Brain Hood

Skeptical though you may be as to whether a mere gaming news blog is qualified to comment in this regard, but we’re certain the marketing and PR machinery for Medal of Honor: Warfighter’ seems to have actually hit pay dirt. The latest iteration in the award-winning series of warfare based first person shooters is easily the most eagerly anticipated game of the second half of 2012. It is official now that the release date for Warfighter is October 23, 2012. Let us take a look at the existing information we have regarding how Danger Close is working to build on the surprising success of 2010’s Medal of Honor.

Introducing Medal of Honor: Warfighter

A screenshot from the single player demo for Medal of Honor: Warfighter gives fans a taste of things to come

After the series reboot in 2010 with Medal of Honor, the series continues to honor the Tier 1 Operator by delivering an aggressive, personal and authentic look into the Special Operations community. Once again, the gamers will find themselves in the boots of the deadliest warriors of the modern world. That’s right, MoH is going global with Warfighter, including the deadliest special forces from all over the world including the British SAS, the French GIGN and many others.

In 2010 the series reboot focused on the AFO Teams and the initial push into Afghanistan. The game narrated how America’s most capable warriors conducted target-specific preparations of the battlespace prior to H-Hour and how the Special Mission Units of JSOC quickly adapted during the follow-on military operations to get the job done. In 2010, the story focused on what those men fought for on that mountain in Afghanistan. Medal of Honor Warfighter focuses on what those same men fight for at home.

Warfighter to push the boundaries of in-game realism

The enemy is still global terror, so you’ll be fighting against Taliban militia in one mission and raiding Somalian pirate strongholds in the next. EA claims that the story was developed with major inputs from Tier 1 Operators while deployed overseas.

What’s more, EA claims to have tied up with all the major brands that actually supply equipment to the various Special Forces from all over the world in order to provide extremely authentic weapon models, right down to the minutest details. That also means that the weapons would not be deliberately misnamed due to license problems. Evidently, a lot of effort has been put into showing weapons that look and work like their real life counterparts. If great graphics get you going, then you would be happy to know that Warfighter uses the revolutionary Frostbite 2 engine for the most immersive and engaging first person shooter experience of the series.

A Glimpse into the Storyline

As stated on the official blog, the game begins with a very personal story one of the protagonists of 2010’s Medal of Honor. “Preacher”, a Tier 1 Operator from the U.S. Navy returns home only to find his family torn apart from years of combat deployment. Trying to pick up the pieces to salvage what remains of his marriage, Preacher is reminded of what he’s fighting for: family.

But when a deadly explosive known as PETN penetrates civilian borders and his two worlds collide, Preacher and his fellow teammates from “Task Force Mako” are sent in to do what they do best – solve the problem.

At this video gaming blog, we love this franchise and all that it stands for. We would continue to eagerly track their development notes and the EA blog till we can actually get our greasy paws on the game in October.

Stay tuned for more to come.

There had been a lot of anticipation in video gaming circles regarding Doom 3, which recently turned into uncertainty regarding whether it’s even going to happen.

After revelations of there being a patent issue with the Doom 3 source code last week, there were concerns that it’s imminent source code release might not be so imminent anymore. However apparently there was a minor workaround for the offending code, which John Carmack himself implemented. According to him it required adding only four lines of code and changing two. And now of course, Doom 3 is finally open source!

This code release has been triggered by the release of their next-generation id Tech 5 engine in Rage, which was released just last month. The id Tech 5 engine too will eventually become open source when id Software creates its replacement and releases it in a commercial game.

The open source nature does not extend to the game data as well of course, and to play Doom 3 you will still need to purchase a license for the game. People can, however, now create their own games based on the engine, or modify the Doom 3 engine itself and use it to play the game.

The open source gaming community has benefited greatly from the source code opened by id Software, and there are now numerous open source games that use the quake3 engine and its derivatives.

The Doom 3 engine, or the id Tech 4 engine first appeared in Doom 3 back in 2004, and was also used in Quake 4 soon after. While the engine might seem rather old now, it is still a huge advancement over the id Tech 3 engine and the Enemy Territory engines that were available till now. Also, the id Tech 4 engine has been used in recent commercial games; Brink, an id Tech 4 based games was released just this year, and Prey 2 an as yet unreleased game coming in 2012 also features the id Tech 4 engine.

The source code for Doom 3 is hosted at the popular GitHub code hosting site and is available under the GPL3 license, which permits anyone to create derivatives of the code and distribute them as long as the modified code is distributed as well. While it has only been a few hours since it was made available, already they are hundreds of people watching the project, dozens of forks, and one commit for XCode 4 support.

The gaming multimedia industry is all set to infect everyone with a serious case of ‘sequelitis’ this year. Major gaming franchises make their mandatory yearly appearance, some return after a couple of years, while others, long-forgotten, attempt to make a dramatic return to the world of video games. Then there’s Grand Theft Auto V. Enough said.

Season for Seconds: Video Gaming Fun

Serving its way to the top of this article is EA Canada’s Grand Slam Tennis 2. Hoping to capitalise on everyone’s Australian Open fever

Grand Slam Tennis 2 is one of a long list of sequels that are expected to brighten 2012 u for video gaiming fans

(or hangover, as the case may be), EA’s first foray into the next-gen world of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (the previous version was a Wii-only title) promises licensed players in the form of current ATP regulars such as Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray as well as legends, including Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg and Boris Becker. WTA players are included as well, so don’t fret. The game’s features include a career mode that spans ten years, fully licensed Grand Slams, classic matches and Playstation Move support on the PS3. You can enjoy all of this and more on February 10.

Also out in February is the highly anticipated launch title for the Playstation Vita, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, a game that is set before the events of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, where everyone’s favourite bounty hunter Nathan Drake is looking for the truth behind the massacre of a Spanish expedition. Golden Abyss promises great locales, treasure and lots more of the same action that garnered the Uncharted series’ critical acclaim and made it a hit with the gamers, while incorporating the PS Vita’s dual touch controls, accelerometer, hopefully delivering an unparalleled hand-held adventure gaming experience.

In early March, the next chapter of Bioware’s space opera will unfold through Mass Effect 3, a follow-up (which will offer closure, hopefully) to 2010′s critically acclaimed Mass Effect 2. ME3 will be back, bigger than ever before, sporting overhauled combat mechanics, an improved cover system, co-operative multiplayer and for Xbox 360 players, Kinect support with voice recognition which allows for commanding your squad of virtual human and/or turian and other alien squad mates (Garrus, flank left!).

If ordering your Xbox to do some killing on your behalf isn’t enough for you, you can take matters into your own hands in three action sequels that are set to invade your living room: Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, Max Payne 3 and Square Enix/IO Interactive’s Hitman Absolution. The GTA series returns after a three year hiatus, taking us back to the state of San Andreas, last seen in the Grand Theft Auto game of the same name in 2004. The fifth episode will be set primarily in the city of Los Santos (based on Los Angeles and regions of Southern California), and is sure to feature some of the spectacular writing and open-world gameplay, the series is famous for.

Penning both GTA V and Max Payne 3 for Rockstar Games is Mr. Vice President himself, Dan Houser, arguably one of the best writers in gaming. He showed us he could do gritty (Red Dead Redemption) just as well as the satire and humour that we see in GTA; something a character of incredible depth like Max Payne is sure to benefit from. On the opposite end of the spectrum, stone-cold killer Agent 47 will shoot bullet holes in television sets later this year, going toe to toe with brand new arch-nemesis Blake Dexter in a series of stealth/action gaming missions sure to be set in all corners of the world.

Need for Speed: The Run has a prologue level of sorts that establishes protagonist Jack’s situation – a guy in trouble with the wrong people, looking for a way out. He finds it in a cross-country race with a purse of 25 million dollars. But where The Run really begins is in a warehouse garage off the Embarcadero in San Francisco. You pick a car and roar out onto the street, greeted by the light of an early morning in the city. It’s not exact, by any means, but developer Black Box nails the feel of San Francisco’s streets well. And then crazy shit starts happening all around you, in the best way possible, as more police cars than I think San Francisco actually has are chasing you and dozens of other cars toward the Golden Gate bridge, and…

The Need for Speed: The Run Impact

It makes an impression. Need for Speed: The Run starts out so well that I coasted on that high for about 45 more minutes before I realized the game I was playing just wasn’t very good.

It takes that long to realize it because the fundamentals work pretty well. Cars in Need for Speed: The Run are fun to drive. They handle well, they sound good (some awful audio compression aside), and they feel fast. That last part is good, because The Run wants you to drive fast. Really, really fast. Faster than you probably should.

The Negatives in Need for Speed: The Run

That speed is where the trouble starts. I know that The Run wants fast. I can tell because the competition is always ahead of you, going about 150 miles an hour. If you want to catch up, you’ll need to drive like, well… an asshole. You will need to drive like an asshole. I had to cut corners sharply, pull bootlegger turns, and ricochet off of other cars most races to stand a chance. All of this seems at odds with The Run’s level design.

Unfortunately, the sound underpinnings of Need For Speed: The Run are undermined by an onslaught of strange design decisions that effectively murder most of its fun. The Driver Level aspect is first up. You don’t start with the ability to boost, you need to unlock it. I can almost wrap my head around that, since nitrous oxide is an aftermarket thing. But at Driver Level 7 in Need for Speed: The Run, you unlock the greatest perk any driver could ever ask for: the laws of physics. You are incapable of drafting other cars until level 7. Meanwhile, you’ll be sling-shoting competition around you from the second race forward.

That competition doesn’t even feel like drivers, they feel like slot cars, running what seem to be the exact same path every time you attempt a race. I say attempt here because you will wreck in The Run. Often. And that will introduce you to what is probably the most under-cooked “rewind” feature in a racing game since the feature became the norm.

Rewind in The Run isn’t what you think it is – it’s not a rewind at all. Instead, you’re greeted with a black screen with a big “Rewind” image on it, and after anywhere from five to twenty seconds(!), you’ll be set back anywhere from one to two miles in the race. It’s checkpointing, and bad checkpointing at that.

There’s also a strange, demonstrated paranoia surrounding leaving the road. If you get more than six feet or so away from the track, the screen will go dark and The Run will invoke a rewind. Sometimes it’s even more stringent. The Run demands risky driving to finish races, but is all too ready to punish a player for it. Instead of introducing a new way to succeed and compete, rewinds just get in the way of playing the game.

The races themselves don’t help. The level design in The Run is usually boring, and frequently nonsensical. One scene toward the end of the game has you fleeing a subway train at 140 miles an hour or more, and there is literally no way to outrun it. Police cars are again able to violate the laws of physics at will, pulling in front of you and screeching from 160MPH to a dead stop in just about no seconds flat. Still, the instant-kill setpiece or environmental hazard will become a bigger enemy than any car on the road. And whenThe Run isn’t trying to kill you directly, it’s tugging your pants around your ankles by killing the framerate with an explosion, which trips up the controls.

As for that story, there’s just not much there. I didn’t mind the quicktime events. They function, and they were a good palette cleanser from the frustration of the rest of The Run. But the characters are never developed, and the story exists solely as a way to contrive some truly idiotic racing situations.

Need for Speed: The Run has more to it than The Run itself, with some fairly standard multiplayer and a Challenge mode. Multiplayer is more bumper-cars. It ditches the rewind feature of The Run for Hot Pursuit style respawns. It makes for a faster and less frustrating experience, but the same underwhelming course design doesn’t make things particularly interesting. The challenge races share almost all of the same issues as The Run proper.

And issues are what The Run has more of than anything. Need for Speed: The Run‘s biggest problem is how much it has in common with a real drive from one end of the US to the other. There are a few bright spots here and there, but it’s mostly full of unexpected stops, lots of flat tires, and too many assholes on the road. This isn’t the worst Need for Speed, but it can’t place against other, better racers from the last year.

Video gaming news and review sites once had a cynosure in the form of id Software and justifiably so. These were the guys who’d literally given the world of video gaming a new perspective by pioneering the first person shooter; those of us born before the 90s have fond memories of Wolfenstein 3D. id didn’t stop there, going on to further define the genre they’d created. The highly successful Doom and Quake franchises shaped the FPS genre and symbolized an entire era in video gaming. Simply put, they pretty much established themselves as the elder statesmen of video gaming, and were now looking for an ‘unretirement’ of sorts.

The intense combat experience, weapons that were innovative as much as they were fun, and a dark, twisted sense of humor were the stand-out traits of these games and that is the formula that id is looking to revive with Rage.

Rage Review: Redefining Video Gaming Graphics

Enemies come in all varieties in Rage. Some are harder to kill than others

And what makes it really stand out is that, as they’ve done before, id have somehow managed to revisit the art of redefining standards for graphical brilliance. Of course, you’ve heard that before, what with every new game that come out aiming to mediocrity with sheer eye-candy. Rage is among the exceptions where the graphics aren’t just there for the thrills, but serve to bring alive a truly beautiful, true-to-life animated, near photo-realistic world. Yes, this world does get into your face every now and then and tries to rip your throat out, but we’re not talking about gameplay right now, are we?

Gameplay

Speaking of which, Rage scores well here too. The combat is intense, immersive and unbelievably satisfying (okay, not quite in the I-need-a-shrink way) and not just because there’s a generous dose of good old video gaming blood-&-guts. The weapons are innovative, and with multiple ammo-types, the shooting never really gets old as you keep finding new ways to wreak havoc upon all who stand in your way. Suffice it to say that Rage will make you a veritable video gaming angel of death. Some weapons are pretty much standard FPS fare, and then there are others, like the bladed boomerang, that make you feel like a kid holding a brand new flavor of (virtual, of course) candy.  The races that also allow you to shoot your opponents into oblivion make us want to dig up our old Death RaceVHS tapes and weep tears of joy.

Enemy AI

Traveling on foot, encounters with the enemy are likely to leave you shaken; make no mistake, they’re not going to roll over and die just to make you feel good about yourself. Melee enemies will try take you down with the sheer weight of numbers, while the ones with ranged weapons know how to use them to deadly effect. Not only is the AI good, different kinds of enemies have their characteristic strengths, and use those strengths as well as the video gaming environment frighteningly well. Enemies tend to utilize cover effectively, so you’re always on your toes trying to deal with different enemies and it isn’t quite Serious Sam. Every encounter, especially when you encounter a new kind of enemy, turns into a dash to safety whichever way you can manage it, trying to kill the enemy at the same time. All in all, the adrenaline pumping gameplay keeps punching you in the guts to remind you that id Software is back.

Story

The storyline is where Rage flatters to deceive. That is not to say that it is bad. It’s also not just that the overall awesomeness warrants a better story, but more than that, it’s the story itself that’s promising and yet feels underdeveloped. You meet quite a few quirky and memorable characters on your quests, and while they feel nicely fleshed out, their storylines aren’t quite. Most of them are characters that send you, the player, on various quests. However, they have a tendency to simply vanish once their quests are completed. All the same, the story keeps you involved for the duration of the campaign—which can take anything between 10 and 20 hours—and is quite interesting but again, it just ends abruptly. Also, with all the stupendous arsenal you have on you by the time the final level rolls along, one does wish—classic corridor FPS action though it does showcase—that the final fight could have made you use your death dealing contraptions a little more and offered a challenging fight, instead of ending it as it does (see, no spoilers!)

Multiplayer Video Gaming

The multiplayer was clearly not the focal point for the developers who decided to go for a superlative single-player campaign instead. That said, it gets the job done by providing a more than decent multiplayer FPS experience. So our final verdict is that Rage is a must play game for the simple fact that it’s a fun game. It seamless blends a hardcore FPS video gaming experience with some basic and interesting features of an action RPG without letting that go so far as to detract from the chief fun  element, the sheer delight of carnage-filled fighting. That it’s easy on eyes at the same time only goes on to check another box with players still looking for more reasons to buy this game. Seriously folks, buy this fine specimen of video gaming multimedia already!

It has been a while since we introduced you to the concept of cloud gaming and how it has evolved from the emerging technologies for cloud computing, to become a market unto itself, with its own demand dynamics and target segment; even in this infant stage, gamers have begun to clamor for it. We also gave you an idea of just why video game news publications are raving about it. Let us now take a deeper look at cloud gaming, its origins, and what it requires to enjoy cloud gaming.

Cloud Gaming: Where  it All Began and Current Operators

The idea of cloud gaming was first broached by a Finland firm named G-cluster, and hyped by several video gaming news journals and blogs. Since then, several firms have banked upon this technology and have been working towards it. Some firms like OnLive, Gaikai and PlayCast have been among the few to come out with a sound revenue model that they have implemented straightaway and are already operational. These operators are now working hard to bring their hardware (and thus services) to a level where they can meet the high expectations and effectively challenge the consoles. As the client base expands, they expect to be able to bring costs down and thus reach out to avid game lovers even more than before.

Games such as Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia are one of the most popular games played on the internet these days. Even the requirements for these aren’t much and you just need a PC, Mac that could access the internet.

With cloud gaming, code processing and video rendering done at the server-side you can play any game on any system including DOS/Apple/Commodore/Atari games, arcade games, console games, Windows games, Apple OS games, and phone app games. Any game can be put on server and it is the capability of the server that allows multi users to enjoy those games at the same time.

Limitations of Cloud Gaming

The main limitation of Cloud gaming is the network quality. Due to the difference in the network quality at the end of different users depending upon their distance to a game server of the cloud users may experience several problems while playing games. Some people might get disconnected while playing games due to these issues. It may irritate a player if he/she gets disconnected every now and then.

Another limiting factor may be ability of local computer or system to properly render a video stream. Video compression codecs and technologies may be used by a gaming cloud to reduce amount of data required to transfer over bandwidth, and it takes sufficient amount of processing power to decompress and/or decode such a video stream.

Cloud gaming is to retro gaming what Email is to Letters. When emails started it was feared that the letters would not exist after some time but they survived in their own category. It may be the future, it may not but one thing is for certain we are not there yet.

It will be exciting to see the choices gamers make when the next generation of consoles and gaming multimedia come up against fully operational cloud gaming services.

For now, that’s all we have on cloud gaming; keep following us for more video game news updates and game reviews.

Any and every video game news rag worth its salt is awash with speculation as to whether Hitman: Absolution would live up to the sheer euphoria of expectations that the trailers  have aroused. Before we proceed, we do categorically state that we simply loved Hitman: Blood Money, the previous iteration, and the chronological successor to IO’s coming offering.

What We Know So Far of Hitman: Absolution

It seems that Diana Blackwood, 47’s handler in the previous games, went rogue after the events of Blood Money / Contracts, purging all existing data on her from the ICA systems before doing a vanishing act. The sanction on her life was issued to 47 and that seems to be the premise of Hitman: Absolution.

Gameplay in Hitman: Absolution

The details are fuzzy so far as regards what the gameplay enhancements in Hitman: Absolution may be. However, what’s emerging apparently is that while stealth is still a part of the game, all out carnage may have just been made easier than earlier games. More on that later.

What has been clarified so far is that there is greater environmental interaction, with the ability to use various objects as improvised weapons or decoys. This was introduced in Blood Money with the coin feature and Hitman: Absolution looks all set to explore the possibilities further.

The new throttling mechanism takes a page out of Deus Ex, giving you an option to quickly break a victim’s neck as against the slower and more brutal choking. Also information has been revealed that 47 can utilize a given hiding place for both himself and a dead/ unconscious victim at the same time. This should add a whole new level of realism to Hitman: Absolution.

Better situation awareness has also been reportedly introduced in the form of what’s being called the “Super-Assassin-O-Vision”. This takes the form of an ‘instinct’ resource that helps ‘see’ enemies through walls or predict their paths. The ‘instinct’  resource means different things at differnt points; for instance, another use of it is to make disguise more effective. The resource gets used up and has to recharged, kind of like “bullet time” in Max Payne.

Is Hitman: Absolution a Departure from the Silent Assassin Stealth Gameplay Approach?

New gameplay elements such as cover mechanics have reportedly been introduced, making it possible for 47 to dig in for a firefight if required. Consequently, you may just earn that “mass murderer” rating without using a cheat-code if only you use the gameplay elements right. This action-hero style of gameplay could be an interesting variation and would lend the game more replay value (something for which the Hitman series is famous anyway).

Previous games had a problem that breaking the identity cover eventually led to a heavily outnumbered 47 being gunned down no matter how many he killed. The developers say that that is remedied by introducing another manifestation of the ‘instinct’ resource: Point Shooting, sort of like the quick-draw in some western-themed games. This could not only add a more cinematic experience to Hitman: Absolution but also offer a more viable alternative (as against previous games) to the sneaking around of old. Of course, that’s fun in its own way.

The game is due out this year, and this gaming news blog can’t wait for some more semi-sandbox murdery fun that’s coming our way in the shape of Hitman: Absolution. 

It’s not every day that your friendly neighborhood video gaming news blog gets up in the middle of a great game and decides to dash out a preliminary review of sorts, just to holler out to all you video gaming crazies just what a great time we’re having with this game. This is one of those times, when we meet a game that makes us send up a prayer of thanks (not always silent) to the patron saint of video gaming, if there’s one. So let us give you a look-in on Rage, the latest FPS offering from id Software, the people who brought us the Doom and Quake video gaming franchises. Rage continues in the same vein as the last Doom and Quake iterations to come out of the id Software Stable, particularly the dark humor and the visceral combat.

Attention Video Gaming Fans: Introducing Rage

At its most basic, Rage tries to bridge two popular video gaming genres: there’s the FPS fun we mentioned, but there’s also generous sprinklings of all the hallmark features of a role-playing-game. With a game world that’s larger than your average FPS, and the stark landscape lending credence to the setting being in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you’ll find yourself driving from one centre of civilization to another and yet the video gaming experience hardly wanes. You’ll meet strangers who give you quests to complete in return for unique items and weapon/ armor upgrades.

A Sight for Sore Eyes

One could be forgiven for thinking that the large and beautifully done game-world could have also accommodated some good sandbox action. Agreed, that is one popular subgenre of the action gaming world that might have fit quite well into this already interesting blend, but the omission would seem rather deliberate on part of the developers. The open-world gameplay pioneered by the GTA franchise has been done to death, and yet, few games have managed to pull it off with any degree of success in what has become a veritable deathtrap for otherwise decent games, now that there’s also Red Dead Redemption setting a standard in the sandbox video gaming sub-genre. What we have instead is a fairly linear, corridor action first person shooter with the character and arsenal development afforded by the RPG-esque features lending the game a degree of video gaming immersion as well as a faux-sandbox aura of freedom. To add to that the game world is, quite simply, gorgeous. The skies change hue as per the time of the day, with colors of heartbreaking beauty  and with clouds so beautifully rendered you’d think it’s the real deal.

An All New Approach Down a Familiar Path

The game world’s sprawling dimensions notwithstanding, you mostly travel down a narrow valley, and the combat action is predominantly close-quarters (wouldn’t be much of a “rage” otherwise, would it?).

Quite similar to Gearbox Software’s 2009 hit Borderlands, the over-world, which you’ll need a vehicle to navigate, has little by way of resources or missions but simply connects you to the different combat spots or quest sources you need to reach.

Rage is in no way the first game to be set in a post-apocalyptic scenario; as a matter of fact it borrows freely from similar titles such as Fallout: New Vegas and Borderlands. What makes it absolutely rollicking fun, however, is the freakishly innovative and absurdly gory combat that is complemented by the insanely good graphics, thus making for an insanely good video gaming experience.

Our Final Word (for now) on Rage

It is a thoroughly enjoyable game that you’ll learn to love warts and all. That holds especially true if, like us, you swore undying loyalty to any game coming from id when you were an impressionable teenager fragging anything that moves to gory bits of virtual blood, flesh and bone with that railgun.

It will be a while before we can really get into the game and dissect it with all the surgical precision we can muster and give you a comprehensive video game review, analyzing the various aspects in greater depth. For that, wait for the next post on this video game blog, while we return to what has so far been a great video gaming experience.

As Rockstar Games released the first official game trailer for Max Payne 3, there was a mixed reaction of both hope and cynicism from video game lovers and one can hardly blame them. A look at the various gaming multimedia titles these days would reveal that the electronic entertainment industry is sorely lacking in the ability to surprise. That is especially true with the  video game industry’s carnival events, where established formulae and a tendency to play it safe with series iterations tend to win over any creativity inspired fresh ideas that the developers may have. A general rule of thumb is to stick to what works with minor gameplay modifications, and to leave it to the more enhanced graphic engines to give the feel of freshness. So essentially, fans of popular franchises are playing the same game, iteration-after-iteration, with a new skin.

Rockstar Games is one development house that has, so far, managed to fight this tendency successfully in their games. Rockstar has been known, in the past, to tightly control information flow before a title release and to seldom indulge in pre-release media hype. The philosophy behind that is rooted in Rockstar’s inherent trickster persona, as VP and co-founder Dan House puts it: Letting people peek behind the curtain spoils the fun.

Max Payne 3: A Legacy to Live Up To

Due in March 2012, Max Payne 3 is the sequel to an action series that, in many ways, introduced cinematic aspects to the videogame world and remains one of the more story-driven shooting games to come out. Payne was a fugitive undercover cop: his cover busted, framed for murder of a colleague and hunted by both the NYPD and the mob. The first two games had a noir feel that contributed as much to the fan following as the ground-breaking gameplay. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne came out in 2004; eight years and one sloppy movie adaptation later, fans of the franchise have stuck to their guns.

That puts Rockstar, and Max Payne 3 in a somewhat complicated space: not only would the game have to compete against other titles in its genre, it also has to contend with the nostalgic memories of players who have long since forgotten any of its weaknesses.

Max Payne 3 Official Trailer Unveils Partial Storyline

The new game sees Max working as a private security specialist protecting an industrialist and his family in Sao Paulo. When gangs target the family, Max must battle not only the gangsters, but also the inner demons that have driven him for so long.

It’s a story that, on the surface, sounds formulaic, but both Rockstar and the Max Payne series have always taken pains to weave a complex tale into the games, rather than loosely tying event moments together with a threadbare plot.

Houser, who is also lead writer on Max Payne 3 (as he was on “Grand Theft Auto IV”), says he believes refining writing is essential to the maturation of the industry.

Maintaining control over story — and any cinematic qualities — is especially challenging as the gaming world moves toward a more multiplayer focus. Players still appreciate a good campaign, but if a game doesn’t have a strong online component where they can play with (or, even better, against) others, it hurts the game’s earnings potential.

Is Rockstar Seeking to Break New Ground with Max Payne 3?

Rockstar hasn’t talked much about the multiplayer aspects of Max Payne 3, but Houser hints that just because those elements of the game live outside of the campaign, it doesn’t mean they’re not part of the narrative.

“We wanted to put some elements of single player into the multiplayer so the multiplayer will have a lot more detail and have elements of story in it and have a sort of an immersive quality,” he says.

Max Payne 3 has done its time in development hell. First announced in 2009, with an expected shipping date of the winter of that year, it has been pushed back a couple of times to let the development team polish it and ensure the quality was up to Rockstar’s exacting standards. This includes an excruciating attention to detail, which Houser says is the real key to the company’s success, and would ensure that Max Payne 3 would live up to fan’s expectations and then some more.

When we bring the latest news from the world of gaming multimedia on our gaming blog, we consider it a duty to bring you the most unbiased opinions. We’d really like you to remember that. That’s why we tried to find any reason not to give Batman: Arkham City a perfect mark, and not because we get a thrill out of nitpicking. There’s that too, but mostly it is the duty thing.

So we went in looking for flaws, for mistakes. But hours passed and turned into days. Twenty-six hours of gameplay later, and only 67% complete by the game’s telling, we admit defeat.

You win, Rocksteady. Arkham City is perfect.

The City’s Slicker

This game, were you somehow not aware, is a direct sequel, building off of the already superlative Batman: Arkham Asylum in 2008. Essentially the entire combat system and most of the gadgets from the original make a return, immediately available to the player from the start. Still, improved AI makes things a bit harder. In return, however, each room has ever more ways to sneak around, unseen, picking off foes individually. The additions to Batman’s arsenal, meanwhile, are excellent: new, expanded movements off of the stun action, a dive bomb technique while gliding, and a vastly improved grappling hook that makes slinging around the city a breeze.

And what a city it is. Arkham City is a masterpiece of art direction, bringing to life a world even more fully realized than that of Nolan’s iconic films. Every section and building is wholly unique, every alleyway bristling with the Riddler’s well-placed trophies, every street a battleground between the warring factions of supervillains in Arkham City.

Though stalking through the claustrophobic corridors of Arkham Asylum was undoubtedly fun, the player won’t feel like Batman but could be any action hero with some dazzling array of gadgets; however, in Arkham City, things were different.

Cast and Crew of Arkham City

Being Batman, however, is not so nearly as fun without his cadre of supervillains with which to contend. Arkham City, its very nature precluding any possibility of contrivance, manages to squeeze nearly every major ally and antagonist in the history of the franchise into one, glorious campaign. Revealing the specifics should be considered, of course, spoiler territory, but it’s worth mentioning that several major villains don’t even make an appearance until you tackle their particular side missions. These completely optional objectives feel so fleshed out and rich that you would be hard pressed to tell them apart from primary story missions.

The story is well deserving of the license, and opens with such production value that you wonder if you should rent out a local theater just for the experience. With regard to performance, Batman: Arkham City has brought together possibly the single finest voice acting ensemble in the history of gaming. Mark Hamill, of course, is a ludicrously talented standout as the Joker, but every voice of every villain brings with it gravitas and panache to Arkham City.

The Knight of Arkham City

While the primary campaign is more than enough, there are dozens of distractions to keep you otherwise occupied during your stay in Arkham City. There are, of course, Riddler’s brainteasers and trophies making a return from Asylum, as well a pseudo-achievement system that rewards the player well with experience, which is then used to upgrade any number of devices from Mr. Wayne’s arsenal. There are dozens upon dozens of character dossiers, stories, and various other items of bonus content unlocked constantly throughout the game.

Arkham City: The Final Verdict

Batman: Arkham City is a game so good that we’re amazed it wasn’t programmed by alien wizards. Truly, it deserves every accolade it is so sure to receive, every perfect mark it is so sure to tally.

We’ll certainly be bringing you more video game news in the future, but we’re already certain that no game review would be as effusive as the one we’ve written for Arkham City.