Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Hands-On

Although it sounds like a totally bizarre pairing, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (known as Gundam: Musou in Japan) is arguably one of the most engaging Gundam games to hit the States in a good, long while. The game was released late last year for the PlayStation 3 in Japan and has since been slated to hit the US with an Xbox 360 version added to the mix. Namco Bandai had a localized version of the PlayStation 3 game on display at their recent press event to show off the upcoming game. While the playable game wasn't quite final, the game offered a sample of what to expect from the US version.
Fans of Gundam will spot some familiar faces.
The game offers three modes, official, original, and versus, that let you play as familiar faces from the Gundam universe. The official mode lets you take part in adventures from Gundam lore, while the original mode offers the chance to play against faces from the various Gundam story arcs. Finally, the versus mode lets you compete against a friend. Given the Gundam franchise's long history, the modes offer a wealth of characters and mobile suits. The official mode offers a total of six pilots to play through, while the original mode features more than 12 pilots. As far as the powerful mobile suits go, you'll find more than 15 to choose from. The catch, of course, is that you'll have to unlock a good chunk of the pilots and mobile suits as you play through the various modes.
Though the game features the basic action gameplay seen in the Dynasty Warriors games, you'll find some RPG-lite elements as well. Pilots will gain personal skills, which are unique abilities they can use in battle to boost their offense or defense. In addition, you'll come across parts as you destroy enemies. The parts can be used to buff up one of four attributes on your suit--fight, shoot, defense, and armor--when equipped. Fight affects your melee attacks, shoot affects your ranged attacks, defense reduces the damage you take from attacks, and armor increases the number of hit points your suit has. You can further enhance your mobile suit by pairing up specific parts with in-game mechanics that add additional bonus to the buff you gain from them. You'll have ample opportunity to get used to the various systems in the game thanks to a lengthy list of missions across both modes.
As the title suggests, this is Dynasty Warriors with Gundams.
The visuals and audio in the game are solid, though not as gratuitously flashy as many of the PlayStation 3 titles that have hit. The various mobile suits sport a clean look. The environments follow the same aesthetic and offer a solid amount of detail across the land- and air-based locales. The special effects used for the various mobile-suit super attacks offer some kick to the visuals. Audio in the game is coming along nicely, with extensive English voice-overs already implemented. However, purists can choose to play through the game with Japanese voice and English text if they want to keep it real. The music in the game is solid and mixes original and familiar tunes to frame the action.
While it may still sound a bit insane, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is a surprisingly fun and addictive game thanks to its accessible gameplay. Though the beat-'em-up action may not be the most stunningly innovative thing you've ever seen, the fact remains that beating the crap out of mobs of enemies is not without its charms. The same holds true of giant robots. Add the two together, and you have a game that's fun and worth a try. Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is slated to ship this summer for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Look for more on the game in the coming weeks.

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is a simple collection of brain teasers that are different enough from the other minigame collections on the Wii to make

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree takes the same basic structure as the first Big Brain game, which appeared on the DS just over a year ago. It's essentially a sequel to the original game because it doesn't duplicate the games found on the DS, but instead replaces them with a collection of new brain-teasing minigames. While this brings the number of minigame collections on the Wii to just under 8 billion, Big Brain Academy is different enough from the average WarioWare or Mario Party-style collection to find its own niche on the platform that players of the first game should find enjoyable.
Though the formula that determines your brain weight is never expressly revealed, it is determined by your speed and your accuracy.
The whole game takes place under the guise of making your brain bigger and heavier, which is, of course, completely ridiculous. Unlike its counterpart, Brain Age, Big Brain makes no wordy claim about actually improving your mind. There's also no sketchy-looking science on the back of the box, attempting to legitimize the whole thing. Big Brain Academy just lets you play minigames in random sequences and gives you a score at the end based on your performance. You can compare these scores with other players locally, and you can also send them over to your online friends so they can compare their scores with your scores.
The different games are broken up into groups named after the sort of brain training they're having you do, such as compute or identify. Each game is very simple to understand, as they intuitively use the pointing and clicking features of the Wii Remote. The Wii speaker is used both for encouragement and, in one neat minigame, as a phone. In that minigame, you must listen to customers ordering food and then duplicate their order on the screen. However, most of the minigames are more basic than that, such as one where a series of number-bearing balloons appear, and you have to pop them in order from lowest to highest. Another shows you four pictures and asks you to choose the pictures that fit different criteria. For example, if the game merely says "wings," you might find yourself clicking on a photo of a duck and an airplane, but not a gorilla or a swimmer. Right off the bat, the practice modes in the game let you go to town on 15 different games, but the other modes mix in games that don't appear in the practice menu, giving you a reason to skip around and try everything out.
The main mode in the game is the test mode, where you play 10 rounds of each category. Your skills translate into an overall score, a letter grade, and a descriptive phrase that is meant to tell you your brain type. These are usually goofy descriptions, such as "improv actor." There's also a group mode that you can actually play alone, but it can include up to eight players in some cases. There's one direct head-to-head mode, where two players race to finish a set of questions first, though the rest involve passing the controller to get more than two players playing, which is kind of lame. A proper four-player simultaneous mode might have been nice, but ultimately, you're best off playing the game alone and then comparing your scores with other players.
Getting online and sharing your scores with other players is a nice idea, though a proper online leaderboard might have been better.
Visually, Big Brain Academy has a basic but functional look to it. It's never flashy, but it also has a very clean and direct look, which fits with the school-like tone of the game. The Mii system is integrated into the game, so things like your student record book will have your Mii face on it. The audio is good as well. A fair amount of speech comes out of the Wii speaker, but most of it is just encouragement from a female voice that eggs you on as you play. The music and sound effects are also catchy and pleasant.
While fans of the Wii's other minigame compilations might find Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree a little more stripped down than the rest, the game stands apart by simply offering different types of slightly more thought-intensive minigames. It's not rocket science, but if you're after something slightly headier than the Mario Party-style of waving the Wii Remote around like a lunatic while mashing the A button as hard as you possibly can, you'll probably enjoy your time with Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree.

Half-Life 2: The Orange Box Hands-On - Episode Two and Team Fortress 2

When Half-Life 2: The Orange Box ships later this year, it promises to deliver an impressively wide range of gameplay. First, there's Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the second part of the trilogy follow-up to 2004's blockbuster Half-Life 2. (The Orange Box will also include Half-Life 2 as well as Episode One to get newcomers up to speed.) Next is Team Fortress 2, the stylized, team-based multiplayer action game that's been in development off and on over the past decade. Finally, The Orange Box will also include Portal, the innovative first-person action puzzle game. While we've had a chance to play Portal, we hadn't seen Episode Two or Team Fortress 2 in action. Well, things have changed, and we got some hands-on time with both for our first impressions on the games.
First, let's cover Episode Two. The middle part of any trilogy tends to be the most challenging to make, since it has to serve as a bridge between the beginning and the end. The challenge is to make sure that the middle episode has its own energy and narrative, and Valve has thought this out. As programmer and project lead David Speyrer and designer Gautam Babbar explained to us, Episode Two is all about variety and throwing new challenges and experiences at the player. There will also be significant story revelations, as you'll finally learn more about the mysterious G-Man who's been dogging you since the original Half-Life, as well as those mysterious Combine advisors who have appeared only on video screens thus far. And yes, a main character will die.
You get a muscle car in Episode Two, and Alyx is riding shotgun.
An early scene in the episode has you (playing as Gordon) waking up in the middle of a train wreck, trapped inside one of the cars. Thankfully, your companion and ally Alyx Vance is outside and is able to free you with use of the trusty gravity gun, which is able to manipulate and throw around large, physical objects. As soon as you emerge from the wreckage, you realize that you're no longer in City 17, the setting of Half-Life 2 and Episode One. Instead, you're surrounded by wilderness and forest--specifically, the White Forest. With City 17 and its Citadel destroyed, a giant dimensional portal has begun to form over the ruins of the city. That portal links to the Combine's alien home, and if it opens, the Combine will rush reinforcements to Earth, dooming humanity. Thankfully, one of the things that Alyx stole from the Citadel in Episode One are important Combine portal codes--but to be useful they must be delivered to the scientists, led by Dr. Eli Vance and the new character, Dr. Magnusson, in their secret lab. And to do that, you've got to get through the White Forest with Combine forces in pursuit.
Episode Two is one, big high-speed chase, and it promises to be epic. We got to play through different sections of the episode, and there's going to be a lot to see. For instance, early on you'll travel through the underground tunnel network used by the antlions, those vicious alien insects from Half-Life 2. There are new species of antlions to encounter, such as workers that spit toxic venom at you. This underground also sports some of the new graphical enhancements made to the Source engine, such as bioluminescent shaders that make the antlions glow in the dark. The caverns themselves look spectacular, with glistening rock walls and deep pools of water, which are useful since antlions apparently can't swim.
What's the deal with the G-Man? We'll find out in Episode Two.
Next up was a dash through an antlion-infested valley alongside Alyx and one of the new vortigaunt allies introduced in the episode. The vortigaunts were one of the alien opponents in the original Half-Life, but in Half-Life 2 they became friends. This battle was pretty large-scale, with a seemingly endless stream of antlions rushing Gordon and his allies. The good news is that those giant Combine thumpers, designed to keep antlions away, are scattered throughout the valley, and it's possible to resupply at crates found next to them. There are also plenty of explosive barrels scattered about, and they can be picked up and thrown using the gravity gun. This sequence ended, though, with a queen antlion appearing, and she didn't look too happy.
Valve then introduced us to the muscle car, the key new vehicle in Episode Two. The muscle car was developed in response to the sense that the buggy from Half-Life 2 was underpowered. The same can't be said of the muscle car, which has wicked turbo acceleration as well as a meaty engine noise. Even better, Alyx can and will ride shotgun from the passenger seat, as well as provide commentary on your driving skills. The sequences that we saw were similar to the vehicle sequences in Half-Life 2, as you'll follow a fairly linear path, though it's mainly off-road this time. The most intense driving sequence involved a breakneck pursuit by Combine forces, including a helicopter. You'll run over a lot of zombies and hit a lot of jumps during this sequence.
Beware the powerful new hunters.
The action in Episode Two is about two parts combat and one part puzzle-solving, as you usually have to figure out a way to navigate through the level. This can involve using the gravity gun to manipulate electrical cables to get current to a radio, or figuring out how to use the environment against opponents. A good example of the latter involves the hunter, which is one of the new enemies introduced in Episode Two and one of the toughest we've seen in a Half-Life game. The hunter is a Combine synth, so it's in the same family as the dreaded strider. And in many ways, the hunter is like a strider, only much smaller so it can chase you indoors. Like striders, hunters can absorb massive amounts of damage, which makes them difficult to take down. Meanwhile, they're armed with explosive plasma darts that can knock down your health and armor in a hurry. Even worse, hunters have a nasty habit of charging at you like a bull, and if they hit you they'll deal a lot of damage and send you hurling through the air--which is more proof that Valve is having fun with physics. A single hunter is tough enough, but we encountered them in packs, which makes them a lot tougher. The most brutal encounter we saw involved a Combine ambush of Gordon and Alyx, with multiple hunters backed up by a squad of Combine soldiers. You'll have to hole up inside a large house (that's thankfully stocked with those helpful resupply crates) and will have to survive the onslaught. One hint: Hunters don't deal well with being knocked around, so put that gravity gun to use and grab things that are large and made of metal.
Episode Two comes off as challenging, which is good considering you've probably gotten used to waxing those pushover Combine soldiers by now. We're also impressed by how good the episode looks. Valve continues to enhance the Source engine, adding better high dynamic range lighting, support for multicore processors, a revamped particle system, large-scale cinematic physics, and more. The good news is that it is also longer than Episode One, as the designers said that their play-tests showed six to eight hours of gameplay, as compared to four to six hours for Episode One. And Episode Two is just one part of the Orange Box package. Next, we'll go over Team Fortress 2.

NHL 08 First Look

There's little denying that the sport of hockey is in flux these days. Televised games here in the US have had some of their worst ratings in years, while the league is considering expanding into such questionable territories as Las Vegas and Kansas City. Perhaps oddest of all, the NHL Finals ended up last week with the Stanley Cup in the hands of the Anaheim (formerly Mighty) Ducks. While the future of the sport is uncertain, isn't it nice that the state of hockey video games is as strong as it's ever been? Last year, EA Sports turned heads with its next-generation console debut of its long-running NHL series, NHL 07. This game did more than look great, thanks to an innovative analog shot stick, and it also played well. The next version of the game, NHL 08, is on its way later this year, and we recently had a chance to see how it's coming along.
Two defenders? No problem. Improved manual deke controls will help you slip your way through traffic.
With such noticeable changes to the series last season, the overarching goal for NHL 08 seems to be refining the new-look controls and adding depth to the overall experience. A big part of that refinement will be in improved skating controls, which look to add more variety and depth to how you move your players around the ice. As producers readily admitted when showing off a work-in-progress build of NHL 08, one of the difficulties in playing last year's game was on the defensive side. Keeping close to offensive skater or better yet, really laying into him with a good, stiff check was difficult because you didn't have enough control over the defensive skater. If those producers are to be believed, that won't be the case in NHL 08, thanks to some new controls that help you decide how a skater carves up the ice.
Being able to distinguish between carved turns (where a skater digs in and turns on a dime) and crossover turns (a wider arc that has a skater crossing his skates over one another) is one of the biggest improvements made to the skating model. You'll be able to choose what kind of turn you want in NHL 08, depending on how you move the analog stick that controls your skater. Turning in the traditional manner--moving the stick left or right--will result in a standard carved turn, which is a sharper, quicker turn but one that requires a lot of momentum. However, rolling the analog stick along the outside edge will cause the skater to perform a crossover turn; a quicker, wider turn. Though we didn't get a chance to try out the game for ourselves, it seems like the implementation of the two turns is seamless, so that you can break from a wider, crossover turn into a quick carved turn at any moment. Skating speed will also play into the mix because how far you push up on the analog stick will determine how fast you skate, giving you that much more control over how your skater moves along the ice.
The direction and speed of skating is just part of the story; puck handling, which changed dramatically in NHL 07 with the innovative skill stick, looks to improve in NHL 08 as well. This time, you'll be able to make the defender look silly as you deke around him with deft moves all controlled with the skill stick and the left button modifier. You can also tap the puck into space or through a defender's legs before scooting past (complete with some excellent player avoidance animations) before opening up for a shot on the net.
The new skating and skill stick moves seem have to been developed, at least partially, with NHL 08's online game in mind. As producers said, online play in NHL 07 had a tendency to be frustrating because the player could deke around the goalie using the skill stick, but it wasn't really possible to do the same thing against a regular defender on the ice; all the defender had to do was switch to the closet player and lay you out with a check. While you could only deke with the puck in one of three directions (left, right, or behind) in NHL 07, that number has expanded to 10 in NHL 08. With this wider variety of angles, improved deke moves, and those slick animations, you'll be able to unleash your inner Sidney Crosby with a flick of the analog stick.
Checking in NHL 08 will be more momentum-based than in previous versions of the NHL series. Collisions in NHL 07 were ported directly from the old-generation versions of the game, so that when a player was hit and went to his knees, he'd still more or less stay frozen at the point of contact. With the new collision system in NHL 08, the momentum of both players will factor in, so that a checked player might slide out of the play; thus, opening up a lane for the player dealing out the punishment.
The new skating engine will differentiate between carved and crossover turns.
Shooting has also gotten a facelift. This time around, the game will depend more on user skill than ever before. As with a golf shot in Tiger Woods PGA Tour, you'll be more accurate in NHL 08 if you make the analog stick shot straighter. If you move the stick at an angle, it will cause your accuracy to drop and the puck to go wide of its target.
Of course, these are just the first details to come for NHL 08. The production team behind the game is promising more information on the improvements to the artificial intelligence (though they did say both offensive and defensive AI have gotten a lot of attention this year), the new practice drill minigames that have been designed to help your individual or team-play skills on the ice, and improvements to the dynasty mode. The game's graphics are looking typically sharp, with lots of player-specific visual idiosyncrasies (Jaromir Jagr's "snazzy" tucked-in jersey look? Yep, it's in there) that should keep the diehard NHL set happy. If you couple that detail with a 60 frames per second frame rate, you've got another visually solid game on the way. We'll be bringing you more on NHL 08 in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Call of Juarez

We know about the genre known as the spaghetti western, but is there such a thing as a pierogi western? There is now, thanks to Polish developer Techland's Call of Juarez. An Old West-themed first-person shooter, Call of Juarez fits snugly into the solid little niche that games like Gun and Red Dead Revolver have already taken up residence in. The game is similarly hard-boiled and filled with gunslinging, horseback riding, train robbery, and all the other staples of the western genre that you might have already gotten your fill of. Still, for as few risks as Call of Juarez takes across the board, it's a well-made genre exercise that's more often entertaining than not.
Never has a game so realistically rendered a Sunday sermon as Call of Juarez does.
The game puts you into the boots of two distinct characters. Billy Candle is a half-white, half-Mexican drifter of sorts who had been on the hunt for the legendary Lost Gold of Juarez, a treasure trove of gold buried somewhere within the titular town. Unable to find it, Billy decides to come home to the town of Hope to visit his mother and stepfather--only to find them murdered upon his arrival. The other character is Reverend Ray, Billy's step-uncle and the town preacher. Ray's a reformed gunslinger now dedicated to spreading the Lord's word, but when he hears of the ruckus going on at his brother's farm and arrives to see a panicked Billy running away from the bloody corpses of his brother and sister-in-law, Ray vows vengeance, and begins tracking his step-nephew until he can satisfy it.
The dynamic of having two playable characters would be more interesting if there weren't such a distinct separation of quality between them. The more entertaining of the two, both in story and gameplay, is easily Ray. Voiced by an actor who seems to be equally channeling Sam Elliott and the creepy priest from Poltergeist II, Ray's sequences are filled with enough amazing, self-righteous bible quoting immediately followed by heavy amounts of murdering that you almost wish they'd gotten Samuel L. Jackson for this role. Heck, Ray's even got what we'll affectionately refer to as a "bible button." One of the weapons he can hold is a bible, and if you press the fire button while he's holding it, he'll start reading random passages to any nearby enemies, who will then stop for a second to listen, at which point you can shoot them in their stupid faces. That's either genius or awful--or possibly both.
Apart from using the gospel as a weapon, you spend most of your time as him running around, shooting various hombres, rustlers, outlaws, and other unsavory individuals. His primary weapon is a pair of six-shooters, which he can actually use to bust into a slow-motion "concentration mode" when he draws them from their holsters. Doing this gives you a pair of targeting reticles you can guide toward any nearby enemies and then unload upon them. Ray also gets to engage in some straight-up gun duels against other gunslinging baddies. These are essentially the bulk of the game's boss fights, though they're very quick. In these fights, a counter ticks down, and when you get to the end, you quickly pull back and then press forward on the right control stick to draw. Once you do, your reticle pops up and the scene goes into slow motion again, though the reticle is a little off-kilter, as you did draw rather quickly. It's up to you to aim and shoot before the other guy offs you. You can't call these sequences brilliant, or even especially original (Red Dead Revolver had some similar mechanics), but they're fun all the same.
Less fun and generally more irritating are Billy's sequences. Billy can fire the occasional pistol, and even exclusively use both a bow and arrow and a whip, but nearly all of the scenarios he finds himself in revolve more around bad first-person platforming and overlong stealth sequences than any form of real action. The stealth stuff isn't bad, exactly. Billy can find shadowy or otherwise dark areas to hide in, as well as use bushes and boxes to hide behind, and that all works pretty much as advertised. The issue is that all the stealth bits take way, way too long. Waiting for your enemies to slowly wander through their patrols so you can move from shrub to shrub is about as fun as it sounds. In a few cases you can run and gun it if you want, but you're rarely ever properly armed for these types of situations, and as you are without uncle Ray's concentration ability, Billy just isn't quite as useful for gunfights. So instead, you're stuck spending 15 minutes just trying to navigate one camp full of bandits.
Less tolerable are the bouts of climbing and swinging. First-person platforming has never been a good idea, yet for some reason developers keep trotting it out in these sorts of games. It doesn't work here, either. Billy can climb up short ledges, use his whip to grab onto branches and other elongated protrusions, and then swing from one ledge to the next. The main problem here is perspective--when you're jumping around in the first-person, it's sometimes difficult to gauge the distance of jumps, so you end up trial-and-erroring it until you get just the right amount of distance. The whip-swinging thing seems neat at first, but it can be tough to get the right amount of swing momentum to hit certain ledges. Again, it's a trial-and-error process to figure out how much you need to climb up the whip to get the proper angle. And like the stealth bits, these scenes are just overly protracted. There's one obnoxious fetch quest in the middle of the game where you have to climb up a giant mountain for nearly a half-hour (counting time needed to die and start over), just to grab an eagle feather for some cranky old Indian, only to have to spend another several minutes jumping your way down. Creating a degree of separation between the two playable characters wasn't a bad idea, but this was perhaps not the ideal way to go about it.
Gun duels are neat, though also very short and relatively easy in most cases.
Horseback riding pops up now and again for both characters, and it's an enjoyable distraction from the usual trudging around that you do. Controlling the horse is initially a bit of a pain, but once you get used to it, it's both a quick way to get places and a fun way to engage in combat. There are a couple of scenes where you'll find yourself blasting away at other bandits on horseback. Aiming while on a horse is tough, but that makes sense.
Once you've bested Call of Juarez's 8-to-10-hour campaign, there are some other options to mess with. There's a series of extra, non-story-related missions to take on, a bunch of gun duels to play around with, and multiplayer for both system link and Xbox Live. The multiplayer is pretty typical class-based FPS style action. You can play as either a rifleman, a gunslinger, a sniper, or a miner, and there is a variety of modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, VIP, and so on. There's also a mode that lists off several "historical events," such as the shootout at the O.K. Corral, but these are basically just fancy names for something like a team deathmatch mode in a vaguely O.K. Corral-themed map.
The multiplayer isn't remarkable, but it can be fun. The four classes are reasonably well balanced, and there are enough different modes to keep the action interesting for a while. It helps that the game isn't kneecapped by bad weapons, as some historical FPSs tend to be in the multiplayer arena. All the weapons pack a nice punch, though each class is only assigned a pair of specific weapons, a primary and a secondary. There are no weapon pickups on the various maps. Though our time with the multiplayer was solid, we did run into some occasional connection issues, including a couple of crashes that forced us to reboot the game.
In terms of presentation, Call of Juarez is all over the map, especially as far as graphics go. Environments are definitely the high point. As you wander around the game, you'll see tons of attractive Old West scenery, from mountain vistas to desert plains. It's great-looking stuff that's made better by some nice lighting effects and solid texture work (save for a few occasional ugly spots). On the other side of the coin are the character models. The people you encounter all have that sort of Doom 3 overly shiny thing going on, and they even look a bit mutated to boot. Animations tend to be stiff, clipping issues pop up quite often, and any time you catch a glimpse of what your own character model is doing, either in a reflection or a shadow, or just by looking down, you'd think you were controlling an animatronic robot from some ghost town tourist trap. Still, the problems are mostly outweighed by the positives, and the game as a whole looks good.
Be prepared to stare at a lot of shrubbery while playing as Billy.
Audio is less scattershot. Apart from some great sound effects and a soundtrack that nicely captures the atmosphere of the era, the game has mostly solid, if slightly hammy voice acting for nearly all the characters. Billy is the only one who didn't fare very well, as the actor who plays him sound like he's in as big a rush as possible to get out of the recording booth, but pretty much everyone else is on their game and delivers an entertaining performance.
As ham-fisted and generic as Call of Juarez can be at times, it does enough right to transcend its various issues and turn in a pleasing shooter. It does the Old West motif well, the gunslinging (and bible slinging) are a lot of fun, and the capable multiplayer modes have enough going for them to give the game a bit of staying power. It doesn't quite rise past the ceiling established by other recent western shooters, but it's good, solid fun all around.

Brothers in Arms DS Hands-On

Scheduled to arrive in stores this month, Brothers in Arms DS is a third-person shooter where you'll assume the role of an American paratrooper during World War II. Specifically, you'll be joining the "Screaming Eagles" 101st Airborne Division and battling through three distinct campaigns. These campaigns will be set in the villages of Normandy, the Tunisian desert, and the icy plains of the Ardennes. We recently had an opportunity to play through all six of the Normandy missions. We're pleased to report that we came away from the campaign not only unscathed, but also mighty impressed with what we've seen of Ubisoft and Gameloft's efforts thus far.
Brothers in Arms DS doesn't feature a tutorial as such, but the first mission in Normandy does a great job of familiarizing you with the uncomplicated controls via instructions from the soldiers that you're fighting alongside. You use the D pad for movement and the left shoulder button for weapon firing. But if you're left handed, you can choose to use the face buttons and the right shoulder button instead. Taking cover behind objects is as easy as positioning yourself close to them, and you can subsequently lean around corners or climb over sandbag walls with a minimum of fuss. All of the other controls are elegantly handled using the stylus and the touch screen, which is no mean feat given how many actions you can perform. Moving your stylus around the touch screen lets you look around the environment. When appropriate, you can target enemies with your equipped weapon or steer your vehicle left and right. One button on the touch screen lets you perform context-sensitive actions, such as planting explosives, getting into vehicles, and taking control of gun turrets. Activating zoom mode, which lets you target enemies more easily while you're stationary, is achieved via a second onscreen button. You can reload your current weapon at any time simply by dragging an ammo clip icon from the top of the screen into the center. Touching the picture of your current weapon will call up a dropdown menu of your entire arsenal when you need to switch. It's also easy to throw grenades quickly and accurately by moving the stylus from a picture of a grenade along a strength gauge.
Unlike many squad-based shooters, Brothers in Arms DS sees you assuming the role of someone other than the leader, so to stay alive and complete your objectives, you'll be expected to follow orders rather than give them. Most of those orders will simply be to take up a specific position or to focus on certain targets. But occasionally, you'll be instructed to do something a little more creative, such as using your sniper rifle to shoot at explosive oil drums as enemy vehicles pass by when there's no bazooka available. Waypoints and items that you need to collect are invariably highlighted on the screen after you're told about them. But if they're not in your field of vision, arrows indicating where you need to go will appear on the edge of the screen. We still managed to unwittingly ignore our orders on several occasions while playing. Although we got away with it once or twice, most of our mistakes and attempts to explore proved fatal. Fortunately, Brothers in Arms DS automatically saves your progress quite regularly, so being killed in action or failing to complete a mission-critical objective doesn't mean you have to start from the beginning again.
The missions that we've played through thus far have offered plenty of variety in their objectives. We've provided cover fire for colleagues with a sniper rifle, we've planted explosives on German rockets, and we've raced past enemy forces at the wheel of a four-wheel-drive vehicle. We've also gone toe-to-track with Panzer tanks and blown them up by tossing grenades into their gunner hatches. In one particularly memorable sequence, we were at the controls of a tank attempting to disable an enemy train. But we learned the hard way that the enemy soldiers--whose actions appear to be tightly scripted for the most part--are able to employ the same tactic. Like many modern shooters, Brothers in Arms DS employs a system that lets you replenish your health gradually simply by avoiding enemy fire for a period of time; but of course, the same isn't true for vehicles.
You'll spend most of your time on foot, but driving sequences offer a nice change of pace.
At the end of each mission, you'll be awarded a "fame" score based on various aspects of your performance, including mission time, accuracy, deaths, and kills. You'll also earn medals for special achievements, such as making it through a mission sustaining only minimal damage and killing a certain number of enemies with headshots or using your sniper rifle. Completing missions on the default "normal" difficulty setting unlocks the same missions on veteran difficulty and having beaten a couple of missions on that setting, we can report that an elite option is also unlockable. Approaching the end of the Normandy campaign unlocks the first mission in Tunisia, so it seems reasonable to assume that playing through most of Tunisia will unlock the Ardennes campaign.
We almost managed it, but it's impossible to write about Brothers in Arms DS without mentioning how good the game looks and sounds, even in its unfinished state. Minor camera issues aside, and given the DS's limitations, it's tough to find fault with the visuals. The audio is also noteworthy, with decent speech samples, satisfying gunfire, and a suitably agonizing ringing in your ears anytime you get a little too close to an explosion.
In addition to the single-player campaign that we checked out on this occasion, Brothers in Arms DS will feature deathmatch and team deathmatch support for up to four players. We look forward to bringing you more information on multiplayer support and other gameplay features as soon as it becomes available.

Heavenly Sword Update--Rope Walkin' and Butt Kickin'

It's been an age since we last heard a peep about Heavenly Sword. The UK-developed game made a splash when it was shown running on the PlayStation 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo two years ago, and it continued to impress us at last year's Tokyo Game Show. Things have been pretty quiet since then, though, with a recent appearance on NBC's Heroes being the only sighting of heroine Nariko's exploits. Sony and developer Ninja Theory finally showed off more of the game at a recent press event, which featured a dedicated presentation and a new playable demo. Though the presentation and demo were brief, the game still managed to show very well and leave us wanting more.
During the presentation, Ninja Theory cofounder Nina Kristensen brought the assembled press up to date on how the game's development was going. Though much attention is focused on the game's wicked cinematic combat, Kristensen spent a bit of time highlighting the game's story, which follows the fiery-haired Nariko on her very personal journey of revenge and redemption. The game's intro will apparently begin with Nariko's death, while the proper game will follow the recently deceased lass as she attempts to change her past to safeguard her future. Yes, Star Trek and Doctor Who fans, we know that's totally not cool, but Nariko's pretty driven, and she's got one heck of magic sword, so it's not like anyone's going to question her. To sell Nariko's story, Ninja Theory has hooked up with none other than Andy Serkis--yes, that's the Andy Serkis of Gollum and King Kong fame, to direct and star in the game's cinematics by serving as the motion-capture model at WETA Digital.
As far as gameplay goes, combat looks to be the heart of Heavenly Sword's action. Standard melee combat is mixed with more twitch-based controller input, but it's not necessarily a button masher. Melee combatants can also choose to mix up their means of attack by switching to different stances. You'll be able to shift to ranged, speed, or power stances, each with their own benefits and drawbacks, to find the best way to defeat foes. If you're fast, you can trigger a super attack that's cinematic and devastating. One thing to note is that you'll also find areas to interact with using the X button that will trigger twitch-based sequences, which require you to hit specific button or D pad presses to progress through them,
The controls are laid out nicely on the Sixaxis controller. You'll move with the left analog stick and evade attacks by using the right stick. Square is your default attack, while you can also use triangle in combos or to counter. Circle triggers your super attack as well as lets you drop an object. The X button lets you pick up, use, fire, and throw objects. The top shoulder buttons let you switch to Nariko's range stance when you hold L1, while holding the R1 button lets you change to a power stance. When neither one of the stance-modifier buttons is held, you'll default to the speed stance. All three of the stances figure in to the combos you can perform and are key to victory. Thankfully, the game's already solid controls make that possible.
Even though you can kick butt, you'll still get plenty of trouble thrown your way. Thanks to the troubled state of the world, you'll bump into many a surly foe who Ninja Theory is hoping will be asking you for a whupping from Nariko. Fortunately, this is something she can do, with style. Whether you're facing a single foe, a boss, or a combination of the two, Heavenly Sword is on its way to capturing the satisfaction of Kratos' hook blades from the God of War series.
The visuals in the game are shaping up well and still impress since the last time we saw them in motion. Animation is still rough in places, but the game certainly knows how to make a spectacle of itself. The two set pieces for the action sequences offered two eye-catching locales. The large rock pillars that you fought on offered a stunning vista, thanks to the game's draw distance. At the same time, the battle arena you're dropped into was just the opposite and had you fighting in a claustrophobic area with a good degree of interactive objects. Enemies were plentiful and died nicely.
The audio in the game was a little tough to make out in the din of the demo kiosks, but what we heard seemed to be on the right path. The music blended what sounded like a proper cinematic score with some interesting uses of silence, thanks to what will be a reactive score that reflects your performance. The sharp sound effects in the game are very prevalent when Nariko is kicking much butt with the sword, and they're mostly excellent already. The voice acting seemed to be OK, albeit a work in progress.
Based on what we played, Heavenly Sword still has quite a bit of promise. Though the comparisons between God of War are inevitable at this point, the game's combat system could be a key area of differentiation between the two games. The three different styles, the combo system, and the style actions are in the same spirit as the most excellent testosterone-fueled franchise but may wind up making the game it's own beast entirely, which would be grand. But even if the game winds up being "goddess of war," there are worse ways to kick off a potential series. At the moment, we're anxious to see what it evolves into as its fall release nears. Look for more on Heavenly Sword in the months to come.

SOCOM: Confrontation First Look

You knew it was coming. Sony's SOCOM online shooters have quietly remained among the most enduring franchises on the PlayStation 2, as well as one of the most popular reasons to suffer that system's disagreeable online sign-up process. What better way to bolster the PlayStation 3's cachet with the competitive online multiplayer crowd than with a new PlayStation 3-only edition of everyone's favorite Navy SEAL-oriented shooter series? Indeed, Sony has just taken the wraps off of SOCOM: Confrontation, the first game in the franchise for the PS3, and you might be surprised at the direction Sony and development newcomer, Vancouver-based Slant Six, are taking with the title.
We won't beat around the bush: Confrontation is going to be a downloadable game, just like the forthcoming Warhawk. But this new SOCOM will also be released on a Blu-ray disc in a traditional retail package. Sony isn't saying yet what that means for the scope of Confrontation's gameplay and content. They're also not saying if the two releases will happen simultaneously, but at least they've confirmed the game is being aimed at a "holiday" release window. We do know the game will lack a single-player component--it's also like Warhawk in that it's made for online play only.
The demo we got to see of Confrontation was said to be the result of only four to five months' worth of development, in which case it's looking pretty impressive. The trailer was set in a decidedly Middle Eastern town and featured what looked like American special forces doing battle with local militia garbed in ski masks and nondescript fatigues (think the terrorist characters in Counter-Strike). The action looked like what we've come to expect from SOCOM, with both sides running through the streets to take cover behind cars and in doorways, taking up strategic firing positions on balconies and rooftops, and trading fire with assault rifles and the occasional rocket-propelled grenade. Though the trailer looked to be using all in-game footage, little of it was actual gameplay, so we can't comment on what specifically will be new about the nuts-and-bolts gameplay in Confrontation.
Sony is saving the big reveal of SOCOM's gameplay specifics for this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo--when we hope to get our hands on the game itself--but we did glean a few details from the brief presentation given at the company's state-of-the-art San Diego motion-capture studio (where a contingent of real Navy SEALs performed an impressive demonstration of the mo-cap process). The game will feature not just American troops but international special forces, though from which countries it wasn't said. You'll be able to customize those characters in appearance, though, and clans will further get to trick out their custom uniforms to create a unique visual identity. It sounds as though Sony will support the game actively after release, as online events like team tournaments and clan ladders are planned, along with for-pay content packs to be made available on the PlayStation Network Store that will include new game modes, special forces, and weapons, among other things.
Unfortunately, that's just about all we know about Confrontation at this point, as Sony (like so many other companies recently) seems content to tease us with a bare glimpse of the game now followed by promises of full disclosure at E3. The game is looking fairly good at this point, with nicely detailed character models and weapon effects. The environments looked a little sparsely detailed to us based on the brief trailer (can we get some more pixel shaders in here?), but overall, Confrontation looks like it's headed in a positive direction, and we'll always applaud a company as monolithic as Sony for experimenting with alternative distribution methods. Expect much more on the new SOCOM to come out of E3 in July

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Q&A

With this July's launch of The Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment in J. K. Rowling's unfathomably popular Harry Potter series of novels, excitement for the overall Potter franchise is sure to soon reach a fever pitch. This summer will also see the theatrical release of the fifth film in the series, The Order of the Phoenix, and Electronic Arts is hard at work on a tie-in action game that sounds as if it may be the most fully featured yet in the series.
To find out more about the direction EA is taking with its fifth Potter game, we spoke with executive producer Harvey Elliott to get the whole scoop.
GameSpot: Order of the Phoenix is the darkest book yet in the Harry Potter series. How has that influenced the direction you've taken in developing the game?
Harvey Elliott: Since we closely follow the story, our game definitely reflects those darker moments—Professor Umbridge taking over Hogwarts and doing her best to turn it into a oppressive and overcontrolled environment; most of the school thinking that Harry is just making up stories about Lord Voldemort; Sirius Black in exile; and, of course, the big finale at the Ministry of Magic, where one of our favorite characters dies.
Of course, it's not a game about doom and gloom—we have a load of humorous moments that still make me laugh, no matter how many times I see them. For example, when Professor Umbridge takes over the school, we have a series of missions that are designed to cause chaos, such as turning a courtyard into a swamp or pouring potions into a tannoy system, that Umbridge introduces to remind students that she's truly in control. And the scriptwriting this year is of a really high quality, with all the characters expressing their individual personalities—pretty much every time that Cho and Harry meet it's excruciatingly embarrassing watching them try to become "more than friends"; Fred and George take the mickey out of Ron at every opportunity; and the Slytherin students have great fun heckling Harry as he goes through the school and grounds.
We've tried to balance the story with real light and shade, so that we have the dark, serious moments balanced with a lighter side with humor and enjoyment that creates a fundamentally entertaining experience.
GS: How closely will the storyline follow that of the movie? How much freedom did you have to craft new fiction, and did J. K. Rowling have input in that regard?
HE: This is very much a game of Order of the Phoenix, and all the events we reflect in the game would have occurred during Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts. As a result, we followed the movie storyline very closely, supported by the fiction from the books as you explore locations or narrative threads that we don't visit in the films.
GS: How closely have you worked with the film's producers? Will the game feature any sort of assets or elements from the movie?
HE: Since the majority of the movie, and therefore the game, is set at Hogwarts, we have modeled the entire school on the Hogwarts we've seen in the movies. It was only possible by working really closely with the movie makers and literally taking the blueprints from the sets and building a castle that initially looked like a 3D architect's drawing—that way, we knew the exact dimensions of every room. Of course, the movie doesn't feature every single room in the castle, so we have also referenced the previous four movies to get it absolutely right. We're really fortunate that the movie studio is only about 45 minutes away by car, so every time they built a new set we could drop by to ensure we photographed every nook and cranny, and to make sure that we have the right lighting, the right props, and the right cameras. And as this is the fifth movie game we've made with them, you can imagine the reference archive we've developed over the years.
GS: What will the magic system be like? Will your abilities change as you progress through the story or move from one area to the next?
HE: We've created a brand-new, gesture-based magic system, which has really changed and enhanced the experience of casting magic. Instead of pressing buttons to fire off specific spells, we use each console's unique controls. So if you want to use "depulso" to push an object away from you, you press the right analog stick forward on the 360 and PS2, you push the Sixaxis controller away from you on the PS3, and, of course, you flick your "wand" away from you on the Wii. To ignite an object, you rapidly push the right analog back and forward, or slide the Sixaxis or Wii Remote from side to side as though you were lighting a match. In combat we use similar gestures for attacking and defensive spells, but also ensure they represent the action—to cast a knockback jinx you tap up on the analog stick, or shove them backward with the Sixaxis or Wii Remote. And each spell you find is upgraded as you discover secrets in the world.
GS: Are the film's actors involved in the game in any way?
HE: We're fortunate that pretty much all the kids in the movie love video games, so it doesn't take much asking to get them down to our studio to scan their faces or capture their voices. The adult actors have also been to visit us, but I think they're more intrigued by the whole process than the hardcore gamers! Just to give some insight into the complexity of the process, we are making the game in 22 languages this year (which I think is a games industry record), and that means that we not only have to get each of the actors into the studio to record their characters voice for the US and UK versions of the game, but we need to get each of their movie voice-over doubles from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and so on. All in all, across all the languages, we've had around 1,500 actors recording lines for this game!
GS: What unique features will the Wii, 360, and PS3 versions offer? In what ways will they be similar?
HE: The key differences between the consoles are the spellcasting methods. We often get asked why we haven't created exclusive elements to the various formats, but the reality is that every time we've added a mission or minigame to the design of one version, our tech team has just got it working across the other versions. It seems crazy to not make cool stuff available to everyone.
The most noticeable difference from boot up is the overall visual look that we've achieved on the next-gen consoles. In addition to getting more students in the hallways at the school, we can add extra passes to the geometry, not just adding more detail to the polygonal model, but extra visual passes adding polish, texture, or age; most noticeable is the way the portraits now have gilded antique frames, with a canvas print in them, or the shine and gloss of the tables in the Great Hall, with hundreds of years of wear giving it a really worn-in look.
The Wii and PS3 also get to take advantage of our spellcasting upgrades—both have fantastic new motion-sensing controls that we've mapped directly to Harry's wand, so you can shove, pull, lift, and manipulate everything in the world as though you were casting the magic yourself.

Hot Shots Golf 5 Import Hands-On

The Hot Shots Golf series is one of those rare sports franchises that has sold well across Japan, America, and Europe, so it came as little surprise when the first clip of Hot Shots Golf 5 (known as Minna no Golf 5 in Japan) was shown at last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. In March, Japanese PlayStation 3 owners were treated to a downloadable demo of the game, and, unable to contain ourselves any longer, we downloaded it to check it out. But we didn't stop there. We scrounged up details on some of the game's new courses and characters, as well as its online mode.
Once you get used to the available new swing mechanic, you'll be hitting great shots in no time.
The demo lets you pick from two characters: Jasmine, a 17-year-old who plays on her high school golf team, and Conan, a 15-year-old who golfs in a cowboy hat. Two other characters detailed on the game's Web site but not playable in the demo are Chris, a German-born prodigy who's only 10-years-old, and Sophie, a pigtailed 13-year-old girl from France. As you would expect from a Hot Shots game, the character models are a bit over the top and not particularly realistic. However, they do look great, and there's a tremendous amount of detail to be seen on each character. You can see individual stitches on Conan's jacket and almost make out the time on his caddie's watch as the camera pans by.
Once you have picked your character, you can choose from two different club types. With the advanced club, you must determine your own power and accuracy, and for the beginner club, you only have to worry about power because the ball goes straight every time. Next, you'll pick your swing mechanic. The first option is the one that has been available in every Hot Shots game; you'll hit X to start your swing, hit it again when you've reached the desired power level on the horizontal meter at the bottom of the screen, and then tap X a third time when the cursor is in the area of the meter where you get the greatest accuracy. The new swing mechanic is similar, but it must be done without the benefit of a meter. You still hit X three times, but now you hit it once to start, and then you must judge how far back you need to swing to reach your desired power level and press X when you've reached it. Almost as soon as you've hit the X button a second time, a large circle will close in on the two sets of brackets on either side of the ball. The red brackets are farthest apart, and the pink brackets are closer together and closest to the ball. The closer you are to the ball when you hit the X button, the more accurate the shot will be. This new method of swinging takes a while to get used to, but it's pretty forgiving--as long as you're inside the red brackets, your shot won't be horrible.
Both putting styles have the familiar grid placed over the green and require just two button presses, but the new method is much more difficult because there's no visible power meter. Even if it does take a short while to get adjusted to the new controls, you'll soon find yourself quite comfortable. The pace of play is as fast as ever, and you can still add power to your drives by pressing the square button or add loft and spin by pressing the D pad in midshot. Even changing your clubs and controlling the camera is done in the same way as before, though you now have more control over camera angles and the replays are much more dynamic.
The demo takes place on three holes at Ayamegahara Country Club, one of the game's new courses. This course is located in a swampy area and has plenty of ponds and hills to challenge you. There are also lots of animals hanging around, including some bears that appear to enjoy watching you play. Two other courses that aren't in the demo but are profiled on the game's Web site are Churaumi Golf Resort, which is an island course with a constant breeze from the south, and the Great Safari Country Club, a course that was apparently built by the animals themselves in the middle of Africa. The demo's course will feel familiar to series veterans, as it's reminiscent of many of the beginning courses in previous games. It doesn't immediately look challenging, but there are plenty of elevation changes and wind is always a factor. Thanks to the power of the PlayStation 3, you'll see more trees than ever, textures are vastly improved, and the sun will move across the sky as you play. Now, the game can load several holes at once, which gives you a more realistic view of the course, and if you're creative, it possibly gives you new ways to get the ball in the hole with fewer shots.
The courses are very detailed and look better than ever.
Hot Shots Golf 5 will also have a more robust online component than ever before. You'll start off in a lounge area where you'll be able to move around your customizable character, type messages with the keyboard, and arrange matches. The coolest-sounding feature is called the real-time tournament. This tournament mode will let up to eight players play at the same time. Yes, you'll actually see the other players on the course, and you can take your shot while they're taking their shots. This sounds hectic, but it's also a lot of fun. There will be a basic tournament that will allow 100 people to enter, and 50 of those participants will be able to play at once, though only their scores and comments will be shown while you play, not their actual golfer.
The game isn't due out until this fall in North America, and if you're worried that developer Clap Hanz might have lost sight of what makes the series so enjoyable, don't be. Even with the new controls and improved graphics, Hot Shots Golf 5 feels, well, a lot like Hot Shots Golf.

Sonic Rush Adventure First Look

It will be a sad day when new handheld game systems are able to match the 3D graphics capabilities of the big-boy consoles. Then we might not see anymore side-scrolling 2D nostalgia trips, such as Sonic Rush Adventure, a follow-up to 2005's Sonic Rush, which is currently barreling toward the Nintendo DS. Rush Adventure is set in a tropical island chain and will see Sonic blazing trails from left to right as he traverses all kinds of brightly colored environments, only some of which appear to actually have a tropical theme to them. The game will pit Sonic and friends against a nefarious dude named Captain Whisker, who we didn't see firsthand but sounds to be of the decidedly piratical sort.
The game is played entirely in 2D in typical Sonic fashion, but Sonic and team will employ the DS' modest 3D capabilities to pull off some nifty effects during most levels. One section had Sonic grabbing onto a swinging hook that would swing toward the camera as it brought him up to the next-highest platform. Another area featured pistons that Sonic had to avoid; getting hit by one would launch him abruptly toward the camera, almost as if he was going to slam into it. Mostly, though, this looks like typical Sonic gameplay that's been satisfying platforming fans for nearly two decades now.
However, there will be a few additions to the gameplay. Sonic will have four tricks he can perform in midair that you'll access with the touch screen, and each time you perform one of these tricks, you'll help build up a tension meter. Once that meter is full, you can use it to perform a speed burst that ought to come in handy in various situations. The hang glider that made an appearance in Sonic Rush is back, only this time you'll be able to exercise a level of control over its flight. And finally, Sonic will have access to five boats of varying types that he can use to travel from one island to the next. You'll see an overhead map of all the islands you've discovered so far, and you'll plot your course from one island to the next by drawing a line on the map with the stylus. Then, once you're following that general course, you'll use the stylus to move your boat left or right during a third-person action stage in which you'll hit ramps and pick up rings. The island chain will even feature some hidden islands that you'll end up discovering as you sail from one known island to the next.
Sega's literature also says Sonic Rush Adventure will include a multiplayer mode composed of "wireless racing and mission-based battles" that will work via either local wireless or Internet play, though we didn't get to see those in action. But even without multiplayer, Rush Adventure is looking like a solid new entry in the 2D Sonic series, and while the DS hardware is still kicking, we'll gladly take as many of those as we can get.

This is plain and simple, a funny, endlessly entertaining, and simply great game for people of all ages.

This game concept probably couldn't have been pulled off by anyone else. It took two things that by all means shouldn't have been mixed into a game, and turned them into a truly great and massively entertaing saga of laughs, action, and pure concentrated fun.Gameplay: This game has an amazing acomplishment under it's belt, it was able to make a game that is very easy, but unbelievably entertaining. Some people have said that all you do is run around and kill bad guys non-stop, true, but it's still incredibly fun. And with a great variety of puzzle solving mixed in, this game has a certain wow factor to it.Graphics: While this games graphics may not be of the highest resolution, their endeniable sense of style and absurd concept make then much better than most games'.Sound: Alright, no VA, but still the orchastrated themes and classic !pichew! sounds of blasters make the sound absolutely great.Value: In one player mode, this game is extremely fun, albiet short, but the co-op multiplayer mode is where it's at. If you have a room-mate or a friend to play with, this game's value will increase ten fold.In summary, from the VOOSHES to the PICHEWS, this game is an exciting adventure that will keep you entertained for a long time.

Technosaprotroph emblem and 360 talk

I got the new Scavenator emblem today, I wasnt sure I was going to get this emblem since my internet died while i was playing the game. I had to explain myself to craigb and sure enough I got it. I'm still kind of upset that i didn't get the LOTR Marathon emblem since I saw more then half of the marathon!! I heard some people saw 30 minutes of it and still got it!
Many of you might notice that I have a xbox live 360 gamer tag but I don't have a 360 yet. That's because my friend got me one for standing in line for his 360 since he had school that day, 14 long hours to be exact. The only time I get to play the 360 is when i go to my friends house. So anyways i might get a 360 in the next few weeks, but I'm not sure wheather to get the elite or just stick with the regular premium 360. Plus i need the wireless network adapter and I need a lousy memory card to transfer my gamertag from his 360 to mine. Is it worth getting the elite or should i just get the premium? We'll see what I decide on getting in the next few weeks.

'Deathly Hallows' Special Edition at 816 pages

Scholastic has updated their bookseller information page with a page count of 816 pages for the US Special Edition of Deathly Hallows. A description, which has been available for sometime, explains what the extra 32 pages will hold.Includes exclusive insert featuring near scale reproductions of Mary GrandPre's interior art, as well as never-before-seen full-color frontispiece art on special paper. The custom-designed slipcase is foil-stamped and contains a full-cloth case book that has been blind-stamped on front and back cover with foil stamping on the spine. The book includes full-color endpapers featuring jacket art from the Trade edition and a wraparound jacket featuring art created especially for this edition by Mary GrandPre.

PS2Emu :: Emulation Gaming & Development News

Lets just go over how the exploits works. When an original PSOne CD-ROM is loaded on your PS2 via the PSOne driver (PS1DRV), it looks up the game in a file on your memory card and this file contains the exploit which can make you run own code. Marcus R. Brown has created the whole package for you, all you need to do is compile it (or download it precompiled) and then add your PSOne CD-ROM ID to file on the memory card, so you can take advantage of the exploit.
This guide uses nPort to transfer the exploited file to your memory, you can use either Pukklink or Naplink to load nPort from either native (with some sort of mod) or from PS2 Linux with reload1. You must have nPort installed and working in order to use this guide.
First of all you need to compile titleman (ps2-independence) with ps2lib, I will not get into how to compile it, but instead provide binaries of the file: Win32 Binary
As mentioned before Marcus R. Brown has been so kind to provide premade files to use with nPort, these files contain the exploit file as well ps2link (pukklink clone, loader for the Sony network adapter) which the exploit loads. If you want to use another ELF with the exploit, you have to replace the BOOT.ELF from ps2link with your file and remove all files related to ps2link aswell (IPCONFIG.DAT, PS2SMAP.IRX, PS2LINK.IRX, PS2IP.IRX), please note that not all PS2 ELFs which have IRX files included will load correctly, since there might not be memory card support included for IRX loading.There are 3 different files, one for each region:
North America (NTSC-J) Europe (PAL) Japan/Asia
Now put the file which matches the region of your PS2 into the nPort saves sub-directory, in this directory you will also see a exectutable called npo-x.exe. This tool is an extractor and packer for nPort saves, since we are not sure that the PSOne CD-ROM we will be using is included with the exploit, we will extract the save and add it ourselves.This we do it like this: npo-x x [npo_file] For instance: npo-x x BEDATA-SYSTEM.npo.
This will now create a directory named the same as the .npo file with the files for the exploit. The file we are interested in is TITLE.DB (this is the exploit file), for this file we need titleman. But first we need to find out what the the ID is the of the PSOne CD-ROM we will be using is. To do this, put the PSOne CD-ROM into your computer and open SYSTEM.CNF.This file's first line will be something like : BOOT=cdrom:\SCED_018.22;1 (this line is from an european demo disc). The part we are interested in is the bold part, the filename (or ID) of the start up exectuable.
Now we copy titleman to the directory with TITLE.DB created by npo-x.Here we do this: titleman -a [ID/filename] Which in my case is titleman -a SCED_018.22.
Now we have added our PSOne CD-ROM for the exploit. (In case you want to use ps2link, you might want to alter IPCONFIG.DAT aswell to fit your IP settings). You can of course add more PSOne ID's if you wish. What we need to do now is pack the .npo file again, in the nPort save directory.We do npo-x a [save_dir] - [save_dir] is the name of the directory that npo-x x extracted to.To follow the example from before, this will be npo-x a BEDATA-SYSTEM.
Now your npo file is updated and we need to get it onto the memory card. But first you need to index the file with the nPort indexer so nPort can find the save in the saves directory, simply just run it and it will tell "All done". Now start nPort and transfer the .npo file onto your memory card. If the file already exists you will have to delete it first.
Once you have the exploit on your memory card, all you need to do is put the memory card into your PS2 memory card slot and put int he PSOne CD-ROM from which you got the ID/filename into your PS2 drive and turn on your PS2, what you should see is a white screen flash for sec and then ps2link should start (unless you replaced the ELF with something else).

PS2 HDD Install Tutorial by Jurai

PS2 HDD Install
Items Needed: 1) A Playstation 2 Network Adapter2) A 40gig or larger Harddrive*3) The PS2 HDD Tool from #ps2ownz.com
The first thing you need to do is check if the harddrive you intend to use on your Playstation 2 will fit onto the network adapter. Simply take your harddrive in hand and see if it lines up with the power and ide adapters on the network adapter, if it will properly fit then you are one step closer to a working hdd in your ps2, if not there are two things you can do:a) The IDE connector has a lil bit of leeway, try pushing it over enough so that it will line up with your hdd.b) If you still cannot get it to line up, your only hope is to dissassemble the network adapter unit so that you will be able to get the power and IDE properly aligned, this option should be taken as last resort since there is a high chance you will damage your network adapter
Now that you have confirmed that your hdd will fit onto the network adapter, you need to make sure the hdd is properly set so that the PS2 will recognize it. To do this you need to ensure that the jumper settings located on the back of your hdd are set so that the hdd is MASTER. To find the proper jumper settings you should consult the top label of the hdd (where it is usually stated), or refer to any reference materials that came with your hdd.
With your hdd set to master, attach it to the network adapter by lining up the connectors and pushing firmly, the network adapter does not really feel adequate to support the hdd, so do not dangle it around.
Now simply place the network adapter with attached hdd back onto your PS2 as you normally would, you can screw in the screws on the back now if you want but i would wait til you make sure your hdd is setup properly.
Turn on your PS2, it should seem to take a very slight bit longer to startup, and you should be able to audibly hear your hdd unit spin up then spin down, if this happens then your hdd is properly installed, if not, turn off the PS2 and check the jumper settings, also make sure the connection between the adapters is firmly established.
Now that you have your hdd working, you need to format it. To do this boot up the ps2ownz hdd tool either by direct booting or with swap discs.
The utility has a simplistic gui, and do not be alarmed if at first it tells you the device is not found. Click on the format option and press R1 to choose the Submit option, you should see the icon in corner spin for a second, then your file structure should appear. I believe the utility does a quickformat, since when i used a full 40gig drive it still took only a few seconds. You may wish to zero out your hdd ahead of time for the sake of having a nice clean drive to use.
Now your hdd is ready for use, just find yourself some games that support it and enjoy! any questions msg me on efnet, Jurai, ciao.
* a smaller drive can be used but bb nav requires 40gig+
Written by Jurai.
http://jurai.free.fr/ps2hdd/

Introduction Command & Conquer

Although it's been over seven years since the last release of a Command & Conquer real-time strategy game set in the Tiberium universe, the announcement of Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars was of great interest to PC gamers, who have been waiting that long to find out precisely what's been happening to Kane and GDI in the years since the last Tiberium War. Now that it's finally arrived, we're all about to find out...
Like the previous games in the series, Tiberium Wars takes place on an earth that's been seeded with a substance known as Tiberium, which fell to earth in a meteor collision in the 1990's. Tiberium is a radioactive, toxic substance that leeches the mineral contents of the earth below it to seep to the surface. Thus, although it kills unprotected humans, it can be harvested by robotics and converted into energy or building supplies. However, the fact that it inexorably spreads across any land surface that it encounters means that its presence on Earth is something of a plague; it has been slowly spreading across the Earth since it first arrived, and by the time of Tiberium Wars, 2047, it has rendered 20% of the Earth's surface completely uninhabitable, with another 50% being dangerously infested by Tiberium.
Into this volatile situation is inserted a growing conflict between the forces of the Global Defense Initiative, who wants to somehow stop the spread of Tiberium in an effort to make Earth inhabitable again, and the Brotherhood of Nod, which believes that the arrival of Tiberium is a message from the gods and the form in which mankind's ultimate "ascension" will be accomplished. While these forces appear to have existing in an uncomfortable stasis for the past decade or so, the reappearance of Kane, the oft-dead leader of Nod, has thrown the balance out of sync, and now Nod is intent on reasserting their claim on Tiberium and Earth.
GameSpot's Game Guide to Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars has a complete walkthrough for the game's campaign missions, as well as some general tips to help you get into the game. Enjoy!

content by www.gamespot.com

Valhalla Knights Hands-On

We take a stroll through Xseed Games' upcoming PSP role-playing game.
By Ricardo Torres, GameSpot
Posted Mar 21, 2007 3:51 pm PT
Valhalla Knights is the upcoming PlayStation Portable role-playing game from publisher Xseed Games and developer Marvelous Entertainment. This original game was developed specifically for the PSP and plays around with many elements from the conventional RPG formula we've been seeing for years. We had the chance to try out a near-final version of the game and see how it's coming together.
With an amnesiac hero and a dark lord of terror, Valhalla Knights sounds like either an RPG or an ABC daytime soap.
The game's story draws on a couple of RPG staples: an amnesiac hero and an evil lord that shatters the idyllic life of a peaceful people. You'll play the role of said amnesiac who's on a hunt for his memories. Your search is guaranteed to be bumpy because the land is still suffering from the unsettling influence of the battle that ended the dark lord's reign. The good news is that a noble hero put him down. The bad news is that, metaphorically speaking, some eggs were broken to make the omelet that stopped the big bad lord. As a result, the land was messed up something good and has remained that way, giving everything a bleak layer of despair, which is not the ideal environment for an amnesiac looking to find his way in the world.
The action in the game follows the standard RPG conventions closely. Your time is going to be divided between talking to folks in town, taking on quests, adventuring, and coming back to town to work the whole cycle again. As you go about your business, you'll level up your character, get new gear, get yourself a party, and generally get bigger and better as you play. Though it sounds pretty standard, there are some nice touches included to keep things interesting. You'll be able to customize your amnesiac alter ego by picking his or her sex and class, as well as by tweaking his or her attributes. You'll also be able to do the same to the party members you get. You'll need traveling buddies to help out on the various quests you'll pick up at the local guild, which will send you into all manner of dangerous areas, stabbing and casting your way to your various goals.
The game's combat system is a real-time brawl between you and your party members and whatever evil critter crosses your path. You'll move around in real time and be able to melee your enemy assisted, when you bring them along, by your artificial-intelligence-controlled party members. Melee offers two options: a pretty meager normal attack and a special attack that unleashes a powerful blow. The one bit of the action that isn't real time, thankfully, is spell selection. Hitting up on the D pad will call up a spell menu and let you target enemies. While this is going on, the action freezes, so you don't get mowed down while doing your business. You'll still have to worry about casting the spell, which you can be knocked out of if you're too close to your enemy. Successfully defeating enemies yields experience that levels up your character. While leveling is pretty standard, Valhalla Knights lets you switch your character class as needed, which adds a bit of strategy into the mix.
The visuals in the game feature a stylized look that plays to the PSP's strengths. Characters are a little on the blocky side but do feature a good amount of detail. The environments are a good mix of sizes, offering wide-open spaces and more claustrophobic indoor areas. Although there are a decent number of non-player characters to interact with in the world, the locales we've explored so far are a little on the barren side. The enemies we've seen are run-of-the-mill slimes and assorted baddies that fall into the standard archetypes you'd expect out of an RPG. One thing that hurts the presentation is the game's color palette, which is muted. While it captures the "things are bad" vibe, it also gives the game a bland look.
Combat is a mostly real-time affair, and your characters will be dealing the pain with both melee and spell attacks.
The audio takes an understated approach that is pretty retro. You'll hear a mellow score that hits all the notes you'd expect in terms of themes. You'll get standard town themes, as well as combat music. Combat will be punctuated by attack effects for melee and spells. The one area that's pretty thin, though, is voice, of which there is next to none. Though it's a minor thing, it's a noticeable omission when you consider how accustomed we've become to hearing chatty PSP games.
Based on what we played, Valhalla Knights is shaping up to be a solid RPG for the PSP that should please fans of the genre. The game covers all its bases and has all the ingredients fans would want. The story covers familiar territory but looks like it's going to have some twists to keep it interesting. The gameplay is solid, though some may find it to be a bit too by the numbers in some areas. However, there's a fair amount of depth to be explored in the job-and-partner system to keep things engaging. While there are definitely some rough spots to it, Valhalla Knights looks as though it's going to offer the PSP some much-needed RPG action. Look for a full review of the game next month.

content by www.gamespot.com

PSP 3.30 update includes free HotSpot access

Latest firmware update to Sony's handheld expands PlayStation Network support, enables full-resolution video playback--and comes with six months gratis access to T-Mobile HotSpots.
By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot
Posted Mar 30, 2007 1:47 pm PT
In its quest for constant improvement, Sony has issued the latest firmware update for the PlayStation Portable. The 3.30 update makes a series of minor tweaks to the handheld, including expanded support for PlayStation Network games. It will also let users play back videos stored on their PSPs at full 720x480 resolution, versus the prior scaled-down 320x240 resolution.
The 3.30 update will also let PSP owners access T-Mobile HotSpots all over the country for free for six months. Normally the 7,000-plus wireless Internet hubs, most commonly found in Borders and Starbucks, charge a onetime $9.99 fee for 24 hours of use. T-Mobile also offers a variety of monthly subscription packages at flat rates.
To take advantage of the promotion, PSP owners must log into a T-Mobile HotSpot by March 28, 2008. Once the six months expire, those gamers can buy a discounted subscription from T-Mobile, although the rate had not been announced as of press time.

On the Spot

On the Spot is our live interactive weekly show featuring the latest in gaming, coming to you straight from the GameSpot offices!
It's a star-studded show as various icons from the world of video games vie for your attention! Mortal Kombat's Ed Boon stops by to personally demonstrate Armageddon for the Wii. Lara Croft returns as we give you a first-ever look at Tomb Raider: Anniversary. And yes, we'll play the debut trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV, probably more than once.
The best part of any episode of On the Spot is our interaction with you. Be sure to catch the live broadcast for your chance to ask us questions using the handy built-in form. Plus paid subscribers can chat with fellow viewers and GameSpot editors while watching the show in higher resolution!
We'll see you live right here, each and every Thursday at 4 p.m. PT, 7 p.m. ET, and Friday at midnight for our friends on the west coast of Europe. Roll out the red carpet! We're live and On the Spot!

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