The Beatles Rock Band

We all know it’s going to be an instant hit. The trailer animation is fantastic, showing all the phases from The Beatles.

Ruse on Microsoft’s Surface

Ubisoft’s RUSE on Microsoft’s $20,000 touch-screen “Surface”. Now that’s putting it to good use. :)

Splinter Cell Conviction

The visual presentation is amazing. The new aditions continue to make the series fresh and exciting.

Peter Molyneux Project Natal

A glimpse at the next step in video-games evolution. Sony and Nintendo will have to step up their game.

Today I bought Wallace & Gromit Grand Adventures on Xbox Live and it’s pure fun. Go try the demo or look at the trailer, it’s worth it.

P.S: And don’t forget that Bionic Commando:Rearmed is selling for 5$ on discount.

Smash! Magazine promisses to bring gamers different content from the usual reviews and preview we’ve been customed to. The mag has some good writing, check it out.

Congratulations and good luck!

The game joins Professor Layton as he tries to solve crimes inside the mysterious Village! You’ll find plenty of  brain teasers, riddles, math and logic problems with a very well thought narrative and interesting characters.

A perfect portable game in my opinion.

Here’s the Video-Review from Gametrailers:

This week I chose to talk about Alone in the Dark for Xbox 360, it was released a few months ago and you can problably find it in the bargain bin of your local games store but is it any good?

Cutting the story short, the game is yet another third-person horror game where you take the role of the amnesiac Edward Carnby and try to defend yourself from a very nasty demon in the middle of Central Park in New York.

The game offers some very unique gameplay elements and at the same time, very frustrating experiences. For starters, the fighting system is very creative, you can basicaly pick up pretty much everything at your disposal and use it as a weapon or just improvise by combining items.

For example, if you mix alcohol with bullets you get fire bullets (yeah), mixing an ancherchief with an alcohol bottle gets you a cocktail molotof and so on. There’s alot of combinations and fire plays an essencial role since enemies can only be ultimately killed with it. Speaking of fire, the fire physics are some of the best I’ve seen in a video-game.

Also, the story, scenarios and game style are very well thought and played, there’s a very strong cinematic experience. Plus, every chapter is played like a TV Show. You get smaller episodes and if you’re stuck you can fast forward….

Now for the bad. Moving Edward Carnby is a chore, the controls could be more simplified and the camera doesn’t help, it’s just awfull. Also, the character and car physics are horrible, many times you pass through objects or fail to jump to a ledge or discover a nasty bug. Besides, there’s situations where winning or losing depends on how much you master the camera and walking at the same time.

The inventory although very original is not very good to navigate because the game isn’t paused when you access it (yeah!) and mixing stuff in a middle of a fight will lead to frustration.

Expect your character to die a lot. :)

There’s plenty of good ideas in this game and you sense a lot of effort was put into making this a fantastic game but the buggy controls, nasty character physics and some unwise design decisions torwards the end, make this game non recomendable. Hope there’s a second try.

I’ve finished Fable 2 recently but I’ve still got a few quests left, so I might as well give a little review.

Fable 2 is the expected sequel to the first Fable (duh) game which was released on Xbox and Pc. At the time, there were high expectations (in many ways thanks to Peter Molineux’s interviews) about the game which were shrouded completely when the game was released. So is Fable 2 any better?

Well, yes. This time, expectations were managed much better, in a nutshell, Fable 2 is a very good game, it takes inspiration from Zelda, the Sims,  European middle age and the first Fable of course and manages to deliver an entertaining action-rpg game.

You follow the story of a boy (or girl) who in the beginning of the game watches his sister get killed by the game’s villain (who doesn’t appear that much, really) so having faced almost death yourself, you set out to get your revenge (or not). There’s a main storyline and a dozen sidequests and jobs you can take on your way to good or evil but don’t expect a big gray moral area like Fallout 3 or different ways to solve your quests.

Most characters in the game look the same and have the same lines but the voice acting is top notch. The environment is rich in green areas and open fields but expect to find a few repetitive dungeons or caves.

In this game, you’ll need money to improve your equipment, buy new clothes, haircuts, tattoos or furniture for your house but you won’t find any money on bandits or creatures, you’ll have to either take a job or buy shops/houses which will guarantee you a rent every 5 minutes. This makes the game a bit more interesting so you can become a real-estate tycoon.

As I mentioned, you can customize your character with different combination’s of clothes, hairstyles, tattoos or dye your hair. You can even cross-dress if that’s your wish…

You can also vaguely interact with the population around you in order to get more renown, you can use an expression wheel (which resembles the Sims) to show your middle finger or sing or show your trophies. You can also get a wife and kids.

Oh, right from the beginning of the game you’ll have a dog that follows you and helps you in battles or find hidden treasures. It’s a nice addition, you can pet him or play catch ball but… that’s it.

Through the game you’ll face different enemies, ranging from beetles to trolls, generic henchmen, pirates and the classic undead. Your character has 3 different abilities:

• strength which symbolizes your health and damage you deal with your sword, axe, etc (and your muscles)
• skill which is related to your weapons (pistol, crossbow, riffle);
• will symbolizes your magic powers.

You can upgrade your abilities with experience points left by the enemies you defeat, the more you use an ability the more experience point for that kind of ability you receive.

The interface simply is a mess, it’s a pain to use items and food, because there’s too much sub-menus and they’re usually slow.

You can also play with another person on the same console or on Xbox Live, although the other player will have to choose a generic henchman but it’s a good step in the multiplayer direction for console rpg’s.

There’s alot of tiny, excelent details in Fable 2, the game isn’t very big but it’s classic entertainment, and there’s a DLC which gives you 2 more hours of quests and new equipment.