Philip Seymour Hoffman is Catching Fire

With The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire set to roll before cameras in the not-too-distant future, a big name has been added to the cast.

According to the film’s official facebook page, Philip Seymour Hoffman will play Plutarch Heavensbee in the eagerly anticipated sequel.

A character that only briefly appears in the first story, Heavensbee is appointed Head Gamemaker in the second book, and has a big part to play throughout the rest of the saga.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will hit screens in November 2013, with I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence helming.

Source : ign[dot]com

EA's Peter Moore: Free-to-Play is an "Inevitability"

EA's chief operating officer has expressed his belief that free-to-play is an "inevitability" for all mainstream games.

Speaking with Kotaku, Peter Moore suggests that a F2P future would be a good thing, as it would constantly bring in new players and potential customers.

“ I think, ultimately, those microtransactions will be in every game, but the game itself or the access to the game will be free.

He explained, ""I think, ultimately, those microtransactions will be in every game, but the game itself or the access to the game will be free.

"I think there's an inevitability that happens five years from now, 10 years from now, that, let's call it the client, to use the term, [is free.] It is no different than... it's free to me to walk into The Gap in my local shopping mall. They don't charge me to walk in there. I can walk into The Gap, enjoy the music, look at the jeans and what have you, but if I want to buy something I have to pay for it."

It comes in the wake of rumours that Bioware's MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, which EA publishes, is looking at the viability of adopting a F2P model.  If EA were to roll it out to their other titles though, it begs the question of how it would work.  Microtransactions could be easily integrated into the likes of Madden NFL 13 or SimCity, but it's less apparent how they'd work with titles such as Mass Effect 3.

While Moore accepts that the proposed F2P revolution may not be imminent, that's not to say he didn't suggest changes are happening right this instant.  Prefacing his claims with the warning that "hardcore gamers won't like to hear this", he explained that companies are increasingly taking notice of platforms other than the consoles.

“ Hardcore gamers won't like to hear this.

"We're going through, as an industry, just an unbelievably difficult transformation, that is not from one business model to another but from one business model to a myriad of different business models," he said.

"Consoles are still going to be a very important part of what we do. But so are browsers. So are iOS devices. So are Android mobile phones. So are PCs, which are feeling a renaissance. It's all coming together in this potpourri..."

None of this is hugely surprising.  When we recently spoke to Moore about the public perception of EA, he revealed to us that he feels "The $60 game is dying. The mid-range game is no longer profitable. EA has to focus its energies elsewhere in order to meet those quarterly targets."

Source : ign[dot]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/

Call of Duty: Black Ops II On Trial

Piece by piece, Treyarch is revealing its vision of the future -- and it's grim. Earlier this month the developer lifted the curtain on Black Ops II, confirming the next entry in Activision's juggernaut FPS franchise would be set over a decade in the future. The world is familiar, as haunting images of a war-torn Los Angeles are easily recognizable, yet the sight of hijacked, robotic drones and four-legged mechs are jarring enough to signal this game is attempting something different from the past.

Yet is all of this change enough? A few IGN editors recently had a chance to watch Black Ops II in action, and have gathered some of their thoughts about the game and the franchise as a whole.

How do you feel about the Call of Duty franchise?

Richard George, Executive Editor: I've played a ton of Call of Duty over the past several years, and was obsessed with its multiplayer (and the earliest iteration of zombies) for a time. In general it's the kind of shooter that appeals to me. It delivers a big experience that's accessible and easy to pick up, play a handful of matches, and then put down. However as the series has progressed, I grew tired of the fact that it seemed to be hitting similar beats, and while the settings changed, everything else felt familiar. The stories were borderline incomprehensible, the characters didn't really matter, the crazy set pieces started to blur. The fact that the series' developers were sticking with the past or modern eras made everything seem familiar and feel stale.

Ahead of its announcement, I really had no interest in Black Ops II. I didn't know much about it, but the past several years of Call of Duty had trained me to anticipate that it would be the same old FPS in a shiny new coat. Since that time, and particularly after watching Treyarch's demo, I've come to realize that my expectations were not entirely correct -- while still not being entirely wrong.

Andrew Goldfarb, Associate Editor: I’ve spent a lot more time with Infinity Ward’s games than with Treyarch’s, but I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the franchise as a whole. Call of Duty 2 was the first game I ever played on Xbox 360, and I loved it. A few years later, I played Call of Duty 4 religiously, enjoyed World at War's zombies and skipped the campaign, then spent a lot of time with Modern Warfare 2’s Spec Ops and multiplayer. Beyond that, I skipped the original Black Ops altogether and only played through MW3’s campaign.

Before Activision showed footage, I had pretty much no interest in Black Ops II. The franchise has always been cinematic, but the campaigns have begun to feel too scripted for me, and I just don’t have the time to invest in multiplayer that I did when I was in college. It’s not that I think the series is outright bad; I just personally haven’t been able to enjoy it in the way I did with earlier installments.

Mitch Dyer, Associate Editor: I wrote recently that Call of Duty needs to change. Its predictable formula is becoming stale, to the point that no spectacular set piece is exciting to me any more. This is a series so reliant on always being in the middle of the craziest action that it all becomes kind of numbing. There's rarely room to breathe, and as a result, I think the assaulting action is a bit boring. Black Ops was the exception -- I loved those characters and story, even if they were all a bit out there, and thought it took players to some of the more interesting places than past entries.

What did you think of the Black Ops II demo?

Richard: This is precisely what the series needed -- a strong change in thematic direction while still keeping hold of its core franchise strengths. Black Ops II needed to capture my imagination in a way that previous entries didn't, and by shifting carefully into the future, Treyarch has found a good balance. To be clear, this is still over-the-top, twitch-based action that relies heavily on scripted moments of insanity. And while the core FPS elements don't appear to have altered too much, there are a number of changes to pacing, mission clarity (both through level design and the user interface) and modes like Strike Force that seem to be adding a considerable amount of franchise evolution as well. Nothing here is as bold as what we saw when Modern Warfare first arrived, but it's the closest I've seen to that.

Andrew: The Black Ops II demo made me do a total 180. This is now one of my most anticipated games of the year. Honestly, seeing the campaign demo, I feel like Treyarch has been listening to the feedback fans have been giving. This feels different than the last few COD campaigns. Setting Black Ops II in the future sets it apart enough that it doesn’t look like the same Call of Duty game, but making it only a decade away keeps it realistic. There are no crazy futuristic cities with flying cars here. In the demo Activision showed us, we saw a familiar Los Angeles, but one besieged by futuristic planes and soldiers carrying high-tech weapons. Treyarch has kept it grounded enough to be believable and, more importantly, scarily plausible.

Strike Force gives me a lot of hope for the franchise as a whole. Fail-able missions and multiple endings are a huge step in the right direction for Black Ops II, and these missions are probably the most interesting part of the content we saw. Instead of looking at this as just another blockbuster shooter, I’m looking at it as a game with the potential to breathe new life into the franchise. I’m not sure what Infinity Ward is working on at the moment (probably Modern Warfare 4), but if Treyarch continues to innovate, I’m definitely looking forward to watching how the series evolves with other teams.

Mitch: Had you told me this was Modern Warfare 4, I'd have believed you. Very little about this screams Black Ops, at least in this closed instance. Stuff blows up, cars almost crush main man Mason no fewer than four times, and dozens of bad guys die. What the Black Ops II demo nails, and I think this is something more specific to Treyarch's storytelling despite Infinity Ward's most recent effort, is the discomfort of seeing a familiar place burn. Downtown Los Angeles is a place I know well, and seeing the skyline vanish while in the thick of it was pretty impressive. What stands out more than this is the strategic Strike Force mode, which gives you the opportunity to slow down, step out of the action (or enter it in new ways), and think about what you're doing. It's tactical in a way that makes me think of a modern Rainbow Six, and that excites me more than zombies or spec-ops ever could.

Do you have any questions or concerns about Black Ops II?

Richard: I do wonder if Treyarch can deliver the same sense of franchise innovation to multiplayer. The thematic shift and adjustments to single player pacing aren't exactly applicable to the other significant COD element. I'm curious to see how that will play out. Zombies appears to now be a third pillar in the franchise's design. I'm not sure I'm overly fond of that. I loved the concept when it was a surprise -- a simple bonus for beating World at War. Now that it involves space monkeys and all sorts of other deprave concepts, it's lost a lot of what made it appealing. It will be interesting to see if some key design alterations can recapture the magic.

Beyond that, I still have plenty of questions about the single player experience. I wonder if the shift in time will still be interesting after a few hours -- will I care about mechs and drones later on, or will the familiarity of everything else weigh that down? Will the story be sensible? Will I care at all about my character or the supporting cast? Will COD once again try for some cheap shock tactics at the expense of good taste? The franchise as a whole has developed some rather bad habits. It will be fascinating to see if it can shake them off.

Andrew: I’m still a little nervous about how far into the future we’ll go. As I said before, the setting only works because it’s just barely in the future. Jumping any further ahead than that makes me wonder how the game would be received -- are Call of Duty fans ready to suspend their disbelief that much? I’m also curious to see how the span from the 1980s to the future will work. Can the 80s still be interesting at this point, or will it just be more of the same?

Treyarch also needs to show off the multiplayer. Adding Strike Force missions and branching paths to the single-player campaign is a huge step in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean multiplayer can rest on its laurels. I want to see meaningful changes. New killstreaks and mission types would be great, but let’s mix it up further than that. I’m nervous that multiplayer will just be more of the same, which would be disappointing considering the changes in single-player. Call of Duty obviously does insanely well, and to some degree I can understand the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality, but I’d still like to see Treyarch try something new.

Mitch: I'm interested to see the next step in Zombies, Rich is silly. Yes, it's dumb, but it knows what it's doing, and it's a ton of fun because it lets itself go. Come on, the last one had Buffy and Machete in it. I'd love to see some Strike Force influence appear in the new Zombies mode, perhaps giving one player an overhead view of everything while issuing orders or marking targets. My main question, though, is about the villain of the campaign. Treyarch is really pleased with itself when discussing Menendez, the man with motivation to end the world. As someone who enjoyed hanging out with Woods and co., I suspect I'll dig this dude when we start learning more about him. I'm still not sold that the battle to find him will be anything out of the ordinary, though.

Source : http://www.ign.com

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

The decades to come may be full of unknown potential for wondrous inventions, but in the gaming realm, the future is old hat. Invisibility, X-ray vision, and miniature floating cameras are modern marvels that have long since become familiar. Though these tools are potent in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, there's precious little novelty in your futuristic arsenal, and this can make you feel like you're undertaking missions you've run many times before. So is Future Soldier just another by-the-book third-person shooter?

Sometimes the silent route gets loud.

Fortunately not. Though there's plenty of familiarity to be found here, Future Soldier's brand of stealthy action and streamlined teamwork gives it a distinct appeal. The lengthy campaign lets you wield your AI allies like autonomous weapons; their guns are yours to command, but they handle their own maneuvers, pushing the action along at a slick pace. Replacing them with your fellow humans brings its own challenges and rewards, as does facing off against said humans in the lively competitive multiplayer modes. Though it's more of a product of the past than a vision of the future, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is a robust package that provides plenty of satisfying ways to exercise your itchy trigger finger.

In the campaign, you play as the ghosts, a four-man team of elite soldiers. Cutscenes and mid-mission dialogue combine to create a nice sense of camaraderie among the crew, and hackneyed archetypes are downplayed in favor of more understated characterization. Personalities are colored in during small moments, like a song streaming out of earbuds, a fleeting facial expression, and a conversation about used trucks. Interactions with other military personnel reveal how isolated the ghosts are from the soldiers they break bread with and how oblivious those soldiers are to this fact. This segregation creates a connection among the ghosts that is a refreshing change from the familiar "bonds forged on the crucible of combat" trope.

Line 'em up and knock 'em down.

On the field of battle, the ghosts try to emulate their namesakes, moving silently with the aid of slick optical camouflage that dissolves if you jog, sprint, or fire your weapon. Staying stealthy is often a mission requirement, and even when it isn't, avoiding detection gives you a distinct advantage. It's easy to maneuver unseen, and you spend a lot of time silently eliminating foes. Stealth melee kills and suppressed weapons are your basic tools, but the key mechanic is the sync shot. Spotting enemies through your scope or tagging them from aloft with your aerial drone, you can designate up to four targets for you and your squad to eliminate in one fell swoop. To execute, simply open fire on your own target, or issue the command with a press of the right bumper.

It's a neat trick, and the seconds of slo-mo that follow are a welcome flourish that allow you to silently mop up more than the few targeted foes. Using sync shots to eliminate enemies is pleasing and relatively easy, thanks to the array of detection methods at your disposal. Drones, sensor grenades, and a few flavors of optical gadgetry give you plenty of ways to detect nearby foes. As long as no one sees the dead bodies, no one gets suspicious, and many situations lay out foes in discrete, easily sync-shot-able groups.

Only in later levels do you encounter larger groups that put your coordination skills to the test. You must now take into account multiple lines of sight and interlocking movement patterns, as well as calibrate the exact speed at which you can tag and take down a new set of targets. Methodically carving your way through these scenarios is very satisfying, and you might even find yourself choosing to reload checkpoints when you are discovered, even if you aren't forced to. Though an alert doesn't always bring your mission to a close, challenging yourself to maintain stealth is usually more engaging and fun than blasting your way through.

It's important to remember that you are camouflaged, not invisible.

Aside from sync shot orders, your AI allies are mostly autonomous. They follow your lead but move, take cover, and engage alerted targets on their own. They are very reliable, but they are prone to a number of unrealistic behaviors that can hamper your immersion. Shooting effectively through multiple thick walls, sprinting past enemies while maintaining camouflage, or failing to acquire a marked target in line of sight are all intermittent AI oddities.

Source : http://www.gamespot.com

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

It could’ve been so different. Two years ago, when Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was shown at E3 in 2010, the reaction was muted. Unlike the bombastic demo that was unveiled – which borrowed more from recent blockbuster shooters than the thoughtful, strategic franchise it was based on – the reception caused little more than a rumble. True, that first glimpse proved it was more than a Call of Duty-aping run-and-gun duck hunt, but its direction had obviously been swayed by the bullet-spitting behemoth.

Two years on and many of the fears that Future Soldier doesn’t stay true to its roots can be laid to rest. It bears all the hallmarks of a great Ghost Recon game – a considered tempo, smart pacing and a smattering of the genre’s now all-important set-pieces – but more importantly it takes the blueprint laid out by Advanced Warfighter and improves on it.

Play Future Soldier as you would Call of Duty or Battlefield and you won’t last long. It’s a punishing game in some respects, and you cannot stand out in the open and expect to survive for more than a few seconds. It forces you to think strategically, to plan ahead and use cover at all times. Often the best option is to take down the enemy one by one, carefully considering your next target in order to prevent a patrolling guard from stumbling over a dead body and raising the alarm. And sometimes the best route is to not fire a single shot at all, but to move silently to your objective without the enemy realising you’re even there.

This flexibility to tackle missions in different ways makes Ghost Recon: Future Soldier a refreshing change from the recent trend of linear shooters. It’s superbly paced too, shifting effortlessly between moments of considered calm to the flashes of pure spectacle that are de rigueur in today’s action games. Scenes of explosive carnage are peppered more frequently throughout the campaign than in previous Ghost Recons, but they fit within the narrative in a believable way. You won’t question why something is happening and are never drawn out of the experience by moments of outrageous silliness.

Instead it all gels together perfectly and makes sense, which should be applauded considering the game’s near-future setting and the advanced gear at your disposal. Adaptive camouflage enables Ghosts to blend with their background and sneak past without detection, providing they move with caution, while the Warhound is a robotic beast that acts as both a mobile artillery platform and moving cover. There are also sensor grenades that pick out nearby enemies, aim-assisted sniper rifles, airstrikes… Ghost Recon is packed with cool gadgets that make you feel like a total bad-ass when used correctly, but aren’t so overwhelmingly powerful as to make you invincible.

The drone is perhaps the piece of kit you’ll find most useful, though, and while it will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s play previous games, it boasts a handful of new features. Firstly, it can transform into a radio-controlled car and emit a sonic pulse that disables nearby electronics or temporarily stuns enemies. It also provides a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield, giving invaluable insight into the enemy’s position.

But it’s the tagging system that really revolutionises the way Future Soldier plays. It’s an improved version of the tagging feature in Splinter Cell: Conviction and replaces the old direct-order system: rather than telling your team-mates to move to specific positions, you tag an enemy – or multiple enemies, up to a maximum of four. This essentially issues the order for a team-mate to focus on that target, and they’ll do everything they can to ensure the enemy stays within their sights. Your team-mates are smart, so they’ll stay in cover and maintain a low profile, but if they’re unable to continue targeting an enemy because it would compromise their position then they’ll stand down. A Ghost wouldn’t give away their position in real life, so it’s refreshing to see that your team-mates are smart enough to act the same way here.

Tagged enemies can then be eliminated when the time is right, and perfecting multiple takedowns when each Ghost has a bead on an enemy and you’re able to eliminate four guys simultaneously is an extremely satisfying feeling. And because you’re able to tag enemies using the drone, it’s also possible to play armchair strategist, marking enemies from afar and relying on the expertise of your fellow Ghosts to execute your orders.

That said, the Ghosts are not so smart that it takes away the challenge. Ask too much of your team mates and they’ll get pinned by enemy fire or, worse, shot, giving you just a few seconds to either patch them up or send someone else to their aid. You’re frequently outnumbered and outgunned, and it’s only by working as a team that you’ll survive, getting a team-mate to lay down suppressing fire while you sneak around the flanks.

At times Ghost Recon: Future Solider looks superb. It’s obvious a lot of time has been spent perfecting the way the Ghosts bond as a team, either out on the battlefield or chewing the fat between missions. It’s therefore a shame Future Soldier falls short in other areas; faces look waxy and the dialogue unconvincing, so the few scenes designed provoke an emotional response don’t really click.

There are also moments when it doesn’t quite look finished. Some backgrounds lack detail, and clunky textures jar against what is otherwise a superb-looking game. Overall it feels like it lacks the high-gloss polish of many of today’s big hitters.

In contrast, the cover system is a highlight and draws its inspiration from Gears of War. It’s intuitive to use, enabling you to quickly move from one position to the next. Importantly, the transition between cover always feels seamless, whether you choose to vault over the bonnet of a car or dash to a nearby wall, meaning you can focus where the enemy is rather than worrying if your backside is hanging out in the open.

Many of the missions can only be completed using stealth and this constant change of tempo means the overall game is perfectly paced. As a result the 10-hour campaign is engaging throughout, and the only grumble I’d have is that the handful of helicopter gunship scenes; whilst they don’t really detract from the experience, they do feel a bit tacked on, certainly in single-player. In four-player co-op it’s a different story, because the group is split – two in the chopper and two on the ground. The guys in the sky must provide support, laying down fire while foot-soldiers help out by throwing sensor grenades to highlight incoming threats.

Co-op as a whole is a superb addition to the Future Soldier package. The entire campaign is playable with four people and some missions feel very different when playing with friends than they do alone. There’s also the added challenge of survival – you always know your back is covered if you take a bullet in single-player, but in co-op if you accidentally leave one guy to die it’s game over.

Multiplayer is adequately catered for too, with four games mode on offer. Decoy proves the most entertaining, which tasks two teams with taking three objectives. The twist is, only one of the three is the real target; the other are two decoys, and neither team knows which is which, so the result is taught battles where dominance constantly fluctuates from one side to the other. Even the straight-forward deathmatch feels unique, because elements of the single-player game are carried over. Individually you don’t have all the gear at your disposal – only a scout is blessed with adaptive camo and sensor grenades for example, so although they’re poorly armoured, they provide invaluable intel on the enemy’s position. It encourages players to work as a team, and while the same can be said for most multiplayer shooters, in this case it definitely feels like an extension of the campaign than a last-minute add-on.

Then there’s Guerrilla mode, which is Future Soldier’s take on Horde mode. It’s for up to four players, either online or split-screen (note, there’s no option for players to have specific control set-ups, so if one of you inverts their aiming controls then affects everyone on the team), and once again it borrows elements from the campaign game – tagged kills, getting the upper hand by remaining undetected and so on. However, it’s little more than a pleasant distraction, unless you’re desperate to unlock the thousands of different weapon combinations the game has to offer. Ubisoft has made a lot of Gunsmith and while there is a huge selection of variables to play around with, more often than not you’ll find the combination that works for you and stick with it.

Source : http://www.ign.com

IGN Readers Give Thumbs Up to Black Ops II's War of the Future

A fortnight ago we asked you for your thoughts on Treyarch taking the Call of Duty franchise into the future with Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

The poll was aimed at gamers who currently enjoy Call of Duty, or have enjoyed it in the past, and was framed around whether or not Call of Duty fans were supportive of the idea of the series heading more than a decade into the future.

56.79% of respondents claim they love the idea and that it was just what they were after. Black Ops II's focus on drones, combat robots and futuristic gadgets sounds great to them.

The remaining gamers polled remain unconvinced, but for slightly different reasons. 18.28% of respondents weren't sure whether the future is a great fit for Call of Duty and say they much prefer the present day backdrop of the Modern Warfare series. 24.93% of respondents weren't feeling it either, claiming they've always been happier with Call of Duty's historical settings (like Call of Duty 2's vision of WWII, or Black Ops and its Cold War-era/Vietnam War backdrop).

Amazon has claimed that pre-orders for Black Ops II are 10 times the pre-order numbers of the original Black Ops (and 30% higher than Modern Warfare 3's day one pre-order numbers), although some analysts are tipping Black Ops II won't break sales records this time around.

"I don't think Modern Warfare 3 is going to sell more than the last Black Ops, so I doubt that this one will break a record. I think that Call of Duty is a phenomenon, selling way more than 20 million units annually, and it's unrealistic to think that number can grow meaningfully with each annual release," Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter told GamesIndustry International earlier this month.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/ign-readers-give-thumbs-up-to-black-ops-iis-war-of-the-future

Gareth Evans Talks The Raid Remake

The Raid director Gareth Evans discussed the future of the franchise at Kapow In London today. During the Momentum Showcase at the Comic Convention, the Welsh director explained his involvement in the American remake, as well as the upcoming sequel.

 

He said the remake would incorporate some changes as the original was, “a movie in a foreign language with a star nobody knew and a director nobody knew.”  It won’t be anything too drastic though, as Evans is on board as executive producer and the Indonesian star of the first film, Iko Uwais, will be choreographing the action.

 

While fans may be sad not to see him at the helm for the remake, he said he felt it was important that he stood back.  He explained, “I’m not remaking it myself.  My approach is to be hands off; in order for them to do the job properly they need to be given freedom.”

 

The good news is that this leaves Evans free to focus on getting the Indonesian sequel underway.  When The Raid was still in script form, Evans was primarily focused on another project called Berandal.  After seeing how well people responded to The Raid, he decided that with a small rewrite (“about 15 per cent”) Berandal could serve as a sequel.

 

He’s now planning a full trilogy and shared today that *SPOILER* Mad Dog will be reappearing in the next film, though we’re not sure in what capacity.  With filming due to start January 2013, he said he felt hopeful about releasing by “the tail end of next year.”

 

Finally, with the American remake underway, Evans was asked how he’s coping with the influx of Hollywood offers.  He said that he hasn’t received any, putting this down to the level of violence in his films.  He teased, “I make violent movies, so I don’t quite fit the Hollywood mould… yet.  But at the moment I can make smaller films that allow me to do what I want.”

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/19/gareth-evans-talks-the-raid-remake

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier 'Arctic Strike' DLC Deploys This Summer Ads By Google » Blog Tags Today's Most Popular Videos »

Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier hits stores on May 22, 2012, but the publisher is already looking ahead to the game's first DLC release with the reveal of the "Arctic Strike" pack. The July 3 release will set you back $9.99 (or 800 MS Points on Xbox Live), adding an assortment of multiplayer-oriented content to the game.

Like what, you ask? The press release offers no specifics, but you can definitely look forward to running your Future Soldier forces through new multiplayer maps, a new multiplayer mode, a new Guerilla mode map (think Horde), and six new weapons. It's a safe bet that much of this content will revolve around cold weather conditions, given the DLC's title. Should be a nice break from early July's hot summer weather.

For more on the game's multiplayer, check out our latest Ghost Recon: Future Soldier preview.


Source : http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723697/ghost-recon-future-soldier-arctic-strike-dlc-deploys-this-summer/

Black to the Future: What Do You Think of Black Ops II's Futuristic, 2025 Setting?

The future of Call of Duty the future; Activision is sending its flagship franchise to 2025. That means highly advanced weaponry, razor-edge robotics and drone warfare.



Of course, it also means leaving behind a lot of tradition. For a series that was forged in the fires of World War II, found incredible success in current-day conflict and has since stopped off for a little Cold War subterfuge this is a pretty significant shift.

There's been praise for Treyarch taking Call of Duty somewhere fresh, but there's also been criticism; science-fiction isn't everyone's cup of tea. What are thoughts, Call of Duty fans? Let us know below.


Source : http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/122/1224411p1.html