Preview: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Tomb it may concern. Tomb Raider is my favourite game of all time. Of course, this is mainly because it allows me to live out fantasies of being intrepid, acrobatic, clever, rich, posh and chesty. But it’s also because of the classic third-person action-adventure gameplay, the emphasis on puzzles and exploration over gunplay and explosions, the detailed visuals and the sweeping vistas. Most of all it’s the atmosphere – the feeling you’re all alone in these lush jungles and echoey chambers, just you and Lara. So, two minutes into Crystal Dynamics’ demo of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, I want to cry. The game on screen doesn’t look like any Tomb Raider I recognise. The viewpoint is isometric and the camera is fixed. Lara, who appears as a small character model, is too busy shooting enemies to pull any switches. And she’s got a mate with her – some tall bloke who carries a spear, sports a ponytail and wears a loincloth. Together they run around a pokey temple, guns blazing, pausing only to smash the odd crate. ‘Oh Lara,’ I think, ‘What have they done to you?’ Little do I know that the next 28 minutes will change my mind completely. By the time the demo’s over I’ll have understood much more about Guardian of Light – that it’s a bold attempt to offer something different, that it’s being put together with real care and attention, and that it might well not be rubbish. But most of all, that it’s not meant to look like any Tomb Raider I recognise. Read more…

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Preview: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Day Light Savings Time…… BLERGH [Note]

To: Crecente More

God of War III Review: Olympic Glory [Review]

Bombastic, titanic, brutally imaginative and even occasionally subtle, God of War III is the latest, best reason for a gamer to save money and skip action movies. The better thrills are on a disc on my PlayStation 3. Just five years since the first God of War comes God of War III, a game that sticks the landing of the grand technological leap beyond the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3. Tortured mortal Kratos is back to conclude a narrative trilogy that has energized one angry man to wreak vengeance on the heroes and villains of Greek mythology. You’ve got blades on the end of chains, wrapped to this man’s wrists, a variety of moves to use and hordes of mythological beasts and beings to slay. At the beginning of this new game, in a moment set immediately after the end of God of War II, Kratos is scaling Mount Olympus on the back of Titans to eradicate the Greek pantheon, including its leader Zeus. That is an ambition quest, and ambition is the quality with which to measure this game — against movies, against games, against other God of Wars. This PS3 exclusive, a stubbornly single-player action game in this era of seemingly mandatory multiplayer, is vicious and violent and built not without risk. God of War III is a sequel that is less innovative than its predecessors and one recklessly indulgent in game design cliches and possibly unwise homages to other games. It excites the same synapses as the best and most macho action movies, a clash of the Titans. But it is as a video game that it best be judged. Loved The First 10 Minutes: The first minutes of Half-Life 2 intrigue. The first minutes of Super Metroid unnerve. The first minutes of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros. may represent two facets of perfect fun. The opening playable sequence of God of War III is equally wowing, perhaps the most impressive controlled combat sequence to ever start a game. Extraordinarily, this sequence, worth experiencing fresh if you haven’t heard about it already, is surpassed later in the game. Titanic Struggles: God of War III’s main innovation is the animation of some of its terrain. Some levels that would seem to take place in a forest or on a massive bridge actually are occurring on the backs and limbs of Titans, the largest characters I’ve ever seen in a game. They are sometimes our terrain, terrain the flexes and moves and turns our world upside down. They are sometimes, amazingly, background players, monsters in the distance that reach into the foreground to mess with us. They are also the best justification for owning a large and high-resolution a TV as possible. Witnessing spectacle at this scale is a reminder of how massive the mountains of reality and our imagination can be and how quaint the virtual worlds we’ve played in have been so far. Extra Weapons : There is little surplus in Kratos’ latest war of gods. This game presents a massive scale, but it has neither massive playtime other games may have nor the wasteful distractions its predecessor did. Kratos’ journey sends him up and down the strata of Greek mythology, down to Hades and up to the palace of Zeus. On that journey, even when areas are returned to, little time feels wasted. Everywhere, Kratos is tasked with something new and interesting to do, one challenge at a time. Kratos is also armed with an expanding arsenal of powers and weapons, all of which feel relevant to the fiction and interesting to use. Most action games that offer a large arsenal assume players will specialize and allow a gamer to neglect the variety offered. God of War III expects and justifies the player’s use of every last thing offered in the game, each square foot and each new blade or power worth experiencing. Those God of War Cliches : It’s a God of War, so Kratos will be growling a lot. He’ll have extraordinary off-camera, semi-interactive sex. He’ll have context-sensitive super-kills, doors that only open when the player mashes a button and experience points to gain and then spend leveling up weapons and abilities. I am not a fan of series cliches — trappings, as they can fittingly be called. God of War III adds far less to the series formula than it replicates. But, this time, it was hard to mind, because everything controls so well and passes so quickly. Plus, if you activate the sex scene for a second time (that’s what pro reviewers do, you know), someone involved in the scene makes an ESRB (games rating board) joke. Fourth-wall-breaking, sure, but I can stand a game that acknowledges which buttons it is re-pressing and moves on. Stuff That Shouldn’t Have Worked, Worked : Maybe video game design progress was another failed myth. Forget player-controlled cameras, God of War still doesn’t have one. This is a game with invisible walls that block Kratos from jumping and dashing to places it looks like he should go (but the designers don’t want you to take him to). In an era of immersive games, this game risks embarrassment for retaining the series’ use of the illusion-shattering appearance of button-prompts. Many millions spent on rendering Greek mythology, so convincingly that you think you can smell Hercules’ armpits, are potentially ruined by the appearance of PS3 thumbsticks on the TV. They are there to let you know it’s time to press them or twirl them, probably to provoke some brutal beast-killing move. Theoretically they and the lack of camera control and the invisible walls should be the archaic ruin of this game. No. They instead make the case that following the developers’ mandates, proceeding on the prescribed path and doing what one is told, can make for the most exciting of thrill rides. Choice and progress be damned to Hades. Subtle Touches : Once in a while the God of War III developers get so experimental you might think their artsy neighbors who made poetry-game Flower snuck in and added some grace to the grunt of this production. But let’s give the God of War III folks the benefit of the doubt that they are responsible for the game’s spare but impressive experiments with perspective and control. To give one vague example, there is a moment when Kratos needs to walk toward a blinding light. The game’s camera suddenly closes in tightly on Kratos’ back, one of his arms extended, palm spread, to block the light. The player will soon realize that the only way to make Kratos advance is to use a PS3 control stick to keep Kratos hand in front of the light. The controls of the game have been changed for this one sequence, the struggle redefined. Other, smarter moments like these appear just often enough to signal that God of War III isn’t just a game for manly men, but for manly men who can appreciate a dash of subtle artistry. The Best Bosses : I’ve not battled and bulldozed a more interesting set of bosses since I cleared Metal Gear Solid 3. Each of God of War III’s bosses, until its disappointing final one, are imaginative and impressive spectacles. Some are a test of combat strategy and endurance; others are semi-interactive cut-scenes. Most are superb and like little else you’ve played before. Something About Yourself: How angry are you? By the end of God of War III, you will know. Hated Reading: Occasionally, Kratos can stop and read. Why? To teach the player about where in the mythology he is. In these moments, the game’s voice-acting is replaced with text-reading and the player is finally given camera control, but only on a swivel so a vista can be observed from beyond a book where Kratos has stopped to read. These should be the vista moments, the time to stop the car, get out, stretch legs and smell the mountain air. Instead, they are the clunky moments that are begun and ended with unintuitive button prompts and turn our hero from a convincing man of wrath to a dull tourist. God of War III has much that is magnificent to look at; it is unfortunate that the designers couldn’t find a better way to compel gamers to pause and take it all in. Decline Of The God: God of War III peaks, but after an amazing ante-upping sequence of excellent action and puzzle-based levels, it leaves its best moments behind. The game, as svelte as it is and as clear of time-wasting tedium as it should be praised for being, nevertheless glides through a less interesting final third. Be prepared to be amazed by this game, but be prepared to be left a little hungry at the end. How thrilling can a summer blockbuster movie be for those whose hearts have withstood the rush of God of War III? Not very much, I think. Action games are at risk of seemingly equally outclassed. God of War III ends quickly and with a surprisingly artful finale, and, yes, it offers the ability to replay it in a harder mode or with new difficulty and power tweaks. It has a few tough new timed challenges too. But it does boldly risk the trade-in or the sell-back after its 10-hour adventure has been finished. It risks being a game you’d play once and then move on. But it is a game, more so than any I’ve played in a long time, that feels unforgettable — unforgettable minute after minute so that you won’t even forget the mid-boss you tackled in hour three or the block-pushing puzzle in hour eight. Credit the exclusion of repetitious sequences or uninteresting goals and the inclusion of well-controlled spectacle. This is a game that is so mighty in its expression, so loudly in your face, so boldly an advertisement of the power of the PlayStation 3, that it leaves its mark, punches its impression in your memory and seems too good to chuck. This game shows off and gets it right. It is an Olympic achievement, worthy of Kratos’ burning drive. God of War III was developed by Sony Santa Monica and published by Sony Computer Entertainment of America for the PS3 on March 16. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Yes, I played its sex game a few times. I also upgraded all but one of the weapons to the maximum and enjoyed slaying all but one of the gods. Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ .

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God of War III Review: Olympic Glory [Review]

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is Announced for XBLA

Crystal Dynamics, a part of Square Enix Europe, today announced Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, a new game developed by Crystal Dynamics, which will be released via digital download in 2010; more information on this after the jump.

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Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is Announced for XBLA

As you guys might know, an 8.8 degree earthquake… [From Comments]

As you guys might know, an 8.8 degree earthquake hit my country (Chile) on Saturday at 3:35 a.m. At that time I was with my GF, we had just finished watching some TBBT episodes and we went to bed at 3:25 approx. We were talking and laughing an then the eartquake struck the house, lights went off, I live in an 8th floor of a 14 story building and the oscillating movement was out of this world. I grabbed my gf and we went under the frame of the door waiting for the quake to stop, in the meantime the background sounds were like a thunderstorm, I could hear all my stuff falling into the floor and on the outside lights all over the sky, caused by electric failures. When it stopped, I took my girlfriend and we went outside, I knocked the door of one of my neighbors to see if she was ok but no one answered, suddendly I felt it was raining! The pool on the last floor collapsed and the water was falling through some of the apartments and the walls of the building. I had internet on my phone for about 5 minutes and it was slow as hell, not enough time to check the news or put a message online to tell everyone I was ok. No phones, no lights, nothing… It was a complete mess. In the morning when the light came the devastation was not as much as one could imagine, some of my things were on the floor but it was nothing terrible, I just lost a cup that smashed into the floor. At the moment I only have electricity, water and cellphone signal. The earth still moves from time to time (6.2 degrees today in the morning) and the cities are slowly recovering. But the destruction path was big, a tsunami hit some cities and the origin of the earthquake was in the Bio-Bio region (500 kms to the south of Santiago, where I live) where the richter scale pointed 9 and where I have some relatives I still haven’t heard a single word of. But this proved something, our structural resilience as a country is amazing considering the energy liberated in the Haiti earthquake was 500 times weaker (seems like the richter scale is a logarithmic function) and the body count is going (sadly) on the 300+ and there aren’t major structural damages. It was a terrible thing to live.

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As you guys might know, an 8.8 degree earthquake… [From Comments]

The Stalling Of An Anti-Bush Video Game [David Jaffe]

Evocative and provocative, a game born of the anxiety about George W. Bush’s polices abroad would have included a Chinese invasion of the U.S. and the emotional journey of a soldier struggling over whether to flee military service. But the game was killed, not by politics but the popularity of the other game that developer David Jaffe was working on. During our weekly Kotaku Talk Radio podcast , special guest Jaffe spoke at length about his canceled PSP game, Heartland. Read about how the game came to life, how it died, and the game developer that rose from its ashes. Following the release of God of War for the PlayStation 2, David Jaffe was eager to create another story-based game. It was this desire that gave birth to Heartland, a first-person shooter for the PlayStation Portable that he hoped would make players weep openly. “Heartland was a very liberal response to the Bush administration and the Iraq War. What I really wanted to do was to create a first-person shooter on the PSP that really tried to evoke emotions beyond the traditional emotions you get in a first-person shooter – you know, adrenalin and competition. I wanted to also evoke fear and sadness. “It was basically an invasion of the United States by a greater military power and you basically played a reserve guy who was trying to get back to his family. It was really sort of my attempt at speaking through video games about George Bush the second and the war and all that stuff. That’s what Heartland was.” Jaffe spoke of the game in relatively simple terms, but his vision for the title was much more powerful. In a lengthy article about the title posted at The Escapist in 2008 , David spoke at length about the game’s Chinese invasion of the states, which would explore the brutal reaction American’s would have to an invasion by foreign powers. In one planned scene, the player would be ordered to set fire to a Chinese American family, herded into their home and doused with gasoline. It would’ve been an extremely provocative title. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the sort of game Jaffe’s development team wasn’t used to working on. “Scott Campbell and I – my business partner and co-designer with Eat Sleep Play – are very similar in some areas. We like acrade-y stuff, we like action stuff, we like pick up and play stuff. I tend to also like the more arty-farty, storytelling, you know, really trying to push the medium in that direction. I think it was just a bad marriage when it came to that particular design. “I think they felt, ‘This isn’t the kind of game we like to make.’ If you look at some of the great games they made on their own – Downhill Domination, War of the Monsters – those are games that really speak to the kind of company we are now and the kind of games that they’ve made.” It wasn’t simply developmental differences that caused the downfall of Heartland. The team had gone as far as creating the basis for an engine for the PSP first-person shooter, before Sony started stealing team members to work on a “more important” project. “What happened was Scott would always call and say, you know we probably started with a team of about 20, and every couple of days he’s like ‘You know this guy got Warhawked. This guy got Warhawked.’ Basically Warhawk was in production at the studio at same time, and it obviously was a much bigger game from a standpoint of Sony’s agenda and lineup. It was a much more important title, because it was originally meant to be a launch title for the PS3, so we would keep losing members of our team to go over to help finish up Warhawk.” Stranded in Santa Monica with a dwindling team with no passion for a portable story-based first-person shooter filled with controversial themes, Jaffe and company found inspiration in the Xbox Live Arcade. “By the end we were down to a skeleton crew of about six guys, and we were just like ‘You know what? This is stupid. What are we doing?’ That’s when we started looking at XBLA and saying ‘Hey, there’s this thing called Geometry Wars. There’s this option out there to start doing games like that.’ And that kinda gave rise to how we started Eat Sleep Play. “So it all kind of led to where we are now, and that’s what happened to Heartland.” So that’s the beginning of Eat Sleep Play, the studio that’s produced Calling All Cars for the PlayStation Network and is rumored to be working on the next Twisted Metal, but is that the end of Heartland? Could it see the light of day once more, perhaps, as Crecente suggested during the podcast, as an episodic title? Perhaps, but not at Eat Sleep Play. “To go in and try to say to Scott, ‘Hey man, we gotta make this kind of game’ is kinda like somebody coming to me and saying, ‘Jaffe, we need to do this football arcade game.’ I mean, arcade games I do, but football simulation, I’m like ‘Dude, it’s just not my thing.’ “So maybe one day, but I certainly don’t think it’s going to happen with Eat Sleep Play.” It’s depressing to me that Heartland didn’t get made. The title had so much potential, exploring themes that many Americans either can’t or won’t ponder. If we were invaded, would we react any differently than the citizens and soldiers of Iraq? It’s a question we’ll hopefully never find the answer to, but exploring it hypothetically could lead to a better understanding of ourselves. It’s a pity Sony felt the story-free, online multiplayer shooter Warhawk was more important. Listen to the full story in Wednesday’s episode of Kotaku Talk Radio . [ Pic ]

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The Stalling Of An Anti-Bush Video Game [David Jaffe]

Review: Dragon Age: Origins – Return to Ostagar

Back to hack. Both gamers and industry alike are still fumbling around, circling each other, trying to figure out how the whole downloadable content situation should work. What’s a reasonable price? How much should it add to the game? Shouldn’t this content be in the game already? Or is it material that would otherwise never have seen the light of day? It’s unlikely that Return to Ostagar, the latest squirt from BioWare’s busy digital udder, will offer any satisfying answers to these burning questions. It’s a thin, forgettable little thing, cheap in price yet offering little more than 30 minutes of one-note gameplay for your virtual money. What you’re really doing is forking out for another stat-boosting set of matching armour pieces and some rather tasty weaponry, dressed up in a rather half-baked narrative shell. As the title prosaically suggests, you’re headed back to Ostagar, the game-opening scene of King Cailan’s grisly defeat, Loghain’s betrayal and the fall of the Grey Wardens. A location loaded with importance for the world of Dragon Age, then, but its potential remains sadly untapped by the time you reach the end of this minor diversion. Read more…

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Review: Dragon Age: Origins – Return to Ostagar

Alan Wake X10 Trailer

Alan Wake (Limited Collector’s Edition) (X360) Fight with Light!

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Alan Wake X10 Trailer

Alan Wake X10 Trailer

Alan Wake (Limited Collector’s Edition) (X360) Fight with Light!

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Alan Wake X10 Trailer

Alan Wake Slated For May 18, Looks Good [It's A Date]

The long-in-development Alan Wake, one of the most enigmatic titles in development for the Xbox 360, will finally be released on May 18, Microsoft announced today. Earlier this week, the game’s developers gave Kotaku a live demonstration. It was impressive. Alan Wake has been in development by Max Payne makers Remedy Entertainment for more than half a decade, showing up at big gaming trade shows, then vanishing. It’s been back, making the rounds, since E3 of last year. The game stars the fictional thriller writer Alan Wake who goes on a getaway with his wife, Alice, to the Pacific northwest town of Bright Falls. He’s suffering writer’s block and his marriage is in a bit of trouble. But the game focuses on things getting worse, as Alan becomes a man on the run, trying to survive the enveloping darkness and weirdness, armed with just a flashlight and a gun or two while a shadowy presence possesses sends men wielding axes at his heels and logging trucks flying right at his face. The game is a thriller. It’s T-rated, Microsoft announced today, and doesn’t aspire to be the kind of scary game we’ve played before. Remedy writer Sam Lake described the game to me as a “smart, tightly-paced story” and as a “thriller.” I asked what he meant be smart. “This is more of a thriller than a horror game,” he said. “When you talk about horror in video games, it usually means blood and gore.” He said the Remedy team wanted something other than cheap chills. “We want to make sure there are no scares just for the sake of scares,” he said. Everything, all of the game’s creepiness, will cohere into a narrative. Three of Remedy’s top men showed me about 20 minutes of Alan Wake. We first looked at part of the game’s first chapter or, as the studio has been calling it in the model of favorite shows of theirs like Lost, “episode.” Alan and Alice were driving into Bright Falls, heading over to a diner where they would meet the man with the keys to the house they’d be staying at. The diner was filled with ambiance and optional diversions. The waitress recognized Alan and squealed to him about how she was his biggest fan and even had the cardboard cut-out commemorating one of his novels to prove it. Sure enough, at the doorway was a cardboard Alan Wake. As one of Remedy’s developers walked Alan to the back of the diner, our hero encountered two old-timers sitting in a booth, jawing about something or other. One of them asked Alan to play a song on the jukebox. Further to the back, Alan encountered a lady in black, her face covered in a veil. She wasn’t the person who was supposed to give Alan the house keys, but she had them. And, she creepily added, she’d come by later to meet his wife. She demanded it. We skipped ahead to the midst of an episode later in the game. By this time, we were in the action. The sun had set. The darkness had descended and the flashlight-and-gun core shooting gameplay was in effect. Enemies in Alan Wake are covered in a shadowy haze. To defeat them before they kill Alan, the player has to focus Alan’s flashlight on the enemy, burning off the haze. Once that’s done, Alan can — and should! — shoot. Alan Wake is a single-player game, but at this section of the game, as he tried to survive out on a wooded hillside, he was accompanied by Bright Falls’ sheriff and the game’s comic relief, Alan’s literary agent Barry Wheeler. Since light could ward off the enemies, Barry had wrapped himself in Christmas lights. He looked ridiculous. The trio worked their way to the top of a dam. Hounded by possessed people and flocks of birds, they did their best to survive. On the road atop the dam, the Remedy guys had Alan commandeer a big spotlight. He could use it as a turret, but any light source Alan uses has limits. His flashlight can run low on batteries, forcing the player to use one of his reserves. The spotlight can burn itself out. So after a little bit of spotlight blasting, Alan left the thing idle and was left to his flashlight and handgun. Lake told me that spotlights and other light sources can be used to corral an enemy. Leave a shaft of light beaming on the right and enemies will avoid that region. As enemies swarmed Alan, the best defense turned out to be a flare gun. Firing this at several onrushing enemies triggered a stylish slowdown effect. The enemies recoiled and Alan dodged. But the mysterious dark force had plenty of other things in store for Alan. Unfortunately, as it got hectic, the demo ended. Lake told me that gamers can think of Alan Wake as an “everyman,” not an “action hero.” Unlike Uncharted 2’s Nathan Drake, he’s more of a flawed character, struggling in his marriage, struggling with his craft. But, aside from that, the best compliment to pay Alan Wake the game right now is that it is exuding the style, polish and beauty of location of Naughty Dog’s hit PlayStation 3 series. The game’s dark Pacific northwest is lovely. Its sense of style, dark and mysterious, narrated in ominous past-tense, is winning. It took long enough, but it does feel like this game is coming together. We’ll have more on Alan Wake in the coming days, including hands-on impressions of my own time trying to survive as Alan Wake in the darkness of Bright Falls.

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Alan Wake Slated For May 18, Looks Good [It's A Date]

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