Brain Hood

The biggest gaming event of the year is less than one week away. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is about to storm the LA Convention Center and all eyes looking for anything videogame related will be on it. Microsoft will be first out of the gate this Sunday evening with a big Project Natal event…and won’t stop holding gatherings and game demos until the show ends on Thursday. Things will start off with a bang, but will Microsoft have enough gas in the tank to keep people interested once Sony and Nintendo start to show their wares? All signs point to yes.

By this point, one would expect to have already had all of Microsoft’s big E3 announcements either leaked or circling the Net in rumor form. That has been tradition, after all. This year things are different. Sony has spent the past few weeks announcing sequel after sequel while Microsoft’s camp has stayed quiet. My contacts won’t even hint at what to expect, though they do continue to book appointments — some of them with secretive agendas.

But you don’t have to have inside information to have a general understanding of what to expect from Microsoft this E3. Several games have already been announced by Microsoft that we know will be shown off including Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3 and Crackdown 2. There’s also the big Project Natal unveiling Sunday evening, where you can expect to learn the 3D camera’s final name and price, along with the launch lineup of games.

Ah, yes, Natal. This little gizmo will be the focus of the show for Microsoft for the first couple of days. Microsoft is targeting the more casual consumer with its 3D camera, so you can expect most of the games to be in line with what have been hits on Wii. Joy Ride with Natal, some carnival games, and perhaps a fitness program wouldn’t be any surprise at all. That doesn’t mean there won’t be anything the core gamer will enjoy. Several “hardcore” games will be announced or shown to entice those that already own an Xbox 360, including some by third parties and the goofy little Milo.

The focus will slowly begin to shift towards things the traditional IGN reader would get excited about at the start of the press conference on Monday, June 14, at 10:00 AM Pacific. Project Natal will still have a big presence there, but we’ll also start to get some news on more conventional games. Expect Rare to announce its next game, the Summer of Arcade lineup to be detailed, and a few other game unveilings to take place while MS hammers home the fact that it has a new Halo and a new Gears of War game coming within the next 12 months.

The consensus around these parts is that Natal has to wow and Microsoft has to announce at least one major game coming to Xbox 360 for anybody to consider this to be a successful E3. That doesn’t mean Xbox 360 fans are headed for disappointment should Natal fail to excite. There are, after all, plenty of games that are already announced which we’ll be getting our first look at that should have you more than excited for E3.

Last year we needed a hero to come and save us from music game overload. With multiple band games released on every system, we prayed for a savior that would come offering something new; something exciting. That hero came, and it was fittingly called DJ Hero. With an amazing tracklist of all-original mixes that explored genres rarely seen in Guitar Hero or Rock Band, DJ Hero brought music games back to our house parties. We recently got to see DJ Hero 2 in action and are happy to report it looks like our few complaints with the first game are all being addressed.

There will be another 70+ never-before-heard mixes cut and pasted from over 100 songs. We know of three mixes so far:

- Lady Gaga “Just Dance” Mixed With Deadmau5 “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff”
- Pussycat Dolls “Don’t Cha” Mixed With Pitbull “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)”
- MSTRKRFT “Bounce” Beat Juggle

The artist roster will include Lady Gaga, Deadmau5, Pussycat Dolls, Pitbull, MSTRKRFT, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Chemical Brothers, Metallica, and Rihanna. Deadmau5 will be a playable DJ and we assume more will be announced.

The original DJ Hero allowed emcees to hook up a USB microphone and freestyle over a mix. Since it wasn’t tied into gameplay it was more of a gimmick than a fun feature. DJ Hero 2 integrates vocals into the game so that vocalists can sing or rap along with the mix and be scored on their pitch and accuracy. The lyrics appear at the top of the screen along with a visual pitch indicator, similar to what you find in Rock Band, SingStar, and other band/singing games. In the footage and screenshots we’ve seen so far, though, the singer’s avatar doesn’t appear onscreen like the two DJs do. The name for this two-DJ-plus-singer mode is Party Play, and people can hop in and out without interrupting the game.

DJ Hero didn’t have a story, but the sequel has Empire Mode, where you’ll be working your way through the circuit as an up and coming DJ.

Another improved area is the head-to-head DJ battles. Previously, both players tried to hit the same notes in the same song and battled for the higher score. Now it’s more of a call-and-response affair where one DJ cuts it up for a few bars and then the other player takes a turn. It’s great, because it feels more like an actual battle. A head-to-head mix is separated into checkpoints and the goal is to win the most checkpoints.

Freestyle opportunities are now available to scratch, crossfade, and trigger samples how you like. At certain points in a song you’ll be able to hold down a turntable button and move the platter back and forth on your own, creating a personalized scratch performance rather than trigger pre-recorded scratches. During these sections you can also crossfade back and forth at will, isolating each record as you please. This time around, the samples have been pulled from the songs in the game, rather than random soundbites – although we are told that familiar air horn is still included.

Today Microsoft announced a Limited Collector’s Edition of Fable III, the upcoming installment in the popular series from Lionhead Studios.

The standard edition will cost you $59.99 (£44.99/€64.99) while the Limited Edition will go for $79.99 (£59.99/€84.99). So what do you get for the extra cash? Along with a “distinctive” box fashioned to look like a book from the world of Albion, those willing to spend a bit more will also receive:

• A new quest: Uncover the mystery of the haunted forests of Silverpines and earn the legendary sword, Wolfsbane, deadly against wolves and balverines.
• Exclusive location: Unlock a new region, ideal for settling down with a family and discovering new treasures.
• Fable III playing cards: Created by Lionhead, these cards depict every type of character in Fable III including Heroes, royals, rebels and villains from across Albion and beyond.
• Guild Seal Coin: The coin features a Good side (blue) and Evil side (red) to assist players in making critical decisions that will impact the fate of the world forever.
• A new dog breed: Renowned for its loyalty, the Boxer is a brave canine companion worthy of greatest Queens and Kings.
• One unique outfit: Unearth one male and female outfit from the mysterious, faraway land of Aurora, a new destination in your Fable III adventures.

Early shots have leaked of MotorStorm 3, showing the off-road racer taking to the streets of what appears to be a West Coast country in the throes of the apocalypse.

Buildings are ripped apart and concrete flies as a sportscar races through scenes that are reminiscent of Disney and Black Rock’s recent Split/Second, a game that’s a world away from the lush backdrops of Pacific Rift, the last outing for the MotorStorm series.

MotorStorm was one of early flag wavers for the PlayStation 3, and it has since spawned a sequel and a PSP/PS2 spin-off, Arctic Edge.

PS3Gen has the shots, which look like the genuine article, and in the wake of Killzone 3, LittleBigPlanet 2 and inFamous 2 it looks like Sony are going to have a fight on their hands to have any surprises in store come E3.

Often, I’m asked what my favorite game of all time is. Without hesitation, I say Metal Gear Solid for the original PlayStation. Solid Snake’s relationships, the movie-like presentation, and the creepy, skilled enemies blew me away and gave me a glimpse of where the videogame industry was headed — it stole a special place in my heart.

After playing the first 17 hours of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I can tell you that this PSP game is my favorite Metal Gear game since the original, and it might have a chance at becoming the answer to the “favorite game” question if it fixes a few things.

By this point, I’d imagine you know the basics of what’s going on in Peace Walker — you can of course download the playable demo from the PlayStation Network and play through the opening and get into some missions right now. If you missed all that, this game picks up from where Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops left off. You’re Naked Snake (AKA Big Boss) and you’ve started up Militaires Sans Frontieres (MSF), a group of wayward soldiers fighting battles for countries that can’t fight for themselves. A professor and girl show up on your doorstep and beg you to come to Costa Rica and stop a CIA invasion. From there, it’s on to the cardboard boxes and CQC we all know and love.
The cutscenes hook you in Peace Walker.
You probably knew all that from previous IGN previews, but here’s what I could never figure out when I played the demo: during the conversation with the professor Snake gets pretty pissed when teach assumes MSF will fight for any cause as long as there’s a dollar sign attached to it, but then the game starts up and you’re doing just that. What did we miss? It turns out, we missed a lot. The first meeting cutscene goes well beyond what’s in the demo, and it eventually comes down to the professor playing a mysterious tape — a tape that had the Boss’ voice on it.

That’s right, the Boss. Naked Snake’s mentor. The traitor Big Boss killed at the end of Metal Gear Solid 3.

This is Snake’s true motivation for diving into this powder keg. Sure, he wants to stop the Metal Gear known as Peace Walker (a bipedal tank that can launch a nuke from its back), but he really needs to figure out what he’s hearing on that tape. This motivation is an excellent one. Throughout the 17 hours I played this game, this single goal of Big Boss made his decisions make sense, kept me engaged, and really made a strong, emotional connection to everything that was going on.

Honestly, Metal Gear games since the original Solid have kind of been, well, batcrap insane. Patriots, virtual reality, etc. — it’s been hard to follow and keep a simple story in place. For my money, Peace Walker has the franchise’s most understandable story. Snake is on the scene to find out about the Boss, the professor wants your help getting the bad guys out of his town, and so on. Sure, you as readers only know about a tenth of the real story right now (and I’m not going to spoil it for you here), but as characters get added and the mission evolves, Peace Walker keeps a hold of its pacing and plotline. I didn’t feel lost when I got to the dramatic, awesome cutscenes in the end.
The CQC throw is a nice touch in this Metal Gear.
When you’re in a mission, there’s no denying that this is Metal Gear. You can gently move the analog nub in a direction to have Snake creep that way. When you get behind an unknowing guard, you can hold the right shoulder button to grab him and then hold him hostage or hurl him to the ground. There are the exclamation points, alert phases, and radio calls you’d expect from this franchise, and it all feels great. The aiming reticle on the screen will get smaller and more precise if you give Snake a chance to settle in his position, so popping headshots was simple enough. There’s the camo index on the right side of the screen so you know how hidden you are at any given moment. The gameplay supports the story by being equally as fun.

That story I was just talking about is bolstered by stellar cutscenes and voice work. The cutscenes are done in that animated comic style we’ve seen before where the image is mostly still but reactions and movement gets animated (the flashbacks to Boss vs. Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 are done in these pencil sketches) and the game itself looks brilliant. There was a point in the game where HQ tells Snake to be on the lookout for camouflaged snipers in the jungle, so I was going forward one or two steps at a time and stopping to scan around the perimeter and find these dudes. Then, I literally tripped over one. The game is that good looking — enemies can hide in plain sight.

It’s time for yet another monthly graphics driver update from the folks at AMD via their ATI unit. The newly released Catalyst 10.5 drivers are now available to download via AMD’s Game web site. The drivers for the ATI Radeon graphics chips are available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 users in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

The release notes for the new drivers reveal the driver’s new features and more importantly the driver’s various bug fixes for quite a number of recent PC games. The titles with bug fixes include Alien vs. Predator, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Splinter Cell Conviction. The bug fixes for the games sometimes depend on which version of Windows you currently use.

Titan Quest is one of the best new PC games to hit the market in recent times. Strictly meant for those who are die-hard adventurers, this one has so much to offer that you won’t tire of it for a long time. A game of skill and strategy, Titan Quest boasts of some original ideas and great graphics. There is also a fair amount of violence involved. However, all that simply adds to the fun of this action-adventure game. Simply put, it is a great package for action game fans.

The game has some challenging quests which require the user to keep planning and strategizing. There are four skill types to choose from: lightning, fire, defensive, or offensive. Each of these levels has different logistics and features. The goal is to kill as many monsters as possible without getting hit yourself. You are required to pass through each of the skill levels and the difficulty level increases as you progress. The weapons available to you also become more and more sophisticated with each stage.

The graphics are original and innovative. There are some great new features, such as the dual-weapon set, which lets you exchange weapons seamlessly. There are minor issues with the controls, but in most cases these can be ignored. The good points of this game far outnumber the bad points. The multiplayer version is also very exciting. If you want to compete with your friends, you can invite them online and play with up to six players.