Rugby Challenge for Vita Coming in June

After a solid outing on PS3 and Xbox 360, Rugby Challenge's Vita debut is in sight. The game will launch in Europe, the UK, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand on June 27, 2012. It will be released as Wallabies Rugby Challenge in Australia and Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge elsewhere.

The game has been developed by Sidhe in New Zealand, which has helmed a number of other rugby titles, in addition to Rugby Challenge on console. The studio was also responsible for cult favourites GripShift and Shatter.

A few features, via publisher Tru Blu Entertainment:

• Multiple game modes including Single Match, Competition and Multi Year Career Modes as well as extensive Help and Tutorial Mode options


• 96 teams and 31 stadia, incorporating official team and competition licences for the All Blacks, the Qantas Wallabies, the USA Eagles, Bledisloe Cup, AU/NZ Super Rugby, Aviva Premiership Rugby, TOP 14 Orange, RaboDirect PRO12, ITM Cup, and Ranfurly Shield


• Utilisation of key PlayStation Vita capabilities including touch screen controls for gameplay (conversion kicks and lineouts), the rear touch panel for sprint and a full touch screen user interface


• Online multiplayer capabilities allowing gamers to compete in 1 vs 1 head to head play and leaderboard competitions


• Extensive customisation tools allowing users to shape the game to their own preferences by creating and customising new players, teams and competitions


• Real-time commentary from seasoned rugby commentators Grant Nisbett and former All Blacks’ halfback Justin Marshall.

The intensity of the All Blacks.

A classic showdown... hopefully.

For more screenshots, click through to the gallery.

Source : http://www.ign.com

Take-Two Expects to Thrive in Next Gen

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick likes the company’s chances next generation. Speaking during a fourth quarter earnings call today, Zelnick said that transitions to a new hardware cycle can create challenges for some publishers and opportunities for others, and he believes Take-Two will fall into the latter category.

Zelnick said that those with strong technology, strong owned intellectual property and top talent thrive in a new console cycle, and he believes that describes Take-Two but not many of its competitors. “We expect to be at the front of the line,” he said.

This comes in the wake of disappointing losses for Take-Two, who saw net revenue of $148.1 million this quarter, roughly $34 million below 2011’s $182.3 million. For the year, Take-Two’s net loss was $108.8 million. Comparatively, the company saw a profit of $48 million in 2011.

“While our financial results were disappointing, the decisions we made position Take-Two for growth and profitability both this year and over the long-term,” Zelnick commented.

It wasn’t all bad news, though, as L.A. Noire and NBA 2K12 boosted earnings for the year. Both titles have shipped more than five million units to date, with LA Noire holding the honor of best-selling new IP in 2011. In the wake of BioShock Infinite’s recent delay to 2013, Zelnick also revealed that the BioShock franchise has shipped 9.5 million units to date. Meanwhile, Max Payne 3 has shipped three million units since its release last week.

“Fiscal 2013 kicked off with the successful launch of Max Payne 3, which received outstanding reviews and promises to be another hit for Rockstar Games,” Zelnick said. “We have a fantastic lineup of upcoming releases for the balance of the year and the strongest development pipeline in the company’s history.”

The company predicts a big year in 2013, with its current release calendar and some "titles yet to be announced” pushing expected revenue to $1.75 billion. While Zelnick wouldn’t reveal whether that prediction specifically included Grand Theft Auto V, he did add that the title is “in full development.”

Other news from Take Two’s earnings results includes a possible delay to 2014 for 2K Marin’s XCOM first-person shooter and the potential end of the MLB 2K series. The company also confirmed a few release dates for the upcoming fiscal year, as included below:

• Max Payne 3 (PC) – June 1, 2012

• Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings – June 19, 2012

• Spec Ops: The Line – June 26, 2012

• Borderlands 2 – September 18, 2012

• NBA 2K13 – October 2, 2012

• XCOM: Enemy Unknown – October 9, 2012

• BioShock Infinite – February 26, 2013

A release window for Grand Theft Auto V has still not been announced, though many analysts continue to predict that the game will be released in 2013.

Source : http://www.ign.com

First Look: Call of Duty: Black Ops II gameplay footage

For all the naysayers who think that Treyarch and Activision are merely “riding the cash pony” for its latest Call of Duty: Black Ops II…um, have you even seen it in action?  No, you haven’t.  Luckily, we have, and we’ve got a full recap of the gameplay footage we saw, as well as the new Overwatch mode that’s being introduced, right here for you.

Activision, who recently showed the footage as part of its pre-E3 push, is putting a lot of confidence into Black Ops II, and for good reason.  Treyarch has really gone the extra mile to make the game feel different from the original, while at the same time featuring some tie-ins through flashback storyline sequences (involving Alex Mason from the original game, along with his buddies).  There's even a scene that introduces the villain of the story, who the team feels actually has a method to his madness.  But we didn’t see any of this just yet, only an amazing sequence that takes place in Los Angeles, along with bits and pieces from the Overwatch mode.

Let’s talk L.A. first.  The stage opened with Dave Mason, son of Alex, riding with the female president in a barrage of Hummers headed into a war-torn Los Angeles, with literally dozens of automated drones flying overhead.  Before you can say “Metta World Peace," a downed helicopter ends the ride early, forcing Dave and his team to go on foot and scrambling to get the president to safety.  It’s here that we’re introduced to the familiar third-person shooting action that the series is known for — but with some futuristic twists.

The first involves the weaponry in the game, including some effective (if limited) missile launchers and an awesome high-tech rifle with a scope that lights up targets quite easily, making for some good terrain for head shots.  You’ll also take on automated threats like flying drones and walkers, but the walkers actually have a weak point — their legs.  During the demo, we saw Dave take out one of the walker’s legs, circling around it and finishing it off while we were just outside of its range.

But these machines are just part of the threat, as the terrorist, a lunatic named Raul Menendez, has a number of soldiers fighting for his cause, as well.  Throughout the demo, we saw sections where they popped up at every turn, preventing an escape through a collapsed freeway (complete with crumbling overpass, very awesome) with an ambush, and creating havoc in the streets while you try to work your way to the president’s safety point.

The game featured shooting segments both high and low with you protecting your squad by shooting enemies from afar, then getting back into the firefight as you battle through the city streets — which look an awful lot like the ones we roam around during E3.  Interesting.  There’s also a fun sequence where you temporarily control a rocket-shooting turret, downing drones after locking onto them.  You need to escape quick, though, as an explosion rocks the truck over the side of the overpass, forcing you to escape before it collapses.

After a few more firefights, all featuring fast-moving visuals and impeccable detail (this is one of the better looking Call of Duty games to date), Dave is able to hop into a jet, where he takes to the air and brings the battle directly to the drones.  It’s here that the gameplay kicked up a notch, with solid flight controls and boosting, along with locking onto targets and shooting them out of the sky.  (Oh, and don’t hit the buildings — that would probably be bad.)  The sequence concluded with Dave bailing out of the jet, just as it directly collided into a drone.  Awesome way to end the demo, if we do say so ourselves.

From there, Treyarch launched into another gameplay segment, one taking place on a frigate in Singapore.  Here, you’ll actually guide a team into battle against enemies, while marking objectives and setting up for an air strike.  These new Overwatch missions actually rely heavily on success or failure.  No matter which way they go, your story will continue, but their outcome can actually effect how your story ends, which is rather cool.  So try to win, okay?

What’s cool about Overwatch is how you can zoom out at any time and basically look at a cyber map to see what’s happening, and then zoom in to any active member of your party, taking control of them.  These include soldiers, point men, walkers and drones, making the fight rather unpredictable.  We can see these parts of the game getting quite competitive amongst players.  They look like fun.

Finally, Treyarch is building the multiplayer from the ground up, though it will contain full Call of Duty Elite integration, along with… yep, the return of zombies.  This time around, though, there’s a four versus four multiplayer aspect, possibly similar to the Left 4 Dead games… but with that Treyarch touch.  We’re eager to see how this turns out.

In all, Call of Duty: Black Ops II definitely looks like it’s living up to the hype.  While the demo wasn’t hands on, it was action packed throughout, with explosive visuals and awesome segments that will make for a good time on a Saturday night… or any night for that matter.  We’ll have more impressions on the game in the months ahead, leading to its November 13 release date.

Source : http://gamezone.com

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier starts out with a bit of misdirection. You're following a squad of gun-toting grunts as they drive along in an armored humvee as part of a larger convoy. Your immediate assumption is that you're riding with friendlies; no one is speaking, in English or any other language, and the non-descript nature of the uniforms and gear suggests Vanilla Military Force. The fact that the camera is along for the ride is all the proof we really need to assume that we're looking at some of the Good Guys.

Of course, misdirection is the calling card for Ghost Recon's future soldiers. The camera eventually cuts away from the convoy, off to a nearby ridge where a squad of four teched out soldiers in stealth camo lie prone with their weapons and intel devices pointed in the direction of the convoy. It's a slick introduction to what ultimately amounts to a rather generic story, but it nonetheless captures the essence of what being a Ghost Recon soldier is all about.

Cut From The Same Cloth

The scene described above ends with the Ghost squad opening fire on the convoy and quickly suppressing all resistance. Once the area is secure, a search of the vehicles unfolds that results in the discovery of a dangerous-looking warhead. As it turns out, the whole thing was a trap and the warhead detonates well before the Ghost team can get clear. This sequence of events sets Future Soldier's story of revenge in motion, with a second Ghost squad -- the one that you are a part of -- being dispatched to track down those responsible.

It works very well as a setup, even if the first-person shooter trope of killing off a seemingly important character in a bomb blast has been done before. What's unfortunate is that many of the events that follow this one feel largely generic and too heavily inspired by other sources. You'll infiltrate a Russian prison to rescue a VIP. You'll fight through the streets of a familiar city caught in the grip of a revolution. You'll even watch in horror as a found footage cutscene shows an attack on another familiar city.

This isn't to say that the missions aren't well thought out. You'll do cool things as you rescue VIPs, infiltrate enemy compounds, gather intel, and eliminate HVTs. You just won't care why you're doing it. The only real failing in Future Soldier's mission design is one that occurs later in the game without your squad to back you up. This is a squad-based shooter and the mission in question simply doesn't work very well without that squad backing you up. Fortunately, this is the only such example of a forced solo situation, and even that can be offset by playing through the mission in co-op.

Tools Of The Trade

The story is all very generic and forgettable in the end, though it's not the crime that it could be given the many strengths that Future Soldier does have. It's a game that certainly lives up to its title, serving up a vast range of technological doodads and gizmos that you can use and abuse to tilt the rules of engagement in your favor. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier might not introduce much in the way of new ideas, but its fresh treatment of familiar ones offer a good time regardless.

Let's start with the most low-tech tool in your toolbox: sync shots. Up to four enemy soldiers can be marked with the press of a button, with your team then following your lead and taking out anyone you've marked once you open fire on one of the targets. Stealth is a huge part of the game and the friendly AI is shockingly competent, so you end up relying on this feature frequently.

You can also mark as many as three targets and leave them for your team to deal with (by pressing and holding the same button you use to mark enemies). This is most useful when paired with the game's UAV drone, a remote-operated quadrotor-powered camera that can be deployed during most missions.

Between tools like the drone and the sync shot feature, it's entirely possible to play through most of Future Soldier without firing your weapon. This is really where the game stands out most, giving you all of the tools you need to tackle near-future battlefields in a way that suits your particular play style. The responsive controls fully support this too, whether you go in guns blazing or you rely on your squadmates to handle the bulk of the heavy lifting.

It's really the pacing that makes all of this work, however. Future Soldier never simply drops you into a mission with dozens of futuristic battle tools to choose from and no indication of what each one does. You're learning new tricks and picking up new toys throughout the game, though it's presented in such a way that it never feels like an endless tutorials. You're simply supplementing what you already know.

Sometimes these are one-off gameplay features that amount to a palette cleanser. In one particular case, you spend most of a mission guiding a combat mech around the battlefield. You certainly have the option of relying on your equipped firearms for most of the challenges you face, but it's far more fun to use the mech to rain a constant stream of devestation down on your enemies. There are also occasional on-rails sequences that give you all the ammo you could ask for and a bunch of enemies to shoot with it.

 

Then there's the weapon customization, which is by far the most detailed you've ever seen in a AAA release. You can tweak everything from underbarrel and side rail attachments to the gas system, barrel length, and trigger pull of your chosen firearm. Kinect voice and motion controls can be used in this Gunsmith mode, though they feel tacked on and unnecessary. The level of customization is the real win here, no question.

Future Soldier's gameplay overall is as fun as the story is generic. Sure, you'll balk at some of the things you see and hear in cutscenes as nods to (or ripoffs from) other games. But you'll also likely be too excited about what new toy you'll get to play with next to care. Only the on-the-ground version of the UAV drone misses the mark, due to exceedingly clunky driving controls.

Fighting With Your Fellow Future Soldiers

Co-op forms a huge part of the experience in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Some of the game's challenges, such as the solo mission mentioned above, simply don't work well without multiple human players in the mix. Guerilla Mode, a Horde-style 50-wave survival challenge, is basically impossible to play through without at least one other player at your side.

As enjoyable as it is to rely on your UAV drone and sync shots in the campaign, the best bet is always to bring along other human players. You can fill out your entire squad of four with online friends (or randoms), and apply the same sort of teamwork-oriented thinking in a group setting. The amount of enjoyment you take away from this depends largely on how well your crew can work together, but switching from managing an AI squad through each mission to using your futuretech tools in the context of a group is seamless.

Group play is even necessary in certain cases. There are challenges that are unique to each mission in the game; completing them unlocks all manner of new weapons and Gunsmith attachments. Some of these challenges are easier to complete on your own, but most of them favor group efforts.

The challenges offer a cool twist to the campaign and a reason to replay each mission on tougher difficulties, but the way that they're executed speaks to one of the larger problems in Future Soldier. A lot of the out-of-game menu juggling feels half-baked and poorly executed. For example, there's no way to measure your past performance. You receive a 1-100 rating based on your performance in each mission, and there are challenges tied to these ratings. Unfortunately, there's no way to look back at how you've scored previously inside the game.

There's also the fact that the different pieces of game feel disconnected from one another. You're constantly unlocking all sorts of weapons and attachments in the campaign, but none of this carries over to the Guerilla or competitive multiplayer modes. In Guerilla, you're actually stuck with whatever the game chooses to offer you for each wave. There's also no real sense of progression in this mode, beyond unlockable  Achievements/Trophies. You can play through the 50 waves and have fun doing it -- every 10 rounds you have to take over and then defend a new HQ for the next 10 -- but there's no carrot to keep you coming back.

Finally, there's the multiplayer. It's mostly great. You don't have any of the typical bog-standard modes like Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch. Instead, there are four entirely objective-based modes to choose from. They're all a lot of fun to play and they all feel decidedly unique, even if they play on established multiplayer ideas.

Decoy, for example, has one team rushing to interact with their "key" objective. There are also two other "decoy" objectives. The opposing team can see all three locations, but it isn't ever made clear which one is the primary. Or Conflict, a mode with a rotating set of objectives that could involve anything from kill/defend an HVT to take a control point and hold it. There's nothing in the multiplayer modes that's particularly new, but it's nonetheless a lot of clever riffing on familiar ideas.

Unfortunately, there are also some baffling limitations. Each of the three classes -- the frontal assault-oriented Rifleman, the stealth camo-clad Scout sniper, and the sensor grenade/UAV-toting Engineer -- levels up individually, but they're all saddled with a surprisingly limited selection of weapons. There's so much firepower on the campaign side of the game, but you can only put a sampling of it to work for you in multiplayer. More weapons unlock as you advance through the ranks, but it's still only a sampling of what's available elsewhere in the game.

Future Soldier also makes the fatal mistake that others have made, of forcing faction-specific loadouts and weapon options on players. Is it more realistic for the U.S. forces to have access to an ACR and for the Russian forces to use an AK-200? Sure. That sense of realism comes at the cost of a good time, however. Tweaking your custom loadouts can be fun, but having to spend your attachment credits on the same new Gunsmith parts twice quickly becomes tedious and bothersome.

So in the end, we're left with an experience that feels divided against itself. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is an exceptional game housed in an exceedingly generic shell. The parts that work well do so brilliantly, while those that don't only serve to make the game feel incomplete. There are things that will annoy the hell out of you, no question, but there's also a ridiculous amount of fun to be had. My advice to shooter fans: get over it. For any of its faults, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is well worth investing your efforts and multiplayer hours into.

Editor's Note: Future Soldier was reviewed using an Xbox 360 copy of the game; however, we also played the PS3 version, and found no differences. If further investigation reveals any differences between the 360 edition and the PS3 edition of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences. 

Source : http://www.g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/63265/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-future-soldier/review/

The Need for a Nintendo Universe

For months Nintendo fans, and the entire games industry, have speculated about Retro Studios’ next project. With the company laying low since 2010’s Donkey Kong Country Returns, the timing is right for Nintendo’s trusted western developer to unveil its next game. Rumors and theories were running rampant, ranging from Star Fox and Zelda to a return to the Metroid Prime universe.

Yet no one was quite expecting the suggestion that the company was in fact preparing a crossover between the worlds of Fox McCloud and Samus Aran. The notion of these two worlds colliding seemed insane. And yet... not so insane. Rumor or not, the idea that Nintendo’s different universes might interact is plausible. We’ve been seeing this sort of thing for more than a decade - and characters like Mario, Samus and Link fit together better than one might expect. In fact, it’s probably time that Nintendo adopt this practice more formally. It’s time these creations, despite their disparate gameplay experiences, to guest star more often. The only thing more powerful than Nintendo’s vast array of IPs is a scenario in which they can co-exist.

We’ve seen subtle winks and nods to Nintendo’s shared universe for a long time. Mario and Donkey Kong seem to have their own lives and supporting casts, yet frequently interact, particularly when it comes to sports - or jumping over barrels. And we’ve seen plenty of cameos over the years, from R.O.B. in F-Zero GX to Mushroom Kingdom enemies in Link's Awakening to characters that strongly resemble Mario and Luigi in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The references, hints and clever winks could fill a book. Which simply begs the question - why not let the characters interact formally?

This isn’t to say Kirby has to be playable in a Metroid game, or that we simply must see Link piloting a ship in the next installment of Star Fox. These games have specific aesthetics and gameplay ideas, and forcing too much interaction would no doubt corrupt what makes each one unique. Yet there’s nothing saying Nintendo can’t let them interact or acknowledge they’re able to run into each other. Let the fun cameos be bolder. Let the Easter Eggs be more entertaining. Give Nintendo fans, who tend to embrace the publisher’s vast catalog in a fairly comprehensive manner, more of what they crave. Don’t be shy. Have fun with a legacy that has been developed for more than 25 years. It’s not as if we’re dealing with startlingly realistic concepts. The Zelda and Mario universes are insane enough, packed with bizarre characters and ideas. What are a few more in the stack?

That’s why, as insane as the idea of a Star Fox/Metroid crossover might be, it’s not as untenable as you may think. The resistance to such a notion doesn’t seem to focus on the actual concept, but whether the two franchise’s different gameplay styles can accommodate one another. Star Fox is a fast, energetic, third-person aerial shooter, often on rails and often featuring over-the-top action. Metroid is the opposite of just about all of those things. In fact the only thing it has in common with Star Fox is that players need to shoot things, sometimes in space. Samus Aran’s isolated, cold, slow-paced adventures couldn’t be farther from Fox and friend’s quest to stop an evil space monkey.

Yet that reconciliation might be where a considerable amount of innovation can come from. Nintendo is often chastised for leaning on its familiar franchises and strictly operating within those franchise’s boundaries. There is no realistic or sensible way to suggest the company should abandon its iconic characters. They are responsible for billions of dollars in sales, and have single-handedly propelled the publisher’s unique hardware for close to three decades. But, in addition to more traditional installments of Mario and Zelda, what if the company looked to joining and sharing these worlds as ways to explore new ideas, both in terms of franchise and gameplay design?

Sure, it’s insane sounding. But so was the idea that all of Nintendo’s heroes and villains would join together for a fighting game. The thought of Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom banding together to race in go-karts was a little crazy too. Now we’re at the point where Samus Aran and Fox McCloud could team up to save the galaxy, and while we pause at the thought of this, Pikachu is preparing to join forces with Japanese warriors. At this point the barrier to a full, formal, shared Nintendo Universe has about a thousand cracks in it. Nintendo might as well embrace it, allowing developers both internal and external the ability to experiment a bit more, while still giving millions of fans around the world what they want.

And, you know what, if a little hand-wringing and compromise can get us our Zelda/Fire Emblem team-up, we’re not going to complain. Let’s see what one of the world’s greatest game publishers can do when it kicks down a few doors and experiments with some of the greatest game franchises in history.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/23/the-need-for-a-nintendo-universe

Dragon's Dogma Review

Dragon's Dogma Review:

For as much as Dragon’s Dogma is a new IP for developer/publisher Capcom, there’s a lot about it that is strikingly familiar, not that’s a bad thing. It shares a lot of Monster Hunter’s DNA especially when it comes to boss battles. Many of the game’s fast-paced combat elements are partly due to the combined experience of veteran Capcom designers who have worked on several of the company’s action franchises. And of course, there’s the western RPG influence that is quite pervasive in Dragon’s Dogma. So it’s all the more of an achievement that this game manages to carve an identity all its own especially as its release rounds off a six-month ‘role-players’ paradise’ that includes Skyrim, The Witcher II Enhanced Edition, and Diablo III.

He Stole Your Heart

The initial set-up is as traditional as a fantasy plot could be, painting the playable character as the obligatory “chosen one” world savior known as the Arisen. This humble hero naturally comes from a quiet fishing village in the land of Gransys, which ends up being terrorized by a dragon. How the Arisen was chosen is the unusual part, as the dragon literally rips out the hero’s heart to signify this designation. Then the dragon departs, as if to say, “If you want your heart back, come and catch me, but not before you rid this world of its evils.”

Being the Arisen affords many privileges, not the least of which includes having access to ‘pawns’, warriors and spellcasters that will form your party, with a maximum of three companions at any time. One of these pawns will actually be designed by the player, using the same deep character creation tools that formed your Arisen. While devoted, your primary pawn is certainly not one-dimensional. This warrior might lack the backstory and character development that JRPG fans look for with their party members, but at least he’s reliable and his significance to the story actually grows as you get closer to recovering your heart.

Dragon’s Dogma sticks to traditional action RPG combat mechanics, starting you off with simple light/heavy attacks and blocking; and it doesn’t take long to learn new abilities specific to your class. Yet a collection of new talents is only as good as the control scheme that lets the player wield these skills. 

Dragon’s Dogma has sufficiently created a system where you can assign multiple special moves and access them with ease by holding one of the bumpers. The catch is that you can only learn new skills and assign them to the controller by visiting an innkeeper.

Pawns At Play

The pawns’ unquestioning servitude makes them easy to command and rely on, provided that they’re well-leveled. Capcom manages to keep the command-issuing mechanic very simple, letting you choose between “Help!”, “Go! (toward the enemy)”, and “Follow me!”. Pawns have enough sense to be proactive whenever a monster is nearby. It can be gratifying to occasionally hang back while you let your companions do all the dirty work. How you influence your primary pawn’s behavior is very subtle, but he will perform complementary to your play style and can be honed further by engaging in brief heart to heart chats back in town.

This pawn system is also another sign of the growing interest in asynchronous multiplayer. It's a wide-reaching term that encompasses everything from the typical Facebook social game to the enhanced leaderboard challenges of competitive titles like SSX and Ridge Racer Unbounded. Dragon's Dogma's multiplayer belongs to the ‘indirect assistance’ camp, drawing comparisons to From Software’s immensely challenging Demon's Souls. Yet unlike the hint-dropping mechanic of Demon's Souls, the sense of community in Dragon's Dogma centers around the ability to share your pawn with others and in turn, borrow other players' pawns for use in your party. It should be noted that while the primary pawn you’ve crafted will level up alongside you, the other pawns won’t. So it’s in your best interest to keep updating your party with new secondary pawns that are near or at your current level.

Never Short On Advice

The pawns’ ability to jump to friends’ sessions make them very busy beings. When you’re sleeping at an inn, they’re off helping other heroes like yourself with their quests. These include missions that you may not have signed up for just yet. Even if no one in real life actually rented your pawn, this companion will at least come back from an imaginary session and bring back gift items and quest knowledge. Whatever your pawn’s new experiences, he uses that to make your own adventures run smoother. Their advice is most useful when it involves pointing out enemy weaknesses, and it’s gratifying see the instant results of targeting and hitting those soft spots.

These pawns remark with trepidation when exploring catacombs and often comment about majestic cliffside ocean views. These observations help give your companions a sense of personality yet they also end up sounding disingenuous when they repeat the same line over and over, or worse, when another pawn uses the exact same words down the line.

Capcom is erring on the idea that there's no such thing as too much information. Unfortunately this is a negative when you're in a very involving boss fight and your three pawns are talking all at once. The worst part is when one of them actually has something helpful to say, but is drowned out amid the frantic context of the battle. You can toggle on pawn subtitles even though that clutters the HUD. If there was a way to tone down or toggle off the voices, I failed to find it in the Options menu. It’s even worse if you happen to be in a group mission with equally talkative Gransys soldiers. Of course that giant griffon is “a fearsome beast”! It just took out a large chunk of the floor in its latest dive bomb! You don’t have tell me three times in the last 20 seconds!

Talkativeness aside, your pawns are helpful where it counts, chipping away at enemy health and healing you as well, provided one of your party members has a curative spell. If you're a traditionalist melee combatant, diversifying your party with at least one skilled mage adds valuable magical offense; this pawn can even add temporary elemental bonuses to your weapons.

Like A Boss, Mount A Boss

Dragon’s Dogma encourages offensive assertiveness a bit more than defense, which is why the sooner you learn how to grab, the better. Fatally tossing dazed enemies off cliffs is as satisfying the first time as much as the hundredth time. The ease in grabbing hold of a creature ten times the size of the Arisen not only draws obvious comparisons to Shadow of the Colossus, but also provides a contrast to the less substantive gargantuan boss battles of the last several years, the ones that have been way too dependent on quick time events. The only action that qualifies as a QTE in Dragon's Dogma is in shaking the left stick in order to free oneself from a monster's grasp.

For a brief moment, that spot on the back or head of a boss becomes a safe zone to simply wail on the beast. The risk comes when a bipedal creature like a cyclops manages to take its arm back and grab you for a painful squeeze. It's impressive enough the first and second time, when you witness this enemy display the presence of mind to proactively grab you. Same goes for the smaller ogres; they can get easily frustrated with your climbing ways that they'll more than likely leap up in the air and land on their backs in the hopes of rushing you. These are opponents that are to be taken seriously, not just because of their thick hides, but also due to their tactics. Each boss has at least one trick up their sleeve whether it's the drake's hypnotic ability to turn a pawn against you or a cockatrice's slow and tortuous petrification spell.

Things get dicey when boss encounters occur in the woods, which opens up a can of wyrms in questionable camera work and minor collision. It especially the case when dueling against a drake, where its wings pass through trees and its penchant for low-level flying within the wood can be a headache with the camera. Speaking of questionable camera work, the game will occasionally zoom to a close-up of a pawn if it’s about to execute a dramatic move during combat. 4 out of 5 times it’s difficult to see what the pawn is actually trying to do and it’s just as hard to tell whether their maneuver was actually successful.

Diehard fans of Monster Hunter will recognize some recycled animations when winged creatures take to the air and when particular bosses collapse. Goblins scream and shake upon seeing you, skeletons ominously rise from their pile of bones, and annoying snow harpies pick you up so they could drop you from a great height. And it’s easy to feel sorry for an immobilized saurian whose tail you just severed but its writhing animation is just so fun to watch. The Arisen and the pawns are equally animated, depending on their active skills. I’m particularly a fan of the move known as the Antler Toss, a full body upper cut so thorough that the Arisen does a 360 to complete the motion. And if you’re the type of gamer who appreciates convincing pony tail hair animation as your heroine runs, Dragon’s Dogma has you covered there too. The only minor blemish is that Capcom didn't implement any character animation when it came to some object interaction like removing coffin lids and pulling switches.

Mission Possible

The mandatory missions spare you the truly challenging boss battles for the first half of the game. And unless you're incredibly creative and thoughtful about your skill advancement, weapon enhancing, and pawn optimizing, you should be ready to grind for a solid portion of your playthrough. A variety of optional quests--many found on the notice boards in urban areas--makes for an obvious goal-oriented alternative to merely leveling up by roaming the map. There’s very little problem solving needed when trying to find the next destination or the next person to speak with in order progress in a mission; it’s a mild case of hand-holding since the game will often mark the target’s location on the minimap. The bulk of the optional assignments are either involve killing specific monsters or escorting an NPC.

The escort missions underscores one of Dragon's Dogma's few shortcomings, taking the player back to 2002 where it felt like every adventure game had escort missions and poorly implemented ones at that. These NPCs certainly need guards for multiple reasons: they can't sprint like you, they can't wield weapons, and they behave like they don't get out much. They will run right through tripwires and they won't follow you down cliffs that can be used as shortcuts no matter how short the drop. If they drop too far back, they'll simply be teleported back to town and your assignment will be classified as a failure. It’s of some small comfort that these NPCs can be healed during the journey.

An Aged Open World

The map of Gransys is reminiscent of most RPG maps where the playable land is just a modest region within a much larger continent, in a world of many continents. Capcom created more than enough ruins and other aged structures to imply a strong sense of history. The little remnants of ancient castles stand in the shadows of existing ones and there are faded gravestones near the edges of seaside cliffs that imply that many, many other adventurers have traversed this land long before you. In fact, Dragon's Dogma's prologue has you controlling a pre-made hero from a time long before the events of the game's main story.

Some will complain that there isn’t enough environmental variety especially considering the expansiveness of Gransys. Sure, the overall landscape does lack cliched areas themed on elements like fire and ice, but such omissions work to the game's benefit in providing a very convincing unified look to the entire landscape. While the majority of the land feels idyllic with its abundance of lush, overgrown grass, Gransys certainly has its share of hostile-looking environments consisting of rough terrain, dead trees, and lethal bodies of water. The studio’s artists and level designers should get a lot of credit for crafting the landscape in a way that transitioning to these many environments feels seamless and natural.

This open world will give you a lot to do beyond the countless straightforward enemy encounters. Explore in the evening and you might find yourself rescuing a captive human caged by goblins or you might come to the aid of ambushed travelers. It's an added positive that it's very easy to veer off the beaten path where enemies who are out of your league are only a couple hundred yards away.

And Gransys doesn't mess around when it comes to nighttime exploration. Unlike many other RPGs with day/night cycles, the world of Dragon's Dogma is one devoid of celestial aids like moons that are bright enough to cast shadows. It's nearly pitch black if you forget your lantern or run out of oil (if you're a masochist, you'd might as well turn off your HUD map). Those committed to grinding--especially in the interest of making the later battles more manageable--should try facing the challenges of nighttime combat. It helps break any potential monotony as new enemies come out at night, the most common being a Capcom speciality: zombies.

Another positive indicator of the breadth of an expansive RPG map is by including entire castles that can be missed depending on the choices you make. Choosing or ignoring particular missions on the notice board will have long term effects, not to mention the trivial and meaningful favors you can do for specific townsfolk. What is particularly notable is how some side missions affect how some story missions play out. One of the game’s most spectacular battles is actually missable if you happened to ignore a specific fetching quest earlier in the game. And don't be surprised to come across a number of story-based crossroads where you might have to decide the fates of key NPCs. Yes, there will also be an opportunity to romance at least one of the supporting characters.

East Makes West

The pawns’ actions and assistance in battle ultimately have more value than any exploration advice that they can give. It's just as well; even if a pawn can tell you the right way to the top of a tower, many of us who play open world RPGs look to this genre for its sense of discovery (not to mention to satisfy our compulsion to color in unexplored parts of maps). Since Dragon’s Dogma presents us with enough challenges and incentives to make us want to level up and grind, why should we take the shortest route to a boss?

Dragon’s Dogma manages the rare feat of being a Japanaese-developed game that successfully emulates many of the design sensibilities and aesthetics of Western RPGs. Both the pawn system and the tactile nature of the boss fights are the exemplary features that ensures this game defies the categorization of being derivative. This is one of those promising rough-around-the-edges experiences where you can’t help but want a sequel even before your first playthrough is complete.

Editor's Note: One word of warning for owners of plasma TVs, though - Dragon's Dogma is letterboxed, meaning there are black bars at the top and bottom of the screen during gameplay. This was likely done to save screen real estate and improve performance, but if your TV is prone to burn-in or image retention, make sure you take the proper precautions.

Also, Dragon's Dogma was reviewed using an Xbox 360 copy of the game; however, we also played the PS3 version, and found no differences. If further investigation reveals any differences between the 360 edition and the PS3 edition of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences. 

Source : http://www.g4tv.com

Diablo III Review in Progress

After over a decade of waiting, it's time to play Diablo III. We’ve written boatloads of content about Diablo III and its predecessors over the last couple of years, and now that it's out a big part of the staff is ensconced in the world of Diablo.

As for the Diablo III review, well, it wasn't even possible to start playing until it released publicly. So our solution is what you’ve likely seen us do in the past for other big games like Rift, World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic – a review in progress. Every day a new entry with impressions about the Diablo III experience thus far will appear in this article. A final score won’t be assigned until Diablo has been vanquished and enough of the game has been experienced to render a verdict.

The first steps in our epic journey together have begun, friends. In the words of Deckard Cain, "Stay awhile and listen." In the meantime, if you're a total Diablo noob you should check out our Get to Know Diablo article. And if you remember the old style of Diablo gameplay, check out our Evolution of Diablo video for an overview of the changes from II to III.

For a lot more detail on Diablo III, check out IGN's Diablo wiki.

Read the latest review in progress entry and check out a new video showcasing our thoughts so far.

Day One -- User-Friendly Systems and Server Issues

Diablo III has all the launch problems of a major MMO. Blizzard’s action-RPG requires you to connect to their proprietary gaming network, Battle.net, if you want to play, but since its launch it’s been an aggravating slog to log on. It’s annoying enough that you can’t play without an Internet connection, but it’s even worse that the company that runs the biggest MMO in the world, and who no doubt had a good idea of how well Diablo III was selling, couldn't make the first day run smoother. Even now, at the time this is being written, the whole system has been shut down for server maintenance. Thankfully I’m playing it from my office, since I can only imagine how irate people who took the day off to enjoy one of the biggest game launches all year must be feeling right now.

Even when I managed to successfully log in and get Diablo III running things didn’t go well as far as user experience is concerned. Regularly my friends and I would have multiple minutes go by between messages we sent one another, only to have an error code pop up and a wall of text spam through the chat. Or there was the point when early on in Act I my game simply crashed, prior to which half the world disappeared along with my character’s spell effects. The best part? After forcing my way out of Diablo III I logged back in only to find that my items and progress from the previous few minutes had disappeared. Goodbye, shiny new helmet. This didn’t bother me too much since I was so early in the campaign that I hadn’t found anything special, but if I lost a rare or special item due to their server issues you could bet I’d be on the phone with someone in customer service. Items can now net real money, so its inexcusable to lose them due to problems with Blizzard's servers.

But during those moments when things came together just right, when mouse click after mouse click resulted in waves of beautiful and gory death, I found myself getting progressively more hooked on Diablo III. Having recently played through Diablo II, its great how to see how Blizzard’s applied everything they’ve learned in the last decade. Every time my character levels he gets something that feels significant. Sometimes it’s an awesome new ability, but even when it’s just a rune that augments a power I already had it opens up new options and tactics. Even better, though, is how it only takes a few clicks to rapidly switch between my powers and runes, ensuring I never feel tied to a decision. Instead of gameplay like Diablo II, where I often regretted how I allotted my ability points, Diablo III encourages experimentation and finding out exactly what works for your playstyle. It’s a vastly superior way to handle character abilities.

It’s also great how much Blizzard has adapted Diablo III’s user-interface to suit the array of abilities at your disposal. Previously Diablo II forced you to map your many abilities to the function keys, and then press those keys to quickly access them with your mouse. In Diablo III you just have two abilities at any time mapped to your mouse buttons, as well as up to four abilities mapped to the one through four number keys. Each of these buttons has a smaller list of abilities that can be assigned to them, meaning that your choices are fairly limited. This makes it a lot easier to decide which abilities to take, since it would be a bit overwhelming if you were simply given a gigantic pool of powers and tasked with assigning them however you saw fit (though you can bypass the restrictions if you want by enabling elective mode in the options menu). That might work for a few, more hardcore players, but this system makes Diablo III vastly more enjoyable and accessible.

Even better than how Blizzard handles abilities, though, is the revamped health system. Instead of Diablo II’s system of spamming potion after potion, your character is given rapid regeneration and health orbs regularly drop from enemies. The resulting gameplay pacing feels fantastic, making sure that you’re pretty much always in the fight. The occasional elite enemy encounter or large swarm can still take you down in a flash, though, and Blizzard smartly still includes potions for these battles. The big difference is that potions have a significant cooldown timer, meaning you couldn’t binge on them even if you wanted. Potions are now something you use in case of emergencies, instead of something you gorge yourself on like an alcoholic.

The new systems really do make it a lot easier to enjoy Diablo III. Now all Blizzard needs to do is get the server stability issues solved so I can play till I break my mouse.

By Anthony Gallegos

Day One -- Diablo III's Pacing

Blizzard appears to have done an excellent job with Diablo III’s pacing. Having played the beta content over and over again far too many times, I was hopeful the swiftness with which new environment types were added in, new enemies encountered and frequency of events like the Jar of Souls would remain consistent. So far, though the end of Act I, Diablo’s fast pace hasn’t let up.

Just after defeating the Skeleton King, the first major boss, you fight colossal living trees that attack with branches and drop poison-spewing spores across the ground, encouraging you to stay mobile. Goat men travel in packs and hulking bull creatures charge at high speed across terrain. It forces you to adapt your approach to battle so you can never fall into too familiar an attack pattern. Just as you figure out how to properly fight an enemy, another type is tossed into the mix. Basically, such variety means it’s really tough to get bored.

Environments change rapidly along with the enemy types, from yellow-orange autumnal fields to more Diablo-esque blood-drenched torture chambers. Multi-level dungeons are present, but none feel too big in Act I, giving you just enough room to explore without feeling exhaustingly large. With dungeons and unique events unrelated to the main plotline sprinkled around, as well as packs of champion monsters that generally drop better loot, there’s plenty of incentive to take your time and reveal all the borders of each map.

Blizzard throws story at you while you explore, and though there’s more story in Diablo III than in any of the previous games, it never feels like it gets in the way. NPCs will chatter, but they’ll do so while you continue to kill things. If you’re forced to stop to listen to dialogue, it’s never for very long, or to highlight a critical plot point. Dialogue is a little cheesy most of the time and can’t really muster the kind of sincerity required to engender sympathy for its characters, especially during tragic moments, but manages to be quite funny at times, particularly when the Scoundrel follower starts babbling about wine in the middle of a fight against crazed demons.

Skill unlocks, new followers and artisan build options are also tossed at you quickly, so it always feels like you’ve got something new to toy around with. Followers, who are AI-controlled companions, can be equipped with gear and as they level can learn new abilities, allowing them to grow alongside your main character and serve as yet another way to gauge your status as a growing power in the fight against demonic forces. By handing over money to the blacksmith artisan you’ll be able to unlock new craftable items, and because the items’ stats are randomized, you’re encouraged to craft multiple versions of the same weapon or armor piece until its attached bonuses suit your class. The extras can then be salvaged for parts or tossed up on auction for other players to bid on with in-game gold (the real money auction house is supposed to be live next week). And with every level you earn new active skills, skill-modifying runes and passive skills, sometimes one at a time and sometimes in groups, which unlock new play styles nearly every time.

There’s still a lot more to see, but so far the pacing is quick, the gameplay quicker, and it’s tough to pull away from what appears to be a truly great action-RPG…unless Blizzard’s servers go down.

By Charles Onyett

Day Two -- Like a Boss

When Diablo II’s Duriel killed me in a matter of seconds I thought I had done something wrong. Surely no one in their right mind would make a boss so powerful that my amazing, kill-everything-in-sight hero would be demon fodder, right? Boy was I wrong.

Most every boss fight in Diablo II boiled down to having the right gear and having an abundance of potions to spam. Don’t have the proper resist gear when facing off against the titular Diablo? Prepare for a corpse run after you die so fast you didn’t have time to open a town portal. In Diablo III this has been addressed with boss fights that make you feel skilled, challenged, and heroic. The biggest thing Diablo III’s done to make tough boss fights more enjoyable is add checkpoints. If you’re in a group with other players you may not be able to respawn and rejoin the battle (they can revive you, though), but during a single-player game you just reappear at your last checkpoint -- with all your gear equipped already -- and run a short distance to the boss. It’s a far less frustrating solution than Diablo II, where you spawned without gear back in town and either had to run back to your body or take an emergency town portal directly into the fight.

The speed you recover from death in Diablo III is refreshing, but you’re still penalized through item deterioration. Sure, it’s easy enough to spend some gold and repair your gear once you’re back in town, but money is a lot more useful in Diablo III than its previous incarnations.  I am constantly running out of cash, spending it regularly to upgrade useful NPCs like the blacksmith and jeweler, as well as add slots to my stash.

Boss fights -- and really every fight -- should be about testing a player’s skill, and Diablo III does this well. From the waves of enemies you fight in the dusty planes of Act 2, to epic bosses like the Skeleton King, every one of them requires you to use your abilities to survive. This was somewhat the case in Diablo II, but switching between powers was tedious, and fights often came down to how good you were at timing your potions rather than mixing up your abilities.

Because it’s easy to rapidly switch between powers in Diablo III, and you have them clearly laid out on your mouse and number keys, I feel enabled to try different tactics. While the Skeleton King is fighting my witch doctor’s zombie dogs I can spam him with frogs from a distance, and then use an area of effect damage spell to destroy the packs of enemies he summons. The waves of foes serves two purposes: breaking up the potential monotony of fighting a single target, as well as providing health globes to keep me in the fight. Potions have large cooldown timers in Diablo III, so it takes smart design decisions like this to make sure they don’t get too frustrating, or a matter of luring the boss around.

Even the story bosses and randomly spawned mini-bosses that use stereotypical game mechanics are a breath of fresh air for the franchise. At one point I encountered a gigantic, elite demon wielding an axe. In Diablo II I might have just lured him around after spamming potions to recover from a near-death encounter, but now I can see him telegraph his attack, narrowly dodging it and then striking back while he attempts to dislodge his axe from the ground.

Another boss fights you in an arena where fire occasionally roars up from underneath the grates that make up the floor, forcing you look out for which sections start getting a telltale glow before setting alight. These mechanics are things I’ve seen time and again in a number of other games, but they’re also easy to understand and a heck of a lot more fun than the boss fights of the previous Diablo titles. Bosses also have phases, switching up their tactics mid-fight and making you do the same, ensuring an exciting match from start to finish. And, of course, you’re always rewarded with an explosion of loot and gold to get those endorphins pumping.

With the servers up and running stably, Diablo III playtime is going swimmingly. If, like me, you can’t get enough Diablo III, then check back tomorrow for another entry about our journey through hell.

By Anthony Gallegos

Day Three -- Friends that Slay Together, Stay Together

While the story of Diablo III ultimately revolves around you and your hero’s journey, you can quickly and easily rope others into your quest. Online multiplayer is one of the features that helped perpetuate Diablo II for more than a decade, and -- looking at my ever-growing Battle.net friends list -- the same holds true for the sequel. But after hours of single-player and several more of multiplayer, the thing I’m left pondering is whether one is more fun to play than the other.

The answer isn’t a simple one. Diablo III’s story is a personal one, with each speech an NPC gives specifically addressed to my heroic witch doctor. But when others join my game it takes away from that, making Diablo III’s plot feel less like my own epic story and more like a backdrop for a loot grind game. It’s easy to miss out on story sequences, too, since any player can trigger story events for everyone, or simply force the group through the narrative faster than they can read.

Yet while the story doesn’t always resonate with me in multiplayer the same way it does playing alone, the sheer enjoyment that comes from sharing the questing experience goes a long way. When my cohorts and I take down a boss and a fountain of treasure spills forth the excitement is palpable. Because everyone only sees their own loot (one of Diablo III’s best / smartest features), this means everyone quickly links their treasure in chat. One moment we’re all casting spells at blazingly fast speeds, and the next we’re enjoying a span of catharsis, sharing our spoils in hopes to become the envy of our peers.

The jesting and camaraderie that comes from sharing these experiences for the first time is really great, as is having the extra people to trade loot with. You can always link items to other players from your individual games, but it isn’t quite the same as standing amongst the bodies of your enemies and sorting through your latest finds.

Camaraderie comes at a cost, though -- most notably in terms of pacing. Unless you’re coordinating with your team, it’s not uncommon to have team members splitting up, triggering story sequences or killing everything before you manage to get there. Switching out your powers or teleporting back to town to do a bit of crafting means you’ll come back to a dungeon full of bodies and treasure for you to pick up. It’s nice to get the rewards, but you’re left out of the journey.

During some of the more intense dungeons in Act III, I found myself feeling “pulled” along rather than playing along. Sometimes it was all I could do just to keep up with the ferocity of my team, as our first, Normal playthrough doesn’t present much of a challenge when we’re together. Even bosses, the very thing that I yesterday praised for their design, feel less entertaining with a group because we just blast most of them apart before they can do anything.

Ultimately there’s no clear answer to the question I posed earlier. Both multiplayer and single-player playthroughs have their merits (though multiplayer will be where Diablo III gets its multi-year legs from). But if you’re a sucker for narrative, if you’re the type of person who hungers for every bit of plot you can find, then it’s probably best to go it alone at first. If not... well, then the more bodies you have in your group just increases your chances at finding that next piece of precious loot.

By Anthony Gallegos

Day 4 -- The Nightmare Begins

As anyone familiar with the Diablo franchise knows, watching the credits scroll for the first time is only the start of your hero's journey. At level 31, my witch doctor may be powerful, but he has a long way to go to the level 60 cap. My future is filled with more powers, more gear and many, many more playthroughs on the harder difficulties.

Thus, mere moments after spilling the blood of the last boss, I ventured into Nightmare difficulty.

While the story remains the same, the gameplay changes in a few fundamental ways. Most notably everything is harder. I know, I know -- that seems obvious because it’s a change in difficultly, but it really is nice to go back and fight old enemies again and have them present a challenge. Because you have all the powers you unlocked through your Normal playthrough, you also have many more options in how you take them on. They also offer a lot more experience and better loot than you’d have access to on Normal, allowing you to continue your hero’s journey in the quest for the next piece of epic gear and powers.

Enemies do more than just resist extra damage. Most notably, elite enemies have more powers at their disposal. For instance one ghastly enemy my group faced in Act I could lay down vampiric traps. While he generally couldn’t do that much damage to us in melee combat, he not only managed to siphon enough life to kill most of our group, but also seemed all but impossible to kill. Eventually we got him into an area where we could avoid his traps, but even then he was a struggle to take down.

In another instance we faced off against waves of demons who would drop magic balls that fired arcane lasers out for massive damage. The lasers then slowly rotate, forcing you and the rest of your group to reposition and re-evaluate your tactics. Previously we would have just walked all over these guys, or maybe had to deal with one, relatively easy-to-avoid attack, but now the enemies are surprising us all over again.

Playing through the game on Nightmare also means you get more opportunities to develop your artisan skills. Both the blacksmith and jeweler can be leveled with gold for the first few levels, but eventually they’ll require special pages as well. The pages drop randomly from monsters, and so far in Nightmare they appear pretty regularly. Thus not only is your character finding better loot and leveling, but Nightmare also becomes a more rewarding experience because you’re building up your crafting. Crafting so far has proved valuable, too, with blacksmithing yielding rare and magic items that rival what I’m getting off of major bosses, and the jeweler socketing my items to make them even better.

In the coming hours I know I’ll face even more new abilities from monsters, as well as even tougher boss fights as I progress through the acts. But with so much more loot and levels to gain, as well as the thrill of seeing what my crafting skills yield next, it’s all I can do to keep myself from playing until I pass out at the keyboard. Join us next week for the final updates and our coming review. For now, it’s time to keep cleaning up the legions of hell.

By Anthony Gallegos

Source : http://www.ign.com

MLB 2K12 Could be the Series' Last

The MLB 2K series may be on its last legs. Following parent company Take Two’s fourth quarter earnings call earlier today, 2K Sports has revealed that its agreement with Major League Baseball will come to an end during this fiscal year.

"Our legacy Major League Baseball agreement will sunset in fiscal 2013," a Take-Two spokesman said. "MLB 2K12 is our last offering under that agreement. At this time, we have no further comment."

While 2K could still renew that agreement or start a new one, comments by Take Two during today’s earnings call seem to indicate no future releases of the series. Specifically, Take Two CFO Lainie Goldstein commented that the company expects zero losses on the franchise within two years, which is a bold prediction if future titles are still on the way.

In the past, Take Two has commented that the future of its deal with MLB was uncertain, though the company has never outright announced that the deal won’t be renewed. Despite MLB 2K’s uncertain future, sales of the company’s other sports franchise, NBA 2K, remain strong and were responsible for boosting earnings this quarter.

2K Sports announced the winner of its MLB 2K12 million dollar challenge earlier this month. For a deeper look into that program’s success, check out our interview with 2K Sports head of marketing Jason Argent.

Source: Kotaku



Source : http://www.ign.com

The Simpsons: Back on the Big Screen

The Simpsons are returning to the movies for the first time since 2007's The Simpsons Movie, only this time it will be in the form of a four-and-a-half minute 3D short film.

EW reports that "The Longest Daycare" will run before Ice Age: Continental Drift when that film is released on July 13. The short was teased during the show's Season 23 finale this past Sunday, as you can see here:

"[Executive producer] Jim Brooks thought we should do an animated short -- a la the ones Pixar does before their features, a la the cartoons you used to see in the theater years ago -- as a fun thing to give our fans," executive producer Al Jean says. "We just wanted to do this as a way of saying, 'We appreciate how much people have stayed with the show and watched it for 25 years.'"

"The Longest Daycare," directed by David Silverman (helmer of The Simpsons Movie), stars Maggie as she returns to the Ayn Rand School for Tots, "where her lone friend is a butterfly." Jean adds: “They put each baby through an airport security-style testing machine to measure their future and hers says ‘Nothing Special,’ so they put her in an area that’s not great. If they put her in a good area, it wouldn’t be much of a plot." And yes, you can expect to see the one eyebrow baby too.



Source : http://www.ign.com

Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls Hardcover Review

Just as Batman: The Black Mirror (read my review!) reads differently the second time through as a collected edition, so too does Scott Snyder’s work on the Dark Knight in the New 52. Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls collects issues #1-7 of Snyder and Greg Capullo’s highly acclaimed run, but just as Batman discovers new layers of Gotham City that he never knew existed, so too will the reader discover new depths to the story. What Snyder and Capullo have presented in this first volume of Batman is a meticulously plotted tale that aims to shake the very root of the Batman mythos to its core.

The central theme to The Court of Owls is that Batman doesn’t know Gotham as well as he thinks he does; that the very notion of Gotham being city is misplaced. Snyder crafts the story so that it’s equally surprising for Bruce to discover his shortcomings as it is for the readers, referencing key, highly identifiable moments of Batman’s history to underline his point. My favorite instance comes within issue #7, where Snyder replays the iconic scene from Batman: Year One – the “Yes, father. I shall become a bat.” scene – but follows the intruding bat out of Wayne Manor, where it is maliciously torn apart by an owl, rendered in stunning, haunting detail by Capullo. It’s a moment that is so poignant in the minds of Batman fans, but Snyder uses it to put a stamp on his point that there’s something far older than the Dark Knight waiting for him in the darkness.

Though we’re only introduced to the notion of the Court within this collection, Snyder’s integration with past stories and well-placed dialog references to the legend make it feel like a part of Gotham’s history all along. Even on the very first page of this collection – in fact, the first -- you’ll find owls seamlessly integrated into the architecture of the Gotham City skyline. Later, when Bruce is giving his presentation of his new and improved Gotham, you’ll see them again in the holographic model of the city. It’s these sort of deliberate easter eggs that make this collection a joy to re-read after we’ve seen the true scope of the story. And good luck resisting the desire to scan old images of Gotham City from comics of years past for owls – I’ve already caught myself doing it. It’s just another confirmation of the success that Snyder and Capullo have had in integrating a new element to a well-traversed history and making it seem organic.

Capullo’s work on the series cannot be understated; his dynamic storytelling and penchant for badassery abounds from every page. Capullo deserves much credit for the success of the story’s seamless integration of the Court of Owls. From the detailed architecture of Gotham City to the utter creepiness of the Court once they are revealed, Capullo hones in on the madness of Gotham and exploits it to the best of his ability. Best depicted in the phenomenal issue #5 – the one that requires the reader to turn the book around as the pages realign – Capullo showcases why he was the perfect candidate to tackle this story. His pencil work is tight, and the incredible, bold inks of Jonathan Glapion only make them tighter.

From action sequences – the train/helicopter scene in issue #2 is a standout – to the more subtle horror elements, like the glowing yellow eyes of the Talon (capped by the great color work of FCO), Capullo is churning out the best work of his career on this book. When the story comes together in the chilling sequence that finds Batman discovering the “nests” of the Court of Owls, culminating in a gigantic explosion, the only thing running through your head (on the second read through, at least, when you’re not distracted by the utter insanity of the story) is how Snyder and Capullo are a match made in superhero heaven.

So. Awesome.

The only significant problem with the collection is the production itself. While this hardcover keeps with the style of the rest of the New 52 collections (original covers acting as chapter breaks with some supplemental material in the back), the nature of this story unfortunately makes the less-than-stellar binding of the book a bit more glaring. Particularly in the aforementioned book turning sequence, when you are reading the book vertically, images and text get lost into the spine. The same goes for the double page spread early in issue #1. This has been an issue in all of the New 52 hardcovers so far, but unfortunately here the problem is exacerbated when it sucks you out the story, replacing the jarring effect of confusion that you felt reading the floppy version with frustration.

The other problem is that this collection was released with only seven chapters. Much like The Black Mirror, The Court of Owls story is a long-form tale. As such, Volume 1 answers a few questions and resolves a limited number of thematic points, but ultimately there are more questions than answers when you close this book. In fact, it ends on a pretty huge cliffhanger. That’s well and good for those of us that read the books monthly, but those that wait for trades often do so in order to get a complete story in one go – which you won’t get here. That’s not a knock against the story itself, but as a collected edition it might be frustrating to some.

Finally, the supplemental material is only a little better than what the other hardcovers have shown off. Along with the covers (and their un-colored counterparts) dispersed throughout the book, you’ll find a variant cover gallery and an insightful comparison of Snyder’s script to Capullo’s pencils – similar to what we’ve seen in other collections of Snyder’s work. You’ll also find a brief sketch book from Capullo featuring some early designs for Batman’s rogues. In all, it’s decent material but severely lacking – like the rest of the collections – any real input or commentary from the creators themselves.

Despite the physical collection having some shortcomings, Snyder and Capullo’s Batman is by far the standout book coming from DC’s relaunch. Present in Volume 1 is everything that you loved about Snyder’s work on Detective Comics, with the addition of the meticulous, stylistic detail of Capullo, and some Gotham history thrown in for good measure. If the Court of Owls story wraps up as strongly as it started in this first volume, these creators will have fundamentally changed Batman’s relationship to Gotham City forever.

Source : http://www.ign.com