Prince of Persia is a third person perspective action adventure game coming to the PS3 and 360. It features a semi-open world, one on one duels, and a story book art style, not unlike Okami, Dark Cloud 2, and Afro Samurai.
As with FarCry 2, we were only shown a hands off guided demo. So we can not say too much about the controls and game play. Still, based on the presentation, the game looks largely unchanged from the original.
To clarify, while the visual details may have changed, the new prince has the ability to move along walls, double jump, climb, and swing from poles.
Combat, which is never against more than one opponent, is probably the biggest change for the game. Based on what we saw, it appears context sensitive, and will require timing to block, counter, and evade unstoppable attacks.
Also, when the level's opponent has been defeated, little glowing spheres spawn all over the place. These spheres are the currency used to upgrade your character's abilityes, and replaying the levels to collect them seems like a good portion of the game play.
It all looked quite nice and, unlike mirrors edge and farcry2, the game didn't crash during the demo. Still, we just wont know how well it plays till we get some hands on time with it, perhaps in a playable demo this holiday season.
Like any good show, the Penny Arcade Expo gives fans some hands on time with new products and the people that make them. It also gives the people that make them plenty of opportunities to say stuff they aren't supposed to.
This is especially true around 6 o'clock on Sunday, when the exhibitors are extremely tired, and ready to go home.
What we were told: The DS2 is ready, but Nintendo won't announce it until Guitar Hero sales slow down. This is because the DS2 does not contain a Game Boy Advanced slot, which means Guitar Hero would not be compatible.
This news came to us from an upper management type, who realized mid conversation that they really shouldn't be commenting on the subject, and immediately changed the topic.
If true, Nintendo's announcement that they will increase the number of DS available this holiday season is a nasty, but business savvy move.
Then again, does the loss of a few periferals and the GBA games library bother you? Tell us what you think in the comment field below.
Dead Space is a science fiction horror themed 3rd person perspective shooter and adventure game. It features brilliantly implemented concepts like zero gravity, dismemberment, and telekinesis.
Dead Space's movement and camera are controlled by the left and right stick, shooting and melee are shoulder buttons, and telekinesis is a face button. We're not so hot on the location of the telekinesis button, as using it means letting go of the thumb stick you must use to aim at the target you are trying to pick up. It's fine when you are picking up stationary items, or interacting with puzzles, but it can be frustrating to use during combat.
To emphasize this, the demo trapped us on a catwalk and had us fighting off explosive enemies from all sides. After a messy death, we were informed that we could have cut the explosive part off of the enemies, and then use our telekinesis to fling the explosives back at them.
Considering how frenetic the action was just from shooting, we weren't sold on this strategy being something most people could manage. We'll just have to see how well we can manage this 'puzzle fighting' in the final release of the game.
Graphically, Dead Space is not only beautiful for its colorful gory pallet and high polygon count, but for its over all sense of design. From the user interface, to character design, to the way a room looks good no matter which wall you were clinging to, everything in our demo experience looked harmonious, cool, and pushing the sense of tension and horror.
In short, the hype around Dead Space set high expectations, which the demo lived up to. Keep a look out for this one, coming to a PS3 or 360 near you soon.
disclaimer: many games available to play at PAX were works in progress and subsequently not as pretty or stable as their final versions. Additionally, our photos and videos were shot in low resolution, and are less attractive than how they looked in person.
Midnight Club LA is Rockstar's up coming cross platform street racing game, which features a sand box style open world to play in. Our hands on was limited to one-off multiplayer races with an early build of the game. So we can not compare it to EA's Burnout Paradise.
It's hard to say if MCLA looks better than GRiD, Need for Speed, or Burnout without a full side by side comparison. Regardless, it is pretty.
The way points, which are identified with brightly glowing yellow road flares that emit plumes of smoke that can be seen from a great distance, stood out as both a pretty and smartly designed element.
MCLA's cars handle with a decisively arcady feel. Specifically, you will spend a good deal of time slip'n'sliding around corners, or even in straight a'ways as you dodge traffic. By comparison, breaking seemed under power, which may have been an intentional decision to force you to slide even more.
All in all we had fun playing the demo, but have little to say about the game, or why it stands out above, with, or below the competition.
disclaimer: many games available to play at PAX were works in progress and subsequently not as pretty or stable as their final versions. Additionally, our photos and videos were shot in low resolution, and are less attractive than how they looked in person.
Saints Row 2 is a Grant Theft Auto clone, which presents a more playful view of violence, and doesn't take itself very seriously in general. Unlike the original Saints Row, this sequel will be available on the PS3 as well as the 360.
The PAX demo included SR2's robust character creator and presumably the first story mission in the game. The final game will also include online cooperative and competitive modes.
To call the character creator robust is an understatement. Where games like Tony Hawk and Oblivion have let you modify your character's exterior for years, SR2 goes even further and allows you to customize your avatar's stance, walking habits, and even their voice.
There's just something entertaining about making a fat, bearded, elderly, asian woman and giving her a pimp strut and a young man's voice. It goes a long way to make you feel like you're actually inside the game.
To compare SR2's game play to Grand Theft Auto is probably unfair to both games. Where GTA has edged closer and closer to realism and artistically relevant story telling, SR2 fully embraces its cartoony, over the top, comedic nature.
Controls are not precise, running and turning are slopping, the enemy AI didn't always respond to being shot, and the level design was both linear AND occasionally confusing.
In fact, we got lost even with a glowing foot path clearly displaying the direction we needed to go on our HUD's mini map. Now that's bad level design!
Still, it's got heart and there's guilty pleasure to be had beating people down with cinder blocks, or kicking someone so hard they fly across the room and splat against a wall.
It's dumb, its a mess, it has no art to it, but it's pretty satisfying.
disclaimer: many games available to play at PAX were works in progress and subsequently not as pretty or stable as their final versions. Additionally, our photos and videos were shot in low resolution, and are less attractive than how they looked in person.
Afro Samurai is a video game adaptation of hyper violent, yet beautiful and stylish anime. Both feature strong voice work by Samuel L Jackson, Phil LaMarr, and Ron Perlman.
You move Aftro with the left stick, the camera with the right, and attack with the face and shoulder buttons. Movement is fluid and feels like it has an uninvasive target correction to it. The camera is worthlessly slow, loves to face the opposite direction of your enemies, and is impossible to manually deal with during combat because your right thumb will be too busy pounding out combos and blocking.
Afro access his quick attack, strong attack, kick, and jump via the face buttons, all of which can be strung together to form obvious combo strings. Afro also has a block and focus power, which are controlled by the shoulder buttons.
When activated, the focus power turns the screen black and white and slows down the motion. If you hold either the quick or powerful attack buttons down, you will eventually feel a rumble in your controller. If you release the attack button at the hight of the rumble, Afro deals a one hit kill against his target, which usually results in limbs or parts of the opponent's head flying all over the place. It isn't brilliant, but it is graphically satisfying, and does add some depth to an otherwise generic button masher.
Graphically, the game looks simular to the new Prince of Persia, except if you look more closely, you noticed the backgrounds are all very simple geometric shapes, with cool 'paint' splattered on top. Over all, it's a bit underwhelming compared to Prince of Persia, and aside from the over the top action while in focus mode, it surely does not hold a candle to the anime it is based on.
Our hands on experience was limited to a single level, which abruptly halts with the introduction of a boss fight. While you probably couldn't drown ants in the game play, it is appropriately stylish and easy enough to pick up.
disclaimer: many games available to play at PAX were works in progress and subsequently not as pretty or stable as their final versions. Additionally, our photos and videos were shot in low resolution, and are less attractive than how they looked in person.
Legendary is an Armageddon themed first person shooter coming to the 360 and PS3. It features a few twists on the game play conventions, but otherwise is an uninspiring experience.
In some ways Legendary is an attractive game. You need only look at the magma dogs, which can be extinguished by bashing open fire hydrants, to appreciate the monster design, animation, and rendering. However, you need only experience one fire fight with human characters to be underwhelmed. They are simply not rendered as well, and completely vanilla in AI.
The levels are also poorly designed. Even though they are quite linear, by placing doors 'behind you', the game designers have made it very easy to get lost. Additionally, the levels have a bland box like feel, which goes against the highly detailed organic creatures romping through them.
Puzzles suffer in equal parts from not being clearly identified and not being easy to located. In one example, we cleared a room of werewolves, only to have no clue where to go next. None of the doors would open, no switches were around, and the character's jump was so anemic that we couldn't fathom any use for it in a jumping puzzle. In desperation, we started shooting random objects around the room, eventually shooting what looked like a metal trash can sitting on a catwalk. This trash can then ejected a spray of water and the catwalk moved a bit. After destroying several trash cans completely, we noticed a second platform drop and give us access to the upper level and an exit.
This felt off to us. Most importantly because trash cans aren't usually filled with water, and don't usually require a dozen bullets to fully drain, and aren't usually responsible for balancing a pulley system.
Legendary does offer one interesting take on game play. at least in the demo, the only way to regain health appears to be by absorbing life force from fallen enemies. Since this takes your character a few seconds to perform, low health becomes a very tense situation during combat. Its worth noting that the life force collection animation is very nicely done, which is good since I imagine you will be using it often during the game.
Overall, Legendary is a bland package that sells itself well. If you can live with that, then it's for you. If not, there are plenty of good looking games that player better.
disclaimer: many games available to play at PAX were works in progress and subsequently not as pretty or stable as their final versions. Additionally, our photos and videos were shot in low resolution, and are less attractive than how they looked in person.
Raven Squad is a special forces themed real time strategy game with first person shooter aspects. It is coming out on the 360, PC, and PS3.
In real time strategy mode, you use a cursor to give the standard "move to", "shoot target", and "use special ability" commands available in other games of the genre. However, you only control 2 units during the game.
While this may sound simplistic (or stolen from Rain Bow 6), each unit is composed of 4 soldiers, and each soldier has a unique weapon and special ability. By grouping these abilities, Raven Squad reduces the micro management needed to position and command 8 individual people.
In first person shooting mode, you use standard shooter controls to direct the individual soldier of your choice. This was the least polished aspect of the game, with poor collision detection, and clearly unfinished graphics. However the value of it's inclusion (albeit also stolen from Rain Bow 6) should be obvious.
Graphically the game isn't special, however there are some nice details. In RTS mode, your soldiers become white silhouettes, while tangos stay full render and gain 'target' marks.
We really liked our hands on with Raven Squad for NO REASON. The shooting was totally inept, the level design was totally linear, the environment is indestructible, and only items needed for key objectives can be picked up? but some how the game just stood out.
Raven Squad just had a level of charm to it, not unlike the games in the Conflict series. Bad, certainly, but their simplistic approach is satisfying. Tragically, we are more likely to pick this up than SOCOM Confrontation, despite SOCOM being a more polished and 'intelligent' game.
disclaimer: many games available to play at PAX were works in progress and subsequently not as pretty or stable as their final versions. Additionally, our photos and videos were shot in low resolution, and are less attractive than how they looked in person.
The Mister Taru show "gets you over the hump"
Drinking with GWG