Tekken Tag Tournament PC Game Full Version Free Download

If you've stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time, Tekken Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that Tekken fans crave in large doses.

The Tekken series has always stood as a set of console games that went above and beyond their arcade counterparts. From additional characters to completely new modes, the series has always tried to add something that the arcade games lacked. Tekken Tag Tournament, at first glance, is the most dramatic upgrade over an arcade Tekken game to date. The graphics have been given a huge boost, similar to the upgrade that Namco's weapon-based fighter, Soul Calibur, received when it hit the Dreamcast last year. Plus, new modes have been added. But does the series capture the same magical feeling that made the previous Tekken games such smash hits? Most definitely.

Tekken Tag Tournament serves as an upgrade to Tekken 3, adding a few new moves along the way. Fighters that had appeared in Tekken 2 but were missing from Tekken 3 have been brought back as well, and most of them have lots of new moves to help balance them with the more powerful Tekken 3 fighters. Finally, the game is now fought in the same tag-team style as Capcom's versus series of fighters, so you can switch between two different characters at any time. Much like Street Fighter EX3 and Dead or Alive 2, you can have up to four players, with each player controlling a different fighter in the tag battle. However, unlike most other tag-battle fighters, Tekken Tag rounds end after only one of the two fighters have been defeated, rather than letting the battle continue as a one-on-two affair. An option that let you configure this would have been nice. Aside from the standard tag-battle arcade mode, there is also a one-on-one mode, that makes Tekken Tag Tournament more like the previous Tekken games, as well as the standard team battle (though it is now a tag-team battle), time attack, and survival modes. Unlockable modes include a theater mode, where you can watch all of the game's endings; a gallery mode, which lets you pause the game at any time and snap a screenshot of the action that is saved to your memory card for later viewing; and Tekken bowl mode, a bowling minigame that lets you hit the lanes and toss glimmer globes at Heihachi-headed bowling pins. Each character has a different bowling style that affects speed and control. The character endings, with the exception of the game's final boss, are rendered using the game engine. This presumably saved time during the game's development. As a result, they're short, mostly meaningless, and decidedly less than impressive. By comparison, the prerendered intro and the final boss' prerendered ending are simply incredible pieces of footage. In Japan, the TV commercial for the game is simply an abridged version of the game's new intro movie. Very striking stuff.

Graphically, the game has taken a very large leap, and the arcade version of the game looks downright ugly by comparison. The characters are very, very smooth, and the backgrounds are amazing and filled with lots of movement, from helicopters to crowds of spectators. Some stages are well lit, showing off some really excellent lens-flare techniques. There are also some nice little touches, such as grass being crushed down by falling fighters then slowly springing up afterward. However, the game suffers from one particular problem that has in fact been seen throughout the series, but with the power of the PlayStation 2 behind it, you'd expect it to be a thing of the past. The problem is the same one that showed up in Street Fighter EX3. While the backdrops of the fights and the ground on which you fight look great separately, they don't mesh very well. The result is two different types of scrolling, making it look as if the battle is occurring on a small, circular spinning platform surrounded by a nearly stationary background. It's easy to miss while you're actually playing, but it sticks out like a sore thumb on watching the game closely. However, the game has been cleaned up a lot when compared to the Japanese release. The characters are smooth, the backgrounds and floors appear more refective and vibrant, and the game just has a significantly more polished look to it. The game uses much of the same animation and motion-capture data from Tekken 3. Sure, the characters look pretty incredible, but with the identical animation quality, even as good as that animation was, the game looks and feels a little on the stale side. The soundtrack is full of techno and vocoder robot voices that will either endear you to the soundtrack or drive you up the wall

How much you enjoy the game will directly relate to one factor: If you played so much Tekken 2 and 3 that you couldn't possibly play another match, Tekken Tag doesn't offer enough new features to draw you back in. But if you've stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time, Tekken Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that Tekken fans crave in large doses. Still, you won't be able to stop yourself from wondering what Namco could have done with the game if it had been designed on the PS2 (or comparable arcade hardware) from the start. Guess we'll all have to wait for Tekken 4 to find that out.

Need For Speed Most Wanted

The game's career mode starts out with a hilarious bang. You take on the role of a nameless, faceless new racer attempting to hit the scene in the city of Rockport. An underground ranking known as the Blacklist governs who can race who, and when. You almost immediately run into a punk named Razor, who's definitely the sort of dude that lives his life a quarter-mile at a time. He's at the bottom of the list, but a few races later, he's sabotaged your ride and has won it from you in a race. Meanwhile, you're carted off to jail. Left with nothing but some mysterious help from a stranger named Mia, your task is to get back in the race game to work your way to the top of the Blacklist, which is now topped by Razor, who's using your old car to wipe out the competition.
The story is a typical Saturday morning special narrative. It spins an unimaginative tale of revenge and restoration of order, and the bad guys, Razor, and the local cop who meanly keys your car in the beginning of the game, are just annoying and evil enough to get your goat. From a creative standpoint, the story is worthless, but EA liked its trial run with Brooke Burke last year in NFSU2 and retained a less cold, angular female figure to narrate this game with Josie Maran (who, in my opinion, is svelte, curvy, and far better at her job than the icy Burke). So, you'll keep wanting hook up with her as often as possible.



But that's not all. The tutorials and blacklist characters are introduced with flair and a friendly 'tude. Whole chunks of the background dramatically drop into place to form a landscape before you start a race, and the whole presentation is laced with slick, stylish graffiti and flickering Fight Club imagery. I like it all. EA may be a corporate, market-driven mega-company with monopolistic tendencies, and this may be just another attempt to tap into the "underground street market," but it's done with appealing artistry and smart style.

The concept of NFS: Most Wanted is essentially the same as in the Underground series. You climb the Blacklist of racers until you reach the top. As before, in order to gain recognition, you must first complete a series of different challenges to prove you got what it takes to be a top street racer. The Blacklist is merely a component inserted to correspond with the game's spirit and the cops that become increasingly interested in your activities as you build up your reputation as a street racer. It also ties well into the previous game, as the player now finally steps into the circle of top racers. Yep, the NFS series sees the return of police vehicles, choppers, etc. Of course, you'll be able to relax from intense cop chases by racing in other events that have minimum to no police presence. Unfortunately, that won't be enough to impress other street racing challengers, so in the end, you're gonna have to provoke the police so that other racers would want to face you on the road. The idea was implemented excellently, establishing a fluent gameplay.


Download need for speed most wanted

Tomb Raider (X360) 2011

Tomb Raider is an action-adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics. It is a full reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise, depicting a young Lara (21) during her first adventure. The game is being developed by 80% of the team that worked on previous Lara Croft games and features a brand new engine (The Crystal Engine).


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The game is scheduled for a Fall 2012 release date.

The game will tell an alternate tale of Lara Croft's first adventure, where she is young (21 years old) and inexperienced. When traveling on the ship Endurance towards an island off the coast of Japan, determined to make a name for herself in the world, a violent storm destroys the ship and washes Lara ashore on a beach of an unknown island. Alone, frightened and injured, she has to learn to survive and eventually become the daring adventurer she is destined to become.


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Like in other Croft games, Lara Croft is a mix of puzzle solving, platforming and combat in an open world environment. Lara has a reduced set of skills compared to other games in the series. She no longer has her double pistols or her gymnastics abilities, meaning that somersaults over rocks or diving in slow motion while maintaining pin point accuracy with a gun is out of the question. Most of the combat is done via quick-time events. The game is also based around survival, meaning that you will have to find food and water while making spears to defend yourself.
Despite this downgrade in skills, Lara still has one or two tricks up her sleeve. You can now change the direction in which Lara jumps at the last second (even while she is jumping) and you can also do what the developers call a "Wall Scramble" which lets her climb higher.

The first part of the demo set out to establish the atmosphere for the new game, both visually and in its approach for how the game will play. More than any prior Tomb Raider the action followed a script, with a strong push being felt to Lara moving through the environment to the next event.

The look is very dark, grimy, and bloody. On falling in her escape, Lara lands on an exposed piece of steel rebar that skewers her in the abdomen right where her kidney would be. Despite the realistic look, she shrugs off the grievous injury after holding her side a few moments. After such a grievous wound, it's a bit odd to see her only a few minutes exerting herself to make jumps she can barely span.

Throughout this section, quick time events played a big role in the action. For a series that built its reputation on Lara's acrobatic exploration ability, it seems like a step backward to watch her escape dangerous situations by pressing a button at the right time. For a brief moment in the middle of this stretch she got back to figuring out how to get through an area by solving an environmental puzzle. But after that, the big escape was another cinematic experience of timed button tapping in response to onscreen prompts rather than being in full control.

Spirit Seasons Little Ghost Story (Game)

A few puzzles are mixed in among the hidden object searches, but they're pretty rare and are the kind of brain teasers you've seen many times already. You'll reconnect wires to complete circuits and reassemble jigsaw puzzles to undo locks (sometimes more than once for the same lock, hooray). The puzzles are all well done, and skippable if you're simply not in the mood, so while they're not exactly something to get excited about, they don't get in the way of the fun, either.

Spirit Season's biggest problem is the way it constantly fumbles the language. At first, its awkward grammar is almost charming, as you read a news clipping hoping that Agatha's parents can "insoul" the town, but as you engage in more conversations, the mangling becomes more obvious and off-putting. Agatha calls Jacob "a great fabulist," (she means "liar") and your dialog choices are so curiously phrased that it's sometimes hard to guess what you're about to say. These kinds of mistakes could perhaps be excused because you can still get the gist of what's going on, but when the language issues begin creeping into the actual gameplay, it's tough to maintain your enjoyment. I spent several minutes scanning a scene for two "jawbones," only to give up in frustration and use a hint. Turns out they were staring me in the face the entire time – a set of wind up chattering teeth from the joke shop.

Spirit Season: Little Ghost Story is just shy of being really enjoyable. It's lovely to look at, and its twisting, turning story will definitely keep you interested, but it simply falls short too much of the time. With the recent trend in spooky HOGs, there are far better ways to get your ghostly fix.

 

Modern Combat Domination

Modern Combat: Domination is now available across the Playstation Network and currently we’re here in the office taking the game for a spin. The game is only $7.99 and compatible with both the Dualshock 3 controller and Playstation Move. Modern Combat Domination comes with 5 maps 6 game types and 2 factions to explore.

With up to 16 players, 8 on 8 battles we’re certainly having fun with the game so far. There are some gameplay elements to get used to however, such as the slightly slow weapon switch and reload mechanics, but this is nitpicking seeing as the game only 8 bucks. We were getting owned when we first starting out playing as we needed to used to the maps and feel for the game. However, you will quickly get used to everything going on as the experience is standard fare multiplayer goodness. As you rank up by racking up kills and winning matches, you’re rewarded with hard currency where you can unlock better equipment, optics and so on.

he map seemed well-made with a lot of different approach points and winding corridors to move around in, but I noticed the missile defense point spawned in the same location every round, which helped to made things predictable. The map design seemed to reinforce teamwork and planning. I died a lot being shot from behind, a function of a square map with inroads and nooks on all sides. Playing as a lonewolf without someone watching your back isn't a great approach.

Domination also supports PlayStaiton Move, which controls quite smoothly at this point. If you've played first person shooters on Wii, you'll be able to get up and running very quickly here. The cursor movement is smooth and there's a nicely scaled acceleration for turning as you move your aim closer to the edge of the screen, something that Red Steel 2 did very well. This control won't be to everyone's liking, but I much prefer the connection of direct pointer controls for first person shooters.

Modern Combat: Domination is the company's newest installment in the series, attempting to make the jump from mobile to the hyper-competitive console space with a multiplayer-only PSN game.

MAPS
Factory
Headquarters
The Hideouts
Soliks and Sandstorm

FACTION
Special Forces
Mercenaries

Zombie Trailer Park | zombie games

Zombie Trailer Park | zombie games:

Zombies have taken over and destroyed the Metropolis - luckily you were never much for city folk. But now the zombies have turned their sights on your trailer park! Manage your economy and train fighting units to defend your trailer park. Gather "Yee-Haw" power to activate super weapons. Submit and share your best stage times with your friends. Here come the zombies! Go go go!

Great game! A very cool 2d strategy rock paper scissors type game.

 

Zombie Trailer Park | zombie games Play Online:

http://www.zombiegames.net/games/Zombie-Trailer-Park.html

Battlefield 3 is Beautiful

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was an amazing first-person shooter. But with every Bad Company release and spin-off, I couldn't help but wonder what DICE was doing with its main Battlefield franchise. As it turns out, it had something to do with earthquakes.

The core games, including Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2, helped define what's possible in multiplayer first-person shooters. It's been more than five years since Battlefield 2 on PC, and now DICE is finally getting ready to deliver the next numbered entry. Battle Field 3 has a release date for this fall on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and from what's been shown off, it looks incredible.

That's because Battlefield 3 is being built using all-new technology developed in-house at DICE. It's the next version of the Frostbite engine used in the Bad Company games, appropriately called Frostbite 2. It allows for a range of advanced graphical effects and destructible terrain. "We actually started with the engine three years ago," said executive producer Patrick Bach. "When we finished Battlefield 2 and 2142 we talked about what's the next big step that changes gaming. We're good at technology and we wanted to create something that scaled better than Frostbite 1 did. The PCs were already -- three years ago -- starting to get ahead of the consoles. How could we make good use of that?"

The result was, at the end of a demo recently shown to members of the press, a detailed scene of a US Marine unit getting tossed around on a quaking bed of asphalt in a war-torn city on the border of Iraq and Iran. Buildings crumbled into pieces, sending up plumes of smoke and dust as the ground fluttered like a flag in the wind. One even toppled over onto an attack chopper hovering in mid-air. It looked strikingly realistic.

"We knew we could do better stuff with audio, we needed a core streaming system for the whole game," said Bach. "Everything from animations to objects to textures to audio we can stream. If you look at the consoles today they still have the same amount of memory, so how do you make a denser experience with the same amount of memory? You need to be able to flush things in and out of that memory that you have. Frostbite 2 was more or less a necessity for us to be able to build Battlefield 3. If we didn't build the engine we couldn't build the game because then it would just be an iteration instead of a big step forward."

So far DICE isn't showing off any gameplay footage of the multiplayer component, which is too bad. I really wanted to see jets streak across the sky and launch precision strikes against unsuspecting targets. But even without the spectacle of controllable vehicle sequences to gape at, the story mode still looks pretty good. The characters are in no way related to those in the Bad Company games. What you get in Battlefield 3 is a fresh start. It's set in 2014, and an early mission follows a squad of Marines as they charge through cramped, dangerous streets and take cover from sniper fire on rooftops. "It's based on a 'what if' scenario," said Bach. "We see the world as quite unstable. We see it as the shot in Sarajevo where a small event can create a butterfly effect to start a world war." Even though the mission was early in the game, it sounds as though the scale of the conflict shown is going to ripple out into the rest of the world.

Though the mission features a group of Marines, DICE notes that these characters won't necessarily be in subsequent sorties because it's not a squad-based game like Bad Company. You play as Sergeant Henry Blackburn who, at the mission's outset, emerges from an armored personnel carrier with an M16 equipped with an ACOG (that's a scope). The road ahead is packed with smoke and fire, cowering citizens, military humvees and an LAV reconnaissance vehicle.

According to Bach it's not possible to simply hop into these vehicles and start driving, as many Battlefield veterans may want to do. While there will be several vehicle sections in the single-player portion, the game makes it clear when you're meant to hop into a machine and when you're supposed to proceed on foot. "When you tell a story you need to control the player in some ways, even though we have very sandbox-y elements as well. We make sure you get to try out everything…so we pace the game as a tutorial so when you go into multilayer you don't feel scared. If you play through single-player you will feel quite safe to go online because you tried everything once."

The PC version was beautiful even in its current pre-alpha state. DICE is focusing on using lighting and animations to create a more realistic look for Battlefield 3. For animation, DICE is utilizing Electronic Arts technology called ANT, developed for sports games like FIFA. So what does that actually mean? "We can now more or less blend from any animation to any animation without any glitches. Some animation systems are very rigid. The cool thing with this is that you can blend from one animation to another at any time. You can see that with FIFA --, it's super quick and nimble."

The animations were especially impressive to watch during a first-person hand-to-hand combat sequence. Black was underground in a bunker attempting to disarm an explosive device when he was accosted by a waiting enemy. To subdue the assailant you need to hit buttons at specific times to deliver viscous strikes and chops. The attacker eventually crumples to the ground, but not without getting in a few solid shots on Black, which causes the perspective to tilt and whip appropriately with the force.

A lot of work is being done at DICE on the moment-to-moment mechanics of gun fights too. When you open fire the screen shakes, your weapon effects dominate the speakers, and the bits of user interface flicker when . "The challenge with weapons is actually not to get them to look realistic or record sounds, the research is quite easy. The hard part is to transform the emotion when you fire a gun and turn that into picture and sound."

Crysis 2 Review

Review:-

Crysis 2 has to live up to a high standard. Not only did the original Crysis pack a lot of high-quality action into its good-sized campaign, but its stunningly authentic rendering of lush jungle vistas set the graphical standard by which all modern shooters are judged. Fortunately, this sequel does an admirable job of living up to the original's reputation of sheer technical prowess. It doesn't feature all the visual bells and whistles you might expect in a game from a developer known for pushing the limits of modern hardware. But, this sequel still looks amazing, and it plays that way too. The jungle is now of the urban variety--New York City to be precise. You make your way through office buildings, across crumbling bridges, and around broad city squares, where robotic aliens infest hallways and swarm across rooftops. Large environments give you room to maneuver and grant you freedom to approach battle in a number of ways, which makes Crysis 2 a great alternative to the plethora of first-person shooters that usher you down corridors on your way to the next action movie set piece.

Crysis 2 does an excellent job of portraying a city under siege without indulging in constant action-film cutaways. There is still plenty of cinematic excess here, though it's delivered organically. Yes, there are a few scripted moments in which you are more of an observer than a participant; and, yes, you might be able to hold a key to peer at the imposing alien structure towering in the distance. But rather than wrest control away from you to highlight every falling skyscraper, collapsing passageway, and hovering alien ship, Crysis 2 allows these events to simply happen. And, because they are often so momentous, your attention is drawn to them. The few occasions when the game stops to consider how the average citizen might be affected by an alien invasion lend humanity to your militaristic actions. Familiar landmarks are defaced, lay in ruin, or explode as you watch. There's an eerie contrast between the untouched trees of Central Park swaying in the wind and the rubble stretching behind them. The visual design eschews artistic flair in favor of authenticity, and it mostly succeeds at providing a frightening real-world backdrop for large-scale shoot-outs.

If you appreciated Crysis as a technical benchmark, as well as an excellent shooter, you might be surprised by Crysis 2's more modest menu options. There are a few preset graphics options (high, very high, and extreme), but the menu doesn't allow you to tweak antialiasing settings and such, as you would expect in the sequel to the highly customizable Crysis. (You can adjust these settings by entering certain console commands, but that is not an acceptable alternative to built-in menu options.) Furthermore, the game does not support DirectX 11, so you won't see the advanced lighting techniques here that you see in games like Metro 2033 and Dirt 2. But to pick these nits with much vigor would be unfair to one of the best-looking games in recent times. Crysis 2 looks stunning, runs smoothly on even modest systems, and suffers from few obvious bugs and glitches.

It's a shame that it takes an hour or two of nondescript FPS action before you get to see the spectacular devastation. In fact, if you haven't played the original Crysis, the first stretch of the sequel might make you wonder why it is so beloved. You spend the early going pitted against relatively dumb human enemies who run past you towards some distant cover spot but fail to shoot, stand around staring straight ahead, and otherwise act as if they don't know you are pumping them full of lead. Later on, you catch friendlies and aliens standing around together, looking like they might be enjoying each other's company. Aliens and humans alike crash into objects and then just run in place rather than go around them or leap over. Other times, the invading ETs get confused when trying to leap to higher vantage points and make it easy to turn them to alien goo. The AI simply isn't good, and its mediocrity stands out all the more against the otherwise convincing climate.

Fortunately, the AI is an infrequent concern once the invasion is in full swing and you're surrounded by dozens of foes roaming the maps and surrounding you. The aliens come in a few varieties. Some armored creatures might pounce on you and knock you off your feet or fire energy bolts at you. Many of them hop onto ledges and rooftops to gain higher ground. Miniboss types pummel you with rockets and are tough to bring down without a C4 charge or a few rockets. Crysis 2 offers a nice challenge, particularly in its second half; some of those aliens soak up a lot of bullets before going down. You get an array of military-grade weapons, and you can tailor them with different sights (reflex sights, for example) and other enhancements (say, a silencer). You also collect the glitter that dead aliens leave behind (called nano catalyst) and use it to upgrade your nanosuit. For example, you can improve your suit's energy regeneration, or you can unlock a fun ground-pound ability. The suit works a bit differently than it did in the original Crysis. For instance, you no longer activate power mode to jump to higher levels; you just hold down the jump key. Rather than activate speed mode, you sprint.

changes detailed

Who was there: A massive panel of ArenaNet employees, including lead content designer Colin Johanson, game designer Jon Peters, community manager Regina Buenaobra, senior vice president Randy Price, lore designer Jeff Grubb, and more.

What they said: The Guild Wars 2 panel spoke to a packed house at this year's Penny Arcade Expo East. An extensive trailer for the game preceded the discussion and highlighted several of the talking points to be covered, including the game's active combat and the focus on player choice. When the trailer finished, the room erupted into thunderous applause.

Guild Wars 2 will, in fact, be an MMORPG.

After the audience had quieted down, Johanson spoke first. He had three key points to knock out of the way. First, is Guild Wars 2 going to be a "true" massively multiplayer online role-playing game? The answer was "yes," GW2 will be one giant, persistent world. Second, will there be jumping in GW2? Again, the answer was "yes," which was met with an excited round of applause. Third, will GW2 have a monthly subscription fee? This time, the answer was "no," which received even more applause than before, plus a little cheering.

With that out of the way, Johanson turned the conversation to how GW2 will be innovating on its predecessor, including the player's personal story, dynamic events, and combat. Beginning with personal story, Johanson stated that the team at ArenaNet has attempted to get players more invested in their characters by creating numerous branching paths in the story. The choices that can be made have tremendous consequences, including altering a character's unique home city. All of a player's actions will also be logged in a player journal, which the player can review to see past achievements.

Next, he spoke about the changes to how quests will be structured in GW2. The traditional setup of collecting a quest, completing it, and then retrieving a reward has been completely reimagined. Now, the world of GW2 will be populated by numerous dynamic quests--quests that are ongoing for the player to discover. The example given was of a pack of savage centaurs terrorizing the countryside. Players will battle these beasts for control of a settlement. Anyone can jump in once the fighting starts, and the event will scale according to how many "active players" are present.

If the players lose the battle with the centaurs, then they lose the use of that settlement. This marks the beginning of a quest chain and advances the scenario to the next level. Now, the centaurs have a foothold and will attempt to reinforce it by collecting wood from the forest. The players can engage them again in the woods, and whether they win or lose the chain will advance in another direction. This constant splitting of the chain means that once the chain resets, the content that can be experienced could be completely different.

Johanson then transitioned into his third point: combat and its focus on teamwork and active participation. One of the base rules of the game, he explained, was that rewards and experience are shared among those who participate in a fight; the player should always feel excited to see another player rushing over to help. For the combat specifics, Johanson turned the microphone over to Peters who explained that in GW2, they didn't want to pigeonhole characters into specific roles, such as tank, damage per second, or healer. Instead, no matter what the class, they want players to be switching between roles in combat on the fly.

Before handing the discussion off to the audience for a question-and-answer session, the panel loaded up a skills compilation video, which highlighted the abilities of the recently announced thief class. The video included snippets from five different thieves, including some who used high-explosive projectiles and others who preferred to teleport in and out of melee (or turn completely invisible).

The Q&A session began after that. One early question started a discussion about the recorded character audio in the game. Peters revealed that there are about 400 lines of dialogue for every player in GW2. "We've recorded over 60 feature films worth of dialog for Guild Wars 2," he added.

Two other attendees asked about the specifics of the dynamic events. From the ensuing banter, it was revealed that there are more than 1,000 of these scripted events throughout the world of Guild Wars 2, and while they are ongoing, players shouldn't see the events play out the same way every time. Grubb also mentioned that the rewards for these events are tiered based on participation and that players don't have to participate in the whole event to get a reward (but it helps).

The next person asked about how the developers were going to keep Guild Wars 2 interesting for those who complete its end-game content. Johanson jumped on this one and launched into an explanation of the five-man dungeons, each having two modes: a story mode and a repeatable mode. He also mentioned the numerous minigames available and all of the different player-versus-player options. In GW2, PVP battles will run the gamut from five-on-five skirmishes to massive world-versus-world events where three game servers are pitted against each other in one massive battle royal.

Another question shifted the discussion to how the game's AI accommodates mixed-level groups in dynamic events. The panel took this opportunity to introduce GW2's side-kicking system. If a player has a high-level character who has gone back into low-level territory, that player will be side-kicked down to the appropriate level for that content. This will allow players to adventure with those of a lower level without having to create an entirely new character. In addition, high-level characters can side-kick friends up in level so that they can adventure together in the later areas of the game.

The panel then discussed the inclusion of the jump and swim abilities, as well as possibilities opened up for designing maps. One participant asked about navigational aids for players who need more direction. Johanson responded with an explanation of GW2's scouts. These scouts will highlight areas on the map where players can go and help people, and when finished, there is typically a dynamic event nearby.

The next question was about ArenaNet's plans for future content for GW2. Price spoke up and pointed out that even though the original Guild Wars is almost six years old, the team just sent out a major content release last week. "It's inevitable that you'll see new events out there [in Guild Wars 2] over time."

The panel then talked about how the game's AI will accommodate players who enter a dynamic event and either do not participate or participate very little. In brief, it knows if a player is helping or not and will scale accordingly. Then, the question of auction houses and their inclusion in GW2 came up. Peters addressed this, saying that there will be marketplaces where players can post advertisements for items they want to sell or items they want to buy.

Quote: "The human city has a perpetual bar brawl you can jump into at any time."--Johanson on the minigames in Guild Wars 2.

Takeaway: Guild Wars 2 looks as if it's really coming into its own and drawing a hard distinction between itself and the countless other MMOGs out there. A world driven completely by dynamic quests is an ambitious goal, and it's exciting to see if ArenaNet can pull it off. The packed house brought plenty of energy to the discussion and made sure to slip in a few jabs about a certain online competitor. Guild Wars 2 still doesn't have an official release date, but the team hopes to see the title released sometime this year.

WWE All Stars Q&A - Matches, Cages, and Weapons

If you've been following WWE All Stars, you'll know that the game offers an over-the-top style of wrestling where little things like rules and physics don't carry a lot of weight. Such a game seems like a great opportunity to get creative with the usual selection of match types, so we chatted with senior designer David Friedland to see what fans can expect from All Stars' various game modes.

GameSpot: Let's start with the basics. What are the standard game modes that you knew you had to have in the game--those cornerstones of any wrestling title? How are you trying to make them stand out in All Stars?

David Friedland: When we began development on WWE All Stars, we looked at every major match type in WWE history and prototyped most of them. Ultimately, we went with the match types that best supported our fast-paced, over-the-top and arcade-style gameplay. These include standard 1 vs. 1, Triple Threat, Fatal 4 Way, Tornado Tag, Elimination, Extreme Rules, and Steel Cage. In addition, we added two progression modes: Path of Champions and Fantasy Warfare. These modes are similar to the ladder progressions you find in modern fighting games but with a unique WWE style.

GS: How about the more "out there" match types? Tell us about the other modes in WWE All Stars and what players should expect out of these.

DF: We have taken a number of liberties with the standard WWE match rules in order to better accent our gameplay style. Falls count anywhere. There are no count outs or rope breaks, and the only way to get disqualified is to bash your opponent repeatedly with an object. Standard Tag Team has been replaced by Tornado Tag, where all four competitors are in the ring at the same time. In Steel Cage matches, your ability to escape is tied to the amount of damage you do to your opponent, forcing players to mix it up rather than simply attempting to climb out right from the start. All of these decisions were made to support the pacing of the game and eliminate anything that took away from the depth of the combat system. We also wanted to make certain that all of our match types were playable online.

Fantasy Warfare is a mode that will have huge appeal to WWE fans. These 15 matches pit WWE Legends of yesterday against WWE Superstars of today to determine the best of the best in a number of categories. Some of the matchups may seem obvious. Who else would compete for Greatest Big Man besides Andre the Giant and Big Show? Other matchups focus more on personality or lifestyle than physical attributes. In the Superior Lifestyle matchup, beer-drinking hell-raiser "Stone Cold" Steve Austin faces off against the straight-edge CM Punk to determine the better role model. Each of these matchups has an accompanying video package highlighting the buildup to the match. WWE really knocked it out of the park with these videos. WWE Legends and WWE Superstars who have never competed against one another now appear to have actual rivalries going.

Path of Champions is a fighting-game-style mode with a series of three 10-match ladder progressions. Each of the three paths has accompanying cinematics voiced by the real-life WWE Superstars. In the WWE Legends path, players face Undertaker with Paul Bearer for the World Heavyweight Championship. In the WWE Superstars path, players compete to face Randy Orton for the WWE Championship. In the Tag Team path, players battle to face D-Generation X, comprised of Triple H and Shawn Michaels, for the WWE Tag Team Championship.

 

Who's gonna be the one to break the tension with a hug?

GS: Can you talk about the creative process behind coming up with these game modes? How you went from the initial batch of ideas to what ultimately made it into the game?

DF: Ultimately it was about the gameplay. The pacing of WWE All Stars is very different when compared with previous WWE games. Some match types lent themselves well to our style. Four-player matches, for example, are gloriously chaotic affairs with their own special strategies. With Steel Cage matches, the WWE All Stars environment is perfectly suited for huge, high-flying moves. Some matches, with object-oriented victory conditions, did not make the cut, as accomplishing the victory conditions was either too easy at our game's speed or caused too much of a slowdown in the action for our tastes.

Fantasy Warfare was a lot of fun to create. The development team at THQ San Diego has many diehard, lifelong WWE fans who have been watching these WWE Legends and WWE Superstars for many years. Everyone on the team had matchups they wanted to see, and the ideas flowed freely. Once we had the roster finalized, Fantasy Warfare really started coming together. As stated earlier, while some of the matchups were easy to imagine, such as Hulk Hogan vs. John Cena or Andre the Giant vs. Big Show, others required thinking outside the box. In the end, we came up with 15 matchups that really showcase the personalities and abilities of our roster.

GS: One of the big parts of WWE All Stars is the idea of different classes with distinct advantages and disadvantages against one another. Can you talk about how the class system affected the creation of these modes and how their interactions might differ from a standard one-on-one match?

DF: The class abilities definitely have an impact on some of the match modes. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the Acrobats and Big Men. Acrobats have some unique advantages in Steel Cage matches, where they can leap up to the sides of the cage walls and rebound off for high-angle attacks on their opponents that are very hard to defend against. In three- to four-player matches, the range of an Acrobat's turnbuckle moves make them especially dangerous, as opponents are never quite sure who they are going to attack next. Three- to four-player matches are also where the Big Men truly shine. Their ground stomp juggles can often pop multiple opponents into the air at once. Their ability to punch or kick an opponent out of the ring makes them great partners in Tornado Tag, allowing them to easily create distance between the opposing partners so they can double-team a single opponent.

 

They're not really fighting--they're just testing the structural integrity of this fence.

GS: How much of an influence on the design of these modes was the decade-spanning collection of WWE superstars you have in the game? The sport has changed a lot over the years, so how did you make sure that each type of match would work well with, say, an '80s Superstar and a modern Superstar?

DF: Most of our match types were popular throughout WWE history, and all of the WWE Legends and WWE Superstars in our game have all the tools they need to compete in these match types.

Where our roster really influenced our design was in the Path of Champions and Fantasy Warfare modes. Path of Champions has three separate paths players can select, with each tailored to a different era in WWE history. In the WWE Legends path, players are up against old-school Undertaker--back when he was managed by Paul Bearer. All of the opponents in this path are WWE Legends themselves. The WWE Superstars path has a more modern feel, with players confronting "The Viper," Randy Orton, and other current WWE Superstars. The Tag Team path offers the best of both worlds, with players competing for the right to face D-Generation X, the popular tag team featuring WWE Superstar Triple H and WWE Legend Shawn Michaels. This path features a mix of both WWE Legends and WWE Superstars as opponents.

Fantasy Warfare is all about the roster. With the WWE All Stars roster evenly split between WWE Legends and WWE Superstars, it was a matter of finding the best matchups and best themes and then working with WWE to create pay-per-view-quality video packages to accompany each matchup. Initial reaction to these matchups has been hugely positive, and we can't wait for the gaming public and the WWE Universe to get the chance to play through Fantasy Warfare in its entirety.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Hands-On Preview

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a game that puts you in a robotic body (against your will) at a time when augmentation is still a taboo subject. Set as a prequel to the original Deus Ex, the game takes place in the year 2027, and you play as Adam Jensen, an ex-SWAT guy turned security guard for a biotech company.

We recently got our first hands-on time with an Xbox 360 version of the game, and since the game is filled with multiple paths and different choices, we thought it was worthwhile to give you our own experiences during our lengthy play session. We will warn you though, since our demo covers content in the first few hours of play, it comes with a healthy spoiler alert for those wanting to keep the opening part of the game a surprise. For backstory and more information on the franchise, check out our previous coverage of Human Revolution.

Our demo began in the office of biotech scientist Dr Reed, and it's clear from the outset that we have a history with her. Her demeanour conveys a certain level of urgency, and as she prepares to address the government on research she has been conducting, she suggests that we take a walk together. She explains that the room, and indeed Deus Ex's gameworld, is filled with e-mails, files, and newspaper articles to read, as well as TV bulletins that help explain much of what's going on. Almost counterproductively the game is also set against a clock of sorts, and by spending too much time trying to catch up on the news, you may inadvertently reduce your options or alter the way characters interact with you (there's no real way of knowing how your actions will affect outcomes, since there's no timer or bar to watch). In the same way, choosing one dialogue path over another may yield more information or shut down a conversation.

The future's so bright I gotta wear shades when I'm capping fools.

As you leave with the good doctor, both your conversations with her and the chatter from characters scattered around the building begin to indicate that the organisation you work for has its fingers in government military contracting pies. Needless to say, after this brief introduction to some of the key characters, things go pear-shaped when an emergency breaks out in the labs and Dr Reed drops off the grid. IT-turned-security-guy Pritchard attempts desperately to locate her, only to find that there is some form of abnormal signal causing interference. This early part of the game acts as a story primer and action introduction as you come to grips with gunplay and the game's slightly unorthodox cover mechanic--holding the left trigger to stick to cover and peeking out using the left analog stick. In what can only be described as a scene inspired by the Terminator film series, the screams of company workers are silenced as a huge robotic humanoid walks through flaming doorways; a piece of ballistics glass the only thing shielding him from the gunfire of your automatic weapon.

While developers on hand were keen to point out that you can play Deus Ex: HR as a modern Call of Duty-style shooter to some degree, it's not always the best approach (as anyone who has played a Deus Ex game knows). Taking the opportunity to try it out that way we encountered the need for careful surveillance, tracking the paths of enemy combatants and keeping an eye on which direction they were facing before sneaking in or breaching a room. Your approach to combat is as flexible as you want it to be. You can perch high, picking off attackers from raised walkways, take things down to their level to get personal, or blow out explosive canisters and gas lines to perform impromptu area-of-effect attacks MacGyver would be proud of.

Hot on the heels of the assailants, we barged into a hallway and came face-to-face with them. They weren't a friendly bunch, and the glint of neon lighting on cold steel was the last thing we saw as they pulled the trigger, loading up the game's intro credits. Six months later you're back at Sarif, sporting a spiffy new pair of sunglasses built into your head. This early in the augmentation process your parts clearly aren't all working as intended yet, and before we ship out on a critical mission we need to visit Pritchard to realign our retinal units. Again, there's the option to wander around, searching offices and climbing through the building's air-duct system in search of nooks and crannies to explore. Time is always a consideration though, and we're told to report to the helipad where the big cheese of the company is waiting to brief us.

Human Revolution continues the series trend of offering players the option to approach play in a variety of ways. The first decision we were presented with was the choice of either lethal or nonlethal engagement. The decision will have direct bearing on your loadout and will no doubt match your preferred play style and augmentation upgrades. Going nonlethal equips you with a stun gun, while selecting lethal grants the additional choice of either an up-close-and-personal revolver or a longer-range rifle. Since we knew we were infiltrating a factory, most likely with cramped corridors and hand-to-hand combat scenarios, we went for the pistol. Conscientious objectors in the crowd will be pleased to hear that (with the exception of a small handful of scripted boss encounters) the game can be played completely in stealth and doesn't require that you take any lives.

The truth is…I am Iron Man.

Our briefing included information that hostages were being held captive inside the plant; we were able to go on the secondary mission to locate and rescue them, or stay on the main storyline path and leave the hostages to their fate.

Once on the ground we were confronted by some of Jensen's former SWAT buddies who were clearly agitated at being asked to guard the exit rather than being allowed to bust in with guns blazing. Depending on whether or not stealth is your forte, each environment includes multiple points of entry and places to hide and observe. We took the low path, climbing down a ladder into a back alley, waiting for guards to patrol past alone before using our augmentation takedown moves. Each kill uses a bubble of energy and is performed by holding the B button. This generates a killing blow to nearby enemies, stabbing targets with blades that come flying out of your elbows. Unfortunately, while we assumed striking from behind with a blade would be a silent method of dispatching victims, on a few occasions enemies out of sight would be alerted by the sound of the thudding body, rushing to the scene to attack us. We're hoping this was just a symptom of the work-in-progress version of the game, and hopefully it will be fixed before the game ships.

Picking off foes one at a time and sneaking our way into a warehouse, we were presented with multiple hostiles in a small space. Rather than fight there, we shimmied our way up a ladder into some venting and quietly plopped down on some shelving. Unsurprisingly, firing our revolver had about as much subtlety as punching someone in the junk, and the AI scrambled to locate our position. Oddly, the hostiles seemed unable to look up, which left them sitting ducks, and we were able to them pick off at our leisure.

The game features Praxis Points, in-game currency that is used to upgrade and alter your augmentations at will. We were given six points for the purpose of testing out the skill trees, but normally you would have fewer than that. Unlocking a new ability, such as improved strength to lift heavy objects, requires two points, but each subsequent upgrade requires only one. Not all abilities are available on the first play-through, and the method of expenditure means that you will need to focus on improving key areas of skill rather than using a scattergun approach that sees you throwing points all over the place. Augmenting the limbs will reduce movement impairment when you take damage, while vision upgrades act a bit like Batman's Detective mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum, highlighting enemies on your screen and giving you the chance to plan your approach in advance.

What's with all the augmentation hate? You'll never need to look for a can opener again!

Not all doors will be unlocked and waiting for your exploration, necessitating some crafty engineering. Hacking plays an integral role, and you'll be required to take part in a minigame where you select various nodes and attempt to gain entry to the data you need before you're traced by the system. The early minigames we saw were quite basic, though we can see the challenge escalating greatly further down the line, perhaps even requiring hacking augmentations that give you more time or make hacking easier to give you access to some restricted areas.

Our demo ended when we made it to one of the game's boss fights. Forget everything you thought you knew about boss fights with their glowing weak points and repeated patterns. Our final encounter involved one of the pro-human Purist revolutionaries holding a woman hostage. Our job was to end the situation, again with whatever outcome we felt appropriate. He kept his gun firmly pressed against her head, and we could have shot him, but in doing so we ran the risk of injury to the prisoner. Instead we went for the diplomatic route, navigating the treacherous waters of negotiation by first appealing to his base human emotions, throwing in a dash of flattery, and then ramming home the hard facts. Each dialogue option is spelt out clearly before you make your choice, so while there's very little room for crossed wires about choosing your approach, it did take some of the pressure and mystery away from the decision. After a brief verbal scuffle he released his victim, dashing out a nearby door. Our demo guide explained the various possible outcomes available and that as a result of saving her, the woman would appear further along the story to repay the favour, supplying valuable intelligence information.

Some minor quibbles and bugs aside, we enjoyed our first hands-on with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The slightly unusual controls take a little rewiring of the old grey matter, but it becomes more natural as you continue to play. Fans of nonlinear story will have a field day replaying scenarios to find the points where the various subplots intertwine, and this certainly isn't a game that fans will be content to leave at a single play-through. Get ready for blade arms when Deus Ex: Human Revolution hits the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on August 25 this year.

Spotlight On - City of Heroes (Updates for 2011)

City of Heroes, publisher NCSoft's original superhero-themed massively multiplayer game, is celebrating its seventh year of operation. Paragon Studios, the game's current developer, is celebrating this milestone by adding even more new content updates to follow last year's "Going Rogue" content additions. Earlier this year, the studio unveiled challenging "weekly strike target" encounters as well as animal body parts for players to make the tiger-men and bird-headed men they've always dreamed of.

Coming up in the near future: new additions like global server access for both US and European players, who will be able to freely jump among servers from different territories, along with a new "loyalty bonus" for longtime subscribers in theform of an "alignment aura" that will surround your character. In addition, "Issue 20," the next major content update, will add a new task force encounter and a new strike force encounter for midlevel characters, and expanded "incarnate" content to build on Going Rogue, such as incarnate slots, which will act as career-long, empowering "buff" abilities throughout a character's lower levels and can eventually be exchanged for a high-level power. Owners of Going Rogue will also be able to explore new high-level areas, such as the "Behavioral Adjustment Facility," a new raid area for groups of anywhere between 12 and 24 players. The studio also plans to add a new queuing system for Going Rogue's incarnate trials that will operate less like a long queue and more like a turnstile, getting players into the action faster.

Issue 20 is scheduled to launch later this year.