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GameSpy Game of the Year – Gamer’s Choice

gamecentral — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:46:45 +0000

Gamer’s Choice winners are

Gamers’ Choice Wii

Super Smash Bros. Brawl – Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a brawling, battling, action-packed video game that features a varied roster of characters for four-player simultaneous melees! Use your Wii Remote and Nunchuck controls to deal serious damage to your opponents and win the game! This Wii entry in the popular series features a number of new additions, including an Adventure Mode (with co-op play), a wealth of new characters and stages, and online combat for multiple players to face off against each other from anywhere!

Gamers’ Choice PS3

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots – Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a story-driven adventure game, with seasoned hero Solid Snake drafted for one final mission. Set across stages including the Middle East and South America, the now aged Snake has been asked to assassinate his old adversary, Liquid Ocelot. To do this, however, he must make his way through a series of battlefields, using his legendary stealth abilities and all-new OctoCamo suit to avoid detection and to reach his target. With series favorites such as Meryl Silverburgh, Raiden, Hal ‘Otacon’ Emmerich, Eva and Roy Campbell returning, and with all new gameplay features including a remote-controlled Metal Gear Mk. II and enhanced CQC (Close Quarters Combat) system, Metal Gear Solid 4 rounds out the Metal Gear saga with a fittingly cinematic and gripping final outing.

Gamers’ Choice Xbox 360

Fallout 3 – Vault 101 – Jewel of the Wastes. For 200 years, Vault 101 has faithfully served the surviving residents of Washington DC and its environs, now known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the global atomic war of 2077 left the US all but destroyed, the residents of Vault 101 enjoy a life free from the constant stress of the outside world. Giant Insects, Raiders, Slavers, and yes, even Super Mutants are all no match for superior Vault-Tec engineering. Yet one fateful morning, you awake to find that your father has defied the Overseer and left the comfort and security afforded by Vault 101 for reasons unknown. Leaving the only home you’ve ever known, you emerge from the Vault into the harsh Wasteland sun to search for your father, and the truth.

Gamers’ Choice DS

Chrono Trigger – When a newly developed teleportation device malfunctions at the Millennial Fair, young Crono must travel through time to rescue his misfortunate companion from an intricate web of past and present perils. The swashbuckling adventure that ensues soon unveils an evil force set to destroy the world, triggering Crono’s race against time to change the course of history and bring about a brighter future.

Remastered exclusively for Nintendo DS, the beloved RPG features a brand new dungeon, all-new dual screen presentation, wireless play mode, and touch-screen functionality.

Gamers’ Choice PSP

God of War: Chains of Olympus – As many who know the tales of the God of War know, Kratos, after being deceived into killing his wife and daughter, denounced his service to Ares. In order to seek absolution from his past sins, the Ghost of Sparta pledged himself as a champion to the Gods for the years to follow – these brutal crusades, in the name of Olympus, became legendary throughout the ancient world.

Experience Kratos’ journey during the 10 years of servitude to the Gods of Olympus. In God of War: Chains of Olympus, Kratos will venture to lands that no mortal has ever walked upon. With the world plunged in eternal darkness and the Gods rendered powerless, Kratos will ultimately be forced to choose between his own personal redemption and saving the ancient world from certain destruction. Developed from the outset as an original story, God of War: Chains of Olympus delivers highly detailed graphics, incredible animation detail and yet another adventure in the dark and brutal world of Greek mythology.

Gamers’ Choice PC

Gamers’ Choice Multiplayer

Left 4 Dead – Setting out to do for co-op gaming what Counter-Strike did for team combat, Left 4 Dead is an ambitious survival horror game. Running on the Source engine, Left 4 Dead leaves four armed survivors of a world overrun with zombies, and they must fight their way out to escape the outbreak.

Designed for co-op play, the four players must work together to finish each stage of the game, lending each other artillery support, sharing ammo and rescuing each other when zombies are on top of them. In addition to the standard four players as humans, another four players can be amongst the masses of assaulting zombies, seeking to take down the other players. Zombie players might even find themselves become one of the four mutant “boss” zombies, who have unique powers that can be used to devastate, injure, tie up, mark and track, confuse, or even humiliate the gun-toting human survivors

Source: Gamespy

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

gamecentral — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:11:17 +0000

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

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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Trailer

gamecentral — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:50:09 +0000

This entry in the Star Wars saga casts players as Darth Vader’s “Secret Apprentice”, unveiling new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In it, players will assist the iconic villain in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi – and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny. As its name implies, The Force Unleashed completely re-imagines the scope and scale of the Force by taking full advantage of newly developed technologies that will be seen and experienced for the first time anywhere in videogaming.