When you think of World War II air combat games, Sony's PSP might not be the first gaming platform that pops into your head. After all, flight combat games have long been the dominion of the PC (and to a lesser degree, consoles). Still, that hasn't stopped developer Graffiti Entertainment from bringing the upcoming Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II to the handheld. We had a chance to try this game out recently to get a feel for how the genre translates to the small screen.

Off we go into the wide blue yonder!

The core of Air Conflict's modes is a campaign mode, where you can join one of four World War II forces: Germany, Britain, USA, and USSR. Each of the 13 campaigns is composed of a number of missions (240 total in the game) that are inspired by actual WWII combat actions, but all revolve around showing your worth behind the flight stick.

Campaign missions typically start out with a quick tutorial--the USAAF campaign we played first had us piloting our plane through a series of in-air waypoints. Soon enough, however, the action picks up and you'll be engaging the enemy in toe-to-toe dogfights. Right out of the box, Air Conflicts is a very difficult game, even on the novice difficulty setting. Part of the problem is the small screen size, and the even smaller aiming reticle that indicates where your bullets will strike. Compounding that is the very difficult nature of dogfights in general--you've got to lead your opponent, anticipating where the bullets will strike him when they reach his position. The aiming cursor helps a bit here by glowing red when you have an opponent correctly lined up, but it's very small, and the enemy AI is tenacious enough to put up a good fight even at the lowest difficulty level.

Mission varieties include escort missions, which have you protecting bombers as they look to destroy strategic targets; patrols, where you're looking to blast any enemy aircraft out of the skies; and bombing runs, where you're piloting the bomber and looking to take out targets yourself.

The game's varied missions demand a big roster of planes to pilot, and that's one aspect where Air Conflicts delivers, with 17 historically authentic planes. Sample aircraft include the Spitfire, the P-51 Mustang, the B-17 "Flying Fortress," the Ju-87 Stuka, and many more. Many of these planes have their specific uses--for instance, the B-17 is a bomber--but they all have strengths and weaknesses. For instance, while the aforementioned B-17 isn't very agile, its multiple machine-gun postings (front and rear) make it a formidable opponent against enemy fighters. Different planes have different weapon loadouts as well, and because you'll often have a choice of aircraft before beginning a mission, you'll want to make sure you choose the right plane for the job.

To its credit, Air Conflicts' realistic settings are counterbalanced by relatively simplistic controls. The left and right triggers control throttle, the analog stick is used to steer your plane, and the face buttons are used to fire various weapons (X for machine gun, triangle for missiles, square for bombs). Still, the game's AI is formidable, so don't be surprised if you're shot out of the sky multiple times in the early goings of the game. Interestingly, a failed mission doesn't necessarily mean the end of a campaign--sometimes you'll just move on to the next mission, even if you failed the previous mission. The game will also include multiplayer, with support for up to eight players to connect and battle it out.

Graphically, Air Conflicts holds up decently. The plane models are consistently nice, and some of the explosions in the game, particularly those of damaged planes crashing to the ground, are well done. We just wish that a game that's already presented on a small screen would take pity on folks with bad eyes--the miniscule aiming reticle and barely legible mission text might have you reaching for your glasses (or considering a prescription). Still, if you're upset over the WWII-flight-combat-game hole in your PSP library, Air Conflicts just might be your thing. Look for more on the game in the coming weeks.

If you want a good example of the incredible growth the Guitar Hero series has undergone since its 2005 debut, last year's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is a great place to start. It's hard to tell who exactly the headliner was in that show: the phenomenally successful band that's been around for nearly 40 years or the phenomenally successful video game franchise that's existed for a 10th of that time. No matter the answer, the formula must have worked, because Activision will soon be releasing a similar spin-off in the form of Guitar Hero: Metallica. Besides the obvious switch from bluesy hard rock to heavy metal, Guitar Hero: Metallica will differ from its predecessor by supporting the full suite of instruments bundled with Guitar Hero: World Tour while also cranking up the level of fan service packed into the game. Just yesterday, some members of the Neversoft development team dropped by the GameSpot office to give us a look at what to expect out of the final release.

Metallica band members are rendered in Guitar Hero's signature caricatures.

The challenge that exists in creating a music game dedicated to such a massive artist is the sense of progression in the game's Career mode. After all, when you're already on top of the world, there's not a lot of vertical growth left to achieve. Neversoft's solution to this will be to replace the documentary-style approach of the Aerosmith game--which took you on a chronological journey of the band's greatest hits--with a fleshed-out storyline that puts you in the shoes of a garage band looking to achieve their dream of opening for Metallica. Animated interludes that play out between sets show a young collection of Metallica fans doing their best to win over the famous rockers, and the visual style is definitely in the rough and grungy aesthetic Guitar Hero fans are familiar with.

The progression of the game's Career mode will alternate between performances by Metallica--complete with eerily accurate character models for all four members--and performances by the upstart band featuring characters of your own creation. Metallica will be playing some of their hits, such as "Enter Sandman," "Master of Puppets," "No Leaf Clover," "The Unforgiven," and "Nothing Else Matters," alongside some lesser-known numbers, while your group will be covering the work of bands that are associated with Metallica in some way. Whether it's a group that played with Metallica, inspired them, or used them as a source of their own inspiration, there will be a wide variety of other bands' music available to you. A few examples are Bob Seger's "Turn the Page," Social Distortion's "Mommy's Little Monster," Mastadon's "Blood and Thunder," Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesdays Gone," and Judas Priest's "Hell Bent for Leather"--plus an unnamed Queen song. Similarly, the venues you'll be playing in will be those taken from key moments in Metallica's career and will include the likes of the Los Angeles Forum, Hammersmith Apollo, and Tushino Airfield in Moscow.

Like the Aerosmith game before it, Guitar Hero: Metallica will have a lot of fan service for those who consider themselves big followers of the band--the only difference is that Metallica will have a lot more of it. As you progress through the game's songs, you'll unlock all sorts of bonus features, such as video of old live performances and behind-the-scenes footage at Neversoft, pictures such as backstage photos and setlists, and other audiovisual fragments of the band's history. One of the more interesting unlockables is something called "Metallifacts," which is a performance of each song in the game by the computer accompanied by pop-ups on the screen containing facts about each song. For example, if you didn't realize before that "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was inspired by James Hetfield's love for the work of Ernest Hemingway and represents one of the many examples of literary allusion in his songs, well, now you do. Further unlockables include details for each song, such as lyricist, producer, original recording date, and complete lyrics.

Expert+ drum difficulty allows you to play with two kick pedals.

One thing that sets Metallica apart from a lot of bands featured in Guitar Hero games is the prominent use of double bass pedal in their drum work. For World Tour, Neversoft had to effectively cut the number of pedal strikes in half for a lot of songs on the expert difficulty level, at the risk of forcing players to upgrade their human feet into something a little more cyborg. Now they've introduced a new difficulty setting for drums called Expert+, which allows you to plug in a second kick pedal (using a splitter accessory) and play the songs with full pedals. We watched as a member of Neversoft played through one Metallica song on this setting, and at several points during the song his entire note highway was filled purple kick pedal notes. It made our feet hurt just looking at it. But you can take solace in the fact that this is a purely optional bonus setting for mildly insane drummers; normal players won't be required to drum with both pedals on the standard, beginner-to-expert difficulty levels.

This being Neversoft's second stab at the multi-instrument branch of rhythm games, it has had some time to see what works and doesn't work as far as the gameplay is concerned. What Neversoft has found is that it liked the way players mimicked songs, but there was some room for improvement in terms of how players could tell whether or not they were doing a good job of it. So Neversoft made a few small but noticeable changes to the game's heads-up display. Now your overall success gauge won't be tucked away in the upper left corner; it will be attached to each player's own note highway, so as to limit the distance your eyes need to travel between seeing which notes you're playing and seeing how well you're playing them. Another change has been made to the overall feedback system for how well you're doing as a band. If the entire group is at risk of failing a song, the edges of the screen will glow progressively redder, as you might see in a first-person shooter along the lines of Call of Duty.

One of the biggest features from Guitar Hero: World Tour, the music studio, will be available in the Metallica game. A few Metallica-specific guitar sounds have even been added, such as the ESP Truckster guitar tone. All the songs you make in the music studio here will be compatible with those made in World Tour's music studio, and vice versa. That's good news if you've created a discography's worth of Metallica-inspired tunes in the World Tour music studio and would love nothing more than to play them in Metallica's favorite venues using spot-on doppelgangers of the band. You'll have the chance to do that when the game is released this spring.

Based on the DreamWorks Animation 3D feature film, the Monsters vs. Aliens video game puts the fate of the planet in players' hands, to save the world as only a monster can!

Bash, skate, and ooze as the macho half-ape, half-fish The Missing Link, the 49'11" tall woman, Ginormica, and the gelatinous, indestructible, and brainless B.O.B, with the help of the monstrous 350' tall grub Insectosaurus. Plus, team up with the brilliant but insect-headed Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. in co-op mode, to save the earth from the megalomaniacal alien Gallaxhar.

Monsters vs. Aliens

• Unleash unique powers as all your favorite monsters from the film - The Missing Link: Bash, bounce, swing, tail whip, and climb as this prehistoric brawler! B.O.B: Ooze through cracks, stick to ceilings, and absorb and spit out enemies as this gooey blob! Ginormica: Tower over the landscape, test your strength, and use cars as roller-skates as this battling behemoth!
• Battle through locations from the movie and beyond - Adventure across 20 distinct levels set in locations from the film and beyond, including the streets of San Francisco, Gallaxhar's gargantuan spaceship, and the government's super-secret monster containment facility!
• Play as a team in co-op mode - A second player can pick up a controller and drop in at anytime as Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. As the most brilliant scientist in the world, players can blast apart robots, toss away enemies, plus grab hard-to-reach upgrades and other rewards.

Atari promises that Dark Athena's story will take about 11 hours, compared to Butcher Bay's nine.

Dark Athena continues the story from Escape from Butcher Bay, with Riddick and the bounty hunter Johns in cryostasis, drifting through space. Their ship is eventually picked up by a pirate vessel--the titular Dark Athena--and though Riddick manages to wake up in time, Johns' pod is infiltrated and he is taken prisoner. Hiding in the shadows, Riddick steals the captain's hairpin and is soon scouting the ship with nothing but the darkness and the hairpin as his weapons. However, before getting into the story, you have to play through a tutorial that is presented as one of Riddick's deep-sleep dreams. The basic movements remain the same as in Riddick's Xbox debut, but he has picked up a couple of new moves during his time in stasis. Many weapons are ID-tagged to their owner, but Riddick can now pick up dead bodies and manipulate them to fire. This is useful in a firefight, but at the start of the game, it's actually more useful for puzzle-solving--dragging a body around to shoot out glass windows, for example. Playing on the Xbox 360, we were also able to use the left bumper to pop our gun around corners, which lets you take cover while still going on the offensive. Atari promises that Dark Athena will be much more focused on gunplay than Butcher Bay was, and it was only a short time before we had regular access to guns. We ended up using the tranquiliser gun most frequently, temporarily stunning opponents before slicing them up in incredibly stylish fashion using the ulak blades. There will even be mechs that you can jump in, although we didn't make it far enough to see them.

It doesn't take a lot of play time to realise that the pirate ship is taking humans and converting them into drones, which are slaves that will automatically patrol a given area, or that can be controlled from afar by another person. Their faceplates change between red and white to indicate their current state, the former meaning that they'll follow set movement patterns, the latter meaning that they're more alert and looking for something specific. The game still favours the stealthy approach, at least during the time we played, and to enhance this you can still enter a crouched mode to hide and activate Riddick's night vision to help you in the shadows. What's most surprising is that the game still uses the NanoMED system to replenish health, so you need to collect med canisters and use them at certain points to regenerate. It feels more retro than the regenerative health system favoured by most shooters these days, and it results in quite a tough game even on the normal difficulty setting.

We managed to meet some of the major characters and get a feel for the overall story. The first person we spoke to was a young girl hiding out in the ventilation system; her mother was taken prisoner, and her father was "turned into a monster." Then there is the captain--played by actress Michelle Forbes--who clearly has a history with Riddick, and you can overhear soldiers talking about wanting to become her sex slave. Indeed, the world of Dark Athena is a very seedy place, from the conversations held by its crew, to the military pornography such as the Warchix magazine, and characters who masturbate as you walk past. The game's story is told completely using the in-game engine, with excellent lighting and character modelling, particularly for Vin Diesel's Riddick. Atari also teased us with news that 80 percent of the game will take place on Dark Athena, but a final act will offer something "completely different."

Dark Athena certainly looks more action-based than its predecessor, with a greater variety of weapons.

Although Dark Athena is often shockingly violent and even depraved, it manages to remain mature thanks to some excellent dialogue and voice acting. About an hour and a half in, we came across prison cells housing about eight different prisoners. Some of them were vital to our progress, whereas others were merely there to fill in the backstory. One female character had clearly been wronged by Riddick and told us that, among a shower of expletives, she was going to kill him. One particularly nasty character called Jaylor explained how he wanted to rape one of the other female inmates, after which he referred to you as a c***. Thankfully, this was offset by more sympathetic characters such as Senate, who had previously captained the ship, and Dacher, whose story about losing his wife was quite touching.

Some of these characters also turned out to be necessary in progressing through the game. Jaylor requested that we kill one of the pirates onboard and return his gold tooth, and in return he gave us the access code for a locker. Silverman was an engineer who made us a tool to enter certain other areas, and she also turned out to be the mother of the girl that we saw in the vents. And Dacher, the widower mentioned before, helped us hack into the ship's communication system and make it down to the drone control area. Our play time drew to a close with two fantastic set pieces. The first was one we'd seen in a previous demo, in which we jumped into one of the remote drone terminals and caused havoc from afar. You have access to only a limited number of drones, but running around and shooting up everything was great fun. The second was at the heart of the ship and its gravity generator, wherein shooting people sent them flying into the huge gravity pillar at the centre.

Before we left Atari, we also managed to take a quick look at the remake of Escape from Butcher Bay. Fans of the original game should remember that it was released in 2004, fairly late in the Xbox life cycle, which means that it was one of the most visually attractive games ever released on the system. The remake improves these visuals even further, with new textures for the environments and characters. The new weapons and moves have also been included from Dark Athena, and consequently you'll be able to pop your gun out from behind objects for the first time in the game.

Our three hours with Dark Athena were incredibly enjoyable, and we really wanted to stay longer and play more. The game offers all of the elements that made the first game so great, and the voice acting, set pieces, and new combat elements added even more to the experience. Atari claims that the game is finished, and that the team is now bug testing and polishing ahead of the March release date. We've also been promised a chance to play the multiplayer game against the developers very shortly, so expect to hear more on this promising package very soon.

• Atari, Tigon
• Starbreeze
• Sci-Fi First-Person...
• Release: Apr 7, 2009 »
• ESRB: Mature