The often rumored but not yet confirmed next generation Xbox is being said to be more than six times more powerful than the Xbox 360 and reportedly will finally play Blurays — but that’s not the big news. According to a report on Kotaku, the new console could prohibit used games from being played on it.

Citing an unnamed source, the site doesn’t say how the proposed technology could be implemented, but does theorize that the most probable solution would be to link each copy of a specific game with a unique code (similar to the current online pass system), though that can easily be bypassed by keeping the console offline.  Taking such a strong stance on used game sales would make publishers, who see no revenue from second hand sales, but may not sit well with retailers like GameStop or consumers.

Another rumor suggests that the next Xbox console will ship with a brand new version of the Kinect peripheral, complete with an onboard processor.

There’s been no confirmation when we’ll see the new Xbox, but rumors suggest some sort of unveiling to happen during this year’s E3 in June.

After years of being in a public beta, Minecraft for PC is finally out, so what does MineCon turn its attention to? The Xbox Live arcade version of the game set to hit…soon..ish. Take a look at the trailer for the game, outlining some of the new features.

At this point, it’s pretty much a forgone conclusion that the next Microsoft gaming console is already in development, but new LinkedIn postings, as spotted by Internet super-slueth supererogatory point us in the direction of just who may be working on the project.

Jeff Faulkner, Xbox’s User Experience Creative Director now lists himself as “Xbox Next Gen Creative Director” on his profile while senior creative director Jonathan Harris says that he’s “designing the next generation of entertainment” at Microsoft.

Visual designer Patrick Corrigan lists a former job (listed as ending in June of this year) at the publisher as “providing groundwork and integration for branding elements for next-gen XBOX on all forms of media. Ranging from print to UI across future releases of the XBOX platform.”

Microsoft hasn’t returned our emails looking for comments about the listing, and don’t expect them to, they’re keeping the new console, and any information regarding its development under wraps for now.

You may have just picked up your Gears of War 3 copy today, but Epic Games has announced that they are working on new story DLC for the title — and it won’t feature any of the COG heroes you’ve come to love.

“We’ve confirmed we’ll be doing campaign DLC,” Epic’s Cliff Bleszkinki told Telegraph. “One thing I can tell you is that you’re not going to see Marcus or Dom or Cole in it. I believe that DLC should be unique and cool, like Lost and the Damned, Gay Tony, Mad Moxie’s Underdome Riot. All those kind of things. DLC’s the place where you play and have fun. So that’s one thing that’s an indication of where things may be going in the future.”

Our guess, more Carmine or Baird. We really liked Gears of War 3, so much so that we gave it an Editor’s Choice Award.

What’s with all the gaming cat fights latelty ammirite? The latest hair pulling and name calling comes from Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Rob Dyer, senior VP of publisher relations, who’s taking a shot at rival Microsoft and its policies that require an Xbox Live Arcade game to be released on the platform first, before being sold anywhere else — like the PlayStation Network. Specifically, he’s targeting Microsoft’s European VP of interactive entertainment Chris Lewis who recently defended the company’s policy.

“I think what Chris and the other representatives at Microsoft are doing is protecting an inferior technology,” Dyer told IndustryGamers. “I think they want to dumb it down and keep it as pedestrian as possible so that if you want to do anything for Blu-ray, or you have extra content above 9GB, or you want to do anything of that nature, you’d better sure as heck remember that Microsoft can’t handle that.”

Dyer went on to say that Microsoft’s policies are hurting not only their relationship with the developers, but the consumer as well. “So potentially any time we’ve gone out and negotiated exclusive content of things that we’ve announced at things like DPS or E3, publishers are getting the living crap kicked out of them by Microsoft because they are doing something for the consumer that is better on our platform than it might be perceived on theirs. So from a creativity standpoint and what we are doing to try to make it better for the consumer, our view is Microsoft’s doing everything they can to eliminate that because they have an inferior technology.”

\Next year’s Halo 4 won’t be the next game in the colossal first person shooter series, it will also be the first chapter in the new “reclaimer trilogy”. The announcement was made over the weekend at PAX Prime’s Halo Fest.

Long running players will remember that Master Chief was referred to as The Reclaimer a few times in the original Halo.

343 Industries, the studio behind Halo 4 has also uploaded a video of new concept art for Halo 4.

Microsoft announced this morning that it has pushed the release of Star Wars Kinect back from this coming holiday season until 2012.  The Star Wars themed Xbox has also been pushed back to coincide with the new release date. No concrete date has been announced.

“Microsoft and LucasArts have elected to move the launch of Kinect Star Wars beyond holiday 2011 to ensure the full potential of this title is realized,” a spokesperson told Official Xbox Magazine.

It’s not incredibly surprising, when we went hands on…errr…off with the title at this year’s E3, the game showed potential, but was marred by technical issues and questionable design choices.  Here’s hoping that the issues are fixed by next year.

Microsoft has pledged their long term devotion to the Xbox 360, citing that the system will have a lifespan of at least ten years; but that doesn’t mean that it will always be the company’s only console on the market. European Xbox head Chris Lewis spoke recently about the console and the timing of its successor.

“We think we’re a little over halfway with the life cycle of the console, but that’s not to say there won’t be an overlap,” he told gaming site Metro. Lewis was quick to point out that he would not be confirming any details at this time. “”I’m not going to announce specifically or talk about timing,” he added. “But you could imagine there could be overlap, it depends. We’re not being specific about the next generation at this stage. We’re very fixated on what we’re doing right now and the success we’re enjoying.”

The Xbox 360 launched in November of 2005, making Lewis’ statement about being halfway through the lifespan  correct. It’s highly rumored that the next Xbox console will be unveiled at next year’s E3 in Los Angeles.

E3 2011 is under two weeks away, and it’s shaping up to be one hell of a show. As usual, there’s a ton of rumors circulating around just what’s going to be revealed June 7-9 in Los Angeles. This week, we’ll be bringing you our predictions of just what we’re going to see. Here’s our Microsoft predictions, be sure to check out our Nintendo predictions.

Love it or hate it, Microsoft was all about Kinect at last year’s E3, and don’t expect this year to be any different. This year is going to be critical for Kinect, and expect Microsoft to bring the goods, albeit different than last year. Expect a lot of new game reveals,  but this time they won’t all be the casual gamer stuff we saw last year. Expect full reveals for the now Kinect enabled Ghost Recon: Future Solider, and finally the Kinect Gears of War title we’ve been talking about for the last year. We should also see reveals for the Suda 51 Kinect title Codename D. There’s also even talk of a Crimson Skies Kinect title.

Oh, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get those casual gamer target titles. A big rumor suggests that we’ll see a title called Kinect Me and one called Kinect Fun Lab. What exactly are they? We don’t know, but we’re hearing they’re Microsoft’s response to the plethora of hacks that have been hitting the device, fun little games allow you to be creative with the world around you. Just how many new Kinect games will we see? I’m going t go with 10.

E3 2011 will bring more information on Avatar Kinect

It won’t just be new games we hear about for Kinect, we’ll also finally hear about the updates software that’s going to bring improved tracking and new features to the peripheral. We’ll also see more information on Avatar Kinect, the cool chat function announced earlier this year.

Microsoft’s press event won’t be all about Kinect though, as we’ll see a slew of new titles and information on highly anticipated titles. Expect new info on Gears of War 3 as well as the new Xbox Live Alan Wake title. Expect one or two major announcements about major games coming to Xbox Live as well. Killer Instinct maybe?

My gut tells me that either Sony or Microsoft will be showing off new Modern Warfare 3 gameplay at their event, and given Microsoft’s DLC deal, and the fact that they showed Black Ops last year, expect a reveal here.

Then there’s the game that brought Microsoft to the dance in the first place. Halo. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the release of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, and I’d be very surprised if we didn’t see the long rumored HD remake. I don’t think we’ll see brand new Halo game just yet.

One of the major rumors for Microsoft’s press conference is that they’ll be unveiling 3D technology for the Xbox. While it’s not too far fetched, I don’t see it happening. Microsoft has been strong in their convictions against 3D and I don’t expect much to change.

What do you expect to see from Microsoft at this year’s E3? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to keep with Blast during this year’s E3, as we’ll be live blogging the press conferences and giving you our hands on impressions of the latest games and info.

Check back later this week for our predictions for Sony!

Tim Schaefer calls his next game ”extremely, extremely manly” — and no, it’s not Once Upon a Monster.

Trenched, Double Fine’s latest downloadable title was unveiled during last night’s Game Developer’s Choice Awards ceremony during GDC in San Francisco.

Giant robots. Giant Guns and Double Fine? I’m in. Check out the official trailer below.

Since its unveiling, Microsoft’s Kinect has been met with the same questions from gamers — “where are the core experiences?”  Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s Corporate VP of Microsoft Game Studios is urging gamers to be patient, and give the launch lineup a try.

“We view Kinect as a fundamental part of the platform, ” Spencer told GameSpot in a recent interview. “It is as core to the platform as Live is. And we think about the all products in our pipeline, including things that haven’t been announced. And just like there’s a pipe connected to the dev kits, there’s a camera connected to the dev kits. So you think about those dev kits and those teams and that creative space, and how they want to add Kinectto that experience.

“I think over time for first party, you’re not going to see that differentiation between ‘Is that a Kinect game?’ and ‘Is that not a Kinect game?’ You’re just going to think about these things as 360 games. Now that doesn’t mean there’s no controller included. This is just like Live, since Live is used in many different ways across many different experiences that we build.”

Spencer went on to comment on how strong he feels Kinect’s launch lineup is.  ”I think our launch lineup is strong. It’s deep. I think it’s great seeing the third parties step up. But our gamer customers should expect to see Kinect across all genres. All genres will support Kinect at some point.”

Blast is your Kinect headquarters. We’ll have a full review, as well as all of the info you’ll need when the big launch happens on November 4.

The music industry is filled with albums we’ll never forget. The Beatle’s Abbey Road defined a generation in transition. Michael Jackson’s Thriller announced the arrival of a new standard. Nirvana’s Nevermind was the voice of a changing American landscape. Rock Band 3 is all of this, and more; much more.

Rock Band 3 is a phenomenal achievement that not only rejuvenates a dying genre, it redefines it. With a slew of tweaks and a set of cool new features, the newest Rock Band title bridges the gap between musical game andmusic in general.  Simply put, Rock Band 3 proves that Harmonix are still the masters of the genre, even with a whole new set of challengers.

Rock Band 3 succeeds mainly on the strength of its own ambition of all else.  While most music games are okay with the idea of being just that – a game – Rock Band 3 aims a bit higher. With the game’s new Pro Mode, it becomes less about high scores with plastic peripherals and more about learning actual music notes. Rather than merely matching up the now expected colored boxes, Pro Mode tasks players with playing actual notes. Please note, the mode isn’t for everyone, in fact – some will hate, but it opens up a brand new, and much deeper experience for those already fluent, or looking to become so at their instrument of choice. Pro modes requires a new instrument – be it a drum-kit add-on or the insane pro-mode guitar complete with 102 buttons and the ability to use it as an actual guitar, but if you’re serious about music – you’re going to want to experience pro mode. Take that Prince.

The Rock Band experience has always been about vocals, guitar, bass and drums, but Rock Band 3 introduces players to a new addition to the band – the keyboard. Now, it may not seem as badass as the other choices, it is a great addition to the lineup, and tons of fun to play. There’s a ton of keyboard centric tracks here, and you can use the controller as an extra guitar for those songs that don’t make much use of the peripheral. While the keyboard feels just as rewarding as the drums or guitar, certain sections of certain songs can be downright challenging. While learning the ins and outs of the keyboards, odds are you’ll probably going to fail…a…lot.

Speaking of the set list, I can honestly say that Rock Band 3’s is easily the best of the franchise. Come on, how can you down a game that features both The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen? There’s a pretty wide variety of content here, and though not everything is going to please everyone, you should be able to find enough to keep you busy – especially considering that all of the previous songs from Rock Band 1 and 2 are compatible with the third game. Seriously, that’s over 2000 songs you can choose from. With that much content, it can be pretty hard to navigate, but luckily Rock Band 3 comes packed with a whole new way to sort your tracks. Now, you can sort by everything from number of vocal parts (the game also supports the three part harmonies introduced in Beatle’s Rock Band), decade, genre and more.

Rock Band 3 is also much more accessible than its predecessors. In previous titles, you had to earn fans strictly by playing the career mode, here though, you can do that in just about any game mode (save for the Tutorial of course). Players can now drop in and drop out of gameplay as they wish, as well as being able to navigate menus for each player without disrupting the experience of others.

The Blast Factor: If you’re into music games – Rock Band 3 is an absolute must buy. If you’ve been burnt out on the genre and haven’t played on in a while, here’s the perfect chance to come back.  Rock Band 3 is a cultural achievement because it questions what a music game can be. Simply put, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Since its release, people have been asking when the Xbox 360 will embrace Blu-Ray technology, and each time they do, Microsoft answers that the growing format isn’t important and that it’s a passing fad. Will their thoughts change as mega developers like Capcom and Mercury Steam have complained about the hassles of developing multiple disc DVDs for the platform? Nope.

In a recent interview, Stephen McGill, head of Xbox UK discussed just why the console doesn’t need a Blu-Ray add-on. “I think people now recognise what a smart decision it was to keep the pricing low, and actually Blu-ray is going to be passed by as a format. People have moved through from DVDs to digital downloads and digital streaming, so we offer full HD 1080p Blu-ray quality streaming instantly, no download, no delay. So, who needs Blu-ray?”

What do you think? Would you pay more for a new Xbox console because it has Blu-Ray capabilities? Let us know!

So, Halo: Reach is awesome and all (just check out our review, but one question remains — where’s Master Chief? The series poster boy and lead spartan soldier hasn’t been since seen the end of Halo 3 — or has he?

Fair warning, there’s a hefty amount of spoilers ahead, so you probably want to stop reading now if you haven’t finished all of Reach yet.

Alright, the video below apparently shows the one and only Master Chief about to take off for battle. Though Bungie hasn’t commented on the video, it does make sense as the final events of Reach lead directly into the events of the first Halo game. What do you think? Check out the video below and let us know.

Politics are messy, so I won’t offer my opinion. Enjoy.

As seen on Toby Toons

]]> http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/gaming/gaming-news/obama-is-not-a-gamer/feed/ 0 http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/gaming/gaming-news/sony-says-ps3-better-for-publishers-than-360/ http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/gaming/gaming-news/sony-says-ps3-better-for-publishers-than-360/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:42:10 +0000 Eddie Makuch http://blastmagazine.com/?p=39701

As if the console wars weren’t already piping hot enough, Sony stirred it up a bit today saying the PS3 is better for publishers than the Xbox 360.

Rob Dyer, SCEA senior VP of publisher relations said the recent PS3 price drop has had a “huge impact” on Sony’s sales and that the company is now breathing down Microsoft’s neck.

“They had a year’s head start against us, so we’ve been playing catch-up ball,” he told Industry Gamers. “Before the price cut, they had a two-to-one advantage; if you were a third-party publisher looking at the index, you should have been selling twice the number of units on the 360 as you would on the PS3.

“What we’ve been finding is that outside of the shooter category we literally over-index every single category – sports, fighting, action/adventure, music, etc. We do better for our publishing community than 360 does.”

“So for instance, with a title like Madden, I think the index was 1.4 to 1.0, which meant we way oversold on PS3 versus 360, given the installed base. That’s only going to get better and better as the installed base continues to grow,” explained Dyer.

He says Sony will use this advantage to counter the exclusivity deals Microsoft often has with developers and that Microsoft has fewer significant in-house studios than Sony does.

“They have very few first-party studios at Microsoft. Bungie’s next Halo is the last one, Rare rarely puts out anything, you’ve got Peter Molyneux with his Fable stuff… but they don’t have first-party development studios inside at Redmond or anywhere for that matter,” said Dyer.

“We do. So rather than putting their money behind that, they’ve been going to Epic or Valve or BioWare to do what they did with Mass Effect, and that’s where they throw their dollars.”

Dyer ended on a strong note, proclaiming the Sony brand as a global brand that will pass Microsoft soon enough.

“Candidly, we’re not going to compete with Microsoft on that front, but what we have is a global business here. Our global business is bigger than 360′s and will continue to get bigger than 360, and people are seeing that. We passed them in Europe and they don’t even exist in Japan, and we’re going to catch them and pass them here in the U.S. as well.”

I understand why statements like this are made, and actually, I believe Sony, but I urge fans of one system or another to not blow this out of perspective.

Source: CVG

Video games shouldn’t ruin relationships. When played in healthy, appropriate doses, gaming can be one of the most satisfying pastimes out there.

But, when overdone, fixation on games can lead to some nasty situations.

In this video, a girlfriend, we’ll call her CrazyLady, is fed up with her boyfriend’s excessive gaming habits and decides to smash his Xbox 360 with a golf club.

No more words, just watch.

Electronic Arts today revealed that a demo for “Need For Speed: Shift” on Xbox 360 and PS3 is due out this Thursday, October 1.

In the demo PS3 and Xbox 360 gamers will be introduced to the game’s first-person crash mechanic, the beautiful cockpit view, and the all-new driver profile, a system that builds a unique persona based on the style and skill of the player, while racing around Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and the tight city circuit of London River in these 5 varied speed demons.

1. BMW M3 (E46)

1. 2008 Dodge Viper SRT10

3. 2006 Lotus Elise 111R

4. 2008 Nissan GT-R

5. 2006 Pagani Zonda F (unlockable)

PC gamers don’t fret. As we previously mentioned, a demo for you guys has been around for a week now. Check it out here and if you missed our hands-on impressions with the game, read ‘em here.

The first downloadable boxer pack for Fight Night Round 4 will be released in late August via Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. Xbox will charge 800 Microsoft Points, while the Playstation Network will sell the pack for $9.99.

The downloadable pack will include Oscar De La Hoya, Vitali Klischko, Wladmir Klitschko, and alternate versions of George Foreman and James Toney. However, EA isn’t just including a boxer pack. They will be releasing a FREE downloadable game update at the end of August which will include additional trunks, gloves, shorts as well as new button control scheme to allow players to use face buttons on the controllers to throw punches, hooks, uppercuts and haymakers.

A new demo featuring the buttons will be released on both Xbox Live and Playstation Network in early September which will feature Mike Tyson and Muhammed Ali.

Fight Night Round 4 is currently available for the PS3 and Xbox360 and is rated T for Teen.

Yes, the rumors are true. In Prototype (from Activision and Radical Entertainment) you can destroy a helicopter by leaping a million feet in the air and karate kicking it. You can also throw things at helicopters: air conditioning units, soldiers, cars, zombies and, of course, other helicopters. You can even disguise yourself as a civilian or soldier, sneak up on a helicopter, and ninja it out of the sky. As your powers grow, your strength and lethality increase, which allows for more efficient destruction (which is beneficial for as the game progresses so do the number of helicopters that attack you at once), and eventually you won’t even have to stop running or even slow down to pick up some vehicle etc. and fling it skyward. There are even indicators on the screen that tell you where the nearest helicopters are that require destruction, and that’s not even part of your powers; it’s just courtesy of the programmers. In fact, a large portion of the gameplay in Prototype and, lets face it, the reason I wanted to play it from the time I saw the first trailer, is geared towards savaging unsuspecting helicopters in increasingly horrific (i.e. epic) ways. After that, it gets boring.

The game begins with a fully-powered Alex Mercer rampaging around a New York‚  infested with zombies, infected with some kind of creeping tentacle mold and swarming with unfriendly soldiers from a branch of the military called Blackwatch. The commonality between all these bad guys is the subject of a conspiracy that drives the narrative of the whole campaign, but up front, the important thing is they’re all trying to kill you: is no mean feat given that you are powered by something very much like the tentacle creep that has infested the city, and can rip people in two, absorb them into yourself and take on their forms, and, naturally, ninja kick helicopters out of mid air.

The campaign is a series of flashbacks as Mercer recounts the events that lead up to an ominous final showdown and during which you grow progressively stronger, but the first level introduces you to the full range of powers Mercer possesses. you can hit things, run up buildings, hit things harder, and unleash huge blasts of tentacle creep that destroy all enemies over the space of a couple city blocks. These abilities are intensely fun to play around with, and the graphics and targeting system do a good job of keeping gameplay lucid and mostly believable, even in the midst of some of the more chaotic battles. The thing that really bugs me about‚  Mercer’s stock powers, however, is that I’ve seen them before. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for the old-timey Xbox ‚ and PS2 is also from Radical Entertainment, and operates on a very similar (by which I mean pretty much identical) system of breaking things for points, and it’s pretty obvious that the developers didn’t change the power set a whole lot between the two games. Now, a next-gen version of Ultimate Destruction is hardly a bad thing, but the new stuff that Prototype has to offer, the stuff that would make it more worthwhile than last generation game you could get for a fraction of the cost, is just downright uninspiring.

To begin with, Alex Mercer is the most emo superhero ever. Yes, even worse than Spider-Man 3. He walks around with his hoodie up all the time, only ever talks about revenge (with flat, only-for-exposition-purposes voice acting), and when he discovers that he can leap tall buildings in a single bound etc., his first instinct is to make the people responsible sorry, for no particularly well stated reason. He has lost his memory but he trusts his sister and ex-girlfriend unconditionally. He is mad at the evil corporation for infecting the city with the tentacle things, but he’s the one who set the zombie queen loose, and doesn’t seem to care if when he steals a tank it crushes a couple dozen civilians. He’s angry, un-compelling and really just an un-likeable character. And the rest of the narrative doesn’t fare any better, playing out a clichƒ© government conspiracy cover-up type thing that is exactly the same as every disaster movie plot ever. The mood of the game is too dark, and really just takes itself too seriously. It would honestly be more fun if it just dispensed with premise entirely, left a lot of unanswered questions, and just encouraged you to wreck helicopters for no reason. I mean, it’s really what you wind up doing anyway.

Now, my favorite games of all time are open-world sandbox-style games much like Prototype. Saints Row 2, Mercenaries1&2, anything Spider-Man, and of course GTA hold places of honor on the shelf above my Xbox. The reason is that my attention span is directly proportional to the number of clever jokes, explosions or shiny objects right in front of my face, and open-world environments allow for hours of endless tooling around with no specific goal but plenty of entertaining stuff to come across. Prototype didn’t live up to my expectations on this front, even with all the blowing-things-up there is to do. I am not knocking Prototype’s combat system even a little bit. The powers are sweet, there is never any shortage of bad guys to toss around, and there is there is a powerful satisfaction that comes from your awareness meter dropping to “anonymous” meaning there are no more baddies around because you crushed them all. The problem is that, if you stripped away the combat, there’s nothing interesting left.

Crazy combat is the definitely reason I bought the game in the first place, but the key to a good, engaging sandbox game is to have a rich environment to explore around all the carnage and helicopter-kicking. Sure, GTA IV is singular in its depth and the diversity of its NPCs and I certainly don’t expect every game to even come close to offering that level of variety, but they could at least try. In Ultimate Spider-Man, Spidey would crack jokes and race through Queens with the Human Torch. In Saints Row 2 there were more inside jokes than I could count, and the dialogue and premises for the missions were often laugh out loud funny. (Like stealing hos from one pimp to help another pimp. Hysterical.) The best Prototype has to offer is a dark, brooding, kind of confusing story about revenge or salvation or “¦.something, and a protagonist that is way too depressed given the crazy powers he has.

Blast Factor: Everybody can agree that if there are three things in the world that are fun to smash into the ground, they are zombies, evil SWAT teams and helicopters. Prototype does a beautiful job of making sure that you get plenty of opportunity to fight all three, usually at the same time. Once you get bored with the novelty of the battle system however, the game offers a moody, clichĩd narrative that fails to set it apart from other sandbox games out there.

Prototype is available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC for $49.99

Guitar Hero Smash Hits, from Activision, Red Octane, Neversoft and all our old GH friends is like any “best of” collection, and offers exactly what you’re expecting, no more no less. If you want a strong variety of solo rhythm game tracks, you would buy a solitary Guitar Hero game, and if you wanted a good, well balanced group rhythm game, you would buy Rock Band because those games are designed with those purposes expressly in mind. You buy Smash Hits for the reason you would buy anything with the word “Hits” in the title: you know what’s on the game already, you like it, and you want it all in one place.

There is a slight contradiction in the idea of a full band game filled solely with songs that were initially chosen for their prominent guitar parts, and because of the need to balance the fun across four controller parts instead of one, the songs that are on the game aren’t necessarily the most fun from Guitar Hero, but are all more or less the most fun for the most people. I was disappointed by the absence of songs like “My Name is Jonas” and “Cliffs of Dover” (both from Guitar Hero III), which have fun parts specifically for the guitar, but would understandably be less fun on the full-band set up. I was particularly disappointed that “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was not on the Smash Hits play list, but to be fair I wouldn’t want to be in a room with somebody trying to sing like Axl Rose. The songs that did make it on to Smash Hits are some of the more well-known from the Guitar Hero repertoire, as well as some of the more challenging (expert-level “Through the Fire and the Flames” is still mind-blowingly impossible, even with the addition of the new neck-slider feature), and most of the songs are pretty well balanced across all four instruments (a notable exception is “YYZ” which doesn’t have a vocal part, but is hella fun on every other count). Unfortunately, there is no downloadable content for Smash Hits to fill in any notable gaps that you might find in the set list, so read the back of the box before you pick it up so you make sure you know what you’re getting.

The game’s mechanics, graphics, and features are very much like a no-frills Guitar Hero World Tour, with comparable character customization, band creation and music studio features. Though the game’s tracks are all master recordings, there are no “celebrity appearances” or boss guitar battles as there have been in past iterations of the franchise (sadly, no Slash, but thankfully no Ted Nugent). Again, this is not the full Guitar Hero experience, just the major bullet points condensed into a single game. If you really want the CG chick from Paramore to play onstage with your Avatar, the other games are what you’re looking for. This game is for the Guitar Hero junkie (that is to say: me) who has “Killer Queen” and “Fire and the Flames” on his iPod and‚  really would like to try the vocal part for once.

With this in mind, Smash Hits does do us all a favor by dispensing with the trouble of unlocking all the songs in career mode before being able to play them casually in quickplay. All the songs are available in quickplay from the get-go, because Activision realizes if you buy this game, you just want to play with your rhythm game addict buddies and want to skip over the easy setting and pop songs and crank some Skynyrd on expert without all the hassle of having to think up a band name and play boring songs for an hour to get there. There is a career mode, but even that is streamlined; more complex set lists are unlocked according to a cumulative score from all available songs rather than just the last setlist you played. This means you can unlock a wider variety of songs through good performance on easier songs, and not just adequate performance on the hardest available setlist.

The gameplay itself the tried and true Guitar Hero model with no real differences. The songs have been updated with some of the more complex note patterns that appeared in World Tour, so there are some slight differences between these songs and their originals on the older Guitar Hero releases. The addition of a few neck-slider bars isn’t enough to make the experience of playing the same songs on a new game completely fresh and revolutionary, but it does keep things from getting boring, and the differences between songs are substantial enough that it shows that Activision didn’t just re-package some old games and try to sucker you in to buying them.

Perhaps the only new addition to the actual gameplay screen is a meter that tells you how many out of five stars you have earned so far in the course of gameplay, and how far you are to earning the next one. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Rock Band has had that feature from the beginning, though I don’t mind it when Guitar Hero tries to be more like Rock Band. There are some of the old Guitar Hero-related irritations like distracting designs on the note highway, or flashes of lightning when you gain star power, but these aren’t any better or worse than they were in World Tour, and have been greatly reduced in scale from earlier versions of the game.

Blast Factor: If you haven’t already decided whether or not you really want Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, you probably don’t. At a full $50 price tag, it costs probably about as much as a used collection of Guitar Hero I, II, and III, or a brand new Rock Band II or World Tour, all of which would offer a greater variety of songs and downloadable content, and would be better especially for newcomers to the rhythm genre. However, if you like what you see and have been dying to play some of these old songs with your rhythm game buddies, then by all means, grab it up, plug it in, and rock out.

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is available on Xbox 360 and PS3 for $49.99, and on the Wii for $39.99

Today, Microsoft confirmed the existence of the Zune HD, which had been rumored for weeks now.

While details for the device aren’t plentiful, we do know that the device will have an integrated HD radio receiver, a 480 x 272 pixel OLED multi-touch screen, and is Wi-Fi enabled with a web browser optimized for multi-touch browsing. But perhaps the biggest announcement is that the device will integrate with the Xbox Marketplace, allowing users to transfer items purchased there to and from their devices.

Looks-wise, the Zune HD is clearly going after the iPod touch, and now that users can transfer files between the Xbox Marketplace and a device, Microsoft has the Sony PSP arrangement in its sights too. While we may have wanted to count the Zune as a has been, it’s still fighting to stay alive. We’ll have more next week from the E3 convention when we can (hopefully) get our hands on one.

Velvet Assassin is the new stealth game from SouthPeak Games, based loosely on the life of Violette Szabo, a French secret agent in World War 2. The strongest elements of the game involve stalking around in the shadows, stabbing Nazis in the back or face and switching the attractive protagonist in and out of various form-fitting outfits “" generally a pretty winning combination “" but offers little else to make the quality of the content match the strength of the concept. The writing is hammy, the story is not particularly compelling or well told, and the gameplay is drawn out and repetitive, all of which conspire to undermine the game’s purpose of getting the player to empathize with the historical figure at the center of the gameplay.

To be fair, historical gaming is a pretty unexplored genre. I know Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed attach names and dates to their gameplay that are accurate at least according to Wikipedia, but at the end of the day, the history isn’t what’s at stake. You don’t play Assassin’s Creed to learn about the nuances of geopolitics in the Holy Land during the Crusades, you play it to knife suckers in the back. Given this, the fact that SouthPeak is using Szabo’s life as a selling point for the game (it’s on the back of the box and everything) is a bold marketing move that will, ideally, open up a dialogue about the merits of interactive media in more highbrow contexts in the future. If Velvet Assassin had been executed perfectly, which, sad to say, it wasn’t, it could have been a high-minded, almost literary game, and I would like to commend SouthPeak and Replay Studios for taking a step in that direction.

Velvet Assassin has problems, but it does have some solid elements. The meat of the gameplay involves sneaking undetected between areas of light and shadow, and the cinematography is striking and organic. Twilight, moonlight and harsh floodlights cast plenty of natural looking shadows for you to stalk around in and hunt patrolling Nazis. The game does a good job of emphasizing the stealth gameplay over any shooter elements, making the form of gameplay fit well to the spirit of the story. You have a silenced Colt pistol for most of the game but it’s very little match for the German guns, and if you get spotted, you really have to work to get yourself back into seclusion unharmed, so you can’t just charge into a room guns-blazing with any realistic hope for success. Stealth take-downs are infinitely more satisfying anyway.

The gameplay takes place within the fevered dreams of a bed-ridden Violette, recalling her missions while laid-up in a French hospital. This allows for an in-game power called “Morphine Mode” in which Violette doses herself with morphine, the Nazis freeze in time, and you can reposition yourself “" or kill a guard “" as you see fit. This isn’t a necessary component of the game, and really just an out for when you get spotted so you don’t necessarily get gunned down the first time. Also when in morphine mode, Violette’s costume changes to a scant night gown, which is as good a reason for a not-completely-believable video game gimmick as I’ve ever heard, and while it’s a fairly interesting facet of gameplay, it feels tacked on and is a little strange.

The controls are pretty simple, which makes for a very quick learning curve, but also makes most of the movement and standard assassination maneuvers pretty repetitive. You can drop into a crouch, which secludes Violette in the shadows and quiets her footsteps, allowing her to get right up behind the unsuspecting Nazi guards and take them out silently; provided none of his buddies are watching. There is some variation, like shooting explosive barrels or activating a patrolling guard’s grenade so that he will walk the active grenade over to another group of soldiers, but for the most part there’s a typical sneak-and-stab drill that it doesn’t take long to get good at, and then bored with. Don’t get me wrong, it can be incredibly entertaining and satisfying to deftly pull off a silent Nazi assassination “" my encounters with the first few groups of guards in the training level left my heart racing “" but the Nazi AI, while deadly enough once you’ve been spotted, is unrealistically stupid.

After sitting and watching a guy walk the same 20-foot stretch of hallway indefinitely without seeing the leather-clad British lady in the shadows at his feet, your enemies resemble less the ruthless soldiers of Call of Duty and more the moving platforms of Portal, where all that mattered was the right timing in a specific sequence to get from point A to point B. The game is pretty linear, so after you’ve got the movements of the next series of guards memorized you can just blow through them in less than half the time it took you on the first try, and if you’re on your second or third run through of a series of guards, the suspense of the game disappears completely and you’re just going through the motions for the hell of it.

While a compelling narrative might have seriously bolstered the repetitive gameplay, the game’s presentation of the story was very disappointing. There were definitely good elements to the story “" the character of Violette, Nazi antagonists, heartfelt letters home from Nazi soldiers you just assassinated “" but the presentation is so awkward and at odds with the rest of the structure of the game that it really detracts from the game more than it adds to it. All of the information about the story is conveyed via Violette’s not-particularly-well-voice-acted narration and occasional feverish hallucinations, but there isn’t really anything like cinematics, or character development, or any real connection between the player and the characters “" a real shame considering this is supposed to be based on real events and people. The story is certainly present if you care to piece it all together, but really, when you’re crouched in the dark waiting to stab your next Nazi, your motives or mission objectives won’t have any more or less meaning if you watched the story scenes or just skipped over them.

In the end, Velvet Assassin puts forth some solid, though occasionally mediocre, gameplay, that will appeal to stealth fans looking for some straight-up sneaking around. The story behind the game and the association with Violette Szabo, though selling points in the game’s advertising, are not its strength, so if that’s what you were looking for, try something else. At full price, with the low replay value, I wouldn’t recommend Velvet Assassin for purchase, but it wouldn’t be bad in your Gamefly queue.

Velvet Assassin is available for Xbox 360 and Windows and retails for $59.99

Homophobic remarks over Xbox Live are everywhere; it seems you can’t land a headshot in Halo without being called a “raging homo” or any number of far more degrading and hurtful names.

However, it now seems as if Microsoft Games Studios not only creates the setting for these remarks, but also perpetrates them in person as well.

British newspaper “Telegraph” reports that a veteran graphics designer, Jamie Durrant, employed by the Xbox side of Microsoft’s house has sued the company for ‚£45,000 claiming harassment for an extended period by coworkers who indulged in name calling and nasty notes.

Durrant worked for Lionhead for over ten years in such time was actively involved in production of major titles Fable, Black and White, and The Movies.

Durrant told the newspaper:

“I have never hidden my sexuality from the office and I felt this could be targeted at myself. This was not the first time there was homophobic content in the office. Previously, I had tried to deal with it myself. This time, I did not feel that I could.

I was very surprised that Microsoft did not have any policies relating to this sexual orientation harassment… I feel like they’re making out that I’m the one with the problem and not the homophobic aspects of the company.”

The Human Rights Campaign foundation in 2008 granted Microsoft a perfect score for their treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors, so it will be interesting to learn specific details from the forthcoming suit from Durrant.

via GamePolitics

The premise for Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is incredibly simple: sexy, bikini-clad girls slaughter a huge number of zombies. The game, from D3 publishers, is exclusively for the Xbox 360, and was released in conjunction with Bikini Zombie Slayers on the Wii. The gameplay, while diverting at times, is exactly what your low expectations would predict, if not worse.

Through a series of text expositions accompanied by Japanese voice-overs, and very few cut-scenes, you piece together the pretty straightforward story: the protagonists-a mostly naked woman, Aya, and her little sister, Saki-possess a special kind of blood, Baneful Blood, that an organization, called The Organization, wants because it gives people superpowers. The best way to go about getting this blood, apparently, is to fill the city with zombies.

Of course, you don’t really care why there is zombie slaying, you just want to get to it, and while the game may be seriously lacking in many areas, zombie killing is not one of them. There is something immensely satisfying in simply pressing a few buttons and watching a legion of undead literally torn to shreds in front of you. Even more so when it’s done by a bikini-clad supermodel assassin. There are times in this game when the hallways in front of you are literally crammed full of shotgun-toting undead, a few of which may be on fire, and you just tear through them with grace, ease, and a little unrealistic bouncing.

Aya and Saki both wield samurai swords, which easily slice through the endless waves of zombie assailants, though a “clean sword” function does mean that you have to pay some attention to what you’re doing. An unclean sword deals less damage, and can get even get stuck in a zombie torso, so every dozen kills or so, you essentially have to reload your sword. There are combo modifiers, which allow you to release wide-range “ecstasy attacks” after a certain number of kills in a row, or send you into rampage mode, which increases damage, but depletes life. A third playable character is Anna, the blond, also-scantily-clad police officer, who uses hand guns, shotguns, Uzis and grenades for a little welcome variation.

Typically in the single player campaign, two of the three characters are available to the player per level, and tag out in the middle of a fight. This allows for some minimal strategizing: Anna is better at ranged attacks, for example, but you’ll want a sword for close-quarters combat.

And yes, because I know you’re wondering, you can dress them up. Or down. There are “dress up” and “view” modes on the main menu, so you can play around with and ogle your characters’ costumes. However, new costume options are only available after specific achievements are unlocked, so costume alteration is really geared towards the more serious bikini-genre gamers out there.

An added little bonus is the charming 8-bit quality mini-game that pops up during the load screens, in which you play a tiny bikini samurai and can slaughter adorable little zombies that make sounds like chickens when they die.

Beyond that, though, the game kind of falls apart.

The zombies are many, and their designs and weapons more varied than I was honestly expecting (some zombies have hand saws, some have miniguns), but there’s never anything to them that really forces you to alter your strategy, not that you could if you wanted to. Sure, there are a few variations on the standard sword slash, like you can slash standing up, or slash while jumping, or…the others will come to me, but the game is lacking a few notable functions like, for example, a way to defend yourself.

There is no actual way to block any incoming attack other than not being in its way to begin with. The only way to stave off potential damage is to kill everything in sight before it has a chance to move. A good offense is the only defense. It’s less of a problem with the slow, dumb zombies, but in the boss battles, of which there are many, you can get frequently trapped in a seemingly endless enemy combo with no way to escape taking damage.

The co-op mode does take the intense edge off of the boss battles, and allows for communal sharing in the glee that is zombie massacre, but is not without its problems. The game is clearly meant to be a single player experience, and having a second player on hand doesn’t compliment the gameplay so much as just cut the fun in half. The screen splits vertically, rather than the now traditional horizontal, which allows for a full view of the lovely protagonists, but severely limits the range of vision for people actually trying to find zombies to kill.

Furthermore, there are levels where co-op just isn’t an option. Occasionally, in the story, the protagonists are separated from each other, and you can only play through the ensuing levels as one or the other character. In single player mode, this is motivation to diversify the usage of your characters to keep their levels up, but in co-op it is an abrupt end to the fun for whoever is player two. The story is nowhere near good enough to warrant the sacrifice in gameplay.

A further quick list of grievances includes:

The eccentric targeting system, which is really only necessary when using Anna, targets less what the camera is centered on and more whatever the hell it feels like.

Rampage mode, which depletes your life and can only be turned off by, and I’m not kidding, statues of the Virgin Mary, of which there are only three in the entire game. The only other way to avoid dying once in rampage mode is to finish whatever level you are currently playing.

The level maps almost seem intentionally confusing, with many paths leading to dead ends or other whole map sections irrelevant to progressing through the level, with no indication of what direction you should be going. You signed up to kill zombies, not to get lost in a sewer. To make matters worse, several levels are played on the same map.

The motorcycle level, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is possibly the least involved video game level ever conceived. Aya hops on a motorcycle and drives in a straight line for a couple hundred feet, slashing at a some zombies wolves while in transit. ‚ The only thing necessary to pass the level is to hold the “go” button and mash the “sword” button. You don’t even need to use the joystick. Pong is a more stimulating game, for heaven’s sake.

To be fair, nobody expected a lot from any game called Bikini Samurai Squad, and nitpicking isn’t going to help anything. While this veritable cavalcade of glitches makes for frustrating gameplay at times, it ultimately doesn’t impede the amount of zombies, blood, or bikinis. However, the $39.99 asking price is still too much for the shoddy gaming experience. Onechanbara isn’t something you want hanging out in your gamer library, corrupting the innocence of your more impressionable games, but it might be fun for a night of drunken gaming if you have Gamefly or see it in a bargain bin somewhere.

Next-gen first person shooter fans are in for a treat this holiday season. Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2 are quickly on the way, ‚ and your urge to kill locust or chimera will be swiftly re-birthed. However, for those of us with two next gen consoles on a tight budget, your choice might not be as clear yet.

GoW2 really hits multiplayer hard, which it should, given Xbox Live’s expansive online community, and the success of the original Gears online play. It would be crazy not to build upon that. Three new multiplayer modes: wingman, guardian and submission have been added to the original four.‚ 

Wingman pairs up two people to face off against four other groups of two people in a death match. Submission is like a darker capture the flag which pits two teams of five with the task of killing an AI regulated character, and then carry their dead carcass back to their home base. Guardian is exactly like Assassination, but with a twist: ‚ it allows the players to keep fighting after their leader has been killed, but takes away the ability to respawn

When it comes to story, GoW2 does not offer too much. It’s definitely bigger, with huge enemies and environments that will certainly take full advantage of your HDTV.‚ 

The story begins six months after the ending credits of the last Gears of War. Not much is known about the story, all that is known for sure is that Fenix has a love interest, people will die, and Carmine will be back. The rest ‚ is pretty much the same, locusts are taking over the cities, and Fenix and his diehard crew are the only ones to stop them, (hmm … Halo anyone?) If you are looking for an intricate story , you may be best served to look elsewhere.

It’s basically the same plot that has been rehashed since WWII, evil forces are taking over the world, and only a select few can stop them — except with this one, you got chainsaws. ‚ 

Many PlayStation 3 owners experienced arguably the best of the systems launch lineup with Resistance: Fall of Man. The game was a huge success critically and consumer wise. There was no doubt that a sequel would be made and two years later it happened.‚ 

With Resistance 2, it is all about scale. Insomniac’s latest shooter delivers on just that, with 100-foot enemies, 60 player online, and 8-person cooperative play, complete with its own storyline.

The story takes place two years after the first, starting off where the last cinematic from the original Resistance left off. ‚ Our hero, Nathan Hale, joins a powerful group of super soldiers called The Sentinels that seem to have the same immunity to the Chimeran virus as him.

This time around the narrative will be from Hale’s perspective, unlike the first games where the story had been told through Rachel Parker’s eyes.‚ 

Multiplayer has been improved considerably with up to 60 players playing at once. Insomniac knows that with 60 people in one area would just be unmitigated chaos. The solution was to split the 60 players into groups of five giving each group specific objectives to complete.‚ 

The weapons from the first game will be making a return, but with a few added tweaks. Like the Bulls-eye, which now has a sniper scope One new and interesting new weapon ‚ is the Splicer which shoots electromagnetically charged saw blades at your opponent, slicing them into ribbons.

If the 60 person multiplayer doesn’t catch your interest there is an 8-player cooperative campaign for you and seven other buddies to play. Instead of just letting you play through the single player storyline, Insomniac has created a separate storyline that scales to the amount of players that are playing. Players have up to three different classes to choose from. The Tank has high health and has a shield to help take heavy damage, special ops, who deals heavy damage, but has low health and medic who is the primary support class who focuses on the group.

It is to see that with the amount of things being crammed into this one title that you would have a hard choice of purchasing a game. If the promise of a huge, deep story with 100 foot boss fight, 60 player online play, and an 8 person cooperative campaign doesn’t sell you on this game — nothing will.

Blast Magazine Correspondent‚ Juneil Cabreza also contributed to this article.

There’s no question that Halo was one of the best action/shooter games ever made. It was a remarkable achievement in gaming and carried the Xbox at launch time. Its multiplayer had that James Bond Goldeneye/N64 feel where you could play it, the same levels, over and over again and love every minute.

I still like to dive into a quick slayer match in the Blood Gulch or dive, two at a time, in a Warthog and open up on enemies with the unlimited machine gun.

Not everyone knows exactly how much development went into Halo, and nowhere is that more apparent than in watching this old, 10 minute video from E3 2000, almost a year and a half before Halo launched November 14, 2001.

The E3 2000 trailer and I first crossed paths in the August 2000 PC Gamer CD-ROM. The disc had the Motocross Madness 2 demo teased on the front and also contained demos for Gunship!, The Time Machine and Force Commander.

This video is old. It has elements like a rocket launcher on the warthog and a really weird Master Chief’s voice. It was done cinematically — movie style — to show off at E3 and give a taste of what the game could do.

Enjoy this bit of history. It should be in a museum.

For those about to rock — we salute you. And for those who aren’t, Activision is cool with that too.

Tradmork reported that Activision, makers of the highly successful Guitar Hero series have recently filed a trademark for the term “DJ Hero.”

The official documents, filed February 8, state that Activision is looking to use the term in conjunction with “computer game software and related instruction manual sold together as a unit. Interactive video game programs; computer game discs; downloadable software for use in connection with computer games; video game controllers; interactive video game comprised of a CD or DVD sold as a unit with a video game controller.”

While there’s no official word from Activision about the possible turntable simulator, it should be noted that gamers have been clamoring for a title similar to what is being hinted at for quite some time. Check out the custom Guitar Hero turntable Gizmodo reported on at CES this year.

This is far from a confirmed game announcement. In fact, Activision has filed multiple trademarks dealing with the Guitar Hero franchise merely to protect the name. Ever hear of Guitar Villain? What about Drum Hero? They may not be games, but Activision holds the rights to these names just like they now hold the rights to DJ Hero.

You know we’re gonna be following this one closely.

Guitar Hero III came into the world with a large reputation to live up to. For months, gamers have been waiting to get their hands on the newest hit in the Guitar Hero franchise. It represents one of the best party games around and with new multiplayer modes, and it’s better than ever.

Guitar Hero III boasts a brand new set list of over 60 songs and a ton of downloadable content.

If you have never played a guitar hero game, here’s a quick overview: you take the role of one of the game’s playable characters and battle through the career mode on four difficulties, ranging from easy to expert. There are five buttons on the guitar representing different frets. To play a note, you have to hold down the fret button and strum the guitar. Sounds easy right? Now just do that about 2000 times in 5 minutes. In this game, practice makes perfect, and sticking with it is the key. The learning curve is difficult , but once you get the hang of this game, you will be quite pleased. On to the review:

Guitar Hero III tried to go more in depth with a career mode, but this title isn’t going to be known just for a great storyline. The game starts off with you and some friends starting a band, and after playing five or six songs you move onto the next level and the next set of songs. You go through it all, including your garage band days, your music video and playing in sold out arenas. The storyline in general is quite humorous at times and is fun to watch as the comic book-like characters show their emotions.

While the Guitar Hero franchise isn’t known for breakthrough graphics, but for the spectators Guitar Hero III has done a great job of making the characters look better and the places where you perform are much more detailed. After the prequel was attacked for poor graphics you can tell they really worked to squelch the critics.

The song list is in a word, Excellent. The wide variety of songs make this a very versatile list and there’s something on it for everyone. Whether you’re an 80′s rocker or a fan of the metal, you will be pleased. Some bands featured in the game include Guns and Roses, Slipknot and Kiss. The bonus songs feature some obscure titles you probably have never heard of, but they are very fun to play.

The multiplayer has been improved on huge levels. There are now more ways to embarrass or cooperate with your friends while playing. The multiplayer provides a great way to spend a night with a friend. On the other hand, if your friends have something better to do, you now have the choice of signing into Xbox Live to find a partner or an opponent or bandmate.

Cooperative mode allows two players to play at once. In most cases one player will take the role of the bassist, and one will be the guitarist. In some songs, rhythm guitar and lead guitar are played. Most achievements will come through playing co-op songs and trying to earn huge note streaks and point totals, and the ever-sought after 1,000,000 points.

The Face-Off modes return. You can either try to match your opponents skill level in a Pro Face-Off, in which you are both given the same set of notes, or you can battle them in a Face-Off in which you can go at different difficulties and battle for highest score. This mode represents a great way to show off.

The new “Battle” mode allows players to instead of achieving star power (a power-up which doubles your note-score) you can gain the ability to attack your opponent. You can break their strings, make their note-screen flash, and even raise the difficulty level they are playing on. This was an instant fan-favorite with the people on Xbox Live.

Guitar Hero III is a great game, and an addicting one at that. It’s great fun to play, especially with a bunch of friends and once you start, you won’t stop until you’re the best.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Neversoft Entertainment
Platform: Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, PS2
Genre: Music
Players: 1-2
Launch Date: October 28, 2007

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars

If you ask Gametap, they’ll give you a great variety of video games parents can play with their children. Including Lego Star Wars and other Nintendo DS games — which is odd considering that would require both the parent and the child to have their own Nintendo DS.

They are also quick to warn parents against violence and swearing in video games.

We’re just going to list the best fucking games. K? Thanks.

Blast’s top five PlayStation 3 games of 2007

5. Assassin’s Creed

It didn’t live up to expectations, but it’s visually stunning and shows what’s possible. Hopefully someone will take the concept and make better game from it.

4. MotorStorm
This one came out early in the year and it’s emerged as one of the top PS3 games out there — it even comes with the system at a lot of stores.

From our March 1 review: "We wanted to harness the power of the PS3," said Nigel Kershaw, lead game designer for Evolution Studios, the game’s developer. "PS3 is a very very very powerful machine. We had to learn its power and what it could do."

3. Rock Band and Guitar Hero III
It’s a tie. You’ll never have a better time not actually playing the guitar.

2. Heavenly Sword
Chick swings swords. Kills. Hot.

1. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
The best game on the PlayStation 3 so far. With the recent game releases, we have to hope there’s a ton more like this in store for 2008.

Biggest letdown: Lair.
Best PlayStation 2 game: God of War 2

Blast’s top five Xbox 360 games of 2007

5. Bioshock
September 3 review: “The world is Rapture, an underwater paradise created to avoid the problems with the world above the ocean line. Free of political influence and censorship, it should have been perfect. By the time the player arrives, it’s in disarray. Burning, leaking, and filled with psychotic inhabitants, the secrets of this once perfect civilization are breathtaking in their depth.”

It may seem odd to find this at the bottom of the list, but there’s a lot of competition.

4. The Orange Box.

3. Oblivion
I’m personally not a fan, and I love RPG’s. But I felt, on the PC at least, that Gothic 3 had better controls. For the 360, however, Oblivion reigns supreme.

2. Halo 3
It’s awesome.

1. Gears of War
Gears of War is hard, but it’s the epitomal Xbox 360 action game and one of the best ever.

Biggest letdown: Phantasy Star Universe. Someone needs to be arrested for assault or rape or something because they’ve completely ruined one of the best RPG’s ever.

Blast’s top five Nintendo Wii games of 2007

5. Super Mario Brothers (NES)
Yeah so we’ve all been playing it on Emulators for years, but it’s good to see it back in the mainstream. Still waitin for Mario 3…

4. Zelda
You can play all of them…but the one made for the Wii is pretty good too.

3. WarioWare: Smooth Moves
It’s how we all learned how to use the Wiimote.

2. Wii Sports
It was free. It came with your Wii. You play it more than any other game.

1. Super Mario Galaxy
From our upcoming review: Mario is once again trying out a new career field — one not only entertaining and addictive but which should prove to stand the test of time as one of Mario’s greatest adventures ever.

Biggest letdown: Super Paper Mario. I don’t care if Gamespot gave it an 8.8. It wasn’t an RPG. The story sucked. It was schmultzy even by those standards. Flipping was cool though…

Best multiplayer games

5. Carnival Games (Wii)
The most underrated game of the year. This low-budget Wii title got terrible reviews from the major players in video game journalism.

But have a few beers (or smoke’em if you got’em), have some friends over and tell me this isn’t totally frigging awesome.

4. Kane and Lynch: Dead Men
What GameTap said: If you’re worried about your kids being exposed to violence, rough language, and suggestive themes, these are games you will absolutely want to avoid

This game makes my top five multiplayer list because it’s the most amount of times anyone’s ever said “fuck” in a video game. The multiplayer is hard and some of the maneuvers are tricky, but once you get used to it, this one is very entertaining. “Fragile Alliance” multiplayer mode is innovative also — you have to rob a bank and you can choose to be loyal to your friends or kill them and take the loot yourself.

3. Madden 2008
It’s still fun to compete as your favorite teams — and Madden lets you pick up and go in two minutes.

2. Rock Band
Sure you have to get four people together all the time to make it really work…so?

1. Halo 3
Still the best time you can have shooting short, stupid aliens.

Electronic Arts has released the box art and screenshots for the next chapter in the classic Burnout racing franchise. Burnout Paradise is out January 8 for PS3 and xbox 360.

Tear through the streets of Paradise City, filled with insane super jumps and hundreds of smashable targets, looking for shortcuts to give you that competitive edge! The action begins with you but it may not end, just pull up to a stoplight and spin your wheels to enter one of five types of high speed action challenges or jump online instantly with your friends. Burnout Paradise sets a new standard for online social gameplay with its EasyDrive online system.All the cars in Burnout Paradise have been engineered from the ground up to look beautiful, whether they’re fresh out of the showroom or smashed into scrap. From exotics and muscle cars to hot rods and even supercharged SUVs, get ready to experience spectacular bone-crushing crashes and an unparalleled sense of speed! Welcome to Paradise: one city with infinite possibilities.

Features:

• Explore Paradise — From big-surf beach, to downtown gridlock, there’s over 30 square kilometers of the ultimate driving playground to explore from the get-go. Nothing is blocked off.
• Burnout Your Way — Just pull up to over 120 stoplights and spin your wheels to start one of five different events — the classic Race, Road Rage and Burning Route, and the all-new Stunt Run and Marked Man games.
• Instant Online — Burnout Paradise sets the new standard in online social gameplay. See your friends online with the EasyDrive Friends List and connect with them instantly without having to wait or exit your game.
• Team up or Takedown — Join forces with up to seven of your buddies to beat hundreds of online FreeBurn Challenges together or heat up the competition and go head-to-head in user created race routes.
• Road Rules — Make and break the rules of each road by setting speed and destruction records all over town. Track how many you own against your friends!
• Mugshots — Track the length and breadth of up to 2,500 online rivalries. In your moments of victory, grab mugshots of opponents who have connected Playstation Eye and Xbox Live Vision cameras. Gloat over them even more in your trophy room or export them for ultimate bragging rights!
• Speed, Speed and Even More Speed — The rebuilt, race-tuned Burnout game engine delivers intense speed boost gameplay at a super-smooth and super-fast 60 frames-per-second.
• Showtime: Crash Anywhere, Any Time — Feel like bringing chaos to the streets of Paradise? Set your car wrecking, spinning and scraping down the road, smashing through traffic and leaving a trail of expensive wreckage in your wake.
• Crash Deformation — Burnout Paradise features an all-new deformation technology that gives players an astounding close-up and slow-motion view of super-real destruction.
• Cars — Muscle cars, exotics, hot rods and even supercharged SUVs, engineered to look beautiful whether they’re brand new or mashed into scrap. Choose from stunt, speed or aggression car classes, each built with their own unique boost ability to give you the upper hand for specific challenges. Shut down roaming rivals and rack up wins on your licence to strut the streets in a wide selection of unique rides.
• Take it Aerial — Go airborne and pull boost-earning barrel rolls and spectacular mid-air spins. Find the hidden jumps to reach secret rooftop routes and 120 smashable Burnout Billboards.
• Driver’s License — Start with a Learner’s Permit then rack up wins to progress all the way up to a Burnout Elite Driver’s License — the ultimate accolade for any safety-unconscious motorist.

This stunning looking racer will be available for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Rock Band builds on the phenomenon started by Guitar Hero by using four instruments in 13 gameplay combinations, giving you deep and detailed playability. This includes solo play of each instrument, competitions and co-op play, forming your own band.

The game includes two guitar parts (bass and lead guitar), drums and a microphone. But you can’t form a band with two of the same instrument.

When I sat down to try the drums they were interesting but very tricky. You need to hit different drums at different beats, which is hard for someone that doesn’t know anything about drums.

It turns out that the game focuses on the foot pedal and the left most drum. If you concentrate on those you can afford to miss the others without failing out as easily. At first I was trying to hit everything and missing most of them. After I started concentrating on the left drum and the foot I would still miss a lot, but I could get through a song.

The Drums seem very reliable and will take a good amount of abuse. Harmonix said that they had broken sticks on the drums but didn’t break the instrument. They even play the drums with real drumsticks. The Rock Band kit comes with real 5A Drum Sticks.

They were also talking about people that had played the drums a lot are now able to play real drums. Harmonix said that if you play under expert mode it’s the same as the real drummer is playing.

Failing songs will bring down the rest of the band and can easily force the whole band to fail if not restored soon enough. Cooperation and team effort are vital in Rock Band.

The singing part has been improved on from older titles like Karaoke Revolution also. The game can detect pitches and a certain amount of phonetics. It can detect consonants and vowels, so it will have some idea if the player is singing the right words.

In Karaoke Revolution the player could just hum and be fine. The people at Harmonix were talking about that when they testing the game. The singing part in Rock Band doesn’t pay attention to octave, so men can sing woman’s parts and vice-versa.

The microphone doesn’t have controls on it, so it needs a regular system controller to navigate. They didn’t want people pressing the buttons by accident. We had enough trouble in the demo with people hitting the Xbox button on the guitar.

The Band World Tour is Rock Band’s biggest feature. You get together two or more friends to play in a band. Then you can go on a virtual tour. When on tour you earn money and fans depending on how well you play. Some venues will earn you more money or more fans.

It’s really realistic — if you play a charity concert than it will earn you more fans but won’t earn you any money.

The World Tour starts from a hometown that you pick. In your hometown you can play in certain clubs, and as your popularity gets bigger, you can pick bigger venues. The first ones are small dingy clubs, and then it moves to theaters and then hopefully to stadiums if your good enough.

There are over 40 different venues in the game and they are all very different from stone clubs in Germany to old wood carved walls in a Scandinavian club. The clubs are often based on real places.

Harmonix spent money licensing the songs. They got real tattoo artists to design the tattoos, and they got real artists to design the 2D stickers in the game. They decided against getting permission for the real locations. They also felt that real locations would have some negative connotations, if someone doesn’t like that particular club they may be annoyed at playing in it.

As you play through the venues once in a while before one it will pop up with a message saying if you get so many stars on this concert that you can get a tour bus. These messages also usually have a negative side if you fail. One that we saw was that if you finish the concert it would double your money, but if you fail you’ll lose all your money. As a band you then have to decide if the risk is worth the reward.

When the band gets a van they can leave their home city and start branching out to other cities. Eventually they even get a jet, and this allows them to leave the continent and go anywhere in the world.

When playing a concert it often is many songs in a row, unlike in solo play or in regular coop play. When the first song is finished you don’t leave the venue, you start the next song. This means you have to get both or more songs right to do well in the venue. You have to play the set.

When you form a band or play solo, you have to create a character. The characters are very customizable. You can select skin color hairstyle, be tall or short or be skinny or fat. The game even allows customizing the eye color. The player can pick a style for the character, from rock, metal, goth or punk. This will determine how he or she moves on the stage and what special moves they do.

Once the basic person is decided, they can go and get clothes. There are four stores in the game. The interesting thing with the rock shop is it looks like the Garment District in Cambridge, Mass. They admitted they loosely based the style from the Garment District, and the Canal Street Jeans, in New York City. They hired real apparel designers to help design the clothes and make sure that their clothes look authentic.

The special effects in the game are really nice, and the playing heads up display is transparent so you can see the stage very easily. It’s still easy not to pay attention to the stage when you’re playing though cause of concentrating on your part.

I found this game a blast, especially if you can get four people together to play as a band. Don’t give up right away — the drum part is really hard for new players, but even after playing it just one day I found it really fun.

I love this game.

Quick hits:

Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PS2
Genre: Music simulation
Players: 1-4
Launch Date: November 20, 2007 (PS3 and Xbox 360), December 11, 2007 (PS2)

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars Editor’s Choice

Elizabeth Raftery, Daniel Peleschuk and John Guilfoil of the Blast Magazine staff contributed to this report.

Harmonix, MTV Games and distribution partner Electronic Arts released the song list today for its highly anticipated music video game Rock Band.

Rock Band will feature 58 tracks from alternative and classic rock to heavy metal and punk, the companies said in a statement. Rock Band will feature multiple instruments and several single and multiplayer modes, playable online or offline.

“Our goal with Rock Band was to give players the chance to experience an amazing cross section of music from the last four decades, and our final list of tracks includes everything from emerging bands to iconic artists,” said Paul DeGooyer, MTV’s Senior Vice President of Home Entertainment, Music and Games. “The overwhelmingly positive response from artists, music publishers and record labels made the final selection process challenging, but extremely exciting. As a result, 51 out of 58 of the final selections are based on original masters, giving fans an unprecedented way to get closer to the music they love.”

Eric Brosius, Harmonix audio lead said, “Now that the disc track list is locked and Rock Band is being prepped for manufacture, we are working with our music partners to set an exciting download schedule, both for launch and beyond. Through DLC, players will have the ability to take a deeper dive into the music of the artists featured on the Rock Band disc, or further explore different genres of rock or additional bands if they choose.”

The Set List:

There are 45 songs on the main set list and 13 newer songs from up-and-coming artists that can be unlocked.

1960s
Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter”

1970s
Aerosmith “Train Kept a Rollin’”*
The Who “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
Boston “Foreplay/Long Time”
Mountain “Mississippi Queen”*
The Police “Next to You”
David Bowie “Suffragette City”
Black Sabbath “Paranoid”*
Blue Oyster Cult “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”
Deep Purple “Highway Star”
KISS “Detroit Rock City”
Molly Hatchet “Flirtin’ With Disaster”
The Outlaws “Green Grass & High Tides”*
Sweet “Ballroom Blitz”*

1980s
Rush “Tom Sawyer”*
Bon Jovi “Wanted Dead or Alive”
The Clash “Should I Stay or Should I Go”
Faith No More “Epic”
R.E.M. “Orange Crush”
Iron Maiden “Run to the Hills”*

1990s
Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly”
Metallica “Enter Sandman”
Nirvana “In Bloom”
Stone Temple Pilots “Vasoline”
Weezer “Say It Ain’t So”
Smashing Pumpkins “Cherub Rock”
Radiohead “Creep”
Beastie Boys “Sabotage”
Hole “Celebrity Skin”
Garbage “I Think I’m Paranoid”
Soundgarden “Black Hole Sun”

2000s
The Hives “Main Offender”
Queens of the Stone Age “Go With the Flow”
The Strokes “Reptilia”
Jet “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”
OK Go “Here It Goes Again”
Nine Inch Nails “The Hand That Feeds”
Pixies “Wave of Mutilation”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Dani California”
Coheed & Cambria “Welcome Home”
Fallout Boy “Dead on Arrival”
The Killers “When You Were Young”
New Pornographers “Electric Version”

* Indicates a cover song, all others songs are original master recordings

Rock Band is scheduled for release on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on November 20 and on PS2 December 18 in North America. It will hit European shelves in early 2008.