Just for Gamers

01 June 2009

MGS Rising PS3, PC-bound, new PSP MGS revealed?

Industry-standard press release service lists just-announced Xbox 360 game as also coming to Sony's console, Windows system; Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker apparently hitting Sony's portable next year.

LOS ANGELES--Today at Microsoft's E3 Press Conference, one of the biggest news items was the announcement of Metal Gear Solid: Rising for the Xbox 360. As teased by designer Hideo Kojima at his Game Developers Conference keynote, the all-new title will star Raiden, the acrobatic supporting character of Metal Gear Solid 4 and star of Metal Gear Solid 2.

However, no sooner was the game revealed than confusion set in about what platforms it was being released for. It was revealed during the portion of the Microsoft press conference which corporate vice president John Schappert said was reserved for Xbox 360 console exclusives. However, the product page on Games Press--the UK-based press-release service relied upon by much of the games industry--is listing the game as coming to the PC and PlayStation 3 with a "TBA" launch date.

Unfortunately, Konami's ambiguously worded announcement of the game doesn't clarify the situation. It only describes MGS: Rising as "the first Metal Gear Solid game to launch on the Xbox 360." No mention is made of exclusivity of any kind, timed or not.

Adding to the Metal Gear Solid rumor gumbo is another Games Press listing for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP. Other than a wide-open 2010 release date, no other information is listed about the game, which could possibly be the subject of a second teaser site put up by Konami.

As of press time, Konami reps had not responded to requests for comment on either title. However, earlier today, Games Press was also the source of the premature announcement of Crysis 2 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

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Sam & Max: Season Two Review

Everyone's favorite freelance police return for five more escapades crammed with the surreal stories and offbeat jokes that make these games instant adventure classics.

The Good
* Surreal, strange, hilarious--in other words, perfect old-school Sam and Max
* Smart, funny puzzles
* Outstanding characterization via solid scripts and dead-on voice acting
* Good range of "director's cut" extras.

The Bad
* A little on the short side.

Santa going postal, staking an emo vampire, and taking the Soul Train to hell are just a few of the insane moments crammed into Telltale Games' absolutely hilarious Sam & Max Season Two. This outstanding compilation pulls together the last five episodes in the ongoing adventure series starring Sam, a McGruff-style dog sporting a suit and fedora, and Max, a murderous, smelly rabbit. Most fans have probably already played these games, as they have been released online over the past year, but if you missed these games when they were first released, the low price and ton of extras make this collection worth the purchase price.

Welcome to hell. It's sort of like a fiery IRS office, so bureaucrats would love being condemned to this place.

Anyone who loves classic adventures will have a great time with these surreal, zany shorts. Sam and Max fashion themselves as "freelance police," private detectives who get into one zany mess after another while trying to solve crimes in a zany cartoon world. This means that all of the tales here are laugh-out-loud funny, yet also dark and more than a bit disturbing. You should probably just enjoy the pop-culture jokes riffing on everything from The Exorcist to The Mod Squad and skip putting too much thought into the delightfully twisted minds who came up with the game's bizarre yarns.

But the puzzles themselves aren't as off the wall as the insane stories of the adventures included here. Your tasks are generally based on common-sense logic, even though the end goals deal with nutso objectives like exorcising Santa Claus, figuring out what Charles Lindbergh and D.B. Cooper are doing as babies on Easter Island, and checking out the absurdly bureaucratic Hell LLC. There is a structure to everything that Sam and Max do, so you don't have to fool around with nonsensical adventure game logic or collect a bunch of worthless junk to use at some future date. Tasks are always focused around picking up just a couple of key objects and using them in the right places, nifty conversation trees with consequences to each dialogue choice, and arcade minigames where you do things like box rats and race cars. Everything flows along at a great pace, and your duties are mixed up so that you never get bored with one style of puzzle. Even if you do get a little weary of the sheer strangeness of everything, machine gun pop-culture jokes about the real world keep you grounded and laughing. The biggest design issue is too much backtracking, in that you have to frequently drive back and forth between episode locales and Sam and Max's home office and surrounding neighborhood to solve quests.

The look and sound of the missions are striking. Visuals are done in a Saturday-morning-cartoon style, with lots of bright kiddie colors blended with sharp edges. Everything is just a bit askew, like you're viewing Sam and Max's world through a funhouse mirror. Style is everywhere, right down to the opening and closing credits of each episode. The only drawback to the visuals is the camera angle, which is a little too close to the action in many scenes and can't be manually rotated past its on-rails 2D position to look all around the 3D landscape. Audio effects are dead-on, from the restrained insanity of Max's voice to the 8-bit arcade music played whenever you have to deal with the obsolete computers that operate the Pimplecar Garage.

Elmo would not be amused. You have to presume that the Sesame Street copyright lawyers wouldn't be, either, although nobody's fired off a cease-and-desist letter yet.

And when you finish up the adventures themselves, you can check out the extras that make this compilation something of a director's-cut version of the original download-only games. Over four hours of audio commentary are included, along with the "Sam & Max Nearly Save Christmas" cartoon short and a bunch of random collectibles such as trailers, outtakes, and concept art. None of this is absolutely essential, and the Christmas short is already available free online, but taken altogether you've got a sizable grab bag of extra goodies for collectors.

The only disappointment in Sam & Max Season Two is that it ends too soon and leaves you wanting more. Each episode can be played through in just a couple of hours, although you would be best advised to drag out the experience and check out everything you can click on for the extra laughs. This series is a great example of how much creativity, intelligence, and humor can still be poured into this classic genre. So, bring on season three.

gamespot

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Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Review

This isn't just a DS version of GTA; this is a fantastic game that advances the series by introducing a number of great new features.

The Good
* Doesn't feel like a compromise compared to other GTA games
* Improves upon previous games with new features
* The massive Liberty City from GTAIV is instantly recognizable
* Intuitive controls make great use of touch screen
* Lengthy story, loads of optional activities, and fun multiplayer modes.

The Bad
* Multiplayer supports only two people
* Camera doesn't always afford you a clear view of action.

At first glance, Chinatown Wars could be mistaken for a return to the Grand Theft Auto series' humble 2D beginnings. The action is viewed from a more or less top-down perspective, and of course you still spend much of your time driving stolen cars and causing trouble with firearms. But the similarities between this superb Nintendo DS game and its '90s progenitors pretty much end there. Chinatown Wars actually has more in common with GTAs III and IV than it does with earlier games, and, remarkably, it even adds to and improves on the formula that made those games so successful. That's a bold statement for sure, but Chinatown Wars really is that good.

Liberty City is almost as impressive on the DS as it is in GTAIV.

Set in the same instantly recognizable Liberty City as GTAIV (minus one island), Chinatown Wars tells the story of a power struggle within the Triad gangs from the perspective of Huang Lee, whose crime-boss father has recently been murdered. Huang flies to Liberty from Hong Kong to avenge his father, and predictably becomes embroiled in the war between those hoping to step into the dead man's shoes. As Huang, you advance the story--which should take you about nine hours to play through--by undertaking missions for a number of different characters within the Triad organization, as well as for one or two people outside of it. Many of these missions involve the usual mix of driving fast, killing people, and not getting caught by the cops, but there are plenty of varied and memorable missions as well, a number of which put the touch screen to great use.

For the most part, Chinatown Wars plays just like any other GTA game, which is an achievement in itself. Basic controls for movement and car-jacking are mapped to the same button positions that they are on other platforms. The uncomplicated on-foot and vehicle controls are largely the same (sprint becomes accelerate, shoot is still shoot), so even those of you with no prior GTA experience should have no trouble picking them up quickly. There are some great options to make the game even more user-friendly as well, such as autotargeting for drive-by shootings and a subtle steering assist that automatically straightens up your vehicle so that it's parallel with the road that you're on. There's even an option to superimpose GPS directions directly onto the street, which works a lot better than having to look down at the map on the bottom screen.

One downside to Chinatown Wars being so uncompromising in its attempt to replicate the GTA experience is that, because the DS has fewer buttons than other systems, you're occasionally required to use the touch screen at inopportune times. It's not a big problem, but despite the fact that it's implemented well, having to use the touch screen to both switch between weapons and to throw projectile weapons such as grenades, Molotov cocktails, and flashbangs is a little unwieldy. It's unfortunate, because elsewhere in the game the touch screen really adds to the experience, with minigames that let you take a more hands-on approach to tasks that otherwise wouldn't be interactive at all. For example, when you attempt to steal a parked car, there's a good chance that you'll have to complete one of three minigames to get it started: rotating a screwdriver in the ignition, entering an immobilizer PIN, or unscrewing a panel on the steering column and hot-wiring. More imaginative touch-screen minigames include making your own Molotov cocktails at the gas station, tattooing gang recruits, searching Dumpsters for weapons and discarded food, and using a salvage boat's sonar to search for drug shipments lost at sea, to name but a few. What all of these minigames have in common is that they're quick, fun, rarely challenging enough to halt your progress, and are mandatory only once.

Story missions are also mandatory only once, but Chinatown Wars is the first game in the series to let you replay any mission that you've beaten previously in an attempt to achieve a higher score or a faster time. Another great addition for missions is the "trip skip" option that, if you choose to retry an eligible mission immediately after failing it, lets you bypass the road trip at the start of the mission and get right back into the action that killed you on your last attempt. None of the missions are so difficult that you should fail them more than once or twice, but this is a welcome feature nonetheless, and one that will hopefully be implemented in other GTA games down the road.

There are dozens of different vehicles, and they all handle differently.

When you're not carrying out missions handed to you by central characters and by random pedestrians that you encounter, there are an impressive number of other things to do in Liberty City, some old, some new. For example, stealing a cop car, an ambulance, a cab (you can hail these by whistling into the mic if you really want to), a fire truck, or a noodle delivery van will give you the option to make some money impersonating those vehicles' rightful owners. And if you successfully steal a delivery van that's being used to transport drugs or weapons and get it back to one of your secluded safe houses, you get to keep its contents. Weapons can be tricky to obtain this way because the Ammu-Nation drivers are invariably well armed. But stealing drugs is far less challenging, and if you get them for free then making a profit is inevitable when you meet with any of the 80 dealers who, once you find them, can be traded with to make relatively easy money. That's provided that there are no police in the immediate vicinity, because they'll either spook the dealer before you can make the deal or wait for you to close it and then move in to make arrests. Interacting with a dealer in any way adds him to your GPS system's database for future reference, so anytime you see a telltale blue dot on your map, it's well worth a quick detour to check it out.

Other things to look out for in Liberty City include parked vehicles that initiate checkpoint races and delivery missions when you climb into them, unique stunt jumps that are set up so that you can crash through billboards, a go-kart race track, and 100 security cameras that can be destroyed using grenades or Molotovs. Chinatown Wars also sees the welcome return of Rampage missions, which are against-the-clock killing sprees that challenge you to kill a certain number of enemies using a specific weapon, sometimes with an AI-controlled henchman or two at your side.

Incidentally, weapons are in plentiful supply, and can be ordered from Ammu-Nation's Web site using your in-game PDA. There are more than 20 different weapons to play with in Chinatown Wars, including everything from fists, flashbangs, and flamethrowers to swords, shotguns, and sniper rifles. Most weapons fall into either the ranged (lock on and hit A), melee (lock on and hit A), or thrown (determine range and direction with touch screen) classes as far as controls go, and all perform their jobs admirably. The sniper rifle is unique in that it comes into play only in specific missions, must be assembled via a touch-screen minigame before use, and turns the entire top screen into a crosshair. Proximity mines that you drop at your feet are also a fun addition to the GTA arsenal, though they remain armed for only a few seconds before they explode without provocation. The most powerful weapons become readily available only toward the end of the game, which is just as well because as soon as you get your hands on a flamethrower or an armful of flashbangs, they make subsequent missions much easier.
With so many readily available weapons, the Liberty City Police Department is an ever-present danger, and they're quick to give chase if they witness you doing anything untoward. Similarly to previous GTA games, a rating of between one and six stars lets you know how badly the police want to get their hands on you. The more trouble you cause the higher your rating, and the higher your rating the more cops will come after you. With a one-star rating, you rarely have more than one or two patrol cars on your case, but by the time you get up to the maximum six stars, you can expect roadblocks, search helicopters, and riot vans.

Traditionally, getting away from the police in a GTA game has involved outrunning them, finding a secluded spot to lay low, or ducking into a Pay 'n Spray auto shop to give your car a makeover. You could fight the police if you really wanted to, but your aggression would generally just anger them more. In Chinatown Wars, you have an additional option that turns the old system on its head to some degree, and the resulting car chases are better than those in any previous game as a result. The new system is simple but immensely satisfying; if you have a three-star wanted rating, destroying three cop cars will knock it down to a two-star rating, and so on. You can destroy the cop cars either by crashing into them at great speed or by racing around and narrowly missing environmental obstacles in the hope that they'll make a mistake and crash themselves. The key thing to remember is that you have to destroy the cop cars without actually killing the cops inside, so stepping out of your vehicle with a rocket launcher isn't the way to play on this occasion.

Wrecking police cars to escape from them makes cop chases more fun than ever.

The in-game camera does a superb job of following you around for the most part, and you can reposition it behind yourself at any time with a quick tap of the left shoulder button, but it seems unavoidable that your view will still be obscured from time to time. There are a lot of tall buildings in some neighborhoods that get in the way when the camera is slow to reposition itself, and good luck if you're involved in a gunfight while surrounded by trees--you won't be able to see much of anything. The verticality of Liberty City's architecture adds to its already impressive sense of scale, but occasionally it gets in the way of the gameplay.

On the subject of gameplay, taking advantage of the local multiplayer support for two people in Chinatown Wars is arguably even more fun than playing through the story. Support for more players or via Wi-Fi would be welcome, of course, but there's a great selection of modes here that are a blast in spite of the low player count. There are races that almost always involve you destroying one another's vehicles or ditching them when you find a faster vehicle, especially if you opt for the Death Race variant and set the default vehicles as tanks. There's a Stash Dash mode in which you rush across the city and fight for the controls of a delivery van, after which you attempt to make deliveries while your opponent does anything they can to stop you. And there's a surprisingly fun one-on-one deathmatch mode called Liberty City Survivor that's action-packed from start to finish because police are watching your every move and are quick to join the fray the moment you give them an excuse to. Defend the Base mode challenges you to work together and prevent a number of targets that are coming under fire from being destroyed for a period of time, and Gang Bang is an objective-based game in which you're each accompanied by a number of henchmen and take turns to attack and defend your respective assets. Gang Bang games can take a long time because the winner not only needs to destroy a series of objectives, but must also plant a bomb that takes several seconds--an eternity when you're unable to defend yourself--to arm. There's a small problem in Gang Bang mode that results in characters sometimes wearing the colors of the opposing team rather than their own, but--like all of the multiplayer modes--it's still a lot of fun if players are evenly matched.

In addition to local multiplayer support, Chinatown Wars offers Wi-Fi functionality that doesn't involve head-to-head gameplay, but is still pretty neat in its own right. After exchanging friend codes with other players, you can send messages to each other in-game, trade weapons and other items, and even exchange GPS locations that you've marked as favorites. If you connect to the Rockstar Social Club, you can also upload your in-game stats to the site's leaderboards and, purportedly, unlock bonus missions that unfortunately were not available for us to check out at the time of this review.

Hot-wiring cars is one of the many minigames you play on the touch screen.

It's hard to imagine anyone with even passing interest in Chinatown Wars not having a great time with it, but what's even more impressive than the open-world gameplay is the quality of its presentation. Technically, no other DS game even comes close to achieving what Chinatown Wars has by squeezing GTAIV's Liberty City onto the system. And that feat is made all the more impressive by the clean, black-outlined art style and staggering level of detail that's evident on every inch of the map. Cutscenes are impressive in a different way; they're not animated or voiced, but the quality of the stylized illustrations is uniformly high, and the series' dark and self-referential humor is evident in practically every line of conversation.

Chinatown Wars' audio also does very little wrong. Five radio stations offer instrumental rock, electronic, dub, hip-hop, and jazz tracks that either complement or serve as perfect counterpoints to the action depending on which you listen to. Furthermore, every item in the city appears to have a believable sound effect associated with it, whether it be the shattering of glass when you destroy a bus stop, the squelch of a pedestrian becoming a roadkill statistic, the satisfying spin of a minigun, or something as mundane as the thud of a traffic cone being displaced.

Perhaps what's most amazing about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is that it doesn't feel like a scaled-down handheld version of a GTA game. Rather, it feels like a logical and somewhat experimental progression for the series, introducing a handful of great new features that seem destined to become standard in future iterations. And don't let the art style or the presence of simple minigames fool you; Chinatown Wars is every bit as deserving of its mature rating as previous games. It's also one of the best GTA games yet.

gamespot

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Resident Evil 5 Review

Resident Evil 5 is a fun and frantic evolution of RE4's breakthrough gameplay and the series' horror themes.

The Good
* Beautifully detailed graphics and character animations
* Having a partner enhances the fun and excitement while adding tension
* Real-time menu system keeps you immersed
* Plenty to do once you've beaten it.

The Bad
* Frustrating hurdles to leap when joining an online game
* Slow, deliberate movement and gunplay may not appeal to everyone
* Can't swap weapons with a human teammate online.

Thirteen years ago, Capcom helped revolutionize the action-adventure world with Resident Evil, a game that would define an entirely new genre dubbed "survival horror." In the years that followed, the series continued to build upon the standards set by the first game, until 2005, when Resident Evil 4 radically departed from its predecessors and broke new ground as a more action-oriented game. Resident Evil 5, the latest offering in the long-running series, expands on the action-heavy formula of its forerunner and is built from the ground up to support cooperative gameplay. Though it can no longer be considered a survival horror game, Resident Evil 5 manages to retain and effectively translate the most important aspect of that genre--tension--into its new mechanics, crafting a fun, collaborative experience that will keep you on your toes the entire time.

Hey Sheva, is there a vet around here? 'Cause these pythons are sick!

Ten years after the destruction of Raccoon City, former S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team member Chris Redfield is an agent of the B.S.A.A. This paramilitary anti-bio-organic weapon organization travels the globe to seek out and destroy Umbrella's creations, which have fallen into the hands of terrorists following the collapse of the multinational pharmaceutical company. When Chris gets a tip that a known weapons dealer will be making a big deal in the remote African nation of Kijuju, he heads there to put a stop to it and learn what he can about the mysterious doomsday project known only as Uroboros. Chris is joined by Sheva Alomar, a local B.S.A.A. agent, and together they battle wave after wave of infected villagers, horribly mutated monsters, and even series archnemesis Albert Wesker.

The core combat mechanics haven't fundamentally changed since Resident Evil 4--the action still unfolds from an over-the-shoulder perspective, certain battles or cutscenes are accompanied by brief quick time events, and you still have to stop moving to fire your weapon (though you gain a bit more mobility thanks to your newfound ability to walk sideways). Resident Evil 5's slow movement and gunplay take some time to get used to, and folks expecting a run-and-gun game may find the action too sluggish for their tastes. Fortunately, this slowness isn't really an issue within the game, because enemies are deliberate with their attacks and are better handled with a cool head and steady aim.

Regardless of how similar the combat in Resident Evil 5 is to its predecessor, the addition of a second character makes encounters feel quite different. Teamwork is necessary to take down more-powerful enemies and bosses, and having someone there to watch your back goes a long way toward keeping you alive. Furthermore, there have been radical changes to the inventory management system. The immersion-breaking briefcase from the previous game is gone, and enemies no longer politely wait for you to rummage through your things because bringing up your armory doesn't pause the action. At any given time, you can store up to nine items per character, four of which are bound to the directions of the D pad for easy access. This new system works extremely well and successfully conveys a sense of urgency whenever you go through your gear. It's often necessary to trade items with your partner, and keeping track of who has what at all times is crucial, because rummaging through your things while a boss beats on you is painful.

It's tough to stay frosty in the sweltering heat, but Chris always manages to keep a cool head.

Sheva's artificial intelligence makes her a competent companion, though her degree of skill seems to rely more on her armaments than anything else--she is extremely good at using burst fire with a machine gun, for example, but tends to waste ammo when equipped with a handgun. That said, at no point does she feel like extra baggage that needs babysitting (unlike some of the series' previous companions), and she can hold her own in a fight. Sheva really shines when there's someone else controlling her. Resident Evil 5 supports both split-screen and online co-op play through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and exploring Kijuju with a friend greatly enhances both the experience and the fun factor. Every game has the potential to go multiplayer, since split-screen is as simple to initiate as hitting Start on a second controller, and other online players can join in on a free-for-all or invite-only basis if your game session is set up to allow this from the get-go.

Despite these conveniences, there are some frustrating hurdles that need to be leaped over before a partner can begin playing. Co-op isn't drop-in, so if someone joins, gameplay is interrupted and immersion is broken to some degree. For split-screen, this means immediately returning to the main inventory screen to confirm armaments and then restarting from the last checkpoint. With online co-op, it's a bit more troublesome, because the player who joined has to sit on the sidelines until the host either restarts from the last checkpoint or continues on to the next. Another major problem is that players' main inventories are isolated from one another, and though you can trade healing items and ammunition, weapons are off-limits for exchange, making some battles more difficult if you're playing with a less-well-equipped partner.

Having a partner around to watch your back is great in case you get grabbed by an enemy.

Resident Evil 5 isn't a survival horror game, but that doesn't mean it hasn't learned a great deal from the genre. Tension is the central element of survival horror games, and in the past it has been conveyed by the gloomy settings, the sense of isolation, and the frustratingly clunky camera angles and controls--all RE5 does differently is convey this feeling through other outlets. Having a partner introduces new types of tension, because you're forced to rely on each other's support, find ways to manage both of your inventories during battles, and cover larger areas since enemies can appear from almost anywhere. Waves of enemies wax and wane with just the right frequency, and while the brightly lit environments make them less scary, they can be tough to deal with because they attack in large numbers and are smarter, faster, and stronger than their counterparts in previous games. Major encounters and boss fights are doled out with excellent pacing, and since you're never sure what to expect around the corner, you have to remain vigilant. The active inventory management system helps keep that anxiety up as well.

RE5 is easily one of the most visually stunning games available, and its huge variety of environments are meticulously detailed in every way. There are lots of large, open areas, and you’ll constantly be on the move through them since there are usually so many enemies. In-game cutscenes are top-notch (though sometimes a bit over the top), and Chris and Sheva are incredibly well animated, especially their faces. Though the dialogue is often full of the series' trademark goofiness, the voice acting is competent, and when paired with the excellent facial expressions, it breathes a great deal of realism into the characters. Likewise, the fantastic orchestral soundtrack heightens the gameplay with everything from the low-key, ambient tracks that play during downtimes, to the frantic, upbeat songs that accompany the massive boss battles.

On the first play-through, Resident Evil 5 lasts about 12 hours, which is considerably shorter than its predecessor. Once you're finished, though, there's still plenty to see and do. There are hidden B.S.A.A. badges scattered throughout most levels to find; you can strive to get better scores or times in each chapter to show off on the online leaderboards; and there are three initial difficulties available with a fourth unlockable. In-game points can be spent on collectible trophies of various characters and enemies, on additional costumes and graphics filters, and on special infinite-ammo versions of guns that you've fully upgraded. Finally, the Mercenaries minigame returns in a format very similar to its last incarnation in Resident Evil 4 but with support for co-op.

Sometimes, you need a bit of teamwork to give your partner a boost.

Resident Evil 5 successfully builds on the foundation of its predecessor while taking it in a drastically different direction. Having a partner introduces new degrees of gameplay depth and dramatic tension that make the game that much more exciting to play. Though the slow, deliberate movement and shooting may not appeal to everyone, this new sequel’s frequent large-scale battles and co-op play still offer a fun and exciting adventure.

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Brutal Legend Hands-On Impressions

We go Hands-On with Double Fine's open-world tribute to metal for the very first time.
Back in March, we took a trip to Double Fine Productions to have a look at the opening sequence...

from Brutal Legend. This hands-off demo gave us an introduction to the basics of combat (kill demons with weapons) and open-world vehicular exploration (kill demons with an awesome hot rod), but it mainly served as an introduction to the story of a rock-obsessed roadie transported to an alternate realm of heavy metal lore. This past week, we returned to Double Fine to get another look at Brutal Legend, but this time, we had an Xbox 360 controller in hand (though you can also expect a PlayStation 3 version). We got to play through this same intro sequence, plus a few brand new missions from later in the game.

Brutal Legend wastes very little time introducing you to the fundamentals of on-foot combat. In the first few moments of the game, you acquire both an axe named The Separator and a guitar named Clementine. Axe attacks are short-ranged melee strikes triggered with the A button, while guitar attacks offer long-distance electrical bursts, which are released by hitting X. As in most brawlers, there's a certain level of timing required with the 1-2-3 rhythm of melee strikes if you want to maximize effectiveness. That's especially true for such combos as the Grand Slam, which is the A, X, A string of button presses that sees you lopping off enemy heads like a baseball player blasting a home run.

In addition to unlocking more combos as time goes on, a few more abilities are available to you for when you're confronted with enemies that are more challenging than the druid grunts you meet early on in the game. One of the most useful abilities we encountered was the earthshaker, which lets you jump into the air by hitting A and X simultaneously, then drop back down with a devastating thud. This will create a ring of destruction in your immediate vicinity that knocks down nearby enemies. For far-off enemies, you can pull the left trigger to lock on to them and hold the X button to fire off a power chord guitar blast in their direction. This is a pretty handy ability, but you need to pay attention to your guitar strings because they'll glow orange and overheat if you overuse this technique. Overall, we liked that balance between the straightforward process of eviscerating nearby enemies and having to still keep an eye out for pesky distant ones who use ranged weapons. On-foot movement could stand to benefit a lot from feeling a bit less rigid, but there's certainly still time to improve that aspect of the game.

The Deuce is a force to be reckoned with when you've got it all upgraded.

The other big part of Brutal Legend is your hot rod, The Deuce. Early on, your basic abilities with the car amount to little more than clicking the left stick for a nitro boost and hitting B to pull a quick 180. It's trial by fire at the outset because you won't have been in it for much more than a couple of minutes before you need to prove your driving skills in a boss battle. You take on a towering wormlike monster that chases you around a large circular field, and the trick is to dodge its devouring attacks so that its tongues get stuck on the ground. If you nitro boost into them a few times while it's trying to break away, you've got one dead boss on your hands. Though it's a fairly simple boss fight, its placement so early in the game makes it a nice little tutorial to your basic move set in The Deuce.

As the game wears on, you'll be able to upgrade your hot rod to make it a much more devastating killing machine. We got to try a later vehicle mission in the game where the goal was to escort a tour bus filled with your buddies from one battle to another, making sure to protect the bus from the various baddies intent to attack it on the road. At this point in the game, The Deuce had been equipped with a Gatling gun, side pipes capable of blasting fire, and a grille designed to slice through enemies caught in its path. The Gatling gun will auto-aim for you, so there's no need to worry about steering and targeting at the same time. But the side pipes are a little trickier, requiring you to drive up next to an enemy and letting out a burst of flames from each side of your car. It's fun and extremely rewarding when you pull it off.

Though it's not a boss-focused game, the ones in Brutal Legend are still pretty scary.

Another new mission we had the opportunity to play was a two-part quest to find the Killmaster (an ironically named medicine man voiced by Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmeister) in order to heal our badly wounded partner. You start by journeying up a treacherous mountain path marked by hair-metal headbangers and stampeding demon bulls, eventually arriving at the Killmaster's hideout. He informs you that the mystical bass guitar he normally uses to heal the wounded doesn't have strings thick enough for these particular injuries, so you need to venture to the lair of the metal spider queen to find the strings he needs. This involves a dungeon crawl into her lair, a boss battle to defeat her, and a race against the clock to make it back to the Killmaster with the new strings--the latter task taking place on a particularly sweet three-wheeled motorcycle.

From what we played, Brutal Legend looks like it should offer a good mix of gameplay variety. Rending enemies limb from limb is a good bit of fun, as are the later driving missions when The Deuce is upgraded to high heaven. The controls and combat are both fairly basic, but that's almost preferable in a game driven so much by its humor and clever storytelling. Expect to see more leading up to Brutal Legend's October release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. And as a final parting gift, metal fans will be happy to hear that four songs from the soundtrack have been confirmed with us by EA: Anthrax's "Metal Thrashing Mad," Black Sabbath's "Symptom of the Universe," Dimmu Borgir's "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse," and Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart."

gamespot

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The Sims 3 Review

The latest Sims game is also the greatest, striking a terrific balance between the fresh and the familiar.

The Good
* Free-to-explore town leads to a sense of community
* Robust, intuitive creation tools
* Charming visuals and audio
* Good balance of sandbox play and specific goals
* Loads of content to keep you busy for months.

The Bad
* Most additional official content costs real money
* Some pathfinding issues.

If you're reading this, there's a very good chance that you've heard about The Sims. It's been difficult to escape the popular franchise's web, what with two full games and a seemingly endless stream of expansions. The first thing you may be asking, then, is whether The Sims 3 is worth playing, or if it's just more of the same. Well, it most certainly is worth it, and yes, in some ways it is more of the same. But in this case, that's a very good thing. For anyone who's played The Sims or its first sequel, this familiarity will let them ease into it, feeling like a welcomed guest rather than an outsider. But this doesn't make The Sims 3 a simple rehash of what's come before. Instead, returning elements have been energized and extended by a number of terrific improvements, such as expanded customization tools, additional tools for interaction with other sims (and other players), and more tangible goals and rewards. Most importantly, the free-to-explore town makes you feel like part of an entire virtual society--a feature approximated but never fully realized in the previous games. By blending together the old and the new, developer Maxis has created the best, most charming game yet in the series.

If you're new to the series, here's a quick primer. The Sims 3 is a virtual life simulator. In it, you take control of a character called a sim, or an entire household of them. Sims have needs; they need to empty their bladders, to eat, to sleep, to bathe, to have fun, to socialize. It's real life boiled down to simple mechanics, but within these mechanics lies an entire universe of possibilities. Your sims can have babies who will cry in the middle of the night, needing their diapers changed. You can manage their personal development by sending them to the gym to work out, or by telling them to fix a broken television, or by having them play chess, or by sending them to the park to play the guitar. Sims go to work to earn simoleans (money, of course) so they can buy better things for their homes and redecorate--or just buy a brand-new home. They make friends and enemies, they go swimming, and they clog up the toilet. In other words, they act a whole lot like real people, except that they yammer in a delightful gibberish called simlish and communicate via speech bubbles that appear over their heads. It all sounds terribly mundane, but balancing the needs of your sims and tending to your digital playmates can keep you happily glued to your monitor for hours at a time.

For experienced Sims players, the laundry list of new features in The Sims 3 is extensive, but the one overhaul that has the biggest impact on the game is how seamlessly you can now move around your virtual town. In previous games, the presence of various neighborhoods led to a disjointed experience, so you rarely felt like you were in a living world. Now, your burb is freely explorable, so traveling to the gym, the art gallery, or your place of work means walking, biking, driving, or taxiing to the location in question without any loading times to break things up. Want your sim to head to the library and read up on the latest mystery? Just zoom out to the city map and select your destination, and your sim will travel there automatically, using the most efficient means of transportation. You might even get the option to invite someone along with you, so you won't have to head to the diner alone if you've got a friend or acquaintance nearby who's available to tag along.

The effect of the open town has a profound influence on the community aspects of The Sims 3. You can call other sims and invite them over using your handy cell phone, but if you're feeling adventurous, just head directly to another sim's house and introduce yourself. Or travel to one of the many public venues: the beach, the park, even the graveyard. In these places, you will have a chance to interact with other sims, and there may even be surprises in store if you happen to be in the right place at the right time. For example, you might be able to join a picnic in progress, or a midnight visit to the cemetery may introduce you to some new see-through pals. The game also provides spontaneous opportunities for your sims to socialize. Other sims will call you on the phone; if you're growing a garden, they may ask you to bring some veggies over in exchange for a few simoleans; or perhaps they'll ask you to repair a broken appliance for them. Either way, these tasks send you out on the town where you'll run into other sims, which gives you a sense of being part of a society that exists outside of your realm of influence.

Those social opportunities often result from the traits that you assign your sims during creation. These social traits are another new feature, and they influence how your sims will behave in certain situations, the careers that they will most likely excel in, the conversation options available, and many other aspects of daily sim life. You can select up to five traits for your sim, and there are a lot to choose from. So if you'd like to re-create your insane, neurotic, kleptomaniac aunt within the game, then you can do that, and those traits in turn will influence various aspects of her virtual life. For example, a sim with the neurotic trait can increase his or her happiness level by compulsively checking the sink and stove, but will also be prone to random freak-outs during moments of stress. Not only will a sim with the neat trait automatically clean almost everything, but his or her fun levels will actually rise in the process.

For the first time, your town feels like a living society.

Of course, when you create a sim, you're choosing more than just personality traits. The physical customization options are far more extensive than before. Sliders let you determine skin color and tweak various facial features, color wheels let you settle on exact clothing hues, and there are a number of accessories, hair styles, and so on to choose from. Although it would be nice to have had even more options in some cases (for example, men's available hair styles seem limited), there's a good chance that you can still create a sim that resembles your kleptomaniac aunt. There's also a good chance that you can outfit her in that crazy polka-dot dress she wears, thanks to the Create a Style feature, which lets you choose from a huge number of patterns (even those used for nonclothing items such as masonry and linoleum) and tweak their colors as you see fit. If you want to put your klepto sim in a beautiful, subtle ball gown, then by all means, go for it. On the other hand, if she prefers swimsuits made of bricks, well, no one's going to judge (except maybe the aunt she's based on).

Getting sims together is usually a guaranteed laugh. As before, you can just sit back and let things happen if you prefer, and the AI does a good job with automated behavior; sims will act in ways remarkably true to the personality that you've established for them. But directing social encounters often yields even more hysterical results, and your sims' traits allow you to direct conversations more easily than before. There's a wider array of conversation topics when meeting up with others, and you'll want to play around with all of them just to see how your friends react. Try jumping into a romantic interest's arms--he may not catch you! Take your weakling sim to the gym and watch what happens on the treadmill; kiss another sim in front of your husband and watch the slaps ensue. Or generate your own masochistic amusement by denying your sims the use of a toilet, or putting them in a room without doors. Watching the expressive animations and listening to the dramatic vocal inflections is always a delight, whether it's your toddler sim chewing on her xylophone mallets or the man of the house throwing a tantrum because there are rotting leftovers in the fridge.

If you're not inclined toward such cruelty, you're better off making your sims happy by being aware of their needs and desires. You'll set a long-term goal as the final step when creating your sim, choosing from five that are generated based on the traits that you assigned. You may want to be surrounded by family, or be a famous musician, or become an international superspy, or be superpopular. Consequently, you'll need to make choices to bring these aspirations to fruition. If your sim wants to be a famous chef, take the right career track when browsing the paper; go to the bookstore and buy cookbooks to increase your cooking skills; and, of course, cook as often as you can to keep the skill bar moving ever upward. You can even take cooking classes to speed up the process, though it will cost you simoleans. But not every goal must be for the long haul; you can elevate a sim's mood and earn happiness points by accomplishing smaller tasks that pop up. Some of these are relatively simple: make the bed! Others are a little more time-consuming: upgrade five appliances! With the points you earn, you can then purchase permanent goodies such as a steel bladder (never need to pee again!), or always throwing the perfect party, or discovering the traits of other sims much more quickly. The system is more rewarding than The Sims 2's aspirations/fears system because it focuses on rewards and eliminates the sometimes-frustrating business of therapists and insanity. Actually, you can turn aging off entirely if you wish, or adjust the length of a sim's lifetime directly in the game options. In any case, the new aspiration mechanics are more about positive reinforcement than avoiding negative consequences, and the game is better for it.

A trip to the bookstore is interrupted by some chatty neighbors.

The Sims 3 balances its rewards well, not just within aspirations, but within career and financial progression as well. Like real people, your sims will always want better stuff, a nicer house, and a prettier yard. You'll start with meager means, but as you progress down your chosen career track, you'll earn more money and work less, giving you more time for the fun stuff. Like before, you won't actually guide your sim through the workday, but you will be able to select something to focus on during the day, such as getting to know your coworkers or pursuing independent research. Doing so earns extra benefits; for example, studying music theory will increase your logic skill, letting you kill two birds (a paycheck and an improved skill) with one stone. You'll also be presented with all sorts of choices along the way. Read a particular book or deliver some documents to city hall to improve your standing with the boss, and you might earn a raise. You might even get an opportunity to change career tracks completely (perhaps the military has had an eye on your scientist). As it happens, these kinds of possibilities aren't just related to your job. Perhaps the local school is having a bake sale; you might be invited to whip up some cookies. Thankfully, managing your basic needs--hunger, bladder, and so on--takes less effort than before, giving you more chances to take advantage of these occasions.

Your coffers will grow, at which point you'll be spending time in Buy and Build modes. The Create a Style concept is at work here too, so you'll be able to customize furniture, appliances, and even window panes if you so desire. For example, you can go so far as to paint almost every brick in the wall pattern if you want to get that in-depth. Better stuff makes for a more automated and happier life, and it also lets aspiring architects and landscapers showcase their creativity. The tools work much the same as before, though the terrain and terrain-painting tools are easier to use than ever, and the most enthusiastic designers can still use cheat codes to manipulate things further (some of which are handily included in the game's readme file). And if you really take pride in your handiwork, The Sims 3's online features are much better integrated than before, though there is still room for growth in this area. From the game launcher, you can upload and download shared content such as sims, outfits, household objects, and so on. This kind of social exchange has always been an important aspect of The Sims, though in light of the tight online integration seen in games such as Spore, there are some missed opportunities here. For example, placing the browser directly in the game client would have made for a more seamless experience. And though the ability to upload movies to The Sims 3 Web site and edit them is a great new feature, you still have to access this feature through your Web browser. The good news is that there are some great items ready to download the moment you register an account online, including an entire town (which is, thankfully, free). However, most official content requires you to spend SimPoints, which cost real money.

That nickel-and-diming points to what is probably The Sims 3's main drawback: Although the game includes a whole lot of content, it still has noticeable holes that the expansions to previous Sims games have already filled. Previous add-ons offered pets to play with, seasonal weather, magical items, and other fun content. None of that is featured in The Sims 3, and certain aspects of the series, such as the events of the standard workday, have gone curiously unexplored. The established pattern of Sims expansion packs make these areas of opportunity all the more apparent, especially when you'd expect a sequel to include most of the popular features of the games that led up to it.

Tired of marshmallows? You could always try roasting grapes!

One of the reasons for the franchise's success is how easy the games are to run on a variety of computers, and The Sims 3 is no exception; it's very scalable, so chances are that if you have a relatively modern PC, you'll probably be able to run the game. The visuals are colorful and crisp, and a noticeable step up from The Sims 2. Sim movements continue to be the highlight of the presentation, and zooming in close is always a fun treat, especially when your sims are engaging in a particularly animated exchange, such as telling a joke. Buildings like the theater and city hall look attractive, and the soft sway of trees and bushes makes the town look pleasantly suburban. Nevertheless, the game's performance does continue some unfortunate trends of Sims games past. Performance is a bit sluggish when you scroll across the town or follow your sim as he or she travels. And though the pathfinding has improved, sims sometimes still have difficulties getting from point A to point B without going through some odd animations or complaining that there's someone in the way. Unsurprisingly, the game sounds absolutely charming. The jaunty tunes that accompany the Build and Buy modes and the tunes that play when you turn on the radio are terrific, perhaps the best in the series. Some sound effects are recycled, but The Sims 3 doesn't feel cheapened as a result; it strikes a chord of familiarity that works to the game's benefit.

So what is it that makes The Sims 3 even more addictive than its predecessors? It's partially due to the deft handling of rewards; it doles out new social options, new aspirations, and the possibility of better furniture and wood flooring at a slow but even pace, which keeps you tied to your computer for hours at a time. It offers the element of surprise, showing off its abundant charms through funny social interactions that make you want to be part of the improved virtual community. Although it could have offered even more right out of the box, there's still an awful lot of content here, and it's bound to put a smile on almost anyone's face.
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