The reboot craze continues as yet another 80’s franchise has been rescued from bargain bin purgatory. Police Academy, the venerable comedy series, which spawned seven movies will soon return in an all-new incarnation. Oh, but don’t worry you hardcore “Police Academaniacs” (yeah, I made that up…I think,) Paul Maslansky, the producer behind all of the original films will return to help oversee the project and make sure it lives up to the original’s integrity. (Am I really typing this?)

As some may recall, (since six sequels tends to dilute a series’ original premise,) 1984’s first Police Academy film portrayed a city in crisis and in desperate need of Police recruits. The newly-elected Mayor then mandates that the local Police Academy welcome new recruits from all walks of life, attracting a healthy mix of the most zany screwballs ever. Of course, that group of screwballs was led by Carey Mahoney, played by the one and only Steve Guttenberg, who was kind of “sentenced” to join, and was solely devoted towards getting himself kicked-out. Here’s the catch: They’re not allowed to kick him out! Thus, comedy history was forever changed….sort of. (And he did it, no less, rocking a wife-beater and a pair of Daisy Dukes.)

Details on the reboot project (i.e. casting and direction) are still scarce, however, according to Maslansky:

“It’s going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV,” Maslansky said. “It’s going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It’ll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we’ll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme.”

Rose-colored glasses aside, the Police Academy brand definitely has nostalgia as its biggest ally. Frankly, the substance of the films’ jokes themselves do not stand the test of time, and in some cases, are painfully bad. However, they were extremely popular. The first film, which was a huge hit for Warner Bros., grossing over $81 million, was more of a conventional crude, R-Rated 80’s romp, filled to the brim with curse words, sexism, racial slurs, and full-frontal nudity. Each subsequent sequel was downgraded, with part two being PG-13, to eventually settling on a family-friendly PG rating for the rest of the series. The franchise even spawned a cartoon series with its own line of toys. Of course, it would eventually go out with a whimper, as the box office figures took incremental hits for each film, until its last, 1994’s Mission to Moscow grossed a laughable $126,247.

Ignominious end aside, it is possible that this could be something worthwhile. The basic, stripped-down formula does leave things open to updates that would give it relevancy. Plus, good casting could also help make this film into something that might be worth some excitement. It wouldn’t even be that hard with the pool of capable contemporary comedy stars made up of the likes of Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, etc.

The comedy movie genre is in kind of an awkward state at the moment. They’re either too ironic and hipster-esque or just plain formulaic garbage. This project could fall flat on its face, but it could also serve as a nice reminder of a time when comedies, while crass, lowbrow, and disposable, were more than plentiful and just pure, mindless fun.

Source:g4tv.com

A couple in Korea (Kim Yoo-chul, 41, Choi Mi-sun, 25) reportedly let their real-life child starve to death while they were taking care of a virtual child in a video game.

The parents would spend up to 12 hours at a shot in internet cafes, playing free-to-play Korean MMO Prius Online where you raise “Anima” children. While gaming, they would leave their three-month-old baby behind at home to fend for itself. Newborns are notorious for being bad at fending for themselves, even if you leave out a bowl of kibble, so their child died of malnutrition. There are no words for how terrible those parents are.

“The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,” Chung Jin-won, a police officer in Suwon, the Seoul suburb, told the Yonhap news agency. “They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

My confession: I have neglected my real child in favor of my virtual one.  Before you call child protective services on me, let me tell the story: A couple weeks ago, I was immersed in Heavy Rain; It was my kid’s bedtime, and I said to my wife, “Honey, do you mind putting him to bed. I’m in the middle of this… it’s for work.”

The very next scene in the game was the one where Scott Shelby is feeding and changing the diaper of a baby, and I realized that I was literally passing up interacting with my real child to put a diaper on a fake one. It was a bit freaky…but unlike the couple in Korea, my wife was putting my kid to bed, and it was only like 10 minutes as opposed to many hours, so it’s completely different, but still…freaky, right?

BTW: Raising a real child is harder than a video game child by about the factor that playing a real guitar is harder than playing Guitar Hero, but leveling up is a lot more rewarding.

Source:g4tv.com

Sega and Platinum Games debuted their new project, Vanquish in the trailer above. While completely cooler than the other side of the pillow, like many debut/teaser trailers, there was no in-game footage to be seen. To remedy the situation Platinum Games released the first screenshots of the title featuring plenty of guns and motion blur (which typically means awesome firepower and action… hopefully).

Vanquish is headed by Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba, the minds behind famed titles such as: Resident Evil series, Devil May Cry, Dino Crisis seres, God Hand and more. Sounds like a recipe for success, here’s hoping.

Source:g4tv.com

Yesterday, the Rock Band Network went live, launching with 105(!) tracks from a variety of smaller artists. You might be thinking, “Great… but which tracks should I download?” We have you covered.

Many G4ians spent the last 24 hours combing the list to bring back our personal picks for the best songs for the Rock Band Network. Enjoy our recommendations, and download away… oh, and if you download something and don’t like it, feel free to yell at us.

JP Shub – Supervising Producer X-Play:

• If Trucks Drank Beer / Error 404 feat. CJ Watson – What a world it would be if trucks did indeed drink beer! This is hilarious and infectious pop rock at its finest.
• What’s Your Favorite Dinosaur? / The Main Drag – John Drake is more than just the Program Manager for the Rock Band Network, he also bangs the skins for this excellent electro pop group. This upbeat number has lots of over the top drum work, a cool layered chorus and will stay in your head long after you’ve 5-starred it.
• Angel Lust / Fake Shark-Real Zombie! – Besides having one of the coolest band names I’ve heard in a long time, this is a damn fine song with cool guitar lines and a great bass line.
• Battles and Brotherhood / 3 Inches of Blood – This is the metal of the Gods! Insane vocals, guitars and drums make this song a literal blast and a half to play. Bonus points for the fact that your neighbors will surely hate this one!
• For the Love of God (Live) / Steve Vai – In my opinion, this is Vai’s most emotional and beautiful song. However, you better bring your plastic instrument A-game, because recreating the axe master’s subtle touch and pyrotechnic whammy work is a gymnastic endeavor to say the least.

Moye – Resident Asian Girl

• Stroke 9 – Little Black Backpack: I thought I was the only one who remembered this song back from 1999. It’s been stuck in my head since 1999 and I don’t even relate it because why would a band write a song about a horrible fashion trend from the 1990’s when girls thought it would be aesthetically pleasing to carry their personal belongings in a miniature purse? I don’t really get the lyrics either but you know what? I’ve been singing this song in my car for the past decade and it’s about time I should be able to sing this over my Xbox and I’m going to sing this song 40 times in a row. Who’s in?

Patrick Roche-Sowa, Producer, G4tv.com

• Juke Joint Jezebel / KMFDM– Any band who’s name is a reference to killing Depeche Mode gets my vote.
• Battles and Brotherhood / 3 Inches of Blood – Great for pissing off your neighbors.
• Ikea / Jonathan Coulton – Chances are, you’ll be playing this song while sitting on an Ikea couch anyway.
• Australia / The Shins – I just really like this song.

Frank Meyer, Actual Rock Star

• Steve Vai/The Attitude Song — Features one of Steve’s Vai’s raddest riffs ever. It was the single off his debut album Flexible, when he was still playing with Frank Zappa. Vai is in full blown Eddie Van Halen whammy bar shred mode on this one. It’s killer.

Andrew Pfister, Features Editor

• Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse / Of Montreal

Chemicals, don’t strangle my pen
Chemicals, don’t make me sick again
I’m always so dubious of your intent
Like I can’t afford to replace what you’ve spent
Come on, chemicals!”

Not the first Of Montreal song I’d make Rock Bandable, but a good example of their lyrical prowess and ability to switch tone and mood within the same song. Now give me the nearly 12-minute “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal,” and we’re talking.

• Juke Joint Jezebel / KMFDM: Only because the appearance of this song on the Mortal Kombat Original Motion Picture Soundtrack reminds me that video game movies can actually be fun. Oh, 1995, you were a magical year.

Mike D’Alonzo, Musicologist

• The Shins – ‘Australia’ – Aside from being an extraordinarily pleasant song, ‘Australia’ will keep those shuffle drummers on their toes, and it’s hard to sing as well. Might not be the most complicated for guitarists, but it’s sneaky tough. And have I mentioned how very, very pleasant it is?
• Of Montreal – ‘Heimdalsgate Like A Promethian Curse’ – First off, more people need to hear this band, because they are doing something that absolutely no one else is doing. It’s super trippy, so be on the lookout, but the new wave synth and the rousing chorus of ‘Come on chemicals!’ should keep you occupied for a long time to come.
• Flogging Molly – ‘Drunken Lullabies (Live)’ – What with St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, and a noticeable lack of Pogues on the playlist, Flogging Molly will do just fine, and this song that includes such famous Irish touchstones as freedom, explosions, and drinking should have you wailing on the (not included) shillelagh peripheral.
• The Hold Steady – ‘Sequestered In Memphis’ – Perhaps the best band that you’ve likely never heard of, The Hold Steady are a roaring charge of drunken, jittery poetry topped with a steady diet of power cords and an attitude that recalls the best in 70’s punk. Enjoy Craig Finn’s phrasing, singers! I’m not even sure he knows what rhythm he’s using from one moment to the next.
• KMFDM – ‘A Drug Against War’ – You want hard, kiddies? KMFDM has it. Think ‘Downward Spiral’ Nine Inch Nails with shredding guitar and a beat that will cause the drummer’s arms to fall off, and you’re most of the way there. Fun Fact: KMFDM stands for “Kill Mother F***in’ Depeche Mode.”
• Steve Vai – ‘For The Love Of God’ – How good a guitarist is Steve Vai? So good that he joined Frank Zappa’s band in 1980 and stuck there for a number of years based on his playing a song that Zappa wrote to be one of the most challenging on Earth. ‘For the Love Of God’ will have guitarists enraptured with its fireworks, which will show your friends just what sort of shredder you’ve become.
• Marillion – ‘Whatever Is Wrong With You’ – Now, I will take a lot of crap for this, but I’m a life-long Marillion fan, who are more popular in England than you’ll ever be. This isn’t their best song, but it’s loud, powerful, and a lot less proggy than most of their stuff. I’m holding out for some of their older material, but this will do just fine in the short term.
• The Main Drag – ‘How We’d Look On Paper’ – Starts off like The Alarm, and then drops into a little Killers action, with a big beat that will be fun to play on drums. Also, I happen to be a sucker for a horn section, and there’s one here.
• Jonathan Coulton – ‘Ikea’ – Jonathan gets all of the credit in the world for writing the greatest song in the history of videogames, ‘Still Alive’ from Portal, but this tribute to the Swedish superstore Ikea will be fun to play, funny to sing, and has the added extra bonus of sounding like one of the great lost hits from the Ben Folds Five catalog. But, oh, how I wish this was his cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat.’
• Glass Hammer – ‘Sleep On’ – As I have previously mentioned, I’m an unashamed prog-rock fan. Though I have not ever heard this song, Glass Hammer are very, very serious prog boys from Chattanooga, Tennessee. This, alone, makes this song worth downloading.

Stephen Johnson, God of Thunder

• Amberian Dawn – He Sleeps In A Grove: When presented with such a massive list of songs, it would be easy to recommend all the music I dig – The Hold Steady, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot — but let’s face it, you’re probably already familiar with these artists and either like ‘em or hate ‘em. So instead, I listened to a bunch of groups I hadn’t heard of before. I wasn’t feeling most of them, but I sifted enough so-so material to bring out a diamond:  Amberian Dawn. They are Finnish symphonic power metal, and are just as awesome, epic and unbelievably rad as their description. Just listen. Try to sing that sshizz next time you have a Rock Band party! Awesome!

Rick Damigella, Executive Producer, all-around music know-it-all and Xbot

• Battles and Brotherhood / 3 Inches of Blood: Any band featured in Brütal Legend should be on Rock Band. Period. Gamers should be required to wear furs and armor while playing this one.
• Drunken Lullabies (Live) / Flogging Molly: It’s Irish Punk, its fast and one of their best songs, what more do you want? Your Rock Band drummer will have fun with this one.
• Get the Hell Out of Here / Steve Vai: This one (or anything by Steve Vai) separates the noobs from the experts. Unless you really are a pro at Rock Band, your fingers should be tied in knots by the end.

Source:g4tv.com

The last developer I interviewed at DICE 2010 was someone I hadn’t met: Insomniac Games president and CEO Ted Price. I’ve always enjoyed Insomniac’s releases, especially their platformers. There aren’t enough of those these days, so I feel obligated to champion them. It’s Price’s honest attitude towards games that makes him such an interesting character, which is why you’ll hopefully find the following interview a great read. Price speaks humbly about the mistakes his company’s made over the years, the lessons learned from this missteps, the kind of culture he started and has tried to maintain at Insomniac even as it’s gotten bigger, what it means to take influence from other games, and much more.

G4: Looking back at 2009, what was the biggest takeaway? The was the year where the recession seemed to really impact games for the first time.

Ted Price: The biggest takeaway is that is we’ve all got to be careful about maintaining efficiency in our production practices and we’re no longer in a world where, at least in my opinion, you can spend an insane amount of money and get away with it, just because you never know what will happen. The sales might not be there; there may be a global economic crisis, and all of a sudden, if you’ve made lots of big bets and your sales aren’t there, you are going to be screwed.

G4: It seems like something you guys have had as a studio culture before it became a necessity. You guys have something coming out every year and that’s how your dev cycle worked. Was that intentional when you started the company?

Price: When I started, Disruptor was our first game and two years later was our first Spyro. And then every year after that we released a Spyro, so Spyro 2, Spyro 3 came immediately. We took one year off and then released Ratchet and then Ratchet 2, 3, 4 and my assumption was that’s the way you do it. You release a game every year because it mitigates risk and it keeps us moving. We don’t have an opportunity to kind of just go off some awesome weird tangent. We like being focused on production, it’s actually the most interesting part of the game development process. The hardest part is pre-production, when you’re trying to figure out what you’re doing. Once you get into production it’s great because you’re getting stuff up on screen, you’re figuring out whether it works, you’re putting the game together, so in the past we always try to get to production as quickly as possible.

G4: It was interesting, I don’t know if you caught the Alan Wake talk, but it was interesting watching their process trying to figure out what major elements to cut. Have you ever made a hard call like they did? They pitched Alan Wake as “we’re going to do this sandbox game,” but down the line they realized “oh crap, we have to throw out nine months of work.”

Price: Yeah. We have done that twice and we did that with Ratchet, which started out not as Ratchet. It started out as a game about a girl with a stick running around this Mayan-influenced environment. It was probably going to be rated M if it had ever been released, not because of the girl, but because it was a fairly dark game and we got about six months into that one in terms of pre-production development and very few people in the studio were passionate about it. And I kept pushing it because I felt at the time, “Hey, you have to finish what you started.”  I hadn’t really learned that lesson that “Hey, it’s okay to kill your babies,” and when we showed it to Sony, who was our publisher, they said “Look, we’ll support you with this — if you guys want to release it, that’s cool, but we don’t think it’s going to do well in the market.” That was a real wake-up call for me, and I had to admit that we needed to kill this one and start over.

And so we did, and when we did I think within two weeks we had the initial idea for Ratchet, and it really clicked. I mean, once Brian Hastings, who is our creative officer, came up with the idea of this little alien who has cool guns and flies around in spaceships. And when he said that, everybody said “That’s it, that’s what we need.” And we also at that time realized that we had been straying from our expertise, which at the time was platformers, having done Sypro. So it was a really great experience to bounce back from that initial failure and come up with something that was much better.

G4: It’s interesting watching what happened with Borderlands and Gearbox because they made a major art change mid-cycle. You don’t see risks like that a lot these days. It seems that it requires a partnership to be able to make those changes mid-way in production.

Price: Sony really is supportive when it comes to making sure that the best ideas are the ones that go into the game, and they’ve been a wonderful partner for many, many years. I give a lot of credit to Shu Yoshida, Connie Booth, Grady Hunt, Greg Philips, Frank Simon, Scott Rodhe — all the guys up there who are part of the production team that I think fervently believe that it’s the game, the game has to be great, it’s not releasing at the end of the quarter or making your shareholders happy with quarterly statements. If you have a great game and you take your time to do it right, then everybody’s going to be happy — your shareholders, your marketing folks, the consumers especially.

G4: The way your development process works, that you are able to get games out what seems like once a year, how does your iterative process work? Are you able to iterate much during the design process, or when you guys have finished pre-production, it’s just that until the finish line? Do you have any wiggle room in there when you actually start creating the game?

Price: The pre-production process is relatively unstructured, so that’s the time where ostensibly we are trying out new things, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and the idea is that when we hit production, everybody is charging towards that final goal of getting a gold disc done. The reality is that our pre-production periods probably aren’t as productive as they should be and we end up doing a lot of prototyping during production, which can cause stress because you do end up throwing out finished work. But the thing is the game has to be great, so you just deal with it. I think as a company we’re getting much better about figuring out how to do prototyping on the fly more efficiently so that we don’t disrupt production if we do prototyping in production, and how to make our pre-production periods more effective.

Got a bunch of plastic guitars laying around your game room? Downloadable platformer Fret Nice uses your strums and Star Power in a way that you’ve never seen before. But despite the funky control scheme, Fret Nice doesn’t stray too far from side-scrolling conventions.

Got a bunch of plastic guitars laying around your game room? Downloadable platformer Fret Nice uses your strums and Star Power in a way that you’ve never seen before. But despite the funky control scheme, Fret Nice doesn’t stray too far from side-scrolling conventions.

Moved By Music

Thanks to games like Braid, Castle Crashers, A Boy And His Blob and many more, it’s clear that the side-scrolling 2D is experiencing something of a renaissance. Each of these games tries to do its own unique thing while staying true to the core of old-school gaming. Now, you can add the new downloadable title Fret Nice to that list. Like all of the aforementioned games, Fret Nice is, at its core, a standard side-scrolling platforming game, with one interesting twist: You can play the game entirely with a Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitar controller. The first and third fret keys move you left and right, while tilting the guitar neck up in the “Star Power/Overdrive” motion makes you jump. While you’re in the air, playing the guitar creates riffs that destroy your enemies. Each chord corresponds to a feature on the enemies’ faces and you have to match their features with your music to destroy them.

If it sounds weird, well, that’s because it is.

The Guitar isn’t a Hero

Perhaps because of its strangeness, Fret Nice is a hard game not to like. The music/facial feature matching gameplay sounds cumbersome, but actually works quite well in practice. As you’d expect from a game with music as a weapon, the soundtrack is great and features the kind of catchy original gaming tunes that are far too rare in the days of licensed beats. The cut-out visual style that’s reminiscent of Lucidity is stylish and cool.

Unfortunately, the guitar-controller gimmick at the heart of the game is the weakest thing about it. It works, but it’s also clunky and occasionally frustrating. Using the guitar tilt sensor to jump is a cumbersome control choice that doesn’t always respond as quickly as you’d like and other controls such as running or climbing just feel off. Fortunately, you can play Fret Nice with a standard controller. It feels much smoother with a traditional gamepad, but that also removes the most unique thing about the game, so you’re left with a passable but generally unremarkable platformer.

For Those About to Rock

As much as I liked Fret Nice’s visuals, music and boss fights, I wish that developer Pieces Interactive took more risks with the gameplay than just the control method. Fret Nice’s levels are very standard multi-path platforming affairs, and unlocking new stages via medal-earning gets old fast, as you’ll typically have to replay the same stage over and over just to get to the next one. The inclusion of co-op is a plus, as is the ability to customize your characters. But when all is said and done, Fret Nice’s gameplay just doesn’t rock as hard as it should. Pardon the pun, but it’s a nice little game. Too bad nice doesn’t go that far in the world of rock n’ roll.

Source:g4tv.com

Game Description:Set in the year 2409, Star Trek Online allows players to immerse themselves in the future of the Star Trek universe, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations in an ever expanding vast universe. Command a starship as a Federation or a Klingon Captain, outfit it with custom systems and recruit, train and mold a crew into an elite force for exploration and combat. Mis…sions take players into thrilling space battle, planetside for face-to-face combat and even inside starships.

To appreciate Star Trek Online–and there is a lot to appreciate here–understand up front that it’s not going to be very “Star Trek.” This game is all war, all the time, where nearly every mission is just a matter of shooting things.

MMOs: The latest, most profitable frontier. These are the voyages of the starship you will probably give some silly name to like USS Terd Burgler or USS Riker Is A Douche…or maybe just USS Normandy because you can’t be bothered to think up something else. Its subscription-based-but-with-an-option-for-micropayments mission: To find the clearly labeled objectives on small worlds; to seek out and play through a whole lot of cool ship combat; and to go with mild determination and decent graphics where many MMOs have not really gone before (At least not in any meaningful sense; don’t get me started on Star Wars: Galaxies.) Okay, cue the music, because Cryptic definitely licensed the music!

The “Star Trek” Part

To appreciate Star Trek Online – and there is a lot to appreciate here – understand up front that it’s not going to be very “Star Trek.” This game is all war, all the time, where nearly every mission is just a matter of shooting things. This isn’t the Star Trek that many fans know and love, where Starfleet is like the UN in space, benevolently enforcing Prime Directives with its complement of mellifluous captains. Instead, this is a whole mess of Star Trek-shaped ships doing Wrath of Khan kinds of things to each other and wildly shuffling characters in shiny uniforms who shoot different colored laser beams at bad guys.

Constant war isn’t necessarily a complaint, since the combat is mostly good. This is especially true in space where battles are like a fast strategy game or a slower action sim. Your choice of officers determines what special abilities your ship can use and you manage shield facing and power allocation. As you level up, you fold fancy toys like cloaking, mines and warp core dumps into the action. The tangled fleet battles are almost like something out of Star Wars or maybe Galaga.  Down on the ground, it’s a bit more conventional, but you still get lots of abilities and fancy hardware. Once you resign yourself to rampaging around the universe firing phasers wildly, STO proves itself a solid game with a generous spread of hi-tech havoc.

The “Online” Part

You should also know up front that you’re not going to be playing a typical MMO, which is both a strength and a liability for Star Trek Online. It’s a strength because there’s a lot of unique gameplay going on. For instance, you are not just an avatar. (Speaking of which, the robust character generator will let you be nine feet tall and blue if you want.)  Instead, you are a bunch of interrelated things. In addition to your avatar, you have ships, skills, officers with their own skills, and a wide array of equipment. The officers and equipment are available for the choosing rather than left to chance. If you want a bad-ass disruptor rifle, you don’t have to kill Klingons until you hit an “oh look, someone dropped a bad-ass disruptor rifle” moment. Instead, just requisition it at the local Starfleet base.  Of course, the degree of your disruptor rifle’s bad-assery is based on what level you are. The more things change…

It’s really satisfying to mix and match various parts, creating a sense that you’re outfitting a ship and setting out into the galaxy; however, a significant weakness of STO is that there’s not much of a galaxy to set out into. This is space pieced together as a series of boxes, many of them without character. World building is a huge part of a good MMO and it’s almost entirely absent here. You pass through loading screens on your way to a weird blue sector space effect (arguably one of the least Star Trek things in the whole game) or a graphic of a lovely ringed gas giant or a small box representing the surface of a planet.  However, after you’ve marveled at a couple of these, there’s no sense that they’re fitted together into anything other than a place where you blow up ships and shoot aliens.  There is no concept of ecology, geography, cultures or settings.

If I Had a Tricorder

Furthermore, a lot of the trappings that keep players playing in a traditional MMO feel underdeveloped. For instance, the crafting isn’t fully realized. While you’re gadding about shooting your phasers, sometimes you’ll see an anomaly, which is the STO term for a space treasure chest. You loot it for materials that you can cash in at a science station for loot. There…you just crafted. Or at least did the STO version of it. As you play, the stakes are oddly low because death means nothing; there is no penalty whatsoever for getting killed. To clear nearly any mission, just throw yourself repeatedly at the bad guys after you respawn.

There is also little reason to group with other players, although you’ll be in a de facto group during public missions called fleet actions. (These are pretty chaotic, but they can be epic.) During ground missions, you can bring along your ship’s officers instead of teaming up with other players. To the AI’s credit, it acquits itself admirably. In fact, it’s almost like you’re better off not bringing along someone else. For an MMO about a Federation mounting fleet actions, STO does an oddly good job of catering to soloists.

Make It So-So

Star Trek Online mostly gets by on how it plays unlike any other MMO and these days, that’s a considerable virtue. It remains to be seen whether dyed-in-the-wool Star Trek fans are going to tolerate the ongoing combat grind. For everyone else, there’s still a sense that that the developers at Cryptic have a lot of gaps to fill before Star Trek Online is going to hold player interest the way other MMOs can. Until then, Starfleet sends you to boldly go with the game you have, not the game you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Source:g4tv.com

Game Description:STAR OCEAN THE LAST HOPE: INTERNATIONAL continues the series traditions of soaring space opera, blending science fiction with fantasy for a unique RPG experience. The PS3 version will include the option for players to choose English or Japanese voiceovers and localised subtitles in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. STAR OCEAN THE LAST HOPE: INTERNATIONAL’s refined gameplay features …four party members and team-oriented combat, while maintaining the innovative real-time battle system that has become a trademark of the STAR OCEAN series. Story The year is S.D. 10. In the aftermath of World War III, humanity voyages into the stars in search of a new home… and a second chance. Features • Choose between English and Japanese voiceovers – only available on the PS3 version • A prequel that combines sci-fi and fantasy elements, spanning multiple planets and the vastness of space itself to recount the origins of the STAR OCEAN universe. • Exhilarating combat expands upon the franchise’s famous real-time battle system, including amazing graphics and visual effects • Feature breathtaking CG movies by Visual Works, the cutting-edge studio whose previous work includes cut-scenes for the acclaimed FINAL FANTASY® RPG series • Text localised for PAL territories with French, German, Spanish and Italian subtitles and menu screens.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope International delivers all of the same interstellar, RPG quality of the Xbox 360 version, with a few welcomed additions. The game still has a few inherent problems, but they are easily forgiven in light of everything the game does right

While it might not carry the same JRPG clout enjoyed by Final Fantasy, Square Enix’s repurposed galactic RPG romp, Star Ocean: The Last Hope International — a PS3 re-release of 2009’s Star Ocean: The Last Hope — , does pretty much everything it can to make the last journey through in the Star Ocean franchise (which is actually the first journey, since it’s a prequel to the other games) as memorable, enjoyable and engaging as possible. It might not be for everyone, but you’d be surprised at how close it comes.

The New Last Hope

The Last Hope follows the adventures of Edge Maverick, a classically androgynous 20 year-old lad, aboard one of the Earth’s first intergalactic spaceships tasked with exploring new worlds in the hopes of finding a new beginning for humanity. Several decades earlier, World War III essentially destroyed Earth, which forced people to live underground and eventually look towards the vast star ocean for real estate ideas. The expedition quickly turns into a search and rescue mission after the ships encounter an unknown object during warp speed that scatters the ships to parts unknown.

The only major downside of the game’s narrative is the horrendous voice acting and, at times, the redundant and uninspired dialogue that accompanies it. Three of the five female characters in your crew have voices that sound like Michael Jackson gargling fire-engulfed cats, and their acting is equally painful to endure, especially since the frequent cutscenes are so lengthy. Fortunately, the International version, unlike its Xbox 360 cousin, includes the much-appreciated ability to turn on the original Japanese voice acting. For anyone familiar with The Last Hope on Xbox 360, you’ll know that it has some of the most unbearable voice acting you’ll likely to come across in a game. The Japanese acting definitely leaves a lot to be desired as well, but as least you don’t have to listen to Lymle say, “Kay?” every time she speaks. Thank you Square Enix!

Surprisingly, for as shaky as the voice work and the script are, they rarely ruin the narrative flow. This is due mostly to the fact that the pacing is fantastic, and the story unfolds at a great clip, with each beat feeling perfectly contained and leading nicely into the next one. There are a few twists along the way, but nothing so severe that it negates what has happened leading up to them.  Despite the heavy-handedness of the game’s themes, it’s as fascinating a game story as I’ve come across in a while.

Of All the Planets, In All the Solar Systems…

Over the course of the game, you travel between several planets and space stations. The areas available for you to explore on each planet are limited to dungeon-esque layouts (interiors as well as exteriors), but there are plenty of wide-open and expansive sections as well. Unfortunately, objectives aren’t always clear, so you’ll find yourself wandering around a lot without any real sense of whether you’re going the right way.

The diversity of each planet’s ecology (combined with the pace of the story) keeps you from having to stay in one place for too long. It also doesn’t hurt that the settings (ranging from lush beaches and forests to snow capped mountains to dilapidated space stations) are all beautifully designed, and they all just pop off the screen, due in large part to the stunning HDR lighting effects.

Scattered around each beautiful setting are plenty of goodies to reward exploration (treasure chests to unlock, minerals to mine, and food items to harvest). Between gathering the raw materials, creating recipes and building items, you could easily kill a dozen or so hours, and all of that is just one slice of the overall experience. If you plow through the story and take up a side quest here and there, you’re looking at around 40 hours. With everything else, you could easily kill more than twice that without even noticing.

Trigger the Fight!

Of course, the real star of this ocean is the combat. As in previous entrants in the series, you initiate battles by approaching enemies in the field and then fighting in real-time in a separate arena. If I had one complaint about the combat, it’s that it isn’t carried out entirely in real-time in the field, but that’s just personal preference. Hardcore turn-basers might feel differently, but Star Ocean does a great job of making sure strategy factors in heavily with the real-time combat, especially when it comes to how you start fights. There is also quite a bit of strategy involved in picking the battle approaches for your teammates. It’s just another fantastic way of giving players complete control over everything that transpires on the battlefield.

You also have the option of creating your own combos by mixing and matching up to three attacks. These combos can lead to some absolutely devastating onscreen mayhem, especially later on the game when you have four characters with three or four unholy abilities all fighting at the same time against swarms of enemies. There are times when the frame rate suffers from so much chaos, but fortunately, those instances are as rare as they are brief.

To reward you for your battle prowess, the game features a bonus board, which tracks your performance during combat. Each time you meet a requirement (kill multiple enemies, deal certain amount of damage, avoid taking damage, etc.), a new jewel is placed on the board. Linking these jewels results in multipliers that help you rack up money, experience and health/magic boosts at an accelerated rate. The board can be broken if the character you’re controlling suffers a critical hit during battle, which adds yet another layer of complexity and engagement to the already insanely robust combat system.

Final Fantasy Who? Oh, Right. But Still…

Star Ocean: The Last Hope International won’t make occasional RPG dabblers dump Final Fantasy or Fallout 3, but for fans of the genre, it’s a worthy addition to your library. Everything about the game feels massive, from the story to the exploration to the combat. It all has a fantastic sense of scope to it that really makes you feel like you are part of this universe-sized adventure. There are tons of places to go, people to meet, things to build, enemies to kill, skills to learn, sights to see, all in addition to smooth and satisfying combat. Even if you aren’t a fan of the genre, you owe it to yourself to check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Source:g4tv.com

What’s the status?

Crackdown 2

Here’s what I learned in today’s X10 demonstration of the game I’m surprised that some readers think will be boring.

• The game is set 10 years after the events of Crackdown. There are three factions at play: The Agency (that’s you), Cell (resistance force), and the Freaks (pretty much like zombies that come out in full force when the sun goes down). The city’s seen better days, as many areas are in a state of destruction – but others are experiencing reconstruction efforts. This is how Ruffian’s “changing” the city we’re already familiar with.

• Your ultimate goal is to see “Project Sunburst” through to completion – it’s an energy weapon program designed to eliminate the Freak threat once and for all.

• Acknowledging that many players under-developed their driving skills in the first game, Ruffian’s going to add more reasons and more opportunities to boost your vehicular abilities.

• Accordingly, supply points — established throughout the city as the reward for successful mission completion — now give you easier access to vehicles.

What did we see?

Of all the notes I’ve taken at X10 so far, writing up Crackdown 2 is the only time I’ve used exclamation points to denote my personal excitement.

BOOM! Homing rocket launcher wiping out groups of Freaks. BOOM! Shotgun blast makes a Cell car explode (as well as the unfortunate Cell members standing around it). BOOM! The Agency Helicopter, with room to seat you and 3 of your friends, launching rockets from its dual mounts down to the Freak hordes ambling below.

We also saw the new Wing Suit, which lets you glide peacefully (or violently, if you’re so inclined) to the ground. The most jealous-because-I’m-not-playing moment came when they simultaneously bailed from the helicopter mid-flight and synchronized their dives. A nice finishing touch was a rocket launcher aimed at a speeding car, which sent it spiraling a good fifty yards through the air before exploding upon landing.

I also saw a green agility orb in the distance, and was frustrated that the demo driver didn’t go after it. I need this game now, please.

Source:g4tv.com

Game Description:In this dark, atmospheric mystery game, players jump between four characters as they try to solve a case involving a serial killer known as the Origami Killer. Gameplay consists of guiding the characters through interactions and events by hitting corresponding letters that appear on screen at specific moments, making the experience more akin to an interactive movie than a traditional video game. F…eaturing stunning visuals, an engrossing story and unique gameplay, this is one storm you’ll definitely want to be caught in.

Heavy Rain weaves together an entertaining thriller, an interactive presentation, and story-altering decisions. And though it shows signs of unraveling, it comes together in the end for a gripping and unique experience.

You won’t understand Heavy Rain until the first time you do something wrong. You’ll be required to make a quick decision based on limited information or an altercation will end poorly, and instead of a “Game Over” screen and another attempt at the same challenge, the script briskly continues to the next scene as if what happened was how it was supposed to happen all along. When you wonder for the first time, “What if I did that differently?” is when Heavy Rain blooms.

THE PLAY’S THE THING

This is not David Cage and Quantic Dream’s first attempt at interactive drama. The praised-yet-flawed Indigo Prophecy laid much of the groundwork for Heavy Rain back in 2005, and it was then that Cage first attempted to rework the concepts of adventure games and interwoven fiction into something more modern. But Indigo Prophecy’s script weakened under a load of supernatural confusion and  while not entirely solved, that same mistake has not been repeated for Heavy Rain.

Like Indigo, Heavy Rain is built entirely of character interactions with the environments, with each other, and within themselves. These interactions are translated to the controller in the form of context-based motions and gestures: “half-circle up on the analog stick,” “shake controller to the right,” and “hold triangle, square and circle” are examples. The shorthand industry jargon for this type of control scheme is “QTE,” or quick-time event, and usually carries a negative connotation. The reason that Heavy Rain should avoid that negative association is that this is the basis for the entire experience — there are no jumps between different types of control schemes like those found in the finishing moves of action games like God of War or Bayonetta.

And an experience like Heavy Rain wouldn’t be possible without such a structure. There’s a very simple link between the controller motions and eliciting a similar mental feeling that corresponds with what happens on screen. Holding down three buttons at once tests your hand dexterity as one character tries to maintain his balance on a muddy hill. The translation is not even close to direct, but it’s enough to trigger the empathetic reaction that you’re somehow participating in the scene. In the beginning, the simple motions of a Saturday morning routine prepares your “gamer” side for the far more intense scenarios to come, but it also builds required emotional links that give the inevitable tragedies their punch. Playing with your kids in the yard, for example, doesn’t just teach you how to play, but  also means you’re playing with your kids in the yard. That’s an equally important bond to establish, and Heavy Rain does this well throughout.

Context-based control is equally important in redefining the idea of an action scene. Going with a a cinematic presentation requires that a certain amount of direct control must be surrendered by the player. That’s true with Heavy Rain, but the trade-off is more effective here than it would be in games with a traditional 1st- or 3rd-person perspective. A car chase or a fistfight can be exciting no matter what the vantage point is, but there’s a unique tension and excitement that can only be brought out by a director with a plan. That’s not to say there’s right or a wrong way of doing things; Heavy Rain doesn’t invalidate other methods of gameplay as much as it validates its own method as a viable alternative. It can be called a game, but it’s more of an interactive drama. And to call it that is the furthest thing from a slight.

THE GRASS IS GREENER

There’s no dominant philosophical statement in David Cage’s story apart from “it’s important to have (or be) a good father.” Much was made about who this game would appeal to, and as it turns out, it’s the same people who enjoy movies like Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, or Zodiac. Cage borrows from such influences and infuses his own experiences as a father to create a gripping crime drama, and the only requirement to relate to the story is that you either have a father, had a father, are a father, or grew up without a father — which should account for  everybody. His driving question of “How far would you go?” puts the responsibility of divining a theme on the shoulders of the player, as it’s those dynamic decisions that decide Heavy Rain’s ultimate resolution. Using the game as a mirror works, just as long as the player is interested enough in holding it up — and using a straightforward story about a serial killer more than suffices as incentive.

And it’s absolutely vital that these decisions are presented as irreversible. The absence of a fail state — the traditional “Game Over” screen — and knowing that key characters of the story can die and not return generates a genuine sense of danger when those characters find themselves in deep trouble. That trickles down into smaller decisions and conversations where you need to make a choice, and what ends up happening more often than not is going with your gut instinct and accepting the consequences. Feeling that you made a “wrong” choice shouldn’t be construed as failing at the game, nor is it reinforced by the scenes that result — you’re just seeing the story march on a different path. The flexibility of the script allows for multiple conclusions, and multiple variations on how you arrive at those conclusions. Though there are “good” and “bad” results, the endings can’t really be defined as “good” or “bad” — there’s ample resolution in both, and the dissatisfaction you might feel with what you end up with only compels you to explore the story again following a different path.

But not everything is perfect. With such an emphasis placed on the story, the plot quirks and logical inconsistencies that might be brushed aside in other games stick out here. Characters sometimes behave irrationally for the sake of plot convenience; red herrings lead too far in one direction without any explanation to justify it; important revelation scenes are skipped over depending on player decisions; the game’s shocking twist was well-hidden in retrospect, but also contradicts itself upon review due to dishonest misdirection and unconvincing voice work. Depending on your path, it’s possible the game can end in a disappointing way because of a double-whammy plot contrivance and “stubborn, stupid cop” cliche. But it’s also possible you never see that happen.

Weaving such an open story leads to such unique narrative-related problems that Cage was unable to avoid. Some of which are evident through the initial playthrough, but others that reveal themselves only after you already know what happens. To use a spoiler-free example, in one scene Character X makes Decision A. But later in the game we see Character X in a state where it assumes Decision B was made.

 Having access to the characters’ inner thoughts, for all of its benefits, also poses a problem. Heavy Rain does a great job of keeping you true to your outward decisions and performance, but frequently you’ll be able to choose from a wide range of inner thoughts, and you aren’t forced to commit to one way of thinking like you are with one course of action. That will lead to weird mood swings where characters contradict themselves internally as you explore their current state of mind. If we’re supposed to be playing the part of these characters, it would have been more effective and in line with the game’s action scenes to choose one train of thought as a gut reaction and commit to it.

ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE?

One last quirk that you have to force yourself to accept is that Heavy Rain is a game about Americans written and cast by French developers. This wouldn’t be an issue had Quantic Dream been able to fully maintain the illusion that everything is happening in an area heavily inspired by Philadelphia, but there were too many instances of poor voice acting, particularly in the children characters, that definitely did not come across as originating from the Eastern United States. There are frequent slip-ups with pronunciation, cadence, and inflection that suggest an effort to suppress European accents. Much of the voice work is passable, but when it’s not, it eats away at the all-too-important immersion. As does the awkward, almost alien-like way the characters move around in anything that isn’t a cut-scene (which, in contrast, are executed quite convincingly).

But credit must be given to Quantic Dream for creating an environment — a proper stage — that’s soaked in the grime and depression needed to underscore what’s really a sad and terrible story. You can be walking through a crime scene at 8:14 in the morning and feel like it’s 3:00 AM and you’ve been up for 72 hours and you really don’t know what time of day it is…which doesn’t really matter because the constant rain makes the days bleed together anyway. The soundtrack, too, accentuates the mood. Whether it’s simple piano notes providing a noir tone to a lonely private eye’s investigation, or strings screeching alongside the tires of a car about to crash through a police blockade.

YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

Quantic Dream has improved and refined the template they created with Indigo Prophecy, and it’s an example that hopefully other developers will consider following, especially if they have an idea for a game that might not be suited for a genre with more established conventions. But there’s still room for improvement, and it’s going to take a skilled and attentive group of people to avoid common game mistakes, cinematic mistakes, and new hybrid mistakes that we’re just now discovering exist when the two are blended.

But in the frequent moments when it works, the unpredictable nature of the story is a special thing that’s unique to games. Instead of talking to someone else who experienced it and both of you recounting the same scene, you might end up excitedly saying, “Wait…that’s not what happened to me…”

“Should” you play Heavy Rain? If you enjoy a good story, then yes…especially because you get to take part in it.

Source:g4tv.com