Deus Ex: Human Revolution taking up arms early 2011

Source By GameSpot

Eidos Montreal's cyperpunk action-RPG sequel gets a release window, extended trailer for E3.

The Deus Ex series has been dormant since 2003's Deus Ex: Invisible War came out, but the series is finally ready to emerge from hibernation. In a trailer released today for Deus Ex: Human Revolution (see below), Square Enix revealed that the game has been set for an early 2011 launch window.

Here we see that Adam has equipped a level-3 dramatic lighting mod.

The third installment in the series, Human Revolution will return to the franchise's roots in a number of ways. The game's story will be a prequel set in the year 2027, just as "human augmentation"--enhanced abilities through technological implants--is starting to enter wide use.

As for gameplay, developer Eidos Montreal has said it is attempting to "stay true to the original game," allowing players to choose their own approach to each level. Depending on the augmentations players choose, they can go through each part of the game with a focus on combat, stealth, hacking, or even social interactions.

Lord of The Rings Online to go free to play

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game Lord of the Rings Online is to go free-to-play, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Codemasters announced today. This will make LOTRO Warner Bros' second free-to-play MMO, after the successful switch away from a subscription model for Dungeons and Dragons Online last year.


Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar was released to critical acclaim in 2007, with expansions following in 2008 and 2009. Subscriptions to play currently cost up to $15 a month. The game will be free to play, but a new online LOTRO Store will allow players to purchase "expansions, quest packs, items, and account services a la carte," according to Warner Brothers. As with DDO, players will also be able to buy a VIP package, which gives players access to all of the premium features for one price--though the price itself was not revealed.

The project will be among the first overseen by Jeff Junge, WBIE's newly appointed senior vice president of online games and digital games platforms. Junge was given responsibility for the firm's entire digital games business in May. Codemasters will continue to publish the title in Europe alongside DDO, which it also publishes in the region.

LOTRO is developed by Turbine, which WBIE acquired in April to consolidate its control of Lord of The Rings gaming licences. The acquisition followed the Warner's re-acqusition of non-MMO rights to the franchise in March 2009. LOTRO was originally published by the now-defunct Midway Games.

The move will see LOTRO and its expansions disappear from store shelves, as all the distribution will be done through the new LOTRO online store. WBIE has said that the free-to-play version of the MMO will be available to play at the Electronic Entertainment Expo later this month.

Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol Review
Source By GameSpot

Playing Alpha Protocol is like putting together a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with 500 pieces missing: You get a sense of what the big picture should have been, but the final product is still maddeningly incomplete. This intriguing role-playing game boasts an extraordinarily flexible plot, in which your choices have real consequences both on the story and on the gameplay. Sadly, almost every other element has been skimped upon, resulting in an awkward amalgam of half-baked gameplay elements that never come together. On paper, Alpha Protocol sounds thrilling: You can go into each mission guns blazing, sneak up on your enemies to take them down before they see you coming, or mix and match methods as you see fit all while hacking computers and picking locks to uncover the enemies' deepest secrets. In practice, none of these mechanics work out very well. Terrible AI, a too-close camera angle, and other annoying inconsistencies make the stealth route feel random and unsatisfying. These issues, along with the unreliable cover system and a number of bugs and weapon imbalances, make shooting feel equally clumsy. It's easy to appreciate Alpha Protocol for its high ambitions; it's just not that much fun to play it.




The game begins with a bang--or more specifically, a horrific explosion. Taking a cue from our modern political climate, the opening scenes depict a missile colliding with a commercial airliner. Shortly thereafter, you meet the game's protagonist, Michael Thorton, who is being inducted into a top-secret United States government agency known as Alpha Protocol. Your first mission: travel to Saudi Arabia and investigate the terrorist group responsible for the bombing. Of course, nothing is ever as it seems, and Mike's first mission ends like it began--with the explosion of a well-aimed missile. Thus, a globe-hopping journey through Russia, Italy, and Taiwan ensues as Mike sifts through the information he gathers and follows the necessary leads. The story plays out more or less like a season of 24, though in this case, you get to decide how you to proceed toward the final hour.

Alpha Protocol's greatest asset is, by far, the complex workings behind its plot progression. Conversations with other characters bring with them broad dialogue choices. Most of them boil down to one of three attitudes: aggressive, professional, or suave. Different characters react to you in different ways depending on what approach they most appreciate. A sweet-natured fellow agent may enjoy your flirtations, for example, while a tough-talking Russian vixen may not be so enamored. These characters may stay neutral toward you or they may take a liking (or disliking) to you. If the individual is your handler--that is, your mission guide--you may receive a bonus perk, such as a boost to your endurance levels. In other cases, an allied faction may fight alongside you in battle or provide access to weapons you wouldn't otherwise encounter. In extreme cases, there are life-or-death consequences in which you must weigh the risks of allowing a nemesis to live against the potential benefit he or she might offer: guns, information, and so forth. Many of the plot essentials are more or less static, but how you discover them and the people that join you on the journey can differ from one play-through to the next. Few games can truly make you feel as if you are having an impact on the story, but this is the one area in which Alpha Protocol delivers--and extraordinarily so.

Unfortunately, the storytelling gets bogged down by its own ambitions. What with all its complicated machinations, the game doesn't have much heart, which in turn makes it difficult to feel invested in its branching plot developments. At one point, you may receive an in-game e-mail from a female character that references the sexual tension you've apparently developed, but the story never adequately demonstrates that tension; the e-mail comes as a complete surprise. You may even get the opportunity for a few sexual dalliances toward the end of the game, but because the story never builds on these relationships, these scenes seem forced and mechanical. By the time you reach the final mission, you get the sense that developer Obsidian Entertainment had no idea how to wrap the story up. One potentially emotional moment is treated so flippantly that it's almost insulting; another major revelation foreshadows a confrontation that never comes, making the development feel more cheap than shocking. You sense that the voice actors have done their best to lend some humanity to the story, but Alpha Protocol is all business and no fun; all plot and no character. There are light moments, such as some hysterical news reports on the television (a story about children and sugar is a fun highlight), and Mike's cocky half-grin is occasionally disarming. But these are small delights in a robotic narrative that may stimulate your intellect but not your emotions.

Like the story, the character progression offers a good number of options for letting you advance as you see fit. You decide what abilities to focus on, what weapons to take into battle, and what gadgets to equip. You choose a specialization for Mike early on, which is tantamount to choosing a class or profession in other RPGs. This discipline then determines the depth of your skill trees, from pistols and submachine guns to stealth and endurance. As you'd expect, each time you level up, you then spend points in these various disciplines, which in turn makes the associated actions more effective and unlocks new abilities. For example, leveling up your shotgun tree opens up the room sweep ability, which adds a critical knockdown to every shot; upgrading the martial arts tree adds the fury skill that enhances your hand-to-hand effectiveness. Armor and weapon modifications, as well as a healthy array of different weapons, ammo types, and gadgets, allow for further customization. The resulting flexibility is incredibly impressive.

Unfortunately, the basic gameplay mechanics prevent the wealth of options from getting the justice they deserve. It's clear from the moment that you move around in Alpha Protocol that something isn't quite right. You control Mike from a third-person perspective, but the camera is often zoomed rather close to him, which is a hindrance to taking in your surroundings or navigating close spaces. If you stoop, the camera pulls away somewhat and you get a better view, though the way Mike scuttles about while crouching is laughably awkward. As you progress, you find the camera can cause mild headaches in other ways as well. For some unknown reason, descending a ladder or jumping from a ledge (always a contextual action, never a freely controllable one) causes the camera to swoop to an overhead view and remain there, which is unhelpful and disorienting. At other times, you might pop up from behind cover to take a shot, only to have the camera shift into a useless position or even have your own body get in the way. These gaffes seem odd, considering most game developers seem to have worked through such basic obstacles years ago. You get accustomed to them, but these problems make the simple act of moving from place to place feel uncomfortable.

The camera isn't the only issue with the cover system, which is generally workable but also inconsistent and occasionally buggy. At a basic level, cover works as it does in a third-person shooter like Gears of War: You press a button to take cover behind a barricade or wall and peek over or around to shoot at enemies. But like much of Alpha Protocol, cover wasn't implemented well. Sometimes you encounter walls that you can't take cover behind for no discernible reason; at other times, the stickiness of the cover mechanic combined with the close camera can make it awkward to get out of the way of an incoming grenade. You might also run into glitches and bugs where cover is concerned. Some of these are bizarre but not likely to bother you too much, such as weird animation glitches or moments when you might slide a few feet to the side like the ground is coated with ice. Other bugs are more annoying. You might pop up from behind cover only to discover that your targeting reticle is missing and you can't shoot your weapon--a problem that can only be fixed by extricating yourself from cover. Or for some reason you won't be able to toss a grenade from behind a barricade. Again, basic mechanics gone bitter distract from the complexities that make Alpha Protocol special.

The shooting isn't great in Alpha Protocol, but you may have some fun with it, assuming you choose the game's most effective loadout. If you want to take the shoot-first, talk-later approach, you should almost certainly take an assault rifle with you. They are the game's most powerful weapons, and when used with the auto-targeting ability you unlock early on, they can make you almost unstoppable. Alpha Protocol is not a straight-up shooter, however. Under-the-hood calculations figure into your abilities in the field, so just because you aim directly at a bad guy's head and pull the trigger doesn't mean you're going to lodge a bullet in his skull. If you expect your shooting prowess to translate to battlefield superiority, you'll find that it's only part of the equation. It's too bad it isn't a bigger part of the equation where pistols are concerned. Pistols feel relatively weak, which is to be expected, though they would seem an attractive last-resort option if you pursue the stealth angle. But you are often put in situations that can only be solved with firearms and are clearly designed with long-range weaponry in mind. In these situations, a pistol/shotgun combo is often ineffective. If you focused on stealth and melee at the expense of ranged weapons, expect some frustrations in certain combat scenarios and boss encounters.

The combat challenges come primarily from such imbalances, not from the opposition's desire to stay alive. The AI is pretty dreadful. Security agents and mercenaries run about the levels in haphazard ways, may start climbing ladders as you fill them with lead, will kneel on top of exploding barrels, or might stare directly at you but fail to react unless you take a shot or give them a good punch. There's a weird sense of randomness to your enemies' behavior that diminishes the impact firefights may have had. Other flaws also conspire against the shooting--flaws so simple it's surprising they made it into the final product. For example, when you activate a power, the screen takes on a bright yellow tone, as if someone turned up the light bloom setting extraordinarily high. Unfortunately, your targeting reticle is a dull yellow and can become practically invisible when the effect occurs. The effect can even obscure your target. This is a big inconvenience when using the chain shot ability, which can also cause your screen to jitter uncontrollably. There are chances to get behind turrets and take aim, but the loosey-goosey controls keep these moments from being much fun--a drawback that also applies to a few sniping sections. We also ran into some bugs here as well. On several occasions, manning a turret caused the screen to become painfully blurry and moving the camera resulted in egregious screen tearing.

Not every section requires you to shoot, however. The stealth skill tree harbors some of the more helpful abilities, such as master awareness, which pinpoints nearby enemies automatically. The higher up the tree you go, the more viable stealth becomes. Yet Alpha Protocol is no more a proper stealth game than it is a shooter. As with the shooting, the inconsistent AI provides a major hindrance, and the typically close camera can get in the way of locating nearby enemies. Instead of offering typical stealth game tropes--a minimap with vision cones or the ability to hide in the shadows, for example--the game gives you superhuman moves, such as temporary invisibility. Sneaking up on an enemy and taking him down with a minimum of fuss is mildly rewarding, as it tends to be in most games. But the actions you take leading up to that point involve activating certain skills and scurrying around in your silly crouched position--not outsmarting sharp AI or using the environment in clever ways.

An espionage RPG wouldn't be complete without a bit of hacking and alarm disabling, and to that end, Alpha Protocol features three corresponding minigames. One of them is not so bad: You identify a sequence of mazelike lines in the correct order. It feels just right--not too easy, and not too challenging. It's just enough to keep you on your toes, but another minigame isn't quite as successful. Here, you must identify two lines of stationary code in the midst of a busy grid of moving characters. It can be a challenge to identify the code, which is great. But the still bits you need to identify will be repositioned after a few moments, and the cursor you must position over the matching code moves too slowly. It can be exasperating to isolate the code, only for it to be relocated while you're trying to move the overly sluggish cursor to the right spot. Lock-picking can be equally tense, at least in the console versions, but it's a much more sensible mechanic. Here, you need to position the depicted rods by finessing the left trigger into a specific spot. This takes some getting used to, but it's challenging in just the right way. Sadly, that's not the case in the PC version: You just move the rod into position with the mouse and click. It's super easy.

Alpha Protocol utilizes the Unreal 3 graphics engine, though the only sign that this modern technology was used occurs with the engine's telltale texture pop-in. The pop-in is barely noticeable on the PC, but it's quite an eyesore in the console versions of the game. Sometimes, it takes up to 10 seconds or more for higher-resolution textures to appear, and at rare but noticeable times, they may never appear at all. The pop-in is a distraction, though it may have been more forgivable had the game compensated for it with great visuals. But Alpha Protocol is not a looker on any platform. Environments are plain and textures lack detail, and you won't encounter the quality lighting and shadows you might expect to see in modern games. Animations are stiff and occasionally buggy and often appear to be missing multiple frames, which contributes to the game's overall inelegance. Alpha Protocol is not ugly, however; it's just behind the times and artistically uninspired. Nevertheless, the safe houses Mike operates from between missions have some nice views, and some of the outdoor missions throw in some welcome flashes of color. Similarly, the sound design gets the job done, though without much style. The voice acting is at least solid, and the generic action-movie soundtrack ramps up at the right moments but otherwise stays out of the way.

Alpha Protocol's ambitions are commendable, and if you're a role-playing fanatic, you'll enjoy investigating its intricacies. It's unfortunate that its various ingredients are so undercooked. The flaky cover system, the mediocre production values, the fundamental blemishes gone unchecked--these elements add up quickly and drag the experience down. The elaborate storytelling and character progression are impressive. It's too bad that the gawky, glitchy gameplay can't rise to the same standard. 

The Sims 3: Ambitions

The Sims 3: Ambitions Review
Source By IGN

The newest Sims 3 expansion, The Sims 3: Ambitions, isn't going to change your mind about the biggest PC gaming franchise ever. It doesn't radically reinvent the series, but it is much more substantial than I think a lot of people give Sims expansions credit for being. This isn't just a few new outfits or the ability to have a pet (though it does, of course, add new features both major and minor), this expansion radically alters the way characters pursue their careers, making for a more satisfying Sims experience.

In Sims 3 the main appeal is running and observing the life of your Sims -- little avatars you can give commands to. After creating your Sims -- which is a worthwhile thing in Ambitions, since several new traits and life goals have been added -- you get to jump into a large town and start deciding how you want them to live their lives. Previously you could dictate almost all their actions, with the notable exception being their job. Sure, you could pick their career, and in some cases you could directly control their livelihood if they were making ends meet as an artist or musician, but most jobs boiled down to your Sim disappearing during the day and you collecting a check when they were back.

Ambitions changes this dramatically, giving players the choice between having a career and a profession. Careers still operate the same way they always have (with the exception of the Doctor, who has enhanced profession features), while professions allow players to participate in their Sims jobs actively, never having to lose direct control over them. The included professions are Doctor, Ghost Hunter, Private Investigator, Stylist, Firefighter, and Architectural Designer. The jobs are every bit as varied as they sound and, more importantly, they're a lot of fun to play. Even the jobs I didn't think I had any interest in -- like the stylist -- manage to be fun and keep me engaged simply because they change from moment to moment, demanding more attention.

The reason professions manage to keep you so much more engaged than careers is that they allow you to craft a more in-depth story for you Sim -- ostensibly the entire reason for playing. Previously, players were making stories for their Sims outside of work, crafting their love lives and what have you, but work was largely just a drop down menu where you picked how hard they pushed themselves. Now that you can directly control them on the job you can really have their personalities shine through; evil Sims might steal while Ghost Hunting, or Firefighters who are lazy might stop to watch some T.V. while a house burns. How hard you work really is directly the result of how much you want to micromanage your Sim's life.

The only downside to the professions is that they're so much better than careers that they make me want more choices. Careers are downright boring compared to professions, and I can't picture myself going back to the old jobs, but ultimately having only six to choose from is not all that much. Not that I expect it to stay this way, as I'm just sure EA is prepping more professions for us to purchase in the Sims online store.

Other minor changes also come in the expansion, but with a few notable exceptions that add a lot of potential options to how you play. New traits and lifetime wishes are available for players just itching to create some new Sims, but the cooler, more substantial additions are in the new Inventing and Sculpting hobbies. Sculpting allows you to create statues of other Sims or even objects like chairs, while Inventing allows you to make several cool tools that can help your Sim in their life. For instance, your inventing Sim might create a Floor Hygienator which they can place in their house just so they can walk by to get cleaner. These hobbies are ultimately what you make of them, but are great ways for you to tell yet another story about your character. After all, who hasn't wanted to make a disturbed mad inventor who just sits in his house and tinkers day in and out? Or maybe an obsessive sculptor who befriends Sims just so he can get them to come over to craft their bodies in clay?

When so many Sims expansions have seemed relatively inconsequential, Ambitions stands out for how substantially it alters a key component of the game. The new profession system will doubtless keep Sims 3 fans busy for many more hours, and the other additions included will also give players plenty of new stories to tell for Sims both new and old. If this is the type of content we can expect from Sims 3 expansions going forward, content that evolves core game mechanics, color me impressed.

Tropico 3: Absolute Power

Tropico 3: Absolute Power Review
Source By GameSpot

The Absolute Power expansion for Tropico 3 is a welcome addition to the original game, throwing in a great new campaign loaded with oddball objectives, a range of new buildings that enhance and fix aspects of the core game mechanics, more creative edicts to inflict upon the peasants, and a lot of little frills. Developer Haemimont Games has built a better banana-republic simulation bound to appease virtual dictators up for rigging a few more elections and killing more gangs of rebels.

The gameplay basics have been left virtually untouched. You still take on the role of El Presidente, a Latin American strongman ruling a tropical island during the hottest years of the Cold War from 1950 through 1980. But a lot of little things have been changed. Right off the bat you'll notice an advanced tutorial, supplementing the insufficient, short one from the original game with more information about economics. It's a great way to address a shortcoming, although you would think that anybody buying this expansion would already have played Tropico 3 and figured out all this stuff. There are more choices with your in-game avatar now, as well, including a dude named Voodoo Pizzaman who looks like he just stepped off the set of Live and Let Die. Personality traits, backgrounds, and new costumes have also been added, so you can play as a guy with a green thumb, installed in power by the mob, who likes wearing a fat Elvis jumpsuit. Or not.

Not quite so brand-new is the 10-mission new campaign. It sees you island-hopping from one Caribbean dictatorship to another, just like in the original game, but the objectives are now more outlandish. Whereas the old scenarios dealt with mostly down-to-earth goals, such as increasing farm production, making a killing off oil, and so forth, here you do zanier things, such as rig an island for anti-industry hippies, make peasants believe in the existence of chupacabra, deal with a rift in time and space, and even look into unsolved mysteries by setting up a secret police unit called the Alpha Files. These out-there goals are tempered in that they lean on the same city-building/political mechanics that have always been at the heart of the Tropico games, although they do provide a more involving story to each mission. Everything you do is more purposeful now, instead of feeling vague like many of the original game's scenarios.

Even though you might be dealing with Rastafarians and maybe even aliens in Absolute Power, you continue to focus on keeping the treasury flush and the citizens happy through building farms, factories, churches, police stations, and casinos and messing about with politics as in any other Tropico game. But things have been spiced up with more options across the board. A new political faction called the Loyalists has been added to the old mix of Capitalists, Communists, Militarists, and their other pals. They're not particularly loyal, though, unless you do things that inevitably offend almost everybody else, like building a museum to your greatness and canceling elections. Factions are easier to manage, because lists of major and minor needs are now included in the interface to keep you from guessing what you need to build to make a particular group happy. The whole interface is actually improved where information is concerned, giving you more little hints like the above and keeping you in the know about even little matters, such as how many months until the next farm harvest.

New buildings have been tossed into the mix, adding options and fixing minor flaws in the original game. Garages have been shrunk so they're easier to place. Generating electricity is possible with cheap wind turbines, so you can get the juice flowing early in missions without spending huge bucks on a power plant. Grade schools boost intelligence and can be used to indoctrinate kiddos into the Loyalist faction. A pricey nuclear program can fend off circling US and USSR warships. You can try to please environmentalists by constructing garbage dumps that come with recycling options. A satellite dish lets you hunt for aliens and spy on the superpowers. Entertainment and tourism have been revamped with Ferris wheels, marinas, and balloon rides over monuments like ancient pyramids. Giant monuments can be used to satisfy your ego. If you've got the cash, you can build a towering Eternal Flame to awe people into respecting the dear leader, a massive Christ statue like the one that towers above Rio to endear yourself to the religious faction, or even a huge golden statue of yourself, a la Nero, to please the Loyalists. Industry hasn't been altered much, although you can make a few bucks by processing metal into military hardware in the new weapons factory. These aren't huge changes, though they open up scenarios in many subtle ways. You'll soon wonder how you ever managed without them.

Ten extra edicts have been introduced for you to unleash on those poor, unsuspecting peasants. Like the above, there isn't anything here that could be considered earthshaking. But it's good to have additional options to lean on when clinging to power or trying to goose citizen happiness up a few percentage points. Outlaw Faction is helpful when you need to take a group completely out of the picture and have a strong army ready to handle the inevitable outpouring of support for the rebels. Print Money gives you $20,000 immediately at the cost of a huge inflation hit, but this can come in handy when you're in need of cash to close out a scenario win and don't care about the long term. Clicking on National Day earns cheap respect and blasts off fireworks over the island once a year. Kill Juanito not only shuts up the loudmouthed deejay, but it eliminates rebel attacks for a full three years. That's handy when you're sorting out the army and worried about an uprising. In the same vein, Lure Rebels starts a battle with the revolting populace right away, so you can fight at a time of your own choosing.

Absolute Power keeps the Tropico 3 party going. Nothing revolutionary can be found here when it comes to game design, but all the offbeat new islands, new buildings, and other extras do a great job of extending and improving the core experience. There is also a ton of content in the lengthy campaign scenarios, which should occupy virtual dictators for at least 20 hours--which isn't entirely positive, as this running time exposes the lack of new music and the tiny smattering of new radio prattle from a whiny revolutionary named Betty Boom. Still, even with the repetitive tunes and dialogue, consider this expansion a must for anybody who enjoyed the original game's take on tropical tyranny.

Add Limk Tropico 3: Absolute Power From Amazon.com

Backbreaker

 Backbreaker Review
 Source By GameSpot

There's no question that football has a cerebral side, but much of the appeal of the sport comes from the explosive hits that happen on nearly every play. Backbreaker highlights these bone-jarring collisions like no other football game before it. The realistic manner in which players use their bodies as weapon while on defense and crumple limply to the earth on the offensive side of the ball encourages the same sadistic yells the real sport so frequently elicits, but the rest of the experience falls far short of that Sunday-afternoon excitement. A frustrating passing system and an unpredictable running attack make marching down the field a chore, and the presentation leaves a lot to be desired. There are enough wow moments to make Backbreaker worth checking out for football fans looking for something other than the pervasive Madden series, but there are too many holes in this debut game to give it a starting spot in its rookie year.



The animation in Backbreaker is incredibly realistic and makes every action you take on the field pop off the screen. Players react like you would expect real people to, obeying the laws of physics so strictly that when their bodies contort and bend, you can imagine the pain these digital beings must be in. There has simply never been a sports game that so accurately reflects a player's movement and momentum. Get a clean shot on a quarterback, and watch the shock wave ripple through his body, forcing his head to snap back like a jack-in-the-box and his legs to lose the ability to support the weight above them. Running backs can be pulled down by just their arm or held in place by a falling lineman, while a surging linebacker rushes in to finish off the job. Although the animations are usually incredible, they are not without some faults. The throwing and kicking motions are a little off, and the lack of any injuries limits the ramifications of these punishing hits. But it's amazing how realistic Backbreaker looks.

Unfortunately, the actual football experience is not able to match this fantastic animation system. Much of the blame falls on the nonadjustable camera, which is set far too close to players. Because the camera places you right on the field, all of the hits carry even more weight than if you were zoomed farther back, but the positive aspects are overshadowed by an inability to see the entire field. As the quarterback, not only can you not see all of your receivers at one time, but you can barely see the pass rush barreling toward you, making it difficult to get the ball out of your hands before you find yourself flat on your back. On the defensive side of the ball, the extreme close-up makes it fun to claw your way past an offensive lineman, but you have no way to know what's happening on the other side of the field. And though you do have the ability to switch whom you're controlling midplay, you're liable to completely mess up a situation if you inhabit a new body without knowledge of your surroundings. Because of the claustrophobic camera angle, local matches against another player are handled with split-screen, although online play gives you the full screen to work with. The camera does a good job of putting you in the action, but it's so restrictive that it becomes a liability before long.

The suffocating camera is just the beginning of Backbreaker's problems. Just like the zoomed-in view tries to replicate the feeling of being on the field, the passing system puts you in the shoes of the quarterback like no other game, but it doesn't translate into a fun experience. When you snap the ball, you are locked on to just one receiver, and to switch to a different target you need to push a button or the right stick (depending on your control scheme) to toggle through your options. Although this is an interesting idea in theory, forcing you to read the defense and go through all your receivers to find someone who's open, in practice it just leads to a lot of sacks. It takes so long for QBs to release the ball after you hit the pass button that you have no time to cycle through your targets to find the best option. And even when you're just focusing on one receiver, you still find yourself on the wrong end of a sack far too often because the offensive line stinks, which strips away much of the appeal of playing as a gunslinger.

Backbreaker continues to frustrate even if you find an open receiver and successfully get off a pass before the defense flattens you. Quarterbacks are horrifically inaccurate. Even if your feet are set and you're throwing just a few yards down the field, the ball will still frequently sail far wide of your intended target. It's absolutely maddening when a routine play turns into an unforced incompletion. This issue is compounded by the defense's knack for picking off passes. If you build your offense around passing (which is advisable considering how awful the running game is), it's not surprising to find your interceptions creeping dangerously close to double digits, resulting in a disjointed game in which no lead is secure and clock-eating drives are a rarity. It's also impossible to know where the ball will end up once it's released. In the actual sport, quarterbacks lead receivers before they break on a route. But oftentimes in Backbreaker, the QB throws where the receiver is instead of where he's running to, which adds another hurdle to completing a pass.

As aggravating as the passing is, the running game is even worse. Your offensive line is a sieve during passing plays, but their inability to hold a block is even more glaring when you're trying to worm your way past the line of scrimmage. Whether you gain yardage or find yourself tackled for a loss is a crapshoot because the defense is so often able to blow past your blockers before you even have a chance to juke out of the way. And as amazing as the tackling animations are, your running back crumples to the turf far too easily. Linebackers frequently need only slap you on your thigh to make you fall to the ground, which is completely unrealistic. The average RB should laugh at such a weak attempt at being brought down, but a hand tackle far too often spells doom in Backbreaker. Also, the camera is troublesome during sweep plays. Your view adjusts so severely when changing direction that simply turning upfield is a challenge. The thrill of stiff-arming an oncoming defender and high-stepping your way to the end zone makes a successful attempt exciting, but the running game is far too unpredictable to be a legitimate offensive option.


At least the defensive side of the ball shows more promise than its offensive counterpart. The camera makes it difficult to adjust to situations on the fly, but it does give you a taste of what it's like to be on the field. Playing good defense is all about being disciplined. If you follow the called play correctly, you frequently find yourself in the perfect position to make a stop. When you're rushing the passer with an outside linebacker, you feel the weight of the lineman desperately trying to stop your progress, and the satisfying impact of wrapping up the quarterback is a real rush. When you drop into coverage, it's a joy to successfully run alongside a fleet-footed receiver and knock the ball down at the last second. But because of the camera, there is a severe disconnect between your actions and the overall play. When you're away from the ball, it's hard to know what's going on elsewhere, and switching to another player without knowledge of the situation could result in a disastrous mistake. Still, playing defense is one of the strong points of this game.



The best aspect of Backbreaker takes place outside the context of a football game, though. Tackle Alley is an additional game mode that emphasizes the incredible animation and thrill of avoiding a tackler; elements that are so frequently lost in the frustrating minutiae of the main game. You start 100 yards away from the end zone with the ball in your possession and have to avoid the defenders who stand in your path without any teammates to help you succeed. It's all about juking the defender and making smart decisions, so it's an absolute blast when you evade a gang of tacklers and fall into the end zone unscathed. Part of the fun comes from just messing with the heads of your digital competitors. This is a point-based challenge, so you're encouraged to showboat whenever possible to make your score rise. Hotdogging it past defenders is hilarious, especially when you run circles around them while they frantically try to bring you down. Juking out of the way at the last second can cause them to skid for 10 yards or more across the grass, and sometimes they even take out one of their teammates in the process. Each time you score a touchdown, the defensive configuration is changed and more defenders are added, and it's a treat to repeatedly foil your enemy's attempts to bring you down. Even more fun is playing this with a friend. You both have your own ball and have to make it successfully to the end zone, but you can help each other by distracting defenders, which leads to many funny situations.

As much fun as it is to hit someone or avoid a tackle in spectacular fashion, the presentation is not able to rise up to make these moments carry more impact. The replay system is awful. After every play, a replay automatically rolls, but it rarely shows off the best elements of the play. The camera has trouble framing the action, so that amazing catch you just made is often shown just outside your view. And you can't even adjust your view manually. When you call up a replay, you have only the option to rewind or fast-forward, which is disappointing when you want to show off the way a lineman bent backward, but you can't focus on the poor fellow. Furthermore, there is no commentary during games to make these fictional contests feel more important, and the P.O.D. song Boom that bellows during every kickoff becomes grating before the first half even ends.

There aren't any licensed teams or players in Backbreaker, but you can create your own if you want to import the NFL experience into this game. Unfortunately, even after you christen the San Francisco team with the name 49ers and drape the players in red and gold uniforms, the dumb artificial intelligence and incompetent referees still make it obvious that this is a far cry from the real thing. Players have very poor field awareness. Receivers run out of bounds of their own volition after a catch, and defenders line up offsides as if they are unaware of the rules. Coaches make just as many dumb mistakes. The computer has worse clock management than even Andy Reid, calling time-outs at inopportune moments or running the ball when time is ticking and the team desperately need points. Rules are also handled incorrectly. Roughing should result in an automatic first down, but in Backbreaker it's just a 15-yard penalty. Defensive pass interference is rarely called, even if you're shoving a receiver all over the field. None of these little problems destroy the experience on their own, but these issues add up to a number of aggravating moments.

The animations and hitting in Backbreaker are done so well that there is still fun to be had, but every other element is riddled with problems that make it hard to enjoy this game for the long term. It's a shame the nuts and bolts are so rough, because it really is amazing to see your players contort in painful ways. Because of this, Tackle Alley is the best way to enjoy this football game, stripping away many of the problems while letting you focus on what makes Backbreaker unique. But once the novelty of evading an entire team single-handedly wears off, you're left with a frustrating experience that has far too many issues to offer a worthwhile alternative to the Madden series.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction - Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction - Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack  Review
Source By GameSpot

Splinter Cell: Conviction's first substantial downloadable add-on may be "just" a map pack, but boy is it a good one. In fact, if you enjoy Conviction's excellent cooperative modes, the Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack is a must-play. These four standalone missions are even better than those included with the main game, filled with numerous nooks and crannies in which to hide, winding pathways and corridors useful for flanking, and dramatic opportunities to bring down your vocal foes. Those occasionally dimwitted enemies can get confused in these intricate environments, but bewildered combatants and other minor complaints only slightly soften the impact of this excellent addition to Conviction's outstanding co-op play. This pack may sell for 800 Microsoft points ($10), but it is too good for Splinter Cell fans to miss.




Like the maps that shipped with the main game, the Insurgency Pack's maps are extensive three-part levels that you can use in Face-Off, Hunter, and Last Stand modes. (And as in the main game, you will enjoy the latter two modes in single-player as well as in two-player co-op.) The missions are set in four distinctive American cities--San Francisco, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Portland, Maine--and all four do an impressive job of bringing the spirit of those cities to Conviction's stealth/action gameplay. For example, the last stage of the San Francisco map takes place on a bayside dock cluttered with cranes, crates, and pulleys, a sight you would reasonably expect to see at that city's piers. The Portland map opens with a nighttime glimpse of Maine lighthouses and a sojourn through a courtyard and into the bowels of a prison. These areas and the others (a New Orleans mausoleum and a Salt Lake City laboratory are particular standouts) are brimming with dark shadows, winding pipes, alternate staircases, and creepy crawlspaces. The spotlight is on Conviction's cooperative flexibility. These maps are more complex than you may have expected, leaving you plenty of room to decide how to take down your enemies. You could leap onto the shipping containers and shimmy around them in the San Francisco level, for instance, or hide under enormous industrial vehicles and pick off your enemies one by one. And this flexibility leads to awesome moments characterized by the excitement of a well-timed dual execution, or a narrow escape from a tense showdown.

Even Conviction's lone competitive mode, Face-Off, shines in this new content. Here you might miss the delights of co-op play--dual executions, rescuing your teammate from choke holds--but the complexity of these maps enhances the tension when you have another player stalking you. Because there are so many places to which you can escape, heading toward the ghostly image indicating your opponent's last known position could turn you from hunter into the hunted: he or she may very well be waiting to ambush you, using that ghost as a lure. You'll still get quite a bit of bang for your buck even if you just intend to explore these maps on your own. Solo Hunter mode can get intense in the more claustrophobic areas, particularly if you break stealth and reinforcements stream onto the map. Unfortunately, whether you play on your own or with a friend in tow, your computer-controlled opponents seem to have a tougher time in these elaborate setups. You can occasionally use choke points to take down enemies one by one as they barrel down hallways, oblivious to the rising pile of bodies directly in front of them.

Any other nit you could pick with this add-on--the way the black-and-white effect might make it difficult to see what's going on, for example--is a carryover from the main game and barely affects the incredibly high quality of what's on offer here. The Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack is a tremendous bit of downloadable content, and a great reason to make Splinter Cell: Conviction your go-to cooperative game.

EA to reboot NBA series

EA Sports will reboot its NBA Live series of basketball games this autumn with new physics and control systems, as well as a new name: NBA Elite. NBA Elite 11, due for release in October on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, will follow last year's NBA Live 10.

The new controls, says EA, are built around a "hands-on control" scheme that maps a player's movement to actions on the court, as opposed to triggering predetermined animations. In the game's new skill-based shooting system, success will rely on accurate player input rather than "randomly generated dice rolls," the megapublisher said.

EA's NBA-licensed basketball games have sold more than 25 million units since 1995, according to TRST/NPD data. EA will be hoping a rebranded, reinvigorated NBA franchise can see off the competition from 2K Sports' NBA 2K series.

The changes were rumoured last week, thanks to leaks and a cryptic teaser posted by EA (shown above). NBA Live 11 will be released this October and is not yet rated by PEGI or the ESRB.