Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis Puts You Face to Face with Arsene Lupin

Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis, which is also known as Sherlock Holmes vs Arsene Lupin, continues the gameplay of its predecessor (The Awakened), including a first-person view of an adventure which is very often played in the third person.

In the game, Sherlock Holmes confronts the gentleman burglar Arsène Lupin, who provides the perfect foil for Holmes as he attempts to pull of the ultimate heist. This battle of wits between the most famous detective of all time and the world’s greatest thief takes the player to late 19th century London where Arsène Lupin is a young French burglar at the beginning of a glittering career, who comes to town with one goal - defy Scotland Yard and Sherlock Holmes. He states that he will steal five objects of immense value in five days from prestigious sites such as the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Tower of London and even Buckingham Palace thus turning Holmes’ plans of victory into a race against the clock.

This is the fourth game in the Sherlock Holmes adventure series and for more information, visit the official website and our previous posts. Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis is expected to be released for the PC sometime in the Spring.

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LittleBigPlanet Finishing Up Alpha Phase

According to a recent blog post on Media Molecule, the highly anticipated LittleBigPlanet will be finishing up the alpha phase of testing soon.

“We’ve been slaving away pushing LittleBigPlanet toward the Alpha stage of its development cycle. Basically, this means all the cool stuff we said will be in there should be playable, even if it isn’t pretty enough to release. The game seems to change every day at the moment and it is very exciting to be able to sit down and play what feels more and more like a complete experience.”

LittleBigPlanet is a PS3 community based game which encourages players to create their own levels and objects and to then share this fully customizable environment with friends. It is expected to be released sometime September.

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Sims 3 Officially Announced

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) announced today the first details on one of interactive entertainment’s most anticipated games, The Sims™ 3. Featuring a brand new engine that has been in development for nearly three years, The Sims 3 allows you to immerse your unique Sims in an open living neighborhood right outside their door. The initial feature-set unveiled includes the new seamless, open neighborhood, new Create A Sim, new realistic personalities and new unlimited customization. The Sims 3 will launch globally in 2009.

The Sims franchise has long been recognized for its appeal to a universal audience, both male and female, and at any age. Its broad appeal and loyal The Sims community has vaulted the franchise to an impressive 98 million games sold around the world and translated into 22 different languages. Celebrated for its creativity, humor, and community, The Sims franchise has become a global and cultural phenomenon since its inception in 2000.

Now, The Sims 3 is being designed to be the next-generation flagship game from The Sims Label.

“In The Sims 3, Sims can go beyond the boundaries of their home lot, and immerse themselves in an open, living neighborhood, interacting with other Sims using our new deeper personality system,” said Rod Humble, Head of The Sims Studio. “It is this type of open-ended gameplay that inspires endless creative possibilities. In addition the new goals and rewards systems will give players of all kinds from core gamers to storytellers the ability to enjoy long-term gameplay.”

New Seamless, Open Neighborhood—Explore the Neighborhood Freely.

See the sights with your Sims! The new seamless neighborhood architecture allows your Sims to roam freely around the neighborhood and visit their loved one and friends—or foes. Discovering other Sims homes and families, traveling around to new locations like City Hall or the local park will create a whole new way of life for your Sims. Storytelling options will multiply as your Sims stroll downtown to meet new acquaintances, head across town for lunch, spy on their neighbors and bump into the boss when they least expect it.

New Create A Sim—Create Any Sim You Can Imagine.

In addition to the open, living neighborhood, the all-new Create-a-Sim interface will feature easy-to-use design tools that allow you to make truly detailed Sims that are more realistic than ever. Create-a-Sim gives you the incredible freedom to customize just about any Sim you can imagine. From thin to full-figured to muscular—everything in between and even the extreme! In addition to determining your Sims body shape and size, you will also be able to fine-tune every feature on their faces, customize their hair style and select their skin tone, all from a vast selection of options. With so many choices to choose from, it is fun to create more realistic characters that look like you, someone you want to look like, or even a famous personality.

New Realistic Personalities—Every Sim Is A Unique Person, With A Distinct Personality

With the innovative and proprietary Realistic Personality System in The Sims 3, you can attribute each character with five distinct personality traits, helping shape your Sims behavior and how they interact with others and their surroundings. This new system will empower you to create extremely complex and diverse in-game personalities. Will you create the nosy, inappropriate, kleptomaniac grandmother who loves to meddle in other people’s business? Or the commitment-phobic, hot-headed punk rocker whose rude nature and childish disposition keeps him from scoring a date? In The Sims 3, Sims will go beyond the basic set of day-to-day needs to be distinct individuals with multifaceted personalities, who can focus both on short-term opportunities and long-term goals. With a wide selection of personality traits to mix and match, more than 700 million combinations of Sims await. You never know who’ll meet in The Sims 3!

New Unlimited Customization—Everyone Can Customize Everything!

New and accessible creativity tools in The Sims 3 make it simple for anyone to customize anything, anywhere! From floors to flowers, fashions to sofas, wallpaper to window shades and more, The Sims 3 gives you all the flexibility and options you need to be the architect of your dream house or explore your interior design skills to outfit your ultimate home. Your Sims can make home an ultra-deluxe mansion, a cool bachelor pad, family’s dream home or charming cottage. The choice is yours in The Sims 3.

”The new engine and technologies in The Sims 3 are designed to unleash the player’s imagination with realistic looking Sims who have distinct personalities and a seamless living neighborhood for them to discover,” added Ben Bell, Executive Producer on The Sims 3. “Players are going to be thrilled by the level of realism in The Sims 3!”

When is the N(nigger)-Word Cool on XBOX Live? Never.

Lerone Wilson in a post over at Blackline is tired of hearing “white young men” use the ‘n’ word while playing XBOX Live. Wilson claims he hears it “at least twice a day while gaming,” and indicates that he’s both offended and concerned that it’s “giving the many children who also use the service the false impression that it’s an acceptable word to be used in the world of online video games.”

“I assure you, it isn’t,” says Wilson.

He admits that when he hears the word on XBOX Live, it “usually isn’t targeted towards African Americans,” but that it “clearly mimics the way young African-American men use it.” As a sort of macho term of endearment, in other words.

I can’t tell exactly where Wilson stands on this, but it’s always seemed to me that the ‘n’ word is either off limits to everyone or it’s off limits to no one. Making exceptions for groups of people just informs a different kind of segregation. Telling one group it’s okay to use a word may for that group in some sense deprive it of its “power,” but in a broader sense, it reinforces its power due to the culturally charged double standard. It’s the flip side of multiculturalism, where celebrating cultural differences can simultaneously and often deleteriously reinforce them.

But to the broader point, online chatter can certainly be toxic. I’ve heard far more (and arguably far worse) than the ‘n’ word flipped off while playing against random opponents in games like Mech Assault and Halo 3. Anonymity is this great big dare to test boundaries and cross lines considered off limits in conventional offline social situations. For whatever reasons, people seem inclined to take that dare as often as not.

In a sense, that’s both the triumph and tragedy of gaming. Games invite gamers to try things they wouldn’t in so-called real life. Dealing with language used both with and without intent to harm is, at least as long as we allow people the option to mask their identities, part of the complex and sometimes rewarding, sometimes poisonous tradeoff.

COD4 GOTY edition confirmed for US

Upon its initial deployment during the first part of November, Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been peerless in the sales charts, wresting control of the top slot away from Microsoft and Bungie’s Halo 3 and never looking back. With Activision claiming the crown of best-selling game of 2007 for COD4, the publisher will be stop-lossing the modern-day shooter for another tour with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Game of the Year Edition, scheduled for release for the Xbox 360 on April 3.

As noted by leaks from UK news outlets earlier this week, COD4: GOTYE won’t include any new or upgraded features. However, it will come packed in with a redeemable token for the Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack, which will add four new multiplayer maps to the game’s lauded online component. The four new player areas are: Creek, an open village area; Broadcast, a close-quarters in-door environment; Killhouse, an abandoned warehouse; and Chinatown, a low-lit map set in the not-so-war-torn city of San Francisco. Those who already own the game will also be able to purchase the map pack on April 3 through Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft points ($10).

In anticipation of the map pack’s debut on Xbox Live, GameStop will be hosting a live, preview event at two locations in New York City and San Jose. To the first 100 attendees will go a free token to download the Variety Map Pack, and the first 250 people to arrive will have a chance to compete for various prizes, including GameStop gift certificates.

Activision did not indicate whether the COD4: GOTYE rerelease or the Variety Map Pack would also arrive for the PlayStation 3 or PC, and had not responded to requests for comment as of press time. However, Infinity Ward did say on its official Web site for the game in February that the then unnamed map pack would be available for XBL and the PlayStation Network this spring.

GDC 08: LucasArts Unveils The Force Unleashed

LucasArts Unveils The Force Unleashed

LucasArts held a special preview event last week at GDC 2008 to demonstrate its highly anticipated Star Wars title, The Force Unleashed, on both the Xbox 360 and Wii platforms (LucasArts also demoed its original IP Fracture and the forthcoming Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, more on those later). Held at the LucasArts campus at the Presidio in San Francisco, the preview offered actual gameplay demonstrations of The Force Unleashed to further wet the appetite of Star Wars fans.

“Four years ago, we sat down with George [Lucas] and talked about what next gen really meant,” said Peter Hirschmann, vice president of product development at LucasArts. Hirschmann added that Lucas didn’t care about graphics, RAM or any technical specifications; instead, he wanted to know how the next generation platforms could help tell a Star Wars story. Hence, the Force Unleashed, which takes place after “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” but before “Episode IV: A New Hope” and follows Darth Vader’s secret apprentice. In the game, which will be released on the PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360, players assume the role of the secret apprentice and must hunt down and kill the remaining Jedi who survived Order 66 and the Great Jedi Purge. But Hirschmann said The Force Unleashed’s story is full of twists and turns and is ultimately about redemption.

LucasArts showed Xbox 360 run-time demo of The Force Unleashed at its campus in the Presidio, but unfortunately media attendees were not allowed to take pictures of video of the demos.

LucasArts showed some Xbox 360 gameplay demo of The Force Unleashed in the campus’ theater. Haden Blackman, project leader for The Force Unleashed, said the run-time demo was “still a little rough around the edges” with some bugs. Indeed, the graphics didn’t look completely optimized and the demo did stumble through some occasional bugs. Nevertheless, the early gameplay footage was extremely impressive. The demo began with an early level of The Force Unleashed that takes place in a TIE Fighter factory, where the apprentice (played by actor Sam Witwer) must assassinate a Jedi. The trick is, the apprentice must remain a secret because Darth Vader wants to use him to eventually overthrow Emperor Palpatine. So the apprentice must kill everyone in his path, from Rebel soldiers to Imperial Stormtroopers.

The action was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a Star Wars game. Imagine being able to use the power of Half-Life 2’s gravity gun on virtually everything, including objects as large as TIE fighters, and you get the idea. The apprentice is extremely powerful with the Force, so the demo showed the character using Force Lightning and other unique attacks. For example, “Force Lightning Grenades” can be used when a player picks up an enemy with the Force, charges the enemy with Force Lightning and then hurls them at other enemies. The physics and destructible environment effects, powered by Havok physics technology and Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) from Pixelux Entertainment, were outstanding and are sure to be a highlight of the finished product when it arrives later this year.

The next demo section took place on the planet Felucia, which is an exotic planet world filled with giant mushrooms. LucasArts showed off a tremendous boss battle where the apprentice must take on a Rancor as well as other enemies. In addition to an assortment of Force attacks, the apprentice also wields a lightsaber and has an number of different melee moves to bring to battle. In the Rancor fight, the apprentice engaged in what LucasArts referred to as “Jedi finishing moves” that are similar to God of War’s mini-game button combinations for its epic boss battles. The Rancor battle ended with the apprentice impaling the beast’s head with his lightsaber (side note: The Force Unleashed is rated T for Teens, so LucasArts said there will be no severed limbs or decapitations in the game).

The Force Unleashed will give players “Jedi finishing moves” to bring down boss enemies like the Rancor.

The final demo section took place on Raxus Prime, a garbage planet filled with debris and toxic waste. Blackman said the design team wanted to include planets that offered a lot of destructible environments and objects for players to use the Force with, and Raxus Prime fit the bill (the planet had previously been featured in Star Wars: The Clone Wars). The demo showed a boss battle with a surviving Jedi named Kazdan, who uses his Force powers to create a “junk titan,” which is an animated collection of garbage and debris that attacks the apprentice.

After showing off the Xbox 360 run-time demo, LucasArts then turned it attention to the Wii version of the game. The graphics of the Wii run-time demo were weak compared to the Xbox 360 and looked more like the visuals of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. However, using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controls for lightsaber action looked like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, media members were not given the opportunity to play any versions of the demo, so we don’t know for sure (Red Steel, for example, sure looked like fun before we have a chance to actually play it).

The Wii version of The Force Unleashed has less impressive graphics, but the game does feature Duel Mode mutliplayer.

LucasArts said the Wii version of the Force Unleashed (along with the PlayStation 2 version) will boast extra content such as additional levels and planets. But the real draw for the Wii version will probably be the Duel Mode for multiplayer action, which gives two players the opportunity to select different Jedi characters from the Star Wars universe and engage in fighting game duels. Some of gameplay features for the Duel Mode include “saber-lock” and “Force-lock,” where two players engage in an a sort of tug-of-war with their lightsabers or Force lightning powers.

As for other multiplayer modes, such as online multiplayer or co-op modes, LucasArts wasn’t commenting. LcuasArts did say that Darth Vader would not be voiced by original actor James Earl Jones; instead, Matt Sloan of “Chad Vader” fame, will provide the voice of Darth Vader for the game (Sloan previously provided Vader’s voice for LucasArts’ Empire at War: Forces of Corruption). No specific release date was given for The Force Unleashed, which is expected to be released later this year.

Tabula Rasa review

Aliens aren’t new to the massively multiplayer online gaming arena, but they’re certainly not as prevalent as elves and gnomes. Tabula Rasa helps balance things out even further, with its universe of secret extraterrestrial artifacts, chainguns, and hulking space creatures. But it isn’t just the setting that makes the game interesting: An action-oriented combat system and a unique Battlefield-esque system of control points add some flair to the proceedings. That isn’t to say you should expect anything groundbreaking, nor should you expect a world conceived as well as Anarchy Online’s Rubi-Ka. Yet even with its flaws, Tabula Rasa is an entertaining game that deserves a look for anyone looking for a little more oomph from their online explorations.

Caves are home to some of the nastiest creatures in Tabula Rasa.
One of Tabula Rasa’s most interesting facets comes to light the moment you create your character. As you would expect from an online role-playing game, you choose some physical characteristics for your character–but what you don’t select is a profession. There are professions to be sure, but you start as a generic AFS (Allied Free Sentient) recruit, which gives you the chance to taste a variety of weapons and skills before committing later on. You are, in essence, the “blank slate” referred to in the title. Eventually, you can specialize in one of eight classes, roughly separated into combat and support types, though you’ll have to wait until level 30 before you can choose your final profession. Worried you won’t like the profession you choose? No worries: The game lets you clone your character with its level and experience intact, so you can go back and try other options without having to start a new toon from the ground up.

There’s more to choosing a profession than gaining levels, though. Artifacts called logos elements are scattered across the game’s two planets. Within Tabula Rasa lore, these are snippets of an ancient language that divulge secrets of universal power. From a gameplay standpoint, you need to collect them to access specific abilities in your skill tree. So just leveling up is enough to gain access to your desired profession, but if you want to use all the weapons and skills available to that profession, you need to go logos hunting. Most of the logos are attached to missions, however, so even if you don’t need a particular logos, there’s still impetus to find as many as possible, since there is experience to be gained.

Right off the bat, you’ll notice how different combat is from the standard massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Tabula Rasa controls much like a third-person shooter. You use the mouse to freely look about, and the mouse buttons to fire your weapon and perform special abilities. There are two hotbars, but rather than click on an ability or weapon to use it, the chosen weapon or skill is assigned to the corresponding mouse button. Thankfully, it’s easy to cycle through them using the Q and E keys on your keyboard, so if you want to switch weapons on the fly, you can do it quickly. This is especially important in Tabula Rasa, because many enemies are weak to certain attacks while invulnerable to others. Regardless of which profession you choose, you’ll want to keep a few different types of firearms on you. Of course, this is still an RPG, so you won’t need an enormous amount of twitch skill to succeed. The targeting reticle is extremely forgiving, and the damage you are doing, as in most similar games, is tied to a series of under-the-hood calculations.

These warnet soldiers are immune to electricity.

But even with these typical MMORPG trappings, Tabula Rasa does a good job of keeping you engaged in its shooter-inspired combat. You’ll fight off all sorts of indigenous critters, from tree lurkers (which look sort of like arachnids made of tree bark) to giant amoebas, but the crux of your fighting is against the evil Bane–a group of races fighting the remnants of the humans they drove from Earth. As you roam about the planets of Foreas and Arieki, dropships will release groups of soldiers, which keeps you on your toes, since it could happen at any time. In fact, the game’s greatest asset is the element of surprise, a quality not many similar games offer to this extent.

This factor is most prevalent in the Bane attacks on the various control points scattered across the planets. In a Battlefield-inspired stroke, these bases swap hands based on exciting surprise attacks from Bane forces. One moment, you may be purchasing new supplies or turning in quests; the next, the entire base may be under fire from swarming Thrax warriors. These moments are the game’s best, because they play directly to its biggest strength: fun combat. One of the drawbacks of the system, though, is that there is no looming reason to control bases, aside from gaining access to those missions (and, of course, being able to turn them in). You do gain tokens for kills during these assaults, and it’s fun to group with friends and take back a captured base. But in the overall scope of gameplay, there isn’t as much of a sense of urgency to retain control of these bases as you would expect. Thankfully, these battles are fun and rewarding to participate in, even if you won’t always feel pressed to stick arou