Final Fantasy CC: Echoes

Final Fantasy CC: Echoes Review

There's compelling dungeon-crawling action to be found here, hiding amid tedious puzzles and an awkward transfer from the DS.


The Good

    * Compelling dungeon-crawling action is constantly rewarding 
    * Local multiplayer is lots of fun 
    * Accessible enough for newcomers, rich enough for veterans.

The Bad

    * Dual-screen interface awkwardly tossed onto the Wii 
    * Way too many simple, boring puzzles 
    * Online multiplayer can suffer from lag 
    * Small number of dungeons 
    * AI companions aren't very bright.

When it's done right, few things in games are as potent as the lure to earn that little bit of additional experience needed to hit the next level and make your character better and stronger. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time definitely gets this right, delivering a compulsively playable dungeon crawler that is simple and charming enough to appeal to genre newcomers and addictive enough to keep old hands coming back for more. Unfortunately, the charms of Echoes of Time's fundamentally sound spellcasting, monster-hacking gameplay are obscured by a near-constant stream of dull puzzles that succeed only at pulling you away from the fun. And compared to its more elegant DS companion, the Wii version feels awkward and unrefined.

Echoes of Time kicks off on your character's 16th birthday. After choosing a gender and selecting from one of four tribes, you're sent off into the forest that borders your village on a rite of passage that signifies you've reached adulthood. But no sooner have you slaughtered some fluffy woodland creatures and been granted a small crystal after proving your worth in battle, than disaster strikes your peaceful, secluded village. Sent into the wider world to find a cure for the crystal sickness that has befallen a fellow villager, you soon embark on a quest that reveals the truth about the world's crystals and your own mysterious past. Don't come to Echoes of Time expecting the sort of rich fantasy world and epic tale that often accompany the Final Fantasy name, though, as it pauses only rarely for storytelling. This game is all about walking through dungeons and killing things, then taking the materials and loot you've gained back to town to acquire more-powerful equipment, and then beginning the process over again.

The action is simple and fun. As you work your way through each dungeon, you'll dispatch the monsters who try to hinder your progress with some quick swings of your weapon or an appropriate spell or two. When you begin the casting process, your character stands still and you take control of a target ring, which you try to maneuver underneath your foe to hit him with your spell. There isn't any depth to the combat, and there's no strategy to the action; this is classic dungeon-crawling, pure and simple. But it's made rewarding by the frequent leveling up of your characters, which makes you more powerful and grants you new abilities, like a charged-up melee attack and the ability to stack multiple spell rings. You have six standard magic types at your disposal--fire, blizzard, thunder, cure, raise, and clear--and once you can stack two or more rings together, you can combine different types of magic to discover new and powerful spells.

But sadly, your greatest battle will not be with the massive horned toad, the fanged bookcase, or any of the other monstrosities you must face on your quest. No, your strongest opponent is tedium, which attacks you constantly in the form of dull puzzles that bring the action to a screeching halt. The block-pushing, switch-triggering puzzles here are easy and wearisome, and they come up with such frequency that you'll feel like you spend half of your time in each dungeon dealing with them. Making matters worse, there are only a handful of dungeons in the game, and you'll pass through most of them twice, requiring you to go through the motions for some of the puzzles a second time.

Your adventuring is a lot more enjoyable if you have friends to join you on your quest. Even the tedium of the game's puzzles is lessened if you have people to share it with. Up to four players can link up over either local wireless or Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection, and while the story can be advanced only on the host console, each player will retain any experience and currency earned during the session. When cooperating with friends, though, it helps if you can communicate effectively, and the in-game interface for communication, with its trees of preestablished phrases and an onscreen keyboard, is clumsy and limited, making local multiplayer far superior. We also experienced bouts of lag on Wi-Fi, and while the option to invite or join strangers sounds like a good idea, we were typically matched with characters who were well below or well above our own level, making effective adventuring difficult and leading to many abruptly ended sessions.

You can also create AI adventurers to join you, but they're no substitute for flesh-and-blood companions. As in multiplayer, you can travel four-deep through the dungeons, and while your AI companions are generally pretty good at attacking things, they're also pretty good at getting themselves killed, so the larger your AI party, the more healing, raising, and babysitting you'll be doing.

The game is essentially identical on the DS and the Wii, and in the Wii's case, that's not a good thing. Clearly designed with the DS in mind, Echoes of Time is awkwardly tossed onto the Wii, complete with two separate "screens" on your screen at all times. The colorful visuals look crisp and inviting on the DS, but blown up on your TV screen, their simplicity becomes a detriment. And once you've experienced the DS version's touch-screen interface, which lets you use your thumb to instantly switch from one character or type of magic to another, the remote-and-nunchuk controls on the Wii feel unwieldy by comparison. All this, combined with the fact that the action is a great fit for gaming on the go, makes the DS version the better choice. In either case, the tunes you hear throughout your adventure are lighthearted and catchy, providing an upbeat accompaniment to the action.

The boring puzzles that constantly interrupt the game's momentum are a shame, and a greater variety of dungeons would have made the experience richer, but these aren't enough to defeat the game's better elements altogether. The initial quest may take you about 15 hours on your first go, but you can keep developing your characters and advancing into higher difficulty levels after that. Despite Echoes of Time's flaws, fans of dungeon-crawling, hack-and-slash action may be compelled to keep coming back to this adventure for a long time.
By Carolyn Petit

BioShock 2

BioShock 2 Story and Multiplayer Hands-On Impressions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

METRO 2033

Metro 2033 Hands-On

A disused nuclear bunker was the venue for our first hands-on with THQ's postapocalyptic shooter.

Metro 2033 was only unveiled for the first time last month, but now, just over a month later, publisher THQ has already allowed us to play the game. Based on the Russian novel of the same name, the game is set in a postapocalyptic future where a small group of survivors has stayed alive by taking refuge in the Moscow underground system. Given that setting, where better to let us play the game than in a disused nuclear bunker deep beneath the Russian capital? That's the event we were invited to recently, which allowed us to spend a few hours with the game and talk to the Ukranian developer 4A Games, as well as the author of the original book, Dmitry Glukhovsky.

We won't retread over old ground in this preview, so if you're unfamiliar with the setup for Metro 2033, make sure you read our original impressions piece. Our hands-on time with the game allowed us to experience the first few hours of it first hand, and while that included a lot of the areas we'd seen in our hands-off preview, we also got to see some new areas above ground. The leisurely pace of the preview allowed us to take our time exploring underground, witnessing the human interaction between non-player characters and the environmental details of the underground cities. It also unveiled new above-ground areas, which result in vivid flashbacks for the playable character of Artyom, who only experienced a short period of his life outside the metro system. But most of all, our hands-on time allowed us to get a better feel for the finer details of the gameplay--the intricate touches that developer 4A Games has lavished on the entire production.

Metro is a world where you have to be incredibly resourceful--you must manually charge your flashlight by pulling out a universal charger and squeezing the left trigger. You also have to check your watch regularly by pressing the control pads on the Xbox 360's left bumper, which reveals how much time you have before your gas mask becomes useless above ground. The navigation system is also ingenious--the map is a physical object that you have to pull out and view in conjunction with a lighter in your other hand. You'll notice that the lighter is formed in the shape of a bullet--another nice touch--but the main effect is in keeping you immersed in the world. Because your view is obscured by the map, and the game doesn't pause for you to view it, you have to pick the times to use it in the eerie darkness of the underground tunnels.

These underground tunnels are beautifully realised, with each underground station acting as an individual town that has its own political structure and economy. We got to spend the most time in Artyom's home station of Exhibition, which housed plenty of details from his past. When you first wake up in your room, you can walk around and see postcards of places above ground. There's also a radio you can turn on and a guitar that you can strum. As you walk around the underground cities, you find makeshift pig farms, drinking establishments, and people gathered around fires singing Russian songs. Exhibition is one of the more progressive and peaceful settlements, but there are also stations at the other end of the spectrum that have become fascist dictatorships, which you'll get to see further into the game.

One of the things that Metro really nails is the human interaction among the residents of the metro system. Children are a highlight--innocently playing with their toys, running around the tunnels, or escorting you to meet other people. One of the saddest moments was seeing a conversation between a father and son--the younger quizzing the elder about the absence of his mother--with the father making up a story about the mother's imminent return. You also spend a lot of time in bars after completing missions, drowning your sorrows with the help of vodka. There are some funny moments to be had--one character refers to the submachine gun as the "bastard gun." You also meet one character called Bourbon, who gives you an AK-47 rifle and asks you to accompany him because "the s*** in the tunnels don't work on you."

"The s*** in the tunnels," as Bourbon calls it, is just one of the many monstrous and supernatural aspects to Metro 2033. The main enemies are mutated humans, whom the disaster has transformed into "homo novus," or the next step in human evolution. There are also strange paranormal occurences whenever Artyom roams the tunnels in which you witness alien-like creatures approaching you. Above ground, Artyom suffers other flashbacks from his childhood, and in one sequence, his brief childhood memories present themselves when he sees familiar objects, such as park swings. Despite these hindrances, Artyom soon develops a reputation as being immune to the spiritual anomalies, which makes him a valuable commodity to a lot of people in the metro system.

Technically, Metro 2033 impresses, with a PC version that pushes current technology, such as DirectX10, and an Xbox 360 version that retains parity with the lead platform. The developer is keen to stress that there's never been a PlayStation 3 version of the game--this is an Xbox 360 exclusive on the console side, and speaking to the production team, it looks likely to remain so. We did have a few issues with the Xbox 360 version at this stage--the controls felt too sensitive, making the combat needlessly frustrating, while the AI on both sides was also problematic--allies have little concern to protect you, while enemies run headlong into your gunfire. Hopefully though, these issues will be ironed out in the final release.

Author Dmitry Glukhovsky joked, "You guys [the Westerners in attendance] are used to thinking of Russia as the bad guy." Thankfully, his hopes of telling a Russian story from a different perspective certainly look to be delivered upon. Though the postapocalyptic setting is nothing new for video games, the story, environments, and characters all feel fresh and interesting. The game is shaping up very nicely, and with the book being translated into English to coincide with the release, as well as sequel Metro 2034 already released in Russia, this could be a series that's hard to ignore early next year. Watch out for more intel on the game as we get it and check out our video interviews for even more information on this compelling new universe.

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game Review

This disappointing film tie-in transforms the magical into the mundane.

The Good

    * Branching story provides replay value 
    * Some nice-looking environments 
    * Melee kills are fun 
    * Conquest mode is a neat idea.

The Bad

    * Conquest mode is ultimately all but useless 
    * The story and characters stink 
    * The action gets tedious 
    * Absolutely awful vehicles.

Bigger doesn't mean better. Developer Ubisoft Montreal disregarded this mantra when creating James Cameron's Avatar, delivering a mediocre game loaded with unnecessary padding, rather than a tight and enjoyable package that could have gotten players excited about the upcoming film of the same name. In fact, if you're eagerly anticipating the upcoming Avatar movie, it's probably best that you avoid this bland and overlong third-person shooter altogether, because there's nothing fantastical or compelling about its story or characters. That isn't to say that Avatar is all bad. A branching story featuring two disparate factions makes this a two-games-in-one experience, so if you like wringing the last drop out of your $60, the single-player campaign might keep you busy for 15 hours or so. Unfortunately, while a few of those hours are entertaining, Avatar's action is too bland and tedious to justify the game's length, and a variety of bugs and bizarre design elements put a further damper on the fun.

Avatar takes place on the planet Pandora, which the human-controlled Resources Development Administration (RDA) is stripping of its resources--much to the dismay of Pandora's indigenous population, the blue-skinned Na'vi. Meanwhile, the RDA has established a way of transferring a human's consciousness into an artificially created human/Na'vi hybrid called an avatar. You play as Ryder, an RDA operative who soon finds himself (or herself, if you choose a female persona) in over his head as he discovers the consequences of the RDA's destructive presence on Pandora. About an hour into the campaign, you'll be faced with a choice: side with the RDA, or live as an avatar and take your chances with the Na'vi. Yet no matter which path you meander down, you'll meet a series of unmemorable characters, played by unexceptional voice actors who deliver their poorly written lines without a trace of enthusiasm or urgency.

More disappointingly, the game assumes a familiarity with the nature of avatars. Cutscenes are abrupt, and moments that should carry weight, such as the first time you enter the body of your giant blue avatar, are presented without a shred of wonder. Your own character embraces that same matter-of-fact approach, reciting the dialogue in monotone, even as events unfold that would make most folks' jaws drop. With few exceptions, humans come across as resource-hungry simpletons, while the Na'vi are reduced to monosyllabic native stereotypes. And no matter which faction you align with, the flabby ending sequence will make you wonder why you bothered to see the story through. The blend of sci-fi and fantasy seems conceptually solid, but the ideas were given a treatment so cavalier that it's impossible to care about the fate of this world, of its people, and of your own character.

You won't find any more magic in Avatar's world than in its story, because though it too seems conceptually solid, it's similarly diminished by a general lack of energy. Pandora is at first sight a beautiful place, covered in lush foliage and teeming with beasts both savage and submissive. If you follow the RDA route, some of the monstrous plants will even spew poisonous fumes at you or knock you over with a powerful swipe of their leaves (really). The environments are attractive in the way most jungles are, and sights of flying beasts overhead and winsome waterfalls in the distance make Pandora's beauty simultaneously inviting and imposing. Yet over time, the environments lose their allure. Dark greens and darker greens melt into each other, and the visuals start to feel heavy, which will make you long for a change of scenery. A few of the areas you visit provide much-needed variety, but even so, the atmosphere grows wearisome and eventually wears out its welcome.

Each of Pandora's explorable regions is relatively large, and missions often involve traveling long distances to get to your next objective. Along the way, you'll run into a number of different types of enemies that seek to destroy you. If you side with the Na'vi, you have a few instruments of death to keep you well protected. Your default bow will likely be your go-to weapon. It snaps to targets when you hold the trigger, which is a real boon in the busy environments, given that it can be tough to spot camouflaged RDA foes. You can also sport a machine gun, though it's rather feeble, so you're better off replacing it with another choice, such as the enormous spiked club, which is good for mowing down a few viperwolves at once. In fact, melee combat leads to Avatar's most consistently enjoyable kills: it can be a lot of fun to cartwheel toward your target and slice him up with your dual blades. You equip four weapons at a time, but you can switch them out for other available options, and over time, your weapons level up and you gain access to better armor. Leveling up isn't a game-changing mechanic--your core abilities remain more or less the same--but there's still something rewarding about rising to the next tier of weaponry.

If you go the way of the RDA instead, you won't wield any melee weapons and will instead shoot your way to victory. You've got a pair of pistols to get you through if the better guns run out of ammo, but they're all but useless; luckily, your shotgun, flamethrower, and other weapons seem appropriately powerful, if not exactly satisfying to use. Imprecise targeting and inconsistent hit detection make it feel like you're spraying bullets around willy-nilly much of the time, and humanoid enemies are too stupid to make shooting them exciting. Your foes often will ignore comrades falling over dead right in front of them, engage harmless creatures and ignore you as you pick them off, and walk directly into walls and continue to walk in place. Not that AI characters are the only ones prone to technical weirdness. You might get stuck in a crevasse while flying a banshee, fall into an inescapable fissure, or dismount from a direhorse directly into the geometry of the plant right next to it and be unable to get out.

Of course, what fantasy game would be complete without special powers? You get a number of skills to play around with no matter which side you choose, though it's odd that these abilities are never given any context--you just have to accept that they exist. Nevertheless, they're good to have on hand, and like weapons, skills become more effective as you level up. Your healing ability will become the most useful, because though you regenerate health quickly when not in battle, you'll need to heal yourself when engaged with enemies. There is some overlap between the factions aside from health regeneration. Both sides can sprint for a short period of time, and both can activate camouflage to remain hidden for a short time. Faction-specific skills include the Na'vi's ability to summon a swarm of insects, and the RDA's airstrike. Avatar isn't a difficult game, so you won't often need to employ your special skills, but it's still fun to watch a barrage of missiles devastate a crowd of Na'vi or to summon a viperwolf to fight at your side.

In spite of these special skills, Avatar soon becomes tragically predictable: shoot a group of enemies, travel toward the next hotbed of activity, and shoot some more. The pace rarely varies, so while its goodly length should seem like an asset, Avatar instead feels like it drones on for far too long. There's never a sense that the action is ramping up, and the few boss fights sprinkled about are too tepid to make things more interesting. For example, you take on a huge beast in a large clearing, which is easy to avoid in spite of the poor collision detection that allows it to knock you over even if it misses you by a few feet. When it dies, the creature falls to the ground with little fanfare and dissipates seconds later. Talk about an anticlimax. The by-the-numbers missions don't help matters and serve only to artificially extend Avatar's length. Go here, collect these herbs, and report back. Go to these locations, shoot down some towers, and check back in. Go there, collect these different herbs, and bring them back. This tedium is particularly evident when playing on the Na'vi side, so it's hard not to feel like a big blue personal assistant.

Luckily, you can cut down on your travel time by using Avatar's vehicles and mounts, and in this case, the Na'vi get the better deal. You can ride a few different creatures, and there's a bit of a thrill in flying through the air on a colorful banshee, at least until the loose controls suck some of the joy out of it. If you want to stick to good old Pandora firma, direhorses will be your standard choice. These horselike creatures get the job done, though weak animations and sound effects make riding one seem more like floating about in a hovercar with legs than riding atop a great beast of burden. But direhorses are preferable to the RDA options, in particular the buggies. When you get behind the wheel of a buggy, the camera swoops and sways with every bump and bounce. The effect is so nauseating, it's better to stay on foot and keep your lunch than to take a rover and lose it. Luckily there are a few other options, though not all of them fare better. Gunships, for example, are awkward to pilot thanks to an unusual--and noncustomizable--control scheme.

Avatar's most intriguing idea is its implementation of a turn-based strategy minigame called Conquest, which you can access from the game's fast-travel stations. As you play through the campaign, you earn funds that you can spend on units in Conquest mode. In Conquest mode, you capture territories, thereby earning boosts in the campaign, such as earning more experience points or increasing damage. This is a terrific idea, and it's fun to play around in Conquest for a short while, as simple as it is. However, Avatar is not a challenging game, so the enhancements you receive from capturing territories aren't noticeably helpful, and you could easily finish the game and reach maximum level without even knowing that Conquest exists.

Avatar's multiplayer modes aren't quite as useless as Conquest, letting up to 16 players compete in a variety of modes like Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, and Capture the Flag. The multiplayer suite feel less like a throwaway than you might expect for a movie tie-in but the factions play so differently that weird imbalances become quickly apparent. A Na'vi player can crush an RDA player with a single swipe of his club, while an RDA player can jump in a mech suit and mow Na'vi down without much fuss. (Though oddly, the swarm of insects Na'vi players can unleash make short work of those big hunks of metal.) The factional differences make for some initially appealing variety, but the disparity is too great--and the basic mechanics too bland--to support long online sessions. The mechs don't feel heavy enough to make them fun to pilot, and the cavorting camera renders buggies as uncomfortable to drive in multiplayer sessions as they are in the campaign.

One of Avatar's main selling points is its use of 3D technology, so if you own a high-definition television equipped with stereoscopy, you may get a kick out of seeing Avatar pop out of your screen. Yet even if you're one of the few lucky enough to see the game this way, no TV yet has the capability of making James Cameron's Avatar: The Game play any better than it does. It's not a bad game, and portions of it are competent, if not quite remarkable. But Avatar wears thin quickly, and the story is too fragile to compensate for the deficiencies.

By Kevin VanOrd

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 Review

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

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

The Bad

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

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

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

The core combat mechanics haven't fundamentally changed since Resident Evil 4. The action still unfolds from an over-the-shoulder perspective, certain battles or cutscenes are accompanied by brief quick-time events, and you still have to stop moving to fire your weapon (though you gain a bit more mobility thanks to your newfound ability to walk sideways). Resident Evil 5's slow movement and gunplay take some time to get used to, and folks expecting a run-and-gun game may find the action too sluggish for their tastes. Fortunately, this slowness isn't really an issue within the game, because enemies are deliberate with their attacks and are better handled with a cool head and steady aim. Though the Xbox 360 controller is fully supported, the standard keyboard/mouse combo offers vastly superior aiming precision and control, which makes it by far the better option.

Regardless of how similar the combat in Resident Evil 5 is to its predecessor, the addition of a second character makes encounters feel quite different. Teamwork is necessary to take down more powerful enemies and bosses, and having someone to watch your back goes a long way toward keeping you alive. Furthermore, there have been radical changes made to the inventory management system. The immersion-breaking briefcase from the previous game is gone, and enemies no longer politely wait for you to rummage through your things because bringing up your armory doesn't pause the action. Each character can store up to nine items, and as long as you properly organize your inventory using the simple click-and-drag interface, all of your items are only a single keystroke away, which offers an unprecedented level of accessibility to your gear. It's often necessary to trade items with your partner, and keeping track of who has what at all times is crucial, especially during boss encounters.

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

Despite these conveniences, there are some frustrating hurdles that need to be leaped over before a partner can begin playing. Co-op isn't drop-in, so if someone joins, gameplay is interrupted and immersion is broken to some degree because the player who joined has to sit on the sidelines until the host either restarts or continues on to the next checkpoint. Another major problem is that players' main inventories are isolated from one another, and though you can trade healing items and ammunition, weapons are off-limits for exchange, making some battles more difficult if you're playing with a partner who is not as well equipped as you.

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

RE5 is one of the most visually stunning games available, and its huge variety of environments is meticulously detailed in every way. There are lots of large, open areas, and you'll constantly be on the move through them since there are usually so many enemies. In-game cutscenes are top-notch (though sometimes a bit over-the-top), and Chris and Sheva are incredibly well animated, especially their faces. If you happen to have the right collection of equipment, you can also take advantage of Nvidia's 3D Vision technology to experience Resident Evil 5 in stereoscopic 3D. The dialogue is often full of the trademark goofiness found in the series. The voice acting is competent, and when paired with the excellent facial expressions, it breathes a great deal of realism into the characters. Likewise, the fantastic orchestral soundtrack heightens the gameplay with everything from the low-key, ambient tracks that play during downtimes to the frantic, upbeat songs that accompany the massive boss battles.

On the first play-through, Resident Evil 5 lasts about 12 hours, which is considerably shorter than its predecessor. Once you're finished, though, there's still plenty to see and do. There are hidden B.S.A.A. badges scattered throughout most levels to find; you can strive to get better scores or times in each chapter to show off on the online leaderboards; and there are three initial difficulties available with a fourth unlockable. In-game points can be spent on collectible trophies of various characters and enemies, on additional costumes and graphics filters, and on special infinite-ammo versions of guns that you've fully upgraded. The Mercenaries minigame also returns in a format that is very similar to its last incarnation but with support for co-op. While it's disappointing that the Versus multiplayer mode available as downloadable content on the console releases is nowhere to be seen, a new PC-exclusive mode called No-Limit is included. No-Limit pits you against ridiculously huge mobs of enemies but is otherwise identical to the standard Mercenaries mode.

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

Bayonetta

Bayonetta Updated Hands-On Impressions



We delve into the first four chapters of Sega's upcoming action adventure and get bewitched by the sassy British heroine.

The first 30 seconds of Bayonetta are quite a ride. You'll fight a pack of demons on a broken cliff face plunging at rapid speeds down a mountain side, wildly pushing at random buttons trying to figure out what's what. But that doesn't mean it's not a carefully orchestrated beginning. In fact, the opening scene of the game is exactly what Bayonetta seems to be all about: spontaneous, crazy, and fun. There's never a dull moment or an enemy with just one head, or arm, or leg. But Bayonetta is fast proving to be a little bit more engaging than your average over-the-top action game. With the game's release just two months away, we had a chance to delve a little deeper into the game's story, combat, and gameplay with an updated hands-on demo that took us through the game's prologue and its first four chapters.

Those who have been following our previous coverage will already be familiar with the heroine of the game--Bayonetta is a leather-clad modern-day witch with some pretty remarkable powers and a sassy British accent. Found in a casket at the bottom of the sea 20 years ago, Bayonetta remembers nothing of her former life and is constantly haunted by memories, which she must piece together throughout the game. The game's opening sequence serves as a little teaser to Bayonetta's past: we see her fighting angelic-like demons side-by-side another witch named Jeanne, whose relationship to our heroine we won't discover until later. The game's prologue is set during the present day where Bayonetta is working with a muscle man named Enzo (think Danny DeVito) under the influence of a spiritual-leader-cum-crime-boss called Rodin, who looks and sounds suspiciously like Laurence Fishburne. What exactly Bayonetta does is difficult to determine--the only clue we're given is that she's searching for a stone for her necklace, which will somehow help her uncover her past.

The first combat sequence takes place during the prologue in a cemetery where you're finally taught how to fight. Bayonetta has a wide and varied combo library at her disposal, which you must slowly learn to master if you want to keep things interesting. You'll start off easy with punches and kicks, as well as a move that triggers "witch time." This is a slow-motion sequence that lasts about three seconds and makes all your enemies move slower while you remain in real time. Witch time is triggered by pressing R1 at the very last possible moment to dodge a blow before it is delivered and is relatively easy to master. Bayonetta also has guns (and oh, what guns!) equipped to her hands and feet. Holding down kick or punch will unleash a torrent of bullets (automatic aim) while rotating the left thumbstick before holding kick or punch will see Bayonetta spin around on her head (a la break dancing) and shoot her enemies with her feet. These moves will serve as the base for all the combos, the majority of which are unlocked from the start of the game.

Because there are a lot of combos, the game gives you a chance to practice them during the loading screens. While in combat, you'll only be able to remember four or five combos (six if you're mentally acute), but the rest will come as a result of trial and error and button mashing. This is both easy and satisfying, especially when you stumble across a previously unknown combo. Bayonetta can also pick up and drop weapons lost by her enemies, but be wary: the bigger and more impressive a weapon is, the longer it will take to swing it, which leaves Bayonetta open to attack.

Chapter One shows us that Bayonetta is a woman prone to serious and frequent flashbacks, in which she is an active participant rather than a passive observer. After receiving some new information about the location of the stone she's seeking, Bayonetta travels to the European citadel of Vigrid, where, predictably, she fights some bad dudes. Whether Vigrid is part of the real world or an imagined one--or even another dimension--we're not sure yet. Not even Sega can answer that question at this stage. What's known for sure is that Vigrid is infested with The Lumen Sage--evil angels and monsters guarding treasures, mountains, and passageways, which you will have to make your way through.

Here, we're introduced to the game's shop, subtly called "The Gates of Hell" and run by Rodin. You can enter the shop in between chapters or by accessing portals as you play. Each time you slay an enemy, you'll collect halos, which transform into currency for purchasing weapons, new moves, and accessories. These include magic charms and spells to increase vitality, as well as items such as health boosts. There are also treasures, which include new books that give you information about Bayonetta, her past, and the world she inhabits. You can assign items to the D pad for your convenience, as well as collect treasures, charms, and items in-game. The end of this chapter sees us fighting our first boss--the giant dragon demon with the face of a Botticelli cherub that we've seen in our past previews.

Chapter Two treats us to a bit of background information on the relationship between Bayonetta and Jeanne via a playable flashback. We also bump into a promiscuous young man named Luka, who Bayonetta insists, despite his protests, to call Cheshire. Luka is connected to her past somehow, but we'll have to wait until later to find out more. We then enter an area of Vigrid called Purgatorio (which is not actually the Purgatory). Because Bayonetta is fighting at nearly every turn, it's easy to imagine that the combat sequences could quickly become somewhat of a bore: the same combos, the same finishing moves, the same demons. But this is not at all true; in fact, one of the most engaging aspects of the gameplay in this demo was the varied and immersive combat. You're encouraged to be as creative and stylish as you want when you're killing dudes; the more flair, the more handsome the reward. The spectacular and over-the-top demons also represent different eras in the mythology of the game. For example, you'll fight demons that represent virtues and dominions, and others that represent principalities. Not that you'll be able to tell: though some are made of flesh and others are made of steel, they're all extravagant, weird-looking, and, as mentioned before, have various limbs.

The best way to finish a combat sequence is with some of Bayonetta's finishing moves, which include a torture combo and a terribly fun move playfully titled “the climax combo”. The former is triggered by a meter under your health bar, which you can build up by damaging your enemy's health while not sustaining any hits yourself. Once the meter is full, you'll be prompted into a quick-time event that, when executed successfully, culminates in an impressive and gory stage show that has Bayonetta throwing her enemies into coffins or cutting their heads off with a guillotine. The climax combo can only be used on bosses and is activated when you're nearing the end of the fight (and you're winning). After the quick-time event, Bayonetta's hair will come to life and transform into a giant creature--be it dragon, vulture, or sparrow--which will proceed to tear apart what's left of the boss.

During our demo, we also discovered that Bayonetta can walk up walls, but she can only do so when the moon is out. Surprisingly, we weren't taken back to the modern world but kept a path through Vigrid territories that became darker--fire, lava, rain, and hail--until we reached the last boss fight of our demo. We'd encountered this pesky dragon before, but now that it had managed to get on Bayonetta's nerves, we had to finish it off. It wasn't exactly much to look at, and even Bayonetta remarked on its offensive physique: a Buddha-like form consisting of two dragon heads and a giant, upside-down Roman head not unlike the ones you find in the antiquities section of a museum, plus some chains and pudgy baby arms flailing about. The entire fourth chapter of the game is taken up with this boss fight, which is epic in every sense of the word. We had to use every combo we could remember to keep one step ahead of the dragon and, one by one, decapitate its heads until the climax combo finale.

The last thing we thought we'd mention is the subtle humour that seems to be abundant in Bayonetta. The game's music, design, and dialogue seem to be a pastiche of different styles. Cutscenes have a habit of switching between normal and film-reel-style stills, while the game's music is reminiscent of both the "Pulp Fiction" and "Charlie’s Angels" themes, Japanese anime, and the electronica you get with old-school fighting games like Street Fighter. Bayonetta herself is a charming and hilarious character, sounding like a schoolteacher at one moment and Austin Powers the next ("Flock off, feather face"). Finally, the game likes to mix things up: after each chapter you’ll have to participate in a shooting minigame to earn more halos; in another instance, you’ll have to face off against three bosses in a row in the middle of a chapter.

No matter which element of Bayonetta you're most looking forward to, it seems there's something in it for everyone. Stay tuned for more Bayonetta coverage before its release in January.

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption First Impressions



We saddled up for a tour of Rockstar's latest Wild West shooter. Find out how the west was won, Red Dead-style.

It's been almost five years since the release of the original Red Dead Revolver, so it's been a long wait for a sequel. That game is called Red Dead Redemption, and it is currently being developed at Rockstar San Diego, the outfit responsible for Midnight Club, Table Tennis and Midtown Madness. We managed to sneak a look at a work-in-progress build of the game at Rockstar's London office, and can report back on what we saw.

Redemption takes place roughly 50 years after Revolver, just after the turn of the twentieth century. The story follows John Marston, a reformed career criminal, who is forced to do the bidding of the newly-formed Bureau of Investigation thanks to an apparently deadly ultimatum. Rockstar was deliberately vague on the details of the plot, but we do know that Marston's quest will take him to three areas in the game: the frontier, Great Plains, and south of the border to Mexico. Rockstar has always had desires to return to the Wild West according to Hamish Brown, Rockstar London's PR representative for the day. He claims that Redemption is just as ambitious as any of the Grand Theft Auto games, with wide open plains and a bigger world than any Rockstar game to date.

Our demo of the game started out in a typical western setting: brown dirt, scrub bushes, distant monoliths, and some suspicious-looking cowboys loitering around the outskirts of a ghost town. It seems that a friend of Marston's, Bonnie, has been kidnapped by outlaws, and in exchange he needs to deliver a sheriff and his prisoner over to them. Somewhere along the way, the deal goes sour and Marston and his posse need to shoot their way through town to rescue Bonnie before she‘s hanged. Thankfully, you have a healthy range of weapons at your disposal, including six shooters, shotguns, carbines, rifles, knives, axes, Gatling guns, and TNT.

Fans of the previous game will be familiar with Dead Eye, which makes a return appearance in Redemption. This bullet time mode allows you to take precise aim at enemies whether you’re on foot or in the saddle. When using single-handed weapons you'll also be able to line up several targets on one or multiple enemies at a time. Redemption features a regenerative health system, so hiding behind cover for a few seconds is enough to heal your wounds. We're told the cover system will be similar to the one in GTA, and the natural environment will provide protection including rocks, vegetation, and even dead carcasses.

While you'll be able to traverse great distances thanks to coaches and trains, horseback will also play a major part. Each horse will have different abilities; if you steal one from town it should be in fairly well-kept condition, or you can choose to rough it and train a wild stallion instead. No game set in the wilderness would be complete without some wildlife and Redemption features plenty of varmints to shoot. A dedicated "ecology" system ensures you'll encounter snakes, armadillos, cougars, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, buzzards and even bears along your journey.

In addition to randomly generated animals, we're told there'll be hundreds of procedural events as you explore the world. On our journey into another town we saw a woman whose stagecoach had broken down. On closer inspection, however, it was actually an ambush with several bandits appearing from behind the coach. Heading down the road, we saw a man being mauled by a pack of coyotes--you can choose to help him, but you risk having the pack turn on you instead. These events take place randomly around the clock but they're not all dangerous--expect to get the occasional friendly invite such as sharing a campfire meal with some pilgrims after dark. If you fancy human companionship, you'll be please to know that a multiplayer mode has been confirmed, although no details were revealed during our demo.

You can trade with merchants in towns, buying and selling a variety of goods including general supplies, weapons and even animal skins you've collected. We strolled into an abandoned saloon during the day, which turns into a rowdy, honky-tonk location at night once the townsfolk have knocked off work. While the sun's up, however, they'll get about their business and you can observe them going about their daily chores if you so desire. While you’re in town you're able to play a range of mini games and gamble your money away in poker. In one mini game, we saw Marston try his hand, quite literally, in a wager of good ol' five finger fillet. Using the A and B buttons for knife stabs, each round gets subsequently faster, and harder, which can easily result in a painful flesh wound. As with all the best Rockstar open-world games, Marston will be able to wreak havoc on the towns, but Redemption will have a robust law enforcement system in place to stop any law-breakers.

Next, we saw Marston take a trip south, where his services were requested by the Mexican Army to protect a supply train. Riding alongside the train, the aim is to take out rebels while defending the train. You can jump off your trusty stead onto the moving train (and back again) or even highjack other horses on the move. The scenery south of the border looks splendid, with rivers, palm trees, ridges, gorges and huge valleys showing off the Rage engine's technical prowess. The draw distances look particularly impressive, spanning huge valleys and finishing in the far distance with majestic mountain ranges. The world will also be populated with forests, rivers, plains, bustling towns, small outposts, Indian reservations, and possibly even some snow. There’ll also be a dynamic weather system and day/night cycle in the game.

The game will also boast a physics engine that's a hybrid of Rage and NaturalMotion's Euphoria, which will be applied to Marston, NPCs, and even animals to make their animation more lifelike. Anyone familiar with GTA will instantly recognise the health/map gauge in the bottom-left corner of the screen. However, this time around it comes complete with an added horse life gauge. The sounds of Redemption appear to be just as authentic as its graphics, and we heard plenty of ambient western-themed music and effects which helped to create an atmosphere of tension.

Red Dead Redemption is riding into town this year on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. We're certain to get behind the reins soon, so keep an eye out for more coverage in the coming months.

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 Hands-On Impressions - New Character Reveal
By Shaun McInnis

We check out one of Mass Effect 2's new recruitable characters, an Asari named Samara.

The original Mass Effect proved that not every new installment in a three-part trilogy needs to conclude with an unsatisfying cliffhanger ending. With Commander Shepard and his crew having taken care of Saren and the Geth, players were able to wrap up that first chapter in a way that left them feeling as though their actions had already left a lasting mark on the galaxy. But at the same time, the galaxy in Mass Effect was a big one, and it was still easy to walk away from the game with the sense that you had only begun to scratch the surface of the world (or worlds) around you. Mass Effect 2, due out in January, will do its part to flesh out the universe and denizens that made the original story so compelling.

Our previous looks at Mass Effect 2 have included a run through the "seedy den of scum and villainy" known as Omega, as well as an introduction to the improved combat system. In our latest hands-on with Mass Effect 2, we were introduced to a new character that appears ready to add some depth to one of the galaxy's most important races. If you look back to the original game and conjure up an image of the Asari race--those mysterious blue-skinned humanoids--it's likely you'll either think of them as pure-hearted scientists (your squadmate Lisari) or biotic-wielding villains (Matriarch Benezia). In Mass Effect 2, one of the new party members is an Asari named Samara. She's essentially a lawless vigilante who operates under a strict code outside of government rule--what the game calls a justicar--and she's someone whose motivations are far more mysterious than others of her ilk.

The demo we played focused on Commander Shepard's quest to recruit Samara into his squad. As someone with a reputation for ruthless efficiency when it comes to bringing down the scum of the universe, her skills are just what Shepard needs for the task force he's assembling. Things began with Shepard arriving on the Asari homeworld of Illium, a dark planet whose sleek-but-cold look made it clear that the race inhabiting this world was among the most technologically advanced in the galaxy. Shepard began by chatting up a merchant named Pitne For, who was one of the chubby little Volus aliens that you might remember from the original game.

When asked where to find Samara, Pitne For played dumb, so Shepard quickly left this fellow in the dust and sought the assistance of a nearby Asari police detective. She referred Shepard to a nearby crime scene where Samara might be found--what with her penchant for vigilante justice and all. Shepard rolls up on the scene and finds Samara violently interrogating a member of a notorious mercenary group whose clan had just whisked off the would-be criminal on one of its ships. Things go sour and Samara winds up killing the merc, only to be apprehended by the local police.

Being the gifted conversationalist that he is, Shepard steps in to offer some assistance to the mysterious Asari he's looking to recruit. Just as in Mass Effect, conversations and dialogue play a huge role in the sequel. Facial animations during these moments seem a good deal more lifelike, while the camera angles appear to be more dynamic. The other thing we noticed here--as with the rest of the conversations in this demo--was that the lighting seemed a lot gloomier, which gave the game's conversations a much darker feel. (There's also an interesting new dialogue mechanic we'll get to in a moment.)

After offering Samara some assistance in handling her newly handcuffed situation, she told us to find out more info on the mercenary force and the aforementioned ship it used to steal away the person she was trying to find. We could have set off on our own right then, but we asked for some leads. Samara told us about a short little merchant with access to the mercenary base--a fellow named Pitne For.

Needless to say, we approached old Pitne quite angrily after finding out that he'd lied about knowing Samara. We began a heated conversation with Pitne, and after a few attempts at getting him to help us out, we were shown a quick icon on the screen during one of Pitne's evasive responses. These represent the new conversation interruption mechanic in Mass Effect 2. BioWare wants players to feel more invested in these conversations, to go beyond choosing the subject of discussion. With this interruption system, you can cut someone off midspeech and change the entire mood of the conversation. In our case, we abruptly pulled a gun on Pitne that shocked the poor little merchant into giving us a key card to the merc base. Had we missed this interruption cue (a sort of quick-time event button prompt), the conversation would have become drawn out, with Pitne weaving around our questions just as he had done before. But because Shepard was angry and unwilling to put up with all of that, the game offered us the ability to get right to the point. And we'll admit, doing that made us feel pretty damn tough.

From here, our demo shifted from dialogue-heavy plot exposition to a more action-oriented focus. These mercenaries weren't terribly happy to see us infiltrating their base, so we had to deal with them the violent way. One of the biggest changes to combat in Mass Effect 2 is the introduction of heavy-grade weapons, such as the grenade launcher--a gun with which we immediately fell in love. Using this thing to blast through groups of enemy vanguards was quite thrilling, but with its limited amount of ammo, we still had to be smart about when we used it.

Other changes to combat include the ability to swap out ammunition types from the midfight radial menu, a more responsive cover system, and added effectiveness to headshots. We were quite pleased with these changes, but there was one that struck us as a bit odd: the way you deal with an overheated gun. No longer does your gun overheat from being fired for too long without a rest. Instead, it will overheat after a set number of rounds are fired, at which point you need to pop in a cooling rod (which works on all nonheavy gun types) to lower the gun's temperature. It's a neat idea, but functionally speaking, it seemed just the same as the standard ammo-reloading system seen in most shooters out there. While there's nothing wrong with that on its own, it's a weird technological downgrade to go from infinite ammo in Mass Effect to what's essentially limited ammo in the sequel.

Small issues aside, we were very pleased with the improvements made to the combat system. The radial menu ammo switching made it worlds easier to adjust to different enemy types on the fly, while the improved hit detection made picking off enemies from afar quite thrilling. A number of these improvements coalesced at the end when we got to take on a boss using a combination of the grenade launcher and the more responsive cover system. That boss? A very angry gunship firing rockets at us. We're not sure how we did it, but we must have got lucky because our quick flurry of grenades managed to land right in the cockpit to take that thing down pretty quickly. All told, it was a pretty startling and fun boss.

In a lot of ways, Mass Effect 2 looks like the game everyone wanted from the original. Its glaring bugs appear to have been taken care of, with texture pop-in mostly out of the picture and an inventory system that's said to have been greatly improved (here's hoping for a "mark as junk" feature like in Dragon Age). But more than that, it's a game that's going to offer a deeper look at the galactic conflicts and lingering tensions that made the original so interesting. A much darker game, Mass Effect 2 looks like it will carve out its own unique place in the series so far. We'll see how it all comes together when the game is released on January 26.

Medal of Honor redeploys in fall 2010

EALA and DICE collaborating on long-rumored reboot of classic series, which will follow modern-day special ops commandos in Afghanistan.

The past week has seen several major news stories centered on Afghanistan, culminating in last night's announcement by President Obama that is he is dispatching 30,000 more troops to the war-torn nation. Today, Afghanistan figured prominently in the game world, when Electronic Arts announced it would be the setting for the long-rumored reboot of its Medal of Honor franchise, titled simply "Medal of Honor."

The new face of Medal of Honor.

Due out in fall 2010 for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, Medal of Honor will be the first installment in the once-top-selling series to not be set during World War II. The first-person shooter will instead focus on a member of the most elite group inside the modern-day US Special Operations Command, the shadowy Tier 1 Operators. EA says its Los Angeles studio has been working closely with actual members of the group, whose real-life experiences will provide the basis for the game's story.

In a statement, executive producer Greg Goodrich said EALA is emphasizing realism in the game. "When we first set out to reinvent Medal of Honor, we wanted to stay true to its roots of authenticity and respect for the soldier but bring it into today's war," he said. The most popular military shooter to date, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, took some criticism from reviewers for having a highly implausible storyline. Its developer, Infinity Ward, was created by former Medal of Honor developers who left EA in 2002.

While EALA will focus on Medal of Honor's single-player campaign, another internal studio, EA DICE, will be handling the multiplayer mode. The Swedish studio, formerly known as Digital Illusions CE, is renowned for the multiplayer modes of its Battlefield series, which will continue next March with Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

EA did not announce any further details on the game other than its cover art. However, the game's official Web site shows its setting will be in eastern Afghanistan, just southwest of the mountain stronghold of Tora Bora where Tier 1 Special Forces almost captured Osama Bin Laden in 2001. Last fall, that battle was recounted by a member of the unit involved on 60 Minutes on CBS, GameSpot's parent company.