Iron Man 2

Source: GameSpot

Review:
It's pretty evident from the start that even Sega knows that its original Iron Man game wasn't all that it could have been. Therefore, the new team working on the game is going to great lengths to make sure that the follow-up, Iron Man 2, not only plays better than its predecessor, but also stays true to what Iron Man, the character, is all about. This is apparent with the new control scheme: switching between hovering and flying only requires some manipulation of the left and right analog sticks--a simple press forward on the left stick pushes Iron Man forward through the air in flight mode, while the right analog stick controls his direction.



Interestingly, something else that has been streamlined is the way that Iron Man's suit functions. Instead of manually switching between different power modes (more power to shields versus more power to weapons), the game automatically switches these modes based on Iron Man's current status. If he's on the ground, then Jarvis (Tony Stark's robo-butler and onboard suit AI) changes the power flow so that Iron Man's shields and weapons recharge at a faster pace while the navigation systems power done. Conversely, to zoom through the air at top speeds, Jarvis switches things around so that most of the suit's juice goes toward the boosters, depleting some energy from weapons and shields. The whole system makes sense, and best of all, it doesn't do away with a mechanic that otherwise gives the game a slightly more strategic feel.

And those aren't even the only changes made to the suit. At any point, you can switch between different melee sets, meaning that if you want Iron Man to use kung fu, then you can select the kung fu melee set. This gives Iron Man a few more nimble and quick punches and kicks that he might not have in the default setting. There's also a brute force setting where Iron Man's just a little bit slower but his attacks pack more power.

Not all of the attention is focused solely on Iron Man. Quite a bit of attention is also being paid to the environments and what Iron Man can do within them. In fact, in our brief demo, we got a glimpse of an indoor area--an arc reactor-powered factory--where Iron Man has to plow through groups of massive robots before finally making his way to the reactor and destroying it. The sequence afterward has you, as Iron Man, escaping from the factory as it explodes around you. It's sort of like the exploding Death Star sequence from Return of the Jedi. After making it outdoors, we got a glimpse of another aspect of the game that the development team is working on: destructibility. While it was certainly possible to create massive amounts of damage in the original Iron Man game, the version of it in Iron Man 2, in a way, is much more precise. Iron Man can destroy roofs, doors, and all sorts of other objects before taking down bigger things, like an entire building.

What's also interesting about this outdoor environment is that it looks a little less like a flight sim where everything generally appears small. There's seemingly a lot more detail in everything, and generally speaking, enemies seem to be much larger and more substantial than in the previous game. But some things that definitely are bigger in Iron Man 2 are the bosses. At the end of this demo, we got a glimpse of a massive spider tank that has multiple target points that Iron Man has to take out before striking the final death blow. We got to see an even bigger boss, which fans may recognize as Crimson Dynamo (who also isn't in the film), at the end of the demo in a teaser trailer, and to say that he completely dwarfs Iron Man would be an understatement.

From just about every angle, Iron Man 2 already appears to be a drastic improvement over the original Iron Man game. And best of all, the game's story is also being worked on by well-known Marvel scribe Matt Fraction, who is helping to ensure that in-game Iron Man and Tony Stark speak and are represented in the proper way. Iron Man 2 is scheduled for release next year.

Monster Hunter Tri

Monster Hunter Tri Preview:

Monster Hunter Tri Updated Multiplayer Impressions

Monster Hunter’s multiplayer is split into two types: open-world hunting and arena battles. Open-world hunting sees you take to the lush landscape with a crew as you search out and kill wandering monsters for their meat, item drops, or trophies. Arena mode works similarly but takes much of the running around out of the game, spawning you and friends into a sealed gauntlet leading to a huge open-air coliseum with a foe of your choice as chosen from the quest list available. First timers are able to select from one of four different class types as defined by their weapon loadouts. These are ranged attack with a gun; lance and shield; short sword and shield; and all out offensive attack with a huge two-handed hammer. Each class has its own damage profile, and while the slow speed of the hammer can unleash large amounts of damage, you’ll need to have someone else eating the hurt, as well as a fairly still target, to successfully land attacks. On the other end of the scale, light, faster attacks with the short sword and shield allow you to fend off smaller additional monsters that spawn into the arena defensively. But while you remain agile, your damage relies on prolonged periods of jabs rather than a single haymaker.

Selecting and playing a particular class--and we use the term class loosely--doesn’t assign you to a specific function during battles. While in other action games the guy with the shield is the designated damage sponge as everyone else wails on the boss, there’s no real “tank and spank” system here. The player doing the most damage to the enemy will be the focus of its anger, but that doesn’t give everyone else a free pass. Teamwork and coordination are essential here. The optional WiiSpeak support will also go a long way to helping organise parties to focus attacks on exploiting weak points while avoiding zones immune to damage. Monster Hunter is a game that rewards players who put the time in to kill monsters, as well as upgrade their weapons and armour. With this in mind, it's good to see that players will be happy to take their single-player character online or copy a profile to a Wii Remote to take to a friend’s place.

Your performance can be tough to gauge in the arena. Your health bar will deplete and grow as you quaff healing potions, but there are no health bars for your targets. Instead, you’ll need to rely on visual cues, such as staggering animations and the enemy’s attack behaviour to determine how well you’re slaying the beast. It’s an interesting approach and means you won’t know if you’re one more sword stab away from glory or rounding the first corner in a long, winding road to victory.
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During our hands-on time, we fought a midsized Raptor with no visible weak points. Our two-player approach consisted of sticking fairly close to each other, dashing in, and getting in a few shots before rolling out of the way to avoid tail swipes. Knockbacks and some smaller, more basic spawned enemies split us from each other, but we managed to take the big guy down after a long, drawn-out battle. Nintendo reps confirmed some fights may last as long as 45 minutes. Unlike seems to be the case in the open-world part of Monster Hunter, enemies don’t attack each other in the arena. This means you won’t be able to watch from the sidelines as they go toe-to-toe before stepping in to land the killing blow. Provided at least one player is still alive in the arena, you’ll be able to zone back in after dying without the boss regaining full health. A team wipe from multiple simultaneous deaths requires you to start over from the beginning of the encounter. The inability to swing a sword and heal at the same time means you’ll need to sheath your blade to drink potions or set traps. This will leave you vulnerable to wayward physical attacks and area-of-effect damage unless someone else picks up the aggro.

One thing we did notice is the scaling of the game visuals in the multiplayer mode. The single-player portion of Monster Hunter Tri looks great with its lush environments, textured terrain, and varied monster types. But unfortunately, perhaps as a limitation of the Wii’s hardware, split-screen multiplayer ratchets things down a few notches. Character and enemy models become blockier while the arena doesn’t have the same flashiness of the world surrounding it. It’s not bad enough to detract from the main event of killing things, but we’re hoping it’s something still being tweaked prior to launch to wring every drop of performance out of Nintendo’s console.

Monster Hunter Tri will be slicing and dicing its way exclusively onto the Wii in the first half of this year. Stay tuned for the full GameSpot review shortly.


Monster Hunter Tri Multiplayer Hands-On

When we last saw Monster Hunter Tri back at GamesCom 2009, we were taken with how impressive it looked. If bringing the franchise to a Nintendo system for the first time wasn't sweet enough, it was also one of the best-looking Wii games we'd seen to date. The visuals certainly go a long way in bringing the exotic monsters, environments, and characters to life. Originally released in Japan last year, the game is being localised by Capcom for Western markets, and this latest game in the series should be out this April in Europe. We recently got a chance to play the European version, including its two-player split-screen and four-player online modes.

Nintendo hosted a hands-on event in London, which kicked off with a presentation from producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and creative director Kaname Fujioka. The duo attempted to initiate the UK media in the ways of monster hunting, and given that the series hasn't been the runaway success in the West that it has been in Japan, this seemed like a sensible start to the day. During the presentation, Tsujimoto revealed a number of interesting facts about Tri, including the addition of several new weapons that weren't in the Japanese version, such as the Lion's Bane sword and the Grim Reaper-fashioned Sinister Saints switchaxe. Tsujimoto also confirmed that Monster Hunter Tri will support Nintendo's Wii Speak microphone peripheral. Text chat is also an option, and this feature will no doubt make communication between hunters easier during online matches. Lastly, he revealed that Capcom had direct involvement in designing Nintendo's Classic Controller Pro control pad. The redesigned controller appears to be the default control scheme for Tri, and while you can use a Wii Remote and Nunchuk or the original Classic Controller, we found that the pro's longer handles made it a better experience. In fact, Nintendo has announced two additional versions of the game for Europe: one that will be bundled with the Pro controller and another that will include the controller and the Wii Speak peripheral. After the presentation, we met with a Capcom spokesperson, who told us that you'll be able to copy your characters to a Wii Remote and play them on a friend's system, much like you can import Miis from one console to another.

Capcom has already revealed that the cute catlike Felynes won't be tagging along in Tri's single-player hunts, although they are available in the village to help you cook food and plant crops. Aiding you in battle this time around is Cha-Cha, a dwarf-sized fellow who looks a lot like the village witch doctor. We weren't able to see him in action, but according to Tsujimoto, Cha-Cha will become bigger and stronger and will unlock new abilities as you progress.

Monster Hunter Tri introduces underwater battles to the series for the first time. With the exception of two shoulder buttons to dive and surface, the main controls are the same whether you're in the water or on land. The Classic Controller Pro is particularly useful for underwater areas, as the inside shoulder buttons are easier to reach and sit underneath the outside ones, much like on the PlayStation 3's Dual Shock 3 controller. After kitting out our hunter with a great sword, we headed to the aquatic hunting grounds with our companions to hunt down the giant aquatic Lagiacrus dragon. The map had about a dozen sections, with several areas featuring bodies of water deep enough to conceal the beast. Diving into the sea and coming head-to-head with such a giant creature was cool, and he certainly proved to be a challenging opponent. Because you have to move in three dimensions underwater, combat is slightly more challenging at first, and unfortunately the series again fails to include a fixed camera angle behind you, so you need to use the right analog stick to keep the camera on the action. The Lagiacrus eventually moved to another area where we were able to attack it on land. Despite being a creature of the deep, the Lagiacrus was just as formidable on land, and it was great to see that the action continued unabated despite the location.

We also got a chance to play Tri's two-player split-screen mode, where we were able to hunt down a Great Jaggi and a Qurupeco. This mode took place in a single arena covered in sand and featured the backdrop of a beautiful, crumbling colosseum. Rather than fighting on regular hunting grounds, you need to fight it out man-on-beast in a single area; however, the overall gameplay remains pretty much the same. The starting area is adjacent to the arena, and if you die, it's easy to rejoin the battle once you've respawned. The monsters can't retreat to another area and recharge their health, and neither can you (although you can carry health potions and other items with you), so the battles are simple fights to the death. Despite having to share the screen with a companion, this mode does a good job of keeping the screen uncluttered while still managing to display all of the vital heads-up displays.

Nintendo and Capcom are still considering whether to charge a monthly subscription fee for Monster Hunter Tri, which would follow the model for the just-announced Monster Hunter Frontier Online on the Xbox 360 in Japan. Given that it's a four-player cooperative game rather than a persistent, massively multiplayer game, added fees might make it a difficult sell.
Monster Hunter Tri looks like it will be a delicious monster-filled treat for fans of the series when it comes out in April. Because multiplayer is such a vital part of the Monster Hunter experience, it's good to know that Capcom is working on its own in-game friends system, and we're hoping it will be as painless as possible for people to jump online and start slaying monsters. We're looking forward to seeing the final version and checking out all of the monsters and environments in store for hunters. For more on the franchise's Nintendo debut, be sure to check out our previous coverage and keep an eye on GameSpot for the full review this April.

Monster Hunter Tri Hands-On

Monster Hunter is a game that has been synonymous with the PlayStation brand up until now. The Japanese cult hit has sold millions of copies (and helped sell plenty of PSPs) in its home country but has experienced limited success in overseas markets thus far. Capcom hoped to challenge this notion with a marketing campaign in Europe for Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which launched to strong reviews, and is following this up with the series' first outing on the Nintendo Wii. We embarked on a hunting quest at GamesCom 2009 in Cologne, Germany, armed with our wits and a Wii Classic Controller.

What's New: Capcom confirmed that the European version of Tri will support an online cooperative mode for up to four hunters, as well as a two-player split-screen mode for certain missions and a single-player mode. When online, you can use your friends list to set up quests with friends, or you can quest with people you haven't shared friend codes with. You will be able to communicate using standard gestures, which will probably be similar to those incorporated into Mario Kart Wii.

While felyne helpers may make a comeback in Tri, they'll no longer go into single-player quests with you. Instead, you'll be accompanied by another human monster hunter. We have yet to find out about your companion, other than that it will be a male character. We also checked out the impressive-looking new switchaxe weapon--a ridiculously oversized, curved, double-edged blade that looks as impressive as it does formidable.

What's Different: This build is localised for the European region.

What's The Same: Our demo featured the same monsters we saw at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, including the bird/lizard hybrid Qurupeco and a dragon that you can fight underwater (a first for the series), the Lagiacrus. Like other new monsters, the Qurupeco will devour other monsters to recover stamina. In our hunt, it called some smaller members of its species in for backup, along with one of the dragon-like Rathian. Apparently there will be only two existing monsters making an appearance in Tri, including the Rathian, and all the rest will be completely new to the series.

We're pleased to report that the game's controls still feel pretty tight when using a Classic Controller and closely match the PSP scheme. You can also use a Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination to get the job done, and while Capcom wasn't able to confirm it, we expect that GameCube controllers will also work. Unfortunately there's still no option to lock the camera onto your current monster, but the L2 button will reset the camera behind you, and the right analog stick can be used to pan the camera.

What Impression The Game Made This Time: Monster Hunter Tri looks nothing short of impressive when running on the Wii hardware, and the engine does a great job of displaying the heads-up displays, your character, hard-earned weapons and armour, vibrant hunting grounds, and, of course, the monsters themselves. There's a soft look to the environments and some nice bloom effects, which make this version of the game the best looking to date. The controls felt natural and responsive, despite a few caveats, and we're keen to see what playing Tri online will look like. Monster Hunter Tri launched in Japan on August 1 and will be heading to Western markets in early 2010.

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars -- Republic Heroes

Star Wars. It seems that once the new trilogy sprang to life that the flood gates were burst wide open and the amount of new, official stuff coming from the franchise is growing by leaps and bounds yearly. The 3D animated Clone Wars series is the latest thing to hit, and with it have come a handful of titles based on its look, feel and storytelling slant. The latest is Star Wars: The Clone Wars -- Republic Heroes, a title that is clearly aimed at the younger audience out there. Now just because the target audience is younger doesn't mean that the game should get any less polish or have lower production values than stuff catered towards the hardcore crowd, but unfortunately that's the case here.

The first thing you'll notice is that pretty much regardless of which system you play it on, it looks rather terrible. Most everything looks a generation behind what it should be. That is, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC SKUs look like a PlayStation 2 game, while the PS2 version looks like a PS1 game. The PSP version looks OK for what it is, but it doesn't run well enough given the graphics at hand. Perhaps the only game that looks like it belongs on the system you bought it for is the Wii version, though even in that case it's only passable.

About five seconds after you notice how bad it looks, you'll realize that the game's platforming elements are unresponsive and oftentimes frustrating. The game tries to manage the platforming bits for you, where it'll have you automatically land on certain spots. However, unless you jump from the right piece of land, the helper bit won't kick in and you'll fall to your death. Over and over again.

So it looks bad and the platforming is frustrating. While this is happening, Yoda will pop up and tell you how to do stuff, acting as your tutorial guide. The problem is that he never shuts up even hours into the game. Were he to chime in when you seem to be getting stuck, that'd be one thing. But no, his green head pops up constantly and interrupts whatever fun you might have been squeezing out of the game.

Given these other issues, it's not surprising that you'll really have to dig to find that fun. Enemies are repetitive, and the combat is very basic. Yes, it's meant to be played by the youngin's out there, but when you implement basic controls in your game, you then really have to step up what you're doing with the environments and set pieces. Here, they're all bland, boring and, again, frustrating to navigate through.

To make matters worse, you have to keep using the same hooks over and over again. The biggest culprit here is the use of droids. You can jump on top of almost all of them and control them for a short bit, which you'll need to do to shoot down barriers, drop bombs on certain spots or what have you. After being forced to do this for the millionth time, you'll start asking yourself why a lightsaber can burn through steel and yet can't take down a rock.

There are a couple things that could have worked well on paper here, such as an upgrades system where you can spend points earned on new powers, cheats and the like. You can also take part in challenges throughout the game to set high scores, and the hop-in/hop-in co-op works well - except on PSP, where it isn't supported. Again, the production values were not exactly high on this one.After a while, you'll find that all of this boredom and frustration just goes on and on. I have no idea what the point of the story was or what the end goal was going to be for a long, long time, so that wasn't drawing me through the adventure. Aside from having to play it simply to write this review, I had no interest in playing the game, and I think that says enough.

by Chris Roper