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Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense action video game developed and originally published by PopCap Games for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The game involves a homeowner using many varieties of plants to repel an army of zombies. It was first released on May 5, 2009, and made available on Steam on the same day. A version for iOS was released in February 2010, and an HD version for the iPad.

An extended Xbox Live Arcade version introducing new gameplay modes and features was released on September 8, 2010. PopCap released a Nintendo DS version on January 18, 2011 with content unique to the platform. The PlayStation 3 version was released in February 2011. Furthermore, both the original Windows and Mac version of the game have been re-released with additional content in a Game of the Year version. The game received a positive response from critics, and was nominated for multiple Interactive Achievement Awards, alongside receiving praise for its musical score.

Other Information

• Developer : PopCap Games
• Publisher : PopCap Games
• Designer : George Fan
• Composer : Laura Shigihara
• Engine : PopCap Games Framework
• Version : 1.2.0.1073
• Platforms
  • Google Chrome (Chrome Web Store)Microsoft Windows,
  • Mac OS X
  • iOS
  • Xbox Live Arcade
  • PlayStation Network
  • Nintendo DS
  • DSiWare
  • Bada
• Release date :
  • DS : January 18, 2011
  • PC : May 5, 2009
  • iOS : February 15, 2010
  • Xbox Live Arcade : September 8, 2010
  • PlayStation Network : February 8, 2011
  • DSiWare : March 14, 2011
  • Android : May 31, 2011
• Genre : Tower defense
• Mode : Single-player, Multiplayer on XBLA and DS

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Continue reading »]]> Although the Austar deal is yet to be done and dusted, Foxtel is ramping up its Foxtel on Xbox 360 offering nicely with the elimination of data charges for BigPond customers and the free addition of six BigPond TV channels.

With Foxtel under attack from competing pay TV/IPTV services and the spectre of piracy, it’s no surprise to see Australia’s dominant pay television provider having made some pretty significant moves of late.

These have included the ability to download Foxtel programs to PCs via a dedicated Foxtel app, and has also included the delivery of Foxtel programming over non-traditional methods such as via IPTV using Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as the “set-top box” in question.

Now Foxtel is pulling out some more rounds of ammo for its big guns, and has done a deal that many thought should have been done in the first place: no data charges for Telstra BigPond customers who have signed up to the Foxtel on Xbox 360 service.

The deal is a no-brainer when you consider that Telstra is a 50% owner of Foxtel, although I do have a suggestion for both Telstra and Foxtel: it’s bloody well time you made “Mobile Foxtel” available in W-I-D-E-S-C-R-E-E-N, instead of the awful situation where the left and right hand side of the picture is, well, chopped off.

After all, Mobile Foxtel (which is a subscription-based IPTV service) came to life long before Foxtel on Xbox 360 was even a twinkle in Ken Williams’ eye, and it’s a damn shame that the ABC with its app can deliver W-I-D-E-S-C-R-E-E-N video, but Foxtel and Telstra, the supposed masters of their bits of the freakin’ universe, cannot do so, and instead let a semi-government organisation whoop their asses on this one. I expect much, much better from private enterprise.

Oh, and an iPad version of Foxtel wouldn’t go astray either.

That rant over, one which has been delivered almost ad nauseum to Telstra executives with no results as yet, it’s back to the real action of the day: the improvements to the Foxtel on Xbox 360 service.

Foxtel on Xbox 360 means “30 world-leading Foxtel channels”, the six new BigPond channels (which we’ll go into in a moment), Catch Up TV and “hundreds
of new release films, library movies and TV episodes from the FOXTEL on Xbox 360 On Demand service.”

Although some will cheer, I still find it astounding that Foxtel on Xbox 360 does not offer Fox News, a namesake of the Foxtel service – what, was Rupert Murdoch asking too much money? Were you too cheapskate-y?

Article source: http://www.itwire.com/your-it-news/entertainment/47475-foxbox-360-unmetered-on-bigpond-new-channels

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The HTC Droid Incredible 2 has arrived and everything suggests that it is a great successor to the original HTC Droid Incredible (check our Droid Incredible Review if you missed it). Some things have changed, like the loss of the AMOLED display (HTC could not procure enough of them), but other things have not: the Incredible 2 still has a great industrial design, solid software and a colorful display.

HTC presents the Incredible 2 as a smartphone for those who “dare to be different”, as a “standout cinematic experience” and a great imaging phone. This sounds great but is that really so? In this review, I’m going to go over the most frequently used features to tell you how the HTC Droid Incredible 2 looks -and behaves- in the real world. Are you ready? Let’s dive…

Context

We all use smartphones in our own way, so it’s important that I tell you where I come from: I typically check my email (a lot!) with Exchange, and I reply moderately because the virtual keyboard is not as productive as a physical one. I browse the web several times a day to check on news sites, but I rarely watch movies or play music. I don’t call much – maybe 10mn a day. On the “apps” side, I have a couple of social networks, but I rarely play games (on Android – what games?). This usage pattern will affect battery life and the perception of what features are useful.

Technical Highlights

Just to set some background information, here are some technical highlights related to the Droid Incredible 2. If you want to look at the full specifications, head to the official specs page at HTC.

Soc: SnapDragon 8655, 1Ghz  (what is an SoC?)
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
HSPA/WCDMA: for Europe/Asia: 900/AWS/2100 MHz
OS: Android 2.2.1 (+HTC Sense)
RAM: 768MB
User Storage: 7GB + MicroSD slot
Camera: 8 Megapixel + 1.3 Megapixel
Sensors: G-sensor, Compass, Proximity sensor, Light sensor
GPS: yes
Local networks: WIFI + Bluetooth
Battery: 1450mAh

Physical Design

Body

I like the design of the Droid Incredible 2, very much. The body has a matte black finish that has a slight “leathery” texture to it which makes it almost immune to fingerprints and increases the grip that your fingers will exert on it, thus reducing the odds of an encounter with concrete… The design in the back resembles the original Droid Incredible: it has a “bump” that houses the camera and battery. When holding the phone, you cannot feel the it with the palm of your hands (phew!). The design makes the phone looks significantly thinner than it really is – but it works. This is a nice object to look at.

The design is clean and consistent. Good job HTC!

The phone doesn’t feel like “plastic” at all, and seems extremely rigid. Some of you will love this, while others might want to have something that is a little bit lighter. Unfortunately, you can’t have it both ways. All the super-light phones have a “plastic” feel. It’s up to you to decide.

The Droid Incredible 2 also has very few physical buttons on its sides: basically “Power” and “Volume”, which is great because the more buttons you have, and the more likely you will press some of them unintentionally. HTC used to make phones with buttons *everywhere*, but this is a better way in my view.

Nice detail : the Android buttons rotate along with the image on screen. Now -that- is “polish”!

The Android buttons rotate with the screen. Nice.

Display

Indoors, the display is great

You might remember that the original Droid Incredible had an AMOLED display. We all agree that AMOLED has superior contrast and saturation, but good LCD displays tend to have more accurate colors and possibly better power consumption with bright content (AMOLED draws more power to display a white screen than a black screen).

Indoors, the screen is very good. The colors are nice, and it is plenty bright for my taste. If you push the brightness, you will lose in contrast, but this is not something that is unusual with LCD displays. I wish that HTC could have used an IPS LCD (like the iPhone 4 or the Optimus 2X) – but this is another story, and I’m not sure that IPS manufacturers can actually supply enough of them anyway.

In a bright environment, the glare from the screen can challenge the user

The only thing that I hold against this display is its shininess: outdoor usage can be challenging at time, especially here in California. The HTC Evo Shift 4G had a similar glare situation, but the Droid Incredible’s LCD seems overall better, except for that.

HTC Sense

HTC sense is a software layer unique to HTC smartphones. Its goal is to add functionalities that makes HTC users lives better. The best example is the copy/paste function (that actually works), but there are many other “add-ons”, like an LED flashlight, and Social Media widgets. If you want to know more about HTC Sense, check their (sparse) product page.

Basics

Dialing: No problem there, dialing a number can be done with the numeric pad, a contact card, or better yet, a “direct dial” shortcut on the phone’s main screen. If you have less than 10 people that you call all the time, the direct dial shortcut will do wonders as you can’t get any faster than that. If not, searching someone with their name should be pretty quick too.

Wireless Reception: The wireless situation has changed very little since last year when we reviewed the Droid Incredible. I have to say that ATT has improved the coverage around our offices, but overall, Verizon remains a more reliable network for data and even voice – especially in big cities like San Francisco or New York. I’ll never say that enough: it doesn’t matter what *my* network conditions are, as yours will be different. Try asking friends and family to see how their network is where you hang out.

Audio Quality: I found the call audio quality of the HTC Droid Incredible 2 to be above-average. It’s not “great” but it’s clear enough and voices aren’t muffled at all. There’s nothing to report on that front. This is your average+ voice quality over a wireless network.

The HTC virtual keyboard offers more functions, but is also visually cluttered

Virtual keyboard: As always, HTC has ditched the default Android keyboard in favor of its own, which has the particularity of showing which special characters will be used if the user leaves a key pressed for a second. Some people love it, others find it visually “busy” – I’ll let you make up your own mind.

I *love* the arrow keys at the bottom as they are very handy to navigate a few characters left and right, which is handy to fix typos. Those keys were not there when I played with the first Droid Incredible. I also like the voice keyboard key (it was there before) because it usually works very well. I’ve been impressed with Google’s voice recognition, especially since it works great, even with my foreign accent.

The copy/paste works beautifully

Copy/Paste: As you may know, there are plenty of Android 2.2 phones that *still* do not have a proper copy/paste. Although Google mostly fixed this in Android 2.3 (codenamed “GingerBread”), the Nexus S is still the only device with that OS. Most of the other phones are still on 2.2.x.

Thanks to HTC Sense, the Incredible 2 has a functional copy/paste that looks like what Android 2.3 has. It seems like a small thing, but when you need to copy/paste a human-unreadable piece of text like a 128-bit WEP key, you’ll thank HTC for this.

Web browsing works great. Flash support is not the fastest.

Web Browsing: It’s been pretty much proven that Android 2.2 has a great mobile web browsing. This is no different, and really it would stink if Google -the largest web company in the world- could not get a great web browser in their mobile OS

In-Browser Flash Support: As I’ve just said, regular HTML pages display just fine. But Flash support is something that more and more among you want, or simply *demand*! The good news is that in-browser Flash support is here. As a test, I went to a few Flash sites, one of which is wechoosethemoon.org. It works perfectly, and most of the plain-vanilla Flash sites (small business, restaurants…) should work just fine.

Flash games are a different story. Some will work fine, but remember that most have been designed for a desktop computer, so they might simply require too much processing power, or memory, to run smoothly on a phone. The Droid Incredible 2 is also not the fastest Flash-friendly Android phone out there, but we’ll get back to that in the Performance section.

Work

The Email app is efficient and has a functional search that many Android phones don’t have

Microsoft Exchange: A lot of professionals care about Exchange, and I do too because we’re using Microsoft’s email system at work. Android has long supported Exchange, even if handset  manufacturers sometime come up with their own email app.

On the HTC Droid 2 Incredible 2, the email app is very good. First, it uses a white background, which makes it much more readable in direct sunlight. Many other Android phones use a black background (users can’t change it!), and I think that it is a mistake. Secondly, HTC’s email app has everything that I need directly on the screen, including flags, batch actions and quick access to calendar invites.

Switching from a list view to a threaded view is quick and easy as well. I don’t use it much, but I do know that many users just love threaded views. In the end, I’m impressed with the email app, and this is one of the best on Android. Did I mention that it has a functional email search too?

GMail: Android being a Google product, it is almost a given that GMail would get a special treatment, and it does: it has its own email application that lets Google users “star” a message or labels use labels to categorize it. GMail also supports push-email, which means that messages arrive practically in real-time without requiring you to hit a “send/receive” button, which is called “pull-email”. Push is also more battery efficient than pull.

Other Email accounts: Most popular web email services are easy to setup, but if you host your email on your own domain, chances are that you have POP3 access. The Droid Incredible 2 can handle those as well obviously, but you would have to forget about push-email. Fortunately, hosted exchange or GMail pro can give you push-email with your own domain.

Google Docs: Back in the days, Google Docs was not editable on smartphone, but Google has fixed this a while back. If you wonder, Google Docs are accessible and editable on this smartphone. By the way, there is a free Google Docs app now. If you want something more MS Office friendly, try looking at DocumentsToGo.

Play

Smartphones have become great entertainment devices, and the Incredible 2 is no exception. Online (via wifi) or local videos can be played smoothly on its colorful display, and the compatibility with existing music and video files is higher than on most smartphones. Even Windows Media files are supported out of the box. The Incredible 2 won’t stream 1080p content to your TV, but the reality is that most people simply don’t do that kind of stuff.

Actually, the main issue with Android today is to find a legitimate source of HD content. Android users really deserve a good solution here. For tech-savvy folks, there’s always PlayOn for Android, but this requires having a PC  media server.

Video content: the HTC Droid Incredible 2 has been able to play all the MP4 files from my PSP collection, and a few that I created myself for reviews on this site. The quality of the playback is impeccable for those files, even for the DVD-quality (800×740, 30fps, 2.4Mbps) file that I had encoded with Nero Vision.

I haven’t tried all MP4 variants, but so far this is looking good. Some Android phones could not play all the files. The phone might be able to play 720p videos, but without an HDMI output I’m not sure what 720p would be used for… Officially supported format (out of the box: 3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv)

Games: I have tested the phone with a 3D racing game called Raging Thunder 2 Lite (free download). The game is smooth, and completely playable – no problem there. Like most 3D games on Android, it doesn’t utilize all the latest graphics feature from OpenGL ES 2.0, but on the other hand, it’s fast.

The overall issue with Android is the lack of cool games in my opinion. I’m not saying that you can’t find anything, but the choice is pretty thin compared to the iPhone. Things have gotten better, but if you haven’t been using Android before, it’s something that you should be aware of.

Music: Music playback is a basic function for any smartphone, and it is rare that one does poorly. With Android, you have the choice between using a web service via an application, or copy MP3 files (without copy-protection) from any other source. Overall, it is usually easy, especially if you don’t have thousands of files to deal with. Officially supported formats: aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)

The speaker sound is simply not very good

Speaker quality: There’s a small rear speaker in the Droid Incredible 2, but unfortunately, I don’t think that is it very good. The sound is not very loud and gets saturated quickly if you crank it to the max. I’ve definitely heard better speaker sound coming out of a smartphone: the Motorola Atrix, for example, does have an excellent sound quality.

Photos and Videos (Good)

Outdoor photos usually look very good

In broad daylight, the HTC Droid Incredible 2 snaps good photos. They are great for sharing photos over social media networks, and look fantastic on the web, especially when scaled down to 640×480 or something like that. I bet that you could also print that motorbike photo, and get a good 6×4” paper photo as well. If you want to look at the original photo files, go to our Ubergizmo Flickr page. You can also find samples from other smartphones there.

In low-light conditions, things get a little more difficult, especially for the focus. I’ve shot two photos in a shaded area near where we are, and although this is not “low-light” (as in “party/diner”), the auto focus already had a hard time keeping up with the subject.

Low-light is truly the next frontier for smartphones, and to be fair, this is a very difficult thing to pull off. From what I can tell, Sony’s EX-MOR sensor still remains the best low-light hardware that we’ve seen, but to put it in context, the Droid Incredible 2 does a very good job in daylight, and is slightly above average for low-light conditions.

Video capture is very similar, and I tried to shoot a movie with both bright lighting and some areas in the shadows (+transitions). The video is very slightly blurry, but on the other hand, there’s no pixel artifacts popping in high-frequencies areas (windows, trees…). Some handset manufacturer to try artificially crank up the “crispness” of the video, but that can also introduce other image-quality issues. Videos shot with the Droid Incredible 2 should look great on YouTube, and it is impressive to see that smartphones can easily beat my old “720p” camcorder that is 6x the size. (videos are recorded in .3gp format)

Data Sync

Media files: With The HTC Droid Incredible 2, it is easy to connect over USB and browse/copy user files just like you would on a regular USB drive/key. If you don’t have a lot of files to move around, this is actually much easier to deal with than Apple’s iTunes. Want to copy some photos? Connect the phone in “disk mode” and copy from/to. Really, it’s a no-brainer.

If you have tons of media files and music that constantly change, it’s a bit more complicated as this is a typical case where a data management application, like iTunes, is handy. The thing is: people who tend to have large collections of media files are probably savvy enough to figure things out.

These days, you also have the option to upload your content to an online storage and streaming service like Amazon Cloud Music. It works quite efficiently, but requires you to have an Internet connection. Winamp from AOL can also be used to manage large quantities of music files. In the end, you’ll have to poke around and see what works for you, but I think that the large majority of users will do just fine with copying their media files manually over USB.

Contacts, Emails: out of the box, Android is built for synchronizing everything over the Internet. However, some vendors add utilities to synchronize contacts and media files. Desktop email however is not an option (you might be able to find an app for that). Even Microsoft does not provide an email synchronization software with its Windows Phone 7, so in this smartphone world, you’re clearly better off with an online service.

For contacts, HTC provides a software that will sync contacts from Microsoft outlook to your Droid Incredible 2 phone. If you want to know all the little details, here’s the support page on HTC’s website:

Internet Connection

One of the perks of having a Droid Incredible 2 is that you have an Internet connection with you at all times. And fortunately, you can use the Droid Incredible 2 as a mobile hotspot, or a USB modem.

The Mobile Hotspot is -by far- the easiest way to share your phone’s internet with a laptop/tablet

Mobile hotspot: this is the easiest way to share your Internet connection. You simply need to go in the settings, enable the Mobile Hotspot feature, eventually setup a password, and that’s it – you can connect to it from your laptop. This is great if you need to go online in a pinch, but most people definitely can’t replace an Internet home connection with it – unless you have very basic Internet needs. The one downside of the Mobile Hotspot: it depletes the phone’s battery faster (but you can USB charge the phone at the same time).

USB modem: I never use this, but one could argue that it is slightly more secure. You will need to install drivers before using your phone as a modem. It’s a good fallback to have if you don’t have WIFI handy in your computer.

To get these speeds with a single “bar” qualifies as good, right?

Network Speed: in terms of raw speed, it will depend mostly on your location. For example at my desk, I get 1/4 bars and a Speedtest.net test yields a 1Mbps of download speed and 920kbps of upload speed. This is nowhere near the HTC Thunderbolt’s 4G performance, but yet it’s pretty good given the conditions.

Network quality: I have to say that with the Verizon network, I’ve never experienced a network “hang”, especially when I have 3-4 bars of connectivity. I unfortunately can’t say the same for my ATT iPhone 4.

Now, there’s a small catch: you can’t use the data network and the voice network at the same time. It has to do with how the Verizon network (CDMA) is built, but if you’re on the phone and need to check a Google map or something – this can be annoying, but most definitely not a show stopper for me.

System Performance

When talking about performance with a consumer electronics device, I always try to separate the “measured” and “perceived” performance. Measured metrics are obtained by running synthetic (not always life-like) benchmarks to stress specific parts of the system.

On the other hand, “perceived” performance is the user observation of performance. Although they should correlate, I would always place perceived performance as being the most important thing. After all, what is performance good for if you can’t tell?

“Measured performance”

To measure performance, we run a number of tests that show how the HTC Droid Incredible 2 measures against other popular smartphones.

BrowserMark, SunSpider: BrowserMark and SunSpider are two tests that measure the speed of Javascript, a key component for interactivity in websites. To be clear, this does not measure “how fast” pages are loading. Instead this look at how fast scripting code can execute. Javascript is used in modern websites for user interface or even complete applications/games.

The Droid Incredible 2 gets an “average” score, which is not abnormal considering that it is a single-core smartphone. The smartphones that lead this test have two cores (Tegra 2 SoC). Fortunately, few sites are truly javascript intensive, especially sites for mobiles.

GUIMark 2 (Flash): This test measure the Adobe Flash performance. Flash is a widely used multimedia platform and you can find it virtually everywhere as advertisement, video or other forms of interactive web page module.

To put things in context, there are plenty of phones that don’t support Flash at all, so the mere fact that it works is already a good thing. Now, the Droid Incredible 2 scores in the 12-15 frames per second (FPS) ballpark, which is respectable. However, other phones that have hardware acceleration for Flash are almost twice as fast.

Flash performance addresses several needs. The basic needs for it are Flash websites like small businesses, restaurants, art galleries etc… There, you won’t have any problems – they work well. On the other hand, the HTC Incredible 2 performance is probably too low for many Flash-based games, and for higher definition Flash video (if there is such a thing on Mobile…).

CPU Benchmark: This test tries to measure the number-crunching capabilities of the phone. Again, the Droid Incredible 2 gets an average score, but it is not far away from very popular phones like the Google Nexus S or the HTC Thunderbolt.

NeoCore Graphics Benchmark: Neocore is an old polygonal 3D graphics test, but most Android games are still using relatively old graphics techniques, so it is still relevant – hopefully not for long.

As you can see, the smartphones are packed in “clumps”: each basically represents a different generation of graphics processors (GPUs). While the Droid Incredible 2 graphics processor fares reasonably well, it simply cannot match the current generation of Tegra dual-core + Geforce GPUs. In short, if you are a gamer, you might have to choose between slower frame rate with this phone, or another phone. Keep in mind that higher framerate also means faster battery depletion as games will render many more frames…

Note: I have removed the Motorola Atrix from this chart because the test is not adapted to its higher screen resolution. The final FPS score is artificially low, and I have to write a few more paragraphs to explain what’s going on. If you are curious, go check my Motorola Atrix review and jump to the performance section.

“Perceived performance”

All those numbers are great, but the perceived (or “felt”) performance can be a slightly different story. Out of the box, the Droid Incredible 2 feels very responsive and fast. This is something that has been getting consistently better with Android in the past 6 months.

As long as you’re not playing a game, or browsing a Javascript-heavy site, the phone is actually very similar to other recent smartphones, including those with stratospheric graphics or javascript scores.

The only exception to this is web browsing (+Flash). I have to say that on a dual-core phone, web browsing is noticeably faster, even if it is not twice as fast. This is a “clear-cut” improvement from dual-core architectures that I think virtually everyone would benefit from.

Keep it fast: If you want to keep the Incredible 2 zippy, make sure that you don’t have many apps running in the background. Android fanboys will tell you that the OS takes care of everything (blablabla…), but it doesn’t. Just yesterday, some friends played with this phone, left a bunch of apps ON, and after 15mn it was starting to get “warm” which is always a sign of heavy processor activity. Sure enough, the battery was being drained quickly, and the phone started to be sluggish.

Battery Life (good)

I’ve gathered some data that I hope will give you a good hint as of what things “cost” when you use this smartphone. I’ve taken a few frequent cases that everybody will bump into, eventually.

30mn of activity will cost you (50% display, no sound):

• Gaming: 12% of battery life (Raging Thunder 2 lite)
• 3G Web Browsing: 10% of battery life (random popular site browsing, automated)
• WIFI Youtube Video: 10% of battery life (mobile HQ)

Note that I tried this with a battery that was 80% charged. It is possible that battery depletion is not linear (although it often is). Devices that get hot are also bad for battery performance.

I would like to take more time to use the HTC Droid Incredible 2 in “normal” (non-review) conditions so that I can provide you with a more accurate battery life estimate that corresponds to my “context” paragraph at the beginning. I don’t want to hold the whole review for this, so check back in a couple of days, and I should have an answer for you. (thanks!)

Interestingly, the official specifications show that the theoretical talk time over a GSM network is 580 minutes, but only 380 minutes if using a WCDMA network. I’m not quite sure if this is taking into account that GSM networks might be denser, but the difference is huge.

On the other hand, the official standby time for WCDMA is 370 hours, while in GSM, it is only 290 hours. This is something that I’ll try to dig into, but for now, I don’t know the answer.

Conclusion (very good)

The Droid Incredible 2 is a very good phone. Its design, ergonomics and usability more than make up for the relative lack of performance when compared to the fastest handsets out there. For folks who value aesthetics, this phone is up there with the Nexus S and one of the best Android smartphones. And while it might not have the latest “Gingerbread” Android 2.3 (this unit is on 2.2.1), the HTC Sense software does a great job of providing some of the things that are missing.

The ideal user for this phone is someone who wants a nice-looking Android phone with very decent performance and battery life.

Don’t miss these

Those who seek the latest features might want to look at the HTC Thunderbolt for its uber-fast 4G LTE support (amazing, really), and gamers might want to check the Atrix and Optimus 2X smartphones.

Obviously, outside of the Android realm, you have the iPhone 4 – but you should know that the iPhone 5 (or iPhone 4S, whatever Apple will call it) is on the way… you’ve been warned.

Article source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/droid-incredible-2-review/

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Of the many great lines in the classic 1985 film “The Breakfast Club,” my favorite has always been the knowing enticement delivered by Judd Nelson’s character, the delinquent John Bender: “Being bad feels pretty good, huh?”

It most certainly can, and that is why the Grand Theft Auto series is so successful, both commercially and artistically. In its ambition, fearlessness, style and production quality, it stands apart from every other game franchise.

All sorts of games are about visions of power, often accompanied by violence. But most titles are set far away from what most people would consider the real world: off in outer space, on a historical battlefield, in a mythical land of dragons and elves. A distant, fanciful realm both heightens a sense of fantasy and allows designers to avoid tough questions about social responsibility.

Most designers fear those questions. Rockstar Games, maker of Grand Theft Auto, does not. The company appears to recognize that it is not necessarily irresponsible to portray the real world’s underbelly. After all, Americans love gangsters and criminals in their entertainment. Americans even like to see the bad guys win once in a while.

Grand Theft Auto IV and its tale of the Balkan immigrant Niko Bellic were a revelation last year. This week, Rockstar is releasing the first additional episode for the title as a $19.99 download available only for the Xbox 360 via Microsoft’s Xbox Live Internet service (it is not available at retail stores).

Called “The Lost and Damned,” the new episode is set in the same dark, vibrant, often hilariously sarcastic version of the metropolitan New York area that provided the backdrop for, and was the most compelling element of, the original game. While dystopian, this vision is not nihilistic. Like the original, the new episode conveys a humor, wit, intelligence and sense of cultural satire that, although sophomoric at times, at least never takes itself too seriously.

“The Lost and Damned” suffers from a few curious and unfortunate design decisions — players often have less freedom than in the original — that will probably prompt most to return to the original game after completing the new episode’s main story. But there is no question that it is the most fully realized, thoroughly produced and substantial downloadable add-on yet released for a console game. Anyone who enjoys Grand Theft Auto IV should get it.

From a business perspective, 2009 may be shaping up as the year when downloads become a viable path to develop and release significant console games; if so, “The Lost and Damned” will be leading the way. (The new episode will probably become available for the PlayStation 3 and PCs once Rockstar’s exclusive deal with Microsoft expires, but it is unclear when that will happen.)

In “The Lost and Damned,” the player takes the role of one Johnny Klebitz, vice president of a New Jersey motorcycle gang called the Lost. Johnny has been running the gang ever since its president, Billy, went into a drug rehab program as part of a plea deal. As the episode begins, Billy is leaving the program and returning to what he considers his rightful place at the head of the pack. Naturally, Johnny and Billy have different ideas about how the gang should be run and how aggressively they should confront their archrivals, the Angels of Death.

The writing here is as streetwise and sassy as in the original game, but perhaps it is somewhat inevitable that the scope of Johnny’s story feels much smaller and less epic than Niko’s journey last year. Ultimately, this is the story of a small-time biker gang in New Jersey, little more.

In Grand Theft Auto IV, you could move into a penthouse if you liked. In “The Lost and Damned,” your only beds are some ratty mattresses in a couple of filthy, run-down buildings. In Grand Theft Auto IV you could choose the overall vibe of your lifestyle (what you drive, where you live). In “The Lost and Damned” there is no way to change the hard-core thrash metal coming from the radio in your disgusting kitchen.

That’s fine if you like hard-core thrash metal. But a vital part of the Grand Theft Auto experience has always been giving players free rein to define their own tastes and preferences. The new episode gets away from that a bit.

In terms of the actual mechanics of driving and shooting, it’s significantly easier than Grand Theft Auto IV. It often requires you to drive a motorcycle (another contrast with the original game, in which players usually could choose from a range of vehicles), and the bikes’ handling is significantly more forgiving than in the original game. So while “The Lost and Damned” includes about a third as many missions as the original, it takes significantly less than a third as long to complete. I got through the main story in about 8.5 hours (and then spent about the same amount of time exploring and completing optional shootouts and races).

For $19.99, that is a great value. Despite its occasional stumbles, “The Lost and Damned” sets a new standard for what a downloadable console add-on can achieve. Being bad still feels pretty good.

Continue reading »]]> As the rest of the tech world scrambles to assess the implications of the recently announced 5,000 layoffs at software giant Microsoft, news has come in that might potentially spell the end of the company’s nearly 30-year-old Flight Simulator series.

Microsoft confirmed Friday that the software giant has shuttered ACES Studios, the developer of the Flight Simulator series of games, whose latest incarnation is Flight Simulator X. The simulation is considered Microsoft’s oldest product, whose original version first shipped in 1982.

However, a Microsoft spokeswoman said that while the studio has been closed, the software company remains committed to the Flight Simulator franchise, without explaining how future products can be launched without a dedicated software development team backing them.

“We can confirm the closing of ACES Studios, which was responsible for the Flight Simulator franchise,” Microsoft spokeswoman Kelda Rericha told Appscout. “Following our annual strategy review process, IEB [Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business unit] is making adjustments within our business to align our people against our highest priorities. The closure of ACES Studios was one of those specific changes.”

Rericha refused to disclose any further details regarding the future of the company. She did, however, suggest that the Flight Simulator series is likely to stick around in some form or another. “We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise, which has proven to be a successful PC-based game for the last 27 years,” Rericha added. “You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great Live experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time.”

Of course, the Flight Simulator franchise is a fairly broad one, and anything falling under the largely online Live umbrella would likely be fairly different than the game’s traditionally resource-intensive online incarnation.

“It’s definitely confusing; I wish I had more clarification on that that we could provide, Rericha added. “At this point, they’re just not talking about it yet – how the product will, and if the product will, live within Microsoft.”

Microsoft does not have a time frame on when it will provide additional information, Rericha added.

The most likely scenario seems that, like the rest of us, Microsoft is still attempting to assess exactly how such a large number of redundancies will affect its business strategy. Projects like Flight Simulator have likely been given a lower priority than, say, Windows or Office, and therefore their fates are still not entirely certain even in Redmond.

Numerous contractors also confirmed that they’d been let go in the ACES layoffs, including independent coders who were also fans of the series.

“One thing that every person at ACES will tell you is that the community and each of you in it mean the world to us for sharing our passion of flight, and so it really hurts that Gib and I can’t tell you more,” “PlaneEater, one of the affected contractors, wrote in a thread on SimOuthouse.com. “I was a FS fan before I joined the FS team, and being able to work on the sim we all love so much was a dream come true. I just want to thank everyone here for the time and passion they’ve poured into Flight Sim for so many years, and to let you all know that every person at ACES is in awe of how much the community cares about what we build.”

It seems unlikely that Flight Simulator will go away entirely, even if it means branding a Live game with the name, fans speculated.

Microsoft Shuts Down ‘Flight Simulator’ Game Studio – News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Continue reading »]]> Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console has sold over 28 million units worldwide, 8 million more than the Sony Playstation 3.

According to figures from Microsoft, the Xbox 360 is ahead of the Playstation 3 by one million units in Europe and by 7 million in the US.

However, both consoles are being outsold by the Nintendo Wii, which sold 3 million units in the UK and 10.17 million in the US last year.

Microsoft is keen to point out that it’s leading in the total lifetime spending figures for each console. A total of US$13.2 billion has been spent on the Xbox 360 since it was launched, compared to US$10.8 billion on the Wii and US$6.1 billion on the PS3.

“Our goal for 2008 was to reach new audiences by bringing ground-breaking games and entertainment to Xbox 360,” said senior vice president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick.

“Looking forward, new waves of innovation will extend our position as the global leader in interactive entertainment”.

Xbox 360 Outsells Playstation 3 – PC World

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Continue reading »]]>

Left 4 Dead is a co-operative, survival horror, first-person shooter video game. It was developed by Turtle Rock Studios, which was purchased by the Valve Corporation part-way into development. The game uses the Source game engine, and is available for Windows-based personal computers and the Xbox 360.

The game pits four Survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic against hordes of aggressive zombies. There are two game modes: a four-player, co-op Campaign mode, and an eight-player Versus mode. In both modes, an AI, dubbed “The Director”, controls level pacing and item spawns, in an attempt to create a dynamic experience and increase replay value.

The game went gold on November 13, 2008, and was released on November 18, 2008 in the United States; and on November 21, 2008 in Europe to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the release of Half-Life. A five-minute trailer was released on Halloween. A playable demo was made available on November 6 for pre-purchasers and on November 11 for the general public, and was closed on November 18, 2008. The demo contained the majority of the first two chapters in the “No Mercy” campaign, and was playable in both single and multi-player co-op.

Left 4 Dead was well received with an aggregate score of 88% on Game Rankings and 89% on Metacritic upon its release, with praise given for its replay value, focus on cooperative play, and movie-like experience. Similar to Team Fortress 2, Valve intends to support the game with downloadable content.

Gameplay

Left 4 Dead is a first-person shooter but makes use of the third-person perspective during certain events or player actions. In Campaign and Single-player mode, the player takes control of one of the Survivors; if four human players are not available, then the remaining Survivors are AI-controlled bots. They play through the levels fighting off the “Infected”—living humans who have been infected with a mutated rabies virus to which the Survivors are immune.

The game is focused on cooperation and team play; colored outlines of teammates are visible through walls to help players stick together and coordinate their movement. If a Survivor falls off a ledge, then they may automatically hang onto it and can only be helped up by another Survivor. If a Survivor’s health is depleted, then they become incapacitated and can only be revived by another Survivor, at which point they continue playing with a low amount of health that decreases over time. If a Survivor has been incapacitated and revived twice without tending to their wounds, then they will experience distorted black-and-white vision, and the next incapacitation will kill the player. If a Survivor incurs enough damage while incapacitated, or is not eventually helped up by teammates, then the incapacitated player will die. If a Survivor is killed, then they will respawn in a closet or other enclosed space after a period of time (except during key points in the scenario or in Versus mode), but must be freed by another Survivor to rejoin the team. Otherwise, the player must wait until the next level. Survivors can share first-aid kits and pain pills and help each other heal. Left 4 Dead has friendly fire that cannot be disabled, increasing the need for caution around other Survivors. On the Easy difficulty level, friendly fire does not harm teammates but still registers as having occurred.

The Survivors communicate by voice commands that are accessed by quick menus, and some sound off automatically when performing actions such as reloading or spotting Infected. Over 1000 unique lines have been recorded for each Survivor. Additional communication of player actions is conveyed through character lights. Also, weapon-mounted flashlights and muzzle flashes help the players in determining whether their companions are shooting, performing melee attacks, reloading or moving. Due to control issues and the likelihood of players using a LIVE headset, the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead omits the quick phrases feature.

The game is experienced through four campaigns that take place in various urban and rural locales. Multiple visual in-game hints, including license plates, park signs, and markings on airport equipment, imply that these locations are in Pennsylvania. Each campaign is divided into several chapters marked by safe rooms, which are checkpoints where players can heal, re-arm, and revive players who were killed. Specifically, the four campaigns are: “No Mercy”, an urban setting; “Death Toll”, a small-town and countryside setting; “Dead Air”, an airport setting; and “Blood Harvest”, a woodland and farm setting. The levels are essentially linear, with distinct beginnings and ends, but there are a number of alternate routes to follow with more supplies, helping to create a sense of non-linearity. In the final chapter of each campaign, the players must defend a position from an onslaught of Infected until rescue arrives. Each campaign typically lasts between 45 and 75 minutes depending on the difficulty level.

Survivor characters

There are four playable human characters in the game: Francis (voiced by Vince Valenzuela), a tattoo-covered biker; Zoey (voiced by Jen Taylor), a college student and horror movie enthusiast; Louis (voiced by Earl Alexander), a Junior Systems Analyst in his company’s IT department; and Bill (voiced by Jim French), a former Green Beret and a Vietnam veteran. Early plans were for players to be randomly assigned to characters but in the final release, players can choose any character—provided that the character has not already been selected—or be randomly assigned an unselected character.

Survivors are armed with various firearms. Each player starts the game with a M1911 pistol. It has unlimited ammo and is the only weapon that the Survivor can use when they are incapacitated. When a second pistol is found, the player can dual wield them. Regardless of what weapon a player is using, a melee attack can be used. At the beginning of each campaign, the player can choose between an Uzi submachine gun and a pump-action shotgun. As the Survivors progress through a campaign, more powerful weapons can be found: the M16A3 assault rifle, Benelli M4 Super 90 combat shotgun, and Ruger Mini-14 rifle. In addition to firearms, a player can also carry three other items in their inventory: improvised grenades (either a Molotov cocktail to create a wall of fire or a modified pipe bomb designed to attract the Infected to it, with a blinking light and alarm attached to it); a first-aid kit, which heals the Survivor on which it is used; and pain pills, which provide temporary health and can be handed to teammates for later use. Also available are environmental weapons, such as gasoline cans, oxygen cylinders, and LPG tanks, that explode when shot. These can be picked up and moved by the survivors, however while carrying an object they cannot use their pistols or primary weapons.

Infected characters

The “Infected” are the Survivors’ foes in Left 4 Dead, and they appear to be partly inspired by the infected from several modern films, including 28 Days Later. The Common Infected encountered during the game are fast and agile, weak individually, but may be overwhelming in numbers. They occasionally attack en masse, referred to in game as a “Horde”. In addition to the Common Infected, there are five “Special Infected” whose mutations grant them special attacks that make them much more dangerous: the Hunter, an agile Infected that can pounce on Survivors from a great distance; the Smoker, an Infected that ensnares Survivors with its long tongue at a distance and, upon death, releases a cloud of smoke; the Boomer, a bloated Infected whose vomit and bile (which may be released at will or upon death) blind the player and attract the Horde; the Tank, a huge, muscular Infected that is the most powerful and difficult to kill; and the Witch, a passive female Infected that, when provoked by a loud sound, light, gunshots, or a Survivor approaching too close to her, will attack her provoker. The victims of some of these attacks require assistance from a teammate before they can regain control. Each of the Special Infected, as well as approaching Hordes, have a distinctive sound or a timely musical cue, making their presence easily recognizable by players.

More Information

• Developer(s)  Valve Corporation, Certain Affinity (Xbox 360 version)
• Publisher(s)  Valve Corporation
• Distributor(s)  Electronic Arts (retail), Steam (online)
• Designer(s)  Mike Booth (director)
• Writer(s)  Chet Faliszek
• Composer(s)  Mike Morasky
• Engine  Source
• Platform(s)  Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360
• Genre(s)  Survival horror
• First-person shooter
• Mode(s)  4 player Cooperative multiplayer, 4 vs 4 Versus multiplayer

Links

• Left 4 Dead official website
• Left 4 Dead on Steam

Continue reading »]]> Burnout Paradise (formerly known as Burnout 5) is Criterion Games’s newest installment in the Burnout video game series. It was released in January 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was also released on the PlayStation Store in September 2008 and will be available on Microsoft Windows from February 2009. It has an open world set in the fictional Paradise City, with no loading times and no traditional online lobbies or game menus. The song “Paradise City” by Guns N’ Roses is the game’s title music and also featured on the in-game soundtrack.

Gameplay

According to Alex Ward from developer Criterion Games, this game is a “complete reinvention” of the Burnout series. He also said “To create truly next-generation gameplay, we needed to create a truly next-generation game, from the ground up.” Despite being in an open world, the game still retains the 60 frames-per-second most Burnout games have used. Initially day and night cycles were not included in the game but a software update entitled “Davis” added this element to the game. Records will now be kept on players’ drivers licenses and there will be statistics such as fastest time and biggest crash for every street in the game. Unlike in previous Burnout games, Crash Mode, now called Showtime, can now be started at any time and place in the game; though Showtime mode is rather different from the usual Crash Mode. Also, for races, players may now take any route to get to the destination. Races and other events are simply started by stopping at any of the 120 traffic lights around Paradise City and applying the accelerator and brake at the same time. Multiple settings have been confirmed to be fully customisable such as:

• Boost Rules”, where the player may choose cars that use the boost styles from previous Burnout games.
• Whether or not there is traffic in an online event.
• Start and finish points for online events with up to 16 checkpoints.

The damage system has also been reworked. There are now two different types of crash based on the car’s condition after the crash. If the player’s car manages to retain all four wheels, and not break its chassis, the player may drive out of the crash and continue playing; this is called a “driveaway”. If a player’s car loses any of its wheels, has the engine damaged too much from an impact, or winds up outside of the game’s map, the car is in a “wrecked” state and the player will have to wait until their car is reset. Cars can also be torn into several pieces, be compressed and deform around objects as you crash into them. However, Alex Ward confirmed in the Official Crash FM podcast that cars may not be ripped in half, as concept pictures and early information had stated. There are also other cars which can be obtained by typing in a sponsor code. These only work for certain regions. One of these sponsor code cars is the Steel Wheels version of the Carson GT concept car, which features the car with an armor plate and supercharger. The code for this car could be obtained from pre-ordering the game from certain retailers. When starting the single player mode you are assigned with a learner’s permit and a single car. While playing you race and win events to earn points towards a higher license, from a Learners Permit (E-class), D-class, C-class, B-class, A-class, Burnout Paradise (S-class), Burnout Elite (SS-class) up to Criterion Elite (SSS-class). After earning a new license every event that you complete is reset so you can replay the event again to earn credit towards a new license.

Cars now have manufacturer and model names, which are loosely based on real-world cars but are mostly fictional (some of the cars are even based on those from a previous Burnout game, e.g. the Hunter Manhattan is the Classic from Burnout 2). Cars may not be “tuned up” or customized apart from color changes, which may be done in real-time by driving through the forecourt of a blow shop, which will randomly assign a color to the car, or by selecting the color in the Junkyard where you select your vehicle (after taking the car through an Auto Repair drivethru at least once). Other real-time changes include driving through the forecourt of a gas station to automatically refill your Burnout meter, and driving through the forecourt of a repair shop to automatically repair your car, allowing you to extend a Road Rage or Marked Man event beyond the car’s damage limits.

The online lobby system used by most video games has been replaced by a streamlined system known as “Easy Drive”. While driving, players simply hit right on the D-Pad and the Easy Drive menu pops up on the bottom left hand corner of their screen. From there, players are able to invite another player from their friends list. Once friends have joined the game, the hosting player is then able to pick from a variety of events to play. There are also special Burnout Racing Team cars that you can get.

Car types

Cars in Burnout Paradise can have one of three types of “Boost Standard”, showing what a player will have to do with the car in order to build up their boost bar:

• Speed: Driving the car at high speeds through oncoming traffic and/or weaving through traffic (performing a “Near Miss” where the car avoids another by a few inches or less) builds up the boost bar. This is the only type of boost in which the boost is not available until the meter is completely filled. When it is filled, the boost bar becomes inflamed and the player may use it until they crash, let off of the boost, or run out of boost power. However, the depletion of boost power on a Speed Boost can cause a “Burnout” if the player keeps the boost button pressed after their boost bar is depleted, after which the bar refills allowing the player to continue using their boost. As long as the boost is continued to be used and the car is continuing to be driven, the player can create a “Burnout Chain” for as long as the player is able. This is the only standard that allows a Burnout chain.
• Stunt: The player can only build up this boost bar by performing stunts with the car (driving through oncoming traffic counts). However, as long as there is boost power stored, the player is able to use it. The Stunt boost is the longest boost bar initially.
• Aggression: The player can fill up this boost bar by reckless driving, such as performing traffic checks and/or takedowns, knocking over signs, performing stunts, and driving through oncoming traffic. Initially, the boost bar of these cars shows a “x2″ at the end of the bar. If a player performs a takedown, the bar can be extended until the player switches cars (the only boost standard that has this ability), thereby showing a “x3″ at the end of the bar instead. Like the Stunt standard, boost can be used immediately, regardless of if the player has the bar completely filled.

Cars are also rated on three merits when viewed at the Junkyard:

• Speed: How fast a car can go. The higher the rating, the higher the top speed in which a car will be able to reach without using boost.
• Boost: The cars boost power. The higher this rating, the longer the boost power on that car will last before running out.
• Strength: How long a car can go before becoming completely totaled. The higher the rating, the more likely the car will be able to survive a crash or be able to make another car crash instead of them (if a car is stronger than another, it is more likely that it will takedown the other in a collision). This rating also determines how many crashes a car can withstand in a Road Rage or Marked Man event if the car enters when it is in perfect condition.

Event types

Races, Marked Man events and Burning Routes can start in any location around Paradise City, but the destination is always one of eight: the Maplemount Country Club, the Coastguard HQ, the Waterfront Plaza, the Paradise Wildcats Baseball Stadium, the Fort Lawrence Naval Yard, the Lone Stallion Ranch, the Paradise City Wind Farm and the Crystal Summit Observatory. Road Rages and Stunt Runs have no set end destination.

• Race: Races consist of the player and at least one other car (races with just one opponent are known as ‘Duels’). The player is given a location to race to. The player can take any route through the city to the location, with the aid of a flashing road names at the top of the screen when the player is advised to turn. The first to arrive at the destination wins; there are no points or prizes awarded for placing second or third, unlike most racing games. Online races can also include checkpoints that need to be crossed before reaching the finish.

• Road Rage: The player is given a target number of takedowns and a time limit. A Road Rage event is won by meeting or exceeding this target in the given time limit. A variant of this event was made available for online play in the “Cagney” update.

• Marked Man: In this event, the player is given a destination. At least one opponent is trying to stop the player from reaching the destination by scoring takedowns against them. The player must survive from start to finish in order to win (the player can be part of collisions, but loses the event if he totals the car). A variant designed for online gameplay was included in the “Cagney” update.

• Stunt Run: Players are given a target score. They must earn points towards that score by using boosts, jumps, drifts and other such stunt moves. An online version of this event type was added to the game as part of the “Cagney” update.

• Burning Route: Each Burning Route requires the player to use a specific car. Once the player is driving the required car, they race against the clock to a specified location. When a Burning Route is won the player wins an upgraded version of the vehicle they completed it with. The upgraded vehicle can boast extra boost power, more base speed or a stronger body (but usually in exchange for another category being made weaker). This event is unique in that it does not reset when the player earns a new license, because it’s tied to the car used to run it rather than the license level the player is presently at.

After the “Burnout Bikes Update” (formerly called “Davis”), two new events were added that are exclusive to the Motorcycle

• Burning Ride: Same as a Burning Route but for the motorcycles. However, some of these are now timed checkpoint events wherein the rider must ride through a set number of checkpoints before the time limit expires. These checkpoint events also do not have to end at one of the predetermined endpoints in Paradise City (they can terminate at intersections).

• Midnight Ride: Same as a Burning Ride but takes place between the in-game hours of 8PM and 8AM.

More Information

• Developer(s)  Criterion Games
• Publisher(s)  Electronic Arts
• Designer(s)  Alex Ward (Creative director)
• Series  Burnout
• Platform(s)  PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
• Release date(s)  Retail, PS3, Xbox 360, NA January 22, 2008, EU January 25, 2008, Download, NA September 25, 2008, EU September 25, 2008, Ultimate Box, February 2009
• Genre(s)  Racing, Sandbox
• Mode(s)  Single-player, Multiplayer

Links

• Official developer web site
• Official publisher website
• Wiki on this subject at Burnout Wiki

Continue reading »]]> Rock Band 2 is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, as the sequel to Rock Band. It is the second title in the Rock Band series. The game software was released in North America for the Xbox 360 on September 14, 2008, along with individual instrument peripherals. The software/hardware bundle for the Xbox 360 was made available on October 19, 2008, the same date that the PlayStation 3 versions of the software, hardware, and bundle of the two were released. Versions of the game for the Wii and PlayStation 2 platforms were released on December 18, 2008.

The game allows players to perform in virtual bands by providing up to four players with the ability to play three different peripherals modeled after music instruments (a guitar peripheral for lead guitar and bass guitar gameplay, a drum peripheral, and a microphone). These peripherals are used to simulate the playing of rock music by hitting scrolling notes on-screen. In addition to the 84 songs included on the game disc and 20 free downloadable songs, hundreds of additional downloadable songs are being released for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 versions; all of these songs, existing and future, are compatible with all Rock Band titles. Rock Band 2 features improved drum and guitar controllers, while supporting older controllers, as well. New features include a “Drum Trainer” mode, a “Battle of the Bands” mode, online capabilities for “World Tour” mode, and merchandising opportunities for the players’ virtual bands.

Upon release, Rock Band 2 received very positive reviews from critics, while selling 363,000 copies in the first two weeks.

Gameplay

The core gameplay in Rock Band 2 is mostly unchanged from the original Rock Band. Players use peripherals modeled after musical instruments to simulate the performance of rock music. Players must play these instruments in time with musical “notes” as they scroll towards them on the screen. Rock Band 2 offers single-player and multiplayer gameplay for lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals, allowing for any combination of parts to play as a band.

During song performances, the game displays up to three tracks of vertically scrolling colored music notes, one section each for lead guitar, drums, and bass. The colored notes on-screen correspond to buttons on the guitar and drum peripherals. Along the top of the screen is the vocals display, which scrolls horizontally. The lyrics display beneath green bars, which represent the pitch of the individual vocal elements. The remainder of the screen is used to display the band’s virtual characters as they perform in concert.

During cooperative play as a band, all players earn points towards a common score, though score multipliers and “Overdrive” are tracked separately for each player. Overdrive is individually collected by players during select portions of a song by successfully playing all white notes (or yellow notes for vocals) within that section (or by using the guitar controller’s whammy bar during white sustained notes). Once a player’s Energy Meter is filled halfway, they can deploy their Overdrive, resulting in the “Band Meter” (which tracks how well each player is doing) changing more dramatically. This allows players to strategically use Overdrive to raise the Band Meter and pass portions of a song they otherwise might have failed. Overdrive can be used to activate score multipliers, which vary based on a player’s note streak. Players can deploy Overdrive independently of each other, as well as collect additional Overdrive while it is deployed and draining.

Each band member can choose the difficulty at which they play (spanning Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert). If a player does not play well enough and falls to the bottom of the Band Meter, they will fail out of the song and their instrument will be muted from the audio mix. However, any active player can activate their Overdrive to bring failed players back into the song, “saving” the band member. However, a band member can only be saved twice; after the third failure, they cannot be brought back for that song. Failed players continuously drag the band’s Band Meter down until they are saved. If the player is not saved before the Band Meter reaches the bottom, the band fails the song. Players can earn Overdrive bonuses from “Unison Phrases” and extra points from a “Big Rock Ending.”

Instrument peripherals

All of the original Rock Band peripherals are compatible with Rock Band 2 for the same console. Similarly, the newly designed peripherals for Rock Band 2 are backwards compatible with the original Rock Band.

The game features special Rock Band 2-branded guitar controllers modeled after the Fender Stratocaster. The guitar is nearly identical to the original Rock Band Stratocaster in terms of gameplay. The colored fret buttons corresponding to on-screen notes must be held while the strum bar is pressed. The Stratocaster controller has five additional fret buttons of smaller size located higher up the guitar neck, allowing for notes to be played as finger tapping during solos. The controller also features an effects pickup switch that can toggle between five different effects. Overdrive for guitarists can be deployed by holding the controller in a vertical position or pressing the “Select/Back” button. Improvements to the new guitar include a more reliable strum bar and Overdrive accelerometer, a self-timing calibration, and quieter fret buttons. The bass drum pedal from the drum set can also be used with the guitar to activate Overdrive mode.

The bundled drum controller is also similar to the one featured in the original Rock Band. It features four rubber drum pads and a kick pedal. The pads have colored rings around the edges that correspond to the notes on-screen. The kick pedal simulates the bass drum, with on-screen notes represented as orange horizontal lines. To use the drum controller, players must strike the pads with the included authentic drum sticks and/or press the kick pedal in time with the scrolling notes on-screen. Drummers can improvise in special “freestyle drum fill” sections of songs, indicated by the columns for each note turning a solid color. Overdrive for drummers can be deployed by hitting the crash cymbal (green note for right-handed configuration) that appears directly after a freestyle drum fill. New improvements include velocity-sensitive drum pads (the force of the drum hits will dictate the in-game volume) with more rebound and less noise, a metal-reinforced kick pedal, expansion plugs for separately-sold cymbals manufactured by Mad Catz, and wireless capabilities.

Rock Band 2′s USB microphone instrument is identical to the microphone from the original game. Singers are judged by pitch, or during “talking parts”, their ability to enunciate spoken vocals. The phoneme detection system used for atonal vocal parts has been completely replaced with a new, more lenient engine, and songs imported from Rock Band and pre-existing downloadable content will be converted to use the new phoneme system. Some sections without vocals will display circle notes, allowing for the microphone to be used as a tambourine and cowbell by tapping it or making vocal cues. Overdrive for singers can be deployed by singing in freestyle vocal sections of songs, denoted by yellow artwork in the background of the vocals interface.

Harmonix and MTV Games will also be providing limited edition instruments, including an authentic Fender Squier Stratocaster guitar and Precision Bass retrofitted with the game’s input controls by Mad Catz. Additionally, Ion Audio is selling a “Premium Drum Kit” that not only works within Rock Band 2, but can also be expanded into an electronic drum kit through the purchase of a separately-sold drum brain. The “Premium Drum Kit” features four drum pads, two cymbal pads (with the option of a third), and a bass pedal.

The Rock Band 2 peripherals and Guitar Hero: World Tour peripherals are cross-compatible with other music games on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Sony originally announced that instrument peripherals would be universally compatible on the PlayStation 3; and on November 24, 2008 a patch was released to allow the Guitar Hero: World Tour drums to be properly recognized by Rock Band 2. Microsoft has also stated that instruments on the Xbox 360 will be compatible between the two games, as well as Rock Revolution. The Wii edition of Rock Band 2 is compatible with the Wii drums and guitar for Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour as well as the guitar for Guitar Hero III. Rock Band 2 drum and guitar peripherals do not work with Wii Guitar Hero games, however, the microphone does. The GHWT drums on Rock Band 2 will not use the orange cymbal, however on the Wii version, the orange cymbal can be used as blue.

More Information

• Developer(s)  Harmonix (Xbox 360/PS3)
• Pi Studios (PS2/Wii)
• Publisher(s)  MTV Games
• Distributor(s)  EA Distribution
• Designer(s)  Dan Teasdale, Sylvain Dubrofsky, Casey Malone
• Platform(s)  Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2
• Release date(s)  Xbox 360, NA September 14, 2008, EU November 21, 2008, PlayStation 3, NA October 19, 2008, EU February 5, 2009, PlayStation 2, NA December 18, 2008, Wii, NA December 18, 2008,
• Genre(s)  Music, Simulation
• Mode(s)  Single player, multiplayer

Links

• Official Rock Band 2 website
• “Rock Band Live Tour” website

Continue reading »]]> Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is a 2008 video game developed by Traveller’s Tales and published by LucasArts. The game allows players to recreate moments (albeit more humorously) from the first three Indiana Jones films. It features the same drop in/out co-operative play mode as seen in the Lego Star Wars video games, although it is restricted to local console play. The game was released on June 3, 2008 in the United States and Canada, and June 6, 2008 in Europe. A downloadable demo for Windows was made available on May 13, 2008.

As introduced in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, new moves include clinging onto branches during a jump using Indy’s whip. As a promotion, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga features Indy as an unlockable playable character.

The game often follows the events in the films, however like the Lego Star Wars series, some scenes from the film have been altered to become more family friendly or just provide comic relief to the player.

Development

In an effort to make the game more family friendly, all references to Nazis have been removed, and the game refers to Nazi characters simply as ‘enemies’. Also, at the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the death of Belloq and the Nazis is not nearly as graphic. Also, in the Temple of Doom, Mola Ram does not rip out a victim’s heart.

It was initially reported that the game would allow up to four players in co-operative mode,[9] but this later turned out to be a miscommunication. While four characters may be visible on the screen, only two can be controlled by players. On the Nintendo DS, up to eight characters may be in the party, but only two may be visible on the screen. Neither the Xbox 360 version nor the PlayStation 3 version support online play through Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network.

Gameplay

The game follows the storylines from the original Indiana Jones films: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and Last Crusade. However, the developers modified the storylines to fit the events into 6 game chapters per movie. Barnett College, Dr. Indiana Jones’ teaching location from the movies, serves as the main hub of the game, and different rooms allow access to each of the missions as well as the extra unlockable content and options. Once a player chooses a mission, a cutscene begins that introduces the section of the movie being played. Notable scenes have been recreated from the movies, such as the memorable boulder escape and the battle on the rope bridge, as well as Walter Donovan choosing the incorrect Holy Grail.

Instead of canisters like in Lego Star Wars, the characters collect treasure.

There are 83 regular characters in total plus the two custom figures which can be made by the players and a few extras only playable on certain levels. Each character featured in the game has his/her own unique ability, which are required to access new areas when replaying a level in Free Play mode. Lego Indiana Jones allows players to mix and match parts to customize characters and make their own creation like “Belloq Jones” or “Colonel Toht”. Unlike the Lego Star Wars custom characters, they can be taken control of in the Art room at Barnett College where they are created.[10]

New features were added to the gameplay from the Lego Star Wars series, such as the ability for the player to interact with objects in their environment, e.g. bottles, swords and guns. Players can also build and ride vehicles. The game also incorporates character phobias from the films; for example, if Indiana Jones sees a snake, Willie sees a spider (excluding giant tarantulas), or Henry Jones Senior or Elsa see a rat, they will be frozen with fear and have limited movement capacity until the animals are either gone or out of range. Also, new melee attacks, such as the Whip snag (trips enemies), have been added.

Once the game reaches 100%, studs begin and continue to fall from the sky of Barnett College.

Nintendo DS Gameplay

The handheld version has some significant changes to accommodate both the memory and size limitations of the DS as well as its unique touch screen controls. Characters’ special abilities, such as Indy’s whip or Satipo’s shovel, and elements such as switches can be controlled by using the touch screen. In addition, the built-in microphone comes into play, allowing the player to physically blow out torches in some levels and inflate rubber rafts to cross water hazards.

There are four classes of characters that can use special access panels to enter hidden areas; these all require the player to match a four block sequence by solving a mini-puzzle on the touch screen. Scholars can access scroll panels, and must flip pages in a book to find the correct blocks. Thuggee use red skull panels and move a torch to illuminate the blocks on a darkened screen. Military characters can use the green radio panels and scroll through a set of slot-machine wheels to match the pattern. Brotherhood characters enter the red sword panels and solve a block switching game. In addition, Marion (and Monkey Man) can transform into a monkey on special red pads to climb to otherwise inaccessible areas, and throw bottles of alcohol into flaming trash cans to blow up certain obstacles.

The DS version features cameos by Star Wars characters, including Wicket the Ewok and Luke frozen in an ice cave resembling the Wampa’s, but unlike the console versions none of the characters are playable. Santa Claus, Strong Man, Castle Knight, and the Clown are the only non-movie characters who are unlockable. There are also no hidden levels and no bonus reward for completing the game at 100%.

Red power bricks remain in the DS version, despite being replaced with red parcels in the console/PSP versions. Also, the characters do not suffer from fear of creatures as they do in the console versions.

More Information

• Developer(s)  Traveller’s Tales
• Publisher(s)  LucasArts
• Engine  Modified Lego Star Wars II engine
• Platform(s)  Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Xbox 360
• Release date(s)  NA June 3, 2008, EU June 6, 2008, AUS June 4, 2008
• Genre(s)  Action-adventure

Links

• Official site
• Games for Windows listing
• The Lego Indiana Jones Wiki

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