There isn’t too much info out there at the moment other than a few key details which i’m going to raise on, so maybe this post is too hasty. But at the same time, they better not f**k this up. Seriously Sega. If you produce a shit sonic game with a sub-title like ‘unleashed’ that’s dismissible, but you CAN NOT create a direct sequel to Sonic 3/and knuckles and it be anything but perfect. I really hope with all Sega’s recent publishing on the Wii and working with Nintendo that they’ve learnt a few things from the big N, because they know a thing or two about producing the same game over and over…

So to help I’ve produced this checklist:

• Gameplay - Fast, insane, fun. Must ‘feel’ like the original 4 Genesis (Mega Drive II) sonic games. The gravity of how you jump, run and stop must be perfect.
• Music - Catchy, rememberable, fitting, sets the theme and feel of the zone.
• Sound effects - The old ones.
• Enemies - Creative and cheesy designs, as well as some of the classics.
• Nemesis - ROBOTNIK. None of this ‘Dr Eggman’ BS. Needless to say, he needs to turn up at the end of every stage in a crazy over the top killing machine.
• Zones - Some throwbacks to the old levels, but mostly original (we don’t want a re-make). They all need to have a unique theme. Also about 6-7 would be surfice

There has been a teaser and a trailer released, which show a little bit about what the game promises. They seem to have sound effects ticked off the list, and you can also spot a couple old badniks (see: enemies), but no actual game-play (only what could be gameplay).

So lets all just hope (or pray if your religiously inclined) that Sega don’t epicly screw up like they have for the last few years…

At this years VGA (Video Game Awards) Batman Arkham Asylum 2 was teased/confirmed with a video, currently exclusive on game trailers.com

What we can tell so far from the video, is that Arkham seem’s to have moved (backed up by arkhamhasmoved.com). It looks like Gothem city has fallen into chaos, and potentially, gothem it’self has been quaranteened and desginated as the Aslyum itself. In the video and website you can also see lots of ‘Uncle Sam’ style we need you posters, but these look a little differernt. The face is always obscured, half the suit/hat seems damaged and darker, which can only point towards Two Face being in the sequal. Also expect to see Killer Croc, Bane, Scarecrow, and of course The Joker, who features prominently at the end of the teaser video. Even though the effects of the Venom toxin seemed to have taken their toll on him, he’s still as menacing and twisted as ever.

No release date or any other information is confirmed, but i would be surprised to see this available in 2010. A late Q4 launch could be a possibility, or Q1 2011.

There’s definitely a lot to like about this game, but there’s also a lot to put people off. It’s very much so a game for people who love the experience/leveling of an RPG, and the run and gun game-play of first person shooters. Everything pretty much stays the same in-terms of gameplay so, if you’re not keen on those things, this definitely isn’t for you. However, if you do, then read on for the full review…

Design

Borderlands is a decent mix of RPG and FPS, but ultimately ends up being relatively shallow for people familiar with either. You pick one of 4 characters at the beginning of the game, which are essentially 4 different classes: Mordecai (rouge/sniper), lilith (assassin/mage), Brick (Tank/Berserker) and Roland (solider/medic). Each of these classes have 1 unique power, and 3 different skill trees, which means you’ll probably play the game differently with each character. The good thing though, is that any weapon can be used by any character without being penalised, which is typically the opposite with games in the RPG genre. Some characters can unlock skills to improve certain weapon types, which means if your Mordecai you’ll most likely want to use hand guns and sniper rifles.

One of the game’s biggest marketed features is the game’s ability to create a near infinite amount of unique weapons. The weapon engine will take one of the weapon types, give it a damage rating, ammo capacity, elemental effects, ammo type and a various other specs to create unique weapons. These are found in the vending machine shops, dropped by enemies and loot stashes. This is one of the addictive parts of the experience, as you never know what you might find. In one instance i found a shotgun which fired frickin rockets… It was totally impractical, but so awesome. The drawback is, that you spend A LOT of time in the inventory screen comparing weapon specs for the best weapon. This get’s very tedious, but you feel compelled to do it. What would be ideal, is if you could order your weapons by damage done, ammo capacity etc

What I’m not impressed by though, is killing the same enemy type over and over. There are elemental and tougher variations of the 6 enemy types but it feels like a quick cheap trick. There are basically humans, dogs, bird things, slug things, ant things and lobster things. This and the many variations wouldn’t be a problem normally, but in this type of game where a lot of repetition is involved, it all gets a bit tiring pretty quickly.

The difficulty seems to bounce all over the place too, with the first mission nearly killing me on my first go, but after a few quests and replaying areas with a friend, most of the game quickly became quite easy. The game rates missions depending on your level and there relative difficulty, so I was surprised to find the last 40 missions or so that I did we’re all listed as ‘trivial’. After you complete it though, you have the opportunity to start again with the same character, and equipment, but with everything being a lot more challenging. Even the simplest of enemies are now ‘badass’ variants and put up a good fight. Unfortunately though, there is no way to put up the difficulty if your finding it too easy during your first playthrough.

Story

The story is pretty shallow to be honest and really not the game’s strong point. I never really felt involved in the story, instead I just saw anything and everything as potential XP and loot. There is a main story line, which is told to you through scripted HUD voice messages and text in quest menus, but none of this made me care. I often found myself asking what i was actually doing here on this planet and why i’m being asked to go ‘there’. It’s very similar to the MMO experience, where story takes a second place to character development.

Gameplay

It’s simple, mindless shooting and fetching. Sometimes you might have to think, but it’s only to think how you can kill something better. This make’s it very easy to pick up an play, and I believe is it’s strongest aspect. It plays like an MMO, in that you go to people and job boards and get given quests for XP, cash and items. Then repeat. And repeat you shall, as the game-play doesn’t really change much. The missions vary, but ultimately end up with you Killing A, or X number of A, or collecting A, B and C. The thing which keeps it enjoyably, is the addictiveness of character development and finding rare or interesting weapons.

Graphics

Mid development the team changed the art style from realistic to an almost painted, cell shaded cartoony look, and i believe it’s paid off. Instead of looking like a Fallout 3 clone, it’s created a very unique look, which is instantly recognisable as Borderlands. The textures are clear and detailed, but even when there not, you forgive them as they never look out of place with the art style.

When entering a new area, the texture pop in delay is pretty horrendous, sometimes taking 10seconds for textures to sharpen up. There is also quite a bit of environmental pop-in as well, with prop pieces disappearing when you move around. At one location an entire waterfall was disappearing when it entered the corner of my vision.

Sound

Compared to the graphics, the sound lets the game down a bit in the presentation department. The music and background ambient sounds are really effective in setting a mood for the grim backdrops you’ll find yourself in, but the sound effects get very repetitive, and some seem quite lazy. The buggys you drive around the landscape in sound like a lawn mower, and rev up to high speed even if your crawling around hardly moving. Gun sound effects are pretty varied depending on the type of weapon and fire rate, and all feel suitably powerful.

Multiplayer

The game allows you to play through the entire game with upto 3 other people, dropping in and out at any time. This is great fun and extends the life of the game potentially, as the difficulty raises on a second play-through, creating a challenge for you and friends.

Overall

Like i mentioned in the introduction, if you like both RPGs and FPSs, then you really should check out Borderlands. It’s potentially let down by it’s attempt to keep things simple and accessible, which could leave fans of either the prior mentioned genres feeling the game is a bit shallow. The design is no doubt influenced by MMO gameplay, and it quickly feels like it.

Borderlands (xbox 360)

Design

Gameplay

Graphics

Sound

8.1

7.9

8.5

7.2

Overview

Easy to pick up and play. Plays like an MMO. Addictive character development. Good to play with friends. Nice graphics. Story telling is pretty poor. Shallow to hardcore FPS or RPG fans. Can be repetitive.

7.9

Good

This is going to be a quick review, as you’ve no doubt already read multiple gushing reviews of Batman Arkham Aslyum, months ago. But until i finish Borderlands, i wanted to test out the new review summary format.

Surprisingly, this game has become one of my all time favorites. Surprising because it’s reborn batman in a brilliant way which combines the over-the-top stories and characters of the comics, with the dark and gritty reality of the 2 recent films. It’s setting, environment, visual style and story created an engrossing game, which is just as good as the master piece Bioshock. The gameplay is balanced between close hand-to-hand combat, detective like scenarios using various gadgets, exploring areas for secrets and stealth sections (which actually work). I thought the length for the game was good, but it definitely wasn’t a big game. The only downside? That i have to wait a few years for a possible sequel…

Batman Arkham Asylum (xbox 360)

Design

Gameplay

Graphics

Sound

9.2

9.4

9.2

8.8

Overview

A must play for any self respecting gamer. Excellent environments which feel alive. Great story and use of Batman universe characters and themes. Gorgeous graphics & animations. Good length. Varied gameplay.

9.2

Brilliant

Firstly, it feels a lot like an MMO in the way you progress and play the game. You collect quests from bounty boards and characters, which simply list the quests in a menu, most being explained in text. It’s this sort of loose story telling which makes everything you do less about a desire to see what happens, and more about gaining XP. Thankfully, it’s all pretty fun. You travel to an target area on foot or in a buggy, find/kill A, and take it back to B, killing C, D, E ,F etc in between. It’s pretty mindless fun which doesn’t take much to get used to or become efficient at.

The presentation of Borderlands is top notch. They changed the visual style towards the end of the development cycle, from realistic to a cartoony, painted style, which works brilliantly with the humour of the game. The sounds do get a bit repetitive, with the vehicle sound being particularly awful, which just sounds like a landmower.

My main criticism after nearly 20 hours of play, is that there isn’t enough variation. Mainly in the enemy types. There are 5 main type of enemies in the game, with each having a handful of varitions. This just isn’t enough for a game of this size. And secondly the missions tend to send you to the same areas over and over, which does get a bit tiresome towards the last few missions of an area.

Overall though, it’s a surprisingly good game which is great to play through with friends. Expect a full review soon.

Ok Digital distribution – will we really see the end of the digital disk any time soon?

For me the answer is a massive no. I’m not rejecting the idea that digital downloads will never become a big factor in game distribution, but the physical medium is not going to go away.

A major recent console launch has highlighted this fact. The PSP Go looked all set to fly off shelves and into people pockets. It is in many respects the iPod of the handheld gaming market. However, the iPod’s success cannot be said to be soley due to the digital distribution of music. Its success was in taking a persons physical CD collection and fitting it all into a device that fits in the palm of your hand. In this respect the PSP Go completely fails. There is no way to get digital copies of the games you may already own onto the device. Sony’s own plans to do this have failed miserably and consumers aren’t ready to put their faith in a device that only supports digital downloads. The fact that the PSP go has already had a price cut by £50 at many retailers highlights this.

Two devices where digital distribution does seem to be working is on the iPhone/iPod Touch. It’s a new platform for inexperienced and experienced game developers to create and port games, with  fairly simple publishing (assuming the game is published and marketed). Games are relatively cheap if not free in many cases and its this cheaper price point that is really having an effect. However it must be noted with the iPhone and iPod Touch, most consumers are not simply buying these devices to play games on, they are buying them for the wealth of other features. (not that Apple’s latest iPod Touch advertising would have you believe) I cant help but think that if it was a dedicated gaming device, very few people would actually purchase it.

Now down to pricing… If digital distribution is going to take of in the mainstream, consumers need to be getting a benefit from getting their games in this way. Yes they have the benefits of being able to begin downloading games instantly (when it finishes though is another issue), and the quicker load times achieved from having a game installed onto a hard disk, but at the end of the day your not gaining anything physically. Yes gaming is about the experience, however a very large part of that experience is going out, purchasing the game, opening it up, looking through the instruction manual and inserting the disk into the console. The experience starts there, and builds up the excitement of playing a new game. Recently special editions of games include figures, memory sticks, art books and a wide range of interesting memorabilia, the most exciting without a doubt has to be the night vision goggles in modern warfare 2. This is a part of gaming culture that is growing and it makes publishers and developers more money. This obviously cannot exist in a world that is solely based on digital distribution.

Likewise more and more games are becoming peripheral based, Guitar/DJ/Band Hero, Mario kart, Buzz, Singstar, Eye pet and Wii Fit to name but a few. Digital distribution cannot allow for the sale of these title’s, it may add to them in the case of guitar hero but ultimately it cannot get the full experience to the consumer.

This is probably one of the biggest debates in the gaming industry at this time, and I have to conclude by saying that digital distribution is here and it will get bigger and more mainstream. But, as for it killing physical media… I can’t see it happening. People like to own something tangible as it gives more ‘worth’ and appreciation to the purchase. Digital distribution hasn’t killed the music CD despite massive popularity of digital downloads, so it wont kill the hard copy of a game. And besides, if we all downloaded our games, how could we trade them in to game retailers for a quick buck? (But that’s for another day!)

Leave any thoughts and opinions in the comment section!

Don’t let the name fool you, this isn’t the first Alien Versus Predator game to exist. In-fact it’s number 3, but the licensing people seem to have decided to do the same thing films are doing recently, and totally ignore number naming conventions. But i digress.

There’s some new alien game-play footage for the fore-mentioned game available to view on Gametrailers and it’s awesome-tastic. For those of you who didn’t play AVP2 (yes, because the new one is 3), it was a brilliant FPS on the PC with 3 great single-player campaigns allowing you to play as the Aliens, Predator or Colonial Marines. Each was fantastic for it’s own reasons. As the marines it was an almost horror experience, with the motion sensor of your gun sending you spinning every time you heard a ‘blip’. Where as for the Aliens and Predator it was an almost stealthy experience, of biding your time and then pouncing when the time was right, whether with a wealth of gadgets, or pure brutal strength and viciousness. This latest videos shows some great game-play from the Alien campaign, including the infamous Alien ‘little mouth head chop’. By the looks of this latest video, the developers Rebelion have the visuals and feel nailed, so I’m well and truly excited for this game, and so should you.

It’s due out late February 2010 on PS3 + Xbox 360

I guess I was right in some respects. These are the first screens of Epic Mickey, and it’s somewhat more colourful than i had expected… The concept art and front-cover of game informer looked really dark and twisted, gearing me up for a Disney themed adventure game with Dead Space-like warped enemies, and dark Warhammer 40K environments. What i see here is compromise and Disney’s brand image division at work. It just looks like a PS2 era adventure game crossed with WOW to me, with nothing appealing about it. I love the new retro look of Mickey though. Lets just hope the game-play mechanics aren’t so old-skool…

I’ll leave my final judgment until I’ve played the game, as it could still be a fun, if not different game. Who knows it might even be one of those fabled ‘good game, for the Wii’ titles.

What do you think? Leave any thoughts in the comments!

As gamers we are as guilty as the rest of the world for over indulging in electricity fueled entertainment. We shouldn’t feel guilty about gaming in-general, just more conscious about what we’re contributing to, and what we can do to minimize our carbon footprint. Its easy to say it doesn’t matter, or that if you weren’t gaming you would be doing something else which uses electricity, and it’s probably true. But there are things we can do to make our gaming habits more power efficient, which intern helps reduce carbon emissions. Unfortunately, like a lot of environmental options, they are more expensive than the norm, but since when has the cheapest option in life been the best? Check out the tips after the break:

• +   Switch your power provider to a renewable energy company, or see if your existing company can provide you with renewable energy.
• +   The latest chipsets of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 Slim are much more energy efficient than older models, so trade in your launch console for a fresh new one.
• +  Make sure the sleep setting is enabled on your consoles, as by default they aren’t.
• +  Turn your console off if your not using it. Consoles use nearly as much power while idle as actively playing a game, so turn it off if your away from your console, or know you won’t return to it anytime soon.
• +  Adjust your TVs brightness settings to something more appropriate, as by default they are generally set at maximum which won’t be necessary for most people. (Assassins Creed on full brightness is an eye-burn-fest).
• +  Or when buying a new TV research which option and model would be the most power efficient.
• +  Sell your console, and buy a Cup & Ball or board game (not one requiring batteries though).

Now, these are all tips, not orders, as I didn’t want to sound preachy. What is important though is that you acknowledge that climate change is a very real issue, and normal people like you and me can make a difference if we choose.

If your interested in learning more, this detailed report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (USA) has some

Now onto something a little different… FlOwer on the PS3 is a beautiful game with a subtle, if not blatant environmental message. If you haven’t played it, then the premise is pretty simple. You control a flower petal being propelled by the wind, with the aim to collide with various other different coloured types of flowers, which further adds to your petal chain you, ala snake and all those sorts of games. Beauty in this game is portrayed by rich colours, calm music and natural environments (Often lined with wind turbines). Where as your faceless enemy is the dark and desolate city, which is represented with increasingly erratic music, dark and desaturated  colours and stormy weather.

The nice thing is that after you rid the city enviroments of the broken twisted metal scattered around it, it shows the city in a clean and beautiful light. Which to me is a very clear message from the developers, That Game Company that we are the bad guys on this planet, but we can change things and live with the environment, opposed to against it. Either that, or that flower petals will be the doom of us all… Leave any thoughts in the comments, and check out the official trailer for flOwer if you haven’t seen the video.