Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review

Imagine what it would be like to become a Transformer. Walking, jumping, and climbing in your humanoid form would be pretty familiar, and you could easily get the hang of whipping out your guns to blast enemies. Driving yourself around might be a bit awkward at first, and flying would be significantly trickier, but the real problems would come when you tried to transform. Shifting your physical form would be really disorienting, and it would take a while before you really mastered it.
Hitman

Hitman

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Hitman

16GB PSP Go revealed early, new PSP MGS confirmed?

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[UPDATE] Pre-E3 2009: Leaked video from next month's Qore reveals SCEA's John Koller touting Mylo-style sliding screen handheld with no second thumbstick, built-in flash memory; Gran Turismo Mobile to be reannounced at E3?

Though Sony's E3 Press Conference isn't until 11:00 a.m. on June 2, one of its centerpieces appears to have been prematurely exposed. A YouTube video of what appears to be the next issue of the PlayStation-focused video magazine Qore has revealed that Sony will use its event to unveil a new PSP model, the PSP Go.

As had been widely rumored, the PSP Go will have a sliding form factor like the Mylo, Sony's ill-fated Internet communicator device. The new handheld--which does not sport a second thumbstick--is shown several times in the video, which features Qore host Veronica Belmont and John Koller, director of hardware marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America.

According to Koller, the main differences between the PSP Go and the PSP-3000 are "on-board memory, the flash memory, and 16 gigs of space. There's Bluetooth on board as well, so you can use a Bluetooth headset, and you can tether it to your cell phone as well. But ultimately, it's the portability. Since you can bring all that content with you in a smaller form factor, you've got the most immersive games to play, and now you've got a smaller unit to do it with."

Koller also said the emphasis will be on downloadable games. "Little Big Planet, Jak & Daxter, and even a new Metal Gear Solid coming--all of those games will be available. So will all the first-run movies you can rent or buy on the PlayStation Network. So you can bring so much content over with you and fill up that 16 gig of flash memory." (Emphasis added.) The new MGS PSP game was previously hinted at in a Web post by the Japanese arm of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain.

Koller also appears to reveal that the long-lost PSP Gran Turismo Mobile game--first shown off in 2004--will resurface at next week's expo. "There are games like Gran Turismo being announced at E3," said the executive.

Host Belmont then asks, "So since it's called the PSP Go, I would image it will work with Remote Play as well." Koller responds with the following blanket statement: "Integration with the PS3 is very important, and it works just like the PSP-3000. A lot of people like to be able to take their PS3 content with them on the go."

As for the PSP Go supplanting its predecessor, Koller said flatly: "It won't replace the PSP-3000. We're going to keep them both on the market." Koller did not mention a price, release date, or whether or not it would have a touch screen when closed. Sony Computer Entertainment America reps had not responded to requests for comment as of press time.

[UPDATE] A second video from Qore shows the PSP Go in even greater detail and also reveals its logo. The handheld will have a 3.8-inch screen--versus the PSP-3000's 4.3-inch screen--and will be 43 percent lighter than the original, and it will have "all digital content," according to Koller. "The UMD drive goes away...and it has a Memory Stick Micro, so you can add memory to it if you like. ... It will be something the digitally savvy consumer can really enjoy," he explains, before revealing that some new PSP games will be download-only.

The full YouTube video is below, although the sound and images are out of sync. It appears to also show a version of the original Warhawk for the PSP:

Electronic Arts E3 Press Brief

Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer as seen at the EA press conference

Go to Hell. That’s how EA started off its 2009 E3 press brief, and for a while I thought maybe I had. Maybe we’re too spoiled by early leaks, blood, and guts, but the EA press conference left much to be desired. Until the end.

Opening The trailers for Dante’s Inferno and Mass Effect 2 were by now a little too familiar, showing what seemed to be 90% “old” material with a slightly different ending. Don’t get me wrong; I plan on purchasing both when the time comes, but I was hoping for footage or video that hadn’t been leaked previously.

Chicks, dogs and chicks After that came Littlest Pet Shop Online, which is Hasbro’s answer to the megahit that is Ganz’ Webkinz line. Now you can take your oddly-proportioned little pet and flesh out its story and wardrobe online. Accessorize with blinged out collars and…All right I’ll stop right there and just say that if your kids have Webkinz animals, now they’ll bug you for cash and internet access for their Littlest Pet.

Aiming for the tween and early teenage girl crowd is the Charm Girls Club. Instead of your daughter customizing her stuffed animals’ alter egos, she customizes hers with fashionable mini-skirts and high heels. I mean, what father doesn’t want his little girl frothing at the mouth over Jimmy Choo lookalike shoes? I digress, as always.

Racing Next came Need For Shift, the “new standard” and “the definitive racing game of this generation.” I thought I had gone back in time Star Trek-style and was back listening to the guy at Microsoft’s presser describing Forza. Anyway, NFS Shift has a new cockpit, new driver profiles, and, stuff. I’m more a Gran Turismo guy, but again, I digress.

EA Sports EA Sports took the longest time slot of them all, beginning with Fight Night 4 and its new physics engine. I’m not much for the boxing games, but after a long break from them it’s good to see they’ve improved the genre so much. The graphics were better, the models were more fluid, and I’m still not buying it. EA Sports Active had the help of a former Days of Our Lives actress, who lost all her baby weight with EA Sports Active and nothing else.

Grand Slam Tennis was demonstrated in a match between Pete Sampras and some EA guy. After a 4-year break from EA football games, the players still look like their feet don’t touch the ground. Good news for football HR wannabes: you can still recruit, draft and trade players at your will.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Star Wars, Jedi, Sith and Mandalorian lovers got a kick out of the stage presentation for The Old Republic today. Well, it was less of a demonstration and more a bunch of guys in robes wielding lightsabers on the BioWare guys’ flanks. I recognized what I believe were costumes made from the concept art, but I can’t be sure without a few minutes of checking.

You may be used to the TOR web comics; today they showed the first ever cinematic trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I loved it. Sith vs. Jedi with a little bit of female Mandalorian Bounty Hunter mixed in - what’s not to love? That wraps up the EA E3 roundup. On to Ubisoft! Yea, come follow us on twitter for our off the cuff impressions. It’s almost like being there … not really, but it’s the best we can do.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It's derivative and occasionally buggy, but solid action and over-the-top gore make X-Men Origins: Wolverine a cut above other movie tie-ins.

The Good

  • Raw, brutal action
  • Varied enemy types
  • Good showcase of Wolverine's powers.

    The Bad

    • Disappointing (and sometimes buggy) boss fights
    • Cheap deaths
    • Too easy.

    X-Men Origins: Wolverine Boxshot
X-Men Origins: Wolverine will give you new insight into how much damage indestructible, razor-sharp claws can do to a human body. This is a game that revels in gore, with decapitations, eviscerations, and mutilations drenching the screen in blood. It may be derivative, a cakewalk, and at times buggy, but the sheer visceral impact of the over-the-top violence in X-Men Origins is enough to make it a fun action game, as well as one of the better movie tie-ins released recently.



It helps that the violence in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is backed up by decent gameplay, and though it doesn't bring anything new to the third-person action genre, it's still solid and satisfying at most times. You play as the titular Marvel mutant, with the game's muddled storyline mimicking and expanding on events in the movie of the same name. Along the way, you take Wolverine through the jungles of Africa, the hidden Weapon X base at Alkali Lake, the interior (and exterior) of a massive casino, and more. You have to take on groups of increasingly aggressive and dangerous enemies, solve not-too-taxing environmental puzzles, as well as go up against several guest boss villains from the Marvel universe. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do a great job of introducing these nefarious individuals--such as the Blob and Gambit--and often throws them in with little explanation of why Wolverine needs to beat on them in the first place.

Your weapons of choice for dispatching these villains are Wolverine's claws, and even though the game's jumping timeline means that you'll be playing as both pre- and post-adamantium Logan, the claws retain their indestructible ability to slice through practically anything throughout the game. You have light and heavy attacks that you can string together to perform various combos, and also an extremely useful lunge that lets you launch Wolverine at enemies from a distance. These button-based combos are easy to pull off, and get gradually more intricate as you unlock more. As Wolverine gains levels, new combos open up, as well as four different fury attacks, which are supermoves that require you to build up your rage meter before unleashing. These four attacks can be upgraded as Wolverine gains experience, giving the game a very basic character-customization element.

Although spamming the same combos can prove useful early in the game, you won't be able to get away with mindless mashing for too long. The game does a good job of forcing you to change your tactics, sending at you a wide variety of enemy types that require different attacks and combos to dispatch. For example, though the lunge may work on low-level enemies, tougher foes and midlevel bosses will simply swat you out of the air. With a bit of practice, all of Wolverine's moves can be chained seamlessly, making you feel extremely powerful as the mutant unleashes his rage on groups of enemies.

You want gore? Then you've come to the right place, bub.

Among the game's highlights are a number of particularly gruesome ways that you can dispatch your foes. Some are situational; throw enemies near any conveniently located floor or wall spike and you'll automatically impale them. Some are part of normal attacks, which can result in arms, legs, and heads flying in any direction. The best ones are Wolverine's various flashy finishing moves. The angry mutant can stab an opponent in the side of the head with one set of claws before decapitating them with the other; rip off someone's arm and beat him to death with it; literally tear someone in half; use the spinning blades of a helicopter to transform an enemy's head into bloody chunks; and much more. It's certainly the most blood-soaked superhero game in years, and one that younger Wolverine fans should avoid. However, adult fans of the character will probably find this a guilty pleasure, in turns laughing and wincing at the blood-soaked display in front of them.

Your enemies will try to give as good as they get, and Wolverine will have to face off against a good variety of human, mutant, and robotic foes. Most pack heavy firepower or super abilities, but Wolverine has his rapid healing to fall back on. His health bar will automatically refill after a few seconds of not taking damage. In fact, Wolverine's health recovers quite quickly, which makes the game fairly easy to breeze through on normal difficulty. It's rare to feel too threatened by the odds stacked up against you, and chances are that the only time you'll die in the game is when you fall off of a high ledge or into water. That's right: Wolverine can survive bullets, swords, flames, explosions, and lasers, but fall into one of the game's few predetermined no-go zones and it's instant death.

This is particularly jarring during the game's final boss fight, in which falling off means having to restart the battle from the last checkpoint. Wolverine's other boss fights are mostly anticlimactic, with some of the bosses even freezing up on occasion. In one instance, a boss character simply stopped moving, whereas in another it failed to reappear after being thrown offscreen. These occurrences were rare but quite annoying when they happened, and to its credit, the game does have two standout showdowns, the first with the Blob, and the second a fight with a gigantic Sentinel. But though the latter is a fun multistage battle that culminates in a spectacular finishing blow from the near-invincible mutant, it's probably not quite the epic face-off that fans of the X-Men series have been hoping for.

The Sentinel showdown in one of the game's better boss fights.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is easy; you'll likely finish its five chapters in fewer than 10 hours. There's no multiplayer here, and most of the replay value is in finding hidden alternate costumes throughout the levels, as well as an unlockable hard difficulty. There are only a few extra costumes (such as Wolverine's classic brown spandex), but once unlocked, they can be used while you play through levels to replace the boring "faded jeans and white shirt" look that serves as Wolverine's default.

The game's environments--particularly its indoor ones--are plain-looking; the various corridors and laboratories lacking real distinctiveness. Characters fare a little better, sporting good animations if lacking a little in the detail and sharpness departments. The model of Wolverine himself is the standout and features an interesting structure that shows off real-time damage. Get hit, and the damaged areas will show the exposed muscle underneath. Keep on getting pummeled and you'll even see the character's skeletal structure exposed, to be gradually replaced by muscle and skin as Wolverine heals. This sounds better than it looks--most of the time, this real-time damage lacks clear definition, looking more like random red splotches on Wolverine's clothes than serious injuries. As for sound, the highlight again is Wolverine, with movie star Hugh Jackman lending his voice to the character. However, other environmental effects are inconsistent. Most of the time, the various slashing, gunshots, and explosions in the game sound appropriately meaty, but there are some occasions when onscreen actions seem to lack the accompanying sound altogether.

Although X-Men Origins: Wolverine does sport some clear technical deficiencies, it's never enough to fully distract you from what it is at its core: a solid if unspectacular game that, for once, takes those metal claws of Wolverine seriously. This is a game that's at its best when it's brutal, and though it lacks any real depth, it's fun while it lasts.


Valuebux!