Every so often, Eurogamer run a series of technical comparison reviews for games released on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This is the latest update to the full list.

•   Dragon Age: Origins
•   FIFA 10 
•   Guitar Hero 5
•   PES 2010: Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
•   The Beatles: Rock Band

Eurogamer has posted it’s hands-on article with Crackdown 2.

For those not in the know, Crackdown was released on the 360 back in early 2007. Many people picked this game up purely to get early access to the Halo 3 beta. Of course, I was still oblivious to the Halo hype at this time I’d played the first game on PC, and enjoyed it, but wasn’t really that enthused about Halo at the time (We’ll gloss over the fact that I bought a 360 just in time for Halo 3’s release…). I picked up Crackdown for the bargain price of 20 notes at the beginning of 2008, and was certainly not disappointed.

At E3 2009, Crackdown 2 was announced, developed by Ruffian Games. I’m really looking forward to it, especially with the addition of 4 player co-op (as opposed to the original’s 2 player co-op).

Crackdown 2 is slated for release in 2010.

Enslaved may be published by Namco Bandai rather than Sony, and may be on Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3, but Ninja Theory’s latest still has a lot in common with its PS3 exclusive, Heavenly Sword – Gollum Serkis is returning to wax lyrical in his own inimitable, rubber-faced way, and there’s the familiar promise of a vast, cinematic story brought to life by a convincing cast of characters. One of the lead characters, Trip, also bears a striking resemblance to Nariko. But there is, of course, plenty that separates the two. Enslaved tells the tale of two characters, most notably, and there’s Alex Garland, him of The Beach fame, writing the story, with gameplay built around the unlikely duo of Monkey (Serkis) and Trip working together, against one of their wills, in a post-apocalyptic world of killer robots.

With the game due out next year, there are still a lot of unanswered questions, so we tracked down Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades to find out more.

Eurogamer: How did Enslaved come about?

Tameem Antoniades: I liked the relationship between Kai and Nariko in Heavenly Sword, and many people mailed us telling us how very deeply they were moved by their story. They talked about them as if they were real people or old friends. So beyond fear, anger and sadness, how much further could we push player empathy? Can you feel all the kinds of feelings you would do in a real relationship? Protection, disappointment, comfort, derision and so on?

About two years ago, I read Journey to the West while I was researching the Wuxia genre for Heavenly Sword. It’s an epic, breathtaking fantasy on par with Lord of the Rings in my opinion. I really like the character setup with Monkey’s master, Tripitaka, being completely vulnerable yet having complete power over him. So this became the basis of Enslaved, which is only loosely based on this epic novel.

However, we didn’t want to do another Wuxia-themed game. I knew that sci-fi was an area a lot of people in the studio were interested in. What if we replace the demons with near-future military machines and the magic with technology? Everyone in the studio dug it so we went full steam ahead on that basis and, after a few close shaves, Namco Bandai signed it up and we were in business.

Eurogamer: What was it like changing from a PS3-exclusive studio to a multiformat one?

Tameem Antoniades: We have an intimate low-level knowledge of hardware and this goes way back to Kung Fu Chaos, which was an Xbox exclusive. So we are applying this knowledge in the areas that will make our games shine for all platforms: combat, facial technology, audio and animation.

When you are exclusive, sometimes the pressure to demonstrate technology can override other aspects of game development. Being involved in one side of a format war as if it’s the machines that make great games can also be draining. You get a lot of attention as an exclusive developer which is great, but on the flip-side there was a lot of anti-Sony feeling going on which I felt was unfairly being directed at our team.

Our focus is now on building as compelling a game as we can and I am more comfortable with that.

Eurogamer: Are there any online plans for the game?

Tameem Antoniades: Enslaved is meant to be a story-driven, single-player experience so we do not have plans for online multiplayer type functionality in the game. However, we do have plans for DLC, which we’ll be discussing more in the future.

Eurogamer: Monkey and Trip start on a slave ship. Will they spend much time there or is the escape out of our hands and the story already begun?

Tameem Antoniades: Without giving away too much, you start the game trapped in an egg-shaped cell on the slave ship. Trip is another prisoner in there. She escapes and, in doing so, shorts the entire ship, freeing Monkey. It also causes the ship to lose power and crash through the skyscrapers in New York City. You get to play through this whole sequence.

Eurogamer: What does your post-apocalyptic picture look like?

Tameem Antoniades: We projected forward to a time of peace. Our future is colourful, bright and beautiful. There are no more wars simply because there are not enough people left to fight them. In the 100+ years after humanity has been all but wiped out, nature has reclaimed the cities. The desolation and beauty is captured in Nitin Sawhney’s unique musical vision.

In a sense, this is a post-post-apocalyptic setting. In this world, only around 50,000 people are still alive in the North American continent and these numbers are heading towards extinction.

Humanity is represented by small pockets of communities trying to eke out a viable existence or lone feral survivalists existing in the wilds. Trip comes from the former and Monkey is one of the latter. When they meet, worlds collide. Monkey and Trip were born long after the apocalypse and can only guess at the purpose of the derelict artifacts they see around them.

The age of man has been replaced by the age of drones: autonomous, hunting, killing machines left behind from forgotten wars, asleep for decades until activated by the few remaining survivors. This scenario is partly based on the current landmine problem. Landmines currently maim or kill 10,000 people every year long after the wars that spawned them. In places like Afghanistan, where I originally come from, millions of colourful “butterfly” landmines dropped by the Soviet forces continue to maim and kill children who mistake them for toys.

Today we are witnessing the advent of drone warfare, the rise of despot nuclear nations and the possibilities of large-scale casualties in bio-terrorism. In the comfort of our privileged western world, post-apocalypse equates to fantasy. In places like Afghanistan, people are living day-to-day in a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Eurogamer: Can you talk a little about how the story is structured? It’s a linear quest, presumably?

Tameem Antoniades: By linear you mean focused, right? Joking aside, linear is often reserved as a derogatory term for games that offer limited interactivity. Ours is a story-driven action-adventure with a bit of a road-movie vibe that requires brains as well as muscle. It’s far more tactical than your average adventure game as you have to protect Trip in order to survive.

There are often many ways to approach a particular situation involving combat, clambering, puzzle-solving and making use of Trip’s hacking and reconnaissance skills. Overall it will be a tough game to play on the brains and brawn front. Hopefully, you won’t feel that this is limiting when you are playing it!

Eurogamer: Will there be any kind of upgrade system or experience-based ability tree or anything along those lines for Monkey?

Tameem Antoniades: The simple answer is yes to all of those things but we haven’t locked all of that down yet. The idea is that Trip comes from a community of people who scavenge technology and so you can ask her to upgrade equipment for you throughout the game.

Eurogamer: How are Monkey and Trip going to complement each other over the course of the game?

Tameem Antoniades: At the beginning they really don’t. She’s scared and wants to go home but is not equipped to survive outside of her own community. So she reprograms a slave-headband from the slave ship and puts it on Monkey while he is unconscious. With it she can control him through pain or even kill him. She doesn’t do it out of malice but because she knows that he is the one person who can help her get home.

Monkey is able to survive and has done so all his life. He has a multi-function telescopic staff with which he battles and an energy shield to help protect himself, albeit temporarily. He fights rough and ready, like a raging beast. His skin bears the scars of searing hot metal from the countless battles he has had with the machines. Even so, every battle is a test of strength. Go up against one or two robots and you may take some damage but survive. Go up against three or four and you are probably going to lose.

That’s why you are encouraged to exploit enemies and use their weapons against them. So you can do things like rip off a gun-scout’s machinegun and take out a dozen enemies with it, or turn an enemy into a ticking time bomb and throw him into a crowd of others. That is part of what makes the combat become tactical.

Trip comes in with her own set of skills, none of which involve fighting. She’s much more of the brains and is technologically savvy. She can cause distractions to decoy robots and turrets. She appropriates a flying CCTV camera, called a DragonFly, and reprograms it to scan for enemy positions and weaknesses. She can hack machinery that still has some residual power.

Together, you are stronger than apart and you slowly learn to trust and depend on each other. When in a new area, Trip will typically scan the area with the DragonFly. You will see the enemy positions. Should you go in fighting? Should you risk clambering over that one robot and take him out first as he is the weakest of the lot? Should you ask Trip to draw gunfire and put her at risk while you flank the enemies? Will Monkey and Trip ever see the value in each other’s worldviews?

Eurogamer: It sounds like it might work well in co-op. Would it? Does it?

Tameem Antoniades: Actually it’s not really. Monkey does all the really cool robot-dismemberment with all the grease, gristle and sweat associated and he can clamber the environment with great agility. Trip cannot do any of those things and though she is crucial in helping Monkey, who’d want to play Trip?

Eurogamer: I’m glad to see that Gollum’s back! What’s Andy responsible for this time around, and do you have a nickname for him yet? He’s practically part of the furniture.

Tameem Antoniades: Andy plays Monkey, and was also instrumental in casting, character development and was co-director with me on the shoot. We really enjoyed working together on Heavenly Sword and had a lot of fun on Enslaved. This time around, Andy and I co-directed the shoot in LA over four weeks with the wonderfully talented actress Lindsey Shaw playing Trip.

Just to be clear and fair to their involvement, our actors are not voice-acting but full performance-acting. We use performance capture where we capture every part of the body, face and voice for multiple actors playing off each other. Though technically and logistically challenging, I believe this is the best way to create characters and dialogue that feels honest and believable.

Eurogamer: Is Trip really Nariko? She must be related, at least!

Tameem Antoniades: I don’t really know what goes on in [visual art director] Alex Taini’s head. He likes redheads and so when we asked him to make Nariko hot, he gave her the longest, reddest hair anyone has ever seen! Trip… well, we asked him to make her hot, but not too hot. Red hair returns, this time shorter. Sigh. He defends this by saying it’s a different shade of red.

Eurogamer: Is there a supporting cast for us to meet and interact with?

Tameem Antoniades: It’s much more of a personal journey between Monkey and Trip, so while other characters come into play, there is not a large ensemble cast. While we were shooting Heavenly Sword, we really had no idea if we could successfully translate nuanced expression into the game. It turns out we could, and far better than I imagined possible.

When Alex Garland became involved, it was clear that we would be tackling darker, more nuanced themes and that has become our new challenge: to be able to read the intent and emotion of characters not by what they say but by what their face and eyes tell you.

Eurogamer: What lessons did you learn from Heavenly Sword, and how has that helped you?

Tameem Antoniades: We were hugely ambitious on Heavenly Sword. Perhaps a little naïve in our ambition but that is something to celebrate and encourage, not regret. We had no precedent or barometer to judge what a next-gen game should be.

We wanted to create the most beautiful environments seen in a game, to create real drama using acting talent, to go from the smallest detail of facial expression to scenes where you can fight 3000 people on-screen. To create the most complex combat system seen and the first one that happens in a physics-based world. And build an entire engine and toolset from scratch on a hardware platform that was, at the time, still unfinished.

We didn’t hit the mark on everything, but we broke new ground in many areas and I am proud of the work that was done as it defines who we are now and what we do as a studio.

Eurogamer: You set an outstanding example of dramatic and cinematic storytelling in Heavenly Sword, but does carrying that reputation ever feel like a burden?

Tameem Antoniades: It’s a joy and a privilege to be creating stories, characters and worlds. On Heavenly Sword I believed that drama was an important companion to gameplay and one of the most common questions we encountered was “Why bother?” Isn’t it all about gameplay after all?

I think as human beings we respond to pattern-matching which feeds the head, and stories which feed the soul. Games have been hugely successful at providing pattern-matching challenges but not so great at storytelling. We are getting better at stories but how often are you deeply moved by a game? The rare times it does happen, that game becomes unforgettable, something that shapes you as a human being in the same way that great music, books and films can.

For the types of games we do at Ninja, there should be no gameplay/story divide. They are not competing forces. If you manage to find a synthesis between the two, you are creating something magical and that surely is worth pursuing. That so many talented people are involved in the day-to-day grind in capturing that elusive goal is breathtaking to me.

eurogamer.net

Every so often, Eurogamer run a series of technical comparison reviews for games released on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This is the latest update to the full list.

•   Assassin’s Creed II

There are tons of games expos out there, and all the big mags and websites will already have reviewed the pre-release games, so there’s no point in me doing that. But what I will do is give people an idea of what it’s like to go to an expo. Here’s a description based on my experience of Eurogamer 2009 in London.

Well, you go in and get given a wristband which the door people insist absolutely MUST be put on properly. They have one person to give it to you, one more to help you put it on and then another who will check your wrist to make sure their two colleagues have done their job properly.

Once you wriggle past the door people, you’re greeted with the sight of televisions. Lots of televisions, each one connected to a console, each console containing a game, each game being played by one a the punters.

People who go to expos are an interesting bunch. It’s like a dog show: they’re all dogs, but you can easily see that there are different breeds. You have the people who just kind of wandered in because they have nothing better to do, the techies who want to check out the latest in game design and technology, the people who just want to play all of the pre-release games as fast as possible and the people and those who only went to play one game. These ones simply annoy the ones who want to play on all the games because they don’t give anyone else a go. Then you have the casual gamers who just wander around and who annoy the serious gamers who think the casual gamers aren’t serious enough and so have no right to take up floor-space. You’ll see guys who dragged their reluctant girlfriends along, looking enviously at the guys who have girlfriends who actually want to be there. Finally,  there are the people who paid £6 just to go in say that all the games are shit.

Floating around playing new games is fine, but as they’re  just about to be released, it’s not really a look into the future. For that, check out  a developer talk. At Eurogamer 2009, we saw a demonstration of Brink (looks awesome, by the way) while being told about the new ideas and technology within, plus we had the opportunity to put some questions to the man in charge. Again, different breeds made themselves known. A technology buff asked what software is being used for whatnot, and a Jeremy Paxman wannabe asked why this game was different from all the others. He must have been thinking about something else during the demo, which answered his question at length before he asked it.

Games expos are great places to go if you have no job. In this time of recession and unemployment, game developers literally line up to offer people places on their teams. They have little tables in cubicles so you can have a proper chat about career prospects. This is a fantastic thing.

Another thing which makes them a destination for the unemployed is the prospect of free clothes. In exchange for prostituting yourself as a walking billboard, you can have a free t-shirt with a half-decent thread-count. You may even get two shirts. And some sweets.

Every so often, Eurogamer run a series of technical comparison reviews for games released on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This is the latest update to the full list.

•   Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Completely forgot my Eurogamer coverage was sitting in my drafts sections, whilst it was up on XboxLiveaddicts it was sat gathering dust here!

Anyway, Eurogamer coverage of Split/Second, Avatar, Assassins Creed II and many more is up for your reading pleasure.

As well as that, the reviews of Wet, Sam and Max Season 2 and Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 are live and ready for you.

Much more to come before Christmas including reviews of Operation Flashpoint, Guitar Hero Greatest Hits, COD 1 and GTA’s Ballad of Gay Tony.

As well as that, expect photos from Eurogamer 09 to appear including the Inside Xbox video featured on the event, details on the Xtival competitions Im hosting near the end of this month and of course our Borderlands competition.

WHY GAME REVIEWS SUCK
An exercise in hypocrisy.

Everybody, everybody, roll on up for the hot new game everyone is talking about: Dragon Age: Origins! 8.5/10 GAMESPOT! 8.4/10 IGN! 8/10 EUROGAMER! Wow, these guys must be really unified in their opinions!

Hold on a second, that last one can’t be right…

If you click through to the Eurogamer review of Dragon Age, you’ll find 3 pages of seething disgust for the game and everything it stands for. Every aspect of the game is ripped apart, piece by piece, good points brought up only to emphasise the horrible ones. The game is called cliché, bland, and overdone, only succeeding in spite of itself. The storyline? An emotionless mess, designed by a committee in such a way as to suck any heart out of it whatsoever. And so, the shell-shocked reader turns to the final page to gaze upon the final nail-in-the-coffin judgement score on this game that the reviewer has so mercilessly torn down, to find that he’s given it:

8/10.

What the hell.

It’s nothing new. Every single game that isn’t either a shining pearl of brilliance or a steaming crud-pile of mediocrity gets an 8. I’m not talking about Eurogamer here: I’m talking about everyone. They cover it up well, I’ll admit: 8.5, 8.9, 8.3- there’s a marvellous range and flavour of eights. That doesn’t change the fact that 8 IS NOT A BAD SCORE. I recall a scandal a while ago over some hapless reviewer giving GTA4 an 8, to the outrage of all. That this was considered a bad score shows the truth: 8 is the average, given to everyone.

God knows why we listen to game reviews, or why we pay so much attention to it all. Because they’re shit. Game reviews seem to have perfected the art of telling you everything about a game while leaving you without the slightest idea of whether you want to buy it or not. We wade through pages of talk on the games mechanics, sound design and graphics in a hopeless search for the bit where they tell us whether it was good or not. Even upon reaching the score, that beacon of hope that should instantly tell us everything in a stroke, we find the game has gotten an 8. Only another 8.

Why are game reviews so vague, muddy, and shit? Allow me to provide an answer:

If you go up to a man on the street and ask him about a game, he will give you his opinion. If he happened to be a huge fan of Gutsplatter 3X, he’ll say so, and probably go on to gush enthusiastically about the high-tech gut-splattering effects, or the total immersion in a living, breathing, gut-splattering world. If he hated it, he’ll go ahead and say that, and then attack the over-emphasis on gut-splattering sidequests or the lacklustre gut-splattering soundtrack.

If you go up to that same man, however, and give him a games journalist badge and a laptop and tell him to write a REVIEW of a game, that will then go on to be published on a professional game-reviewing website, then he will suddenly become very unsure of his feelings towards Gutsplatter 3X. When it comes to a review, he can’t give his personal OPINION- he has to give a sage, unbiased, objective judgement of every aspect of a game. He might have hated it- but can he really, truly say it was a bad game, when he thinks about it?

When you try and be objective about your opinion, madness ensues. Madness like putting decimal points in game scores, as if you can calculate how good a game is to the nearest percent. Madness like trying to judge how every single person who plays the game would judge it. Madness like never rating a game below 8.

Give us the old five stars, for gods sake! Scores aren’t meant to show precisely how good a game is so you can stack it on a chart, they’re meant to give you a rough idea- go for the fives, avoid the ones!

Give us your damn opinion, for gods sake! Put a disclaimer saying “YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE MAY VARY” if you have to, but just tell us what YOU thought of the game, not what you think we will think of it. Doing that just confuses everyone.

And if you didn’t like a game, for the love of god, give it a bad score. If a game is bad, give it a 4 or something, not an 8. If a game really is great, give it a 10- what are you saving 10’s for anyway, some mythical perfect game that will descend at the apocalypse?

I think part of the problem here is perhaps that we all seem to take reviews as gospel, unshakable truths that pronounce whether a game is good or bad like the judgement of god. We care about these things so much! If a reviewer gives a game we like a bad score, we’ll clog up the comments section raging at him! Why? Why do we care? It’s just his opinion.

So, everybody, don’t go online to find out whether or not to buy a game. Go to your friends- to someone you know in real life, who’s played the game- and ask them about it. They may be biased, inaccurate, un-objective, and exaggerate like all hell- but that’s what an opinion is. And that’s something you won’t get from Gamespot.

COMING UP SOON: A review of fallout 2!

Jack – The Machination, Creative Director, Badass

This year’s London Game Career Fair/ Eurogamer was held at the Old Billingsgate Market. As part of the career fair, there were Bafta group sessions held by people currently working in the games industry. I went to a session with 4 other aspiring games artists / modellers and we talked to someone who was familiar with getting into this field. The session lasted around 15 minutes and then it was back to playing new games!

If you, like me have been waiting patiently for Star Trek Online to arrive, which it now seems will happen on February 2ed if all the internet chatter is to be believed,  [Cryptic has stated that this is not the "official" release date but it will be announced very soon]  then like me. you have a million questions that need to be answered by the good folks at Cryptic. Massively those guys who specialize in all things massive have heard us and will hold a series of Q&A’s over the next couple of weeks to hopefully bring some clarity to our restless souls concerning what should be ‘will be’ the most awesome MMO ever seen. Each week will feature a round of questions submitted by YOU on that week’s topic. This weeks topic: SHIPS  unfortunately the deadline for submissions on SHIPS was Friday November 6 at 12 P.M. Pacific Time. I don’t type as fast as I used to.  BUT there is always next week were YOU can make suggestions on what that topic will be. Just follow this link to Massively for further details

1.7 εκατομμύρια views μέσα σε 24 ώρες στο Youtube για το Assassin’s Creed: Lineage | Game 2.0 blog

Την στιγμή που όλες οι προβλέψεις αναφέρουν ότι το λανσάρισμα του Modern Warfare 2 θα ξεπεράσει σε τζίρο τους πάντες και τα πάντα, μία ακόμα είδηση έρχεται να αποδείξει ότι το gaming είναι πλέον η ανώτερη και πιο διαδεδομένη μορφή ψυχαγωγίας.

 

Η Ubisoft ανακοίνωσε ότι το πρώτο επεισόδιο της σειράς ταινιών μικρού μήκους Assassin’s Creed: Lineage έφτασε τα 1.7 εκατομμύρια views στο Youtube κατά τις πρώτες 24 ώρες διάθεσής του, σπάζοντας διάφορα ρεκόρ αριθμού θεατών, σχολίων κλπ.[next]

Every so often, Eurogamer run a series of technical comparison reviews for games released on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This is the latest update to the full list.

•   Borderlands

Link

For those who love its, it’s a hell of a lot more of what Tekken makes Tekken, whilst still not crying out to my want for a more fast paced Tekken without the strain of learning the 350 million button combos it comes to a relief when the game has great visuals packed with just more of what makes it good, and of course, better than the last!

After a little more time with the game, I learned that Tekkens single player has taken a leaf from Dead Or Alives A.I. difficulty book and your enemies will definitely carry some heavy blows before you walk away from a match…IF you walk away.

As well as that, I got some hands on time with the new Campaign Scenario mode, similar to the Tekken Force mode featured first in Tekken, sadly the graphics in the game seem to have stayed the same since the campaigns first appearance with a lot of 2D backgrounds and objects, along with characters and general combat is rather confusing when it comes to things like just locking onto enemies and trying to beat the living crap out of them.

Eurogamer Tekken 6 Footage 1

Eurogamer Tekken 6 Footage 2

Eurogamer Tekken 6 Footage 3

Link

It was a hidden gem back at E3 with some insane and fantastic trailers released after, but Split/Second stole the show for me at Eurogamer this weekend.

The games over the top out look on an action packed racing game based around a television show, the beautiful visuals throughout, whether it be the sun glare on your car to the piercing explosions from the towers above, Split/Second has a new way of focusing on racing, this takes track deformation to the limits and the possibilities are infinite when it comes to a unique racing experience each and every time you race.

In the session I had with the developers we discovered some pretty impressive points about the sound in the game and of course the history of Black Rock Studios (Pure/MotoGP) as well as a sneak peak at a new racetrack which looks awesome. Keep everything peeled for Split/Second features coming soon on Xboxliveaddicts!

Click here to see my youtube video of the live footage!

See the first trailer here

Link

After spending a little bit of time on AO2 The 40th Day the game has had a total revamp.

With everything that made AO2 great, but more, more, more! With new features, more moves and tactic plays the game gets a whole lot more interesting following the two on their new campaigns, which I might add, there are more of than AO2!

Not interested yet? What about when I say the Region Lock was removed, there will be a horde like mode co-op online along with other game times, and the ability to build your weapons I quote ‘like lego bricks’ with around 5 million combinations! Not quite as close and Borderlands 40 mil, but you know there gonna look sick when you get that gold plating!

Link

Surprisingly, Avatar was a shock. After hearing the general synopsis about the upcoming film, I couldn’t say I was excited for it, fairies, imps and magical creatures are all good in some cases but not all, and it didn’t appeal.

Until I found my self watching a live demo of Avatar The Game. Set two years before, the game seems to generalise the colonisation of the planet and making it more habitable for others.

For us. This means taming, restricting and generally shoot the hell out of any creatures or life forms that have a problem with it in a Lost Planet esc style of game play.

When I tested the game myself however, I found I was able to test on a new prototype of Television supporting a ‘3D mode’ allowing (with the aid of the newest set of 3D glasses you find in cinemas) meaning the game ‘pops’ out, just like they would in the movies and just like the pictures do back in the ol ‘red and blue shades’ days. This, makes the game look great. For those who aren’t wearing the shades it’s a blurry unfocused mess, but for those donning the glasses are given the treat of seeing our character and nearby objects, in this case, foliage come to live and pop out from the screen. Whilst your eyes got used to it, it still didn’t change the fact whilst riding a Hoverjet craft like vehicle the back end of it felt like it was right in my face!

The game itself is a smooth and impressive piece of work. With not only creatures, and beasts varying of size and species (including imps/navis) you’ll also have to fend off some of the environment, certain plants are little too dangerous and will have to deal with the end of your weapon more than once. Weapons are upgradeable and customisable to allow you to have your perfect arsenal, mine included a standard rifle, a rocket/grenade launcher, pistols and a flame thrower. Which I later found out (whilst waving my flamethrower around like a loon) by the dev that the game had the same style engine as Far Cry 2, meaning fires will spread across the jungle like areas and continue to burn for some time. I turned, to see a third of the area I was in was engulfed in flames, and made a hasty exit!

Whilst not supported by online co-op the game features plenty of multiplayer and of course the great single player. Avatar will be available in both 2D and 3D very soon!

Link

Now, not being a massive fan in Saw, the story still peaks my interest at some points and a game based on Jigsaw? Well, its gotta have its good parts right?

In the brief time I had with the game, I was given the impression that Saw plays similarly to say Silent Hill Homecoming, and has plenty of references to the films and tricky puzzles you really have to use your head with.

Word of warning, the game, like the films does not shy away from the gore, DEFINITELY not one for the faint hearted, and its so nasty I’m not even allowed to write what I got up to in that game!

Link

Saturday morning I managed to plonk myself down and get a good bit of time in on Ubisofts Assassins Creed II. The game immediately shows promise with things like a much more speedier ability to ascend and manage obstacles and even the ability to swim! Raaay! After getting a little back into the rhythm of how the controls worked with changing from combat to free roam I was quickly back into assassinating rooftop guardians and take the fight to the streets with an insane amount of guards. With that, I discovered a the new disarm ability in which I’d take their weapon and be able to use it against them, and also a quick look at a new health item which can be used to knock up your health after a nasty fight or a bit of a dodgy ‘leap of faith’ whilst giving all that free running a go!

I also learned by a little slip that things as Desmond may get a little hairy as he has the ability to attack now, which means you wont be spending much time in that same old room anymore, woohoo!

Hopefully, as long as the game steers clear from the repetitive game play ACII will do even better than its predecessor.

What a weekend!

After attending both days of the London leg of Eurogamer Expo 09 Im A. Totally knackered. and B. Looking forward to tons of new games on thier way very shortly!

I got my hands on tons of new games to come soon and even replayed a few old ones, but the events been great fun. Met new people. Had a good laugh with some of the staff, and even met the boss in the flesh. Got to speak to a few devs and Im also aware of the effects of Sambuca on an empty stomach. (Nothing gross dont worry!)

Ill be using this post as a link hub to all the features I write up for Eurogamer, as well as a link to the video featuring me on Inside Xbox! Thats right, myself and Corporal Kitty had a bit of a chin wag with SuperKaylo on the Friday, so keep an eye out for more stuff to come!

Previews:

Army of Two: The 40th Day

Assassins Creed II

Avatar/3D Games

Lost Planet 2

Plain Sight

SAW

Split/Second

Tekken 6

Pictures/Vids and more to come!

Eurogamer 2009

Here’s a link to the article I put together for SGR: Eurogamer 2009 Roundup. Also, here’s a link to the special edition podcast Colin and I put together over a couple of beers (just kidding, it was a cup of tea each) after we got back from the Expo- we were all the happier for the shiny Left 4 Dead 2 T-shirts we had just acquired!

Here’s what we talked about:

Listen and enjoy! Leave a comment if you’ve got a question.

The thumbsticks.net and o35s.net crew(Rinky Dinky Dan, The Daddy, Chinny, Rickster and Adrockski) hang out and check some games at the EuroGamer Expo in London.

With the STO beta about a week old and the demo making the rounds thought various cons first at MCM which ran Oct 24/25 in London where we got a review from ROCK, PAPER SHOTGUM and now the demo is at EUROGAMER EXPO London which started yesterday and concludes today. MCM was more of an entertainment expo with a game element were as EUROGAMER EXPO is exactly what the name says all games all the time. The industries heavy hitters are here and among the games making their UK debuts will be Aliens vs Predator, Assassin’s Creed II, God of War III, Mass Effect 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Red Steel 2, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Left 4 Dead 2 and more. Rupert Loman, managing director of Eurogamer had said prior to the event                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         “It’s been nine months in planning but we’re now only a few days from opening the doors to Eurogamer Expo 2009,”  and  “Judging by the number of emails and calls we’re getting since London sold out, we could have sold twice as many tickets as we made available. This bodes very well for our plans for next year.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Gamers began queuing three hours ahead of the expo’s opening, keen to play upcoming games from publishers including EA, Ubisoft and Capcom. Over 4000 gamers are expected through the doors of the two-day London event and a lot of those gamers will be looking for Star Trek Online like Josh Fall who’d travelled from Bristol for the event and was the first person on the floor                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           “I’m looking forward to all of the games to be honest,” he said, “but particularly Star Trek Online.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Eurogamer also did a review of the game and gave some good details of the game mechanics but then thats what they do as a bussines is reviewing games and this one has me being optimistic about game issues like movement during battle which could be a game breaker if it isn’t done right. In an interview with TENTONHANNER Craig Zinkievich also answered a question I have been wondering about                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    “Will STO have separate servers, or will it be one massive universe?”
“at launch it’s going to be one shard, one universe. Bruce Rogers, our CTO, has done a fantastic job of architecting a system that allows us to have that one shard, one universe,’      Basicly the same as Champions                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Eurogamer’s review and the TENTONHAMMER Q&A with Craig are both worth reading as they actually shed some light on the game and it all sounds very good

Hello and welcome to the first – and, due to motivational standards in relativity to production, maybe the only – instalment of my new WordPress blog which I plan to update at least once a week. The idea of weekly updates on general progress in my artistic side of life comes from a good friend, Mr. Kane Garbett-Roberts (who you may know by the online pseudonym of Rakien Roffo) who recently decided to do that with his own blog. I assure you it’s not the first time I’ve jumped on a bandwagon, but it just seems too good an idea to pass up and, hey, I might actually find something worth writing about in the coming weeks.

As for those of you unfamiliar with who I am, my name is Jack Watkins and I am an amateur writer, designer, artist, student and general ideas man striving to find some kind of future in a world filled with such uncertainty over the availability of jobs, residency and, at the end of the day, cash. Not to say that’s all I feel this world is good for – I am a big supporter of independent development movements in all forms of media as well as left-wing political movements that preach for better general equality in the current economic climate… I think that’s summed me up well.

Casting formalities aside, it’s time to get down to it: today I was fortunate enough to attend my first world-renowned gaming convention with Kane (who’s own account of the awesome day out you can read here) and hosted by the brilliant fellas over at Eurogamer. Needless to say, it was armed to the teeth with AAA titles and I’d put money on that nobody left unsatisfied in some way or another, whether it be from the rather.. voluptuous marketing efforts or the amazing gorefest that was the 18+ section.

And as for the games? Well, I didn’t get to play any of them, per sé, and as I’m not a passive reviewer/critic, it doesn’t really help as I couldn’t dedicated enough time to get a hands-on impression of anything – including the expo-exclusive multiplayer demo showcase for Left4Dead 2, which, for some reason, wasn’t included in the pre-order exclusive demo; Borderlands, which I.. also didn’t get to play; and Brink, which.. well, I’m kinda bound by the awesomeness that is Splash Damage’s Paul Wedgwood not to spill a single bean on what’s going on with that brilliant IP this far into their initial production.

General layout of the expo was a little confusing at first with the basement not really being that well signposted, as with stairs. Stewards were often nowhere to be seen, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you were, say, trying to sneak into one of the 18+ only zones? When I needed to ask them questions, however, me and my band of gaming comrades had to trawl back through thick crowds of roused, hunchbacked hardcore gamers, knee deep in murky pools of profusely-expired excitement and entertainment-induced pleasure to the front desk and back out. You get the picture. A little more direction and the expo would have been flawless, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t abso-frickin’-lutely love it!

As for the marketing – specifically those oh-so-sultry techniques used by the people’s persons over at Bethesda Softworks and nVidia – just… wow. Aforementioned voluptuous young women in tight clothes with bright-coloured, eye-catching logos dwarfed by their– well, you know what I mean. I could go on and on about how genius this method is, but I fear I might fall victim to some kind of anti-enjoyment squad. The point of this little paragraph is that if you want often-neckbearded, romantically-deficit, adolescent gamers of the male persuasion to buy whatever you’re pushing, however crazily overpriced or overhyped, follow that one simple rule: stick to boobvertising. It’s the future, you know.

That’s all from me!
Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen. Same time next week… maybe?

Maestro Zaffers

For those interested, these are the titles that I saw in relative detail and I’m open to questions on how any of them play should you really be so crazy as to ask me – though I assure you, I came, I saw, and I liked it.

Left4Dead 2; Valve (though presented by – you guessed it – EA)
WET; Bethesda Softworks
Alien vs Predator; presented by Sega, developed by Rebellion Developments

…and that’s just the ones I can remember. (tbu)