NEW YORK — While at the New York Comic Con, I spent some time with Atari playing their first entry in the Ready 2 Rumble series, Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution. The previous entries in the series were Midway properties, but Atari is distributing this AKI developed title this March.

The characters in this game are based off of real-life celebrities, though Atari was mum about just who everyone was meant to represent. Some of them are pretty easy to figure out, as you will see in the screenshots, while others may take you a little time. The classic characters you know from the series are not making an appearance, but thankfully the gameplay, from my hands-on time with it, seems solid.

The punching is motion controlled with both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk. Unlike the boxing mode in Wii Sports, where you need to aim at different areas (punch low to punch low, punch high to punch high, etc.), Ready 2 Rumble allows you to press a button in order to switch to lower punches or power punches. This helps you maintain the feel of actually boxing with the controllers, but also makes sure that your punches are more accurate.

I played a lot of boxing on Wii Sports, putting up with the inconsistency in the control scheme, so this was a welcome change of pace. Because of this system, the controls are easy to pick up, but the fighting is deceptively deep as well. You can punch high and low as stated, but there are also different strength for your punches and combinations. In addition, you have a meter at the top of the screen, your “Rumble” meter, and when it fills up you are essentially unstoppable.

The Rumble meter can be knocked back down before they utilize it by stringing together a few punches. If they do happen to succeed in filling the meter, the only way to avoid taking a beating is to dodge their incoming attacks until the effects of Rumble wear off.

There are also multiple camera angles; you can either view the fight from a side view where both players are visible (this is required in multiplayer, so you can both see what’s happening) but there is also a Punch-Out!! Style camera, which I preferred to use during my single-player time. It made things a little easier as far as choosing a direction to dodge or punch went, which helped the rhythm of the punches and combos.

In addition to the single-player and multiplayer modes, there are also mini-games which are meant to act as training for you. This was much like in Wii Sports boxing, when you had a trainer holding pads that you needed to punch in a certain order, or speed punching, but the difference is that the controls are much more responsive, and if you hit the wrong pad or your trainer, it was your own doing and not faulty motion. I played these after I spent time playing in actual fights, but I feel like if I had done these first, I probably would have performed better in the matches.

One thing I want to mention as well: this game looks better in motion than it does in screenshots. The earliest screens released for this game made it look like AKI was not spending any time crafting a charming looking product, but after seeing the game in action, I can say that this is not the case.

Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution looks like it’s shaping up to be a worthwhile entry in the series, and one fans of the original Midway titles can get behind. Atari is making it easier for you to afford the game as well: if you preorder the game at Wal-Mart, Gamestop or on Amazon.com, you will get $10 off of the price of the game. We’ll have more information on the game as Atari releases it, and after the game releases we will also have a review ready for you.

With our hands-on preview of Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars now published, that wraps up our first week of Comic Con coverage. For those of you who may have missed a few things along the way, this post is meant to serve as a comprehensive guide to what we wrote about. These impressions will not be the only thing we are writing about; I also checked out the demos for games such as Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, Deadly Creatures, and House of the Dead: Overkill, but all three of those titles have already released, and we will be reviewing the trio of them shortly (in fact, all three should appear on the reviews page next week).

In addition to that, there are still other titles we are previewing for you: Roogoo: Twisted Towers, MadWorld, The Conduit, Prototype, Legends of Wrestlemania, and Battle Forge are all slated to be previewed next week as well, so keep on coming back for more coverage on upcoming 2009 titles.

Hands-On Previews

Battlefield: 1943

Red Faction: Guerilla

Velvet Assassin

Ghostbusters (Wii)

Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Marble Saga: Kororinpa

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Hands-Off Previews

Overlord II

NEW YORK — We’ve all seen screens for Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars since it was first announced at E3. Many of us had this image in our heads that since it was going on the DS, it was going to be like the old-school GTA games, the top-down viewpoint with less story and a completely different kind of game than the recent epics we are used to dealing with. Take those thoughts, put them in a pile, and toss a flaming Molotov cocktail on top of them, because all of us who thought that were wrong.

Rockstar Leeds has done something that from the outset seems impossible: they have created a Grand Theft Auto title for the DS that is as action-packed and engaging as its console cousins. Just because the game is called “Chinatown Wars” and focuses on the Triads doesn’t mean you’re stuck in that area; you will visit the other Liberty City locales you remember from GTA IV such as Dukes, Bohan, Broker and Algonquin. The world is also fully realized, as the AI citizens wandering around are not doing so aimlessly; they are all individually programmed to have lives and jobs, and if you were to follow one all day after they left their house you would see them go to work, drive to do errands, then head home at the end of the day to start it again the next one. Impressive work considering the hardware limitations of the platform, for sure.

Graphically, it looks like one of the most impressive and ambitious titles on the handheld, as Rockstar Leeds has put together the game in full 3D and without the use of repeating textures. You can rotate the camera 360 degrees, the cartoon rendering is done live and is generated in render time, and the art style used for the game is wonderful; the concept art in advertisements that you have seen is what this game’s style looks like. Chinatown Wars looks great in motion, far better than the screens have led many of us to believe.

Let’s start with the story. You play as Huang Lee, who enjoys the splendors of the Triad life without any of the bloodshed as a spoiled and rich member of the family. His father is assassinated in Hong Kong, so Lee shows up in Liberty City to deliver the Yu Jian, a sword his father says has been in the family for generations, to his uncle, who wants to use the sword’s status as a way of becoming the leader of the Triads in Liberty City. Things go awry when Lee shows up at the airport though, as he is shot in the head and dumped in the river after an ambush.

You set out to solve the mystery of your father’s assassination, in the hopes of finding out why it happened and also to secure your large inheritance. Part of what makes this inheritance portion of the story work is the fact that will not be a millionaire walking around the streets of Liberty City halfway through the game; you are going to need to perform a lot of missions in order to earn cash, and you will need that cash to get through the game. This helps keep you going and motivated to perform more missions and progress through the story.

Story is important, but you want to know more about the features, or why you should pay attention to this game when it releases. Taking the idea of the cell phone one step further, you now have use of an In-game PDA, thanks to the touch screen and the stylus capabilities of the Nintendo DS. You receive e-mails, use it as a GPS and map system, a music player, your contacts database, and as a resource for the trade-information that you will need to follow thanks to the inclusion of the in-game economy. The PDA is also used to send messages to your friends over the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, something we will get to later.

That in-game economy has to do with the drug market you have been thrown into. Huang Lee will sell drugs-six different types, actually-and prices fluctuate, meaning you need to know when and how much to sell in order to make the biggest profit. You get a boost from sales if you sell in an area surveyed by police cameras, but you can also take the cameras out as a way to help reach 100% completion.

Thankfully, if you want to remember where those cameras are, you can mark them on your map for later. Not just the cameras though, as you can mark whatever points of interest you find on the map for future reference, and then set paths to them just like you could in GTA IV. This makes gaming on the go a cinch, and also makes navigating the streets of Liberty City a breeze.

Marble Saga: Kororinpa is the sequel to Hudson’s Kororinpa: Marble Mania, and this version of the game seems to have met many of the complaints about the original head on to make for an enjoyable experience. Let’s start with the basics though. Marble Saga: Kororinpa is a puzzle-adventure game where you roll a marble around different courses, collecting crystals and “junk” on your way to the goal. You need to collect all of the crystals in a level in order to proceed, which on occasion is more difficult than it sounds.

The story follows Anthony the Ant as he searches for the Golden Sunflower in order to save his ant colony. You go from level to level and all over the world in your search for this elusive sunflower, which in turn means you have levels in different areas; I had the chance to test out a marble puzzle covered in ice, which increases the difficulty and changes the strategy significantly compared to levels that just have regular flooring.

The controls are handled entirely by the tilting of the Wii Remote in various directions. In the options menu you can decide to either hold the controller as you normally would or sideways like an NES controller, whichever is more comfortable. Once you get the hang of the sensitivity, it becomes a very intuitive control scheme that controls better than analog, and it feels more immersive to boot. This is good news, as the point is not just to blow through the level as fast as you can; sometimes you will need to slow down, or make very subtle movements or change direction entirely.

Out of the complaints for the first game in the series, two things stood out. First of all, the game was far too short, and the game was too easy. Hudson has remedied this problem by increasing the difficulty of the puzzles, which makes for a more satisfying puzzle experience, and by significantly ramping up the number of levels you could play. In Marble Mania, you had 40 levels, and then 40 mirrored versions of those same levels. This time, Hudson is promising 150 total levels, in a variety of forms.

You get the levels that come with the game, but Hudson will also have levels ready for you over the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection at launch. You can also create your own levels and store 20 of them, and then store an additional 20 levels made by your friends. There are also 20 levels designed for use with the Wii Balance Board, but if you lack a balance board, they can be played with the Wii Remote just like all of the others. The fact that you can swap your friends levels and your own in and out all the time also means that the title has far more replay value than the original, so those who already own and love that version should have no issues running out to get the improved one.

What makes creating levels intriguing are the number of “widgets” you can use to customize your levels in order to make them more than just a marble rolling over a floor until he reaches the exit. There are magnets, shrinking machines, acceleration tubes, movable bridges, cannons…there’s a lot you can do when creating these levels; my one complaint is that there doesn’t seem to be a central hub for uploading strangers levels. It would be a neat feature if Hudson checked out some of the better levels people were uploading to their friends and made them into downloadable packages, just incase your friends lack any kind of imagination (or don’t own the game in the first place).

Though there isn’t any online play, there are online leaderboards, so you can see where you rank among the fastest and most efficient marble rollers. I’m a sucker for time trial based levels, so that’s something that appeals to my inner competitive gamer.

Not only did I test out the sequel to Marble Mania while at Comic Con, but Hudson gave me a demo for the game to play back at home on my Wii, which allowed me to give the multiplayer a shot. You can play Marble Saga: Kororinpa with 2-4 players in multiplayer mode, and it’s a race to the finish line here. You will have to move faster than you do in the single-player mode, since you are not just racing your own personal time, you’re going at it against friends. Thanks to the nature of some of the more difficult levels, this is a mode that is sure to give the game replay value, as competitive puzzle solving makes for a fun night gaming at home with friends.

I didn’t play the first in the Kororinpa series because the game seemed short and was considered easy, but the concept showed promise if Hudson just worked on their formula a bit to enhance it. After sitting down with Marble Saga, I can say that they did just that, and have created a very enjoyable game that looks to be well worth the $30 asking price. Marble Saga: Kororinpa releases March 17 of this year, and we will have more information for you and an eventual review as that date approaches.

NEW YORK — From commercial cover artist to rogue to video game director, Jim Lee’s signature is synonymous with modern comics’ culture.

Lee is the executive creative director for Sony’s upcoming DC Universe Online, a massive multiplayer online role playing game. In an interview with Blast, Lee said he hopes to bring his art and the stories of the DC universe into houses that would never have heard them.

With a hat shielding his face from the bright florescent lights lining the room, it was almost hard to see the bags under his eyes. Clearly tired, he still managed to put on his game face. Over this long New York Comic Con weekend, he had done a couple panels, several interviews, and now, a party for a game he is a very big part of.

DC Universe online brought out a completely new challenge for Lee.

Talking about his role in DC Universe Online, Lee laughs as he remembers his official title of “Executive Creative Director.” Sounds a bit on the bland side, but he explains that his job is to effectively make the skeleton in which this game will rest upon.

“I’m involved with a lot of the concept art, and it’s my job to report back to DC if the game looks right or not,” said Lee describing the multiple facets of his new job.

Lee did most of the conceptual artwork for not only the heroes and villains, but also the cityscape and landmarks throughout the game. Sony explained that more than 300 city blocks were designed just for a game demo and that’s only a very small fraction of the game. “Metropolis is huge,” Lee said, “There is just so much going on there that it really takes a while to grasp it all. You have S.T.A.R. Labs, Centennial Park with the big Superman statue and of course the Daily Planet.”

Lee said he was very excited about the game and the concept of it being a MMORPG. He says he’s a gamer, and it’s clear he means it, making mention of macros and zones, both familiar aspects to those who have played games of this genre, to pad his cred. “I’ve been playing MMO’s for a while now: EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Warcraft. But I like shooters too”

DC Universe online brought out a completely new challenge for Lee. He had to do something that had never been done before: design all of Gotham City and Metropolis. In all the years of Batman and Superman comics, no one has ever had to make a layout of their iconic cities. Sure, comic fans know what landmarks are in each city but not how they are placed on the map. Lee explained that comic tradition is to use the location to aid the story, rather than the story to be defined by the location.

“If in one book, the Daily Planet was 50 stories tall and next time it was 75, no one blinked an eye, because it was for the story to progress.” Now suddenly, Lee needed to define everything, and that was a problem. It was a new issue to someone who had spent 20 years drawing books, and that isn’t something you see every day in the world of comics.

Getting things like arms and shoulders to render just right took patience

To compound the problem, he needed to add in landmarks to make every area unique so that players can tell the difference and assign meeting places. “I needed to go through and add in all these little nooks and landmarks. Everyone knows the Daily Planet and Centennial Park, but we didn’t want everyone gathering at only those places,” Lee said.

Things that were just background in the past, suddenly needed to be the focus.

“Sure, it was challenging, but I think we got it right,” Lee said. “Sometimes stuff just falls right into place.”

The whole basis of the game is that you get to design and in essence, be your own superhero in the DC universe. Jim talked for a bit about the challenges of making interchangeable designs, to allow for maximum uniqueness, and then explained another overlooked part of the design process: character silhouette.

“We spent a lot of time creating iconic silhouettes,” Lee said, noting that it was one of the most important aspects to him. “It’s important that from far away, you could see someone like Superman, and still knows its Superman because his shape is unique. Not many characters in the DC Universe have weird or awkward shapes, so we made a few standard bodies to pick from.”

His eyes perk up when talking about the transition from being a comic artist to a concept designer. He explained that his biggest personal problem. “I need to clean up my lines,” Lee said. He was referring to the anatomy of the characters he draws day in and day out.

“When I draw for comics, things are more stylized. I tend to draw females with longer legs and guys with sloped shoulders,” Lee said. Those may look right in place in the 2D world, but when put in the third dimension, they make them look awkward and sometimes “downright monstrous”, as he put it.

“Functionally, my biggest problem was the shoulders. They didn’t articulate well,” Lee said.

NEW YORK — While I didn’t get the chance to play Overlord II during my time at Comic Con, I was given a demonstration of the game. Overlord II is the sequel to Overlord (or Overlord: Raising Hell on the PS3), in which the descendant of the protagonist from the original fights against the Glorious Empire that is out to eradicate magical creatures. To do this, you need to acquire minions to fight alongside of you and do your bidding.

Developer Triumph paid close attention to what the fans and critics of the first game said, and have added a few features to the experience this time around to enhance the quality of the title. First of all, the minion AI has been improved, which affects the gameplay in a few ways. They are smarter and capable of more destruction this time around, and are now programmed to do things such as ride mounts (shown in one of the included screenshots) or take control of different war machines.

Minions are now less expendable as well, as you can name them in order to become more attached to certain ones. If a minion you like falls in battle, you can revive him at a Minion Graveyard. They will also follow whatever alignment you choose; you’re the Overlord, so you’re evil, but you can be a ruthless evil who has been corrupted or just plain old, harmless evil.

The best description of the gameplay I heard was that Overlord is something like “Fable meets Pikmin”. The third-person perspective combined with control of the minions makes this somewhat of a real-time strategy role-playing game, and although I didn’t get to see this corruption in action (I was only able to view the one level that was on demo at the event) you could see what Codemasters meant by the general description of the game just by watching the Overlord go around attacking enemies while his minions helped out.

The core of the Overlord experience has been preserved for this sequel, but the improvements and tweaks to the visuals and gameplay look like they will make this a more enjoyable game than the previous installments. The game has the vague “Summer 2009″ release date at the moment, so hopefully we will find out more about the title before then.

Overlord II is releasing across three platforms (PS3, Xbox 360 and PC) while spinoffs are being produced for both the Nintendo Wii and DS.

NEW YORK — Hold up, I know what you’re thinking. Why would you want to play Ghostbusters on Wii when there’s a perfectly great looking, photo-realistic version coming out at the exact same time for those systems with the high-definition visuals? Here’s your answer: because this game is fun, and quality gameplay trumps all.

Here’s the deal with the Wii version of Ghostbusters. Red Fly Studios (developer of Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, one of Wii’s top titles from 2008) knew that simply porting the Wii version over from the other consoles was not the way to make a quality game, so instead they have built a different game specifically for the Wii.

Rather than a realistic visual style, the Wii version uses a more cartoon influenced style, but that doesn’t detract from the atmosphere. Instead, what you get is a different take on an established franchise, as the characters also look markedly different from the cartoon series. The visuals I saw were from an earlier build, so I was assured by Red Fly that the one they have going now looks superior, but even on the old build you could see how well the style of the game was coming out. Check out the included screens to see what I mean, but keep in mind that those are also outdated when compared to where the game is now.

In addition to that, the same sound team (GL33k) that worked on Mushroom Men is putting together the music for this Wii game. Sadly, I couldn’t hear their contributions thanks to the noise at Comic Con, but if their input is, quality-wise, on the same level as what I expect based on my previous experiences with them, then they will only add to the game’s appeal.

Like the other Ghostbusters title, this one takes place two years after Ghostbusters II. You begin by picking a character from a few templates (you can be either a male or female in this version; you’re the new recruit on the Ghostbusters team) and then you’re put to work capturing ghosts.

As for the actual gameplay, this version of Ghostbusters utilizes the Wii Remote in effective ways. You’re in a third-person, over the shoulder view, and you use the IR pointer on the controller to aim and to look around. Once you’re in motion, you have plenty of things to keep you occupied. Ghosts will appear, and you must defeat them or capture them, depending on the size and strength of the specter. They will also hide in different objects, and you will need to find them using your PKE meter and by blasting around with your pack.

NEW YORK — Sure, Xbox 360 owners have been deprived of experiencing Metal Gear Solid 4 and all of its stealth goodness, but no worries, as Replay Studios and SouthPeak Games are here to help you get over your Solid Snake cravings. To do so, they have enlisted a female lead decked out in leather named Violette Summer, the Velvet Assassin.

Though the game will also release on the PC, I tested it out at Comic Con for the 360. Let’s start with some backstory: Velvet Assassin tells the tale of Violette Summer, who is based on an actual secret agent named Violette Szabo. She has gone behind German lines during World War II after losing her husband in the war, and she intends to exact as much revenge as she can now that she believes she has no real reason to go on with life.

It’s a sad story, especially when you consider that the game you play isn’t happening in real-time; instead, you are essentially playing through Violette’s dreams as she lays in a hospital bed, one which may or may not be her deathbed, in an interactive flashback style. The story is told through the use of a photo album, in which the photos come to life to illustrate the story better than a static portrait would. The scenario and what you need to do are explained for you here, as they are already events that Violette has experienced.

As for gameplay, I played through the first level of the demo and was impressed with a few things, though I wish I could have played more to see what level of challenge the title gets to. You will need to stick to the shadows and out of sight, because Violette is not about to haul off on Germans that she meets face to face; that’s a good way to cut Violette’s dreams short and lose.

Instead, you need to sneak up on as many enemies as possible, and then stab them or cut their throats in silence before hiding the bodies away from other guards who may see. It’s a slow-paced action title, as a stealth game should be. I’m kind of concerned about how your only modes of hiding is to crouch lower, but if the game doesn’t allow you to lie flat on the ground, then there won’t be situations where it is necessary to do so either.

If you run, enemies will hear you. If you are seen, they will give chase, and you can run, but you are most likely screwed unless you find a good hiding place. One way you can take out enemies head on though, is through the use of morphine. Yes, you will inject yourself with morphine in order to boost your skills momentarily. Violette will shed the leather garb and don the nightgown she is seen wearing in the hospital bed, where she lays next to, you guessed it, a syringe full of morphine. This basically allows her to power out of a bad situation in her dream.

I was stuck behind a box after being spotted, with one guard still lurking near the exit I needed, searching for me. I used a syringe of morphine, charged him head on, and then cut him down just like it was from behind. It was thrilling to have that temporary state of what seemed like invulnerability; morphine is limited as well, though you earn experience points (gained through kills and picking up collectable items in each level) that will help you earn new skills and increase the amount of morphine you can hold at one time.

Of course, if you’re properly utilizing the stealth aspects of the game, you won’t need to use morphine that often anyways, and with Violette’s health set as low as it is, it’s going to be tough to treat this as a shooter anyways.

As for things that SouthPeak let me know as I played the title: you will be able to find letters from Nazi’s to their families, meant to humanize the enemies that you so willfully slaughter before they sense your presence. The sound at the convention made it difficult to hear while playing, but the game plays a sound to let you know that you have been spotted, as well as removing the blue tint from around your character once you are in an enemy’s line of sight. This lets you know if you have been spotted from a distance, and that it’s time to find a better place to hide or lay low until the heat dies down.

It’s very difficult to gauge a stealth title based on a single level, but things were promising based on my experience with the title. I would like to see just how difficult things get in the game, but we may have a better idea of that as the release date approaches. The game is set to release in April of this year for the Xbox 360 and PC. Check back here for future news on Velvet Assassin, and eventually a review of the game.

Red Faction was a franchise that I was not too familiar with before heading to Comic Con, and after getting a taste of the latest entry in the series, Guerilla, I’m starting to wonder why I haven’t noticed it before. The display itself was hard to miss, as THQ had eight consoles running the game (six multiplayer, two with the single-player demo), and because of it there were lines of people waiting to get their hands on it all weekend.

It took me until Sunday, the last day of the convention, but I finally got a chance to test out what the game had to offer. This preview is for the multiplayer portions of the game, as I could not get anywhere near the single-player mode due to the traffic around it.

For those of you who are not familiar with Red Faction, let me give you a bit of background info. The series takes place in the future, and deals with wars on both Mars and Earth. This third entry marks the return to Mars, and with it comes an open-world, third-person shooter affair. The hallmark of the series has been the elements of environmental destruction, and with the power of the high-definition consoles running the show this time around, the ante has been increased significantly. Cover explodes, buildings topple down, and the game even encourages this kind of behavior through the use of specific suits.

These suits are another Red Faction trademark, as they bestow special powers on the wearer. There’s a stealth suit for invisibility when not firing, a suit that makes your character run faster, one that allows your character to hover above the ground and fire down at targets below, as well as one that will allow you to knock a building down and crush all within the walls, including you.

These suits are available in multiplayer, which gives the game a unique angle with which to build from. The controls are tight and easy to pick up on if you’ve ever played a third-person shooter, so it’s simple enough to learn how to use the suits to your advantage without any clumsy adjustment time. Trust me, you will want to learn how to use them. All it took was one guy popping out of stealth mode in front of me to melee attack my character before I realized just how key those suits are to your survival in multiplayer.

Experimenting with the suits is a lot of fun. Stealth mode has obvious benefits, but using a jetpack to shoot yourself onto a rooftop or above a foe stuck on the ground has its merits as well. Knocking down a building is satisfying, as is using the aptly named Rhino suit to charge through enemies in your path. It gives the multiplayer a reason to exist besides simple running and gunning, and you can already tell, based on my own experience with the title and those of the fans new and old at Comic Con this weekend, that developer Volition has nailed the multiplayer experience in a way that will tear people away from their established shooter franchises.

Let’s not forget that Red Faction: Guerilla is a sight to behold as well. Even though the map I was playing in looked like a desert-this is the surface of Mars, after all-the browns and reds were vibrantly colored, and were, in a word, gorgeous. The character models are richly detailed as well, with excellent animation for running, shooting and the use of all of the suits. The tremors caused by one of the suits has to be experienced, because it’s quite the sight to see your entire screen start to shake and warp out of control at the press of a button. This is a game that looks incredible in motion, far better than the accompanying screens for this piece lead you to believe. It may have been the best looking game on one of the high-def consoles at the entire event; if not the best, then certainly up there alongside it.

This game was nowhere near my radar when I came to New York Friday, but it has shot its way up the ranks just from the short time I spent with it. If you’re a fan of the series, it’s time to get excited, and if you’re new to the franchise like me, then strap in just the same, because this game looks like it’s worthy of your attention. Red Faction: Guerilla will release this summer on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

I’m about as big of a Battlefield : 1942 fan as you can find. It’s a game I sank far more hours into than I care to admit after its release and in subsequent years, but with the next generation of consoles and a seemingly never ending slew of new titles to play, I have not gone anywhere near the game in some time.

EA and Digital Illusions CE announced a way to scratch that itch just days before New York Comic Con though, and to my surprise, it showed up at the event in a playable form as Battlefield: 1943. Though the version I tested was pre-alpha, I could already see where DICE was going with this, especially after talking over some of the game’s features with producer Gordon Van Dyke.

Basically, EA wanted to give fans of the franchise a way to experience classic Battlefield on their home consoles, but with a fresh coat of (beautiful) paint, some new physics, and some tweaks and improvements that make it more than worth playing again. It’s not a full game, in the sense that it isn’t going to retail, but will instead be a download for Live Arcade and the Playstation Network. It will support up to 24 players through online only; think of it as a World War II era Warhawk.

1943 will have three maps from the original game (Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal) that are both preserved in their form but also updated for the better. Iwo Jima will now have lush greenery to give it more of the jungle vibe it should have; this gives soldiers new places to hide, but also allows an updated version of the Frostbite engine (which Battlefield: Bad Company players should recognize) to show off its stuff when a tank drives over the trees and knocks them to the ground. As you can see in the screenshots, this game looks gorgeous already.

Cover is going to be destructible thanks to the engine, which should give the maps some new dynamics. You can’t just repair a bridge with an engineer anymore while a tank sits there and guards it either, as that class is gone. Take care of your cover, and it will take care of you.

What you will have though, are trenches. Though I didn’t test a map with trenches, I was told that they are being implemented as a way to improve the battle system. Given that the medic is no longer a class either thanks to (slowly) regenerating health, adding trench warfare is a welcome addition.

Speaking of classes, you will be able to choose from Rifleman, Scout, and Infantry. All three have two weapons a piece.‚  I used the Rifleman during my time with 1943, and after playing around with the controls, I can safely say they have translated over from the PC very well. I had no problem dropping into the game and avoiding looking silly after a moment.

The same can be said for the vehicle controls. After driving a tank and a jeep and flying a fighter plane, you can be assured by the fact that DICE nailed the control scheme. In fact, flying may be easier with the analog sticks than it was with a keyboard and mouse, as you gently glide and turn your plane over enemy targets with precision.

The goal of Battlefield: 1943 was to make a shooter that was accessible but at the same time deep and rewarding for those who play it constantly. In order to assure accessibility, DICE avoided putting in anything gimmicky like unlockable weapons for those who play constantly, so that way those who play 1943 in between their major release purchases are not missing out on anything. This should keep people coming back without fear that they are ill equipped to compete after time away from the game; of course, playing more often most likely means you will be better than if you weren’t playing, but this still helps to narrow the divide.

Battlefield: 1943 is set to release this summer on Xbox Live Arcade as well as the Sony Playstation Network and PC. A price has not yet been set, but for fans of Battlefield, it’s going to be worth the admission.