Excuse me, that looks infected

One of the first things I noticed upon sitting down with the game was the visuals. While beautiful in their own right, the graphics found in the original Dead Space were somewhat monotonous and repetitive; a series of dark and dreary corridors, barely illuminated by the fluorescent glow from nearby computer terminals and flickering lights. With Dead Space 2, Visceral Games has opted for a much more varied visual presentation, which is made possible thanks to the diversity of the game’s setting: a massive, densely populated space station known as the Sprawl. As players navigate the station, they will find themselves exploring industrial, residential, and commercial zones, each with their own decor and design, and will even get the opportunity to visit the infamous Church of Unitology. On a whole, the Dead Space 2 experience that I had was much more colourful and visually appealing than its predecessor.

The demo featured many noticeable gameplay enhancements as well. Those that hated having to access their inventory screen whenever they needed to replenish their stasis reserve will be pleased to know that Isaac’s stasis supply will now slowly regenerate on its own. Furthermore, players will no longer have to search for save points in order to save their progress, as Dead Space 2 now employs an auto-saving checkpoint system. Saving happens seamlessly while you play, so the gaming experience isn’t interrupted, and the checkpoints are placed intelligently. For those that are concerned that the implementation of such a system would make the game easier, don’t worry, I still managed to die several times while playing, and while the setbacks weren’t substantial, they were definitely noticeable.

Adventures in babysitting

Most of my deaths came while I was adjusting to the increased number of enemies Isaac encountered. While it was common in the original Dead Space to get ambushed by one or two Necromophs at a time, that number has significantly increased in the sequel. While exploring the Sprawl, I was frequently attacked by groups of five or six Necromorphs at once, surrounding me from all sides. It made for an intense and often painful experience, but being the butt-kicking engineer that he is, Isaac came prepared, and packing some new tools. My favourite new weapon was the Javelin Launcher, which hurls massive spikes toward Isaac’s enemies at terrifying velocity. A direct hit with one of these bad boys will propel its unfortunate victim across the room, impaling them on the wall. However, due to the nature of the Necromorph psychology, while such an attack may incapacitate them, it’s not guaranteed to kill them. Thankfully, the Javelin Launcher comes equipped with a secondary attack that will send a powerful electrical current through impaled javelins. Necromorph shish kabob!

Isaac has also learned to use a Necromorph’s own body against it, thanks to the kinesis field emitted from his suit. Using the deadly precision of his weapons, Isaac can shoot one of the javelin-like arms off of a Slasher Necromorph, lift it with the kinesis field, and shoot it right back at them. It’s not as powerful as the Javelin Launcher itself, but it’ll help Isaac save more ammo to deal with the swarms of Necromorphs that he’ll inevitably face, and let’s face it, it’s devilishly fun. This strategy isn’t just limited to using the arms of a Slasher, either. Remember those Necromorphs that had a giant, exploding tumor for a hand? Rather than shooting the tumor itself, Isaac can now shoot the entire arm off and use it as an explosive projectile.

I can see my house from here!

Another welcome change is the new and improved low gravity gameplay. Instead of jumping from wall to wall, or floor to ceiling during low gravity segments, Isaac can float and fly around freely, thanks to a series of small propulsion boosters built into his new suit. These segments not only feel more natural as a result, but also allowed Visceral Games to be more creative with their low gravity environments. During one segment of the demo, I had to fly up through a series of rotating fans and automated doors, both of which required use of the stasis module in order to survive. It was a fun diversion from the combat gameplay, and it sure beat fiddling with the camera to figure out where your next low gravity leap should take you.

My experience with Dead Space 2 didn’t disappoint, and I’m looking forward to the title now more than ever. It looks like Visceral Games took the already stellar foundation of their first offering, gave it some polish, ramped up the horror, and made the act of surviving all the more fun. Admittedly, my sample size was small, but it certainly left me wanting more. If Visceral’s vision remains consistent throughout the whole experience, then we’re in for a beautiful, terrifying treat.

Dead Space 2 is planned for release in January, 2011.

You do not have to play the first game to understand the story. The game starts off following four American misfit solders in a fictional war between the United States and Russia. We play as Private Preston Marlowe in our mission to find a weapon codenamed “Aurora” and to prevent it from falling into Russian hands. The characters are memorable, stimulating, and engaging. The voice acting throughout the game was great. It was funny at times and immerses at others. The single player story is about 5 to 8 hours in length.

The fighting and gameplay is similar to Modern Warfare 2, but it has a different style of play. Instead of being more than just another “Run and Gun” shooter, Bad Company 2 involves a lot more strategy. I found myself employing new strategies throughout the game. The controls were fantastic and I got used to them quickly.

Bad Company’s campaign has two forms of collectibles, the first one being M-COM Stations hidden throughout the game. The second are different kinds of weapons found in certain missions, which can be added to your arsenal. An example of this would be automatic shotguns or a bolt-action sniper rifle, which suspiciously looks like a .50 Caliber sniper.

The audio quality in the game was terrific, and at some points the game almost had me ducking from being shot at from a sniper. With the guns shooting combined with explosions and excellent voice acting, the audio quality was superb.

DICE’s Frostbite engine has visually stunning missions all throughout the game. Some of the levels are actually breathtaking, especially when playing at 1080p.  The special part about this engine though is that the entire world is destructible, meaning we can go throw a grenade into a wall and watch a beautiful explosion, making a new door for us.

The difficulty in this game was almost as challenging as I expected. Although there were times when I found myself struggling to get through certain areas, I remembered the new strategies, such as taking advantage of the Frostbite engine, to help me.

The online component of this game is truly a stroke of genius. With a total of 13 maps and 4 different game modes, it’s hard to be bored and it will provide you with hours of enjoyment. The game modes are called Rush, Conquest, Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch. In Rush, the objective of the game is for the attackers to destroy the enemy’s crates called M-COM Stations. Each defender’s base has a pair of crates, and when both objectives have been destroyed, the map is expanded, making room for a new base with a new set of crates and the defenders have to fall back. This process is repeated until the defenders’ last base is lost. In Conquest, the goal is to capture all of the neutral flags. Teams then hold flags and kill the opposition to reduce the enemy tickets. Once a team’s tickets are reduced to zero, they lose. Squad Rush is a downsized version of the Rush game type and instead of having 24 to 32 players in a game, it’s reduced to 8 players in a game (4 players per team). The same goes for Squad Deathmatch, but instead of a free for all action, there are 4 squads of 4 players. First team to 50 kills wins the game.

That is but a taste of what you can play online, and the experience is quite amazing once you really get into it. We have 4 different classes with the muliplayer scheme: Assault, Medic, Recon and Engineer, with each having their own pros and cons.

The online play is very balanced. For anything that one might think is overpowered, there is always a counter for it. For example we have a tank which has big firepower and armour, but with the Engineer’s mortar ability – boom! –  no more tanks. Leveling up in this game is done by using a specific class to get better weapons and abilities for that class. Lag is not an issue in this game and camping is difficult to do. The modes online are such that you will achieve more by doing the objective and not sitting waiting for someone to run by. I can seriously play this game for hours and hours on end.

I would recommend picking up this game, even at the full retail value. This game was well crafted, well designed, and stunning.

Madden NFL Arcade should not be confused with, say, NFL Blitz.  I was a huge Blitz fan back in the day of Nintendo 64 and came into this whole experience expecting something along those lines.  NFL Arcade is 5-on-5 American football, with licensed teams and stadiums.  It runs nice and smooth and looks pretty good, with exaggerated player models and a clean interface.  The game is a super-simplified take on football: 60 yard field, no clock, no penalties, and no first downs.  Every game is a race to 30 points.  No special teams means no field goals, punt plays, or even a kick-off.

Plays are quite minimal.  Each team has the exact same playbook. The four face buttons give a run play, and three pass plays.  Defenders get a blitz and three zone defenses to counter this.  Teams are randomly assigned Game Changers at the start of plays.  These can be activated with a button press, and do suitably over-the-top things like freeze a player in place, swap the scores, force a fumble, or keep a dropped ball ‘live’.  The game has 13 Game Changers in total.

I don’t really understand who NFL Arcade is being aimed at.  People who appreciate the depth and subtleties of the full-fledged Madden release will probably be unhappy with how much of a crap-shoot NFL Arcade can be, not to mention how dumbed-down it can feel.  Yes, the game only takes 10 minutes or so to play, but how much fun is being up 26-8 and getting scores swapped?

Unfortunately, a casual audience might not fare any better.  It’s still pretty tough to play.  I had a lot of trouble doing well (I admittedly suck at pretty much every game ever), and I had a bit of football knowledge to draw on.  Someone who isn’t familiar with football will face quite an uphill battle.

There’s multiplayer support for up to four players locally and online play as well.  The game has high production values and the trial is easily worth a download to see if it clicks.  It might be good as a party title.  I think the asking price is a little high for how much fun I had with it, but I do think there’s a decent game in here somewhere.  I’d love to hear what others think about it.

Graphically, the game tries very hard to present itself in a realistic sense, with detailed tracks, gorgeous cars modeled inside and out, and an absolutely awesome sense of speed.  The presentation stumbles now and again, with the damage modeling looking oddly blocky at times.  Vehicles tend to look less realistic the more banged up they get.  The insides of the vehicles are quite impressive, showing off working gauges, meters, mirrors and the hands and arms of the driver.  A cool depth-of-field effect gets used when the vehicle goes at a good clip and the interior blurring out as the driver focuses on the track.  Unfortunately, the view’s so far back in this mode that under half the screen shows the actual track.  As much as I liked the interior camera, I played using the hood camera.

On the subject of cameras, the game frequently has trouble with its exterior views, especially during replays.  The camera will clip through the ground, pieces of scenery, or even the cars themselves.  The physics engine will act up oddly now and again, with vehicles flipping up into the air – seemingly weighing nothing.  Upon the conclusion of a race, when the AI takes over the player car, it sometimes immediately slams into a wall.  These are all minor points, but they contributed to a detachment from any sense of realism the game was trying to present.

The sound of all these cars zooming around manages to be pretty impressive, with different effects for each one.  The roar of supercar engines contributes to the sense of speed, and everything being just barely under the player’s control.  The driver makes some odd little grunts when cars bump about that I found a little distracting and silly.  SHIFT has to have a whopping ten tracks of music, a bizarre mix of tunes that get heard mostly in 15 second clips at the end of races while advancing through the reward screens.  Drift events play music all the time, further alienating this mode.

The actual racing engine under SHIFT’s hood is good.  It wants to be something along the lines of a Gran Turismo / Forza game, with real-life courses, real vehicles and racing that requires knowledge of racing lines and proper braking instead of crazy powerslides and drifts.  There is even a colour-coded racing line: green for speed up, yellow for coast, red for brake.  But it also tries to be approachable, offering different racing models to appeal to different gamers.  On the Casual profile, the game auto-brakes and helps with turning.  So much so that I could do full laps on top-tier cars while keeping the gas all the way down.

I appreciate what Slightly Mad Studios is trying to do with choices like this, but it really does feel like the game isn’t sure what it is supposed to be.  It’s immensely satisfying to take the Corkscrew on Laguna Seca at speed and have the little Corner Mastered message pop.  But that’s all diminished when I can get it during the first lap on the track – ever – because of the amount of help the game gives.  On the Experienced or Pro models, the game feels really good and offers a fairly consistent challenge, at least as far as car versus track.  I’ve read comments about the controls feeling sluggish, but I either didn’t notice, or got used to the feel of the game too quickly.

The core of the SHIFT experience is the idea of Driver Level.  Start at level 1 and progressing to level 50 over the course of the game, the player unlocks more garage spots, vinyl bits, rims and paint job types.  Every now and again an Invitational Event will open up, offering cash for races a little outside of the current tier, and biased towards the player’s racing style.  It all sounds pretty impressive, but it essentially boils down to much the same to Metropolis Street Racer’s / Project Gotham Racing’s Kudos system.  Do certain things during a race to get points and collect enough points to level up.  Precision points are awarded for clean overtakes, following the racing line, and taking turns perfectly.  Aggression points are awarded for dirty overtakes, tapping opponents, making them spin out, and drafting.  Rewarding players for playing like jerks is always a recipe for disaster.

There are online support and Quick Races, but the bulk of the game is found in Career mode.  It all starts with an empty garage, an inexperienced driver, and a test lap.  Depending on how well that goes, the game suggests an assortment of difficulty options, gives a bit of cash and sends the player on his way.  Over the course of the next 15 hours or so, the player progresses through five tiers of races against more and more demanding opponents, unlocking features and bonus bits as his experience level rises.  By no means a bad system at all, for the most part.

Slightly Mad has packed a lot of races into Career mode – easily over a couple hundred.  Apart from achievement / trophy hunting, there’s really no reason to do all these races, although there are a good variety of events to be had.  I was plugging through the game, going for completion points, and had managed to unlock the final tier of the game (effectively tier five) halfway through the races on tier two.  I could have been picking and choosing the races I enjoyed most and made the same progress.  Given that there’s way too many unpleasant races, this is the best course of action.

Everything about the Drift events, which involve sliding wildly around a few turns and getting points, seem shoehorned into a game that doesn’t want any part of it.  Competing in these events is just a matter of scoring the most points after three heats on a short section of track. In addition, only eleven vehicles are Drift compatible.  Every single one of these events involved chain-restarting until I managed a good run.  I never really felt in control, and although I started to develop an ability for controlling slides after a few dozen attempts, it was never fun.

This theme of ‘never fun’ crops up again and again towards the end of Career mode.  The AI ramps up and Rivals start coming into play, with the first 20 seconds of every race degrading into an absolute mess that would make David Cronenberg proud.  There’s still good racing to be had, but it’s all way too aggressive, spoiling the illusion of working up the ranks of more and more experienced drivers.  I’ve seen more civilized behaviour on the Krachenwagen.  All this ridiculousness came to a head in two events:  an Endurance race that took place around a figure eight track, and a Duel Driver race-off where my opponent was using a vehicle type that was banned in the current event.

As I put more and more time into the game, I started noticing these little odd omissions.  There’s no real Time Trial mode that lets one car do infinite laps to practice a course.  There’s no support for Ghost replays, or proper support for best lap times in a certain car tier.  The leaderboards that the game offers off of the Career mode events only ever show Friends.  During a race, all the split times are hidden in the upper-left, with no individual splits showing up after laps or track sections.  These are mostly all basic racing game functions that didn’t seem to make the cut.  Was attention being focused elsewhere?  Was it all an attempt to make the game more approachable to the casual, old-school NFS fan?

Collisions in the game make the whole screen go all black-and-white and blurry, which is a cool effect, except that it can really shift the emphasis off racing.  If I get a good bump on me during the first turn of the race, I’m off the track and odds are it’s going to take a few moments to be able to see again, get back on the track, and get up to speed.  This more or less sums up my experience with online play.  The performance of it was fine, but I felt I wasn’t playing the game right.  Furthermore, I couldn’t find any way to filter my opponents based on their driving settings, which can make recovering from a ‘take out’ much more straightforward.

Which is a shame, because one of the online modes is pretty cool.  Driver Duel matches up players in one-on-one matches, similar to the Rival events in Career.  The game chooses a random car, a random track, and sets up three races, with alternating players having an advantage, then an even, rolling start.  The first player to two race wins (five seconds ahead or cross the line first) takes the whole event.  But the cool part is the Naruto: Rise of a Ninja style tier system that this mode uses.  As the player goes into this event over and over, they will rise through standings and face opponents of a similar ranking.  It’s a dynamic sort of tournament mode that seems like a good fit with most of what Slightly Mad is trying to do.  I hope we continue to see it in future games.

I know I’m being really hard on the game, but I did have fun with it, despite the 20-30 second load times for races and other assorted quibbles.  I feel the whole series is at a transition point right now, with EA and Slightly Mad trying to bridge the gap.  The realistic controls and closed-circuit tracks will frustrate traditional fans of the series, who just want a good arcade-style race.  The more casual elements of the game will frustrate people looking for a more realistic experience, leaving no one truly happy with what we have here.

Need for Speed: SHIFT is a summer blockbuster.  Lots of bang, flash and wow that really does manage to impress, but it all comes across as shallow and engineered to move, and will probably be forgotten in a few months’ time.  I’d recommend it to racing game fans who’re not averse to a little mingling of arcade and simulation style racing.  Big kudos to Simply Mad for something so close to awesome for their first high-definition console title, and let’s hope they find the perfect niche for the undoubted sequel.

For those who are familiar with the franchise, Left 4 Dead 2 is everything you’ve come to know and love.  We’ve already talked about the improved Director 2.0 in a news item, and it does indeed seem to be improved. The experience was even more nerve-wracking and punishing than in the first game, bringing back memories of when I first played the game. We did not find upgraded weapons until very late into the campaign and we had to resort to melee weapons to save on bullets on more than a few occasions.

Which was fine with us, of course. L4D2 sports a variety of new weapons, including a very efficient machete, a frying pan, a sturdy baseball bat, and a honky-tonk guitar. In no time, Richard and I developed an efficient way to deal with hordes of zombies using a combination of melee weapons and guns.

The new zombie that we caught a glimpse of was actually fairly hard to pinpoint in the midst of a horde, which made it very dangerous. It adds a new “get out of the fire” problem to those groups who like to hole up in corners by spewing acid that gathers in a large pool. From personal experience, I can tell you that acid hurts. Don’t stand in it. It’s very bad.

The campaign also showed off its new climatic “gauntlet” mechanic. Instead of the old “last stand” mechanic, where mobs of zombies, including a tank, would come at the group of survivors at the end of a chapter, players now have to run to a destination in order to complete the campaign. Imagine sprinting to the helicopter at the end of No Mercy, except you have to do that for minutes instead of seconds. It’s that intense. The gauntlet mechanic is actually a lot more hectic but less strategic as you can’t set up in a building. You just need to make a mad dash towards the objective without leaving anyone behind. In the campaign we played, we had to climb several stories of a construction rig to deactivate an alarm.

For those not familiar with the franchise, you can check out our review of the original offering here.

We did not get to try Versus mode, but it was still a fun experience nonetheless. L4D2 looks to offer some intense gameplay when it releases on November 17th, so get your shotgun and get ready to survive another zombie apocalypse.

Chris Bachalo has worked on several critically-acclaimed comic books, including Sandman, Batman, Incredible Hulk, and Uncanny X-Men, and is currently working on one of Marvel Comic’s flagship franchises: The Amazing Spiderman. An award winning comic book artist from Britain, Jock is best known for his work with writer Andy Diggle on Vertigo’s The Losers, and put his pencil to work on Green Arrow: Year One. Additionally, Jock was responsible for creating production art for the blockbuster film Batman Begins, and has been signed to do the same for the upcoming adaptations of Dune and Judge Dredd.

“These new morality choices are an innovative new feature that we believe will give a new layer to the cooperative experience in the game. Chris and Jock’s work give players’ decisions real weight and resonance,” added Alex Hutchinson, Creative Director EA Montreal.

When Brad and I played through the original Army of Two, he insisted on using an AK-47, complete with under-slung grenade launcher and riot shield attachments, that was plated in gold and adorned with gaudy, semi-precious gems. Now that should have required a morality check. Kalashnikov must have been rolling in his grave.

Located in the heart of Alberta’s Canadian Rocky Mountains, the captivating and panoramic Banff Springs Golf Club is now available for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, marking the first time the course has made an appearance in the popular franchise. Available for 600 Microsoft Points in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, or for $7.50 through the PlayStation Network, gamers around the world will get the chance to enjoy one of Canada’s most treasured and picturesque locations.

Note: I have no idea what ‘let the big dog eat’ actually means, but I have it on good authority that it has something to do with golf. So head on out to Banff and let that big dog eat!

And at around 4:30PM EDT yesterday, the Xbox 360 surpassed that goal, unlocking Coral Sea and Air Superiority for everyone on that platform.  I was online, playing like a madman with everyone else, but I was not the lucky (skillful?) one to score the 43,000,000th kill.  That honour goes to Xbox LIVE user jkasapi, from Peterborough, England.  He wins a bunch of branded 1943 gear, including a t-shirt and running shoes.  And undoubtedly a billion friend requests and horrifying voice messages.

So what’s Air Superiority?  Take all of 1943’s flags away, put everyone in a large map made of mostly water, and give everyone a plane.  Then let them dogfight it out for control of the center of the map.  Cool stuff for people who’re looking for emphasis on dogfighting.  Given that I’m absolutely terrible with planes (I have now failed three times to use a parachute when bailing out), I’ll be sticking to running around lobbing grenades at Scouts.  Thankfully, Coral Sea is not in rotation with the game’s other three maps, but accessed through a separate main menu option.

PlayStation 3 users still have a bit of a ways to go to unlock the Coral Sea map for their platform.  Last I checked, they’re around 25.8 million kills.

Some stats, for those who like numbers:  The Xbox 360 averaged about 45,000 kills per hour.  The PlayStation 3, a bit over half that, at 24,000.  The game is still 100% awesome regardless of platform, though.

Source:  battlefield1943.com

EA is promising a multitide of innovations being added to the Command & Conquer gameplay, while at the same time managing some sort of balancing act that keeps fans happy.  A new class-based focus and persistent player progression are offered as examples of these innovations.  I’ve always been a sucker for anything persistent in games, so I’ll be keeping my eye on that in particular.

And yes, emphasis has been put on this being the final game in the  Tiberium series (the main branch of the C&C games).  The game will take place after the events in C&C3: Tiberium Wars.  Humanity is on the brink of extinction.  There’s only six years left until Tiberium, a mysterious crystalline structure, renders the earth completely uninhabitable.  The Global Defense Initiative and Brotherhood of Nod are working together towards a common goal, but Kane is undoubtedly going to pull out some jerk move at some point.  We’ll learn what on earth he’s been thinking for the past ten years, and also the fate of GDI, the rest of Nod, and Tiberium itself.  Sources indicate it may be epic.

We’ll be getting those two campaigns, plus the expected assortment of multiplayer goodness.  Among these is a new five-on-five objective-based mode, which we’re told will promote teamwork, co-operation, and deliver a social RTS experience never seen before.  There’s no mention of the name of this new mode, so I’m going to refer to it as “Herding Cats Mode”.  Ten people in an RTS game is just going to be delightfully chaotic.

Is it almost 2010 yet?

EA has set up a Twitter account so we can get updates straight from the development team, 140 characters at a time.

DICE has announced they’re adding new servers, with an estimated completion time of 17:30 GMT.  Which is really quite an excellent delaying tactic, as it caused mass confusion while we all tried to remember what our relationship to GMT is (protip:  EDT is GMT-4, so 1:30pm).

Looks like I’m going back to playing the tutorial again.  And really, unexpected popularity with an online-only title?  Hopefully DICE will manage to get things sorted out for the PS3 release tomorrow.

Source: @OfficialBF1943

Powered by the same engine that drove Battlefield: Bad Company, 1943 looks to be a remake of a number of maps from Battlefield 1942: Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Coral Sea.  The game supports up to 24 players in a single match, as well as an assortment of vehicles, planes and boats.  As far as I can tell, this is an online-only game.

EA decided to do something a little unusual with one of the maps:  Coral Sea will remain locked across all platforms until the community of players is able to achieve a total of 43 million kills.  Really though, that’s just fine with me, since I still get to play Wake Island, which is the best map in BF 1942.

Like Bad Company, it sounds like the game is going to be really good at blowing a lot of stuff up.  Playing on classic 1942 maps, but with the ability to blow through cover, will undoubtedly change some of the strategies.

I’ll be picking this up next week for sure.  Maybe I’ll even finally figure out how to fly those fighters!

The look and feel of the Sims remain very much the same, although technically it is more impressive as the game loads the entire town at once. But on a Sim by Sim basis, the game doesn’t look much better than The Sims 2. The music and voices are entirely familiar as well, so there’s not much to talk about either. For the three people who have never played the series: the game provides a nice classical soundtrack for most areas, and then has a mix of original tunes spanning different genres for the stereo.

The mechanics introduced in Sims 3 makes it easier to play for veterans, but harder to play for those (three) people who are new to the franchise. In order to teach the player all about the mechanics though, they have added in-game lessons that will tell you how things work, generally. Some of these new features include traits, a more comprehensive schooling system and matching career system, weight, wishes and lifetime achievement points. The Build Mode is also easier to work with, allowing you to drag entire walls out in order to expand your room.

It used to be that you could assign points to some categories in order to differentiate your Sims. Instead, they now allow you to assign up to five traits, depending on the age of the Sim, to the Sim. These traits can be positive, such as Genius, or negative, such as Technophobe. In either case, this system doesn’t lend itself to min-maxing as much, but it does do a nice job of making different Sims unique.

Back in my day, we just sent the kids off to school at the designated time and that was that. Nowadays, these young whippersnappers have the option of working hard at school, slacking off, or even chatting with friends.  Then they come home and they can do their homework in order to improve their school performance. Like they rule the place!

Joking aside, school performance being impacted by mood and homework means that managing your little tykes becomes much like managing your working adults. Your way to your next promotion or demotion in a job is now measured on a cumulative bar that you fill up as you go to work. In addition to the mood of your Sim, other occupation-related factors can help this bar fill up faster. For example, if you’re on the medical career track, you’ll eventually also be requested to do research. Each of these other factors are actually optional, so given enough time, your mood can be the only thing that matters. For a player like me, this system really took away from the game as I was no longer required to maintain relationships in order to advance in my career. That means I reached the highest level without making a single friend, except by accident while at work, and the social game was left as a useless hassle to my pursuit.

Aside from school, kids also have to balance their physical activities such as swimming in the neigbourhood pool or getting a cardio workout from the TV though, or they’re going to grow up fat. This only seemed to affect kids as they go through the age categories and stopped at young adult. Even if your Sims do grow up with some love handles, they can do some cardio workouts in order to take off some unwanted weight.

Out of all the new mechanics added to the game, the one that was most enjoyable for me were wishes. Every Sim, except for the really young, gets to pick a lifetime wish. An example lifetime wish would be becoming a world-renowned surgeon, which is getting to the highest level in the medical profession. In addition, throughout the course of the game your Sim will have random wishes pop up related to their traits, current skills, who they have talked to recently, and what they just finished doing. For example, a more immediate wish may be to buy something that’s worth over one hundred dollars. If a wish is something you think you can fulfill, you can promise it to your Sim by left-clicking it. A Sim can have up to four simultaneous promised wishes going at the same time, and they can range from short-term to long-term. You can also cancel the promise by right-clicking it, thus freeing up a slot for another wish. These wishes for me were like quests that came to me and I found myself playing to my Sims’ wishes.

All this hard work in wish fulfillment gets you lifetime achievement points, which can be exchanged for perks such as a Fast Metabolism or a Steel Bladder. The ultimate of these is Teleportation, which is within reach if you complete your lifetime wish but otherwise would take quite a while to save up for.

All these new mechanics are dressed up by the usual fluff and cute humour that one would expect to find in a Sims game, and I had a couple of laugh out loud moments as one of my Sims died trying to repair a stereo and then came back later to haunt the household (did you know that Sim ghosts sleep?). On top of the wacky moments, there are also seemingly arbitrary decisions that add a lot of flavour to the game. For example, if you’re pursuing life as a musician, you’re eventually asked if you would like to be a rocker or a classical musician.

Another subtle change with a big impact is that the rest of the town will progress while you play, and not just the ones that are on your lot. This means you can’t keep your neighbour Betty barefoot and pregnant forever!

The Sims 3 provides a very basic movie maker tool. Using clips you’ve filmed in your game or some stock clips included with the tool, you can drag and drop the clips into a movie in any order. For each clip, you can provide a maximum of one transition, special effect, and caption. The options are all very basic and browsing through the more popular movies in the community exchange is a good way of seeing what you can do with it. If you wanted to make movies though, I’d recommend The Movies.

The Sims Store provides a new wide variety of new content in exchange for Sims points, which you buy with money, and the return of the Sims Exchange lets you download and upload content from other Sims fans. In addition, your community page supports avatars and even your own personal blog.

Even though The Sims 3 changes many fundamental elements to the game, and even adds lots of new ones, it feels like the exact same game as Sims 2. If you’ve never had the pleasure of running your own virtual household, then I would highly recommend this game. However, if you’ve already spent countless hours on The Sims 2, then much like the annual sports titles, this entry is not worth the full price tag.

The list of goodies include:

• White Dwarf Beard – Exclusive White Dwarf Beard customization option for Dwarfs
• Shroud of Imrathepis – Linens taken from the burial shroud of Prince Imrathepis, protecting its owner from harm by regenerating minor wounds and injuries.
• Chompin’ Teef – Exclusive Steel Jaw customization option for Orc Choppas
• Snorri’s Spikes – Exclusive Spike Mohawk customization option for Dwarf Slayers

Games Day Toronto will be held at Exhibition Place on June 20th, 2009 in Toronto, Ontario. To get a sneak peek at Land of the Dead, visit the Queen Elizabeth Building between 10:00 (10 AM) and 17:00 (5 PM).

Are you planning to go? Drop us a line in the comments below.

Now give me Wrex, Garrus and Liara and my party will be complete.

Forty-five songs will be packaged with the disc, and the first album that will be available for download is Abbey Road. The ten songs that have been revealed thus far are:

I Saw Her Standing There

I Want To Hold Your Hand

I Feel Fine

Taxman

Day Tripper

Back In The USSR

I Am The Walrus

Octopus’s Garden

Here Comes The Sun

Get Back

The Beatles live again on the PS3, Xbox 360, and the Wii across all regions on September 9th, 2009, so get your vocal chords ready to rock out like it’s 1969.

Click here to watch the video

One night while on stage, Eddie is accidentally knocked unconscious. When he awakes, he finds himself transported to a strange yet oddly familiar world – a world in which every Heavy Metal album cover and lyric has come to life. Humans have been enslaved by the evil emperor Doviculus and his demon army, the Tainted Coil, but all is not lost. Led by Lars Halford and his sister Lita, the human resistance is growing in numbers. Lacking only a leader to bring them all together; someone who can organize them and inspire them to fight, the world’s greatest roadie is just the man that they need.

Key features include:

• Action Combat! – Brütal Legend’s core gameplay is classic Action. From close quarter blows delivered by The Separator, Eddie’s blood soaked broad axe, to ranged combat from your demon-slaying guitar named Clementine, as well as vehicular attacks supplied by your hot rod, The Deuce (aka The Druid Plow), Brütal Legend delivers deep, rewarding, fun combat that will have you throwing your “devil horns” in the air.
• A World Like No Other – Inspired by some of the most iconic album art and lyrics of all-time, Brütal Legend features a streaming, open world rich with detail, from mountains made of guitar amps to big block V8 engines rising from the ground, delivering a world truly unique and unlike anything you’ve seen before.
• Titans of Stage and Screen – Lead by Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, the epic cast of Brütal Legend features vocal talent providing by some of Metal’s biggest names, including Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, Lita Ford and more.
• Online Multiplayer – Take the Metal madness online in Brütal Legend’s Multiplayer mode that combines action combat with a strategic unit-control mechanic that allows the player to direct their army in The Battle of the Bands, where the ultimate trophy is survival
• Upgrade Your Arsenal – Gain “Lighter Tributes” throughout the world and visit The Motorforge, where you can upgrade The Separator, Clementine and The Deuce to make them even more lethal on the battlefields
• Tim Schafer – Known for creating a level depth and humor in his characters, Tim Schafer is consistently recognized as one of the gaming industry’s premier designers and has written such classics as Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and PsychoNauts.
• Fully Licensed Soundtrack – Brütal Legend will feature a fully licensed soundtrack that includes some of the greatest Metal and Rock and Roll songs ever assembled.

Brütal Legend will hit the stage on October 13th, 2009, for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. In the meantime, enjoy these screenshots from E3:

Some of the key features in The Saboteur:

• Live the resistance in an open-world Paris – Fight and sabotage your way through a stylized open-world 1940s Paris – from the top of the Eiffel Tower, to the riverbanks of the Seine, the cathedral of Notre Dame or the prestigious Champs-Élysées.
• Be the Saboteur –Use a broad range of weapons and explosives to perform your blockbuster sabotage as you single-handedly hunt-down your enemies to dismantle and destroy the Nazi occupation.
• Quiet In, Loud Out – Use gameplay systems like Climbing, Sneaking, and Stealth Kills to infiltrate the Nazi occupation to perform acts of Sabotage Once you’ve blown your target to pieces, leverage the intuitive cover system and assortment of weapons to blast your way to freedom.
• Vertical World – This version of Paris was designed to leverage the unique abilities of The Saboteur. Being a Saboteur is all about surprise attacks and Paris’ rooftops are the perfect path for your secret operations.
• Will to Fight – The Saboteur introduces a innovative new feature that is both an iconic visual style, and a compelling gameplay element. See and feel Paris change around you as you progress through the game. Go from a dark and oppressed black and white policed state, to a bright and inspired world where the citizens fight back..
• Hijack any vehicle – From high performance racecars to military vehicles, as the Saboteur, you can drive any vehicle that comes along to escape your pursuers.

Known for their work on the Star Wars: Battlefront series, Pandemic have a great deal of experience crafting open-world environments and hectic gameplay. The World War II setting may be overdone, but The Saboteur will be the first to explore it in the open-world action-adventure genre. While The Saboteur may not re-invent sandbox gameplay, it has a chance to make it feel more natural. Inaccessible areas will simply be blocked off by Nazi control, side-missions will be delivered by members of the Resistance instead of random citizens of the city, and the evil presence in the city will be a very realistic one.

The Saboteur will sneak its way into our homes this Fall for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.

Click here to watch the video

No release date has been announced yet, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled. Meanwhile, enjoy this trailer from E3.

Click here to watch the video

Dragon Age: Origins will be available on October 23^rd, 2009 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.

The trailer also features the song The New Shit by Marilyn Manson, proving once and for all that he is in fact a Dark Spawn.

Click here to watch the video

Microsoft will inaugurate the event on Monday morning with their annual E3 press conference. Electronic Arts and Ubisoft will follow with their own press conferences throughout Monday afternoon, and Nintendo and Sony will take their turns on Tuesday.

The industry is buzzing with announcement rumours for this year’s show, and our contacts lead us to believe that there are plenty of surprises in store for us. Stay tuned to GameNorth for the latest in news, previews and announcements from the show. But in the meantime, Timmy’s Run!

The press conference schedule:

Microsoft
Monday, June 1st
10:30am PST / 1:30pm EST

Electronic Arts
Monday, June 1st
2pm PST / 5pm EST

Ubisoft
Monday, June 1st
5pm PST / 8pm EST

Nintendo
Tuesday, June 2nd
9am PST / 12pm EST

Sony
Tuesday, June 2nd
11am PST / 2pm EST

Thankfully, in the last few seconds of the trailer we get some classic Rico and Salem.

Click here to watch the video