Brain Hood

When Nintendo announced the 3DS would come out before March 2011, we didn’t really expect it to hit this holiday season. But a report from CVG claims it could do just that. The story cites U.K. trade sources who claim that the system will hit sometime in October. It also speculates that Level 5 is working on a 3D game for the system, which would align with what we’ve heard about development kits being available. “It’s a surprise – we were expecting it much closer to Christmas,” said one source. “But I suppose it gives Nintendo the opportunity to get it in front and center of people’s minds nice and early.”

This is all a rumor until we hear official word from Nintendo, which probably won’t happen until E3 this June, or even later. The leaks come from U.K. sources, so it’s really referring to the European releases, but the U.S. tends to get new products around the same time frame or sometimes earlier. We’ll keep you updated if this rumor pans out.

Remember back to E3 2005 when the Wii really made its debut? And remember all the marvelous colors Nintendo first showed?

And yet we in the US have been stuck with plain old white for nearly four years. And even though white consoles historically dominate we have been craving more diversity in the USA when it comes to our Wiis. Both Japan and Europe got their hands on the sexy black Wii last year, and at long last it seems like North Americans will get a taste.

According to a report, several retailers, including GameStop and Target, indicate they’ll be getting a black Wii bundle that includes the console, a matching black Remote, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Motion Plus packed in. Many have been anticipating this, as black versions of the of the Remote and Wii Motion Plus have been available stateside for a long time, so it would only follow that we would get the console eventually. Rumors say it will launch May 9, a Sunday, which also is very believable, as Nintendo times most of its major releases for the Sabbath. Expect to hear something official soon.

God of War 3 takes everything you loved about the series and amplifies it. The result of this is a truly engrossing game on all levels, from gameplay to graphics and even the music. If I were to sum up the game in one word it would have to be “Epic”.

The graphics are extraordinary, and the ‘wow’ factor kicks in from the very start. The visuals are consistently stunning throughout the game, however, the boss fights are really designed to take your breath away most of the times. I don’t believe any other game has attempted something this colossal, although the boss fights have always been grand in the series, this time around they are simply ridiculous, but in a good way! What’s even more impressive is that all this happens without any hint of lag – so it’s a smooth experience from start to finish.

The music is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the God of War series, and sounds very much like the previous games. It still does a great job of heightening the tension in key moments and keeping you engaged. However, maybe I’ve grown up since playing the last 2 games, but this time I felt the dialogue for Kratos was quite cheesy and uneven in some places. The rest of the characters you encounter throughout the game have dialogue more congruent with their personas.

The gameplay itself is practically identical to its predecessors. You get some very cool and distinct weapons along the way which make slaying your opponents quite thrilling. There are four main weapons that can be leveled up for additional moves which add more ‘flexibility’ and power to your array of assaults. Speaking of assaults, this game is way more brutal than before, in some cases giving you options to go on ruthlessly after you’ve killed your opponent. As an example, there is one boss fight where you keep punching until your screen is plastered in blood and you can continue bashing the guy’s head in if you wish! It almost makes you feel guilty for enjoying these barbaric acts.

The majority of the gameplay is destroying different hordes of enemies (and they give you a nice variety to work with). You will have to employ different strategies with different opponents, since some are more vulnerable to certain kinds of weapons. You can get away with button mashing in the later stages of the game once you’ve leveled up to a certain degree, but prior to that you do have to learn to dodge and get your timing right.

One thing I noticed is that there are fewer puzzles this time around and even those are not as complex as some of the ones in the previous games. I’m guessing this will resonate well with the majority of gamers as it keeps the momentum going. I would’ve personally liked a few difficult puzzles but I didn’t mind this change of pace too much either. The rest is ‘simply’ fighting gods and even titans and slaying them in creative and brutal ways which will leave you quite impressed with Kratos.

One thing that set God of War apart from regular action games was the utterly engrossing storyline based on Greek Mythology. That is still the case, but this time you don’t really feel the story moving forward in a meaningful way until the latter part of the game. Also it feels the storyline is a bit fragmented. Kratos viciously slays everyone and everything (even unnecessarily at times) from beginning and then near the end he suddenly becomes emo. This also leads to an ending that was a big disappointment in my books, unfortunately I cannot discuss that here! Luckily the ride was good enough to compensate for the erratic storyline.

All in all, this game is quite identical to its predecessors, and even better in some ways. Santa Monica Studio stuck to their winning formula from the previous games and polished off a few things to deliver the ultimate action adventure game experience. One thing to note is that this game is not very long – about 8-10 hrs, but perfect for this kind of experience. If you have no objections to an absurd amount of blood and gore then I recommend you go out and pick this up right away.

The Xbox 360 hasn’t exactly had a smooth ride to this point, what with the dreaded Red Ring of Death hitting the system hard in its early days. But the console has now hit the 40-million -old milestone. And with the Natal motion control system due to be released by the 2010 holidays, the future is looking positive.

Microsoft entered the games hardware market in 2001 with the original Xbox. And the console did extremely well considering it was the company’s first attempt, managing to sell 24 million units, beating both the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo GameCube to place second in its generation. It couldn’t compete with the Sony PS2, however, which ruled all with 140 million units sold.

This was enough to persuade Microsoft to carry on its efforts in the games industry, and the Xbox 360 arrived late in 2005. Within months, users started reporting fatal hardware errors, signified by the Red Ring of Death which appeared on the front of the unit. Microsoft eventually acted to appease customers extending the warranty of the console to three years, meaning a replacement can be sought when the RRoD occurs.

With that out of the way Microsoft has upped its game, constantly improving Xbox Live, and securing both Xbox 360 exclusives and former Playstation exclusives such as the latest game in the Final Fantasy series. And sales have remained steady and strong throughout.

Microsoft is now reporting that 40 million Xbox 360s have been sold worldwide, placing it second amongst home consoles, behind the Wii but ahead of the PS3. Sales do seem to have taken a slight dip of late, with the PS3 being the main beneficiary, but certainly in the U.S. at least, demand remains strong.

The next 12 months are all about motion control. The Wii has had such a system in place since launch, which has helped Nintendo sell the console to casual gamers around the world. But both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are set to get their own motion control systems before the year is out.

Natal is the name of the Xbox 360’s entry, and is innovative due to the fact that a gamer’s whole body becomes the controller thanks to a 3D camera system. How this will work in practice remains to be seen but the theory looks exciting. And if it takes off then it could change the face of gaming forever.

Microsoft has announced that more than 40 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold across the globe since the console’s launch in November 2005. HURRAY! They hide it well, but those underpaid, overworked Asian workers above are actually bursting with delight inside.

Confirming the 40 million figure to IGN, Microsoft also revealed that the console’s software attach rate – that’s the number of software units sold per system – is now 8.8.

Where does 40 million place the Xbox 360 in videogame hardware sales history? Well, Nintendo’s Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) launched in 1990 and sold just shy of 50 million. That’s next in the Xbox 360’s sights, though I can’t see Microsoft’s console catching Sony’s PS2, the all-time champion with 142.8 million sales. It’s already gone past the first Xbox however – that’s stuck on 24 million.

As for this generation of consoles, the PlayStation 3 has sold 33.5 million units worldwide (though it did launch a year after the 360), while the Wii is way out in front, on 67.5 million units sold.

EA’s World Cup games used to suffer from a lack of effort; now they’re built to look effortless. 2010 FIFA World Cup exudes the confidence of a development team at the top of their game – orchestrating the bigger picture with myriad subtle prods and pokes, like Zinedine Zidane in his majestic, late 90s pomp – rather than relying on showy gimmicks to deflect attention from fundamental weaknesses.

What’s changed since FIFA 10? Loads. EA claim over 100 gameplay improvements, the majority obscenely subtle, though no less welcome. Keepers are quicker off their line, headers are punchier, players more physical in collisions, short passes crisper, chesting no longer leads to infuriating player ‘freezing’ and player/ situation specific animations are more expressive. Simply, it plays better.

For example, when using the right stick first touch, Bellamy might flick a bouncing ball over his head to keep momentum, rather than trapping it on the ground, while midfield schemers like Fabregas might automatically opt to heel flick a one-touch pass in a crowded midfield. Shooting also benefits from context-sensitive animations, resulting in goals like Joe Cole’s delicate flick in the recent Manchester United game with a simple tap of the shoot button.

Visually, it’s brighter and crisper than FIFA 10, with – for the World Cup teams at least – improved likenesses. Sadly, for fans of Ireland, Wales and, er, Aruba, ‘star’ players like Damien Duff are decent, but more generic – forgivable, given the 199 team roster. There are new, more ostentatious, goal celebrations – Heskey doing the moonwalk never fails – plus authentic manager likenesses, although the cutscene breaks start to intrude.

The penalty system is deeper, but initially bewildering. You need to stop an oscillating ‘composure’ bar in its central sweet spot, then direct the shot ‘blind’ using analogue pushes. Top players have a bigger sweet spot, but the bar speeds up subject to the occasion. Problem is, even when you nail the composure, gauging the length of analogue stick pushes is highly demanding. Initially, your shots either go straight, or blaze wide. The practice arena lets you see how the ‘invisible’ shot pointer responds to your analogue pushes, but in-game, it’s still slightly nebulous. Our tip? Practice. A lot.

The new, optional, ‘two button’ control scheme screams father/son play, mapping complex controls – fairly intuitively – to two buttons. Tap, or hold, pass, and the game will play the appropriate through ball, or lofted pass; hold shoot, and it chooses between precision strikes, chips and blasts. It’s surprisingly effective, but on higher difficulty, feels a bit like attempting heart surgery with artificially intelligent forks, not surgical implements. Still, it’s another smart addition to broaden the game’s appeal.

Like drift-racer OutRun before it, After Burner is the latest Sega classic to get an HD remake and a release on XBLA. Out of the two, OutRun Online Arcade is still the one to go for – there’s much more bang for your buck there. After Burner Climax features a reworked version of the Arcade mode, which – despite looking lovely in HD and being incredibly satisfying to play – only amounts to about ten minutes of fun. Sure, you can change some variables in the main Arcade by fiddling with EX options (get a bigger targeting reticule, more credits, an auto-gun and so on), but if anything that makes your play-throughs shorter.

Elsewhere, there’s a Score Attack mode that enables you to upload your scores to online leaderboards, but that’s pretty much it. We’d liked to have seen more substance here to go with the new style and, as such, can’t quite recommend it for the somewhat steep price, unless you really, really love After Burner.