Avatar: The Game Review

December 1, 2009 - James Cameron has delivered some movies of monstrous proportions. Titanic, Aliens and The Terminator have all come to us courtesy of the Canadian filmmaker. This December sees the release of the long-awaitedAvatar, a movie about an alien moon called Pandora and the battle over its riches. Cameron's last movie, Titanic, set all sorts of box office records. That puts the expectations for Avatar at near impossible levels and naturally paves the way for a videogame adaptation. It's a game that I had high hopes for and though it does its best to play to the movie's strengths -- featuring a lush jungle world and 3D visuals – Avatar: The Game ultimately suffers from unpolished and thin gameplay elements.

Avatar: The Game takes place on the same moon as its movie counterpart but rather than retelling Cameron's tale, it offers a prequel story and an introduction to Pandora's past. The reason for all of the commotion? Pandora is the only known place to harvest unobtanium, a mineral worth whatever it takes to get it. Unfortunately, Pandora has a toxic atmosphere and is the home to some hostile locals, including giant carnivorous plants and the Na'vi, an alien race that stands roughly 10 feet tall. The RDA, a military for hire, has countered with Avatars, a genetic hybrid between humans and Na'vi. And so the war begins in earnest.

Watch the video review.

Very little of this is actually explained directly to the player. Instead, you're thrust into the role of Abel Ryder, a new RDA recruit with an Avatar to control – never you mind what an Avatar is or why they exist. Soon after, you're forced to choose to fight either for the Na'vi as a full-time Avatar or for the RDA. The game wastes no time getting right down to brass tacks, but in doing so glosses over what should have been its chance to lay down the groundwork for any motivation it might have offered the player. Instead, it sets up a series of generic quests and little bits of story about the search for some special rocks that you'll have just about no investment in.

If you decide to fight for the RDA, Avatar: The Game plays as a third-person shooter, offering plenty of guns and war machines to take down the flora and fauna. Fight for the Na'vi and you'll instead wield primitive though effective clubs, staffs and knives. Limited ranged combat is in store for the Na'vi fighter as well through a machine gun and a bow and arrows, but the majority of the action is up close and personal. Though both sides have similar special powers to call upon, this setup makes for two drastically different experiences.

You can choose to fight for the Na'vi, or for the RDA as pictured here.

Both branches of the game last between four and six hours – more if you take on all of the side tasks – but each tell their own story and deliver their own style of gaming. Will you play a straight action game with limited platforming as you fight for the natives? Or will you tackle a third-person shooter and lay waste to everything in sight using guns and flamethrowers? Or will you wind up playing both sides to double your game time? It's a nice concept and the two sides of the Avatar: The Game coin are different enough to make each feel distinct. Neither, however, plays well enough to make it a standout.

There's nothing disastrous here, and the RDA shooter side of things performs well enough to be occasionally enjoyable. The quest design, including both the main and side tasks, is about as generic as they come. Go here, collect this, plant these bombs, or kill this and then return to me. It's mindless, you shoot stuff and it explodes. It works, though it could handle a lot better and the enemy AI isn't up to snuff. During one big boss battle at the end, my foe jumped off of a cliff and then ran across a field and hid in a corner. Searching for him wasn't very fun.

Fighting for the Na'vi is a bit worse. The animations are stiff and awkward. The camera, particularly in the melee combat, is unsteady enough to be disorienting and perhaps even nauseating. The controls feel far too loose, a problem that also exists any time you get in a vehicle. The whole ordeal just isn't anything you'd really want to play for that long. The quests are about the same as the RDA, as is the story though told from a different perspective, which doesn't leave a whole lot of room for fun.

Avatar: The Game offers distractions that try their best to cover up these shortcomings, but they too aren't as fully fleshed out as one would hope. There's lots of wrapping paper here, but unfortunately the box is empty. A perfect example is the leveling system. Gain enough XP and you'll move up a level, but the XP doled out is trivial for everything but main quest completion. New levels offer upgraded skills, weapon and armor, but these upgrades are auto-equipped and hardly noticeable. Pick your favorite skills and weapons at the beginning of the game and that's all the management you'll do. It's a leveling and unlocking system that isn't much more than window dressing.

Fighting for the Na'vi isn't as fun as one would hope.

There's also a mini-game inspired by Risk in which experience gained in the main game converts into a currency for buying new units and upgrades in a game for global domination. Controlling areas in that game, in turn, offers experience points and upgrades in the main game. It's a genuinely cool idea and it's one I wish offered more actual reward for tackling.

There's a whole suite of multiplayer modes to tackle once you've finished the main game twice. This game puts players on either the Na'vi or RDA teams in a head-to-head team match. There are your standard capture the flag and deathmatch modes, as well as games of attack and defend and capture and hold. The same gameplay shortcomings that hamper the single player game make this one you probably won't keep playing for long.

There's also a multiplayer game. It's not great.

The shining star of Avatar: The Game, unsurprisingly, is the world of Pandora. You can learn a bit more about it through the Pandorapedia unlocked by exploring the world. Most of us, though, will simply run through the lush jungle and marvel at the alien world. Floating mountains, carnivorous plants, massive creatures and more pack the screen at all times. It's enough to occasionally cause the visuals to stutter as the game can't keep up with both the action and the packed backdrop. It looks even better in 3D, if you have a screen capable of displaying it. This literally makes the world jump out at you. Bullets will whip by your head. Bits of plants will creep out around you. It's a cool effect and one that fits in perfectly with the movie it is based on. Cameron's world and all of its alien life forms were captured quite well visually.

Closing Comments
Avatar: The Game feels like all of the development effort was put into building out the look of Pandora. In 3D, if your TV or monitor can handle it, the world comes to life. Even in standard HD or SD, the lush jungle is inviting and exciting. Take all of that away and you aren't left with much worth talking about. The gameplay feels like it needs more work. Loose controls, bad melee combat, weak mission design, and a wonky camera dull the experience. Middling storytelling doesn't help matters, and it ultimately fails in matters of motivation. The thrill of the fight just isn't here, and that's a problem for an action game.

note : I do not own this article or its contents.

WET Review

Violent action entertainment fueled more by style than substance


Combining a grindhouse film presentation style with Max Payne and Stranglehold-like slow-motion combat mechanics, Artificial Mind and Movement's WET certainly has a promising setup. You play as Rubi Malone, a raven-haired vixen clad in leather armor. Armed with dual pistols, she's as likely to fire bullets as she is to unload curse words and can flip, slide and swing around combat arenas. For the developer the game represents a spark of originality on a resume populated mostly with licensed products and ports, and its release was not always a sure thing. Amidst the shedding of intellectual property as the publishing giant Activision-Blizzard settled into its new skin, the title was let go, picked up earlier this year by Bethesda Softworks. It's a violent, crude, and often inane title -- which fits in neatly with its presentation style and tone -- but unfortunately its gameplay isn't as dynamic as it wants to be, falling flat and failing to sustain the experience. 

As Rubi you're thrown into a world of murderers, double-crossers, drug runners, impossible action scenarios, and conspicuously dressed villains. There's a film grain effect skittering across the screen the entire time, which can be turned off, but while active reinforces the B-movie angle of the plot, dialogue, and characters. Rubi is wronged and angry, and the game in an appropriately inelegant manner smashes together pieces of story that move you through a series of combat arenas and quick-time event action sequences. 

Rubi's combat abilities are upgradeable, but you'll find the basics will be your mainstays throughout the course of the game. At any time while moving around in third-person you can initiate a slide or jump move that if combined with gunfire results in extended slow-motion sequences. There's no limit to the amount of slow-motion effects you can use in the game, meaning there's nothing like Max Payne's bullet-time gauge. As long as you're hopping off walls or skidding on your knees across the floor, the fire triggers are being pulled, and there are enemies onscreen, you'll be in slow-motion mode. Rubi always has two weapons at the ready – either pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, or crossbows – and nothing ever needs reloading. Just fire until you're out of ammo, or in the pistols' case just keep firing forever. And if you're close enough, bust out the katana for a quick and brutal kill. 

It's a system that can produce some gleefully violent and cinematic scenes of carnage as Rubi rebounds off enemies' chests while unloading streams of bullets directly into their faces, something made even more interesting by the fact that her aim isn't limited to one foe. She'll auto-target one as soon as slow-motion mode is initiated and then with her other weapon she can blast away at another enemy. This way, if you're quick and accurate, you can wipe out two or more thugs with one slide or dive which, at first, can provide a welcome rush of adrenaline. Keep shooting and chaining kills together and you build up a multiplier, accumulating points and enhancing your sense of reward for fluid play. So what's so bad about that? 

Well, the system doesn't really hold up. Weapon damage and fire rates and new acrobatic moves can be unlocked as the single-player campaign is completed, but nothing ever significantly alters how combat works, just provides a few cool extra frills. While you do get the opportunity to more easily stay airborne and in slow-motion firing mode, after you've learned the basics of battle, there's little reason to stick around unless you're particularly drawn to the title's pulp sensibilities and want to see through the story. 

WIth guns or blades, kill with style to score points.

The game just doesn't offer enough variety. As you move through linear levels you'll run into small groups of foes until you hit an arena. Here enemies surge from Gauntlet-esque spawning doors, and the goal is to disable their ability to reinforce while snagging multipliers scattered around and scoring kills in as stylish a fashion as possible. Some sword-wielding enemies require you use headshots to take down, and the enemies that bring miniguns to the fight take a hell of a lot of damage before keeling over, but the challenges wind up feeling repetitive and unrewarding as they're thrown at you time and time again. 

Things get Kill Bill-crazy on occasion as Rubi shifts into a rage mode, denoted in-game by blood splattering across her face as she makes a short range kill. The graphics get Killer 7 stylish with swaths of black and red and white, but just because there's a different lens through which you're viewing the action and your multiplier builds dramatically faster, it's still the same action. 

Since the roots of the game's presentation extend into the medium of film, it makes sense that A2M wanted to build in a few sequences that felt more like watching a movie than playing a game. A Matrix Reloaded-like car chase has Rubi bounding across the tops of vehicles as they smash into each other, all presented with slick camera movements that makes for a genuinely entertaining viewing experience. It's just not all that interesting to play. The same goes for a silly falling sequence as Rubi tumbles through the air as plane wreckage and armed foes drop around her, eventually leading to an annoying segment where wreckage must be dodged in order to snag a life-saving parachute. 

A2M takes this cinematic system a little too far when it comes to the boss characters. It seems the combat system wasn't really set up for single encounters, so you enter into Indigo Prophecy-ish timed button press situations when clashing with these pillars of villainy instead of getting the opportunity to hop around and conquer them with your acrobatic skills. It's a tease, and deflates all the tension and reward built up throughout the course of the game. Like the car-jumping bits, it's still neat to watch, but it's tough to draw a sense of reward from the situation since you're naturally expecting a more interactive fight. 

To put some space in between these types of encounters and the arenas are clumsy platforming setups reminiscent of Prince of Persia, but without any of the feel and flow. Instead you're just pulling off standard wall-running and pole-swinging acrobatics that have been done better in plenty of other titles. While it's occasionally cool to combine swinging and climbing with Rubi's gun and sword skills in a fight, they're usually more trouble than they're worth. Out of combat, the sequences are rarely enjoyable, and seem to have been built in more to eat up your time than entertain. A wide range of speed-run and shooting challenges are also offered outside of the story mode where, among other things, you dart and dive through rings and try to peg targets with guns to reduce your overall time, but here the imprecision of the jumping and platforming becomes more obvious. While the added content here is certainly appreciated, it feels too rough-edged and sloppy to really dig into. 

The game mixes up-close action with more cinematic experiences like this car chase.

One of the game's strongest elements is its presentation with its film grain effects, weirdly humorous interstitial advertisements, loading screens, soundtrack, and intentionally simple and crude character dialogue. If more than a minute has passed without an f-bomb being dropped it would be an unusual moment in the world of WET. Rubi's ruthlessness is also effectively conveyed, as she continues to curse while killing as the game goes on and employs a merciless approach to extracting information from those who threaten to jeopardize the success of her mission. None of the characters introduced in the game world manage to escape the clutches of the cliché, but that was probably the point, playing up the world's pitted B-movie aspects while retaining a certain generic flavoring. 

While A2M gets the style right and provides plenty of dark and dirty battlegrounds to splatter with blood, the visuals and animations aren't particularly sharp. With the exception of the stylish rage modes, there isn't a lot to marvel at here – though again maybe that's the point given the low-budget, rough-edged themes. The soundtrack, featuring styles from punk to funk to rock, surges to life as the bullets fly, effectively locking in with the action and tone. 

And maybe I've completely desensitized myself over the years by regularly absorbing ultraviolent media, but if WET really is trying to be the videogame equivalent of an exploitation movie, it's pretty tame. There's violence and blood – of that there's no question – but it's a game that doesn't come with a high degree of shock value…with the exception of the sword thrusts through the crotch. Ouch. 

When Rubi gets mad, she literally sees red.

Closing Comments
Come for the blood, bullets, crude language, seedy characters and piles of dead bodies, but don't expect to find any lasting kind of satisfaction. With overly repetitive enemy encounters and an unsatisfying slice of slow-motion-centric action, Artificial Mind and Movement's WET, like the styles of film it apes, is filled with imperfections. It hits on a lot of the presentation elements, but when its issues are related to gameplay they're much more difficult to endure compared to something like bad lighting or cheesy special effects.

note: i do not own this article or its contents.

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Citically acclaimed open world action title, featuring customizable controls, DirectX 10 support and exclusive content arrives on PC.


Developed by THQ's award-winning studio, Volition, Inc., Red Faction: Guerrilla is a third-person action game featuring unrivaled destruction-based game-play, a story-driven single player campaign and extensive multiplayer options. Red Faction: Guerrilla was recently released on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and is now available on Games for Windows.

"Red Faction: Guerrilla earned wide-spread critical acclaim on the Xbox 360 and PS3 for providing a unique open-world experience packed with intense guerrilla-style combat, sophisticated weaponry and the most advanced destruction engine ever built," said Kevin Kraff, vice president of worldwide marketing, THQ. "Gamers can expect the same top quality from the PC version, with the added benefits of DirectX10 support, bonus downloadable content and additional technical advancements." 

"Red Faction: Guerrilla's PC debut will expose even more gamers to the Red Faction universe and further enhance the game-play experience by maximizing the PC's capabilities," said Rick White, producer, Volition, Inc. "The PC version features higher graphical quality through the support of Direct X10, as well as smooth, customizable controls, resulting in a visually impressive, high performance product." 

About Red Faction: Guerrilla 
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a 3rd person, open-world shooter set on Mars, 50 years after the events of the original Red Faction®. Players take on the role of freedom fighter Alec Mason, with the newly re-established Red Faction movement, as they battle for liberation from the oppressive Earth Defense Force (EDF). Throughout their fight for freedom, players can carve their own path, wreaking havoc across the vast, open-world environment of Mars, from the desolate mining outpost of Parker to the gleaming EDF capital city of Eos. Utilizing improvised weapons, explosives and re-purposed mining equipment and vehicles, Red Faction: Guerrilla allows players to tear through fully destructible environments in a Martian landscape swarming with EDF forces, Red Faction resistance fighters, and the downtrodden settlers caught in the cross-fire. Red Faction: Guerrilla features a robust multiplayer experience, including several modes focused on destruction-based game-play. 

About THQ 
THQ Inc. (NASDAQ:THQI) is a leading worldwide developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software. The company develops its products for all popular game systems, personal computers and wireless devices. Headquartered in Los Angeles County, California, THQ sells product through its global network of offices located throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. More information about THQ and its products may be found at www.thq.com. THQ, Red Faction, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Volition, Inc., and their respective logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of THQ Inc.


note: i do not own this article and its contents.

Assassin's Creed II

When we first saw Assassin's Creed II back at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, it wowed us with its sumptuous graphics and slick Renaissance-inspired storyline. We finally got a chance to return to the world of Italian assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze at GamesCom 2009 in Cologne, Germany, and checked out the brand-new city of Florence.

Assassin's Creed II creative director Patrice Desilets was again on hand to guide us through 15th-century Italy, and our demo began on the Florentine rooftops. The environment looked stunning in the late afternoon, with a soft haze obscuring the nearby hillside. The skyline was filled with orange terracotta roof tiles and soft pastel and cream colours. Gazing around, we could see numerous towers, domed churches, villas, and plenty of other buildings with rustic charm. Ezio walked up to a nearby guard and used his concealed pistol--first seen in the E3 announcement trailer to dramatic effect--to execute him. When you aim the pistol, a grey line will show where you're pointing, and this should improve aiming with the third-person camera. After a few moments, Desilets jumped off the rooftop into a hay bale on the street below. He then approached a street merchant who sold him a bottle of poison to use for an assassination mission. These missions are delivered to Ezio through carrier pigeons, which you can find scattered around Florence's rooftops. The heads-up displays have been slightly updated, while the controls look the same as before and are again contextually mapped to your head and limbs. The Y button is assigned to eagle vision, B is for tackles or gentle pushes, and A is used to sprint, free-run, jump, or steal.

While you could blend only with scholars in the original game, you can now do so with pretty much any group of people, and this is illustrated by an abstract pattern of criss-crossing lines on the ground when you approach them. Desilets used eagle vision--the ability to single out friends, foes, and targets in a crowd--to locate his target and then blended into a crowd to get a bit closer. Rather than going in for a bold kill, you can use other characters to do your dirty work. In this case, he infected the target's guard with poison, and within a few moments the guard started having a fit. Slashing his lance around from the pain, the guard was able to pierce the man he was meant to protect, thereby fulfilling Ezio's mission. This looks like just one example of some of the new ways to carry out such missions, and we look forward to seeing more examples at a later date.

Following this mission, the day began to disappear and night fell upon the city. Dark, grey clouds covered the sky, and the Florentine skyline was bathed in the dying moments of twilight. Desilets led us on to a nearby alley, which was blocked by some guards. He enlisted the help of some nearby mercenaries, and after exchanging some money, they agreed to kill the guards. Being able to get others to do your dirty work seems like an interesting idea, but because you have to pay them, you will probably need to save their resources for special occasions. The alley revealed a hidden trapdoor, indicated by the assassin's symbol, which surrounded a skull set into a fountain. Ezio pushed his fingers into the eye sockets, activating the hidden door, and jumped down into a new area below: the catacombs beneath Florence.

We're told by Desilets that there will be numerous underground areas to expose in the game. However, they're all optional besides this particular one. The reason this one is mandatory is that it involves the discovery of a secret meeting of the Assassins' sworn enemies, the Templars. The catacombs offered a fresh landscape to what we'd already seen, and the chipped, worn brickwork was bathed in a soft candlelight, accented by painted artwork, ornate, classical architecture, scattered debris, and even human bones. Desilets used Ezio's acrobatic skills to make his way down to the bottom of a central shaft just after the Templars moved into a huge hall, sealing off the entrance with a heavy stone door. Using some acrobatics, he was able to climb up to an area above the sealed room and found a secret level that opened the door, triggering a cutscene featuring the Templars.

Despite their lavishly decorated armour, the Templars seemed as deadly as ever and quickly set out to find Ezio. Desilets demonstrated a cool new "death from above" move that lets you execute an enemy by jumping from above and stabbing him with your knife. After taking care of one soldier, he used a smoke bomb to distract two more and chase after a final one, who made a hasty retreat. The Templar was intent on warning his cohorts, and this section features the new chase gameplay. Your aim is to stop him before he can call for reinforcements, by any means possible. These areas don't appear to be linear, and you can use alternative paths when an enemy creates an obstacle, in this case blocking our way to a terraced balcony by locking a gate. Desilets used a chandelier to swing around the outside of the balcony and through a gap in the wall to kill the Templar, which resulted in another cutscene where Ezio eavesdrops on the meeting. Inspired by real events, the cutscene shows the Pazzi conspirators who planned an assassination on the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, co-rulers of the Florentine Republic. There were a number of conspirators named, including the pope, who apparently approved of the Templars' plot.

Our demo concluded with Ezio finding a chest of money and opening a sarcophagus marked with the Assassin's logo, and we found a ceramic seal inside. Collecting these, we're told, will result in big rewards later on. Opening a nearby door, Desilets exited the catacombs and popped back into the world through a sewer grate near a canal. Assassin's Creed II is dropping onto the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 17 in North America and on November 20 in Europe. For all of our coverage from Cologne

New Features :

Ezio's 'Toys' 

'Toys' – the term Ubi Montreal has coined for the gadgets and environmental 'modifiers' that Ezio can use – play a big part in adding variety to the experience. Of these, only a few have been revealed so far, but their implications and usefulness are already clear. 

One of da Vinci's 'Toys' that Ezio gets to take advantage of.

COINS

Who would've thought that underlining human greed and using it as a gameplay mechanic would make for such handy tool? Underpinning this 'toy' is Ezio's ability to toss a handful of coins into a bustling crowd and then watch the chaos as villagers scatter and bounce around to collect them. It's brilliant – makes for the perfect kind of disruptive, non-violent defence. 

POISON

From early in the game, Ezio can obtain poison for his wrist blades. With a little bit of timing, this poison not only eventually kills its target, but actually drives them insane for a good minute or so. During this time, the poisoned target babbles with madness, thrashing about and lashing out at people aggressively. If you poison an armed guard, the result can be a bloody rampage. 

Ezio lays down the law with his two buddies, knifey and pokey.

SMOKE BOMBS

As you may have seen in previous videos and previews, Ezio's smoke bombs unleash a thick cloud of soot into the area around him, lingering in the air for just long enough for a swift-footed escape. Used while being pursued, it stops guards in their tracks. Used just after an assassination, it becomes even more valuable. 

Fun and Games
Combining all of these elements is where the beauty of Assassin's Creed II's vision becomes apparent. See, there's a lovely overlap of these Toys and their effects within the world, and this overlap highlights the beauty of logical AI and sandboxy gameplay – flexibility.

Ezio now has a third-person version of his 'eagle vision', essentially allowing him to quickly pinpoint colour-coded targets and assailants in the environment with ease. This small adjustment has bigger implications to the way you can approach a mission. By easily differentiating guards and bystanders from your target, you pave the way for using Toys to mix things up and create some incredible distractions. 

Finding your target while on the prowl is made much easier with the improved Eagle Vision.

Taking an example that uses all of the items above, Ezio can silently walk up behind a guard, poison him and walk away. Then from a distance, while the crowd gathers to watch the uncontrollable rantings and flailing of a madman, he can toss a handful of coins at the poisoned target. This causes the people to come rushing in and start scooping up the coins. From there, the poisoned guard will start attacking the peasants mercilessly with whatever weapon he has it his disposal. It's a total massacre – and a perfect distraction. From here, Ezio can either use the time he's bought to sneak past or simply smoke bomb his way out of sight and away from the threat of guards in the area – guards who clearly already have their hands full. 

As you can see, the toys complement each other, overlapping their uses to create a streamlined and logical way to plan your ultimate assassination and escape. 

Ezio and the Prince 

Taking more than a few cues from Ubisoft's other major action-platformer franchise, Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed II reveals another major twist to its formula – the inclusion of secret side-missions that take place underneath many major landmarks throughout the game world. These landmarks, such as the Santa Maria Novella church in Florence, allow Ezio to gain entrance to the vast subterranean catacombs by way of a secret assassin's entrance, marked with the familiar 'A' symbol. 

Prince of Persia-style free-running obdstacle courses are just one way the gameplay has evolved and expanded in Assassin's Creed II.

After a nifty animation in which the 'A' symbol parts and slides into the wall, a passageway is revealed and the fun begins. The objective is fairly simple – much like Prince of Persia, simply navigate through the catacombs towards your objective – be it to eavesdrop on a meeting of the Knights Templar or pursue a target. At the end, you're rewarded with access to an Assassin's treasure chamber, holding collectable crests that eventually unlock the most valuable and important item in the game. What is it? We have no bloomin' idea. 

Regardless, the inclusion of these side areas – completely voluntary missions that change up the gameplay – really do cater well to Ubisoft's promise of more and varied gameplay in Assassin's Creed II. There are still a lot of questions hanging over our heads – specifically, what other Toys can we look forward to, and will the world feel more persistent and alive this time around? Thankfully, with the game due to drop in just a couple short months, we won't have long to wait. 

Note: i do not own this article or its contents.

Heavy Rain Preview

 What is It?

Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer is Quantic Dream's mature-rated murder mystery thriller, which draws inspiration from films like "Seven." When they say mature, they're not messing around, but we'll get to that shortly. One of the hooks to Heavy Rain is that you'll have four protagonists instead of just one, with intertwining stories that come together to paint the big picture.

Heavy Rain makes a powerful first impression thanks to its nearly photo-realistic graphics and its eccentric take on interactivity. All the challenges in the game are presented by seemingly random button presses and controller commands, taking advantage of the many different inputs the Sixaxis controller offers.

While Heavy Rain's style of gameplay may turn out to be an acquired taste, the game's subject matter makes for far more interesting preview analysis, especially in light of what I've recently seen.

What's New for E3?

It was only a short while ago when I last got my hands on Heavy Rain. I was impressed by what I saw from Quantic Dream founder and Heavy Rain writer/director David Cage in terms of storytelling and intensity, but I was completely taken aback by what I just saw at E3. We were shown a scene that was so disturbing and that affected me in such a way that I haven't been able to stop talking about it.

It began with our introduction to Madison Paige, a photojournalist and one of the four investigators on the hunt for the Origami Killer. Madison is an insomniac, who only manages to get a proper night's sleep by checking into motels. In the course of her investigation Madison has learned that a nightclub owner named Paco Mendez may know something valuable. Just in case, she packs a small-caliber pistol in her purse.

A Dangerous Night on the Town

Madison visits Paco's club to investigate, dressed in an orange short-sleeved shirt and a knee-length black skirt. Multicolored lasers and thumping music keep the club goers moving with the beat. Madison wades through the dancing crowds, nudging her way past the shaking booties with an animation unique from her normal walk.

Paco is a sleazy dirtbag sort of character, lounging in a VIP area guarded by the kind of suit-wearing heavy that is as likely to shoot you as kick you out of the club. They forbid Madison's entry, so she has to get creative. Noticing that Paco has a thing for pretty girls (he invites one of the nearby dancers over to join him), Madison tries to draw his attention by stepping on stage herself to dance her way into his good graces.

Like any major action in Heavy Rain, dancing is a button-pressing and controller-moving mini-game. Unfortunately, Paco simply isn't interested in Madison, at least in her current state. This is where things start to get just a little weird.





Let's Put on Makeup!

To draw his attention, Madison decides that she has to get a little sexier, so she heads to the restroom for an impromptu makeover. She first applies dark mascara and a pink shade of lipstick. Then she unbuttons her blouse, revealing more cleavage. Thinking this isn't quite enough, she rips off half of her knee-length skirt, turning it into the shortest of micro-minis. Mind you, none of these sequences were cut-scenes; everything is interactive and made part of the gameplay through various Sixaxis challenges. If you don't move the analog stick properly when applying mascara, for example, you'll jab yourself in the eyeball and have to start over.

Now that she was satisfactorily made more conventionally attractive, Madison stepped out to hit the stage one more time. This time, her dances drew plenty of attention from Paco, who invites her over. Wanting a little private time to get the information, Madison and Paco retreat to his nearby office, though he has something else entirely in mind.

Entertain a Slimeball

Sleazy Paco puts on a little mood music for the pair, something that sounds like a porn soundtrack, complete with fake-sounding moans. Madison plays coy at first, and Paco will have none of it. He takes Madison's purse away from her and ushers her towards a couch, where he proceeds to sit and ask her to start taking it off. When Madison hesitates, he draws a gun, points it at her, and tells her to stop wasting his time.


This emotional distress affected the rest of the scene's gameplay. Madison proceeded to take her shirt off, and the simple unbuttoning of buttons was made difficult by her mental state, so you could potentially fail and draw Paco's ire. The idea here was to survive long enough to find a way out of this situation without being killed or raped.


You Just Can't Say That

Cage had the difficult task of keeping the audience entertained and in a positive mood, despite the rape fantasy playing out on screen behind him. His approach was to take his commentary relatively lightly, with lines like, "if we get raped, at least we get the information!" I'm relatively thick-skinned, but even I was somewhat shocked at these comments.

Held at gunpoint, and stripped of her dignity and clothing, Madison came up with a plan (relayed to us through her internal dialogue) to free herself. She began to dance for Paco in her bra and panties, shaking and gyrating in a sequence that many gamers will feel uncomfortable playing through, especially around their wives or mothers. The idea was to distract him while she grabbed a nearby lamp and smashed him over the head.

Madison's plan works, and Paco wakes up bound to a chair, with Madison now fully dressed and ready to extract information. When one of Paco's guards checks in from outside the door, Madison is clever enough to loudly fake an orgasm, sending the hired help away with ease. She then slaps Paco around and points her little gun at him, but none of this works. What does work is grabbing his Paco juniors and giving them a twist. The anguished Paco then spits out what Madison wants to hear, and the demonstration closes.


Note: i do not own this article or its contents.

Bayonetta

Bayonetta Updated Impressions:

When we last saw Bayonetta, the titular demon witch with the killer hairstyle was being played on the E3 show floor. PlatinumGames' Hideki Kamiya had a brand new demo in store for us at GamesCom 2009.

What's New:Before we got to see Bayonetta in action again, we were presented with a lengthy new cutscene that answered some questions but asked many more. From what we know, Bayonetta had been sleeping for 500 years and was suddenly awoken in order to battle for forces of good. We're introduced to a new character, Luka, a debonair human who briefly met Bayonetta as a kid and has grown into a man and possible love interest for the seemingly ageless witch. Unfortunately for him, Luka and Bayonetta both exist in different dimensions, and while he can smell and hear her, he can't reach out and touch the alluring witch. Some of the cutscenes we saw used the in-game engine, while others were prerendered and had a cinematic look complete with sepia and film roll effects.  

 What's Different:  While Bayonetta usually equips pistols on her ankles, this time around she was sporting two rocket launchers attached to her lower legs. While slow, the rockets pack a hell of a punch and can take out certain enemies with just a single round. You can also perform an ultracool handstand move where she fires both rockets at once. From what we saw, it looks like you can also lift any weapons your victims leave behind, as well as objects. At one point, we saw Bayonetta raise a car and effortlessly fling it at an enemy.

The demo ended with Bayonetta, doing battle with a monstrously large angel in midair. The menacing celestial being had a huge, faced tongue (think Aliens) and spiked tendrils. After attacking the tongue for a moment, Bayonetta was able to run up to the head and cut off the tongue in a satisfyingly bloody and brutal animation--something we've come to expect from this promising gorefest.

What's the Same: We got a chance to play the same demo that we first saw at E3 2008 and got hands-on with at E3 2009. We also saw some more witch time moments, a slow-mo mode executed by dodging attacks at the right time. From what we can tell, the ability looks like it will play an important part in the fast-paced combat.

What Impression the Game Made: Bayonetta is looking great and seems to manage making ultraviolent action both rewarding and humorous. The game packs plenty of action, drama, and sass together, and while we haven't seen a lot of the story, the combat looks and feels both intuitive and fun. We look forward to getting more time with Bayonetta before its launch in early 2010.

Features

• Groundbreaking Gameplay — Bayonetta, the game, is all about action. From the controls to the finishing moves, Bayonetta is positioned to be about pure action gameplay
• Hair: Her hair serves as the basis of her costume and also her attacks and powers. These manifest in different ways: Wicked Weave attacks, Torture Attacks, and Climax Attacks
• Upgradeable weapons -In addition to her four enchanted guns called Scarborough Fair, she can unlock an array of weapons from shotguns, bazookas and fiery claws
• Enemy weapons - Bayonetta can also battle with a variety of other weapons retrieved from fallen enemies
• Beast Within - Bayonetta calls upon primal forces, transforming into various beasts (Panthers, etc.) according to the situation

Bayonetta Progress Report

Well, Bayonetta is officially our new favourite videogame character ever. Yes, she beats out Snake, Lara, Faust, Waluigi or anyone else you care to mention. Importantly, she's even cooler than Dante, who has long been the poster child for devil may care action heroes. The things that man can do with a gun and some airborne billiard balls. 

This party's getting crazy - let's rock, indeed.

So. Bayonetta. Why is she the new saviour of action gaming? Because she has the playfulness and versatility of Dante, but wrapped up in some of the most visually inventive combat we've seen in a long while. That and the fact that she's close to naked about half the time. (More on that in a sec.) It certainly bears the hallmarks of the game's director Hideki Kamiya, who was also director on the original Devil May Cry (not to mention Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe and Okami). That alone suggests good things a'brewing... and it all comes together when you see it in motion. 

Stiletto guns. Highly practical.

As mentioned, this is a wildly inventive action game. Bayonetta is hugely versatile, with weapons secreted about her entire body - she has two guns strapped to her boots, but can also dual wield in her hands, or switch to a sword. Lightning fast melee attacks chain into weapon attacks, which chain into hair attacks. Yes, hair attacks. As you've probably heard, Bayonetta utilises her long black locks as a weapon. Numerous combos end with portals opening in the air, through which huge demonic fists or boots wreathed in hair punch or stomp through. The hair really comes into its own during the boss battles too. At the end of the first stage we were shown (which was a more polished version of the stage demoed at last year's E3), the hulking, cherub-faced boss is devoured in the gaping maw of a massive dragon, constructed entirely of shimmering, swirling strands of black hair.

Hair today, devoured tomorrow.

All of which brings us to the aforementioned nakedness. Bayonetta's very outfit, you see, is composed of hair, so when she's using a lot of it to attack, it leeches off her body, leaving her almost completely bare. We're still undecided whether this is the stupidest thing we've ever seen, or the coolest. Probably somewhere in between. The game certainly doesn't shy away from her sexuality - the enemy she's currently targeting, for instance, is highlighted with a pair of bright red lips on its chest.

I believe this move is known as 'The Brazilian'. (Alternate caption if you want one "Punch Giant Robo, punch!")

So who is this Bayonetta lady, anyway? Well, apparently she's a witch and the last of an ancient clan. She finds herself in the modern day, with no memory of her childhood, and travels to the fictional European city Vigrid in search of her past. This - as is always the way - seems to revolve around finding a blue gem that goes with the red one she currently wears. You get the idea. All you really need to know is this is a balls-out action game set amongst glorious European architecture, against 'The Lumen Sage' - evil angels and monstrous demonic guardians.

Baked to perfection in the coven.

Yes, evil angels. Many of the enemies you come up against literally have wings on their backs and halos hovering above their heads (which you collect and use to buy new weapons and upgrades). They'd kill you as soon as look at you, however, so you shouldn't feel too bad about thrashing them to the point where they literally explode in a shower of gore. Your cloven-hoofed enemies wield a number of weapons, including spiked metal balls on chains, huge bugles that also seem to double as muskets and staffs with razor-sharp metal arrays atop. Adding to her already formidable ability set, Bayonetta can wield these weapons herself, resulting in some pretty sweet moves. She can plant the staff, for instance, then spin around it like it's a stripper pole, firing her stiletto guns in all directions.

Dan Brown must be rolling in his grave.

The controls seem pretty straightforward, with the ability to shoot, kick, punch, jump and dodge. There are a stack of combos, with the hair attacks often being the final blow. Launch into a flurry of punches, for instance, and it will chain into a portal punch, where a giant demonic fist hurtles out of a portal above the enemy, punching it into the ground. Another special move sees Bayonetta pose upside down, firing off the guns strapped to her stilettos, with the player controlling the direction of fire. Dodging is important too, as successfully evading an enemy attack at the last second sends Bayonetta into 'Witch Time', aka bullet-time.

There are also a number of cinematic kills in the game, which are executed with a simple button press when prompted. One might see a guillotine appear, with Bayonetta repeatedly kicking the enemy in the ass until he falls into it and is decapitated. (Shades of God Hand!) Another sees an enemy smashed to bits in an iron maiden, while a third has Bayonetta hook a chain around an angel's neck in mid-air, then yank it back to shower the area with gibs. We'd have liked a little more control over these moves, but they're cool nonetheless. Perhaps the biggest potential weakness in the combat, however, is the lack of manual lock-on. The auto system seems to do a decent job, however, so we'll reserve judgment until we go hands-on (which should be soon). 

'Guillotine', it's French for 'a whale's vagina'.

As you can see from the screens, this is an absolutely stunning-looking game. One moment you're running along a vaulted and somewhat ecclesiastical mosaic-tiled corridor, the light streaming in from the tall windows along one side, the next you're walking the paths of a verdant tree-lined garden, a bubbling fountain its centrepiece. There are numerous visual flourishes to enjoy too: the fact that you knock off the aforementioned cherub boss' armour and even start to expose the muscle beneath his skin; the animalistic qualities of Bayonetta – her butterfly wings after double jumping, the hair dragon; the level of detail on Bayonetta's model, right down to the mole on her chin, the patterns on her outfit and the red and black motif in her attacks. 

The 'Beloved', a cherubic boss with a shining red weak spot on his back. There's always a weak spot.

Yes, this game is nothing short of vivid, and almost explodes out of the screen at times. Perhaps the best example of the kind of spectacle Bayonetta is trying to achieve, in fact, is the other level Sega demoed (which is apparently the game's opening sequence). In it, Bayonetta fights alongside another woman - at this point we don't know who she is - on the face of a destroyed clock tower as it falls off a cliff. It's falling high above an ominous planet's dark surface with a huge moon hanging in the sky. After battling angels and a flying centipede/dragon creature, the protagonists leap across chunks of falling debris to another large piece, where a double-headed dragon sweeps into view and spins its body, lashing its wings at the fighters. It then belches up twin fireballs at our heroines, before landing on the falling stone structure, its talons the size of a large car. The whole sequence is nothing short of spectacular. Of course, whether this particular section is playable, in amongst the insanity, remains to be seen, but as an opening it's undeniably bold, and as long as these kinds of cinematic excesses are balanced by more grounded sections - which we have every confidence they will be, Bayonetta is going to be one of the best action games of 2009. 

The four worlds formed again, and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed.

note: i do not own these articles or its contents.