When you log in, you’ll notice you will have mail waiting for you from either Vanira or High Tinker Mekkatorque.  The mail includes instructions on where to go to begin these quest chains.  For the Horde, you’ll want to seek out the troll Vanira down in Sen’jin Village in Durotar.  If you’re Alliance, you’ll want to head to Tinker Town in Ironforge and speak to High Tinker Mekkatorque.  Both quest chains involve a few side quests and then an event that is very similar to the Battle for the Undercity quest chain, which most level 80 players should be familiar with.

At the end of both events, players will be given a purely cosmetic cloak to wear as a reward.  There have been a couple bugs reported, at least during the Gnomeregan event, and hopefully Blizzard will take care of those soon.  The events understandably raise plenty of eyebrows and questions from those wondering if this is a sign that Cataclysm will soon be upon us.  It’s September and we’re already seeing some lead ups to Cataclysm, so I would say that a release date is probably not too far behind, especially with Blizzcon only being a month away.

Shattered Dimensions is four different games rolled into one. When you’re playing at the film noir stealth-action suit Spiderman, the game feels like Batman: Arkham Asylum. When you play as the Venom suit Spiderman, the game feels more like Devil May Cry. Although there is nothing else innovative in the game, everything from those different genres of games seem to be implemented. The Spidey Sense works like thermal vision from Splinter Cell. There are different emblems to collect, abilities to upgrade, storylines to follow, and it felt fun without being too shallow, even if you get the impression that you’ve seen it all before. This game looks like it is a must try for Spiderman fans.

Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions releases for the PS3, Wii, X360, and DS on September 7th, 2010, with a PC release date still to be announced.

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.

The single player campaign is magnificent. There’s nothing ground breaking here, but Blizzard did manage to make it interesting enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re just playing a bunch of multiplayer maps, which is something the older Blizzard strategies always had trouble with. Despite strong plots in both StarCraft and Warcraft III, the single player campaigns were lacking to me. This time around, Blizzard gives you an entirely different experience in single player as you can command completely different units than in multiplayer, get special upgrades for your buildings and units that don’t exist outside the single player campaign, and you can talk to people on your ship in order to get a better feel of the story and characters. The story is told in a much better way this time around and the single player experience simply feels way more cohesive than it did back in the day, even if we only get the perspective of the Terrans (humans) in this one. The plot was even quite surprising and takes a turn I did not expect. It’s not Odyssey or anything like that, but it certainly ain’t bad.

Nuclear launch detected

The cinematics are a treat as expected from Blizzard, but the in-game engine looks so good that it’s not a jarring switch. Moreover, as if to ensure you that it is in fact a Blizzard product, all the good looks doesn’t come with hefty requirements for your system. If you have a good system then the game will look better, but even on my four-ish year old PC it is gorgeous. Blizzard wants you to play their games, and they’re not going to let an old machine stop you! Since the engine is 3D this time around, zooming in will give you nice and up close visuals of the units or landscape, but if you zoom out to the regular camera, everything still looks… pleasant. I’ve heard some higher level players say that they like to turn the graphics down in order to not have so much visual input to distract them – that’s how much detail there is in the animation. My favourite little addition is that when units die to a fire attack, they are incinerated and fried up in a neat animation.

The voice acting is very good. The dialogue itself is very heavy and a bit on the serious side, aside from the newscasts and commercials on television, but the actors did a good job of making everything believable. One hilarious commercial in particular is the space marine iPod parody with a silhouetted marine touting an “iGun”. The game does not have the best voice acting out there. It didn’t quite impress me the way Dragon Age: Origins did, but it was solid. The music in the single player campaign is fantastic, with the likes of covers of Sweet Home Alabama and Suspicious Minds while the jukebox is on. During a mission, there are great musical scores to go along with building up armies and crushing the souls of your enemies under your metallic boots. The unit sounds are standard Blizzard fare and thankfully none of them are annoying, though some of them are still humourous.

You villain, you!

The mission variety itself is great, and better than in previous games. Even though achievements are old news in this industry, and I normally don’t worry about them, the addition of them still added a great deal to the experience for me. Every map has an award for achieving all the objectives, which is something I’d do normally anyway, but it’s nice to receive some recognition for my OCD dedication. You can go back to clear a previous level at any time through the mission archives, even after you’ve completed the game, so that is a great addition to the longevity of the game, even just considering the single player alone. On top of the various difficulties you can play through, there are also 3 missions where you have to choose branching paths, and one secret mission. Thankfully, the alternate paths can be explored through the aforementioned archives, but unfortunately the secret mission can’t be unlocked after you clear the campaign, so it looks like I’ll have to play through it again at some point. In addition to the campaign, the single player experience also includes tutorials for people that are new to the franchise or real-time strategies, and it also includes a series of challenges that are intended to get the player ready for multiplayer. These challenges include multitasking, micromanagement (topics covered in our StarCraft II Guide) and other skills you’ll need to not feel completely helpless.

It's true. This game has lasers.

As great as the twenty-hourish single player campaign is, StarCraft II is really about the multiplayer. There has been a lot of debate about Battle.net 2.0 and its lack of various features, but since Blizzard has agreed to fix most of the issues, I won’t evaluate them here. What has been added to Battle.net is pleasant. Players can view their profiles, see their match history, look up their opponents’ profiles, and it includes the ever important replay system, which itself is vastly improved over the Warcraft III replay system. The look of it is much much nicer and there is a cross-game IM type service embedded that will allow you to chat with your friends that are playing World of Warcraft while playing SC2. The cross-game functionality unfortunately comes at the cost of sharing your real email address, so it might not be for every one of your guildmates, but it’s a pretty cool idea nonetheless. The matchmaking and ladder system has also been improved over Warcraft III and StarCraft, as now players will play 5 placement matches to determine their skill. Thereafter, they get placed in a league where they can be promoted or demoted from, but otherwise will play people of around the same skill level. No matchmaking system will be perfect, but I like the idea of placement matches so that people don’t get too frustrated when they first start playing against other people. The feature that was surprisingly lacking was clan support, which games like Heroes of Newerth has done a great job of implementing.

Blizzard has gone great lengths in order to make the game more accessible. Even casual players won’t be too overwhelmed with trying to control many units as they can put them into one control group now, and the algorithm to determine the path that your units take (called pathing) has been greatly improved so that your units don’t run around stupidly and get stuck behind everything in the universe. Doing the advanced things and clicking faster is still a benefit to you, but you can still play without incredible skill.

There's too many of them!

As a watchable eSport, StarCraft II is much more entertaining than the original. There are a variety of strategies, and though maybe 12 years of refinement will stamp out most of them, the improved spectator UI and graphics alone make it more of a delight to watch. There are already massive tournaments (as well as smaller ones) being organized, paying winners over $80,000 USD, so there is no doubt in my mind that it will succeed as an eSport as players will flock to where the money is. Even though there is so much infrastructure dedicated to Brood War, it will all be replaced in time.

Blizzard had to make a great game with StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, not because they had to sell a lot of units, but because it might be twelve years before we see StarCraft III. As a big fan of the original, I can honestly say I am not disappointed with the sequel. They have made the game more accessible, more fun to watch, more fun to play, and it still has the depth of strategy as its predecessor. It doesn’t add anything innovative to the genre like Company of Heroes did, but it had an extremely delicate balance to uphold. It couldn’t shed all the history and fans before it and yet it had to be new. I wouldn’t call it refreshing, but gaming is certainly a better place now that StarCraft II has arrived.

This leads to interesting social interaction, especially with various love interests as you try to seduce or flirt and select the wrong type, and end up annoying everyone in the room. There is no morality system in Alpha Protocol, so much as there is a manner in which you get things done. The right or wrong is replaced by individuals liking or disliking you, and the consequences that brings. Often this is demonstrated in the emails you can return to contacts in the field, which can be written in any of the three styles, resulting some pretty fun responses from the characters. Email is surprisingly useful in this game, as it deals with your dossiers and intelligence on a given mission as well, and was one aspect I particularly enjoyed. The ability to purchase satellite images of the engagement zone, bribe an arms dealer to bring extra goods for you to procure once you arrive, or even a sniper rifle dead-drop were all pretty cool, and purchasing information about contacts or factions through your information brokers was fascinating as well. Each dossier can be completed and it gave you more of an incentive to search every nook and cranny in a level for a computer or laptop filled with relevant data.  Once you have a dossier complete, a secret fact about the character is unlocked, and you can use that to your advantage when you encounter them again, pulling it out as a sort of  trump card, which can change the playing field powerfully if properly deployed.

The combat is classic third person shooter fare, with cover mechanics at the touch of a button and shooting at people who don’t enjoy your company. However, because this is an RPG, often your weapon and tactical abilities are not very high during the first few firefights, making your aim rather bad. This serves to make the end result a little more satisfying though, when your expertly trained pistol specialist pops out of cover to score a headshot blind, then ducks back without taking a bullet. There are simple upgradeable hand-to-hand combinations you can unlock, which look cool the first time, and vary on which direction the controller is facing, but get old fast.

That is the biggest problem with a lot of Alpha Protocol. It is not a bad game, but it is not great either. The level design is flawed when you have trained out your spy to have stealth skills, and are then forced at every turn (especially near the end) to violently blast away opponents that deal incredibly high damage due to your lack of health upgrades, or when you are constantly setting off alarms for dropping one guard far away from everyone else. The different areas  you visit are initially cool and exciting, but I was hoping for a bit more free roam in the game. You simply arrive at a safe house, a mission hub of sorts, and then choose your actual assignment, check your emails, or flirt with death at your leisure. The graphics are underwhelming and occasionally graphics pop in and out of texture, or create a caustic black “burn” across some characters’ faces for a second. This game was clearly pounded out rather quickly or at least with less than full foresight, and it shows in the delivery. I did not hate this game, but it could’ve really benefited from a few more months in the pressure cooker of design. Everything felt half-rudimentary. Whereas the sincerest form of flattery is imitation, Alpha Protocol brought little that was new to the table, aside from the spy thriller theme and the slight conversation-dynamic upgrades.

When all is said and done, I would recommend that you pick it up to at least try it out, but don’t expect an epic experience. The game has its moments, but nothing that you’ve not seen before if you’re into games such as Deus Ex or Mass Effect. Ultimately, Alpha Protocol still feels like it’s in Beta testing. Not in all areas, but enough of them to make this game a mediocre experience.

That was then and this is now. The game has been revealed. Not just with classically well done cinematics, which would not have served to impress me very much, but with the desperately needed gameplay to confirm its legitimacy! The slicing action, which is very Afro Samurai or Samurai Jack, seems like it’s going to be satisfying in its integration into the world by not limiting you to chopping just foes in half, but the rest of the environment as well. He can collapse building supports (architecture or stationary construction) or props such as cars or fruit. Enemies are severed precisely where they are cut, and that makes slicing and dicing take on a whole new meaning. The fighting system is a made up Japanese word, which looks great brush-stroked across a screen, called Zan-Datsu. It revolves around “cutting at will”. However, control is maintained, allowing you to finesse the depth of a cut – allowing you to kill, simply maim or wound an enemy. This precision was demonstrated with the watermelon slicing at the conclusion of the trailer. Zan-Datsu may also extend to the implementation of stealth within this game, focusing on hunting and striking from vantage points or hiding spots. The possibility to hide vertically seems to be present based on the word of the developers on hand. Stealth movement is accelerated, moving past the slow toddling pace of earlier “wait and evade” designs. This game moving in this direction is similar to the way Splinter Cell: Conviction broke away from previously established norms for that franchise, by introducing fluid and dynamic stealth where a flow is created from cover to cover, enemy to enemy, and kill to kill.  Secondary weapons, items, and gadgets are said to be in the works, along with a game advancement mechanic of draining energy from the batteries you relinquish from dispatched synthetics to increase your own power.

The F.R.O.G. soldiers remain along with the P.M.C. (Private Military Company) ones. This game is set between MGS2 and MGS4, where at some point Raiden apparently gets the ORGANS ripped out of him. In particular, I was fascinated by the design of the male F.R.O.G. soldier, handling something like a gorilla with the iconic clawed feet. a machine gun was mounted on his long, heavy arms.  Slowly moving through the area, he brushed expended shells aside with his feet, implying that there was already a lengthy conflict here. I am interested to see any other diversions in the established aesthetic. The combat vest remains a centerpiece, featured on every combatant (save Raiden) – even on the more outlandish opponents like Mr. Gorilla. The hard points, bolted down armor, diagonal lines and jagged edges seem to lend more to the “Cut” theme of the trailer. I enjoy the placement of the bandage over his eye without knowing anything about the origin of the mark. The diagonal swipe of the fabric serves to break up the cold, hard symmetry of his design.

I originally scoffed at the idea of the white synthetic blood that made its debut when he was injured in the last game, but now I see why they chose that colour specifically. In the early concepts for Raiden – which I have deliciously laid out for me in a MGS2 artbook – Yoji Shinkawa, the conceptual designer, said that he wanted Raiden to symbolize purity or innocence. Colour-wise, that means he would be very close to pure white due to his whole life being spent in virtual reality. This showed itself in his hair. The white blood seemed to follow this aesthetic, not only showing the extent of his loss of humanity, but how deep the purity flowed. At the same time, this runs contrary to the battle experience that his synthetic body indicates. His armor does feature an interesting amount of orange to it in this iteration, something the previously monotone Raiden lacked. His eyes are also a predatory and feline orange. Perhaps this reflects his heightened predatory state before he became the “flawless” Raiden of MGS4? Or maybe this is a reference to the white/black/orange colour scheme of Grey Fox? Everything about him channels both the Cyborg Ninja, which was a beautiful expression of design and death all his own, and the long hair that made Raiden pop out in the screen. They kept the hair for two important reasons. First, if they closed off his head entirely it would make him seem to lose any humanity he had left, as the majority – if not all – of his human features are in his face. Sacrificing that would’ve been a step too far and I think the novelty of the design would have been lost. Secondly, the smooth, flowing nature of the hair provides an energetic and lightning-hot contrast with the cold hard lines of his armour. As he moves through the scene, his body moves and whips from side to side as he slashes, but all of the smooth flow of his hair helps to add a serious style to his movements. It almost reminds me of a brush traveling around a page. From a mechanic perspective, it also provides the player with a clear indication of his head the whole time, helping to maintain a spacial understanding that would be crucial during any rapid or confusing movement. Examples of this could be seen in Bayonetta, with her hot pink weapons, or Sam Fisher, with the glowing walkie-talkie and goggles. The way his hair  juts out from his head enclosure (when his helmet is down in MGS4) makes him seem like he’s wearing a sort of  intense tribal mask and the hair is the only piece of his humanity left in combat. He becomes a cold calculating animal, ripping everyone apart with ease that rivals the Cyborg Ninja, but with a distinct excess of mobility that the previous iterations lacked.

That mobility is what has me excited for this next game. I want to be able to leap onto walls and lie in wait for prey, then drop down and rip one apart, leaving the second to fumble with his gun as I run up to him in slow motion, sweeping out his legs and then slicing him in a hard diagonal across his body. It’s moments like that which make me excited for Rising, and also happy they’ve drawn the plot away from Snake, but left it in a fairly familiar, established setting.

One closing note: I think I speak for many of us when I say that during the battle with Vamp and Raiden, where Snake provided cover, I wasn’t the only person who had a friend play it through again, just so I could watch the badassery carrying on to the right of the screen. Making a whole game based on that?

Solid.

Last night, during the NBA finals in the classic duel between the L.A. Lakers and Boston Celtics, the first StarCraft II commercial was aired, and I am not disappointed. Blizzard’s cinematics have always been fantastic even if their in-game graphics were not the best.

Let us know what you think about the HD video embedded below.

Several key Deus Ex classics were present, including cloaking and the beautiful augmented iris glow. The colour palette was true to the Baroque inspired design, with many sepia and variant golden tones. The most vivid reference to the renaissance is the news reporter’s high frilled collar. The minigun attachment popping out reminded me of a similar weapon from Ghost In The Shell as well.

So now I have to ask: Does this look too Metal Gear Solid? Perhaps too clean for the dark, gritty art style of the Deus Ex universe? Maybe that is just the Japanese cinematic aesthetic shining through. Maybe those glasses can be equipped in game, leading to a detailed HUD or weapon interface, whereas without the glasses it’s just a clean vision mode – minimalist. From the conceptual art earlier released on Kotaku, this game seems to be heading to a very interesting place. Would the event where an enemy gets “hacked” and commits suicide be an available player skill? Imagine having to fight off viruses as you hacked into a computer, uploading and rerouting subroutines as you broke into a system, something like EDI in Mass Effect 2.

I would love to see some hand-to-hand combat in this game, which is something that the first ones lacked – possibly some Mirror’s Edge style spinning kicks or swings. The added mobility in this game would be very invigorating and enticing for me. I hope the blade is kept as a defense mechanism or freehand offensive weapon. It would be awesome if Adam’s jacket is kept for free-roam and removed only for missions, separating his design for combat and exploration.

This is just all me geeking out. I was raised on these games, and they’re what made me love this industry. I just wanna see them done right in this era of entertainment. What would you like to see in the new Deus Ex?

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UPDATE: While the game has been confirmed to be in 1st person predominantly, there is a nice flavour of 3rd person in the newly integrated cover system (A la Rainbow Six: Las Vegas) and in sweet hand-to-hand takedowns. I have offically lost it with excitement for this game.  The character looks awesome, and I love the idea of pulling back for cinematic moments or conversation.

More on this as I find it.

Click here to watch the video

Not many details have been announced, but the press release did promise that it will come to consoles for the first time via the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. In addition, there will be multiplayer co-op, which, if you’re keeping track, was a Diablo feature to begin with, but is still kind of exciting. Well, actually, since there is no release date this game might get ignored in favour of Diablo III, so I hope Obsidian Entertainment works fast! But who am I kidding, we won’t see the next Diablo for another 10 years.

If you’ve seen the reviews of Obsidian’s latest work, Alpha Protocol, don’t be discouraged – that was the first original IP they’ve worked on. Traditionally, they’ve developed great sequels, such as Neverwinter Nights 2 and their expansions, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2.

And with that, my commitment to bring you everything even remotely Diablo-related is fulfilled – for now.

So does this mean Mass Effect 3 will have multiplayer? Hopefully, but this could also mean that they could make another game which takes away from the trilogy but still features multiplayer. Maybe we could find ourselves with a Mass Effect MMO?

What do you make of this and what do you think  we will see at E3 from BioWare?

Let’s get the more “shallow” elements out of the way. The music and sound were okay, but I ended up turning off the music. The bits of voice that was available were awkward. The sound effects were functional, but lacks the personality of Deckard Cain and even the monster noises seem lacking in identity.

The graphics are really, really poor, even at max settings. I mean, technically it has all the usual dressing with anti-aliasing and support for my usual resolution, but everything ends up looking low budget and really ugly. I understand Soldak is an independent studio, but in comparison to Torchlight it’s just embarrassing. The text is particularly big and ugly and my friends can tell you how much I love great looking text. In addition, the way the minimap is drawn is just bothersome, beyond its ugliness. Instead of just scrolling a static map like in Diablo II, it seems to redraw the minimap and dots as you move through the dungeons, which is really annoying as it gives the illusion that the dots are jumping around. Still, it’s nothing that can’t be overcome with some good gameplay.

Unfortunately, the gameplay was not quite good enough and also mired by some technical difficulties. The dynamic world of Din’s Curse means that the unique monsters actually do things instead of waiting for you to attack them. They build new machines that cause darkness, for example, or send monsters that attack the town. These become objectives for new quests, which is cool. Your town NPCs can die, which is also cool – at least in theory. In practice it’s actually quite frustrating as you lose reputation when the monsters kill someone in town and can cause you to fail the quests related to that NPC, which makes you lose even more reputation. If the monsters kill everyone in town, you fail and move on to the next town, which is like restarting the game but transferring your character. The problem is that except for the gates that exist on every level, you only get one town portal per town. That means if you haven’t discovered the gate on your level and you’re far away, you’re screwed. I’m a completionist, so it may bother me more than most. In either case it doesn’t feel good to fail things that are pretty much beyond my control.

The class system is interesting. There are six classes with 3 skill trees in each of them, or you can choose the Hybrid class and pick any two trees. This allows for some neat combinations, such as the Warrior’s Defender tree and the Wizard’s Ice Mage tree. This was an interesting combination because I could wear plate while blowing stuff up. In reality this didn’t work all that well as I had to spend attribute points in Strength in addition to Intelligence, but the game still wasn’t that difficult. The skill system itself is also a mixed bag. There are no level requirements or skill dependencies for any skill. Instead, you gain a certain number of skill points per level and the higher tier skills cost more skill points. For example, I saved up points for three levels before acquiring my first skill. Thankfully, the character starts gaining more skill points per level, but I often waited two to three levels before getting a new point in a skill or a new skill. I’m not sure I like waiting so long before spending points, but spending the points on the lower tiers feel like a bit of a waste.

There are many different options whenever you make a new world (i.e., go to a new town), such as the Fast-paced option, which makes the mobs respawn faster but gives you bonus experience, Hardcore mode where your character only has one life, and Cursed mode, which means you can only equip cursed items. Cursed items are items that usually has some downside but have 25% lowered requirements. All these modes, in addition to the multiplayer, provides many hours of gameplay if you do end up liking it. In addition you can pick the levels that the monsters start at to control the difficulty. You can enable and disable all these options every time you complete all the mandatory quests in a town and move on to a new one.

The artificial intelligence is decent and it’s pretty cool to see that monsters attack each other and level up. Particularly smart monsters, like the named ones, will even use cave ins and other environmental hazards to kill you. This part of the Diablo formula was well done.

However, there are various bugs in the game, one which pretty much forced me to stop playing the game. During one of the aforementioned town attacks, I was far from a portal and by the time I made it back, all the enemies had gated out. Not that bad, except that the icon and sound warning you that the town was under attack kept looping. I scoured the town and found no enemies or gate. As I’m selling stuff to the vendor, an orc pops out of nowhere and starts attacking. So I kill it, but the warning persisted. I couldn’t wait around forever so I went back to the dungeons, and while I was gone another orc showed up and killed the weaponsmith. Being a PC gamer, I can tolerate many bugs, but this particular one just kills my will to play. Sure, I could either wait until the whole town is killed and start again or maybe try to rush to the boss that is sending the monsters, but why should I have to? This kind of dead end bug is unacceptable in my opinion.

All that being said, I had moments of enjoyment with Din’s Curse. There’s just no way I can recommend it for the price they’re asking. If you’re looking for a game with a lot of replay value and you don’t care about graphics or sound too much, then trying out this game for a low price is not that bad. Otherwise, I’d stick to Torchlight or Titan’s Quest or just wait for Diablo III.

Players begin by selecting a map and a variety of game options, including the size of the teams. Once the game fills up with the desired number of players, the game displays a stable of characters that rivals the most ridiculous Marvel versus the Universe games, and each player picks a character for that match. The match will begin, players are given some starting gold, and then troops will start spawning in each lane and heading towards the opposing team’s base. Players get money for landing the last hit on enemy troops, players or some neutral monsters that are located between the lanes on the map, as well as experience. Each level rewards the player the option to level up among the four skills that each character possesses. Players do not carry over their character, experience or gold into the next match. To win, you have to (likely) topple each tower on the way to the enemy base and then destroying the main structure inside the base.

That’s the basics of the game. The controls aren’t hard, especially for any RTS veteran. You click and use hotkeys to activate skills and items. But the depth comes in the variety of characters and the role each character can fulfill as part of the team. Some characters are useless until much later in the game when they’ve acquired more items and levels. Some characters are there to support your teammates when they engage the enemy players. Just to give a sense, the “mini” guide for all of the whopping sixty two characters is this long.  There are many in-depth discussions about team composition, what pairings work best in each lane, and how to win team fights given compositions. The depth is stunning and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. HoN was played competitively in the Beta and continues to have support as an eSport for this reason.

The upside of the game is that it is very rewarding to kill your opponents in order to get gold and to take gold away from them. The downside is that if you are losing, your team will turn into vulturous jerks. Whether it is actually anyone’s fault, at least one person on a team will start calling some other teammate names and start being mean. If you are going to try HoN, I will give you a pro tip: /ignore add <name>. It has saved me from reading a lot of stupidity in my games. It is baffling that even if you join a Public game labeled specifically for new players, you will still get these whiners trying to ruin the game for one specific person, or sometimes for the entire team. It is a horribly unforgiving community and it really detracts from the experience, and I don’t understand the extreme hostility. Seriously, the HoN community makes Xbox Live look mature. Thankfully there is a profanity filter, but my ignore list is filling up quickly.

I feel part of this is the fault of S2 Games. Even their official website is completely marketed towards Defense of the Ancients veterans as there is no explanation of what the game is and does not introduce new players. Of course, this hostile culture also existed in Defense of the Ancients, so they can’t take all the blame.

It’s a huge compliment to the game that despite the rampant elitism and bad manners in the game, the game is still fun. It combines skill with cleverness, daring escapes with knowledge. It has built-in voice and many improvements upon DotA. Most notably, the stats tracking system is very helpful. One person leaving on a team usually means inevitable defeat for that team, so tracking if people disconnect in the middle of games is a great idea. In addition, wins, losses, kills, deaths, and numerous other statistics are tracked. S2 Games has provided in-game voice chat, which is great if you’re playing with friends, but not so great sometimes with strangers. Thankfully you can mute each of your teammates individually if they’re getting annoying. The shopping system has been greatly improved and it’s now much easier to buy the components that combine into more powerful items. The graphics have been improved, and sound-wise they’ve add the option for turning off the Unreal Tournament inspired announcer. I leave it on because it feels great to hear “Bloodlust!” in that deep, booming voice. The music is also pretty good.

HoN also includes a smaller 3v3 map called Duskwood Vale, which is enjoyable but is not played competitively. It can be good for new players to start with this map in order to avoid the confusion of bigger battles, but it’s also more oppressive if you happen to be facing an opponent that is a lot more skilled than you. The character imbalance is also more apparent when the team sizes are smaller.

There are two modes for play: Ranked matches, which have specific options chosen for you, but includes matchmaking and separate stat tracking. There’s a smaller pool of characters to choose from and is always a banning draft, where the captains of each team can ban a total of four characters from being chosen, and Public matches, which are more casual games and the match creator can select the options. One of the more common options is Easy Mode, which means troops and towers are a lot weaker and the games are a lot shorter.

DotA was one of those games that I kept going back to, and I suspect Heroes of Newerth will be no exception. If you’re looking for a deep game that you can spend months learning, then I’d recommend picking it up – but only if you have the patience to endure the intolerant culture.

The special WoW pet that comes with all tickets, DirectTV and Internet stream purchases have yet to be announced.

Valve will continue to release a set of games for the Mac every Wednesday. Every game will have Valve’s new “SteamPlay”, which means when you buy the game on your account, you can run it on any Mac or PC you wish. Although games have been on the Mac for a long time, maybe this is where we finally bridge the difference between Mac and PC gamers. With Valve heading this operation we may see other companies try do to the same. Call of Duty 4 actually had Mac and PC players playing together, and now with Steam we can hopefully see more and more games coming to the Mac. I’m really excited to see what will happen in the next couple months. With E3 coming who knows what will happen next?

As of this very moment there are 63 games/gamepacks available for your Mac, including Civilization, Torchlight, and the LucasArts action pack. Although there is no Team Fortress 2, hopefully we will see that in the next couple Wednesdays. Here’s the full list on Steam’s site.

So make sure you grab your free copy of Portal, because if you haven’t tried it, now you really have no excuse.

Check out our glowing review of Portal here if you’re still not convinced.

Now, one note: if you plan on buying the expansion packs individually, you will still need the Steam version of Civ IV to use them, so I’m guessing in most cases people (like me) will just shell out for the Complete Edition for $10 USD. The Complete Edition includes Civ IV, both expansion packs (Warlords, Beyond the Sword), and the less intensive Civ IV: Colonization. So even though I have the Special Collector’s Super Dragon Retail Edition of Civilization IV – complete with fancy box – already, I still bought the Complete Edition.

And who do we have to thank for this great gift? Civilization V, apparently. (Is this how “pay it forward” works?) In any case, Civilization V will have a Steam release in September and use the full Steamworks suite for saved games, multiplayer, and achievements. But until September, enjoy Civilization IV!

Chaos is a currency in this game in addition to money. Explosions, destruction of government property, and murder are examples of things that will give Chaos bonuses. This Chaos can be turned in to unlock new missions and races. Chaos drives the game forward, and due to the sheer potential amount of it, you’re never at a want for something to do. The instant reward mentality of the game is very refreshing and makes it approachable. You can also call in a Black-Market contact who, aside from extracting you, also provides upgradeable weapons and vehicles to the player for a fee. If you find yourself low on cash at any time (the later weapons and vehicles can suck a lot out of you), simply track down one of the various types of races for some quick cash. They come in a variety of forms, from cars and boats to base jumping challenges and bridge-limbo flight challenges.

The controls are tight enough if you can get past strange collision detection and an argumentative lock-on system, which sometimes focuses on the wrong person while dangling off of a helicopter. There is no cover system to speak of, but the inventive use of the grapple and parachute more than makes up for it. They are also cheap and useful ways to travel around the massive 200 square kilometres of the island. One welcome addition that was left out of the first game is the ability to travel to any location discovered. This makes it much easier to travel from place to place than other free roaming games. There is also a plentiful checkpoint system and forgiving AI, but the player has to be prepared to handle the onslaught of several angry choppers firing rockets at them if they get up to alert level 5.

The sound design is done well enough to provide cues to different gameplay interactions, such as a rise in heat level. The guns in particular are massively improved from the bland, quiet puffs of the first game. The shotgun has an audible kick to it, as do the revolvers, missiles and other ordinance. The music cuts out during high altitude free-falls or parachute rides, creating a blissful sort of escapism as you plummet down to earth at several hundred miles per hour. The voice acting is laughable as always, attaining a thankfully “camp” status instead of just remaining horrible, because the rest of the game is presented with so much tongue-in-cheek.  Rico’s Latino accent returns and so does Sheldon, your handler from the first game, who rivals Zeke from Infamous in terms of caricature-of-accent.

The stereotypes present in this game are more prevalent than the first with so many rice farmer hats. The eclectic mix of Asian and Latino accents, especially the accent of the “apparently” attractive Bolo Santosi, causes the characters to be taken less seriously. I can’t say if this is intentional.  Anyone who tells you that “Backup will be waiting for you at the drop-off point” is supposed to be thinly veiled sexual tension is nuts, and to hear Rico reply, “I like what you say, and I like the way you say it, Lady,” is more likely to make you raise a eyebrow or groan than nod and agree.

In the first Just Cause, you are dropped onto a beach on the furthest northeast corner of the island world of San Esperito. This only affords a short view of the full scope of the world, and even then, you don’t gain a true appreciation for it. The area serves as more of a tutorial island, which feels fairly big to the player initially, until they travel to the later few islands, and see the proportion of the islands on the in game map.  Just Cause 2 drops you to the highest point in Panau right off the bat, landing you on a mountain satellite base, and giving you a 360 degree panoramic view of all the land for you to explore – and destroy.  After descending down the mountain, you begin the second story mission, and then are given full freedom after completing both. This was well implemented and a great change.

One thing I recommend is to not pursue the story missions rigorously, as there are only about seven in the whole game. That’s right, seven.  They are long, fun missions, but at the same time, they can rapidly kill off the story of the game for you, and partaking in the side missions while the main plot is still underway feels more true to the game. Not that it matters.

What does matter is the sheer breadth of things to do. There are about 300 villages, towns, airports, cities and military bases spread throughout the massive land in Panau. Each village has a weapon or armour upgrade case to collect, or a water tower, gas tank or statue to collapse. The clever inclusion of certain destruction elements that require a “hands-on” touch, in the form of hacking the controls to overload the objective, is an important facet of the gameplay. Without the need to jog up to gas line pressure valve platforms and manually hack the controls, or a bio-weapon containment silo submerged a few levels underground, all of the combat could be done using brute force, such as with helicopters or planes.  By forcing a player to infiltrate a silo riddled with steel support beams and lots of angry guard stereotypes, they have to be a smidgen more inventive.

The vehicles are an improvement as well, as the first game featured only a few cars that could be classified as easy on the eyes. The second game is riddled with pretty things to smash into walls and government employees, from yachts to jets and fighter planes, and from convertibles to beautiful motorbikes. One bike in particular that I fell in love with was the Hamaya Y250S, which looks more muscled than the crotch-rockets and scooters that shared the motorcycle category of the game.

Inventiveness is a key trait of some of the things in this game, such as the dual-tether grapple gun, allowing you to tie two objects together at the push of a button. This can create simple scenarios mid-mission, like one of a few where you are tasked to carry off a statue’s head with a helicopter, or more interesting diversions, such as a friend’s test of weight with a Tuk Tuk and a fast moving sedan. [MILD SPOILER WARNING] Rico would leap onto the roof of the first car (this stunt position is something he is prone to doing, from which you can transition to other cars, open fire on the surrounding area, or hijack the car you’re surfing) and attach a hook to that roof, then wait for a smaller car to ride by. Several seconds later, a Tuk Tuk, the clown of the automotive world, would putter by, and he would attach a second grapple to that, wait until the ropes hit their limit and watch the poor car be flipped over onto its head.

Inventiveness had combat implications as well. Being chased along a bridge? Introduce them to the railing! The link would stretch to its limit almost instantly and make the car flip rather majestically over the edge of the bridge. The sight of that never gets old, and I can almost hear a certain Star Fox character shouting about the virtues of barrel-shaped aerial tumbles in my head whenever I do it.

Just Cause 2 is an investment more than a game. It’s something you pick up because you want to unwind and have fun for weeks at a time, without the added commitment of an actual plot or narrative to worry about. There is no forced role play here, no dialogue trees, and no decisions to reshape the very future of mankind.  You are but one man tasked time and time again with blowing the crap out of whatever you can see that belongs to the government of this country.

You can even make recordings of said destruction with an innovative video capture feature which can be set to either automatically capture or manually record and stop. From there, you can either save these directly to your hard drive or upload them directly to YouTube. It is important to note that currently this is only integrated in the PS3 version. The XBOX 360 is currently lacking it, possibly because of a system-wide video capture program to be installed at a later date. This makes it fun to get down to ridiculous shenanigans, record the events, and share it with friends.   The game is 100% worth a rental, though I would encourage just buying it due to the amount of stuff to do. If you put this game down after a week and consider yourself done with it, give it time. This game comes back in waves, where you’ll be sitting around in a drought, looking for something to do, and then you will find yourself brushing off the package, popping the disk in, and making mayhem in all new ways – and relishing it.

In the module, the player gets to play through the fall of Denerim as a Hurlock Vanguard, who is able to control and recruit genlocks, ogres, and other baddies. Once the module is completed, the downloadable content will also unlock an “epic” Darkspawn item for players to use in the regular campaign and Awakening.

As a total aside, how hilarious would it be if the Hurlock Vanguards just did regular, mundane things. The module begins as you wake up, prepare some coffee, and sit down for breakfast – but you’re out of milk! You finally get into work an hour late, get yelled at by your Hurlock Alpha, and then begin to scrub pots in a twisted minigame. Damn, I can’t wait to play Sim Darkspawn.

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.

• Jim Raynor USB key
• An in-game pet (mini-Thor) for World of Warcraft
• A prequel issue to the StarCraft comic series
• Obligatory art book, behind-the-scenes DVD, fancy box, and soundtrack
• Exclusive in-game content such as a visually unique Thor unit(!) and custom portrait

You can still pre-order the standard edition from retailers such as Best Buy, Futureshop, and EB Games, of course. The standard edition runs $60 and just comes with the game itself.

Wings of Liberty is the first part of a trilogy that will unfold the entire StarCraft II storyline. In each part of the trilogy, the single player campaign will tell the story from the perspective of each of the three races, with the first taking the viewpoint of the Terrans (humans). This model has caused some controversy as previous Blizzard real-time strategy (RTS) games have always included the perspectives of all races, with expansion packs adding on to the story later. However, now consumers will have to buy three full priced games to experience the full story. Personally, I am not too worried as Blizzard has always provided value and quality, and I’m really enjoying the Beta so far.

With this release is also the launch of the new Battle.net, which still has no subscription fee confirmation or denial attached to it, but is really slick from what I’ve seen in the Beta. There is cleaning up to do, but that’s what the Beta is about.

The expansion will also include new creatures for players to battle, including an evolved, more intelligent breed of Darkspawn, the menacing Inferno Golem, and in keeping with the game’s namesake, a Spectral Dragon. However, perhaps most exciting are the new ways for players to customize their characters, which include new spells, abilities, specializations, and items, as well as the ability to completely re-spec any existing characters. New spell combos for the win! Additionally, five all-new party members will join the player in their journey to Amaranthine.

“Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening shows BioWare’s commitment to our fans by delivering new story-driven experiences which enrich the dark heroic fantasy universe our fans have come to know and love,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group, EA, and Co-Founder, BioWare. “The vibrant worldwide community of Dragon Age fans will relish uncovering the secret motivations of the darkspawn, revealing how the darkspawn continue to infest the world despite the defeat of the Archdemon.”

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening will be available on March 16, 2010 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Platforms.

So just how awesome is this first quarter? Check out the release dates below.

01.05 – Bayonetta
01.05 – Darksiders
01.12 – Army of Two: The 40th Day
01.19 – Dark Void
01.26 – Mass Effect 2 (can’t.. wait.. much.. longer..)
01.26 – MAG (try the Beta now!)

02.09 – BioShock 2
02.09 – Dante’s Inferno
02.16 – Heavy Rain (so looking forward to this..)
02.16 – Aliens vs. Predator
02.23 – Splinter Cell: Conviction (our favourite game of X’09!)
02.23 – Lost Planet 2

03.02 – Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (I know Brad can’t wait for this one..)
03.09 – Final Fantasy XIII (..!)
03.16 – Command & Conquer 4
03.30 – Crysis 2
03.TBA – God of War III (..!!)
03.TBA – Gran Turismo 5 (..!!!)

Is it just me, or is March going to be one of the best months for gaming, ever? Additionally, there are games such as ModNation Racers and Super Mario Galaxy 2 that are projected to be released sometime in early 2010, which may yet land somewhere in the midst of the games listed above. If your New Years resolution was to play fewer games this year, good luck with that.

If there are any releases that we overlooked that you think deserves a mention in this article, let us know in the comments below!

With Mass Effect 2 orbiting around the corner, and the new-found marketing budget of Electronic Arts now supporting BioWare’s releases, I am happy to announce that the Collector’s Edition will be available in Canada – no pleading necessary! However, finding it may be a little tricky, especially if you’re a PC gamer and like games that come in boxes. So we have decided to post a short guide to finding the Collector’s Edition, and will update it regularly as new information becomes available.

Xbox 360

EBGames.ca
Amazon.ca

PC

EBGames.ca (boxed retail version)
GamersGate
Steam (officially announced, but not yet available for pre-order)

I was told by both BestBuy and FutureShop employees that the game should be made available soon through their respective online stores, but I have yet to receive official confirmation. Additionally, EBGames will take pre-orders for the Collector’s Edition in their brick and mortar stores as well, but why not make use of their shiny new website?

As stated above, we’ll keep this post updated to include additional retailers as they are discovered. If you know of a retailer that will be offering the Collector’s Edition that is not on our list, let us know in the comments below and we’ll add it as soon as possible. Happy hunting!