Return of the Western: Red Dead Redemption

The promise of the western making a cinematic comeback following the strong showing that was 3:10 to Yuma may have fizzled out, but the long-dormant genre may find new life in video games. That is if Red Dead Redemption, and Rockstar games, have anything to say about it.

The game is receiving absolutely universal acclaim thus far. Game informer recently awarded Redemption a stellar score of 9.75/10. To add some perspective to that, in this same issue Super Mario Galaxy 2 received a 9.25/10. To "perspectify" even further, Galaxy 2 managed a perfect 10/10 from Edge Magazine. Allow me to use this information to blow your mind mathematically: Red Dead Redemption > Super Mario Galaxy 2 > nearly everything else. Cue Keanu: "Whoa."

Yes, the accolades are quite astounding and may be in danger of creating unreachable expectations. Before wallowing in premature disappointment however, one should consider the pedigree behind the game however. This is the company - even if not the exact studio (Rockstar San Diego rather than Rockstar North) - that brought us Grand Theft Auto IV; which is still one of the best reviewed games of all time. For those that fear this means Red Dead Redemption is simply GTA IV: Wild West, all the reviewers seem quick to assure everyone that this is a wholly unique and fully realized game that simply builds off a very basic framework. It is not Grand Theft Cowboys in the same way that Assassin's Creed II is not Grand Theft Renaissance.

This particular parallel is especially interesting when one considers Redemption's predecessor: Red Dead Revolver. A game that, much like the original Assassin's Creed, was largely considered a "good try" and was eventually followed by a jaw-droppingly improved sequel. But I digress...

Red Dead Redemption ships today, May 17th, and should be available at retail tomorrow. In the meantime, check out a video review, courtesy of IGN, and try to ignore the "I'm really bored and reading this off a sheet of paper" tone of the narrator. (NOTE: the video is age restricted, but then you should be old enough to watch it if you're planning to get the game)

More Red Dead Redemption Info

Now if you'll excuse me, GameFly just informed me that Red Dead Redemption is on it's way, so I'll be sitting by my mailbox until further notice...

We Need More Giant Robot Games. Also: Yes Kojima, You Really Should Retire Snake.

First I'd like to say, if you already know exactly what giant robot game I'm going to talk about, congratulations on your acceptance into my personal "You're Cool" club.

Close your eyes and just think to yourself, "When was the last time a good giant robot game came out?" Depressing, isn't it? Considering the we're closing in on what would normally be the twilight of a console generation, having to look to the previous generation for any worthwhile entries into the genre leaves any gamer that grew up on Voltron,Transformers or Power Rangers quite blue.

The Armored Core series has been pretty downhill since the second game; and Chromehounds did not help From Software, who developed both series, to reclaim any credibility within the genre. Applying the Dynasty Warriors formula to the Gundam Universe also disappointed quite thoroughly. There have been a few other attempts this generation...but all of them failed to impress. Some hope still exists for Activision's Transformers:War For Cybertron, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Especially with the average pedigree of developer High Moon Studios. Fingers crossed though...

Sure, we occasionally get some decent giant robot action thrown into our other games. Lost Planet, FEAR 2, Red Faction: Guerrilla and Killzone 2 (you know, that one part). In the end though, a giant robot game is just not the same as a game with giant robots. Porting Virtual-On to LIVE Arcade doesn't count either.

So what happened? I don't believe there's anything noteworthy, if anything at all, on the horizon for some giant robot-on-robot, city-smashing, love. We came from Armored Core, MechAssault, Zone of the Enders, Steel Batallion (assuming you could afford it and find a place for the controller) to a complete vacuum. I'm not even picky! Give me the slow, plodding T-A-N-K-! style play of Mechassault or the fast-paced, anime-flavored combat of a Z.O.E. game and I'll be thrilled.

The technology currently on the table, or rather entertainment center, is particularly good at rendering metal armor, stones, and the accompanying lighting effects (according to Cliff "not Cliffy B" Bleszinski anyway). Hmm, good at rendering metal, stone, lighting ef-GIANT ROBOTS! You know how they say some formulas just scream out the answer? Like graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate screams...? Exactly. Well that's one of them.

Am I to believe that Activision, Transformers, and whatever re-skinned Armored Core From Software decides to poop out are all I have to choose from? What happened to all the people making these games? Will people abandon their WWII soldiers, modern day soldiers, and futuristic soldiers to shoot bad guys with a giant robot instead? I think they just might, especially if it's pretty.

Which brings me to Kojima. Leave Snake alone. you've said you were going to do it every game for nearly a decade, just do it. The story of Solid Snake has been as neatly tied up as once could expect from the trip through "WTF"-land that was the Metal Gear Solid series. The stealth genre is changing drastically to accommodate a market that, by and large, wants to shoot things, not hide from them. You're halfway there with letting another team take Metal Gear: Rising in another direction (assuming he stays "hands-off" as a producer). A huge "thank you" for that, by the way because, as I've mentioned twice before, I have to see how Raiden went from whiny wanna-be to kick-ass cybernetic ninja. Then, however, you cheated by creating the Naked Snake storyline to continue on with an almost identical character to Solid Snake acting out almost identical gameplay.

Just leave them all alone. You've go other series to work on. Give us another Zone of the Enders, because the world needs giant robot games. Kojima's name on a giant robot game could bring out quite the audience with the accolades MGS4 managed to capture. With one successful giant robot game comes others. With other giant robot games comes competition. With competition comes awesome giant robot games. And that's what we're working for here, folks.

Just let Snake die, he's old. Move on to some other series, or even give us a whole new one. Let the stealth genre settle down a little bit, not even Sam Fisher just sneaks around guys anymore. If technology evolves or you come up with an entirely new, truly revolutionary game mechanic feel free to do a reboot. In chronological order would be nice, since MGS3 managed to take place before MG, MG2, MGS, and MGS2. For the uninitiated, that means the 5th game (called the 3rd) in the series took place, chronologically, before the first game, which was made over 20 years ago. A modern take on the earliest games in the series (Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2) would be quite the moment for long-time fans too.

In the meantime, give us back our giant robot games. Oh, and Kojima-san? While we're talking about reboots and reviving franchises and what-not, remember Snatcher...?

The Box Art May be Bad But the Game Is Pretty Rad. God of War III Review.

Seriously, who was it that decided close-ups of characters' faces would make good box art this generation? GoW III is probably the worst example; it's not even his face, just one scowl-y eyeball! But I digress, on with the review.

I'm going to try and keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but in order to discuss the full range of Kratos' weapons and attacks I'm going to give some stuff away. My recommendation, if you wish to keep every aspect of the game a complete surprise, is to either skip this review altogether or jump to the summary and score at the end.

The game picks up exactly where 2 left off, with Kratos hitching a ride on the titan Gaia while she ascends mount Olympus to put an end to Zeus. You'll get a few minutes, and a handful of bad guys/blade-fodder, to re-acclimated yourself to the controls before hitting your first boss fight. This entire opening sequence is quite the site to behold as nearly all of it takes place while riding a titan that would make any Colossus say "daaaaaayyyuuuummm."

Although you don't spend the entire game riding, or otherwise interacting, with titans of various types as most early information on the game hinted, the more limited appearances of the titans keeps their gargantuan size and the spectacle of the fights they are part of from getting to the point of "yeah, seen it."

For those of you that have been wondering, yes, Kratos will lose all of his powers and have to start from scratch, just like God of War II and any Metroid game. Although I would have liked to see a game where I don't have to regain all the powers and abilities I gained twice already, I also understand the need to not start out with a sizable library of moves that would be hard to expand upon without becoming absurd. In short, I'll let it slide. Rebuilding Kratos offensive arsenal is also important as there are some significant changes to his moveset. The L1+O special attack has been replaced with a "combat grapple" that pulls Kratos to his enemies, allowing you to close distances quickly and thus keep the combos flowing. This is also one of two moves that are universal through all your weapons, a good thing as you will be picking up 4 different weapons for Kratos before the game is over. I use the term "different" lightly, however, as two of those weapons are nearly identical to your standard blades. It's hard to fault Sony Santa Monica for this misfire too much, considering the challenge inherent in making weapons that are different but still familiar and I suppose it's better to have weapons that aren't all that different rather than completely different ones no one wants to use. (*cough* God of War 1, Blade of Artemis *cough*) Still, seeing what was accomplished with the Nemean Cestus, the carbon-copy Claws of Hades and Nemesis Whip are a disappointment.

There are a few other changes in regards to the weapons. You no longer have separate magical attacks to upgrade, all magic attacks are tied directly to specific weapons. The Blades of Exile (which are exactly like the Blades of Chaos/Athena from the last two games) have a Spartan Phalanx magic attack that anyone who has seen 300 should be familiar with. The Claws of Hades will summon various spectres who will fire off some of their own attacks before disappearing. The Nemean Cestus has a ground-pounding are effect attack that will knock most enemies of their feet. The Nemesis Whip has an electrical attack very similar to Crono's Rage form God of War II. This works fairly well since the other move all weapons have in common is a L1+X combination that switches to, and attacks with, the next weapon in your possession.
Also a significant change for magic use is that, since these attacks are now directly linked to weapons, they upgrade along with the weapons and require no extra expenditure of red orbs. In general, every other level will increase the power of a weapon's magic attack, up to 3 levels. Upgrading the Claws of Hades increases the variety of souls Kratos can summon rather than your standard "More Powah!" type upgrade. There's even a trophy for those that use every type of soul in battle.

It is especially good that you no longer need to spend orbs upgrading both weapons and magic as Kratos has an entirely new edition to his arsenal: items. While magic is fired with the R2 button and depends on the currently equipped weapon, items are equipped with L2 and switched/fired with the face buttons. These items have their own, recharging, energy bar and can be used for combat as well as puzzle solving such as burning away obstructing bramble or running up certain walls. Like the weapons, these items can be upgraded with the key difference being that item upgrades are cheaper and only go up one level.

Even with these noticeable changes to the overall God of War combat, it remains as fast, fluid and brutal as ever. The controls, however, do make a stumble or two. For one, it's a little too easy to mix up doing a counterattack with Kratos damage-reflecting Golden Fleece (still with him from GoW II) since the button presses are identical to certain special attacks and the only difference being a fraction of a second on the timing. Secondly, the double-jumping and gliding seems to have some problems I dont' remember popping up in the previous entries. All too often I found myself looking at "You Are Dead" simply because the second jump didn't initialize or my holding X didn't result in an Icarus glide for some reason. From what I've seen, this results from a change to when you can make that second jump. Before you could jump once, and then throw a little mid-air hop into that anytime before Kratos hit the ground. In III, you have to hit that second jump immediately or nothing will happen when you press X. Stumbles, yes, but not something that's impossible to overcome.
Going back to the brutality, it has definitely been turned up a notch or two since the last game. There are entirely new ways to spill blood and organs that even have their own trophies (disembowel 3 centaurs, for example) but I'll let you discover those on your own. Suffice to say that God of War III absolutely earns it's M rating and probably isn't something you want your younger brother, or son, playing.

Also contributing to the M rating are the numerous bare breasts. True to the style of Greek mythology, any mythological enemy that is female in nature, be it medusa or harpy, will be completely bare-chested. You will also come across a young woman that, for some reason, decided to wear a shirt that only covers her shoulders. Much like the three females Kratos encounters in the highly-publicized "foursome" minigame. While an obvious attempt at attracting the horny teenage boys that populate the market and the unspoken part of most grown men, God of War III at least displays a sense of humor about the gratuitous nudity that falls somewhere along the lines of sitting in study hall and saying "Hey look, I drew boobs, hahahah."

Speaking of visuals, those found in God of War III can be absolutely stunning. It's often hard to believe that everything you're seeing is rendered in real-time by the game engine. From the opening moments to the roll of the credits, there are many acts of absolute graphical wizardry that Sony Santa Monica managed to pull off. The textures, for the most part, are super-high resolution, loaded with detail and special lighting effects and even outdo the almighty Uncharted 2 on multiple occasions. There are also some lighting effects so gorgeous to behold you may find yourself crying involuntarily. Best of all more than once I noticed that the framerate climbed beyond 30fps and seemed to reach a silky 60fps or at least close, so it's not only more detailed than the majority of games on any console but also just...buttah.

On the flip side, however, there are some places where the graphics seem to falter slightly. You'll occasionally see a low resolution texture or a really obvious polygon seam. Hephaestus comes to mind; of course, he's ugly in other ways. No wonder his wife was so...excited to see Kratos. However, these failings are far outweighed by the number of "Holy crap! That looks so amazing I think my eyes are bleeding!" moments. In fact, if the rest of the game wasn't so damn pretty, these occasional missteps would hardly be noticeable.

There are a few glitches worth mentioning as well. All too often I found myself running into, out of and around save points trying to get the "R1" prompt to appear so I could actually save my game. This also happened a few times with chests and other grabbable things that require the player to hit R1. It doesn't seem to be a matter of standing in just the right position as the game just not catching on to the the fact that you're supposed to be able to grab/open the object. There was also a particularly irritating glitch during the final boss fight where Kratos was supposed to land in a "cave" to continue the fight, but he just never appeared on the screen for me. I just sat there for a minute or two with my HUD fully displayed and no Kratos onscreen before I heard him grunt, was told "You Are Dead" and had to redo the entire fight that preceded this part.

Speaking of the final boss fight, I felt it was a little disappointing for a game, and especially trilogy, ending fight. It was just a little too easy and lacked that "epic" feel of several boss fights that took place earlier in the game, which I attribute to the cramped arena most of the fight takes place in. There is one notable stage of the battle, however, that will only feel cool to people that spent some time playing Street Fighter II, Cammy's stage in particular.

The rest of the game's level of challenge is right in line with what series fans have come to expect. I recommend veterans play on Titan (Hard) and everyone avoid Spartan (Easy). Chaos is the new Titan difficulty (just as Titan was the new God difficulty in GoW II) and is as expletive inspiring, controller smashingly difficult as Titan was. Spartan, on the other hand, is insultingly easy. I tried it for my attempts to claim the Platinum Trophy (a suprisingly easy task in GoW III) and found that there's no real reason to ever need block or dodge with how little damage enemy attacks do. Anyone that actually needs Easy mode probably isn't old enough to be playing the bare-handed-decapitation-including game anyway. Just steer clear, trust me.

The storyline that ties all of this sex and violence together is exactly what one should expect after the first two games. Lots of Kratos being angry and one character selfishly betraying another and/or changing sides for no real reason and so on. There are some philosophical, and likely controversial, bits towards the end that tie directly in to the final boss fight and also manage to show some growth in Kratos as a character. And I have to applaud the creators for finally giving Kratos some depth beyond "You pissed me off, now DIE!" The ending, however, is probably going to irritate you. It's very abrupt and manages to create a few questions right then and only answer about 3/4 of them. Despite multiple claims to the contrary, this may not be the last time we help, or at least see, Kratos rip someone's head of.

Overall, the game is absolutely outstanding, a definite reason to buy Playstation 3 and a worthy "conclusion" to the story of Kratos and his angry, blood-filled quest.

Score
Graphics - 9.5/10 - Most of the time the best looking game on any system with ridiculously detailed models, superlative lighting effects and butter-smooth framerates. Other times...not so much
Story - 8/10 - Exactly what you'd expect from God of War: a reason you're decapitating all these people. With a little dash of depth added to Kratos and a "Really!?" ending.
Gameplay - 10/10 - Fast, fluid and ferociously violent, this is the combat that made God of War the powerhouse franchise that it is. The few puzzles scattered throughout don't quite reach the scale or complexity of the previous game, but it's unlikely you'll even notice.
Replay/Extras - 8.5/10 - There are some really cool videos that are unlocked after you beat the game. I thought the one focusing on Quality Assurance was particularly good since most people still think those guys "just sit around and play games all day." There's also the unlockable bonus costumes and "Godly Posession" items that can be used on repeat playthroughs as well as the Challenge of Olympus and Arena options to mess around with. The game box claims there will be "add-on content," but we'll have to wait and see on that one.
Overall - 9/10 - Go buy it, you know you want to.

Peace Walker Sneaks Away from PSP Go

As further evidence to how poorly the PSP Go is doing, the newly announced Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker bundle will contain a PSP - 3000 rather than it's diminutive, and (inexplicably) more expensive, cousin: the PSP Go.

As detailed by the Playstation Blog, the new "Limited Edition Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP Entertainment Pack" will launch on June 8th, alongside the standalone game, and include a "Spirited Green" PSP system, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (on UMD, hmmm...) PSN voucher for free DLC, PSn voucher for free movie download, and a 2gig memory stick pro duo for a retail price of $199. For those of you that don't feel like doing math, that whole bundle clocks in at $50 less than a standalone PSP Go. Maybe the fact that you can get a system, game, extra content, movie and 2GB memory stick for $50 less has something to do with the fact that the Go has been dropped by several retailers. You think? Sony? Hello? Oh take your fingers out of your ears...

Low on PS3's? Not if Kratos has anything to say about it.

With IGN reporting this past Thursday (March 11th) that Sony was having trouble keeping up with production of Playstation 3, they have a new story today stating that production will be stepped up to coincide with the increase in demand they're hoping God of War III's release will produce.

Apparently the record-breaking sales of Playstation 3 that took place in December of '09, which saw 1.36 million consoles moved, are still having an impact on Sony's ability to keep retail supplies up. Sony claims this inability to keep up with production is a large contributing factor to the console's sales continually falling behind both the Wii and Xbox 360. The company also believes that forthcoming first-party software, such as Heavy Rain, God of War III, ModNation Racers and Gran Turismo 5, will help bolster system sales as supply is replenished.

The story gets a little fishy after this point, however. With Heavy Rain proving a powerhouse at retail, besting even the mighty BioShock 2 on PS3, it would seem there is already a need for increased production of PS3's to meet the, presumably, connected demand for systems. Sony seems to be more worried about ensuring there are enough systems on shelves for the release of God of War III than increasing supplies immediately. With GoW launching tomorrow, this calls forth the question, If they have the supply to meet the GoW-fueled increase in demand, why aren't they just being shipped to retail now? More importantly, if they have the ability it simply "up" console production, why didn't they do it when sales were being affected?

The most likely answer is that Playstation 3's really aren't in supply-emptying level of demand Sony wants you to believe. It does, however, make a good excuse for coming in third yet again, and looks good to their customers when they put in that "extra effort" to make sure there are enough consoles on shelves to let everyone gleefully indulge in excessive violence as the Ghost of Sparta.

What's a four-letter word for Playstation Motion Controller?

(click to "move" to a larger image)

In something of a follow-up to Monday's story about the then-unnamed Playstation Motion Controller, GDC has finally brought a name to the peripheral: Playstation Move.

Besides the official name, a few other details were unveiled at GDC. The overall design of the move remains unchanged from it's appearance at E3 2009. There is a large ball at the top that glows and can change colors for interaction with the Playstation Eye. Below the ball will be the standard Playstation face buttons (X, Square, Triangle and Circle) a PS button and an analog trigger on the back. The front of the controller also features a large button featuring the official "Playstation Move" logo:There is apparently a second part to the Move,dubbed the sub-controller, much like the Nunchuk to the Wii-mote. Unlike the Nunchuk, however, the sub-controller does not need to be plugged in to anything. The button setup for the sub-controller features an analog stick, with a D-pad, X and Circle buttons below. There is also an analog trigger on the back, identical to the main Move controller. For a better view of each component, you can check out IGN's gallery here.

Speaking of IGN, they got some hands-on time with the new peripherals as well as some vague information on the price: "under $100." Slightly more detail on the pricing can be found in an article at SFGate stating that both controllers are available in a bundle with the Playstation Eye for the sub-$100 price point. A good thing, too, since the Move requires the Eye to function. (Too bad it's not called the Hand, because that would mean it required Hand-Eye coordination.) In general, Playstation Move combines the technology of competing products Microsoft's Project Natal (itself a more advanced implementation of the technology behind the Playstation Eye) and the Wii's standard controller. Although, in regards to the latter, the Move has a noticeably greater degree of accuracy than even the Wii Motion-Plus according to cnet. This is particularly true in the Move's ability to accurately track depth and rotation.

As for the physical controller, IGN says the construction feels "solid" with a good weight and all buttons well within reach of the user's fingers. The exceptions to this are the subcontroller's D-pad, which can be difficult to reach at times, and the PS button, which is recessed and set apart intentionally to prevent accidental presses.

With so much focus on the Move controller the camera-tracking aspect of the setup often gets lost, increase the inevitable comparison to the Wii-mote. This is somewhat unfortunate since the PS3's boasts considerably more processing horsepower to work with, granting not only HD visuals, but true 1-to-1 motion tracking capability. This creates the potential for genuinely new mechanics and gameplay simply not possible on the Wii. All the fancy specifications and potential in the world doesn't count for anything without software to back it up, however.

Fortunately, IGN reports that 36 developers have pledged support for Move:

505 Games U.S.
Activision Publishing, Inc.
AQ INTERACTIVE Inc.
ARC SYSTEMS WORK CO.,LTD
ATLUS Co., LTD.
Bigben Interactive
CAPCOM CO., LTD.
CCP
Crave Entertainment
CYBERFRONT Corporation
Disney Interactive Studios
Electronic Arts Inc.
FromSoftware, Inc.
Game Republic, Inc.
GUST CO., LTD.
HUDSON SOFT CO., LTD.
IREM SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INC.
Koei Co., Ltd.
Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.
Majesco Entertainment
Marvelous Entertainment Inc.
NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.
ONGAKUKAN Co., Ltd.
Oxygen Games
PAON CORPORATION
Q Entertainment Inc.
Q-GAMES, LTD.
SEGA CORPORATION
Sony Online Entertainment
Spike Co., Ltd.
SQUARE ENIX GROUP
TECMO, LTD.
THQ Inc.
UBISOFT
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Zoo Entertainment, Inc.

It's important to remember that just because a company has pledged support does not mean that they will develop games specifically for the peripheral, they may just include optional functionality in a game, or do a remake similar to the Wii version of Resident Evil 4.

A few titles were on display at GDC to show off some of Move's functions. The Shoot is basically a light gun game with the Move controller acting as the gun (pull the trigger to...pull the trigger) and the Eye tracking your movements and translating them to your character, i.e. you duck, he ducks. The big catch with the game being that you're filming movies rather than engaging in "actual" combat (The Shoot = double entendre anyone?) and your lives are actually takes.

Also on display was Wii Sports Resort clone Sports Championship. While nearly identical to the Nintendo title, Sports Championship also goes a long way towards illustrating teh difference in accuracy between the Move and the Wii-mote. Whereas the Wii-mote is based on use of accelerometers, the Move uses motion tracking. So when you're say, swordfighting (and using the second controller as a shield), you can't fake a powerful swing with a simple flick of the wrist, you actually have to make a big swing. The same goes for tennis based games, no quick wrist-flick for his speed hits or serves, you're going to need to actually put some power into those. The game even recognizes when the controller is behind your back.

Speaking of Wii software comparisons, another demo on show was SOCOM 4, said to play much like Wii title Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The subcontroller and it's analog stick handle movement and cover (via the trigger) with the main controller used for aiming and shooting. SOCOM wasn't designed around the Move, however, the funcionality was patched in. Because of this, the game is a better example of what other companies may do with existing titles than what Move software is capable of.

Another title that recently had Move functionality patched in was EyePet. When it was revealed at E3 last year, EyePet used the Eye exclusively, showing what is saw on your TV (most likely you in your living room) with the addition of a ridiculously cute monkey-like pet rendered in the middle of everything.

(click for larger adorableness)

The eye functionality is still there, and is still the primary focus, but now certain interactions -- such as making bubbles with a bubble wand or dumping cookies into a bowl -- will be accomplished via the Move. The real draw here is still the way the Eye creates the illusion of interacting with the pet and, of course, the absurd level of cuteness. While the implementation of Move appears superfluous at this point, there is potential for some interesting ways for it to interact with your EyePet.

For more in-depth coverage on everything Playstation Move, you can check out IGN's coverage here.

Before we end the article, I'd like to throw out a personal opinion:

As cool as I think the Move could be (I'd love to try some sword fighting where I'm actually...sword fighting) I don't know what Sony thinks it's going to accomplish. They're not going to draw any market share away form the Wii, they're just not.
The Wii's biggest audience is comprised of people that don't generally play video games -- your parents, your grandparents, your girlfriend -- with the other segment being the hardcore Nintendo fans who bought the Wii just to play the handful of franchises actually worthy of the title "video game:" Mario, Zelda, Metroid.
Neither one of these groups are going to find anything of interest in the Move. The investment is far too steep for the first group, and the second group only cares about being able to play first-party Nintendo games.
The only way I see this accomplishing anything is the exceptionally rare scenario of "Gee mom/grandma/honey if you/we spend an extra $200 for the PS3 and Move you can play games just like on the Wii and I can still play 'real' games."
Yeah, good luck with that Sony. Remind me again, how well has the Eye sold? You know, that camera peripheral that's also required for Move? I bought your system for the AAA games like Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 1 and 2, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet and Heavy Rain that I couldn't get anywhere else, stop making me blush with these "me too" antics.

/rant
/article

Vanquish = Gears on (Japanese) Speed?

Well if this is the direction shooters are going to start taking, I may need to get my design molded into something playable real soon. (Come on Activision, where are those details? Help me out here.)

Shinji Mikami and his Platinum Games studio are ready to tweak yet another genre with their upcoming title, Vanquish, which has its very own preview over at 1up.com. Despite early comparisons to Gamecube dud P.N.03, likely due to the main characters suit more than anything, the game seems to have more in common with Epic's Gears of War games. Vanquish mostly sticks to the "stop 'n pop" style that Gears birthed, with a few uniquely Japanese additions.

What Zone of the Enders is to Armored Core, Vanquish looks to be to Gears of War. Namely: very Japanese in art direction and a a few notches up in terms of combat speed, notches that include the number of projectiles on-screen at once. Making the transfer from Gears is the cover system, icons to signigy environmental interaction, rolling between cover points, and reviving fallen allies. New, QTE's for runnign up giant spider's arms before taking out their kneecaps, assorted melee attacks such as uppercuts, acrobatic flips, bullet time and (ironically after the last one) the aforementioned boost to overall combat speed. Although, no matter what, it will still be a step down in speed from Platinum Games' frenetic last title: Bayonetta.

Comparisons aside, there are a few juicy tidbits of information found within 1up's preview. As with most of Mikami's games, Vanquish will focus entirely on single-player. The game apparently takes place mostly on a space station where a battle rages on between US and Russian military forces. Main character, Sam, is a DARPA employee that owes most of his ability (including combat-powerslide, I kid you not) to the "Augmented Reality Suit" that is of his own design, at least in part, as well as his transforming gun. (No, not that one.) The overall speed was elaborated on by breaking the game down to the player taking cover, firing a few shots, then moving to new cover as quickly as possible. By comparison, most cover-based shooters reward the player for staying behind cover and taking out each enemy from that position, rarely requiring the player to move before that. Players that master the new speed and over-the-top moves will be rewarded by the "Mission Stats" screen at the conclusion of each...mission, duh.

Aside from the fact that there will be weapon upgrades, such as a "+10 Damage," there was little else detailing Vanquish. Given the games pedigree, however, it looks like one to watch. Check out the full 1up.com article to see the subdued enthusiasm yourself.

Rate Your Vengeance! God of War III Reviews are in.

The game may not have dropped yet (although you can get some serious hands-on time if you happen to be in the San Francisco area) but the reviews are everywhere. God of War III can now be considered a hit amongst gaming critics. A stop at any one of you favorite gaming sites will likely find you at a review for the game, but you're already here, right? 1up.com, IGN and Europe-based CVG all have fairly level-headed reviews that, in general, seem to agree: God of War III is awesome. Fun side note, if you have a certain amount of time you need/want to fill by reading the review, CVG has the shortest review, followed by 1up and IGN definitely has the longest.

Note that I said "in general" they seem to agree. IGN still seems to prefer GoW II, with the other two sites granting slight favor to the most recent entry. In regards to the graphics, while they all seem to agree that God of War III is absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous at times, both IGN and CVG claim that the game can range from that to pretty good. 1up, on the other hand said "the visuals almost make it worth playing on their own." The same can be said for the story with regards to how well and coherent it is as well as how it compares to the previous entries in the series. Although from the sounds of it, the ending seems to be quite the dividing factor.

The best part of all these divided opinions, though, is that they are a great excuse to play the game and see for yourself. So...you know...get on that.

Some Cheers, Some Tears, Mostly Huh?'s

Those of you interested in the status of your favorite "is it ever actually coming out!?" game can check out the latest "Life Support" article over at IGN.

This lists the general status of several titles whose development status has remained amazingly questionable, for years in some cases. (Yes, Duke Nukem Forever is still on there, 13 years and counting!)

There is one interesting tidbit for readers of Higher Tech, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has had it's status bumped up to stable. However, no new details have emerged since HT last covered the game, so I'm not sure what caused the slight status promotion. But feel free to check everything out at the link above.

"Wand" Afterall?

While the Playstation Motion Controller has yet to receive an official name, it looks like the unnofficial "Arc" moniker may have just been thrown out.

According to a story at CVG, a Microsoft-held patent on the name Arc for PC accessories has killed any possibility of that becoming the name for Sony's forthcoming controller. Although, with the controller still having no official name and Arc being more of a codename for developers, the likelihood of this becoming a real issue is about the same as Kratos challenging his opponent to a dance-off. So the search for a name for the Playstation...thingy continues. Let's just hope they don't go with that other, shinier codename.

Adding Molecules to the Playstation

(click to feel even bigger love)

In a move reminiscent of their purchase of Naughty Dog in 2001, Sony Computer Entertainment has purchased LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule. Although it may seem kind of odd to purchase a company with only one title to it's credit, when that one title is as successful and beloved (by both players and developers) as LittleBigPlanet, purchasing early on is a pretty safe investment.

Blood-smeared Impressions, God of War 3.

(click for larger scowl)

In case you missed it this past Thursday, the God of War Demo was released on the Playstation Store. This is the same demo that was shown at least year's E3, but for the majority of us this was the first chance to play, so the level of asskickery contained within suffered no loss of awesomeness. Also good news: according to the Playstation Blog God of War III has gone gold. But on to the demo impressions!

This is God of War. Chances are pretty good that if you're reading this you're familiar with the first two games. If not, well there's now an easy way to solve that. Regardless, this is one of the most revered titles in over-the-top action games (think Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta and you'll get the idea) and with good reason. Even better, if you decided to try and stave of your hunger for GoW III by partaking in the outstandingly mediocre Dante's Inferno, (sigh, and I had such high hopes...) then Kratos' gloriously violent escapades will just seem that much more impressive by comparison. In fact, to remind you not only of how Kratos came to be embroiled in the circumstances of God of War III, but also to remind you how far past 11 he pushes the "badass-o-meter" let's have a look at IGN's handy video "God of War in 5 Minutes (Sort of)" which even includes the side/in-between story from the PSP entry, Chains of Olympus.

God of War Collection PlayStation 3 Video - God of War in Five Minutes

As awesome as that looked, actually playing the games is so much more satisfying. So let me remind you again that this doesn't require backwards compatibility or for you to still have a PS2 lying around.

Alright, now I promise I'm actually going to talk about the demo, and try to avoid spoiling anything nifty while doing so. As I mentioned earlier, this is the exact same demo shown at 2009's E3, so you should be fairly familiar with its content. You start off slicing, stabbing and otherwise maiming your way through some zombie-like soldiers and reacquainting yourself with Kratos' controls. Speaking of which, there are some slight differences from the last time you handled the Ghost of Sparta. The basics are still the same, Square is light attack, Triangle heavy, X jumps and Circle grabs, so the only real differences affect weapon and "magic" switching. You no longer select your desired magic with the D-pad and fire it off with L2. Now, holding down L2 equips whatever magic you used last, and you change between them by pressing the appropriate buttons (which also fire the magic's attack) while holding L2. By default, L2 pulls out your Bow (apparently not Typhon's Bane, though it serves the same basic purpose) with a change to Helios' head (the only other "magic" you pick up during the demo) accomplished by tapping R1. As mentioned earlier, using Helios' head makes that the default magic (L2), switching back to your Bow requires the player to press Square. This setup works quite well in the demo, and unless Kratos picks up an absurd amount of magical attacks, should prove effective throughout the entire game.

The previous selection method for magic, the D-pad, now changes Kratos equipped main weapon on the fly. During the demo the only other weapon Kratos has access to are the Cestus and well...they're pretty rad. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I never found myself giving much time to the other weapons in God of War I or II. The Cestus, on the other hand, are a lot of fun and I even found myself favoring them over the blades by my third playthrough of the demo. Acting mostly as gigantic metal boxing gloves in the shape of lion heads, the force of the Cestus can stun multiple enemies and throws whoever it strikes backwards. This causes damage to any enemies enemies struck by your primary victim. The ground-pounding of the heavier attacks will even launch just about every enemy around you into the air. Each strikes from the Cestus also pause time, very briefly, but this seems to be more for visual effect than any combat advantage. Essentially, the more limited range of the Cestus is not as great a detriment compared to the standard Blades as it was for supplemental weapons of games past. In fact, the Cestus even have extendable chains similar to Athena's blades, but their use is limited to special moves (still accomplished by a combination of block -- L1 -- and an attack button). It's also worth mentioning that, unlike heavy weapons of previous games such as the Barbarian's Hammer, Kratos can still dodge while using the Cestus. However, the move becomes a hop rather than a roll and the distance is cut down to about 75% of what it is while using the Blades.

There's some fun new additions to combat itself, mostly in the form of the grabs and quick-time events. In Krato's third outing, grabbing an enemy looks like it will have more uses than just ending them quickly. The method of execution that follows a grab is still dependent on the button press that follows (decapitate with square, tear in half with triangle, etc.) but you can also turn that enemy into a rather formidable weapon. Going beyond the previous games where you could throw most standard enemies you grabbed at another, you can now pick up your captive and run around the screen using the poor soul as a combination shield/battering ram. This is quite the effective attack and there's one section of the demo where you can lay waste to an entire squad of soldiers using only one of their comrades. So what you do with your grabbed enemy now requires a little more thought but can potentially have a significant reward. One of the smaller additions to God of War's combat actually requires the player to not do very well. It's possible for Kratos to be overpowered by a large enough force of enemies that will then pile on top of him in a kind of evil dogpile. Escaping is a simple matter of shaking the left stick back and forth and throws back every enemy involved. It's worth letting yourself get overwhelmed by enemies in this way at least once just to see the move in action.

Speaking of choices, there's one particular are of the demo that I want to talk about for a moment. Those of you that remember the E3 demo videos might recall the point at which Kratos reaches Helios' broken body only to find it protected by a phalanx of skeletal soldiers with very large shields. The Blades of Athena are completely impotent against this defense. What was most often shown in the demo was Kratos climbing aboard a Cyclops (using the improved quicktime interface that I will address shortly) and taking control of the beast in order to break apart the phalanx. This is not your only choice for overcoming the dome of shields however. The raw blunt force of the Cestus can also overpower the shields. So it's up to the player whether or not he uses the Cestus or bat at the defenses with the blades and prompt the cyclops to show up. Even if you choose the Cestus, the Cyclops will show up eventually so you can still climb atop the it and crush the enemies below...until you decide to rip the cyclops' eyeball out and kill it that is.

As for the quicktime events, the on-screen has improved considerably. The required button press is now located on the corresponding side of the screen -- X on bottom, Triangle on top, and so on -- so that you can actually concentrate on the action your button presses are performing without having to focus your attention on the symbol at the center of the screen. What's the point of having over-the-top violence if you can't actually watch and enjoy it, am I right? Especially since the new graphics engine Sony Santa Monica has come up with shows the effects of your attacks in real time. The most dramatic of these being "zipper tech" which allows for an "accurate" portrayal of organs spilling out when you've sliced an enemy open. Speaking of which, the graphics are exactly what you would expect from God of War: gorgeous. Four years into it's lifecycle the PS3 is really showing it's graphical muscle.

Once you've killed the soldiers, disemboweled the centaur, maimed the chimera, de-eyed the cyclops and decapitated Helios you'll get a chance to try vertical flight sequence that requires some fairly quick thinking to make through unscathed while you dodge beams and falling debris while you pilot Kratos straight up a vertical shaft. Once this sequence is completed the demo ends, all too soon I might add.

From the impressions the demo left, it looks like God of War III is well on its way to being as much of an improvement over II as that game was over the original. And that's really saying something.

Bungie is developing for Playstation 3...maybe. Also, an interview with the team behind Halo:Reach

In a brief, but potentially important, article from our brothers across the pond at CVG, some new light may have been shed on Bungie's post-Microsoft plans.

Having severed ties with Microsoft in 2007, the rumor factories immediately started spitting out stories of new titles in development for Sony's system. With the hugely successful Halo series as well as gaming classic Marathon games, Sony fans (who may very well have been claiming that "Halo sux0rz!" mere moments before the announcement) have good reason to be excited about the possibility. So it's good news that, while Bungie hasn't confirmed any rumors of creating a new IP for Playstation 3, they haven't denied it either.

In fact, when CVG fired the question point-blank at Bungie community boss Brian Jarrard he had this to say:

"I mean, I think our whole future's kind of undefined right now and it's definitely not something we're going to be comfortable getting into too much detail about.
We've had another team internally [other than those making Reach] for quite a while now - they've been working on the genesis of what will become our next big thing.
It's a little premature to get into specifics, but you know I think we have a really good mix of old blood and new blood in the studio."

Let's hope that if Bungie does bring something new to the PS3 it will bring the goodness (story, characters...well most of them, frantic gameplay, even more frantic multiplayer) and the innovative (the Forge) but leave the wackness behind (poor, repetitive level design).

Speaking of Halo, if you want to check out an interview between CVG and certain members of the Halo:Reach team (creative director Marcus Lehto and the previously mentioned Brian Jarrard) you can head right over here.

God of War 3 to install only ass-kickingness, not data

(click to Spartan-size)

While the ridiculous debate over whether the unreleased God of War 3 will surpass the current king of console graphics, Uncharted 2, rages on there is one thing that both games will have in common: a lack of mandatory hard drive install.
As stated by Sony Santa Monica director of technology, Christer Ericson, via his twitter account: "God of War 3 does NOT do a HD install. The 5MB listed on box back is for save game only." This should come as a huge relief to those that started up smoking because of Metal Gear Solid 4 or just found themselves bored after the third read through of Devil May Cry 4's backstory.
Whether or not this means that God of War 3 will still manage to be devoid of load times like Uncharted 2 remains to be seen and will likely have to wait until the game's actual release. Of course, it could head in the same direction that this guy took the graphical debate and use screenshots, and even concept art, with almost nothing in common to draw conclusions that have no basis on anything other than what game the author prefers. How would you use screenshots to compare load times? I don't know, how do you compare the graphical detail in the main character's faces when one screenshot isn't close enough to show any detail? Even better, how do you compare the graphical detail in an enemy's hands when one of the screenshots doesn't show the enemy's hands?
Ah the internet, allowing opinion to pass itself off as fact ever since its invention by Al Gore...

And Behind Door #1? It's More RAM! (Applause)

Looks like the Playstation 3 is giving developers a gift: more RAM.
For those of you inexperienced in the world of modern console gaming, they actually have a lot more in common with PC's than you might think, as in: they have their own Operating Systems. Sony's PS3 had an OS guilty of more memory-hogging than any other OS around, eating up around 120MB of RAM for operation. Since the OS is always running in the background (just like Windows) and this RAM usage was spread across both the system and video ram, this was quite the inconvenience for developers that are always trying to squeeze out as much usable RAM as they can. This abundance in OS size is even more apparent when compared to the the Xbox 360's 32MB OS footprint. What? You mean someone makes an operating system even more bloated than one of Microsoft's? GASP!
The reason for this large initial footprint actually lies in the regular firmware updates the PS3 uses to add new features, and yes, that includes the beloved in-game XMB. With Sony have no definitive idea of what the memory requirements would be for the OS since they likewise had no definitive idea for the features of the OS, they essentially put a big "Reserved" sign on several chunks of RAM. The reason being that if player's asked for a new feature but the memory requirements were higher than what was currently allocated to the OS, it would be impossible to implement that feature as raising the ceiling on the Operating System's RAM allotment would break any game that utilized the newly confiscated memory.
As the PS3's life cycle went on, Sony was able to lock down a more efficient use of RAM and the OS footprint was cut down to 96MB. Even further down the road, bringing us to the present, the PS3's OS is down to a slim 50MB, giving an extra 70MB to developers. Before you go getting all excited over new games that will put Uncharted 2 to shame, know that this extra RAM isn't likely to have a very noticeable impact. Since OS memory was saved by making things like in-game music optional, what we'll likely see is more games implementing such features. That or slightly prettier textures or lighting. So this gift is more of a stocking stuffer than something you'd find wrapped under the tree, but it's still better than coal, right? Is it too late/early to be making Christmas analogies?

Persona 3, only smaller...but actually bigger.

Ever heard of Persona? Apparently it's quite popular among JRPG fans. Well one of the latter entries in the series is making it's way to the PSP with a new remix. Notice I said "latter" entry, not the latest one, since the game we're dealing with here is the 2+ year old (released August 2007) Persona 3, not the 1+ year old (released December 2008) Persona 4.
I'm not sure whether you should be scratching your head that they didn't go with the latest title, or smiling because this means Atlus will probably port P4 to the PSP sometime next year, giving you two portable Personas instead of one. Questions of age aside, let's get into the details of what make this new edition a worthwhile port.
The new portable version (dubbed...wait for it: Persona 3 Portable) keeps everything from the original intact, the day/night cycle of dungeon crawling combat and high-school sim aspects like homework and dating (Japanese RPG, remember) but also adds a whole new way to play through the reportedly 100+ hour game, as a girl (seen in the boxart above, next to the "standard" male protagonist). Apparently this new aspect of the game opens up new events and relationship possibilities, obviously, in addition to making it a potentially 200+ hour game. The Playstation Blog also claims this will add a "fresh new perspective," which to me says everyone refers to you as "her" and "she" instead of "he" and "him" but I guess I should give Atlus some credit towards making some genuinely worthwhile changes.
The move to portable has also brought some changes to the controls and gameplay like one-button shortcuts in the menus, faster load times and "streamlined" equipment changes for your team. The difficulty options have also increased in number form 2 to 5. Although how much this actually affects the difficulty -- i.e. is it actually harder/easier or are there just more degrees added to the current difficulty -- remains to be seen. Most significant of all, however, is that you can now control each member of your team directly in the faux suicide-centric combat rather than leaving it up to the game's AI. This last aspect seems like the largest reason to purchase Persona 3 again, (first-timers don't really have an excuse not to) even more so than the aforementioned ability to play as a girl.
And for all you PSPGo owner's, yes it will be available as a download from the Playstation Store when the game releases July 6th of this year.

Scarf down some Fat Princess Updates.

Apparently there's still a lot of people playing Fat Princess. Since it always seems to take me awhile to find a game with more than 5 people in it, I'm not sure I entirely believe this claim. But then, the Playstation Blog would never exaggerate the popularity of one of their platform's exclusive titles, would they?
Of course, however many people are actually playing Fat Princess, they obviously love this game...maybe a little too much.

You can find the rest of the pics from this little escapade at the oddly-titled Asian School Boy. But on to the important stuff. There's a new patch coming for Fat Princess today, January 21st. The patch, 1.04 correct the All-Time and Monthly leaderboard display for Invasion and Team Deathmatch modes. The patch doesn't address the warrior shield bug, (which allows the warrior to keep his shield up and increase movement speed while carrying the princess) but Titan promises they are aware of it (thanks to comment-happy players) and will have it fixed for the next patch. Most importantly, it comes with a new map! A city similar in scope and look to the previously released New Pork, the new map is called Brownie Town. So gather up your little cartoon friends and beat each other into bloody stains on the ground of this new arena. I'll see you there.

Survive the Horror of Exaggeration in Demon's Souls

If you've heard of PS3 sleeper hit Demon's Souls, you've heard how hard it is. Well in the opinion of Bitmob writer Tony Capri, this is a problem. In the article, which can be found at the link above, Capri writes about how the emphasis on the game's difficulty is driving potential customers away.

According to Capri, while the game is challenging, it should be viewed as more of a survival-horror title with RPG elements rather than a straightforward RPG, putting player expectation of difficulty in a more accurate place. Considering the title, and overall look of the game's enemies and even world, this doesn't seem like a particularly large leap to make.

click to gain a +15 to size

Since character stamina is used to perform any action in combat, attacking, rolling, or even blocking, and has a finite supply, use should be treated with the same reservation as ammunition in more traditional survivor-horror titles like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Along these same lines are the fact that the player cannot become an omnipotent warrior capable of decimating lower level enemies by leveling up. Instead, every enemy poses a considerable threat at all times throughout the game. This is, again, more akin to a survival horror title, where a standard zombie in Resident Evil is just as potentially dangerous in the last hour of play as it was in the first. Even the limiting inventory systems common to most survival horror titles can be likened to the weight limits placed on character equipment. In fact, the system in Demon's Souls is actually more forgiving. Carrying too much weight will cut down the speed of your character's actions, and in extreme cases, the ability to perform them at all, but it will never leave you completely defenseless like running out of ammunition in a traditional survival horror title can.
So gamers everywhere should stop thinking of Demon's Souls s an RPG that caters exclusively to the "hardcore" and instead compare it to the "realistic" challenge of a surviving an onslaught of zombies or other nightmarish creatures. After all, the game, like many others, deals with a horde of monsters that blights the land and threatens the very human race. A horde that has devoured every hero that has challenged it before you. The operative difference between Demon's Souls and other games that take this narrative is that your hero is not an invincible superhuman cracking one-liners as they clear out the monsterous plague that was completely unstoppable up until said hero's arrival, and with a seemingly miniscule level of effort. Rather, your character is just like every other would-be hero in the world, taking up the challenge and hoping to survive the ordeal through the same attributes the player must display: quick thinking and superior tactics.
But is this supposedly undeserved label of difficulty the gaming media has placed upon Demon's Souls truly having an adverse affect on its sales? In my experience, yes. Recently taking my girlfriend's advice to "stop spending all [my] time worrying about bills and get something for [myself]" I decided to pick up a new game. While in the store I considered Demon's Souls briefly before moving on to Batman: Arkham Asylum; choosing to eschew the extreme frustration every review of Demon's Souls told me to expect (in fact, IGN's review gives incite into little else) for the landmark of a comic book game that doesn't suck. Was I disappointed by Batman? Like pretty much everyone else: absolutely not. However that doesn't change the fact that I potentially missed out on a game I could have enjoyed even more, and at the very least missed out on another fantastic game...for now at least. So player's unsure of whether or not they want to take on the highly publicized difficulty of Demon's Souls, or simply not into RPG's, may try thinking of it as something other than your average adventure RPG and more like a survival horror title cooked in a delicious RPG glaze.

All Beyond Good & Evil fans: join me in saying "Hip-hip-huh?"

So apparently Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still in development, according to IGN and Ubisoft. This is stark contrast to comments made by Ubisoft president, Laurent Detoc, last July which gave the feeling BG&E2 had been put on indefinite hold or scrapped altogether.

At the time, Detoc said: "Whether or not it comes out remains to be seen anyway, but we didn't want to abandon that IP because it has a cache and authenticity about it," Detoc said at the time. "There's something very pure about that game and it's too bad that we were not able to build it as an IP at the time."

Wait...you're telling me that you're company is continuing to spend time and money on developing a game that you're not even sure will be released. Yeah, sure, that makes sense...to a crazy person. Although it's better than the alternative of the game being scrapped altogether.

So I'm not sure who these sources at Ubisoft are, but I wish they'd been a little more detailed. Anyways, enjoy the original teaser video (confirmed as being in-game by Ubisoft) as well as leaked footage that is, for some reason, still debated as to whether or not it's in-game, actually BG&E2, or even real at all. Courtesy of those crazy bastards at IGN.

For those of you that don't care because you didn't play the first game (which was the majority of you or the sequel wouldn't be on such shaky ground): the biggest, fattest "Shame on you" I can muster. Because you missed out on an absolutely FANTASTIC game. And since it came out on Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox AND PC I recommend you go pick it up right now and play it. Chances are you have one of those systems around, or a backwards compatible successor, if you're even at this site in the first place. Go. No, don't waste time watching these videos, GO! NOW!

Teaser

Beyond Good & Evil 2 at IGN.com

Leaked Footage

Beyond Good & Evil 2 at IGN.com

I agree with the choice but...

Although I've recently been stating that IGN's articles -- and writing in general -- seem to be getting progressively more immature, this video for game of the year (after the jump) completely reverses that opinion. And if you have to ask, yes, that was sarcasm.

More Videos at IGN.com

Dark Void, Murky Combat.

click to biggerize

So the Dark Void demo is finally out and I have to say: I think they could have picked a better section of the game to show off. The flight combat could use some work, so having a demo that focuses almost entirely on that -- forgoing the "vertical cover system" we've heard so much about altogether -- is probably not the best first impression you want to make. On the same subject of odd choices, as talented a voice actor as Nolan North is, applying the same exact voice as Nathan Drake to a main character, William Augustus Grey, that bears a noticeable resemblance to said fortune hunter is a little distracting. But then, 360 gamers don't really have to worry about that. Hm...
Since I've mentioned the air combat already, let's get into that first. The demo tasks you wiht learning the basics of flight, shooting some stationary targets and taking down 3 Watcher flying saucers before moving on to some ground combat...and is quite short. Flying around and shooting at stationary targets works just fine, it's when you've got moving targets that combat gets a bit uncooperative. At all times while flying you have jetpack mounted machine guns and a crosshair to aim them with. You can press L2 to face the nearest enemy, however that only points the camera in that direction, not your character or your crosshairs. What this means is that, if your enemy's behind you, your view will be of the opposite side that your character, and thus your crosshair, is facing and you must maneuver that crosshair into view WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SEE IT. As you've probably guessed, this can be quite disorienting. If you're not going to have a lock-on system (which I think could speed up the relatively slow pace of aerial combat, personally, but that's beside the point) your character should at least swing around to the direction the camera is facing so that the player can see what he's aiming at.
Questionable control decisions aside, the air combat looks like it could get old quite fast. Getting in close, although still far enough away to make me say "WTF?" allows the player to press Circle and latch on to the enemy flying saucer, triggering a minigame to hijack control of the vehicle. This minigame consists of the following pattern: wait for gun to charge, dodge left/right, hold circle, dodge left/right, and repeat. Occasionally the pilot will put the saucer into a corkscrew to try and shake you off, but if you manage to press Square or Triangle (whichever the onscreen prompt calls for) at least 2 or 3 times, you're not going to fall off. Since flying around and shooting down the enemy flying saucers is nowhere near as fast as hijacking and then abandoning the vehicle, this could get old fast. Which brings up another point, piloting a flying saucer is nowhere near as fun, or effective as sticking to your jetpack. But this is a demo, so I'll save my final judgment for the full game in case there's some other gameplay in store to spice up these sections.
On the ground combat is...serviceable. Those of you familiar with Nathan Drake's adventures will find a control scheme that is identical save for the reversal of the take cover and melee buttons. Speaking of melee, you can only use a melee attack if there's an enemy near enough to use it on. An interesting design choice that is nonetheless effective. I theorize that this is to prevent players from accidentally entering a melee animation that would leave them open to getting shot, but I can't say for sure. That said, I found that, in the demo at least, you could just run up to any enemy and melee them to death. They don't seem to have any type of defense against it and weren't very good at preventing me from getting close enough -- even on the "Hardcore" difficulty setting -- to use it either. As far as weapons, you can carry any two, plus grenades, (although your default weapon in the demo seemed to be the most effective overall) and switch between them by pressing any direction on the D-pad. Lastly, although I've made a few comparisons to the Uncharted games, the ground combat in Dark Void just wasn't as fast, fluid, or fun. But again, this is just a demo and I didn't get to try out the "vertical" variation.
All in all, I wasn't too impressed with the Dark Void demo, but here's to hoping the rest of the game will prove to be worthy of Geek God, Nikola Tesla.