Resistance: Burning Skies Review

When the world you know is being overrun by ferocious hordes of murderous aliens, things can get frantic. The Resistance series has always done a great job of complementing its dire circumstances with equally fraught action, but in Burning Skies, both elements lack their usual luster. The story fails to capture the desperation of humanity's plight, and your Chimeran enemies attack with patterned diligence as opposed to the swarming intensity of Resistances past. There are some fun guns to shoot and a competent online multiplayer offering, but if Burning Skies is any indication of the fervor with which we would fight for our survival, humanity is in trouble.

Though better suited for long-range, the hunter rifle is still plenty deadly up close.

• Comment on this video


• Watch this video in High Def

The problems start with your enemies. From foot soldiers to jetpack jockeys and dog-sized arachnids to truck-sized berserkers, the Chimera are an ugly bunch that have a reputation for attacking in substantial numbers with startling ferocity. Their vigor has long fueled the frantic combat of the Resistance series, but in Burning Skies, the Chimera seem to have lost much of their appetite for destruction. Squads are smaller and less aggressive, and if you can find a solid place to take cover, you can safely potshot your way through most encounters. Move aggressively against an entrenched enemy, and you'll be in danger, but many enemies spawn in and take a few long seconds to fire on you, leaving you plenty of time to jog up to them and hit them in the head with your axe by tapping a conveniently located onscreen icon.

This lackadaisical attitude is exacerbated by the fact that the majority of the action takes place in corridors. From a visual standpoint, these areas are drab and repetitive; Burning Skies is not a pretty game. The dull industrial areas and ubiquitous blurry rubble do not make a good showcase for the Vita's capabilities. From a gameplay standpoint, the aforementioned corridors are perfect places to use your shotgun or melee attack, both of which kill in one hit. There's certainly some satisfaction in dispatching your enemies with casual efficiency, but Burning Skies spends too much time running you through these lopsided scenarios.

Fortunately, there are times when the balance swings back the other way. Later levels use the more spacious areas to better effect, and the variety and quantity of enemies demand that you sit up and pay attention. There's a light cover mechanic you can make use of by simply crouching behind a low barrier or sidling up to a corner wall, letting you poke your iron sights out to pick off your advancing foes and allowing you some breathing room to make better use of your enjoyable arsenal.

Your friendly auger ammunition deliveryalien has arrived.

Series standbys like the carbine, bullseye, and auger return, bringing with them regular bullets, bullets that can home in on enemies, and bullets that can travel through walls, respectively. Though Burning Skies doesn't debut any particularly clever or brutal weaponry like Resistance 3 did, the new shotgun/crossbow combo is handy at close range, while the burst fire rifle and its auto-targeting drone can help you control a large room. Effectively taking down the more formidable waves of foes usually requires juggling different weapons while repositioning yourself and slinging a few grenades for good measure. It's a gratifying feeling to pile the ferocious dead at your feet.

The more creative (and more powerful) secondary fire options on each weapon make your eight-weapon arsenal feel bigger than it really is, and the upgrade options can help you pack an extra punch. The dual analog sticks of the Vita are perfectly suited to the first-person action, though tapping the screen to trigger your secondary fire or to throw grenades definitely takes some getting used to. At first it's awkward, and you might have a few misfires while attempting to tap onscreen prompts, but before long you get the hang of it, and it works just fine. There are even some weapons, notably the bullseye, for which tapping is actually an easier way to take advantage of their full capabilities (that is, tapping enemies to tag them rather than getting them in your sights and pulling the trigger).

The short campaign takes place during the invasion of New York City. This is the first time the US has suffered direct Chimeran aggression, and there are some interesting glimpses of the preparation and misinformation campaigns that preceded this inevitable event. Quasi-animated comic images chronicle the chaos between missions, but jagged edges and ghostly geometry clutter up these simple sequences. You play as Tom Riley, a firefighter who just wants to save his daughter, his wife, and every other human he encounters (hello, contrived campaign detours!). His one-note humble heroism shtick is boring, and his homegrown militia companion, Ellie, does little to liven things up. Even the return of radio man Henry Stillman is a disappointment; his heart-wrenching monologues in Resistance 2 evoked the despair of a country overrun, but here, his by-the-book broadcasts fail to channel the panic of a nation under attack.

The bigger they are, the bigger the cannon they have surgically grafted onto their arm.

Once you've completed the campaign, you can go back and battle through it on a harder difficulty level, but your increased fragility doesn't do much to improve the action. Going online for some multiplayer competition is a good way to find a more dynamic challenge, though the options are limited to deathmatch, team deathmatch, and survival (every human is converted to a Chimera when killed until no humans remain). Up to eight players can compete on an array of small, well-designed maps. As you earn experience for success in battle and level up, you unlock all the weapons from the single-player campaign, and experience-boosting "infections" that pass from player to player can speed your progress.

Though fairly basic, the multiplayer action in Burning Skies is solid and satisfying. The array of weapons in play varies from game to game, and making good use of grenades, secondary fires, and salvaged firearms is key to success, especially when playing against higher level players with deadlier guns. You can die quickly and kill quickly, and this imbues the action with a welcome urgency. There are some issues that crop up, like missing sound effects and inconsistent explosives, but on the whole, this compact multiplayer suite delivers nicely.

That is, if you can get into a match. Pre-release multiplayer sessions yielded hours of entertaining matches with no network issues, but retail release has put a serious strain on Burning Skies. In hours of trying, we were only able to join one active lobby, and similar matchmaking issues are widely reported.

Technical issues may abate, but this entry in the Resistance series still falls well short of its pedigree. Burning Skies leaves little doubt that the Vita is a comfortable home for first-person shooters, but the platform's first FPS is disappointingly dated. Toothless enemies and simplistic level design make for tepid campaign action, and the solid multiplayer suite is too limited to be a big draw. There is definitely some fun to be had in Resistance: Burning Skies, but the series, the system, and the poor citizens of alternate-reality New York City deserve better.

Source : http://www.gamespot.com/resistance-burning-skies/reviews/resistance-burning-skies-review-6378997/

Diablo III: Inferno and the Auction House

I used to think of the Auction House as a curiosity, a backdrop of microtransaction static that, after the still-missing real money version goes live, could serve as a way for me to make small sums of cash by selling any absurdly rare items. Through Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulties I found I developed a resentment of the Auction House, as it undercut the powerful sense of reward associated with finding items on my own. When a legendary Fjord Cutter dropped on my screen, it wasn’t some random Fjord Cutter, it was Fjord Cutter. Even if it wasn’t even as powerful as the epic fiery club I was using, I stored the Cutter in my stash. It was a trophy, proof of my growing heroic legacy, and not something I wanted to throw out for others to bid on, to turn my success into an unremarkable sum of gold that lost its identity as soon as I combined it with the rest of my funds.

So I interacted with the Auction House sparingly, tossing magic items up for sale for in-game gold, but staying away from obsessively searching for reasonably priced items with Barbarian-appropriate affixes, and snatching any absurdly low priced items to flip for a profit. Then I hit Inferno, and my self-reliant approach to item acquisition was no longer possible.

Even the starting area zombies hit hard, and the first wretched mother killed me in a flash. The armor I’d accumulated through drops in Hell difficulty suddenly seemed like napkins. I still had a level 32 chest piece, my helmet had higher intelligence bonuses than strength, and my shoulders didn’t even increase vitality. I was a mess, doomed to cycles of death and ceaseless repair penalties. I could have returned to Hell to farm better items. Maybe I’d find them in five minutes, maybe five hours, maybe five months -- such is the uncertainty of randomness. Perhaps I’d find a sword with higher damage, but to have a chance of fighting anything aside from the standard enemies in Act I of Inferno, I needed the higher damage and the right stats.

There was no way around it, I needed money. Alongside a dozen or so rare items, I sold my Fjord Cutter. From the Auction House I picked up a new spear with life restore on hit and big strength and vitality buffs. I upgraded to a double-socketed level 60 chest piece with life regeneration and a helmet that gave extra resistance against physical damage. It cost nearly all the gold I had, and suddenly I was able to hop right into the middle of a zombie pack and whirl, slice, kill and repeat with little downtime. I was back in rhythm, but my victories weren’t as complete, as it felt like I bought my success. I didn’t deserve to make progress.

The disappointment of the near-mandatory use of Auction House interaction at Inferno difficulty setting lingered, but several new mechanics presented themselves to offset the sense that I’d somehow cheapened my experience by buying relevance. Elite-level champion packs and unique monsters, for instance, were still immensely challenging even with a few upgraded pieces of gear. On Inferno they have four unique attack modifiers, so they can be fast with extra health, leech health and periodically drop frozen bombs all across the battlefield. These modifiers can sometimes arrange themselves in combinations that make the elite monsters seem invulnerable. Even though I’d upgraded myself, there was still so, so much room to improve.

I could have simply snuck past the elite enemies until I reached the next area, but there are powerful bonuses associated with defeating them. After level 60, killing a rare monster or champion pack earns a Nephalem Valor bonus, which boosts gold find and magic find ratings for 30 minutes. Killing another elite monster resets the timer and stacks the bonus. Unlike Diablo II, which rewarded repeated boss runs with showers of rare and set items, Blizzard encourages you to actually play the whole game in Diablo III for the best chance of finding rare, useful items. Chaining elite kills then proceeding to a boss fight is then the best way to go, assuming  you don’t reset your active skill set and a random disconnect from Battle.net doesn’t wipe out your bonus.

In addition, Inferno’s level of challenge makes it feel as though I’m truly playing the game for the first time. That’s a ridiculous thing to say after over 80 hours of gameplay, but precise movement, proper skill use and rune selection have never felt so important, where the possibility for failure exists with nearly every click, and where overcoming a crackling pack of electrified, venom-spewing, shielded champion enemies with mortar attacks feels more rewarding than anything I’d achieved all throughout my time in Normal and Nightmare modes. Even Hell feels kind of tame by comparison.

Even so, I can’t quite shake the notion that I could steamroll the rest of the content with a few Auction House purchases, and that the real reason I continue plunging back into dungeons is to earn money to spend on items found by others. I feel like I need to maintain a balance between buying omnipotence and just enough, ensuring the degree of challenge is steep but, with dedication and skilled play, conquerable. Inferno is Blizzard’s pre-made setting, but in many ways it’s my responsibility to fine-tune the difficulty.

The issue of the Auction House is perhaps more noticeable to me in Diablo III than in the many MMOs that feature similar systems because few games I’ve ever played relay a sense of evolving personal power as effectively as Diablo III. The designs of weapons , armor and individual potions, the detail in larger stacks of gold, the artisans’ carts, the designs of your AI-controlled followers’ gear – with extended play, elements not only becomes more significant statistically, but in appearance as well. With the exception of a number of reused item models, form and power rise alongside each other evenly on an incredible scale, starting from the lowly rags and leather of Normal into the fearsome spiky plate armor found in the depths of Inferno. It’s easy to dismiss statistical increases as you swap in new gear in other action-RPGs as trivial, but in Diablo III the changes are often easily noticeable, in the numbers that pop from enemy heads to the rapidity with which a once seemingly invincible foe is obliterated by the might of high-end gear. The occasional trip back to Normal from Hell to one-shot demons who used to instill fear is worthwhile simply to feel how far you’ve progressed.

As soon as Diablo III loses its forward momentum and starts to feel like an endless farming field I doubt I’ll continue to log in. I know the moment will arrive, eventually, but I’m not quite ready for it yet. The apparent necessity of the Auction House in Inferno was, hopefully, merely a one-time thing, and the rest of my journey can progress without a need to pay virtual currency to avoid the slog of excessive farming or spending a fortune to spin the reels of the blacksmith slot machine. With Nephalem Valor to aid me and, ideally, a stream of item upgrades and additional elite monster behaviors from Blizzard in the months to come, I’m hopeful the gameplay will stay interesting enough to keep me hooked and searching for the next best item and, more importantly, let me feel like I earned my power. If I fail to kill an enemy, I can accept it’s because I lack the required skill, but am uncomfortable with the idea that it’s because my virtual wallet simply isn’t big enough.



Source : http://www.ign.com

How Steven Spielberg Inspired Today's Top Shooters

Last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the single biggest entertainment launch of all time, pulling in more than $400 million on its first day.

The Call of Duty Elite service has over 10 million registered users and two million annual premium members. This year’s iteration, Call of Duty: Black Ops II has already notched up day one pre-orders 30 percent higher than last year, and ten times higher than 2010’s Black Ops game.

It’s amazing to think that all of this came about due to an idea by Steven Spielberg, back in 1997. It was Spielberg who insisted that his newly hatched development company, Dreamworks Interactive, work on a realistic military game set in World War II, even though many of the game developers working for him felt it was a bad idea. They wanted to go in a more fantasy direction, viewing WWII as old-fashioned and a poor setting for a game

Spielberg had his way and the game that emerged, in 1999, was Medal of Honor, published by Electronic Arts. It was a smash hit and a major critical success (IGN gave it a 9.3). It led directly to the formation of Infinity Ward in 2002. That company’s first game was Call of Duty, an attempt by Activision to get into the military shooter market being dominated by its bitter rival EA. Many of the developers who worked on Call of Duty had previously worked on Medal of Honor, and had honed their skills working according to Spielberg’s inspiration.

A new book, Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood, details how Spielberg took a very hands-on approach to game development, most especially in Medal of Honor, which became a pet project.

Author Jamie Russell writes, “Spielberg, who was then in post-production on Saving Private Ryan came into the Dreamworks Interactive offices and outlined his idea. He saw Saving Private Ryan as an educational experience as much as an entertainment property...He’d watched his teenage son and his friends play Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. Could Dreamworks build a World War II shooter, he wondered, that would let them learn about the conflict through playing?”

But the game developers weren’t convinced. Producer Peter Hirschmann recalls, “People were really dubious. They said, ‘World War II is old, it’s got cobwebs on it. People want ray-guns, hell-spawn and laser rifles’. The idea of doing something with historical relevance set in a low-tech game environment was a challenging sell."

Spielberg insisted on historical accuracy and brought in military advisers and history buffs, now common practice among game developers. Medal of Honor’s one major discrepancy was its lack of blood and gore, pulled from the game prior to release due to controversy over game violence in the wake of the Columbine shootings.

The game was a major hit, but Spielberg’s connection to gaming would fade. Dreamworks Interactive was sold to EA along with the Medal of Honor brand. Throughout the next ten years, multiple Medal of Honor games would be released, but eventually the public tired of WWII shooters. The series would be eclipsed by its rival Call of Duty, itself created from the Medal of Honor team, which began in WWII but has since addressed multiple combat zones including, with the next game, the near future.

Russell writes, “The continuing problem for the games industry is that while every filmmaker thinks they can build a game, very few understand the unique challenges of game design. To date, the Medal of Honor series remains Spielberg’s greatest contribution to interactive entertainment.”

But the story isn’t over yet. Medal of Honor is back, with this year’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter.  These shooters, rooted in real-life conflicts, were inspired by Spielberg’s vision and his insistence that shooting games could address real life combat on an epic scale.

Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood by Jamie Russell is on sale now.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/30/how-steven-spielberg-inspired-todays-top-shooters

Christopher Nolan's Catwoman Concerns

Director Christopher Nolan was initially reluctant to include Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. So what prompted the change of heart?

In an interview with Empire (pointed out via /Film and CBM, Nolan credits his brother and TDKR co-screenwriter Jonathan "Jonah" Nolan with helping him see the value of including the feline fatale. "I was nervous about how she would fit into our world. But Jonah was very much convinced that there would be a great way to do it and eventually turned me around," said Nolan. "Once I got my head around the idea of looking at that character through the prism of our films, saying, 'Who could that person be in real-life?' we figured it out. She's a bit of a con-woman, something of a grifter. A hard-edged kind of criminal."

Jonathan Nolan added, "Chris often comes from a position of, 'Why should we do this?' You know, presumed guilty. But I said, 'What we're endeavouring to do here is tell a complete take on the Batman mythos'. And a complete take of the Batman mythos without the character for me was sacrilegious. You've gotta gave her, because she has a delicious greyness to her that helps define who Batman is. She keeps wavering on this line of, 'Is she a good guy or a bad guy?' Well, she's kind of neither. And that's why, to me, that relationship and that character only enhances the universe - and the Batman character." He also said that "Anne Hathaway threatens to steal the show."

And what about the much-hyped secret ending of The Dark Knight Rises?

David Goyer, who co-plotted the Batman trilogy with the Brothers Nolan, said the final scene of The Dark Knight Rises is "completely unchanged" from the one the filmmakers envisioned years earlier at the start of the franchise's reboot. "We both knew in our hearts that we were onto something special. I have to tell you, having finally seen everything strung together a little while ago and seeing that scene, I got a complete lump in my throat."

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/christopher-nolans-catwoman-concerns

Rumor: Sony Revealing PlayStation Plus Revamp at E3

If a report on Eurogamer is any indication, Sony is set to reveal a massive revamp of PlayStation Plus at its E3 press conference, which occurs on the evening of Monday, June 4th in Los Angeles, California.

“Multiple sources have indicated” to Eurogamer that Sony wants to “convince more people to sign up to the premium subscription service” by dedicating a segment of its E3 conference time to PlayStation Plus. Part of the new functionality of Plus is rumored to be much-awaited functionality with PlayStation Vita. “Plus on Vita will offer Vita exclusive titles and DLC and cloud services that mean you won’t have to connect the handheld to a PlayStation 3 or a PC to back-up saves and other content,” Eurogamer’s source said.

We first broke news of Sony looking into reworking PlayStation Plus early in May, when an IGN reader shared with us a survey he received asking about hypothetical additions added to Sony’s optional subscription service. Perhaps the survey and this new rumor are somehow interconnected.

Are you content with PlayStation Plus? Or do you want more? Let us know what your ideal PlayStation Plus setup would be in the comments below.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/rumor-sony-revealing-playstation-plus-revamp-at-e3

Road to E3: Infinity Blade Dungeons

In just over a week, E3 2012 will be upon us. When June 4 arrives, and the press conferences begin, you can expect IGN to be there in full force, kicking ass and taking names. But what are the games you need to pay attention to? What do we expect to blow our minds at the biggest gaming event of the year? Each day we're going to dissect one of these potential blockbusters, discussing what we know and what we expect we'll see at E3.

INFINITY BLADE: DUNGEONS

• Developer | Epic Games


• Publisher | Epic Games


• Release Date | TBA 2012


• Genre | Action RPG

Infinity Blade: Dungeons takes the franchise’s trademark fast-paced touch-controlled battles and presents them in a brand-new way. Instead of engaging in fervid first-person combat, the action plays out from an overhead perspective ala Diablo III or other dungeon crawlers. Players will explore the hand-crafted dungeons, laying waste to giant spiders, armored bears and other enemies, all while collecting gobs of loot.

A small team of Gears of War veterans are responsible for Dungeons instead of Infinity Blade's original creator Chair. The game adheres closely to some dungeon crawler tropes, but clearly isn’t afraid of slaying some of the genre’s sacred cows. Most notably, new weapons will never be found. Instead they must be crafted via a skill-based forging minigame. Players also don’t have a skill bar at their disposal. Instead all skills are activated via smart touch-screen gestures like making a quick circle around your character, or holding your finger over an enemy.

Infinity Blade lore-heads should be sure to read our hands-on impressions for details on Dungeons' story implications.

Epic is cagey about just how far along Infinity Blade: Dungeons is, stating only that the game would be out “sometime in 2012.” If the title is due out sooner, E3 would be a perfect time to allow the industry to go hands-on with a lengthier, near-final demo. But if the game isn't due out until Q3 or Q4, Epic could just have the previous preview demo on-hand, giving gamers a short taste of the game’s gestural combat and weapon crafting.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/road-to-e3-infinity-blade-dungeons

Alan Wake's American Nightmare Review

With a few notable exceptions, video games – even the ones that brand themselves as "horror" – aren't that scary. This is also true, by and large, of movies, books, you name it. It's hard to scare people, to really scare them; just as hard as it is to make them laugh or cry. So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Alan Wake's American Nightmare, much like the game it expands upon (Alan Wake), isn't frightening in the slightest. What come as a shocker, however, is the fact that it's so damn fun.

Presenting itself as an episode of a Twilight Zone-esque television show called "Night Springs," complete with a Rod Serling soundalike narrator, Alan Wake's American Nightmare sees the titular hero facing off against an evil manifestation of himself, called Mr. Scratch. Scratch has taken up residence in a small Arizona town, and has turned most of the population into zombie-like hostiles called "the taken." Much of Alan Wake's American Nightmare's gameplay involves dealing with the taken, who attack Wake at regular intervals. The taken are usually protected by a cloak of shadows, which must be "burned" away using Wake's flashlight beam before he can then employ firearms to permanently put them on the other side of the dirt. Dodging enemy melee attacks is a heavily emphasized element of the gameplay: successfully doing it both slows down time and lets Wake get some distance from bad guys.

At first, this dodge-and-shoot, third-person zombie bashing is a pretty cool mechanic, as the variety of conventional and light-based weapons (i.e., flares, flashbangs) and the game's first three maps provide a solid initial challenge (along with a decent, if rather pathetically Stephen King-wannabe-ish storyline). But things start to lose their luster when you play those first three maps a second time, immediately after completing them. And then, after completing those, you play them a third time. Sure, Alan Wake's American Nightmare truncates them a bit and saves you some time, but you're still playing the same maps, fighting basically the same enemies, and finding the same equipment, three damn times in a row. Even if the story weren't told through the clumsy mechanic of finding lost journal entries, it would still wear thinner than a politician's veneer of trustworthiness after two complete repetitions of the same stuff.

And the same is true of the gameplay, at least in the story mode. There are only so many times you can dodge the same arc of electricity, or fight the same zombified fireman, before you start to ask yourself if your leisure time couldn't be better spent watching your hard drive defragment. But, weirdly, I did keep on doing it. And I kept coming back again, and again. There's something bizarrely enthralling about Alan Wake's American Nightmare – something that drew me in, despite its on-paper shortcomings.

Part of the reason for this is that the game's simple, third-person shooter mechanic is surprisingly fun to play with. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the game's Arcade Mode. Here, Wake is pitted for 10 minutes against waves of increasingly difficult zombies (or one continuous wave if you play in Nightmare difficulty), on small maps strewn with items and ammo that you can collect between waves -- or during, if you're a true badass. Points are earned for enemies killed, and streaks of killings build up your score multiplier, as does successfully dodging enemy attacks. Like the Survival Mode in Resident Evil 5 (although it lacks that game's co-operative multiplayer), something about Alan Wake's American Nightmare's Arcade Mode keeps you coming back for more, to see if you can't surpass your score and kick even more ass in ten minutes. Because weapons are unlocked in Arcade Mode by collecting more journal entries in Story Mode, you're encouraged to play both, and online leaderboards are there so you can compare your abilities with others' as you get better and better.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/alan-wakes-american-nightmare-review-2

App Store Update: May 29

Every day hundreds of new apps make their debut on the App Store, and hundreds more are updated or reduced in price. We have sifted through the noise and highlighted those select few that might be worth your attention.

Game Debuts

Razor: Salvation – ($0.99)

Crescent Moon’s promising 3D mech shooter is out now for a special introductory price.

Plague Inc. – ($0.99)

Plague Inc. might just be the most full-featured “pandemic sim” released yet. Gamers first design their custom virus using a puzzle-style minigame, then spread it around the globe by keeping an eye on the political (and literal) climate.

Pixel Breaker – (Free)

Pixel Breaker takes classic brick breaker gameplay and wraps it in a retro skin. The game is a free download, with an optional $0.99 in-app purchase removing all in-game ads.

Price Drops

Sid Meier’s Pirates! – ($0.99)

The iPhone version of this modern pirate sim is on sale for just $0.99 for a limited time. For a little perspective, I paid $40 for this exact same game on Xbox just eight years ago! The iPad version is also on sale for $1.99.

NBA 2K12 – ($1.99)

2K Sports’ NBA 2K12 for iPad normally sells for $9.99. Gamers can now grab it for 80% off for a limited time.

Cat Physics – (Free)

Donut Games is giving away three games free-of-charge for a limited time. Cat Physics is by far the best of the bunch. It’s one of the most underrated physics puzzlers on the App Store, so don’t miss it!

Jungle Crash Land – (Free)

Donut’s arcade bomb-dropper is also available free. Clear all the obstacles on the ground to create a makeshift runway for your crashing plane.

Jailhouse Jack – (Free)

The last of Donut’s trio of freebies is probably the weakest of the bunch, but it’s still enjoyable. In Jailhouse Jack gamers are tasked with creating their own jailbreak movie by scrubbing through time to ensure the escape goes off without a hitch.

Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space Ep 1 – (Free)

The first episode of this excellent season of Sam & Max is now available 100% free. Episodes 2 – 5 are also on sale for $2.99. This means the entire season can be grabbed for $12 instead of $25. Nice!

Bookworm – ($0.99)

Popcap’s classic arcade word puzzler is just $0.99 for a limited time.

Updates

Civilization Revolution for iPad

Ten new scenarios, new leaderboards and new achievements have all been added to 2K’s excellent 4X strategy title.

The Bard’s Tale

The iOS port of inXile’s modern-day Bard’s Tale previously included two thirds of the Bard’s Tale trilogy. Today’s update adds 1998's Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate, completing the classic trilogy. By Grabthar’s Hammer… what a savings.

Subscribe to the App Store Update via email:

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/app-store-update-may-29

Castevania: Mirror of Fate Confirmed for 3DS

The latest issue of Nintendo Power is out, and some subscribers have already started to receive this month's edition. So what's on the cover? None other than that rumored Castlevania game for 3DS the internet has been buzzing about.

The game is called Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate. Try saying 10 times fast. The magazine reveals that Mirror of Fate's Belmont of choice will be Trevor Belmont. He will fight using his version of the Combat Cross, Gabriel's weapon from the original Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

Mirror of Fate exists!

Other small details unveiled by the magazine (thanks to GoNintendo for the above scan) include the fact that light and shadow magic will be returning from the original Lords of Shadow. Using the L, R and face buttons, players will be able to attack with various weapons, grab enemies, block and dodge. Earning experience points will unlock the ability to execute combo moves, like launching enemies into the air, smashing them into the ground and so on.

For all your Belmont needs, keep it locked on IGN.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/castevania-mirror-of-fate-confirmed-for-3ds

$300 Xbox 360 Racing Bundle Coming in June

Need a new 250GB Xbox 360, Forza 4, and a racing wheel in one package? How fortunate, because Microsoft has announced the Xbox 360 250GB Racing Bundle, which includes exactly that.

Forza Motorsport 4 and its wireless racing wheel would run more than $100 on their own, so scoring them in the same box as a slim Xbox 360 with a humongous hard drive is a righteous deal. The previous 250GB bundle included Fable III and Halo Reach.

Look at this box. It's a pretty nice box.

Gear-heads with $299 burning a hole in their pocket can look forward to the bundle in the middle of June.

If you're a late-bloomer on the Xbox 360 front, let us know in the comments below if this is what you've been waiting for.

Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor for IGN's Xbox 360 team. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/300-xbox-360-racing-bundle-coming-in-june

Is This Dead Space 3’s Co-op Partner?

Earlier this month, our sources told us that Dead Space 3 will feature co-op. That report described the game’s co-op partner as “a man with a gnarly scar on his face, an engineering RIG of his own, and glowing red eyes peering from his helmet.” Now, it looks like we may have our first look at him.

A new animated short released by EA today features a character who fits that description to a tee. According to the video’s YouTube description, the character is Earthgov Sergeant John Carver. Carver “witnesses an attack on the Marker Site he guards which changes his life forever,” leading him to “fight his way through a colony now in complete chaos as he begins to discover how important he is in fighting the Necromorph plague.

Most importantly, the description notes that "this is just the start of John Carver's saga in the Dead Space Universe." Does this mean he'll be making an appearance in Dead Space 3?

Dead Space 3 still hasn’t been announced, though several leaks have all but confirmed that it’s in development. The game was first revealed by logos on an Israeli news show last year, followed by a retail listing in April.

E3 is only a week away, so if E3 is planning a Dead Space 3 announcement it will probably happen then. EA’s press conference is currently scheduled for Monday, June 4th at 1:00 p.m. PST. Be sure to keep your eye on IGN’s E3 hub for all the news as it happens.

.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/is-this-dead-space-3s-co-op-partner

New Harvest Moon Headed to 3DS

This year marks the 15th anniversary of when the Harvest Moon franchise first debuted on the SNES. To celebrate, Natsume announced today that a new entry in the series will be coming to 3DS by the end of the year.

Called Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, the game will place great emphasis on customization. Players will be able to fully change their character's appearance, altering their gender, skin color, facial expression, hairstyle, outfit and more. You will also be able to rearrange your crops and buildings and create things like park benches, wallpaper, furniture, pet houses, etc.

A New Beginning will take place in Echo Village, a town that most villagers have abandoned. It's up to you to make the place prosperous again, likely by way of farming and ranching.

For more on the next Harvest Moon for 3DS, keep it here on IGN.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/new-harvest-moon-headed-to-3ds

Diablo III: Post-Launch Changes

In a post on the Diablo III site Blizzard described a number of changes coming to its popular action-RPG. It appears the “first real game balance changes” will arrive in patch 1.0.3, which will include adjustments to damage “spikiness” in the Inferno difficulty setting, and make the blacksmith artisan a little less expensive to upgrade.

In terms of what Blizzard considers to be important when adjusting balance and skills, “If any single skill or rune feels absolutely required to progress, it means that skill is working against our goal of encouraging build diversity -- and those “required” skills need to be corrected.” This is in reference to the recent hotfixes that lessened the effectiveness of the Monk and Wizard.

Blizzard also noted the 1.1 patch will be the PvP patch, which will add a combat arena into the game where players can beat each other up. In addition, the 1.1 PvP patch will include numerous non-PvP-related changes, such as increasing the statistics of legendary items.

“Legendary items are not designed to necessarily be the best items in the game,” said the post. “They’re just one additional type of item as you level up, and they are not meant to be the primary items you’re chasing at the end-game. They can -- and should -- be exciting to find, but they’re not supposed to serve as the single driving force of the item hunt. Rare items, for example, have the possibility to roll up “perfect” stats that can, if you’re lucky, outpace the predetermined stats of a Legendary. That’s by design.”

Blizzard also listed some interesting statistics for Diablo III, revealing that so far only 1.9 percent of those playing have unlocked the Inferno difficulty setting, and that 80 percent of Diablo III characters are between levels one and 30. So far, the most commonly used runes in the game include Best Served Cold (Barbarian), Lingering Fog (Demon Hunter), Mirror Skin (Wizard), Peaceful Repose (Monk) and Numbing Dart (Witch Doctor).

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/diablo-iii-post-launch-changes

Making Every Breath Count in Metro: Last Light

Clean air is hard to come by in Metro: Last Light. Fighting through the blown-out streets of post-apocalyptic Moscow, you’re sure to encounter flying monsters, mutant spiders and falling trees, but it’s the air that will get you. With every step you take, a timer on your watch counts down the few seconds of breathable air left in a filter on your mask, reminding you to do what you need and to do it fast. Your life depends on it.

The world that THQ and developer 4A Games have created in Last Light isn’t the post-apocalyptic future you’re used to. The Moscow seen here is bleak and surrounded by collapsed buildings, but it’s not the type of setting you might find in Fallout 3 or Rage. Metro’s world is one of horror, where psychic visions drive the few people still alive completely insane. And air isn’t the only thing that’s scarce. In addition to looking for new air filters, you’ll always be searching for light, bullets, battery chargers and even other people as you explore what’s left of Moscow.

Exploration is Metro's greatest strength. Moving through the tunnels of Moscow’s underground subway system, you’ll use a lighter to see where you’re going (or a flashlight if you’re fortunate enough to find a charge). There’s a real sense of terror moving through the dark, never knowing what you’ll find around each corner. If you’re lucky, you’ll come across some supplies, maybe a shotgun. If you’re not, you’ll find mutant spiders bursting out of a corpse.

You won’t spend the entire game underground, though. When you emerge above ground, you’ll shield your eyes from the light of the sun, blinding after the darkness of the tunnels. Moving above ground brings alternate hazards, like flying mutants that will pick you up and drop you without a moment’s notice. Encounters with these enemies feel real, especially as you control subtle moments in response to each, like wiping debris from the visor on your mask.

Instead of non-stop shooting and action, Metro: Last Light aims for immersion, putting you back in the shoes of Artyom, the protagonist of Metro 2033. Once again, Artyom is fighting off the Dark Ones, former humans who have been mutated into monsters by Moscow’s radiation. But Artyom has a secret weapon: he isn’t affected by the Dark Ones’ psychic visions. He can experience them, but isn’t driven mad like the people around him. Considering the nature of those visions, this is no small feat.

In one portion of the demo we saw, Artyom and his partner come across wreckage from a place crash, using it as an opportunity to look for supplies. As they step into the cockpit, a brutally vivid flashback shows exactly how the plane went down, cracked windows, screaming and all. Frequent visions like that would drive anyone insane.

Scripted events aren’t uncommon in Last Light, and 4A sees them as an opportunity to further immerse the player. While the game contains quick time events throughout, there won’t be any button prompts. The developers are confident that players will know what they need to do, relying on what they’ve been taught from exploring Moscow to know how to react. 4A knows gamers are smart, and it's treating them like it.

THQ isn’t ready to talk about the rest of the game’s features, but we do know that 2033’s hardcore Ranger Mode is set to return and will be “more substantial” this time around. Metro 2033 created a harsh new take on the post-apocalyptic future, and Last Light seems poised to improve upon it in a big way. Moscow still has plenty of secrets, but hopefully some of them will be revealed at E3 next week.

.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/making-every-breath-count-in-metro-last-light

Batman: Arkham City Harley Quinn's Revenge Review

SPOILER WARNING: Harley Quinn's Revenge takes place after the ending of Batman: Arkham City. This article mentions how the game ends.

I've already declared that Harley Quinn's Revenge is what downloadable content should be based on a 30-minute preview of the single-player story expansion for Batman: Arkham City. Luckily, after playing through the entire two-hour campaign, I'm not going to try and weasel out of that statement. Although I wish the ending was a bit more satisfying, that's nitpicking. Harley Quinn's Revenge offers a fresh take on the gameplay we love and expands the narrative developer Rocksteady has worked so hard to create. This is the type of DLC story-driven games should be pumping out.

Picking up a few weeks after the events of Batman: Arkham City, Harley Quinn's Revenge opens with Batman missing. Seems Harley took over the Joker's old haunt in Arkham City, Batman went to investigate, and now the Caped Crusader hasn't been heard from in days. As such, we start as Robin investigating the scene, jump back to Batman to see what went wrong, and then flip flop to tell the tale.

“

This is the type of DLC story-driven games should be pumping out.

Needless to say, that's rad. Harley's DLC is familiar but fresh. Robin's moves (his bo staff becomes a shield, he can grapple to people's chest for a zip kick, etc.) are the same from his downloadable challenge missions, but this is our first chance to try them out in a story situation. We get to hear Robin talk to Oracle, see him use detective vision, and become Batman's savior. That's a nice shakeup after dozens of hours patrolling rooftops and looking for Riddler trophies as the Dark Knight.

Make no mistake, this is the same gameplay I lauded back in October with its reversal system, combos and gadgets, but viewing it through this new lens makes it exciting all over again. Using a shuriken instead of a Batarang is a bigger deal than you might think, and as someone who hadn't really played since the game came out, I enjoyed slipping back into the game I loved so much. It was like seeing an old friend again.

Save him, Boy Wonder!

But it's worth pointing out that you can't ignore the mission at hand here and go scope the city for side quests as the Boy Wonder. Harley Quinn's Revenge is a standalone mode off the main menu and doesn't tie into your previous saves or the open world, although it does have a collectable set of Harley balloons to find and a bunch of new Trophies/Achievements.

The missions you'll tackle drop you right back into taking out snipers and wailing on guys with stun guns, but they can be a bit fetch questy, focusing on collecting keycards and diffusing bombs. Still, I never got sick of heading out on the next leg of my journey because the enemies are always varied. Even though I'm taking on room after room of guys as I make my way around the steel mill, Harley Quinn's Revenge tweaked the formula with each group.

Switching out the enemy types is great, but the continuation of the Arkham City story kept me playing and justifies the purchase. Challenge rooms and costumes are enticing to some gamers, but I wanted to know what happened to these characters after Batman walked out of that theater with Joker's dead body. To pick up here and find the Dark Knight's friends concerned about him emotionally -- as if he's for the Joker -- is alarming and intriguing all at once. Batman's always been unhinged, so how crazy is he now that his partners are this concerned for him?

However, that question is the DLC's major downside. It's never answered. We're teased with the information that Batman is struggling with the loss of his arch nemesis and his lover Tala, but we never get to see it. We never get to see him deal with it. I'm not going to spoil the ending here, but don't expect to have any more closure than you did before. In fact, this might even raise more questions for Batman's character than the original Arkham City ending.

But that's not the worst thing in the world -- just something for us fans to obsess over until the next game, piece of DLC or comic book chapter.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/batman-arkham-city-harley-quinns-revenge-review

Fable: The Journey – It Just Works

During a visit to Lionhead HQ to go hands-on with Fable: The Journey, three key team-members repeatedly drop the C-bomb. Yes, it seems that if there’s a take-home message that the Guildford-based studio would like to convey it’s that Fable: The Journey is "cool". However, it’s probably best if we dispense with such an intangible adjective and instead focus on an entirely more relevant fact: this Kinect-only jaunt through Albion actually works.

Fable: The Journey’s strengths are the result of a combination of savvy design choices and intelligent programming. The former is best exemplified by Lionhead’s decision to pass over melee combat in favour of ranged magic attacks. By doing so, the studio avoids the potential pitfalls of having to replicate the swift, one-to-one movement required of close-combat and of having to find ways to mask the inherent lag that would be exposed by the close proximity of foes.

Moreover, a focus on magic allows for some interesting design choices, such as after-touch that can be applied to spells in order to fling electrical bolts high into the air before bringing them crashing down on hapless foes with downward swipe, which is useful for flushing enemies out of cover or for bending spells around environmental obstacles.

"We want to do what Kinect does well and steer away from the areas that Kinect doesn't do so well," explains creative producer Gary Carr. "I think The Journey does things that, hopefully, you’ll feel wouldn't be as much fun if you were doing this" he says, as he mimes waggling twin analogue sticks.

While opting for magic attacks over melee might facilitate Lionhead’s sleight of hand as it combats Kinect’s shortcomings, playing Fable: The Journey while seated is as technically impressive as it is appealing and natural. The narrative fits, as every-man hero Gabriel’s default position is sat down in a horse-drawn cart (complete with screen-framing awning to enhance the effect) and the technology recognises the natural gestures required to emulate the feeling of guiding a horse via reins, whether it’s to steer, to quicken and slow its pace or to come to an abrupt halt.

It’s when you play through an on-foot dungeon section that movement feels most linear, as Gabriel moves at his own pace through dimly-lit corridors. An open cavern dotted here or there brings Gabriel to a complete halt as you clear it of foes through a combination of aggressive spells and the magical tendril projected by Force Push, which is used both to stun armoured enemies and plug the burrows from which they are emerging with rubble pulled from the cavern ceiling. The pacing of the preview build is judged such that the game’s shepherding doesn’t intrude too much on the experience, but it’s when you realise that you can never, ever go backwards of your own volition that you start to feel restricted.

Fortunately, there appears to be plenty to do, see and interact with in front of you (including the satisfying requirement to fling open a chest with both hands) to ensure that Fable: The Journey fulfils its mandate as a game and avoids being dubbed a spectator sport. The spell system in particular offers chances to ad lib to discover interesting combinations of your own accord, but only after you’ve been taught the basics.

This is something that has changed since the game’s last showing earlier this year when then-Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux claimed, “You don’t have to preach to people anymore ... they can play the game and experiment", by way of explaining the decision not to include any in-game tutorials. Now, standard tutorials introduce the basic game mechanics, which is for the good of the experience in hinting at the potential of the magic system, but to its detriment when applied to the intuitive actions used to control the horse. However, this latter concession is as a result of extensive user research, rather than post-Molyneux Lionhead’s desire to nanny us.

Despite not being able to break free of such a mundane videogame requirement, Fable: The Journey does have plenty of room for experimentation. "There are things that you can do with the magic that we don't teach you and you'll either find them or not find them,” assures Carr. “There are combinations of stuff as you start to level-up and dual-wield that are possible that we simply didn't design it to do. So, as just one example, you can pin things to a wall a la Spider-Man by using Force Push and fire at them while there pinned; we didn't design that, it's a freebie."

Fable: The Journey has improved over recent months and will continue to be polished ahead of its release later this year, but it’s already apparent that Lionhead’s artists and programmers have done an excellent job in utilising Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 to render varied vistas and interesting environments to help you forget that you’re never in complete control the direction in which you’re heading.

"We hope that this is one of those landmark experiences that people point to in order to show that you can sit down [to play Kinect] and that you can do a non-party game that you can get really immersed in," concludes Lionhead Studio co-founder and head Mark Webley. "...and that, actually, you can do some quite cool things."

Whether or not Fable: The Journey is cool will be up to each individual that opts to play it to decide for themselves, but the very fact that it works; as a seated, Kinect-only game and an immersive, fun experience, should ensure that more people get to make that call.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/fable-the-journey-it-just-works

Witcher 1 Listed for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

Ahead of CD Projekt’s pre-E3 summer conference tomorrow, listings for The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf on consoles have started to appear online. Cool Shop has listed the game for PS3, and Blockbuster has the game down on both PS3 and 360.

We know that the first Witcher game was once in development for both consoles, with production being shared across CD Projekt and Widescreen Games. The game was suspended on consoles when CDP failed to make a payment to Widescreen.

The Witcher II on Xbox 360 was released in April this year, while the PC version was out in May, 2011.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/witcher-1-listed-for-xbox-360-and-playstation-3

Sony Registers PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Vita URLs

Sony has registered a domain names for an unconfirmed Vita version of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Vita. As you'd expect, the URLs, spotted by TSA, are quite long and wordy, including battleroyalethegamevita.com.

This comes a few days after a LinkedIn resume of a Sony sound designer listed both the PS3 and Vita version of the game as his current project. And also comments from game director Omar Kendall earlier this month suggesting that a Vita version is a possibility. When asked if All-Stars will hit Sony’s portable, Kendall commented “Maybe. Stay tuned.”

We have stayed tuned, and at this point PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale for Vita seems like an inevitability. And with E3 next week, an announcement seems to be on the cards.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/29/sony-registers-playstation-all-stars-battle-royale-vita-urls