Consolation Prize

The development of Too Human from Silicon Knights seems to have been plagued by numerous obstacles along its nine year treacherous path to release. First conceived as a Playstation game (1999), then finding a home on Nintendo’s Gamecube (2000), and finally shifting residence to the Xbox 360 (2005). And then there was that little dispute with Epic Games’ over support of its “Unreal Engine 3”, resulting in Silicon Knights resorting to the development of there own game engine. All-in-all it’s actually a miracle Too Human is finally going to be released and didn’t get stuck in development hell or sent to Silicon Heaven.

Too Human is a third person action-adventure RPG game which takes its inspiration from Norse Mythology and weaves it into a game-world with cybernetically enhanced humans, cyberspace, and machine like foes. The player jumps into the role of Baldur, one of the Aesir, a god to the normal humans, and one of the protectors of mankind.

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Grand Theft Auto IV, one of the most anticipated titles of the year was finally released on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on the 29th April. The true successor to Grand Theft Auto III has been a few years in the making and fans have been salivating at the prospect of finally getting to grips with the latest sandbox game world. Combining the current generation of console hardware with Rockstars latest RAGE game engine it’s hard not to be impressed with the results achieved by Rockstar North.

As is prevalent throughout GTA games this is a “Rags to Riches” storyline with Eastern European immigrant Niko Bellic arriving in the docks of Liberty City at the invitation of his cousin Roman whom has promised that America is the “land of dreams”, bursting at the seams with money and promiscuous women. Roman has of course been embellishing the truth a little and instead of owning the mansion, four hot-tubs and fifteen sports cars as boasted, is in stark contrast struggling to make ends meet, in debt to gangsters, and owns a small time Taxi Company down in Hove Beach. And thus begins the game as Niko, with only a few dollars to his name, tries to carve out a living in the city of dreams.

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After two successful outings on the PS2, it’s time for the Ghost of Sparta to step into the mobile market for God of War: Chains of Olympus on the Sony PSP. The development reigns (or should that be chains) have been handed over to Ready At Dawn Studios using an enhanced version of their proprietary engine that was developed for Daxter (PSP).

Set as a prequel to the events that took place in God of War, this entry in the franchise nicely fits into the story arc that has already been told thus far and fleshes out more of our angry Spartans background.

At start of the game Kratos, already in servitude to the Olympian gods, is sent to the city of Attica to repel the Persian invasion. It’s an adrenalin inducing start and introduces the player to the controls gradually throughout the level and finally climaxes with a showdown with a Basilisk that has been terrorising the city. The level however is merely a taster of things to come and it’s not until vanquishing the beast that the true story line becomes apparent as Kratos witnessing the sun falling from the sky begins a quest to restore the god Helios.

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Although I’ve never read any of Robert Ludlum’s original Bourne novels I have enjoyed all the Hollywood movies starring Matt Damon as the ex-secret agent Jason Bourne. The books and movies have been successful but is the video game adaptation going to continue the run? Well, you can decide how the game is going to fare by trying out the demo of The Bourne Conspiracy that’s available on both Xbox Live Marketplace (1.2GB) and PlayStation Network (1.65GB).

The demo provides the player with three levels to play through, two of which “Escape from the Embassy” and the “Paris Chase” I remember from the movies, but I’m assuming the level “Eliminate Divandelen” may have been taken from one of the novels. Firstly players will immediately notice that Matt Damon hasn’t authorised the use of his likeness for the main character. Those of us whom are more familiar with the movies will feel a little disappointed that a new “face” has had to be used to represent Jason Bourne, but on the whole this shouldn’t really matter as long as the game plays well.

The three levels on offer act to showcase the different gameplay styles available in the game, after all this is Jason Bourne we’re talking about so we expect close hand-to-hand combat, thrilling gun fights, and unbelievable car chases. The demo does it’s best to serve up a slice of each but is only partly successful in delivering an exhilarating experience.

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There’s been a raft of new demo’s recently appear on Xbox Live Marketplace and as usual I like to give most of them a go at some point. Knowing that there’s a new Iron Man movie around the corner I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to give the demo of the tie-in game a once over.

The demo is quite a short affair with only the one mission “Stark Weapons” to try out, and unfortunately it’s a fairly bland mission at that. The pretence here is that your former captors have stockpiled a cache of weapons thus providing the ideal opportunity for Tony Stark to try out the new power armour.

There are three difficulty levels to pick from with “formidable” accompanying the usual easy and normal difficulties. Once the desired difficulty is chosen you have the opportunity to configure your suit, upgrading or changing various components such as the your “Repulsors” or “Power Systems”.

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Capcom’s Devil May Cry series has been around since 2001 and the highly anticipated fourth installment is due to be released next month. A demo of Devil May Cry 4 was released onto Xbox Live Marketplace last Thursday (24th) and should be available on the Euro Playstation Network later this week.

In previous games the lead character was Dante, but the demo introduces you to the new character Nero via two playable missions to showcase the different aspects of the game. The first mission “Exterminator” allows you 10 minutes to experience the core of the game as you move from area to area in an opera house plaza clearing enemies with the odd simple puzzle thrown in. The second mission “Executioner” lets you play a couple of set piece battles, firstly against some “Icy Frosts” before the final showdown with the impressively huge flaming boss character “Berial”.

The controls are all fairly straight forward and moves and combos are slowly introduced throughout the demo. Like Dante, Nero has both a sword for melee and a gun for ranged attacks but his right arm is not human and has a couple of “Devil Bringer” attacks that can also be used. There are some great attacks to play around with in the demo. Whether it’s launching enemies into the air or grabbing enemies and hurling them around with his demonic arm when “B” is held down, which is particularly great to watch against the boss “Berial”, all of them look impressive.

Both sword and gun attacks can be charged up for additional damage by either holding down the left trigger or “X” respectively. As with the previous instalments in the series each encounter is graded and the key is to try and chain combos together, not only to dispatch an enemy as fast as possible, but also to get the best rating.

The camera, which for the majority of the game provides a fixed viewpoint of the action, can only occasionally be moved by the player and it does take time to adjust to this, especially as the viewpoint will change as you’re running along or between areas which can cause some disorientation.

The demo of DMC4 looks fantastic, with some great looking cut-scenes, decent character and enemy designs and a great boss encounter. However, the game mechanics all feel very familiar and don’t seem to have changed significantly from its predecessors, which on the one hand will appeal to fans but may alienate newcomers. The demo is well worth investigating and fans will be happy with what’s on offer until the games release.

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom is a fantasy third person hack and slash action role playing game. A demo of the game is now available from Xbox Live Marketplace and is a rather chunky 1.2GB download.

According to the written prologue, which you can view if you’re really desperate, the world was once ruled by a pair of deities, Nible the lord of light, and Encablossa the lord of darkness. Each lord would take it in turns to rule and shape the world as they see fit and then after an age had passed hand over the reigns of power. However as is usual someone always gets fed up with the arrangement, in this case Nible throws his toys out of the pram and refuses to hand power back to Encablossa, thus igniting a war between the forces of light and darkness.

Upon starting the demo you can choose from one of two selectable characters. The final version of the game features six characters but in this instance you can play as either Leinhart an assassin, or Kendal the paladin. As you’d expect each character has strengths and weaknesses and specific weapons and armour types are only available to certain characters.

There are quite a few controls to get your head round in KUF:CoD but the demo will walk you through both the controls and item management. Different weapons can be assigned to both the “A” and “X” buttons whilst “B” and the right trigger are used for special abilities and the two shoulder buttons reserved for item assignment. Although this kind of configuration allows easy access to attacks, abilities and items as with most RPG’s item management forms an essential part of the game and you will frequently have to re-assign buttons as you find better equipment or learn new abilities. The tutorial can be skipped at any point but it’s worthwhile putting up with it the once before deciding to head off into the unknown world.

Any kind of attack, whether it be melee, ranged, or the use of an ability will cost “SP” points to perform. Your character has a total number of “SP” points available indicated by a blue bar at the bottom of the screen but once depleted the character will no longer be able to attack or use abilities. Although the SP bar does replenish fairly quickly (or via potions) having depleted can leave you vulnerable to attack for a period of time. This is compounded by your characters complete inability to block any type of attack.

Along the linear path that your character travels “idol sanctuaries” will be found. At these locations the player can buy, sell or synthesise items together. Alternatively you can choose to sleep and enter the dream world, a place where you can learn new abilities and discover more about the characters and the story.

KUF:CoD looks quite good. The demo environments all look OK and the main character models are decent enough but there is a lot of screen tearing throughout. Unfortunately I found the AI to be very poor with groups of enemies standing around and quite happily ignoring the player until trigger points are crossed. Similarly when fleeing to a previously cleared area enemies will only pursue you so far and will suddenly break off and return to there original stating location.

The camera is frustratingly poor, needs constant attention, and will frequently get obscured by a bush, tree or other object whilst fighting large groups of enemies. By holding down the left trigger you can change the camera to an aiming view. However this view seems rather pointless because although I could see a group of enemies and fire at them they were invulnerable until a trigger point was crossed. Once triggered the group would be upon you in seconds leaving only enough time to loose off a couple of ranged attacks.

On a positive point the game has a wealth of equipment and special abilities with which to customize your character. Levelling up a characters hit points, sp points, and luck works quite well with a pot of “attribute” points that allocated how the player sees fit.

I wouldn’t say that KUF:CoD is a terrible game, just average. It does quite a few things competently enough but there are some key areas in the demo that it falls down on, not the least of which is that it is repetitive. If you’re a fan of hack “n” slash RPG games then it’s worth giving the demo a cursory glance.

The demo for Conan, a third person action hack and slash game, is now available to download from Xbox Live Marketplace. The game lets you try out a single level and provides some mild entertainment.

Initial impressions of the game were not that great. It certainly isn’t the best showcase for the graphical capabilities of the Xbox 360 with OK character models and an uninspiring environment on show. In all departments a game such as God of War 2 on the PS2 is superior.

The games strongest element is the combat. Conan has at his disposal a huge variety of attacks based upon combinations of light, heavy or grappling moves using the “X”, “Y” and “B” buttons. You can also block an attack using the left trigger and if this is timed correctly Conan can perform a deadly counter-attack. The right analog joystick is used to evade attacks but unfortunately because it is reserved for this purpose you have no direct camera control leaving its placement in the lap of the gods.

Conan is a blood thirsty game and doesn’t hold back with the severed arms, decapitations and general blood spilling and soon the level is awash with the spilt blood of your enemies. Hopefully the final release of the game is given a bit of a polish as lurking beneath the negatives and rough exterior is a game that is both playable and quite good fun.

For me, Conan is a game that I may pick up if I had no other games to play and it was found lurking in the bargain basement bin at the local gaming emporium.