Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Review

Remember Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe? No you don’t. They were fun-hating, derivative experiences which did a disservice to the Queens-born webslinger. Praise Activision then for handing the Spidey license over to Shaba Games, whose just-released Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (360/PS3 versions reviewed here) makes it fun to swing through an open urban playground again. While there are echoes of the previous Treyarch-developed offerings in Web of Shadows, Spidey’s latest adventure is bolstered by a redesigned ability tree, a branching “good or evil” storyline and – best of all – all-new combat mechanics which perfectly capture the experience of fighting like a spider a can.
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By: http://gamesblog.ugo.com

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Review

Dragon Ball Origins Exclusive Characters Trailer

Check out new footage from Dragon Ball Origins, including some of the playable characters from the game.

GTA 4 PC Impressions

Every major GTA game has released on the PC. Hell, the franchise started out on the PC! And GTA 4 is no different, and will be carjacking its way into PC owners hearts before the end of the year. So what can you expect from this version? Actually, more than you’d think.
Controlling GTA 4 on the PC The basics of previous GTA PC versions are there in GTA 4. Mouse and keyboard are an obvious addition, allowing you to drive, aim and run around with those two inputs. And, of course, you can plug in a controller and use that if you wish. Intriguing, though, is that you can do both at once. The game will allow you to switch back and forth between the controller and the mouse/keyboard without even needing to pause. This is great news for all the people that find driving with the keyboard a bit of a nightmare, but prefer the accuracy and response time of the mouse for aiming. Just place the controller on your lap, slide the keyboard in front of you and you’re good to go.
Visual Improvements The other obvious improvements over the console versions of GTA are the graphics. Because you’re can run the game in a much higher resolution on the PC, the textures have received an extra pass and look a lot crisper. Text on signs and cereal boxes is much more legible and the character models look markedly improved, especially in their facial animation. Packie’s telltale scar, a mere smudge on the 360, actually looks like a deep crease along his cheek, and this sort of detail gives the characters more life.
More minor improvements include the ability to create your own in-game radio station and the addition of a few new suits to Niko’s wardrobe. Other than that, though, the main campaign is pretty much the same.
Best. Replay Editor. Ever. What you might not expect is what the developers threw in on top of those features. Most shocking is the addition of a Replay Editor. While you’re playing the game (either in single- or multiplayer), you can hit F2 to record the last chunk of gameplay time (between 30 and 90 seconds, depending on how much stuff is going down on screen). This doesn’t stop the game at all, you’ll just see in the top left corner that your footage has been captured.

Once you’re ready, though, you can hop into the replay editor thanks to your handy cell phone. From here you can load up your saved clips into a full-fledged video editor, complete with timelines, transitions, text overlays and more. There is literally no in-game replay editor that comes close to the depth of what you can do in GTA 4 on the PC. You can set up tracking shots so that the camera pans as your hero runs, you can zoom in on a target as he falls off a balcony, you can change the color so it looks like an old timey movie. The range of what you can do blows Halo 3’s replay editor out of the water.
With your edited footage in tow, you can save the file as a WMV (sorry, no MOVs at this time) and upload it straight to Rockstar’s Social Club site, where friends can comment and rate your video. Uploading straight to YouTube is potentially in the cards, as well. The machinima community is going to eat this feature up.
On top of all that, Rockstar is also adding some new multiplayer options so that players will be able to filter their search for custom matches (if you wanted to play pistols only, for example).
So yeah, there’s a lot. It’s great to see that they’re not just phoning in a PC port, even if they could have and still sold a ton of copies. Granted you’ll probably need a meaty PC to get all the bells and whistles going on the game, but for you anti-console guys out there, we’re not too concerned.

By: http://gamesblog.ugo.com

Gears of War 2 Review

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

Electronic Arts’ Command & Conquer series has not had an easy go of things with regards to its console releases. Not from where we’re sitting anyway. Real-time strategy games generally fare poorly when saddled with gamepad controls, but our experiences with the console releases of Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath both were decidedly underwhelming, largely due to – what else? – control issues. Well, after a brief demo and a hands-on runthrough of a mission – albeit at a crowded preview event with the difficulty set to easy – we’re happy to say that EA has been listening and addressed at least some of our (and others’) biggest issues for their upcoming Xbox 360 release of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.
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RTS with a Side of Ham in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Before you even jump into the game proper, there’s a lot to like about Red Alert 3. The game is set in an alternate timeline which occurs when a rascally Russian officer – played by the always-excellent Tim Curry – uses a time machine (built by Peter Stormare!!!) to erase scientist Albert Einstein from history. Returning to the new present, Cherdenko (Curry) learns that he now presides over Russia as its Premier. His nation is also involved in a bitter world war against the Western Allied Nations and the Empire of the Rising Sun in the East.
What all of this means is that Red Alert 3’s main factions all feature some creatively unique unit and building types, such as the Soviet Union’s “Scout Bear” and the Empire’s psychic schoolgirls. The gameplay is fundamentally the same – run through a series of missions set in faction-specific campaigns – but the farcical nature of the narrative makes C&C’s campy cutscenes all the more welcome.

Tweaking the Issues Away in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

The biggest and most welcome change we saw during our demo of Red Alert 3 has to be the addition of an on-the-fly expandable map which allows easy, almost instant access to any part of the battlefield. Holding down the L trigger opens the on-screen minimap in a larger window. From here, players can use the left analog stick to adjust the positioning of the main viewing area and the right stick to move an on-map reticule. It’s a simple and highly effective method for managing large armies across the battlefield.
That said, large armies are not the main focus in Red Alert 3. We’ll need to log more play time to really judge if this is true, but the game’s missions and resource distribution have apparently been designed to support smaller, more efficient armies. If this turns out to be the case, micromanagement woes of previous games could be greatly diminished. Players can also now use the D-pad to cycle through any units on-screen, aiding those who want to micromanage but can’t thanks to the less-than-ideal analog stick cursor controls.
As is always the case with console-based RTS releases, there’s somewhat of a learning curve in nailing down all of the various button combinations. Players can set map bookmarks, access units by type thanks to an auto-control group feature, paint groups of enemy targets for destruction and quick access special abilities for any selected units, among other things. That said, button-based combo shortcuts are nothing new for C&C console releases.
It’s going to take more than just a short skirmish to give us a feel for how the old features mesh with the new. The game is visually on point – some of the wackier units are a joy to behold – and the few live action cutscenes we saw delivered exactly what fans of the series have come to expect: high camp. We’re more cautiously optimistic than falling over with anticipation at this point, but the gaming world will find out soon enough as Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 hits stores on November 11.

By:http://gamesblog.ugo.com

Quantum of Solace Review (360/PS3)

Ever since the runaway success GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64, video games starring James Bond have been left with an unreasonably high bar to meet. While Quantum of Solace, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, doesn’t quite hit that mark, it comes closer than anything else we’ve seen in the decade-plus since GoldenEye’s release. That said, this is still a movie-licensed game and it shows many of the faults gamers have come to expect from such offerings.
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Casino of Solace in Quantum of Solace
Quantum of Solace actually covers the events of both the upcoming film and 2006’s Casino Royale, which was the first to star actor Daniel Craig as 007. The sequence of events is a bit unexpected however, with gameplay set during the Casino period unfolding as a flashback. It makes narrative sense in the context of the overall story, but it isn’t exactly clear how or why until the final quarter of the game.
In the interest of avoiding spoilers, suffice to say that the game begins with a failed assassination attempt set during the Quantum (film) timeline. This is followed by a lengthy flashback covering the whole of Casino’s plot. The game’s final missions bring players back to Quantum of Solace, with Bond and Bond girl Camille (voiced by Olga Kurylenko) attempting to finish what they started. It isn’t made explicitly clear how everything ties together until the very end, though perceptive players won’t have too much trouble figuring out the basics before the credits roll.
As for the gameplay, Quanutm kicks it old-school, serving up a straightforward first-person shooter in the vein of GoldenEye. Building the game on top of Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4 engine, Treyarch has inserted some light stealth and cover elements to mix things up, but players can just as easily open up with their loudest boomstick - usually something procured on-site rather than carried in - from moment one. Stealth has its limits too; while it can make the early going in many missions a great deal simpler, the quiet approach eventually becomes impossible as Bond makes himself more of a nuisance to his enemies. Our biggest problem with the gameplay is the fact that so many missions end with entirely QTE-driven boss fights. They’re well choreographed to mirror the style of a Bond flick, but it still feels like a cop-out.
While the visuals are uniformly underwhelming, Quantum delivers a fun and challenging experience thanks to some surprisingly intelligent enemy AI. Bond’s opponents throughout the game are very aggressive, constantly moving to flank from multiple sides and keeping the pressure up with grenades on even the default difficulty setting. There’s definitely some fudging going on as enemies seem to have a preternatural awareness of Bond’s location once he’s been spotted, but overall Quantum of Solace manages to keep the challenge high and the frustrations at a minimum.
Each completed mission unlocks an interactive “debriefing room” set in MI-6 headquarters. Here, players can explore a series of rooms to check out concept art, character models and weapons related to the mission in question. Cutscenes and between-mission debriefings can also be accessed from the game’s unlockables menu, separate from the debriefing rooms.

Bonding Online in Quantum of Solace
Treyarch smartly carried over the fundamentals of Call of Duty 4’s stellar online component. There are no experience levels, but players earn points as they play which can then be spent in the Weapons Store. In addition to primary/secondary firearms, weapon attachments and grenades, the store also offers Gadgets which serve as stand-ins for the other game’s perks. The single custom loadout slot allows no more than two Gadgets to be equipped at a time.
Quantum of Solace serves up two deathmatch modes (arcade and regular), a team deathmatch and a mode called Territory Control which is very similar to COD4’s Headquarters, with a shifting control point which must be held by a team for points. There also three Bond-specific modes to choose from: Bond Versus, Bond Evasion and Golden Gun.
Bond Versus pits one player – as Bond – against an entire team of evil henchmen, who are under the command of The Organization. Bond’s goal is to either eliminate the enemy threat or disarm a bomb while The Organization must instead try to bring him down. In Bond Evasion, one player on the MI-6 team is designated as Bond; the goal is to get Bond to an escape point before The Organization can cap him. Golden Gun harkens back to GoldenEye’s own Golden Gun; a one-hit-kill handgun is placed on the map for all to see. While any weapon can be used to kill other players, only kills made with the Golden Gun score points.
Quantum of Solace is a solid game which will undoubtedly fall victim to this overcrowded holiday release season. The solo campaign is short – less than 10 hours, no question – but the intelligent AI keeps things surprisingly enjoyable. The narrative is of secondary concern at best and the graphics lack the detail of Infinity Ward’s masterpiece, but a solid challenge and persistent multiplayer elements make this a decent buy.
Unfortunately, “decent” just doesn’t cut it right now. October alone delivered a non-stop lineup of A-grade releases and November isn’t going to be much different. It’s tough to recommend Quantum in the face of such stiff competition. If you’re looking for something quick and mindlessly entertaining to pass the time with until the next must-buy drops, Quantum of Solace will deliver. Otherwise, wait for the next release drought and grab this one as a bargain title; you won’t be disappointed.
Gameplay: B
Presentation: C+
Fun Factor: B+
Value: B
Overall: B

By:http://gamesblog.ugo.com

Resident Evil 5 Co-op Hands-on

One of the most highly anticipated new features in Capcom’s upcoming Resident Evil 5 is the inclusion of co-op gameplay for two players through the entire story. Second to that is excitement over a new control scheme which is supposed to offer players an experience more akin to an action shooter. Well we got to sample a little of both during a recent Capcom media tour in New York City, and are happy to report that Resident Evil fans have some fun times to look forward to.
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Before jumping into a game of Resident Evil 5 – be it solo or co-op – a screen pops up offering a choice between two control schemes. “Classic” is a straight reproduction of RE4’s controls. “Shooter” isn’t exactly what fans may have been hoping for, but it offers subtle, intuitive changes to the control scheme while maintaining the feel of RE’s fight-or-flight gameplay.
With shooter controls, the lefthand shoulder buttons are held down to ready equipped weapons – L1/LB for the knife and L2/LT for firearms – while the R2/RT button initiates attacks. While prepping a weapon for use still locks the character in place, movement controls have also been changed so that the left stick now allows strafing while the right stick controls turning. Purists will still be able to use RE4’s classic controls, but the new scheme offers a more intuitive option for those raised on chainguns and BFGs.
The co-op gameplay is solid, but it won’t be knocking down any long-held beliefs about what a two-player game should be. Chris and Sheva help each other out in expected ways, giving boosts up to difficult-to-reach locations, sharing carried weapons/items and knocking down any zombies – are we still calling them zombies? – which get close enough to initiate a grapple.
That said, some branching pathways encourage tactical gameplay. One example during our demo saw Chris helping a rifle-carrying Sheva up to a high vantage point. While he then worked his way around and into a building, we provided support as Sheva from on high. We’re not sure if sections such as this can be skipped with two human players – such as by having both take the ground route instead – or of how prominently these elements will factor into the overall experience, but it’s good to see an increasing number of signs that RE5 is embracing its action-oriented focus.
Our demo concluded with a boss fight, against a chainsaw-wielding lunatic in a long, narrow, closed-off alleyway. While the big man and his humming electric blade constantly rushed us, slower-moving zombies swarmed from all sides. The idea is to stop chainsaw-man in his tracks with a headshot and then move in close for some melee before he can wind up his blade and cut you down with a game-ending slash.
The most effective tactic saw Chris and Sheva splitting up, each taking up a position at the end of the alley. As chainsaw dude rushed one, the other could take some time to line up a headshot. It wasn’t a flawless plan, but it worked. Before long, the chainsaw hummed no more and a newly obtained key was unlocking the way to the next section of the game… and the end of our demo.
It may have been brief, but our hands-on time with Resident Evil 5 definitely left us wanting for more. Now that the series seems to have abandoned the last vestiges of survival horror – enemies drop health and ammo pickups for crying out loud! - the gameplay feels all the stronger for it. Whether or not the experience will measure up to Resident Evil 4 remains to be seen. But based on what we played, the basics currently in place give us hope for some fun, post-holiday not-zombie-slaying.

By: http://gamesblog.ugo.com/