty treat when Sega finally let us get our hands on the game at a multiplayer event in London.

Deathmatch is claustrophobic, frantic, and a whole lot of fun.

True to its roots, AVP features separate single-player campaign modes for each of the three species: marines, aliens, and predators. Set 30 years after the events in the film Alien 3, the game is based on a jungle planet dubbed BG-386, which the marines have attempted to colonise. Things don't go according to plan, and we're told the marine's single-player campaign will have a survival horror flavour to it, with a reliance on raw firepower to survive the alien and predator onslaught. Unlike the other two species, marines can perform only basic melee attacks (in addition to a block move), but if they time it right, they can repel an enemy long enough to give you a second chance.

Predators have ranged weapons, melee weapons, and gadgets, including a shoulder-mounted plasma caster, mines, active camouflage, thermal vision, and wrist blades. While the aliens lack advanced weaponry, they're not short on speed and agility. They're able to attach to most surfaces, including walls and ceilings, and they constantly sprint, so you need to get up close to perform a kill. With the ability to slash, bite, and impale your victim with your tail for a stealth kill, playing as an alien feels grisly and immensely satisfying. Things can get a bit disorienting if you're on a ceiling, but you can reorientate your view to the current surface with a button press.

We spent most of our time playing Deathmatch mode, and as fans of the original game, we think it nails the sense of dread and panic with aplomb. Deathmatch supports up to 18 players, with the goal being to rack up the most kills. Playing as the marine, we had access to a powerful assault rifle, which was more than capable of taking down an alien or predator, as long as you can keep them in your sights. You also have the marine's motion sensor on hand to detect approaching targets. Unlike the aliens, marines can sprint for only short distances, and you need to rely on raw firepower and your weapon-attached torch if you hope to survive.

The predator is the most instantly rewarding character to play as and felt like a good compromise between the marine's heavy weapons and the alien's agility. A focus mode allows you to jump to nearby platforms, such as tree branches, and we were able to dish out damage from afar using the plasma caster. It's tempting to hunt marines by hiding in a tree, activating your cloak, and then using the plasma caster's lock-on aiming for an instant kill, but it's equally rewarding to rush in for a bloodthirsty stealth kill with your wrist blades. While you're invisible to marines when cloaked and motionless, you need to watch out for xenomorphs who can see you. While all of the predator's weapons were unlocked for us during the demo, you'll need to find and collect these on multiplayer maps. Unlike traditional ammo, the predator's energy-based weapons drain your suit of power and need to be topped up at recharge stations. You can also heal yourself with health packs that require energy, and like in the Predator movies, this results in a bloodcurdling scream, so you might want to find a quiet place to hide before doing so. Marines and aliens have three health bar slots, and three health packs that each recharge one slot. You can also collect additional health packs scattered around the map during matches.

We also got to try out Infestation mode, which pits a squad of marines against a single-player-controlled alien. As each marine is killed during a match, he will respawn as an alien until there's just one last man standing. Thankfully, the solo marine will receive a heavy weapon drop to try to hold the aliens at bay until the end of the round. The level we played featured the ruins of a predator pyramid, and while its summit offered good views of the battlefield, it also meant we had to use teamwork to cover our 360-degree exposure. Lastly, we had a brief look at Predator Hunt, where you get to play as a group of predators hunting a sole alien. You're given a short match time of three minutes in which to find and kill the xenomorph and rack up the most kills on your team.

You can pull off some pretty grisly stealth kills as an alien or predator.

Naturally, one of our biggest concerns is that all three factions will be balanced, but from what we've seen, we're cautiously optimistic that Rebellion will get it right. The predator was the most satisfying to play thanks to his range of badass weapons and gadgets and the ability to jump from platform to platform. Meanwhile, the alien's stealthiness, lightning-fast speed, and ability to cling to walls and ceilings certainly makes for a different experience. The marines felt a bit underpowered in contrast to the other species; however, we only used the assault rifle and shotgun, and it sounds like there will be plenty of powerful weapons at their disposal in the final version.

In addition to Deathmatch, Infestation, and Predator Hunt, AVP will include a four-player cooperative Survivor mode for marines, which sounds similar to Gears of War 2's Horde mode. We'll have to wait until we can play this for ourselves, but fighting wave after wave of aliens sounds like a frantic experience.

Aliens vs. Predator will be unleashed in early 2010, and we're looking forward to exploring the three species in greater depth at another point in the future. Until then, check out our previous coverage, and stay tuned for more information in the coming months.

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"PC | Aliens vs. Predator Multiplayer Hands-On" was posted by Luke Anderson on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:01:36 -0700

PSP | Beaterator First Look

Rockstar's latest is less game than software, but it looks like a fun opportunity for musicians to create songs on the go.

One of the PSP's selling points has always been its role as an all-purpose multimedia device rather than a portable gaming machine. And while the ability to play your own music on the PSP is certainly nice, Rockstar will soon give players the chance to make their own music when Beaterator is released later this month. Beaterator is a portable music mixing and editing studio for creating songs that can later be exported to your computer or shared online using Rockstar's official community site. With more than 1,000 loops made by Timbaland and a host of features to ease in players who lack musical expertise, Beaterator is designed to appeal to a wide variety of would-be musicians. Rockstar recently took us through a demo to see what players can expect when the game arrives in a few weeks.

[ Watch Video ]

There are three modes to Beaterator: Live Play, Studio, and Song Crafter. Live Play is the most accessible of the three game modes. It mainly serves as a way for novice musicians to play a song before learning all the ins and outs of the studio. The way it works is simple: You select the genre you'd like to play, and your choice gives you a template of eight instrument tracks that fit with the style of music. Those tracks are divided into four quadrants per screen. As an example, the upper-left quadrant might show bass loops, with drum loops on the upper-right quadrant, backing sound effects on the bottom-left quadrant, and the lead keyboard on the bottom-right quadrant. Then, there's another set of four on the second screen. Each of those quadrants has four loops that are assigned to specific face buttons. So you might kick off by highlighting drums, press the triangle to get one of those drum loops going, wait a few moments, then jump over to the bass quadrant and hit the circle to get that bass loop going. It's as simple as selecting a quadrant with the D pad and hitting a face button to start or stop a particular loop.

Once you get the hang of Live Play, you can take a stab at recording your live performance. When you've done that, you can bring your recording into the Studio and either fine-tune it or just start a new song from scratch. The Studio mode is something that will feel more familiar to those who've spent time with traditional music editing software. You're given a visual layout of all eight tracks, with each loop depicted as a colored rectangle on the screen. You can pick up a loop, move it around, highlight entire sections of a song, then copy and paste those sections to reproduce parts of a song elsewhere (for example, repeating a chorus later on in the track). You also have the option to tweak a few onscreen dials, such as number of beats per minute and pan (how far to the left or right speaker a track is).

Adding new loops is as easy as pulling up a menu, sorting the available loops by characteristics--such as instrument and genre--and dropping them right into the song. Rockstar tells us that Timbaland provided roughly 1,300 loops, with its Leeds studio adding quite a few more to bring the total to a figure slightly north of 3,000. It's not just hip-hop, either. You've got loops that span a wide variety of genres, with loops named everything from "synthesizer laser" to 'lively flute."

You can create an entire song using just the Studio, but if you want to explore the real meat of the game and put your own personal touch on each song, you can use the Song Crafter mode. Song Crafter allows you to take any of the loops in the game and edit them down to the individual note or go a step further and use an instrument emulator to make your own brand-new loops. If you want to make a drum loop, you select a kit and determine how many bars you want the loop to last. Then, you go in and drop each note manually on a grid and shift them around until the overall effect meets your standards. You can also make your own keyboard and synth loops, with the latter offering all the effects dials you'd find on a real synth. The cool part about these loops is that if you have no idea how to play piano or keyboard, you can elect to lock all available notes into the appropriate key so that it doesn't sound like a dissonant mess. While we didn't get a chance to play, the Rockstar rep guiding the demo was able to make some fairly impressive loops with very minimal effort.

Beaterator's interface should look familiar to anyone who's spent much time with music editing software.

Other Song Crafter options include the ability to use the built-in microphone on the PSP-3000 (or an external mic on older PSPs) to record vocals for your song. You can also import WAV files directly from your computer and drop them into the song. Once you've got an entire song complete, you can then do the opposite--export the song you made onto your computer as an uncompressed WAV file. You can also share that song on the Rockstar Social Club community site so that others can download it and edit it to their liking. We're interested to see what sort of songs players are capable of making when the game ships on September 29.

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"PSP | Beaterator First Look" was posted by Shaun McInnis on Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:01:14 -0700

Xbox 360 | Lego Rock Band Updated Hands-On

We check out a few reasons why Lego Rock Band is more than just tiny yellow astronauts on guitar.

While 2009 will come and go without seeing the release of a proper Rock Band sequel, it has been far from a barren year for the music game franchise. Harmonix released Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP this past June, then followed up that act with The Beatles: Rock Band early last month. And though the year is drawing to a close, we've still got another Rock Band game coming our way in the form of Lego Rock Band, the product of a partnership between Harmonix and Traveller's Tales (whom you may recognize as the developer behind the bizarrely charming Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones games). After getting our first taste of Lego Rock Band while patrolling the show floor of this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, we recently had a chance to take a more in-depth look at this decidedly family-friendly take on the rhythm franchise.

Traveller's Tales is a developer synonymous with the Lego brand, having made a name for itself taking established franchises and transforming them into the blocky minifigures we all know and love. Much of the company's success can be attributed to a knack for understated humor and the ability to preserve the essence of those franchises in a cute, accessible format. So it may not come as much of a surprise that Lego Rock Band is a game intended to reach out to a more casual audience--whether it be younger or older than the typical consumer--while simultaneously adding a few more laughs to the Rock Band formula. On the surface, you'll find a game wrapped in the Lego look and feel, complete with minifigure musicians onstage clutching their instruments with half-circle hands, as well as note highways that use blocks instead of the usual gems. But beyond that appearance exist a number of other notable differences between this and previous Rock Band games.

The obvious starting point is the 40-song-plus tracklist, which spans a wide gulf between classic songs and modern top-40 hits. On the one end you'll find artists like Queen, Tom Petty, and the Jackson 5, while at the other end are bands big with today's younger crowd, such as Good Charlotte, Pink, and Sum 41. The one unifying theme is that the songs all feature lyrics that jibe with the game's projected E10 rating. That's something that extends to downloadable content as well, since Lego Rock Band will support all existing and future Rock Band DLC, but does so with the use of a "family filter" that keeps you from being able to play some of the saltier numbers (think the entirety of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood Sugar Sex Magik").

One of the novel features in terms of this song list is that the game takes some of the more drawn-out tracks and trims them down to shorter versions so that grandma doesn't have to worry about her arms cramping up after a six-minute guitar bridge or standing idle with a microphone in her hands while the song fades out for two minutes. And though it's not exactly a new feature, you'll also be able to take the entire tracklist and export it to Rock Band 2 for a nominal fee just as you were able to do with the original Rock Band.

Besides offering songs with more mainstream appeal, Lego Rock Band offers a few new ways to play them as well. While the level of challenge you'll find on the easy through hard difficulty levels is no different from other Rock Band games, there's a new difficulty level called super easy. This difficulty level only requires you to get the correct rhythm and doesn't care whatsoever if you're hitting the right note. On guitar that means only hitting the strum bar and never having to press the fret buttons, while on drums it means making sure you hit any drum pad when the note comes your way instead of hitting the green or red one specifically. There's also a cheat you can activate in the menu that lets you play advanced-difficulty drums without having to use the kick pedal, a feature partly inspired by disabled fans who are perfectly capable of wailing on the pads but unable to use their feet.

It's also worth noting that it's impossible to fail out of a song in Lego Rock Band. There is a consequence to doing poorly, though--at least in the tour mode. Since you'll earn Lego studs as currency (which you can use to unlock new Lego-themed gear, clothing, and characters), it's possible to lose all the studs you earned over the course of that song if you crash and burn. But all that happens is that the note highway cuts out for a moment, and then you can jump back into it with the chance to keep those studs if you pull off the first 20 or so consecutive notes. It's basically a system to make things less punishing for new players, while still offering an incentive to maintain a quality performance.

While all the songs are available from the start in Quick Play, the story mode is where you'll want to go to see just how much Traveller's Tales has put its mark on the franchise. You'll create a band of Lego rockers and take them on a world tour, with the main difference being how the story itself unfolds. There are certain songs you'll play called Rock Power Challenges that tell a story within the venue. One of these we saw had the band playing on a pirate ship out at sea while a jealous octopus--who wants to be part of the band and feels left out--summons the help of a giant octopus buddy of his, who then starts attacking the band. If you pass the song, you'll defeat the octopus, but if you lose, he'll destroy the boat and send you into the briny sea. And because all the songs during these challenges keep with the overall theme, the one played here was Sum 41's "In Too Deep."

It's that attention to detail that makes Lego Rock Band look like it could be a worthy addition to the Rock Band family. We'll have the final word when the game is released on November 10.

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"Xbox 360 | Lego Rock Band Updated Hands-On" was posted by Shaun McInnis on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:05:58 -0700

Wii | James Cameron's Avatar: The Game Updated Hands-On

The Na'vi roam the jungles and the skies in our look at the Wii version of this movie-licensed game.

Nintendo should probably be thanking Ubisoft these days. After all, the publisher has seemingly done more for the Wii Balance Board accessory than nearly any other third-party company out there; more, even, than Nintendo itself. Not all of those balance board attempts have been home runs (butt control in Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party stands out as a particular lowlight), but at least Ubi is trying to give you a reason to pull your balance board out of your closet. Its latest attempt is with the upcoming Wii version of James Cameron's Avatar: The Game, which we had a chance to check out at a recent Ubisoft press event in San Francisco.

[ Watch Video ]

Unlike the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, Avatar for the Wii won't be giving Wii owners the full 3D treatment. What they will be getting is an entirely new story centered on the blue-skinned Na'vi, which is the alien race that plays a major role in the upcoming sci-fi film upon which the Avatar games are based. You play as a Na'vi warrior who starts off the game trying to reclaim some important tribal artifacts that have been stolen by the humans who are also inhabiting the world.

There were four playable levels in the game demo we played of Avatar. The first level introduced the main game mechanics used when your character is on foot. Your Na'vi is a powerful warrior--much taller and stronger than a human--but he's also greatly outnumbered in the game. To even the odds, Avatar's opening levels include a healthy dose of stealth gameplay as you guide your warrior through the tall grass that makes up much of the jungle floor, looking to spring an attack on an unsuspecting guard.

While the lush jungle environments are impressively rendered on the Wii, the stealth mechanics don't always seem to measure up to the environments. For example, you can only really hide in the aforementioned tall grass, which seems to abruptly begin and end at seemingly arbitrary spots. Hiding in the grass is as simple as pressing the Z button: Once you creep close enough to an enemy, you can engage in a sneak attack by pressing the B button and then slamming the Wii Remote down in a chopping motion. If you're not careful, you'll alert nearby enemy units to your attack; however, all you need to do to distract them once again is find a patch of tall grass and crouch again. Eventually, the enemy units will be so confused by your "disappearance" that they'll call off the search. If you do manage to alert enemies to your presence, you can wipe them out by using your staff and heal yourself with some conveniently located giant orange plants strewn throughout the level.

When you aren't sneak attacking humans, you'll be climbing and jumping your way through the game's environments. There's the lightest amount of platforming in some sections, and you sometimes have two paths you can tread through a level. A lower path typically involves fighting bad guys and an upper path will sometimes let you avoid combat altogether. Your goal in both the tutorial level and the level that follows is to reclaim some tribal belongings, one of which is your bow that--along with your staff--becomes your main weapon in the game. As you make your way through the game, you'll earn points you can use to upgrade your character and weapons, such as your ability to hide or your resistance to enemy fire.

By the end of the second mission we played, we were sneaking our way through a human encampment to free a captive banshee--a huge pterodactyl-like creature that had been captured by humans. After eliminating its captors, you mount the banshee and take off into the air, which is an effective setup for the following pair of missions that take place in midair as you pilot the banshee through danger. The first flying mission is designed to get you used to maneuvering the creature in midair, and it's here that you can use the Wii Balance Board to control the banshee by shifting your body weight in different directions on the board. The first flight level has some interesting perspective shifts as you dive deep into caverns or fly up and around trees. Along the way, you'll be firing your bow at targets hanging in midair in order to prepare you for the midair combat ahead.

Eventually your banshee will be pursued by a futuristic helicopter driven by people with bad intent in mind for you and your Banshee. The ensuing pursuit and combat takes up most of the second flying level as you look to dodge the copter's missile fire, as well as do as much damage as you can with your bow and arrow. Once you damage the helicopter enough, you'll enter a sequence where you can attack the helicopter directly with you banshee. By moving the Wii Remote in various directions, your banshee will strike and bash the copter until, eventually, it crash-lands and the level is over.

While the flying levels in Avatar add some variety to the gameplay, it can be a challenge to maintain control of your banshee and aim your arrows effectively. That's where the game's drop-in, drop-out cooperative play comes in handy. You and a friend can play any level in the game cooperatively. On foot, you'll be joined by another Na'vi warrior, and during flying missions, one person will steer the banshee while the other fires the bow and arrow.

Cooperative play makes the flying missions easier: One person flies, the other shoots.

In addition to the balance board support, Ubioft Montreal has added support for the Wii MotionPlus control accessory--with it, you'll be able to take temporary control of so-called fire wasps found in certain areas of a level. You control the wasp's movement with the MotionPlus-enhanced Wii Remote and can use the giant insect to scout new areas of a level, as well as stun opponents temporarily. If your fire wasp is killed, however, control reverts back to your Na'vi, and you'll have to go it alone.

We'll have to see if Ubi has any more accessory-based tricks up its sleeve with Avatar for the Wii. By focusing entirely on the Na'vi, it seems that the team is looking to build the backstory that is fueling the highly anticipated film, but we'll have to play more of the game to see if it lives up to the hype surrounding the entire Avatar franchise. As with the other versions of the game, Avatar is set to be released on the Wii on December 1.

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"Wii | James Cameron's Avatar: The Game Updated Hands-On" was posted by Brian Ekberg on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:58:00 -0700

Xbox 360 | Left 4 Dead 2 Impressions--Hands-On With Hard Rain Campaign

We take a soaking-wet trek through the newest campaign in Left 4 Dead 2, which introduces some devious new twists to the series.

The sky is angry. It's pouring rain, and you can barely trudge through murky, knee-level floodwater. Lightning in the far-off distance signals a worsening storm, and before you know it, a hard wind sweeps by and reduces visibility to a hair above zero. Clearly, things are bad and getting worse--and that's before you bring in the zombies.

This is the type of scene you can expect from Hard Rain, the fourth of five campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2. By now there's a good chance you're familiar with the new setting in this sequel to last year's hit co-op shooter. The development team at Valve has uprooted players from Anytown, USA, and has focused on telling the story of the zombie apocalypse from the point of view of four survivors crossing through the Deep South. The unveiling of Hard Rain comes on the heels of previously announced campaigns, like the daytime New Orleans streets of The Parish, the twisted nighttime fairgrounds of Dark Carnival, and the spooky wilderness of Swamp Fever.

[ Watch Video ]

With Hard Rain, the focus isn't so much the setting as it is the nasty weather conditions. Things start out harmless enough. You found your way onto a rescue boat at the end of the previous campaign, but with fuel running dangerously low, your group of survivors has decided to dock and head inland to find a gas station. This quest for diesel begins in a nondescript suburban town as you make your way from zombie-infested backyard to zombie-infested backyard. Aside from having to fight your way through dozens upon dozens of the ravenous undead--an act aided by new melee weapons like the katana, fire axe, and chainsaw--things don't look too bad. There's even a yard sale where VHS copies of '80s comedies have been replaced by ammo caches and silenced Uzis.

Then things go south. Soon that suburban town leads to a series of dilapidated industrial buildings, culminating in a trek through a witch-infested sugar mill. (When we say infested, we mean it. It turns out those witches are attracted to the scent of sugar.) Worse yet, your reward for safely exiting this sugar mill is a blind dash through a sugarcane field with nothing more than a neon gas-station sign peeking up in the distance to let you know you're not running in circles. Think of this scene as a follow-up to the cornfield in Blood Harvest.

It's once you get to the gas station and complete the second chapter of Hard Rain that this campaign's clever design becomes apparent. Rather than head off to a new location, completing the point-A-to-point-B gauntlet of other Left 4 Dead campaigns, you need to retrace your steps and take that gas back to the boat you arrived on. But in the time it has taken to fill up those cans of diesel, what began as a light rain has turned into an outright downpour, resulting in a ground covered in deep pools of water that were only small puddles earlier. Suddenly that quick run through the sugarcane field becomes a terrifyingly slow march through deep water without the ability to see where you're going.

On the run back to the boat, retracing your route step for step means drastically reducing your speed and leaving yourself an easy target for any boss infected waiting around the corner. The best approach is to take the aboveground alternate paths that were there the first time around but you may not have noticed. Catwalks and raised platforms offer a safer but trickier path through the sugar mill, while the best means of quickly making it through the suburban town is to stick to the rooftops and jump from house to house. It's a deviously clever way to take you back through familiar terrain, yet have you totally rethink your path.

There's also a new storm mechanic that will trigger a zombie horde in a scary new way. At certain points, the game's AI director will trigger a sudden increase in storm conditions, which picks up the rainfall and drastically limits your visibility for a short duration--all while sending a new wave of zombies your way. The best strategy during these storms is for everyone to quickly hole up in the smallest building nearby and wait for conditions to pass, because that reduced visibility makes it easy to get separated. It's especially hilarious if you do this with one teammate standing at the doorway to greet every incoming zombie with a revving chainsaw--sort of like the world's least friendly bouncer. If there was ever a melee weapon designed for keeping control of choke points, it's that one.

All this wetness means that fire-based weaponry like Molotov cocktails and the new incendiary round ammo are suddenly much less effective. Thankfully, Valve has seen fit to add a number of new weapons and equipment to help keep you in the game. One that caught our eye was the jar of boomer bile, which lets you play the role of the boomer by attracting the horde anywhere you throw the jar. Want a quick laugh? Throw the bile on the tank and watch his zombie buddies suddenly turn on him. There's also an adrenaline shot to help you run superfast when things get desperate and a defibrillator to revive fallen teammates.

If it's not the gallons of zombie gore that you're soaking in, it's the neverending rain.

With some persistence and a healthy dose of teamwork, you'll make it to the fifth and final chapter of Hard Rain. Here the team has to turn on the neon sign of a fast-food joint to act as a signal to let the boat know where to dock, but of course that triggers a swarm of common and boss infected that will last for minutes on end. The final battle here is done much like those in the original game, which contrasts to some of the other Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns, such as the Parish, that end in a point-to-point dash to safety instead of the traditional standoff.

The options in this final standoff include hanging out on the rooftop and leaving yourself open to tanks and chargers knocking you down to the flooded ground below, or hanging out in a small room such as the restaurant kitchen in order to hole yourself up closer to the ammo stockpile. Like in any other Left 4 Dead campaign, all the options work; it's just a matter of how well you stick together as a team. That's certainly what we did--right up until the boat arrived and we made a mad dash to safety that left one of our fallen comrades a mere soaking-wet punching bag for the tank. Hopefully you'll be a better teammate than we were when Left 4 Dead 2 is released November 17.

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"Xbox 360 | Left 4 Dead 2 Impressions--Hands-On With Hard Rain Campaign" was posted by Shaun McInnis on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:32:02 -0700

Xbox 360 | Assassin's Creed II Hands-On

We played through the first few hours of Assassin's Creed II to learn how Ezio moves from troublemaker to assassin.

After two years in the development oven, Assassin's Creed II is finally ready to be served next month. To celebrate the game's completion, the development team from Ubisoft Montreal flew out to meet with us in Florence, which is the first city featured in the game. It was a no-holds-barred gameplay session--they let us tear through the first few hours of the game while remaining on hand to answer questions. The game is looking very impressive, with the new locations and the historically accurate setting, and the hours flew by as we played. But, before we begin our preview, here's a substantial SPOILER ALERT: This preview contains some major plot reveals from the beginning of the game.

Lucy prepares Desmond for Renaissance-era Florence in the new Animus 2.0.

As has already been revealed, ACII starts out almost immediately after the first game. You take control of Desmond moments after Assassin's Creed ends, and he's lying in his room when Lucy enters in a panic, covered in blood. She has just minutes to get Desmond onto the Animus, the machine that can visualise his genetic memories. This time, though, instead of heading back to the Third Crusade, he wakes up in Renaissance-era Italy. He is literally born as the new character Ezio Auditore, at which point you have to use the face buttons to kick your feet and shake your hands. Just as your father enters the room to meet his new son, Lucy is interrupted and you both have to escape from the lab.

After running to a nearby warehouse, you meet the new team that Lucy has been working with, who are armed with the new Animus 2.0. She introduces you to Shaun Hastings, the spitting image of actor Danny Wallace, and a brand new Animus machine. Using intel that Lucy has stolen, the team uses the new Animus on Desmond to explore more of Ezio's life, so you jump in the machine to rejoin Ezio as a young adult.

The first proper action sequence is apparently an homage to Scorsese's Gangs of New York. Ezio and his friends get into a fight with a rival family, allowing you to get to grips with the combat mechanics in the game. In the Xbox 360 version we played, you can strike with X and grab with B, which allows you to string basic combos together. You can combine the two to hold enemies while punching, kneeing, or head-butting them, or you can just throw them over a nearby bridge or into other enemies. You can also block, and counter incoming attacks with some brutal combos.

With our adversaries dispatched, our brother arrived to find that we had taken a bit of a beating. He instructed us to raid the bodies for cash so that we could pay a doctor. By going over the bodies and holding B, you can rob people for cash, which is important as money plays a big part in the game. You follow your brother to the doctor, who will heal you completely for 50 Fiorinis. However, he'll also sell you healing vials for a premium of 75F, meaning that you don't have to find a doctor if you're in the middle of a battle.

Once we were healed, the next hour of the game was spent getting to know the family. Your brother challenges you to a rooftop race, your sister asks you to beat up her cheating lover, and your father gets you to deliver important letters. In between, you also perform more perfunctory tasks, such as collecting feathers from the rooftops, which will act as the new hidden collectibles in the game, and visiting your girlfriend, where you press buttons in order to kiss her and undress her.

These introductory missions merely act as tutorials for the fighting and exploring in the game. The real thrust of the story is the framing of your family for treason, which results in your father and brothers being taken away to prison. Once you learn of this, you climb to the top of the Palazzo della Signoria (do a Google image search for this incredibly impressive building) to consult with your father. He instructs you to deliver evidence of your family's innocence to a judge called Uberto. However, the next day, you witness Uberto's betrayal as he leads the public execution of your family, and you see firsthand the horrifying sight of your brothers and father hung to die.

It's not long before you're donning the familiar assassin's outfit and running across rooftops.

Thankfully, by this point you've picked up your father's assassin equipment--the familiar hooded cape, his armour, and his trusty sword. It's not enough to cope with the huge guards that chase you after the execution, but it's enough to give you some protection from regular enemies, who are stronger than the street thugs from before. Combat looks to be a big part of ACII, but there's always the option of running and hiding, as there was before.

At this point, producer Sebastien Puel jumped a little further into the story to show us the fist "dungeon" area from the game. These dungeons will be optional side quests, but they will extend the life of the game considerably, making this a much larger experience than the first Assassin's Creed. These areas are made up of complex physical exercises--the sorts of things you might see in Uncharted or Tomb Raider--where you have to explore the environment and occasionally beat up a guard. In the first secret dungeon, which is the only one in the game that's compulsory, you make your way down to a sarcophagus and find out Uberto's secret plans to assassinate other prominent Italian families.

Jumping forward through the game again, Sebastien Puel showed off another important feature--your villa. This will act as your home space, but it will grow out to be a home for many other people as you progress. Basically, you can build shops, churches, and even brothels, which will attract non-playable characters who will in turn pay a tax to stay there. This will encourage you to improve the area over time, which will increase your income--proving the old business adage that you need to spend money to make money.

While Ezio may be a wanted man, he still manages to run a pretty pimped-out house at the villa. He has rooms where you can install the best art, show off your weaponry and armour, and fight it out in practice arenas to unlock new special moves. This guy sure isn't modest--his bedroom is decorated with portraits of all the major people he has killed, and his immense basement is filled with statues of famous assassins through the ages. You'll be able to install plaques on each of these statues by playing the aforementioned dungeon missions, which will unlock the statue at the centre of the hall--that of Altair, the character from the original game. Your reward will be access to his armour, which is the most powerful in Assassin's Creed II.

The villa is certainly an interesting new twist to the game. You'll be able to ride your horse there if you desire, but acknowledging the complaints of excessive traveling in the first game, the developer has included travel shops around each city that will take you there for 100F--a relatively small amount of in-game currency. We particularly liked the way your family continues to play an important role--your mother is distraught by the death of your father, while your sister takes up residence in the library, where she handles the finances. The developer also explained to us about your uncle, Mario, who will introduce himself to you by saying, "It's-a-me, a-Mario!"

Our final experience was of Venice, but sadly we're prevented from reporting on most of it. The city looks stunning though, and you can steal a gondola on the huge canal--Grand Theft Ezio, as someone joked. We also got to play around with the different groups of people in the city--hiring thieves to distract enemies or stabbing an incredibly annoying guitar player using our concealed blades.

Money plays a large part in ACII, and you can loot from enemies to buy a whole variety of weapons, armour and other upgrades.

Much has been made about the new setting of ACII, and as anyone who played the first game would expect, the environments look stunning. More than 30,000 images were taken of the real buildings in Italy, many of which have made it as textures in the finished game. The buildings are also much bigger than before, such as the Duomo in Florence, and many of the characters actually existed in the time the game is set. No attempt has been made to hide the seedier side of 15th-century life, either. Characters swear at each other and use extremely crass terminology, and you can hire prostitutes to distract enemies if you so desire.

Assassin's Creed II is set for release on November 20 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and in 2010 on the PC. We'll have a full review for you in the coming weeks.

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"Xbox 360 | Assassin's Creed II Hands-On" was posted by Guy Cocker on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:51:36 -0700

PlayStation 3 | MX vs. ATV Reflex Updated Hands-On

We head to Vegas to check out the multiplayer in Rainbow's upcoming off-road racing game.

It's easy to get lost in the details of the upcoming MX vs. ATV Reflex from THQ and developer Rainbow--things like the great-looking bikes and ATVs; the impressive vistas and scenic variety in locales as varied as Spain, Oregon, and many points in between; and even the motion-captured "30-second girls" who precede the dropping of the gate at a motocross event. And while those details all add to the racing experience, the heart of Reflex is still beating with gritty grimy dirt, mud, sand, and snow.

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It's those different surface types that make Reflex such a challenging experience, as we found out during a recent THQ press event in Las Vegas showing off the latest build of the game, due in December. First there's the look of those different surfaces you'll be driving on. You can tear deep grooves in the dirt with your tires; do a doughnut in place for a while and you'll dig a crater for yourself to drive out of. Every bump and undulation in the track surface is permanent for as long as you run on that level--even when running in the huge open-area free-ride areas that can span many miles of drivable territory.

Art director Ian Wood told us that the new system powering those mounds of virtual dirt allows 10 times the resolution when compared to the polygon-based system in previous games. Undeniably, the dirt looks better than before, but the feel of the ground is just as impressive. Dirt and mud have a completely different feel to them when compared to snow, where even keeping your vehicle moving in a straight line can be a chore.

Rolling with the changes in the terrain will be one of your most valuable skills when racing in Reflex, because sometimes there are rather abrupt changes in surface types--hard-packed dirt changing nearly instantaneously to snow as you move up a mountainside, for example. Couple that with the game's already quick pace and Reflex will keep you on your toes.

Whether going it alone or racing online, Reflex gives you plenty of ways to get dirty.

The focus of the press event in Vegas was Reflex's multiplayer modes. There aren't any real surprises here--you can play practically any mode from the single-player game with up to eleven other people online. These modes include traditional race types like supercross, free ride, and waypoint races, as well as more specialized events like Championship Sports Track and Omnicross, the latter of which lets you race practically any type of vehicle in the game through long, winding courses, full of huge elevation changes and tricky sections requiring serious stick skills.

In addition to the standard multiplayer race modes, we got a chance to check out two online-only modes--snake and tag. Think of snake as a dirt-filled version of the Tron lightcycle racing game. As you race, you'll be trailed by a colored barrier, as will all the rest of the competitors. Any player who hits a barrier is immediately eliminated, and the fun racks up as the environment increasingly fills with each rider's barriers. Tag is a bit more straightforward--the mode starts off with all riders looking for a big ball located somewhere on the map (indicated by an icon on your radar at the top of the screen). The first player to touch the ball is "it," with the goal being to be in possession of the ball for a total of 60 seconds. Any time another rider hits the "it" ball, that rider becomes it. In the end, the game seems to devolve into a bunch of riders jousting it out in whatever open area they can find, but the first few minutes of trying to race to the ball are good fun.

In a way, Reflex might subvert what you know about off-road racing games. For one thing, the ATVs in the game--which traditionally are more stable when compared to two-wheel motocross bikes in other games--are squirrely and incredibly powerful. Reflex might be the first off-road game we've ever played where we actually preferred riding on MX bikes, in fact. The bigger class of vehicles--including buggies, super trucks, and the odd, boxy, and supremely bouncy UTVs--have their appeal too, but Reflex seems to be at its best with the smaller rides.

One day, many years from now, she will regret the tattoo.

A big part of the fun with the MX bikes and ATV quads is the revamped controls--you use the left stick to steer your ride and the right stick to throw your rider's body weight around. At a basic level, you can use this technique to help you negotiate tight turns with great speed; once you acclimate yourself to the system, you'll find yourself using your rider reflex controls to alter the angle of your bike or ATV in midair, perhaps squeezing a few extra feet out of a jump or angling your bike's wheels just over the lip of a jump you'd otherwise crash into. If you're in danger of falling off your bike, a quick flick of the right stick in the direction indicated by a green arrow onscreen will often save you from a vicious crash.

While Reflex seems to be doing a lot of things right, it's not perfect. The quick surface changes mentioned above often feel too abrupt (both visually and from a driving standpoint). Also, crashes are prevalent and rider-to-rider contact can easily spoil the fun--especially at the beginning of a race. It's also easy to get stuck in tricky spots on certain maps that are tough to navigate without crashing, even at slow speeds. MX vs. ATV Reflex is due for release in December.

Editor's Note: The original version of this article suggested that MX vs. ATV Reflex will support eight players online. The game will actually support twelve players online. GameSpot regrets the error.

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"PlayStation 3 | MX vs. ATV Reflex Updated Hands-On" was posted by Brian Ekberg on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:42:26 -0700