Start the party Save the World

The first Start the Party title was one of the original games released when the Move came out. It was a simple title comprising of around twenty mini-games. Although it wasn’t the pick of the release games (honours would go to Sports Champions there), it did well enough with the younger audience to warrant a second round. This time Save the World follows a similar formula to Start the Party with a series of mini games that are based around saving the world from the evil Dr Terrible.

Upon loading the game you will be offered Solo or Group play with up to 4 players, the premise of the story is fairly tenuous to say the least where one minute you will be asked to repair robots in a factory that the villain has tampered with and then you are saving cavemen from Pterodactyls, but really the story is largely irrelevant. What did become quickly apparent is that the mini games are all a little too similar, aimed more towards the youngest of players. The games can be broken down into either using a net or racket to catch or deflect objects, directing a laser/gun on either a spaceship or car, Whack a mole games, or drawing lines to do things such as bounce caveman into caves to save them from being eaten.

One big change to the original is the ability to have a second player either help or hinder you. They will be able to join in the action by controlling one of the Dr Terrible’s creatures/robots to make the challenge easier or more difficult. This allows older players to help out struggling little ones or sabotage the efforts of more skilled players. All in all it’s pretty much what you would expect following on from Move Start the Pary, but is let down with a lack of true variety in gameplay which is a shame – might keep the younger ones happy for a while. [6]

After Hours Athletes

This game is a compilation of older Move titles that are aimed at the older audience, being High Velocity Bowling (10 Pin bowling), Hustle Kings (Billiards), and Top Darts. All games are very much suited to motion gaming. Although these games were each released individually quite some time ago, as a package this one offers great bang for your buck.

Hustle Kings uses the Move controller to control the balls position, direction and spin. There are various in-depth tutorials that you can use to help come to grip with the controls in the game. Once mastered the game works well, the atmosphere is great and is a good offering for anyone interested in motion controlled billiards. In Top Darts the motion controller acts as the dart, firstly you must line up your throw, before zooming in and throwing – the strength of the throw will depend on your hand movement and releasing the trigger. Again there are some great rooms providing that after hour’s atmosphere, and a tonne of different dart games (with all the rules included). High Velocity Bowling plays just as you would expect from any motion controller game. Pick a character, position on the lane, angle ball and bowl. The movement of your swing and release will dictate speed and spin.

The pick of the three for me is High Velocity Bowling. It isn’t as easy to get into as say Wii bowling and does take a while to set up for multiplayer but is great fun. You may want to spend some time on the tutorials as I discovered quickly my timing on release of the ball was sometimes off which caused fouls far more often than I liked. This is a great compilation if you are looking for games that aren’t aimed at the little ones, offering great value for money; it’s a worthy addition to your games collection. [7.5]

Carnival Island

This one provides more light hearted fun for the younger ones with a compilation of mini-games in the carnival theme. It has no story as such, which isn’t such a bad thing compared to the attempt on Save the World, instead it concentrates on a couple of young kids who happen to find some carnival tickets. It soon becomes their job to bring the life back to an almost down and out carnival by winning as many games as they can.
The carnival has four separate areas to play through, and all up offer seven different game types – Mini-bowl, Hoops, Ringers, Frog Bog, Coin Toss, Perfect Pitch and the Shooting Gallery. You will be able to earn tickets, gifts and balloons from any of the games you play. The pick of the games for me were ones that involved throwing such as Hoops (where you throw a ball through hoops), the bowling (throwing balls up ramps to hit targets), Frog Bog where you use a hammer hit a launching pad and catapult frogs onto lily pads, and my personal favourite the shooting gallery games.
It’s very easy to get into and you won’t be bogged down with tutorials. Kids of all ages can have great fun. The motion gaming works well for the majority of the games making you feel like you are truly in control. The younger ones will be delighted with some of the unlockable treats such as animals that will cheer you on as you play. If anything you will need to bear in mind that this one is aimed primarily at the younger kids that can be played through in short time.  [7]

Move Mind Benders

Move Mind Benders is yet another trilogy of older games requiring some thought into puzzle solving. Bringing you the brilliance of Lemmings (1991 classic) through to mind-boggling 3D masterplay of Echochrome and last but not least Jenga/Tetris style block building antics of Tumble.

Lemmings shouldn’t need much explaining, a side scrolling game in which you must save the suicidal lemmings from all manner of deaths. Tumble offers something a little new, where you will need to build towers with quite amazing physics. The various blocks will be made of several different substances such as glass (slippery), metal (heavy) or rubber (sticky). The size and weight of each block will need to be carefully understood before placing. Each round will give you a different challenge from reaching a certain height or even demolition targets using explosives. Multi-player is where this one truly shines though as you can easily make life very difficult for other players with the piece that you choose.

The last game Echochrome II is very clever in itself; you must help a stick-like figure move from A to B by using a torch to cast shadows on a 3D drawing in which to make paths appear and obstacles disappear. A little hard to explain, but basically by aiming the torch at certain angles will make the shadow change in appearance allowing your man to traverse the obstacles more easily. Luckily there is a good tutorial and the early rounds will teach you all you need to know about the shadow manipulation. A great game that will have you sitting staring at the TV for quite some time wondering how to solve the at times mind boggling puzzles.

Overall this is a great compilation for anyone out there who enjoys puzzles. Tumble is my pick of the three with some truly amazing physics to play with, whereas Echochrome II will have you flummoxed in no time flat – a great challenge. Again this one is fantastic value for money.  [8]

Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest

I was looking forward to this one in particular, the premise of a full fledged medieval combat game utilising the move controller/s was an exciting prospect, especially with the relative success of the archery and gladiatorial games that were displayed with the original Move release game Sports Champions. Although this game is most assuredly aimed at the younger audience it does offer a glimpse of what could come in the future.

In this game you play the role of young Prince Edmund who is turned into a skeleton (he then jokingly changes his own name to Deadmund) and is sent on a quest to find an amulet which will restore him to his human form. Luckily for Deadmund he has had some training with sword, shield and bow so is ready to take on whatever is thrown at him. The game has a good feel to it, although serious enough for the young ones to get their teeth into, it has the humour to allow for light hearted fun. The environments are colourful and have enough variety to keep you on the chosen path where you’ll be exploring all manner of places including the dark crypt.

Exploration should be a word taken lightly as the game is an on-rails adventure. Essentially you maintain a fixed point of view where you must control the combat before the game takes you to the next area. There are a few puzzles and hidden collectables that you will need to quickly shoot with your bow. However the weapons really are the highlight of the game, if you only have one controller you can swing your sword using it and switch to the shield by holding the Move button. Two controllers will allow you to use both sword and shield with relative ease, the bow works the same way as it does in Sports Champions, draw an imaginary arrow from your imaginary quiver, line up with left hand controller (the bow) and pull back the string then release. There are a few other gadgets and weapons to play with but it all comes down to hacking with a sword, archery or lobbing items like dynamite.
Overall the controls work fairly well, although the game does get repetitive and you do feel limited in your control given it is ‘on-rails’, it will provide a few hours of fun. The younger ones will enjoy the chance to play this one, whereas old vets may get bored. It is worth having a play with; just make sure any valuables are well away from those mighty Move controller sword swings.  [7]

Move Fitness

There is no doubt that Nintendo’s Wii Fit hit the right spot with virtual fitness gaming, getting those couch potatoes to burn away a few hot dogs in the comfort of their own lounge. Well Microsoft and Sony quickly realised that there is indeed a market for these titles and quickly jumped on board with various games such as EA Sports Active 2, Mel B’s Fitness and even martial arts orientated fitness programmes (such as MMA).

Sony’s latest addition is appropriately named Move Fitness. However to play this game you will need to have two Move controllers as they will be used to detect your arm movement whereas the PS Eye will track your body. Once you have set your profile you can then decide what type of program you would like to do. Each one will target particular muscle groups to help you on your way to having a more fit or toned body. Of course like the old saying goes you’ll only get out of it what you put in and of course it will need to be in conjunction with a good diet to have any real lasting effect.

There are around 28 activities that you can participate in such as sparring, basketball or general exercises such as star jumps. You will be able to play with and against your virtual trainer or you can play with up to three others in multiplayer and track your progress with friends online. As with any exercise routing the key for a game such as this to be a success is your own motivation, although your instructor will try and keep you going you will need to find the will to carry on yourself. The game does however provide all the tools you need to work out at home, it may not pack the punch that EA Active 2 does in regards to variety and polish but is a worthy consideration given the price point.  [7]

Eyepet & Friends

Eyepet was Sonys first crack at using the Playstation Eye to create a virtual pet. One that kids could play with, clean, feed and interacts with harmlessly and to many parents delight cleanly and relatively cheaply (compared to the real thing of course). When the Move arrived the original Eyepet was updated to include some Move functionality. Now with Eyepet & Friends kids can have two pets available on screen at once.

When you first start the game, you’ll be given an egg to hatch (by beating the various sides of it until it cracks) and soon out will pop a strange new creature as your new pet. You will then be given a few basic tasks to get the hang of looking after ‘it’ before getting into playtime. Thanks to the PS Eye this all takes place on your lounge floor where your Move wand can turn into all sorts of miraculous tools and toys to play with. By completing tasks you can earn tokens which then allow you to unlock all manner of items such as clothing and mini-games. It wont take too long before your pet becomes your childs unique creation, where fur can be coloured and lengthened as well as some outlandishly cute outfits.

The main difference between the original Move Eyepet and Eyepet & Friends is the ability to have two pets on screen at once, so that two children could play with their own pet at the same time. It’s a great concept for the many parents with two kids of the age to enjoy the game but does have obstacles. First one being the close proximity to one another in which they need to swing those controllers around. Then the issue of one child be generally older and more capable of unlocking items/completing tasks more quickly than the other. It may not be a problem for everyone but one a parent may need to think about. Saying that if you can keep things relatively under control this game can keep the younger ones more than happy.

Technically I did notice some issues with two pets on screen at once with framerate drops, which was surprising. There were also occasional glitches with precision of the Move controller where detection failure errors hindered your progress to complete tasks such as feeding or showering your pet. Parents may need to help out the younger ones when these technical issues arise. Overall the Eyepet concept is a good one and this game does get it right for the most part. Given the price range and fun it offers the younger audience it’s worthy of consideration for purchase.  [7]

The surprise comic-inspired hit of 2007 will soon make a return to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. It may be under the guidance of a new developer but The Darkness II looks to have retained the same nifty mechanics and morbid sense of humour that gave the original its impact.

For the uninitiated, The Darkness refers to an ancient supernatural force that has been bothering the family of gangster Jackie Estacado for generations. After inheriting the unholy ability to feed off the dark on his 21^st birthday Estacado promptly brutalises his way from street punk to mob boss, though not without cost to his mortal soul.

Part two kicks off a few years after Estacado’s bloody rise to power, he’s top of the crime world but the realm of the occult and supernatural goes way beyond the mafia’s reach. Pursued by a shadowy cult, wrestling with guilt over a dead girlfriend and struggling to come to grips with the Darkness’ true nature, the super-mobster still has his work cut out for him.

Starbreeze, the Swedish developer of the first darkness game, has been replaced on development duties by Canadian-based Digital Extremes, best known for creating portions of the Ultima series. Despite the switch-up those familiar with the demonic mayhem of the earlier game will feel immediately familiar.

A couple of demos have been released in advance of the game’s early February release and they showcase gameplay that remains fundamentally unchanged though slightly tweaked. The players can still call on all manner of ghastly dark powers to rend enemies limb from limb as well as mowing them down in more traditional gangland style. One important change is the shift from control over many different kinds of slave ‘darklings’ to a single sidekick able to perform a wider range of torturous activities.

Visually the game has also undergone a substantial change, with much of the environment hand-painted and inserted into the game with a cel-shaded approach. What we’ve seen so far looks very authentically comic book-ish.

The original surprised a lot of people as a rare instance of a licensed title doing something clever and new – while the sequel likely won’t be as shocking it certainly looks to have held the fort quality-wise.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is already whipping up serious game of the year buzz amidst a raft of serious competitors this blockbuster season. The game’s lead effects artist, Keith Guerette, took some time to talk to Gamefreaks about the road to Nathan Drake’s biggest adventure yet.

In an industry ever hungry for sequels success can be a double-edged sword, once you hit the right note fans will expect the inevitable follow-up to sing even louder. For the modest Naughty Dog visual effects artist, caught off guard by the success of Uncharted 2, the heat was on.

“We just went huge with our ambitions, our goals and what we were trying to do, one of the biggest challenges has been trying to reel it in to make it fit within the two year development period.”

It helped that the studio rolled straight out of the second game into the third. The work behind the standout levels of Uncharted 2, such as the train sequence and collapsing building, took most of the development period to perfect. By the time the game shipped the technology was working but the team hadn’t had much of a chance to really push it.

“So from the start we knew we had this awesome wealth of toolsets to sit down and make epic set pieces. We threw around ‘epic’ jokingly all the time, ‘more epic!’

“We sat down with a whiteboard and just said ‘OK, what are the craziest things we can put Nathan Drake through? How about an airplane that explodes while you’re in it, flying though the air? How about a cruise ship that sinks into a stormy ocean while you’re inside of it and then splits in half? How about a mansion that burns down…’

“We basically just sat down and tried to come up with all these massive cool set pieces while at the same time trying to whittle out the story.”

That might not sound like the approach of a development team that emphasises the art of storytelling but anyone familiar with the series knows that the pulpy narrative always takes centre stage; or as Guerette puts it, ‘we are storytellers first, game developers second’. With Drake’s Deception Naughty Dog again delved into history for inspiration, this time casting an eye to the  Arabian Peninsula.

“Lawrence of Arabia travelled across Europe and the Middle East trying to find, amongst many things, the Iram of the Pillars or the Atlantis of the Sands, this fable city cast away by God because of its arrogance into the Rub’ al Khali desert. We hadn’t taken Drake into desert environments yet so it fit really well for us but also along the journeys of Lawrence Araia there’s a lot of mystery, a lot of intrigue, there’s big sections of his travels he didn’t write in his journals so nobody knows what he did, what he found or even why he went to certain places.

“Tying in to the earlier games we realised one of the areas he travelled was also fabled to have been travelled by Sir Frances Drake and again he left out eight months where we know he was in the peninsula near the Rub’ al Khali desert but nobody knew what he was doing there… we just kind of took off running when we found that.”

As those fortunate enough to have played the game already know, the third instalment also focus heavily on Nathan Drake and mentor Victor Sullivan’s shared history. In order to flesh out the relationship in an authentic way the studio had to concentrate on conveying emotion in a believable manner, from the story through to the minute details of production design.

For Guerette that meant pulling inspiration from previous gaming successes, new and old, starting with 1995 RPG classic Chrono Trigger.

“I remembered playing it as a kid and I though ‘I’m going to go back and play this,’ so I pulled out my old Super Nintendo and I really enjoyed it. It reassured me once again that, despite all the sales and marketing pitches about graphics, it’s not really about graphics.

“Those games were really, really enjoyable and I had a really fun, strong emotional connection with these characters that are little 8-bit cubes running around.

“That’s something I’m happily seeing the industry shift towards; a lot of other studios are taking advantage of this generation of consoles to give a really cool emotional presentation. I feel like it’s a good time in the industry for a lot of actual art to come out as opposed to just a bunch of shooting games.”

The effects artist points to the PlayStation 3’s ambitious ‘interactive psychological thriller’ Heavy Rain as one of the boldest examples of this trend.

“I’m a huge fan of games that are able to convey emotion, that make you feel something. And usually it’s excitement, there’re a lot of action games out there, but if I actually feel emotion then I’m stoked about it. Heavy Rain is one of the few games that I’ve actually felt sad about, there’s just such an emotional rollercoaster that it is one of my favourite games.

“At the same time that style of game is so unique it’s not something that’s successful for everyone, it’s not a type of experience that everybody is going to enjoy. For me, I really appreciate what they did, I loved it, but I had to let go of the fact that it’s a lot less of a game and more of an interactive movie.”

The critics seem to be in agreement that Naughty Dog has managed to find a happy medium between the emotionally charge of an interactive movie and frenetic action of an adventure game. Knitting together narrative intrigue, swashbuckling action, incendiary set pieces and intricate environments the team has put together Drake’s most accomplished adventure to date. So we can we expect to see the bar raised again?

“We don’t know, in all honesty we just finished the game a few weeks ago and took off on vacation.  The one thing I can say is that we are reluctant to just sit down and make another game because it’s not an easy process and we wan to be sure it’s something that’s going to be worth the amount of energy we put into it and worth your time to play.”

When something ‘goes wrong’ in a video game it almost always is immediate world changing event. Alien invasion, world spread infection, global war, etc. Death and mass destruction are certainly examples when something goes wrong but what if it isn’t that apparent? Global warming and the economy provide issues that a super solider in armor can’t fix with a rifle behind cover. Twitter and Facebook experience outages and begin appearing in headlines. In reality, our livelihood is more delicate than I think many of us would care to admit.

Which leads us to an interesting question. What would happen if workers, that provided everything we needed for our way of life, simply stopped stopped working?

In the game Vessel, the player takes the role of Arkwright. The inventor of the Hydrofluoric Galvanized Automaton or as you’ll learn to as refer to it “Fluro”. With it any sizable amount of liquid, be it water or molten slag, can be turned into a simplistic worker. They can perform simple tasks. Needless to say, a worker you can pour out becomes staple of the heavy work force. Suddenly the liquid workers begin to rebel and that’s where Arkwright steps in to figure out what’s gone awry.

Vessel is a puzzle platformer that becomes difficult to categorize. A series of “but not really.” Its characters aren’t realistic by any means, but not really cutesy. There are vibrant colors, but not really a bright game. There are physics puzzles, but not really since the liquids can also grow feet and move on their own accord. Luckily though, the game doesn’t defy clean definitions because of a lack of personality but rather because it seems to have a genuine one.

Arkwright can jump, climb, and step on buttons that would feel right at home in any classic platformer. He also comes with a water gun that can supply him with new Fluro, cool molten slag enough for him to jump on top of, as well as light his way in dark places with florescent liquids. Most interestingly is the device that makes the Fluro themselves. Given enough liquid (water, molten slag, and likely many others that appear as the game continues), legs pop up and the amorphous shape begins moving and jumping to an assigned task. Even when liquid is just out of reach, the device that creates the Fluro attracts liquid to it. Something you’ll learn that is especially handing when there is a solid wall in front of you. Culminating in a nice variety of puzzles that keep you light on your fight without burying you with gimmicky mechanics that only serve a single purpose.

The puzzles themselves have been wonderfully balanced. It elegantly holds your hand and introduces you into new mechanics but no so heavily handily that you feel burdened or insulted by going through the first few puzzles. The puzzles are excellently balance that force you to think but are difficult enough that there is a small sense of accomplishment, even with the earlier puzzles.

It has a personality, it has solid controls, and fun mechanics. Which puts me in a difficult position of what’s left to ask of this game. Well, except – when’s it coming out?

It has taken me quite a bit of time to gather my thoughts about DICE’s Battlefield 3 beta. For the better part of a week, I was worried. The map that the studio launched the beta with, Metro, didn’t quite feel like a Battlefield map. While the exclusion of vehicles is an obvious omission, it was the map’s design that worried me the most. Metro, taking place in the parks, subways, and city streets of Paris, more resembled the design philosophies of other close quarter infantry combat games – most notably the Call of Duty franchise. While previous games have taken a more broad approach to encounter design, Metro is a more directed and funneled experience.

In any given point of the Rush game type, there are around three core bottleneck areas in the map where encounters are forced by design. Each of these encounters is then reduced into sniper duels and flashlight wars. The best way to break the standstill either to find a break in a flank and hope the rest of your squad has the wits to spawn on you, or lay down smoke – an ability not available to all or those who haven’t earned the ability. These stalemates would have been a real chore had the combat not been great. BF3’s infantry combat feels considerably more competent than the other games in the series – partly due to the more aggressive damage model. I always felt lethal, even with a sidearm.

The positive feedback loop in the combat is made even greater with BF3’s long list system of weapon unlocks. Every main weapon for each of the four class types has at least 10 unlockable scopes and add-ons. In many ways, last year’s Medal of Honor is the progenitor for BF3’s unlocking and leveling system. Having a hand in MOH’s multiplayer development, DICE has inadvertently brought over some level progression concepts and user interface concepts from last year’s middling shooter. Despite its questionable origin, the leveling mechanics feel like a constant carrot on the stick. I always felt I was on the cusp of getting something new for my weapon without ever feeling like I am grinding to get it. While every add-on may not be the ‘next best thing’ per se, the progression of equipment is nonetheless encouraging.

After a week solid of playing Metro, I felt as if I had seen all that the beta could have shown me. That was until Caspian Border unlocked on PC. The build was mired in lag at times, but nothing out of the norm for an online beta. Every reservation I had about Metro and the Rush game type seemingly evaporated the first time I jumped onto the top of an enemy tank from a highway traffic station rooftop, shot the engineer repairing it from the rear, planted C4 explosive, dove off of it and blew it up in a violent fireball – only to have an the flaming wreckage of a F18 jet come crashing on top of me from an air battle above. If DICE’s maps and play experiences are more like Caspian Border than Metro, Battlefield 3’s multiplayer has the potential to monopolize all of my time.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is an upcoming multi-player co-op game developed by Insomniac Games exclusively for the PS3. It is the tenth instalment in the series but has no direct bearing on the storyline. Taking place after the last game ‘A Crack in Time’, the four main characters — Ratchet, Clank, Quark and Doctor Nefarious — find themselves forced into an uneasy truce in order to defeat the mysterious machine known as the ‘Creature Collector’.

The game does feature a single player campaign, but its primary focus is on multi-player co-op, allowing for drop-in/drop-out online and offline play. I was able to spend some time on the Beta and check out some of the action. Each character is given access to the usual array of weapons (and a few new ones such as the Frost cannon and Plasma Bomb Launcher) as well as the ability to propel other players. On top of that each character also has unique abilities. Ratchet can deploy a decoy that attracts enemy fire, Clank can throw time grenades, Quark has a shield and Nefarious can activate a cloaking device.

What became immediately apparent was the importance of working together. Something I find can be an elusive quality online. The first few games it is understandable watching other newbie players flounder about as they come to grips with the controls and the objective. But it become painfully obvious as the chaos ensued that without a willing ally to assist you it all came quickly to a grinding halt. Although it may seem obvious to you that someone needs to be thrown across a chasm or at a switch, it may not be to your gaming ally. If you utilise a headset you could provide instruction but I found that many players dropped out as quickly as dropping in before even bothering to attempt at progression to the end of a level.

If all other players dropped out you were given an AI character but unfortunately they were no help at all, where it was best to wait for someone to drop back in. The levels did offer some variety with balancing on platforms, some simple puzzle solving, freefalling, and boss fights. In one level you faced a creature called the Z’Grute, where you needed to throw a fellow player at unreachable buttons so as to lower his shields and ultimately destroy him. At the end of a level you were awarded experience points in which to level up. This would allow you to join games with similarly experienced players and therefore avoid frustration with drop outs.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One certainly has the potential for an exciting online or co-op experience where communication issues may be resolved by finding a good group of mates to play with. Insomniac has created some of the best Sony exclusive games and I am sure they will make every effort to make this one a game worth looking at.

The biggest problem I have always had with Assassin’s Creed is the name. I mean, there’s clearly very little actual assassination involved, since the characters are almost incapable of killing anyone without flailing their arms and shouting, tripping over beggars and jumping off rooftops into piles of hay. It should be called Extremely Loud and Clumsy Murderer’s Creed.

But then Brotherhood came along with a bizarre idea: multiplayer. Assassins facing off against one another for fame and glory. Backstab against backstab. Biggest sneaky jerk gets the prize. The upcoming instalment in the franchise, Revelations, is set to feature a similar mode, and we recently sat down with the Multiplayer Beta to make people die on the internet.

Anyone who played Brotherhood will quickly recognise the situation. Players take control of the avatar of their choice and – cloaked in period perfect historical garb – are set loose on a small-to-medium map. Your objective is to murder a specific fellow player, their portrait visible on your hub, but by using stealth and guile rather than screaming mayhem. On top of that, someone else in the game is staring at your mugshot and waiting for that perfect moment to strike.

At this point I would hasten to mention that there is also a treasure mode, which is an assassin-heavy twist on capture the flag. Suffice it to say that a mode where a huge group of people run back and forth between two glowing circles does not mix well with a game about softly and slowly creeping around to publicly execute people in secret. Team play was terrible in Brotherhood and it’s terrible here. Deathmatch is still the only way to go.

The multiplayer in the previous title was a tense experience far removed from the usual smatterings of online violence found in videogames. Revelations keeps that up, rewarding slow and deliberate play. Each kill gives you the points necessary to come out on top, but the amount you get roughly corresponds to how stealthy your kill was. Run up to your target in the middle of a courtyard and leap onto them with sword drawn and you may only get a paltry 100 points, but stalk them for a while and pierce them silently in an alleyway to net many times more. In this way the game rewards people who play by the rules of the assassin, and punishes headless chickens.

More than a few improvements seem to have been made to the formula this time around, including some much needed tweaks to the scoring algorithm. The stun system, which is used to neutralise those seeking to do you harm, was really only useful in Brotherhood if your stalker mistook you for an NPC, but now it seems much easier to get the drop on someone if you spot them looking for you. Successfully stunning someone will remove you as their target and reward you with some points, but if you try to stun someone in an open confrontation you’ll lose quickly – netting 50 of your killer’s points for an “Honourable Death”. There also seems to be a larger gap between the points rewarded for clumsy and efficient kills, which is welcome news to those who pride themselves on patience and silence.

It may have been my imagination, or some quirks in the beta, but it seems like NPC behaviour has been given some more human qualities. While spotting a player in a crowd was previously as easy as looking for someone not walking slowly in a straight line, characters now have more erratic and natural movements. More than once I encountered NPCs running for a few seconds then walking again. Bizarre behaviour for a real life person, but exactly the sort of thing a gamer might do on screen. Tricky move, Ubisoft Montreal.

As in Brotherhood, you rise in multiplayer rank as you play, unlocking different abilities and tools as you go. These can be offensive or defensive, and can range from throwing knives to proximity mines that stun pursuers. While it’s obviously cool to have all these tricks at your disposal, the previous game tended to lose its flavour once everyone had the technology at their disposal. It was also a nightmare for new and inexperienced players, who would be picked off immediately by higher ranks who could throw smoke and magically see through walls. Only time will tell how things will balance out.

The new characters look great and are full of personality, although no doubt the community will quickly nut out which are the easiest targets. One welcome – if technically pointless – change is the presence of at least three female avatars to choose from, as it was always a little weird that only one or two women ever got into the assassination game.

Speaking of technicalities, you’ll be happy to hear that the matchmaking system in the beta worked pretty well. Brotherhood’s biggest failing online was the inordinate amount of time spent sitting on the lobby screen waiting for a few people to join your game. Never before have six to eight people been so hard to find. The lobby itself has been improved too, allowing you to check all your menus and look at other players from a single location. The menu system is very unwieldy at this stage and requires a few too many button presses for my taste, so hopefully that will change somewhat.

Overall, the multiplayer for Revelations is looking very exciting. The feeling you get playing is incomparable to any other online experience, and it seems like they’ve refined the system from the previous game in many ways. A few glitches were present, but if the final package is anything like this beta then the game might be worth it, even without considering the single player. At its best, each match is a series of quickfire shifts between naked paranoia and a surges of raw, god-like power. And not many games can boast that.

You know, part of me wishes that Sega knew Fuudo would win the Super Street Fighter IV: AE tournament at the Evolution 2011 tournament. That Fuudo’s incredible fundamentals and impressive reaction time was due in part of him having forged part of his innumerable skill on the Virtual Fighter series before unleashing the latest iteration to a larger world wide audience. I like to entertain this silly notion because I can’t for the life of me figure out what took them so long.

Virtual Fighter 5: Final Showdown is due to hit PSN and XBL in Summer 2012. It will be over 4 years since the previous version of Virtual Fighter 5 was on a home console. A timeframe that previously measured a console’s lifespan in days of yore. With it comes a slew of balance changes, the return of Sumo wrestler Taka-Arashi and a new character Jean Kujo who is a Karate practitioner (both were released in the VF: 5 R though this version never saw console release).

At PAX I got a chance to sit down and play on the only 2 arcade cabinets of Final Showdown available in the U.S. There is something I can’t quite put my finger on but it might be due to all the iterative changes made to the game. The characters and pacing felt that much more polished and refined. So much so that for the game that I can’t think of anything I would want to add or remove. For a lack of a better phrase, it just feels right. Virtua Fighter is a series that is exceptionally deep with it’s deceptively three button system and it retains that in spades. Watching experience players they moved and reacted with an elegance that needs to be seen to be believed and with thought as they tried to pick up their opponent’s tendencies. Newcomers shouldn’t be daunted however as there were a lot of new players that could easily pick up the game and from the smiles, you could tell they were absolutely loving it.

That’s not to say all is right with world for Final Showdown. Quite the opposite in fact. The competition will be incredibly stiff – Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will have been out for a few months, Street Fighter X Tekken and Soul Caliber 5 are due out in March right before it, and Arc Sys’ Persona based fighting game is targeting a Spring release as well. The lack of a spectator mode is a big concern as well. It’s grown to be considered a standard feature by today’s fighters and not having including it in the face of so many other competitive fighting games seems… well… silly. Especially for a title that is intended to be a downloadable game.

It will survive however. Sega-AM2 has crafted one of the most in-depth and balanced fighters available today. And it’s legion of fans and critics knows this. It’s future growth and survivability will depend heavily on how Sega and the VF community approach it’s release.  It isn’t as flashy as it’s contemporaries but on the merits of the game alone, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better example of a fighting game today.