Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars First Videos

I’m gonna put this as delicately as I can. The screenshots for GTA: Chinatown Wars looked like ass. It’s not really the game’s fault, though. Screenshots for DS games (especially 3D ones) usually look terrible as they’ve been blown up and highlight the detail limitations of the hardware. And yet, when I saw the game in motion a few weeks ago, it looked fan-flippin-tastic! Well, now you too get the chance to see it in living color. Please note how not-ass it looks.

The other video that’s been released isn’t really too helpful in terms of seeing gameplay, but it does give you a sense of the cutscene aesthetic. Also Ghostface and MF Doom drop the mic on this one.

FEAR 2 Review (360)

The first FEAR taught me to be very frightened of little girls. The second FEAR has taught me that those little girls often grown up to be weird naked women of pure evil. I guess that’s a good lesson to learn.

FEAR 2 kicks off 30 minutes before the end of FEAR 1, but from the perspective of Michael Beckett, a soldier that’s been sent into Armacham Technologies to rescue the president of that company from the aforementioned little girl, Alma. The plot of FEAR is unbelievably complicated, and unless you were willing to dig around and listen to the voice recordings in the first game, you probably won’t know what the heck is going on when FEAR 2 begins. Thankfully the developers have scattered a lot more “intel” throughout the levels to help fill in the blanks. It’s still very involved, with psychic babies, clone armies and ninjas with lightweight skeletons, but you should get the gist by the end of the 10-15 hour-long campaign.

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Stoked Big Bails Video

Any snowboarding game worth its weight in fake snow needs to have spectacular wipeouts along with huge runs and big jumps. Judging by the video above, Destineer’s new title Stoked covers these basic requirements in spades. Check out the big bails and enjoy the energizing sounds of power punk. 

Stoked hit stores on the 24th this month.

MLB 09 The Show Hands-on Preview (PS3)

By this time next week, MLB 09 The Show will be on the shelves. So, I wanted to take a few moments to discuss a mode in the game that I’m slowly falling in deep like with.  Namely, The Road to the Show, which is frustrating and difficult and made me grumble at first.  But I kept thinking about the game and realized how much like real baseball it really was. Suddenly, the learning curve made sense and load times between innings and plays didn’t seem as long. I had to think about what I was doing, about the situation, remember to be patient at the plate and practice, practice, practice; and when I did, I was rewarded.

Getting to that place of reward isn’t easy. You are stymied once and again as you perfect your timing and learn to read the ball out of a pitcher’s hand. When you do start to understand and time things correctly, you hit the ball with more authority. The odd hit will come. Like hitting, fielding and pitching can cause groans too. Balls you think you should have in the field slip by, and pitches you think you should make drift out of the zone.

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Puzzle Quest: Galactrix Review (DS)

In some way it seemed that a lot of dreams were hinging on the inevitable success of Puzzle Quest: Glactrix. I, for one, had an extremely positive impression of the game across a number of previews, but it wasn’t until I finally sat down with the final build on the DS that I began to wish for more. Or, at least, more focus. Because the sad truth of the matter is—and I believe this is largely a hardware-specific foible—the game makes it impossible to keep on track thanks to a bevy of load screens, save screens, and other time-consuming transitions that occur throughout the course of gameplay.

Bare in mind, I’m only talking about the DS version of the game here.

Otherwise, Galactrix serves up one incredibly tight repurposing of the bejeweled-style gameplay that made the first outing so fantastic. By combining the casual (rune-matching) with the hardcore (RPG management), Intelligent Interactive serves up the same batch of gaming crack that we were so fondly surprised with nearly two years ago. Except this time the batch is a bit headier and not nearly as speedy.

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Quake Live Public Beta Drops, Internets Mobilize

Quake Live, the innovative, browser-based multiplayer FPS from ID Software, started its open beta today, and the world just about exploded. Clearly there’s a heck of a lot of demand to play an FPS from 10 years ago on your work computer!

Snark aside, I definitely understand the demand. In these days where PC games are becoming increasingly more demanding to play, requiring $4,000 desktops and rocket engines, being able to run a full-featured (and free) multiplayer FPS seems like it’s right up a lot of people’s allies.

How many people? Well, a few too many, as there’s an enormous line of folks waiting to play at QuakeLive.com. Since this is Day One, it’s to be expected, but we definitely hope that things settle down a bit in the coming days. After all, Quake is a tad more fun than that Excel document you’re working on.

Peggle Dual Shot Hands-on Preview (DS)

The best Peggle yet is on the DS? What the hell? That doesn’t seem right. We all know and love the DS, but generally when games from other platforms make the transition, they have to be downgraded in order to fit on the tiny cart. And yet Greg Canessa, VP of video game platforms at PopCap, is claiming just that. Granted a part of that is the fact that he works for PopCap, the makers of Peggle, but consider this. Peggle Dual Shot isn’t the only Peggle game coming out in the next month or so. Peggle’s also coming to XBLA (and Peggle Nights just released for Mac). And yet, Greg is pretty sure of himself.

Strictly from a feature-list perspective, it’s hard to argue with them. Peggle Dual Shot has more bang for your buck than any other Peggle installment. The original Peggle had 55 levels and 45 challenges to defeat, which is no paltry sum. The standard campaign can take 5 or 6 hours, but the challenges are likely to last much, much longer than that. All of that content is in Peggle Dual Shot, but so are all of the levels from Peggle Nights (50 levels and 45 additional challenges), which basically makes this game double the length of any Peggle game before it.

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Games Within Games

Say hello to our most Shakespearean feature since “Best Hands in First-Person Shooters” (What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes!).

Games Within Games, like plays within plays, are a peculiar commodity that can distract, entertain and illuminate.

Doth ye mock Shenmue’s forklift races as the four lords mocked the players performance of the Nine Worthies? Hath ye not purposefully forgotten Rune Man as the Midsummer Night Dreamer’s forgot Pyramus and Thisbe?  Doth death not loom over Mario Paint’s Gnat Attack as with Hamlet’s Murder of Gonzago?

No?

Look, these are games within games. It doesn’t take a Doctorate in English to know that’s bang for your buck. So click right here and enjoy.

Dirt 2 Preview

Despite having quite possibly the most ridiculous game title in the history of game titles, Dirt managed to impress racing fans, both casual and hardcore. It sold incredibly well, got great review scores and brought in a whole swath of gamers into rally racing. And thus, Dirt 2 is well on its way, which comes as no surprise to anyone.

While the first Dirt focused on solid rally racing gameplay, Dirt 2 will follow that up and add to it, bringing what the developers are calling “offroad racing with extreme sports attitude,” which is apparently written on a banner in their studio. There’s a certain edge to Dirt 2, apparent in a teaser trailer with gives the game a sort of rock and roll roadie vibe. In the trailer, “you” wake up in the back of your crappy trailer, walking towards the front past girls in skimpy attire, only to open the window to an all-out racing extravaganza. It looks like Codemasters is going for a tone similar to Motorstorm, giving each race a more epic feel.

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Overlord Minions Hands-on Preview

After Overlord became a cult hit, Codemasters has returned with new installments on the 360/PS3, Wii and DS. Each title is a brand new experience and is most definitely not a port, but the DS version is by far the biggest departure from the first game.

Overlord Minions for the DS has you controlling 4 of the cute and cuddly evil minions from Overlord, trying to conquer a series of maps. Unlike the original game, Minions is more like a strategy/puzzle game, requiring you to use the strengths and weaknesses of each minion to reach the end. There’s no overlord to control, you’re just directing the minions around with the stylus and slashing at the screen to attack.

Comparisons to Lost Vikings are hard to ignore, and the developers freely admit that Blizzard’s title was an inspiration. In the level I played, I had to go back and forth between the green minion, who specialized in stealthy attacks (but only when walking slowly) and the brown minion, who is a bit more of a tank. Taking on enemies requires planning and thought, as you’ll easily get outnumbered if you rush ahead.

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Finally a Game for Furries

Secondhand Lands caters to a unique audience: furry lovers. It’s not necessarily an NSFW experience, but if you’re familiar with the “furry movement,” you’ll probably recognize that all of the avatars in the game are, well, furries. You’ve got anthropomorphized sheep, wolves, bears and, of course, foxes, running around in a fantasy world, having “adventures.” Mounting other creatures is a possibility, as is dressing up your character in a school girl outfit.

I have no problem with the game, they’re free to design whatever sort of game that’d like. What is a little worrying is that there may just be some little kid out there seeing this cute game online, hopping on and then being digitally assaulted by hot and bothered rabbits in g-strings.

Or maybe I’m just overreacting...check it out and let me know what you think. After all, furries are people too. Sorta.

Secondhand Lands

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Hands-on Preview

Codemasters has been making strides to set themselves apart from all the excellent but nichey racing games they’ve released over the years. Reviving Operation Flashpoint is one way they can do that.  Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising has been in development for several years now, with the hope of creating a massive, open-world military game that’ll appeal to both hardcore fans and more casual players.

To appeal to a more casual market, Dragon Rising just has you worrying about your 4-man squad. You can give them orders, tell them where to attack, where to defend, and so forth, all from your first person point of view. If you’re so inclined, you can also pull open a tactical map to get a better look of your surroundings, but overall it’s not super tough to get your guys to do what you want them to.

Story-wise, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising tells a tale of a Chinese force invading a nearby territory of Russia. In an unlikely team-up, US Marines and Russian forces must work together to remove the invaders, and you’ll play the leader of one of these Marine squads.

While it’s still a ways out, Dragon Rising still has some work to do in terms of appealing to a mass-market audience. Currently the controls are pretty tough to get a handle on, requiring 4 or 5 different button presses just to call in an air strike. The graphics are also pretty rough at the moment, with bland-looking environments and buildings. Character models look good, but since the game is so wide open you hardly get up close to anyone.

That being said, there’s still quite a lot of development time to go, with a summer release planned, so hopefully the devs will be able to pull things together by then. If so, we could have a solid tactical military game on our hands, which should please those for whom Call of Duty is a little too twitchy.