Aion Review

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Aion Review

This fantasy massively multiplayer online game makes a great first impression, but almost every aspect of it devolves into a grind before you're even halfway to the level cap.

The Good

• Visuals impress both technically and artistically  
• First 10 to 12 levels are a joy to play  
• Fast-paced and intuitive combat system.

The Bad

• Grinding quickly becomes an obtrusively big part of gameplay  
• Servers seem unable to cope with large-scale PVP battles  
• Invisible walls make flying much less fun than it should be  
• Sound design is all over the place.

Upon entering Aion's world for the first time, you can't help but notice how beautiful it is, and for the first few hours it seems that as much attention has been lavished on the engaging quests and interesting characters as has on the CryEngine-powered visuals. Play past the first dozen or so character levels though, and Aion's grind-happy design becomes increasingly apparent. Non-player characters with stories to tell make way for others who might as well be notice boards, and quests that are at least somewhat imaginative early on are replaced with a mind-numbing mix of deliver, fetch, kill, and collect objectives. Aion does a lot of things right, and it looks great doing them, but ultimately, you're too busy grinding while playing it to care or, perhaps, even notice.

The starter zones are beautifully crafted and feature step-by-step tutorials.

Even before you enter the postcataclysm world of Atreia, Aion impresses with its incredibly robust character creation system. The extensive customization options are more reminiscent of those in sports games than in other massively multiplayer online offerings, and after choosing one of the two factions and one of the four starting classes to play as, you could easily spend an hour or two perfecting your character's look. In the wrong hands, though, tools likes these can be too powerful as players go out of their way to create the most ridiculous and improbable avatars imaginable. Thankfully, heads and arms that are far too big for the bodies they're attached to aren't a common sight, but characters at both ends of the size scale definitely are. That wouldn't be a problem, except that the extremes are so far apart--diminutive characters are dwarfed by even the insects and other small enemies that you fight early on and are barely waist high to players who opt for the Aion equivalent of Andre the Giant. Jarringly, animations of the small characters are sped up significantly so that they can move around at the same speed as everyone else while large characters run in slow motion. The end result is that you're constantly being reminded that you're playing a game and that not everyone you're playing with has the same goals.
When deciding which faction to play as, you’ll notice few distinguishing characteristics separating the Elyos and Asmodian races; they're functionally identical and even their appearances aren't dramatically different. The most obvious distinction is that the Elyos have white wings while the Asmodians' are black. The latter also have talons on their hands and feet and dull gray skin, while the former look more or less human. Classes are the same for both races, and although there are ultimately eight, you initially get to choose from only four. That might sound restrictive, but it's actually a great system because rather than forcing you to choose your class right away, it affords you 10 levels to decide which of the more specialized classes you want to pursue. For example, after playing for 10 levels as a damage-dealing scout, you can opt to specialize in either ranged combat as a ranger or melee combat as an assassin. You won't necessarily have had a lot of experience with both options when the time comes to make your choice, but some is better than none.

Character creation is something that you might have a little too much fun with.

Combat in Aion isn't radically different from that in other MMO games, but it does place a greater emphasis on skills and abilities that chain together to form combos. Many moves can only be performed during a short window immediately after another move is performed, and conveniently these moves are automatically mapped to the same key. For example, your first attack might have a 100 percent chance of making a second attack available to you that, in turn, has a 25 percent chance of triggering a third. Rather than having to assign these three different moves to three different keys, they're automatically mapped to just one key so that you can press 1-1-1 rather than 1-2-3. Furthermore, the cooldown indicators for these moves are superimposed alongside your character during combat, so you know exactly when they become available to you without having to take your eyes off the action. It's a great system because it not only makes the occasionally spectacular-looking combos easy to perform, but it also dramatically cuts down on the number of buttons that you need to arrange on your screen. The only downside is that--particularly when fighting against the various creatures and humanoid enemies that inhabit Atreia--combat can feel like an extended quick-time event in which you do little more than respond to onscreen prompts.
That's because once you've devised an efficient attack rotation, very few of the enemies you encounter force you to deviate it from it. They might prevent you from finishing a chain or incapacitate you temporarily, but the moment you regain control you can generally just pick up where you left off. That's not to say that enemies in Aion are pushovers, because they're not. Enemies around your level will often manage to take a chunk of your health before you finish them off, and--depending on which class you're playing as--enemies that are two or more levels higher than you can pose a real threat if you don't have any health and/or mana potions in your inventory. When you're not rolling with a well-rounded group that has both a tank and a healer, you should expect there to be plenty of downtime between your fights. You can sit down in order to speed up your health and mana regeneration, but it's still not quick, and you're vulnerable to attack the whole time you're on the ground. But, you're not necessarily any safer up in the air.

Focus too much on quest objectives on the ground and you might be caught off-guard by enemies swooping from above.

Surprisingly, whether you're on foot or flying, combat isn't that different. You have to be aware of enemies at different altitudes, of course, and there are certain moves that are more useful in the air than on the ground, but the hardest (or most frustrating, at least) thing to get used to is the idea that you can only fly or glide for a limited amount of time before you become exhausted and fall out of the sky. Prior to gaining access to gear and wing augmentations that increase your flight time, you have only about a minute before you have to return to the ground and spend another minute regaining your strength to be able to fly for that amount of time again. This makes flying, which should be one of Aion's most unique and exciting features, something of a chore at times and downright infuriating at others. Frequently, when flying in quest areas, you hit invisible walls and are told that you're entering an area where flight is impossible. There's no attempt to justify this grounding, but it's clear that the majority of quest zones were not designed with flight-capable players in mind. Even those zones where flight is permitted very rarely put their verticality to good use. Rather, quest objectives are still found almost exclusively on the ground while materials that can be collected and used for crafting float above.

Star Trek: D-A-C Review

Blandly go where no Star Trek game has gone before in this unexciting multiplayer shoot-'em-up.

The Good

• Conquest and Assault modes are fun in small doses  
• Survival mode is a nice, fast-paced addition .

The Bad

• The license has little impact on the game  
• The new missile cruiser class isn't fun to use  
• Loose controls make for unrewarding shooting  
• Dumb AI leads to frustrations.

Deathmatch, Assault, Conquest: These game modes form the acronym in Star Trek: D-A-C's unusually uninspired title. While the game was first released to Xbox Live Arcade in May of 2009, the more recent PlayStation and PC versions add new ships and other new features in an apparent effort to enhance the shallow original. (It's worth noting that the Xbox 360 version has since been updated to include all of the features of the more recent versions.) The additions are welcome, in particular the single-player Survival mode that pits you against increasingly more challenging waves of enemies. However, the D-A-C experience is still characterized by its bland top-down space combat, which is pleasant in small doses but lacks the thrills of other shoot-'em-ups. Furthermore, the game does not reflect the wonders of the franchise, thus making the license seem less of an inspiration and more like window dressing.

Survival mode features some pretty backgrounds.

Basic gameplay is standard fare for a shoot-'em-up. The three ships of the original Xbox 360 release--the fighter, the bomber, and the flagship--appear in this edition. Fighters shoot lasers, bombers drop bombs behind them that explode a moment later, and flagships let you hover a reticle over your target and let loose a blast of energy. The two additions for the new version are the missile cruiser, which moves slowly and fires balls of energy that may be charged up to do even more damage, and the support frigate, which emits a steady beam that can damage enemies but is more useful for restoring health and power to other ships. In most modes, you choose to fight for either the Federation or the Romulans, but while the ship designs are different for each faction, the ship classes play the exact same way. Once you choose a ship type and a faction, you do battle with AI-controlled enemies or fellow human combatants.
The two new ships bulk up the possibilities, but they don't do much to energize the action. The new missile cruiser moves slowly and shoots slowly, and while its laserballs do a lot of damage and even hit enemies offscreen, it controls too sluggishly to feel satisfying. In fact, that looseness is part of the experience regardless of the ship you select. The floaty controls might be meant to approximate what it would be like to fly in the vacuum of space, but their imprecision saps much of the excitement. Rather than the quick and accurate moving and shooting you would hope for, you get loose turning and a slower rate of fire than you would expect, which is further limited by your ship's quick-to-diminish power reserves. Power-ups add a bit of variety, letting you create a clone of your ship to fight alongside you or giving you a temporary cloak, among other possibilities. But the power-ups do little to make the action more compelling, so while you might get enjoyment out of two or three successive matches, Star Trek: D-A-C gets tiresome quickly.

The Romulans are coming. Quick, look busy!

Team Deathmatch is the most predictable and least exciting of the three competitive modes, because it relies solely on the dull shooting to entertain. Conquest and Assault modes are a better source of amusement. In Conquest, you take over the map by capturing rings, which keeps the action concentrated on a small number of hot spots. Assault works similarly, only an assaulting team must capture the rings in sequence on its way to the defending team's base, while the defenders must thwart the assaulting team's plans. The newer version gives Assault mode a twist, adding turret defenses and a final base assault that the attacking team must undertake, assuming it makes it that far. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find many competitors on either the PC or the PS3, which means that available slots in online games will be filled by AI players. Star Trek D-A-C's AI isn't very good. This is most noticeable in Conquest, where the entirety of your computer-controlled team will clump together in a single capture ring and ignore what is happening elsewhere, and multiple AI-controlled support frigates may follow you about and restore your health at the expense of other ships in greater need.
The most notable addition to this version is that of Survival, which is a single-player mode in which you fend off waves of enemies that become harder and harder to defeat. It's the new D-A-C's best add-on, because the action occurs at a faster pace than in other modes and leads to attractive displays of laser fire and explosions. But Survival also highlights the floaty controls, which make it difficult to evade the balls of energy that missile cruisers lob at you and to grab the power-ups and point-increasing drops that destroyed ships leave behind. Nor is there any context for this mode, or any other mode. There is no story, no introduction, nor even a voice-over telling you to boldly go where no man has gone before. It's just one-off matches, and were it not for the naming conventions, ship designs, and melodramatic soundtrack, you'd never know this was a Star Trek game.

Expect to have the AI fill most of the slots when you play online.

Star Trek: D-A-C's sole spark of originality is that upon defeat, you eject a speedy escape pod that you can control. If you can avoid enemy fire for a few seconds, your ship will spawn back onto the battlefield more quickly than if your pod is destroyed. Otherwise, this is a humdrum top-down shooter that neither takes advantage of its illustrious license, nor supplies the explosive joy you'd seek from the best shoot-'em-ups. The mild pleasures D-A-C initially offers are soon replaced with apathy for its shallow and repetitive gameplay. The improvements over the original release are notable, but they don't remove the game's fundamental flaws--they only veil them.

Tales of Monkey Island Review

Once clear of its port of origin, this clever, humorous tale unfurls its sails and becomes a thoroughly entertaining swashbuckling adventure.

The Good

• Quirky sense of humor  
• Engaging, superbly voiced characters  
• Charming cartoon aesthetic  
• Story full of fun twists and turns  
• Some clever puzzles.

The Bad

• Occasional presentation hitches  
• Some slow parts  
• Puzzles are generally easy.

The beloved adventure game franchise Monkey Island set sail on a new episodic journey earlier this year and has recently come into port with its fifth and final episode. Tales of Monkey Island chronicles the further adventures of Guybrush Threepwood--Mighty Pirate--as he pursues his often-imperiled wife, Elaine, and tries to vanquish his nemesis, LeChuck. Yet this tale is no heroic cliche, and it takes some amusing twists and unconventional turns. The relationships between lead characters are the engaging heart of the story, while the supporting cast and wacky environments provide ample opportunity for humor. This is a funny game, and though there are some lulls in the otherwise lively pace, the clever puzzles and the playful ways you have to go about solving them will keep you entertained for the duration. Tales of Monkey Island is a lengthy adventure that's easy to enjoy and easy on your wallet, as well as sure to please both newcomers and veteran insult swordfighters alike.

Guybrush enlists some simian aid to help him escape the clutches of the maniacal Marquis.

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The first episode, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, starts off where you might expect an adventure game to end, with you (as Guybrush) poised to deal the killing blow to LeChuck and rescue Elaine. Naturally, things don't quite work out as planned, and this sets the tone for the adventure to come. Tales of Monkey Island doesn't stick to predictable conventions, and it doesn't resort to merely flipping these conventions on their heads. It puts a whole different spin on things, creating adventurous and refreshingly odd situations. Yet the game doesn't get bogged down in weirdness or whimsy and continues at a good clip from episode to episode. The story moves nicely among brisk action sequences, thoughtful puzzle wrangling, and expository cutscenes. Though there is occasional downtime, and the first episode feels a bit like taxiing out of the harbor, Tales of Monkey Island cuts through the water at a good pace, keeping you interested and amused throughout the 15-to-20-hour adventure.
Yet it's not just the strange situations you find yourself in that make the game so engaging but the people that populate this whimsical Caribbean. The lead characters are clear standouts because they have fleshed-out personalities and interesting relationships. Guybrush is a goofy hero who would just as soon chew gum stuck on a window ledge as pull out his sword, and it's impressive that his well-meaning-yet-somewhat-bungling heroism shtick never really gets old. Elaine is much more on the ball, and her spirited independence and occasional exasperation with her husband are sweetly countenanced by her steadfast love for him. The evolution of Guybrush's relationship with Morgan LeFlay from The Siege of Spinner Cay (Ep. 2) through Rise of the Pirate God (Ep. 5) is another emotional (and comical) high point, and LeChuck's personality overhaul is a clever inversion of his traditionally evil role. The superb voice acting and great dialogue bring these and other characters to life remarkably well. Although the lead characters are definitely more interesting, even the assorted pirates, brigands, and lawyers you come across have a spark of personality.
Guybrush Threepwood is a guy who gets things done with brains over brawn (most of the time), and there are a lot of items to pick up and puzzles to work out across the five episodes. Though you'll occasionally use a sword to chop things or a bomb to blow things up, most of the other items and actions stick to the humorous and eccentric vibe. Some puzzles rely on inventory you picked up in earlier adventures (perhaps even an earlier episode), while many have their own self-contained set of objects. For example, at one point, you need to gather objects for a spell by deciphering a riddle then use your wits and your inventory to acquire the right ingredients. Other puzzles rely on dialogue, like Guybrush's attempt to help a lonely creature woo its mate using only a handful of lines from a travel phrasebook. Some puzzles combine both items and dialogue, like Guybrush's courtroom foray in The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood (Ep. 4). Tales of Monkey Island crafts these puzzles in a variety of clever ways, and though you will notice that some quest structures are repeated, this repetition is not frequent enough to feel stale. Solutions are generally pretty easy to figure out, though some of the more obtuse ones can be quite tricky. Usually, you can talk to folks and explore the limited area to gather clues, but if you get really stuck, just bump up the hint frequency and Guybrush will chime in with a helpful observation.

Two lady corsairs fighting over Guybrush? Say it is so!

Throughout the course of five episodes, you travel to many different parts of the Caribbean (and beyond!). You make first landfall in a small town with a pirate court, an exclusive nightclub, a mad scientist's house, and the Blow Me Down Glassworks. While this first episode feels a bit slow compared to subsequent episodes, you soon venture out into (and under) the sea, visiting a number of other islands, including the seat of government for an underwater society. And the title of episode three, Lair of the Leviathan, gives you a pretty big clue as to its unique setting. It's fun to travel through the quirky, colorful environments, and revisiting places you've been in previous episodes gives a nice sense of continuity. The cartoony visual style contributes to the game's lighthearted mood, though you will notice some visual oddities from time to time. And there is some frame rate slowdown during action heavy scenes or when Guybrush is running around. The audio also suffers occasional hitches, but for the most part, the sound effects and music do a good job of matching the action and setting the mood.
Tales of Monkey Island harks back to the heyday of adventure gaming with a great story, engaging characters, and a lot of entertaining puzzles. Though the solutions generally aren't as tough as their predecessors were, you'll still feel a rewarding sense of satisfaction as you think your way through this game. Infrequent performance hitches and occasionally slow pacing are minor issues compared to the hours of humor, intrigue, romance, and insult swordfighting you get for the very reasonable price of $34.95. If you've got a hankering for adventure, then get your hands (or hooks) on Tales of Monkey Island.

Heir to the Throne Review

This third expansion finally completes Europa Universalis 3.

The Good

• Casus belli system gives wars character  
• Reforms and internal politics enrich the Holy Roman Emperor's life  
• Crushing pirates and enemy armies is no longer a chore  
• Dynastic succession will have you praying for an heir.

The Bad

• Requires base game and two previous expansions  
• Little player control over the siring and raising of heirs.

The "complete edition" of 2007's historical grand strategy epic Europa Universalis 3--bundled with its first two expansions--was released over a year ago. At that time, EU3 felt complete, with its hundreds of playable countries, diverse options for intrigue and diplomacy, and a plethora of religious and colonial conflicts appropriate for its 1399 to 1820 timeline. However, the complete edition proved premature because the third expansion Heir to the Throne has just been released. Despite its deceptively small size--barely more than 15 megabytes--Heir to the Throne greatly improves upon EU3 by adding a new casus belli system, making combat more fun, occupying monarchs with dynastic dramas, and revising the internal politics of the Holy Roman Empire.

Step aside France, there's a new unseemly giant blob on the political map: the Holy Roman Empire.

Diplomacy receives the biggest overhaul in Heir to the Throne, with war justifications and peace treaties getting the bulk of the attention. In EU3, your regime's stability would suffer if you launched an unprovoked war, so concocting a just cause--or casus belli--for your ruthless wars of conquest was advisable. Unfortunately, each casus belli had the same effect on stability, and no distinction existed between, for instance, waging a holy war or reclaiming stolen land. Thankfully, Heir to the Throne features a dozen different casus belli each of which now has a significant effect on how you wage war and make peace. This lowers the war score needed to force your enemy to yield to your legitimate demands in a peace treaty, and it also determines the international respect or hostility you gain by victory. For example, the Reconquest casus belli lets you annex your claimed territories without accruing any infamy; Canceled Loan makes demanding monetary reparations easier; and Religious Unity doubles the prestige you get for forcing your enemy to convert. Just as in the original EU3, you can still devise your own peace treaty regardless of your casus belli, but unjustified demands can seriously alienate your neighbors.
Warmongers will be pleased to hear that combat has been significantly improved in Heir to the Throne. Previously, in EU3, you were forced to play extended games of whack-a-mole with retreating enemy armies as they bounced from province to province like a ping-pong ball--always routed by your army, but never, ever dying. In contrast, armies in Heir to the Throne immediately surrender when they run out of morale, and they must stand and fight for several days before retreating, which means that you'll have time to get in some good licks. Also improved are the battles against pirates, who are no longer able to retreat from battle. Additionally, pirates tend not to spawn in sea zones near your fleets, which makes combating piracy much more manageable and allows you to concentrate on more important things like ridding the world of heathen religions. The elimination of cartoonishly resilient armies and pirates was sorely needed, making warmongering more fruitful and enjoyable. Why wasn't EU3 always like this?
Another improvement to an existing game mechanic is the reenvisioning of the Holy Roman Empire. As the leader of this loose confederation of central European states, the holy roman emperor can now gain imperial authority, a type of political capital that he can use to improve relations with member states or to modernize the empire's institutions. You can now turn the empire into a hereditary monarchy or even unify it as a single state, which makes being the emperor fun and engrossing, unlike in the previous system, in which the title of emperor merely conveyed a few statistical modifiers rather than a sense of purpose.
Also gaining a new sense of purpose is the College of Cardinals, whose members have given up their lust for worldly things and are now incorruptible. This means that you can no longer bribe them to elect your puppet as pope. The pontiff may still become your toady, which gives you stat boosts and the ability to have your rivals excommunicated, but you can only accomplish this by amassing enough papal influence. This is granted based on your policies, and if your government is sufficiently intolerant of heretics and heathens, then you will be quite popular with the Holy See. Overall, the influence system is a welcome change from the laborious micromanagement of cardinal bribing, but cynics with a sizable disposable income may prefer the old ways.

The new dynastic mechanics plague you with all manner of civil wars and foreign interventions.

While foreign intrigues are an amusing diversion, monarchies must never forget their most important goal: the continuation of the dynasty. Monarchs now belong to dynasties that often rule over several countries at once, so if your monarch dies without an heir, you can be certain that a foreign cousin will pop up with a claim to the throne and an army ready to enforce it. However, having an heir does not guarantee peace and tranquility either, particularly if the heir is a bastard child from an unsanctioned union with a maid. For instance, a bastard king will likely see pretenders launch rebellions in an attempt to seize power, forcing you to divert your attention from bribing the holy roman emperor to suppress the insurgents. While monarchical dynasties are a great addition to EU3, they pale in comparison to the great dynastic dramas and family trees of Crusader Kings, an earlier Paradox game. Whereas in Crusader Kings, you could discreetly dispose of your barren, aging queen and marry a fertile young maiden to increase your chances of producing an heir, in Heir to the Throne, you don't get much of a say in the matter.
Also missing is the ability to influence your heir's characteristics through either genetics or upbringing, which would have been useful and fun. The worst part of dynastic gameplay occurs when the monarch dies but the heir is too young to rule. When that happens, your country will be run by a regency council until the heir comes of age, which could be up to 20 years away. Regency councils cannot start wars, so you may be unable to capitalize on all sorts of casus belli opportunities while patiently waiting for the heir to grow up.

Fallen Earth: Welcome to the Apocalypse Review

Clumsy combat, a glut of bugs, and ancient production values tarnish this otherwise rich and complex online role-playing game.

The Good

• Complex and enjoyable web of crafting and scavenging  
• Excellent quest writing  
• Beautiful understated soundtrack.

The Bad

• Loads of bugs, glitches, and other foibles  
• Combat is awkward and unrewarding  
• Weak visuals and sound effects.

Fallen Earth's vision of the future is a bleak one. Horrific mutants roam the desolate plains, violent splinter groups worship computer AIs, and you must rummage through bags and scavenge junkyards if you intend to survive. Unfortunately, the postapocalyptic setting isn't this ambitious massively multiplayer online game's only harsh attribute: An array of troubling bugs, a steep learning curve, and dated visuals make playing occasionally seem more of a chore than a pleasure. Technical flaws and missing MMOG-standard features are as much a part of Fallen Earth as its warring factions and mutated chickens, so if you're not the patient and forgiving type, you shouldn't make this your next virtual home. It's unfortunate that Fallen Earth's exterior is so troubled because underneath it dwells a complex economy and oft-brilliant quest writing that draw you in despite the blemishes. These diamonds are invaluable, but the laborious task of mining for them can be exhausting.

You can ride off into the sunset, but in the postapocalypse, there are no happy endings.

The game's setting is intriguing and unlike any other MMOG on the market. The American Southwest is the last known cradle of civilization after natural disasters and nuclear war devastate the planet, and it's here that you'll struggle against the mutated beasts and lawless brigands that threaten what's left of humanity. You and other players are clones--able to regenerate in a LifeNet pod after each death. After a brief tutorial that introduces you to combat and interface basics, you find yourself in the middle of a meager desert town with only the barest essentials to help you scrape by. And it will take you a long time before you feel like you're doing anything but scraping by. Fallen Earth is a harsh mistress. You spend your first hours trying to get your bearings, seeking help from your fellow players, and slowly determining how you are going to earn enough gambling chips (that is, money) to endure. It might take hours before you as much gain your first level or even find a way to buy a weapon or armor effective enough to protect you should you venture away from the cold comfort of your starting village.
You won't ever tame the dusty brown Arizona wastelands, but you will eventually become part of its ecology. Scavenging is important and inescapable, so as you make your way further into the desert, you'll find more and more resource nodes waiting to be plundered. You collect such minerals as coal, lead, and copper; forage for mushrooms, grain, and varied edibles; and stockpile scrap iron, glass, and rubber found in decrepit vehicles and mounds of rubbish. You can purchase necessary items as well, but it's more cost effective--and often necessary--to find it yourself. In turn, you can use these resources to craft essentially any usable object found in Fallen Earth. Depending on your proclivities, you can fashion shivs and lawnmower blades to use in melee combat; pistols and crossbows if you prefer to keep your enemies at a distance; armor of all sorts, from jackets to boots; and all kinds of auxiliary items, from ammo and acid to ATV engines and horse feed.

In time you'll long for more storage space.

If you enjoy the complicated economies of games like EVE and Pirates of the Burning Sea, Fallen Earth will scratch that same itch. Crafting is simple and painless: As long as you have the knowledge and items necessary, you can craft items anywhere (though the process is quicker in specific crafting labs). It takes some items minutes, hours, even days to complete, though like in EVE, crafting continues without further input once started--even if you are offline. Nor are you stuck with a particular discipline. As long as you obtain the book that teaches you the knowledge and level the crafting discipline high enough, you can make anything or everything. What you don't use, you can sell to a merchant or put up for auction, though because armor and weapons degrade over time, you may want to keep backups handy (though you can also mend those items with the right repair kit).
Like with crafting, you aren't forced into a single combat class. You can activate a template to help guide you toward a specific role, but there are no actual classes. You can mix and match to your heart's content, spending the advancements points you earn in any way you like. But whether you stick with pistols, rifles, or melee, you won't find Fallen Earth's combat very compelling. At least it strives for something different, eschewing the enemy auto-locking of other MMOGs and going for a pseudo real-time system that simulates a first- or third-person shooter. But whether you go for ranged combat or keep your foes close, combat is clumsy and lacks a sense of impact. When using melee weapons, battles are a mess of odd, jittery animations (particularly if you dual-wield) and flailing limbs made more awkward by weak sound effects. The imprecise targeting reticles of early ranged weapons like crossbows and zipguns make shooting equally inelegant. Better weapons lead to better combat later on, but even then, skirmishes are messy and unrewarding. Not even special abilities and mutations (Fallen Earth's version of magic) can energize the action; they don't look dramatic and, therefore, aren't that fun to use.

A rare glimpse of vivid color.

Combat isn't the source of all of Fallen Earth's shortcomings, though it does showcase some of the game's more bizarre behaviors. Enemies run toward you and position themselves in odd ways once combat is initiated rather than just run at you straight on, and they follow you for unusually long distances if giving you chase, even if they are many levels below you. If you defeat a human enemy, its rag doll might fly 20 feet into the air and flip cartwheels before landing. And these are among the less egregious technical and design flaws. At one point, we fell through the floor at a mission waypoint, which initiated an inescapable loop of falling and respawning; extricating ourselves required the assistance of a game master. (Similar requests are common in the in-game help channel.) Missions don't always update right away or may not update at all, and your active mission display will reset to another mission if you die or log out. Game performance takes a huge dive in populated areas; you'll see enemies and other players teleport around due to occasional but annoying lag spikes; and crashes, while less frequent than they were at the game's launch, are still common enough to be frustrating. There's just an unfortunate amount of technical clutter standing between you and your enjoyment.

King's Bounty: Armored Princess Review

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King's Bounty: Armored Princess Review

It may be derivative, but King's Bounty: Armored Princess is still an outstanding strategy role-playing game.

The Good

• Brilliantly nails the traditional strategy RPG formula  
• Lots of depth with units, spells, magical items, and hero development  
• Colorful plot with memorable characters.

The Bad

• Difficulty ramps up too quickly  
• Dated visuals and sound.

King's Bounty: Armored Princess does more of the same really well. The stand-alone expansion to 2008's cult hit King's Bounty: The Legend adds virtually nothing to the original's strategy role-playing game formula, but the game does all of the by-the-numbers stuff so perfectly that you can't help but love the deja vu. While developer Katauri Interactive isn't going to win any awards for innovation here, this is still a must-play for anyone who loves this genre.

Assaulting cartoonish undead castles with a collection of D&D refugees is just part of the adventure.

Most of the plot of Armored Princess is a straightforward extension of the original King's Bounty. The demons that you fought as the champion of the fantasy realm Endoria are back for round two, and only the armored princess of the title stands in their way. Princess Amelie is the hero you play as here, a maid in mail who winds up being sent to the alternate reality of Teana on a hunt for her mentor, the knight Bill Gilbert, and eight magical stones that can save the world. This basically turns into an tropical getaway because Teana is kind of a Caribbean world divided into a succession of fairly small islands, each with distinct personalities. One is full of pirates, for instance, another loaded with barbarians, and so on. This adds an energetic atmosphere to the new game and breaks up your adventure into easily digestible chunks. This structure also bluntly lets you know how you're doing because you can tell pretty much immediately whether or not you have enough levels under your belt to take on an island. Running into a bunch of invincible barbarians on a new island is a pretty good cue that you should kick your sailboat into reverse. New islands generally have to be accessed with maps that must be taken from tough enemies, too, which also keeps you from getting ahead of yourself for the most part.
Plot and basic structure are identical to that in both its predecessor and tons of other Heroes of Might & Magic-inspired sagas. You guide Amelie across intricate maps of fairly traditional fantasy lands (enemies generally come with claws, swords, and shields, although you do run into the odd robot) with a horde of units in tow that serve as shock troops for battles. Whenever you take on some bad guys, these grunts do the fighting for you, although you give them their marching orders on turn-based hexagonal battlefields. Amelie starts off as a first-level wuss of a paladin, mage, or warrior (your choice) that can recruit only basic bowmen, clerics, and pitchfork-wielding peasants into her army. But with time, levels, and increases in her leadership stat, she will be able to field troops like giant snakes, giant spiders, ancient bears, sneaky buccaneers, creepy vampires, and many other D&D refugees. The goal is, of course, to explore the nooks and crannies of the islands, as well as slay evildoers and monsters. You'll also solve quests; buff Amelie by leveling up and tweaking her many might, mind, or magic abilities via an extensive skill tree; and progress to the final showdown. One significant addition is a pet dragon that levels up and has special abilities that can be used in combat. The beast's role isn't well defined, though, so it seems less like a traveling buddy than a way to cast extra spells during battles.
So there are no stop-the-presses moments here. The only real difference between the first King's Bounty and its follow-up is how quickly the difficulty scales up. Armored Princess assumes that you have played the original, which means that it gets right to the point. Battles turn tough as soon as you reach the second island, forcing you to really learn the ins and outs of the game's hero skill progression tree, as well as how to best recruit and employ troops in battle. You will have a rough time of it here unless you have either played the first game or have some previous experience with strategy RPGs. Still, it's not an unfair progression. The difficulty increases quickly but not suddenly. If you're paying attention at all, you won't get caught by impossible opposition. It's not as if you go directly from whomping spiders and pirates to getting scorched by invincible demons. And even when you're in tough against serious opposition, the incredibly detailed maps provide entertainment all on their own. Exploration is even more of an entertaining diversion than combat because your speed on horseback allows you to gallop away from impossible-to-defeat baddies and even occasionally snipe a big reward or reach a castle where you can recruit powerful units without fighting. Maps have goodies crammed into every nook and cranny, including buried chests full of gold, magical doodads, and the mystic runes that power Amelie's skills. Quests can be found all over the place, and they are typically offered up along with reams of colorful text that develop Amelie's personality and build up Teana as a real place through the collection of oddballs handing out these jobs. You can safely skip all this verbiage, of course, but taking the time to read it all is rewarding if you're seriously into role playing.

Battlegrounds range from sinister underground lairs to sunny tropical beaches.

With all that said, Armored Princess feels dated at times. The graphics engine is really showing its age now but the art style is more cartoony than realistic, so the game can get away with broad caricatures, chunky monster models, and whiz-bang spell effects. These consist of fireworks and cheesy animations like spooky faces indicating units being scared. Islands and battle arenas are stocked with lots of added details as well, including cobwebby corners and overgrown graveyards. But there are also some performance issues here, most notably how you get stuck on scenery when guiding Amelie around the islands. Clicking on inaccessible areas--which is easy to do because the islands are veritable mazes of narrow paths and greenery--causes her to simply stop and wait for a new order. This is both annoying and life threatening because these inopportune pauses can get you caught by pursuing enemies. Audio is also archaic. Unit sound effects in battle are almost nonexistent and never memorable even when you can hear them. Music is also a generic blat of horns that you'll forget moments after shutting down the game.
Even though it may be a slave to its genre, King's Bounty: Armored Princess is still an impressive representation of the modern strategy RPG. Story, exploration, combat, and character development come together in a great, addictive game that will keep you hooked for many, many hours.

Supreme Commander 2 Updated Q&A - Gameplay, Units, Technology, and More

Gas Powered Games frontman Chris Taylor updates us on the units, gameplay, and technology in this highly anticipated strategy sequel. Exclusive trailer inside.

The development studio Gas Powered Games is perhaps best known for 2007's Supreme Commander, a remarkable and gigantic real-time strategy game that offered enormous real-time strategy battles and impressive technology that let you zoom way, way, way-way-way out in real time to view the game from an abstract, strategic view or let you zoom in tight on your armies of mechanized machines as they smashed each other to bits in your name. Now, the studio is working on the sequel, which will be released in early 2010, and GPG's creative director (and the designer of the acclaimed strategy classic Total Annihilation), Chris Taylor, has some new answers and updates on the game's progress.

Watch an exclusive extended version of the Supreme Commander 2 trailer, complete with new in-game footage.

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GameSpot: Give us an update on the game's development. What aspects of the game is the team working on now?
Chris Taylor: As we head for the finish line, our focus turns mostly to a few key areas of the game. First, we are working to eliminate all remaining bugs and to make sure the game is tuned and balanced. We also do a lot of work on performance optimizations to make sure the game loads quickly and will maintain a high frame rate.
GS: We understand the sequel will add to all aspects of the previous game, in terms of story, gameplay, and technology. Could you give us an update on the technology optimization that's being worked on at present? How low of a spec does the game currently scale to?
CT: Well, the game has a brand-new rendering engine that has been designed to be extremely efficient for this kind of game. The engineering team has done an outstanding job of identifying the key graphics requirements to produce a visually stunning game that performs incredibly well. I can't say for sure these days with PCs all over the map, but if you bought a slick gaming rig five years ago, and perhaps upgraded the video once, you should have no problem at all.
GS: We understand that the sequel will not only bring back our good friends the Cybrans and the UEF, but will also debut a new faction, the Illuminate. What can you tell us about this group? How will they perform on the battlefield?
CT: The new faction is an interesting group, because they sort of grew out of the old, original faction, the Aeon Illuminate. They play a little differently than the other factions, because most of the units hover above the ground and the water. This means that the Illuminate don't have or need a navy. This decision gives the faction a lot of asymmetry, but it fits well with the overall design and really changes the way you interact with them. It was important for us that they look cool, however, and have a much more identifiable form than previous games, making them much easier to use in the heat of battle.
GS: From what we've seen, it also seems like there's an overall focus on giving battles more of a fluid, give-and-take quality. For instance, upgrades now take place along a skill-tree-like system that keeps even lower-tier units useful for longer, and there will be a way to launch units across the map to get them into the fray faster. Tell us about how these features affect the pacing of the battles. Do SupCom 2's skirmishes seem to heat up faster? Do they end faster?

The Noah Unit Cannon will let you catapult your units into the action. See it in motion in this exclusive video.

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CT: We definitely wanted to see the game move along at a faster clip, but all the design changes in the world won't make up for how the map size affects gameplay--meaning, if you want a short game, play on a small map, a longer game, play on a huge map. Having said that, you will have the ability to deploy experimental units much more quickly--we call these "minor experimental units." These units aren't quite as outrageous as the big, major experimental units, but they are pretty awesome and can have a huge impact on the outcome of the game.
GS: Tell us about the decision to incorporate unit experience during battles. What does this add to the game?
CT: Well, as you probably know, we've done it before, and it's a pretty important part of a strategy game. Incorporating unit experience is a significant reward for players who don't sacrifice their units in battle without giving them much thought. It follows a real-life parallel--the more battle experience a unit has, the higher its survivability. We feel this is one of many things that give Supreme Commander 2 its depth.

Alan Wake Q&A - Sam Lake

Creator and writer Sam Lake talks about Alan Wake's long road to release, the influence of Twin Peaks and Lost, DLC plans, and more.

Originally announced back in 2005, Alan Wake has certainly been a long time coming. After a huge unveiling at the Electronic Entertainment Expo of that year, developer Remedy went quiet for a number of years, before reemerging at this year's expo with another fantastic demo. Finally, it looks to be ready to emerge from the shadows next year with a confirmed second quarter 2010 release date, albeit only on the Xbox 360 and not the PC, as was originally hoped.
Alan Wake is Remedy's follow-up to Max Payne and follows writer Alan Wake as he retreats to the sleepy town of Bright Falls. The game is predominantly an action thriller but with a psychological twist, where reality and fiction blend into one nightmarish scenario for Wake. The developer is currently putting the finishing touches on the game, but we managed to coax Sam Lake, the creator and writer, into telling us exactly what to expect from this highly anticipated game.

Check out this new gameplay clip from Alan Wake.

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GameSpot UK: It's been six years since Alan Wake was announced, but with a Q2 2010 release, the end is now in sight. Are you nervous that such a long development period will result in high expectations from audiences?
Sam Lake: Nervous and very excited at the same time. To be honest, relieved as well. Six years is a long time to work on a project; a lot can happen in one’s life in six years. Like any large project, ours has seen its ups and downs, and a huge amount of hard work has gone into it.
These past few months, it’s been truly fantastic to see different areas come together and the final polished game finally taking shape before our eyes. I’m sure that we are our own worst and harshest critics when it comes to the details in the game. I’m very excited about the fact that soon the players will be able to experience Alan Wake but, naturally, a bit nervous as well. We’ve worked hard to make it a fun experience, and I definitely hope the players will find it that too.
GSUK: Alan Wake has been referred to as an "intense psychological thriller," but having seen the trailers, we're also detecting straight horror. What’s the balance in the game?
SL: More often than not in games, horror means blood and gore and monsters. Alan Wake is not about that. We set out to build an intense experience with a strong atmosphere and mood; lot of scares, yes, but scares that have a meaning and are tied to the story and the mystery at hand. And we felt that calling it a thriller would convey this very well.
We have action gameplay that involves people being attacked and disappearing in the woods at night and murderous, shadowy figures that come at you wielding axes. And, sure, if this was a movie, you would probably call some of these elements straight horror, but we still feel that as an overall definition, thriller is a good way to describe what the game is about.http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/348/928006_20091215_790screen005.jpg

Alan Wake: blinded by the light.

GSUK: What have you learned from your experience with Max Payne and how has it influenced your approach to Alan Wake?
SL: Max Payne was all about stylised, cinematic action. Alan Wake has other sides to it, but cinematic action is very prominent in Wake as well. Max Payne also had a very strong main character. That’s very important to us. Alan Wake is all about Alan Wake, the writer. The story and the plot revolve around him, his background, his personality, his problems, and the situation he finds himself in. In a way, the whole world is a reflection of the character and his nightmares.
I think you can link the similarities. We found a winning concept in Max Payne that somewhat defined what a Remedy game is all about. As a company, we have evolved a lot and are really pushing the envelope with Alan Wake from a storytelling and technical perspective but, of course, keeping in mind our heritage and what got us here.
GSUK: Combat trailers seem to show the use of slow-motion bullet-time elements. Can you explain how they work in the game?
SL: These cinematic moments are there to give emphasis to particularly close calls or important successes in the combat. They are triggered by the game when conditions are right; "moments of brilliance" if you like.
GSUK: Just how character focused is Alan Wake and what twists and turns can we expect as the story unfolds?
SL: This is a psychological thriller, and as such, it’s very tightly focused around the main character and his state of mind. Questions about what happened to Wake’s wife, Alice; what the hell is going on; is Wake’s lost thriller novel really coming true; is Wake mad; what’s Bright Falls all about…will all be asked and answered…some of them many times and with different answers along the way.

Wake uses a combination of his torch and a gun to fend off enemies.

GSUK: Much has been said about the environments in Alan Wake and the way they can influence the characters and enemies in the game. Can you tell us more about these environmental dynamics?
SL: Light is the key factor here: light and darkness. Light and daytime represent the sane world and safety; darkness and nighttime are about horror and nightmares. The enemies wait in the dark and come at you in the dark. Light is a combat tool and a safe haven, even to the point where Wake regains his health much faster standing in a safe haven of light than in darkness.
GSUK: The use of light is a key feature of combat in Alan Wake, specifically the range of flares and flashlights Alan has at his disposal. Can you tell us more about the varieties of flashlight and what they can be used for?
SL: The enemies Wake faces are protected by the dark presence that possesses them. Only light can burn the dark presence away and make the enemies vulnerable to normal damage. Wake also seems to be able to will his light sources to burn brighter and to drain the dark presence away faster. This is a limited resource that takes either time or batteries to recharge.
There are a few different flashlights in the game. Stronger flashlights burn the dark presence away faster. The most extreme case would be a stationary searchlight--our version of a gun turret--that is powerful enough to destroy many enemies outright.
GSUK: The last time we saw Alan, he was actually running away from the light, as opposed to harnessing it. Are there likely to be more of these "reversal" events or is this a one-off incident?
SL: Light and darkness are themes that we explore from various directions in the game. Wake’s wife, Alice, suffers from the fear of the dark, and what Wake experiences in the game bears a resemblance to the way she describes how it feels to her. And while light represents sanity and safety, there are also more dreamlike and, at least, apparently supernatural sides to it as well.
GSUK: Alan Wake has a definite Twin Peaks vibe about it. Is it fair to say that this has been a source of inspiration for you? What other films/books/TV series have influenced you?
SL: Twin Peaks is a classic, and it’s fair to say that the town of Bright Falls has an echo of Twin Peaks in it. Of the more modern TV series, Lost made a big impression on us. Stephen King has used a writer as the main character in his horror books more than a few times, as have a few other good authors, such as Bret Easton Ellis and Paul Auster.
GSUK: What are your plans for postrelease content?
SL: We have talked about it, and with our episode-based structure, it would be very logical. But nothing has been decided on the matter, and right now, we are fully focused on polishing the game and shipping it. After that, let’s see.

Spec Ops: The Line First Impressions

We travelled to Berlin for a first look at developer Yager's dark third-person shooter.

An American flag hangs tattered and torn in the sand dunes of Dubai. The city is now a shadow of its former self, beaten into the ground by relentless sandstorms. A booming voice asks, "Do you still intend to rescue me captain, now that you have seen what I have done?" As the sun rises in the sky, the voice calmly declares, "You must think I'm a monster, that I've gone insane. Come find us captain; we're waiting." This is the auspicious opening to Spec Ops: The Line, and it sets a dark tone for the game. "We intend to make The Line the most provocative shooter you've ever played," proclaimed lead designer Cory Davis on our recent visit to developer Yager's studios in Berlin. Can Spec Ops deliver on such a bold statement? Our first look suggests that Yager is well on its way to creating something just a bit different.

We chat to the developers of Spec Ops: The Line in Berlin.

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Spec Ops: The Line is a third-person shooter that tells the story of Captain Walker, the leader of an elite military outfit known as Delta Force. Walker is sent to the heart of the once-wealthy Dubai, which has been ravaged by vicious sandstorms, leaving the city in ruins. Your mission is to rescue the well-respected Army Colonel John Konrad, whose squad is declared MIA after staying in Dubai to aid civilians that could not escape the sandstorms. The twist to the tale comes from Konrad himself, who is a take on Colonel Kurtz from the film Apocalypse Now. Far from needing to be rescued, Walker discovers Konrad has gone insane from his time in the ruined city, which he now declares his home.
We were able to watch a short live demo of Spec Ops in action, which showed off a mission that took place one-third of the way through the game. The voice we heard at the beginning was that of Konrad, who was taunting Walker to come find him. Just after Konrad finished his speech, Walker and his squad were ambushed by a group of soldiers while scouting the desert. A rock soundtrack started playing to signal the start of battle--an interesting change from the usual orchestral fare that has scored many recent shooters. Taking cover behind a piece of concrete, Walker started blind firing at enemies and popping his head over the concrete to target them. However, his shooting was short lived because a rocket-propelled grenade missile destroyed the ground he was standing on, causing him to fall through the ground and into a concealed hotel lobby below.
Once indoors, we were treated to some great-looking interior environments, showcasing the modified Unreal engine that powers the game. Though everything had been destroyed, the lighting and reflection effects made it clear that the hotel was once a high-class establishment. We were unable to admire the scenery for too long, though, because Walker was ambushed again. This time, soldiers appeared from above, dropping in C4 charges before abseiling down to attack him. In addition to using cover, Walker commanded his squad. He was able to tell them to flank the enemies, hold back, and cover him in battle. We also caught a glimpse of a few weapons, including such shooter staples as the M16 rifle and the AA-12 auto shotgun, which laid waste to a group of enemies in seconds.

Spec Ops: The Line takes place in a sandstorm-ravaged Dubai.

Our demo showed several of these battles taking place as Walker made his way through Dubai. One of these battles showed us how sand was used to kill enemies and change the environment. Walker entered a large room full of soldiers, as well as several civilians, and just above the soldiers was a set of large glass windows covered by sand. Walker was able to shoot out the glass windows, causing the sand to pile into the room. This killed the soldiers, but it was at the expense of civilian lives. We were told that it was possible to kill the soldiers without shooting out the glass, thus saving the civilians. Lead designer Cory Davis explained that there will be many situations in the game where the player has to make decisions between "what is morally justified" and the mission. It seems as though game is intending to delve into the gray area of morals, rather than the simple black and white of good versus evil.
On as dark a note as the mission began, it ended with Walker discovering a torched corpse dangling from some gallows, as the insane Konrad taunted him again. The inspirations from Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness, the book upon which the movie is based, were clearly present in our short demo. It will be interesting to see where Yager takes the story and just how deep the moral implications of the game go. We'll have to wait for a full hands-on to see how well the cover system and squad commands work, which are integral to the gameplay. Keep your eyes on GameSpot for more on Spec Ops: The Line in the lead-up to its release.

Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Update

We check out one of the four Deniable Ops co-op modes that trade in story for a stealth playground.

Last month, we had our first look at Splinter Cell: Conviction's co-op offerings. It's a secondary feature to this stealth-driven action game that takes the various tools and techniques available to protagonist Sam Fisher in the main story campaign and adds an extra five to six hours of backstory that two players can explore together. Neither plays as Sam, but instead they are a pair of spies, each with a distinct background and personality. Developer Ubisoft Montreal refers to this co-op mode as Prologue, as a sort of nod to its story's place in the Conviction timeline. But as we mentioned last month, that's not the only co-op you'll find in this Splinter Cell reboot. There's another suite of co-op modes called Deniable Ops, which present four different ways to sneak through the darkness and take out enemies alongside a friend. We stepped away from the chaos of CES 2010 to spend some time with Deniable Ops.

Rather than focus on story like Prologue does, Deniable Ops is more of a co-op playground that tests your stealth skills under a variety of different circumstances. There are four modes to choose from. Hunter is the most straightforward of the bunch, and it gives you the simple task of trying to take out all the enemies within a given area as efficiently as you can. Last Stand asks you to protect a destructible object that your enemies are out to destroy. Infiltration is a sort of nod to Splinter Cell of old, which has you moving through an area only to find yourself at a game-over if you so much as get detected. And finally, there's Face Off, which puts the two players in a versus matchup in an area filled with enemy AI, allowing you to use enemies as a sort of pawn to lure out the rival player.
In our hands-on time with Conviction, we played a few rounds of Hunter. It's a simple task you face: move through the map and be sure to clear the entire area of enemies. Depending on the map you're playing--there are six total, all set in the former Soviet Union--you can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer number of ways to approach your targets. When the screen goes black and white, you know you're covered by the shadows, so you can sneak around and attempt to take out enemies from behind. Every time you take out an enemy with a melee stealth kill, you're rewarded with an opportunity to use the mark and execute feature. This lets you tag an enemy and hit the Y button for a quick, automated kill from a distance using your silenced pistol. This feature isn't quite the instant-win button a pessimist might see it as; it's genuinely challenging to sneak around and get those melee kills without being caught.
Thankfully, there are a number of gadgets at each player's disposal to make the process a bit easier. Hitting up on the directional pad enables sonar vision, which sends a sonar pulse throughout your immediate vicinity, rendering your vision murky except for the bright white enemy figures glowing onscreen even if they're standing behind two or three walls. This gives you a good idea of where an enemy is, but you definitely can't walk around with it on all the time unless you really like bumping into walls. Another useful gadget is the EMP blast that temporarily knocks out the power in the area (a good way to get a jump on enemies who patrol brightly lit areas).
The first map we played on provided a big, open setting that Ubisoft called a “black box” environment. That's the developer's way of saying that you essentially have a sandbox of shadows to play with, as you'll find a number of enemies all contained within a spacious area. Depending on your strategy of choice, you can slowly prowl through the darkness, using your silenced pistol to shoot out overhead lights and lure enemies into the darkness. Once you're done prowling, you can quickly pop out of the shadows to establish a last known position and then scurry off and toss a grenade at the group of enemies all examining where they thought they just saw you. If you want to further blow your cover, you can pick up the loud weapons (like shotguns) that your enemies drop or use the persistent points system to unlock new weapons such as submachine guns, automatic handguns, and others--many of which can be equipped with silencers.
Another map we played was more narrow and confined, and it had us creeping through a darkened office where the targets were much more spaced out than on the previous black box map. Our approach of choice in this area involved climbing over office walls, quietly dropping behind our target, and then leaving a splatter of blood on the wall in front of him after a silenced headshot. This wasn't really a luxury we had in the other level, since enemies weren't nearly as isolated there. We also enjoyed finding an enemy standing in a dimly lit room and using the EMP blast to cause him to freak out, ending his misery with a stealth melee kill. Since it was so dark in here, we could have also climbed up to the pipes on the ceiling and performed a “death from above” sort of takedown on the poor guy below. When you really get into the shadows like this, you can be pretty sadistic.

We actually played through Hunter solo, but for the full effect you'll want to go at it with a friend online or using local split-screen, which the game supports. No matter what, Hunter presents a lot of fun opportunity for you to paint a canvas using your own chosen style. With the absence of story or specific objectives, you can just lurk around and go after your targets as leisurely as you like. It's a fun sort of playground to work with all the game's various mechanics--of which there are many. You can expect to see Splinter Cell: Conviction released on the Xbox 360 and PC on February 23.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Impressions

IO Interactive's 'Dead Men' are resurrected for Kane & Lynch 2, as we got to see when the developer visited London.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men never quite lived up to its promise when it was finally released in 2007. Developer IO Interactive is aiming to better realize the potential of an action game set in a tangled underworld of criminals with Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. The upcoming sequel catches up with the titular heroes after the events of its predecessor. It brings with it a brand-new visual style, a new setting, and a focus on Lynch rather than Kane. Campaign director Karsten Lund was understandably excited about the overhaul when he showed us the game recently, allowing us to see it in motion for the first time.

We talk to campaign director Karsten Lund about Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days.

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The first game focused on a couple of criminals called Kane and Lynch--the former a ruthless mercenary and the latter an unhinged psychopath. They were broken out of captivity by The7, a mysterious group of criminals who demanded that Kane and Lynch hunt down a precious object for them. The duo were separated at the end of the first game when Kane left Lynch to be with his daughter. In the sequel, the focus is on Lynch, who has subsequently taken refuge in Shanghai. The two are reunited when Lynch calls Kane about the possibility of a big job, which is where Dog Days begins.
Our short hands-off demo took place early on in the game, starting out in a Chinese restaurant and then moving through the city itself. With the Xbox 360 projecting onto a huge cinema screen, it was the game's striking visual design that made the biggest impression. The word of the day for Lund was "real," and he used it frequently throughout our demo to highlight the driving principle behind the game. "'Real' means a lot of different things to a lot of different people," he says. "We researched how other forms of media communicate 'real.' We looked at user-generated content and why it looks and feels real and how that hasn't been explored in games." The director goes on to show YouTube clips of Shanghai filmed with pocket cameras, highlighting their shakiness, graininess, and overall low quality. According to Lund, all of these things have come to exemplify what we now think of as "real," at least as a generation of Internet video junkies.
In Kane & Lynch 2, this lo-fi visual style has been re-created to realistic effect. The camera frames the action from a familiar over-the-shoulder perspective, but it's as if the camera operator were a panicked bystander, frantically struggling to capture the action on a handheld camera. The image cuts out when you're shot, light sources blur through the lens, and explosions distort through compression artefacts. In a world of ever-increasing high-definition graphics, it's a massive gamble for IO to take, and while it's bound to turn some people off, it's certainly a refreshing visual change.
Thankfully, there looks to be more to Dog Days than just shaky cams and video artefacts. The game has an interesting premise set in Shanghai, a city of 20 million people and "the best place in the world for two criminals to hide," according to Lund. The game has been tailored to Lynch's character traits, and because he's an irrational psychopath, that means improvisation is favoured over military-style planning. Lynch calls in Kane to help him out with one big job for a man called Mr Glazer, who is the head of an international network of Euro expats. After something goes wrong, though, the pair are hunted by the police and the city's criminal underworld over the course of two days and nights.
Lund promises revamped shooter mechanics and aggressive, unpredictable AI. In our demo, the action took place in a restaurant, and the two found themselves embroiled in a shoot-out with the police. We watched as Lund played the game; Lynch appeared to be disciplined in terms of snapping to cover and using blindfire to keep the cops at bay while popping out for precise shots. As Lynch ran through the restaurant and down into the basement, we noticed a group of people tied up, suggesting that the restaurant is a front for criminal activity. As Lynch made a break for it through the streets of Shanghai, the neon signs and bustling markets combined to bring Shanghai to life--the result of the team's extensive visit to China's largest city.

Kane & Lynch 2 boasts a YouTube-inspired visual aesthetic.

It's clear from this short demo that IO's visual design really does add to the frantic nature of the game. Blood splatters the camera lens as you're shot, the view shakes wildly when there's an explosion, and in one memorable scene, an enemy's blown-off face is masked by the blocky effect used to hide explicit material on TV. Lynch is also well designed; his stained vest and floppy hair detail a man who is still very much the unkempt antihero from the first game.
While we sadly didn't get to play the game, we did manage to extract a lot more information out of Lund. The campaign will be playable in single-player and in both offline and online co-op. The Fragile Alliance multiplayer mode, where you can turn on your teammates and steal the loot, will also make a return. The game is also expected to receive a PEGI 18 rating in Europe, so expect the same level of violence and bad language as in the first game. The developer also hinted that Shanghai's ancient monuments and leafy areas may appear next to the skyscrapers, but we'll have to wait for the next preview to find out more. In the meantime, make sure you check out our video interview, and we'll bring you updated info on the game in the run up to its second-quarter 2010 release.