iCoke.ca's Dance Hero

An unique and excitement entertainment! How do your current condition? Stress? Saturated? Bored with your daily routine? Want something new? Want a free entertainment that can make you guffaw? Well, all human certainly happy to try something new that will provide fun and entertainment. I have good news for you, namely iCoke.ca's Dance Hero! Coke Zero's Dance Hero will bring a refreshing bit of fun to your day.

Do you want to know who is created this unique game? Made famous by the international Coke Zero commercials on television, the tongue and eyeball mascots go head-to-head in a seriously delicious dance off! It would be very exciting!

How to play? Simply click on the circles in numerical order, and when you see a curved line, follow it along with your mouse. Of course, it helps if you pay attention to the beat and the animation of the circles.

Are you ready to play soon? Who's got the best finishing move? Tongue or Eyeball? I don't know, but I am sure you will enjoy playing this "unique and fresh" game. So, what are you waiting for? Play now! There are no Coke Coins needed to play! All dancing. Zero calories. No mercy! This is a good time for you to have fun with iCoke.ca's Dance Hero!

Far Cry 2 Exclusive Multiplayer Hands-On -- Game modes, weapons, and blood diamonds. There's nothing civil about this war

Diamonds are not forever in Far Cry 2, but they are persistent. In the single-player campaign, the precious stones are mined by the warring factions and sold to fund their civil war. In the multiplayer mode, blood diamonds are rewarded as persistent upgrades as you increase in rank and unlock new weapons. In both cases, diamonds fuel the explosive action of Ubisoft Montreal's upcoming shooter.

We recently paid a visit to Ubisoft Montreal to finally get our hands on the four multiplayer game modes in Far Cry 2. In addition to Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, you can also do battle in team-based Capture the Diamond--after all, if you had to choose between snatching a flag or a diamond, which would you go for? To win, you steal the enemy faction's briefcase of diamonds from its headquarters and bring it back to your base. You can score a point only if your own diamonds are secure in your headquarters. The diamond carrier is easily identified on the map because each briefcase gives off bright green or red smoke, depending on which faction you play for. After a point is scored, a new briefcase will spawn. There are a few interesting strategies that play into this mode. One player grabbed the diamonds and hightailed it back to his base, but instead of scoring the point, he hid in a nearby hut. While the opposing team was off trying to hunt down the diamond carrier, his teammate stealthily made his way to the enemy headquarters, and waited for the carrier to score so he could grab the new briefcase when it respawned--dirty!



The final mode, Uprising, is a hybrid of VIP and a Battlefield-style point capture. There are three control points that can be captured only by each team's captain. One team must capture all three points, after which the game will end when the other team's captain is assassinated. This mode takes the most coordination and teamwork to succeed. Points must be defended after they are captured, and grabbing new points requires a carefully organized attack. In either case, your team will be spread thin across the entire map.

Whereas vehicles are more of a simple mode of transportation in the single-player game, they play a strategic role in multiplayer. Most vehicles (including the officially licensed Jeeps) can carry multiple passengers. In Capture the Diamond, we preferred to drive a Jeep with a mounted machine gun. One teammate manned the gun as another fired from the front passenger seat. When we reached the enemy base, both passengers ran out to capture the diamond, while we smoothly executed a three-point turn to get the Jeep ready for the return trip. We popped the hood and applied the monkey wrench to repair the engine, then sped away, this time with diamond in tow. One desert map featured a one-passenger dune buggy, whereas a mountain map had hang gliders perched on cliffs, which were perfect for reaching a capture point quickly in Uprising. In any case, cars and Jeeps can be quickly dispatched with a grenade or RPG, and nothing earns experience points faster than an exploding car full of rebel insurgents.

You receive experience for capturing points, sharing vehicles with friends, stealing diamonds, healing teammates, and, of course, capping fools. This experience improves your rank and it rewards conflict diamonds that can be spent on upgrading six different player classes: the commando, rebel, guerilla, sharpshooter, gunner, and saboteur. The only real difference between each class is the weapon loadout. The saboteur can unlock remote-controlled IEDs, perfect for planting next to your briefcase of diamonds. As soon as someone steals it, you hit the button. The commando is a balanced character who uses machine guns, and the rebel starts out with the powerful flamethrower. Each class has three levels of upgrades, and each costs one conflict diamond. You can upgrade any class, regardless of which class you played as in the past. Unfortunately, there are no personal-customization options such as costumes or camouflage, but there are 30 ranks and plenty of powerful weapons to unlock, such as the six-pack grenade launcher. The more you use an individual weapon, the more proficiency you gain, eventually unlocking field manuals and bandoliers that increase weapon accuracy, reliability, and ammunition quantity. You can swap out your weapon loadout or class in-between each respawn. If you want to play with the more advanced weaponry sooner, you can host a player match with friends in which you level up much faster than in ranked matches. Alas, all upgrades in player matches are lost when you leave the server.

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Need for Speed Undercover - The latest entry in EA's long-running racing series looks to the past while throwing in some interesting new features.

Only in the context of video games will you hear people clamor on about how they wish they were being chased by the cops, but that's just what many Need for Speed fans have been doing since 2005's Most Wanted. Well, the boys in blue are back for Need for Speed Undercover, and so is the open-world setting that last year's ProStreet sacrificed in favor of quartered-off racing courses. But it's not as though developer EA Black Box has gone into full-on time-travel mode for the latest entry in this long-running series. For every nod to the series' past, you'll find something new like Hollywood-style driving techniques designed to help you elude the police, new events and skill-building systems, and a step toward more mature, less hammy storytelling.


Need for Speed Undercover is swapping the professional racing circuits and nighttime neon lights of the past two games in favor of an open-world Gulf Coast locale. Known as Tri-City Bay, this collection of floating-bridge freeways, dirt roads, and industrial shipping yards is set in the postsunrise, presunset time of day when the sun sits low in the sky and covers everything in a golden light. There seems to be a lot of diversity, and the race events take good advantage of that. One of the Sprint Race events we took part in--a supercar showdown featuring the likes of the Carerra GT and Pagani Zonda--took us from the highway to a high school football field to a millionaire's marble driveway before arriving at the finish line in a freeway tunnel. It's definitely a big world, too. We're told you can drive the fastest car in the game and it would take you a solid eight minutes to circumnavigate the entire world at top speed.

One of the ways Black Box is looking to expand your driving abilities without necessarily changing the way cars handle is through what it's calling the Heroic Driving Engine, a system that allows you to achieve a new level of agility on the road. One of the ways it's done this is by removing the persistent relationship between a car's direction and the perspective of the camera. If you're flying down the road, you can jam on the brakes while jerking the control stick to the side and watch as your car does a 180 at speed while the camera remains firmly in place. It's not just for show; if you've thrown your car into reverse like this, you can double-tap the gas and your driver will come to a screeching halt and take off in the opposite direction. This entails the opposite scenario as before--your car will remain facing the same way while the camera turns around, saving you a good bit of time compared to the old-fashioned three-point turn. When you successfully engage in these types of moves, you'll be rewarded with RPG-style experience points that will upgrade your driving abilities.

As a way of maintaining balance with your newfound driving skills, EA Black Box is bringing back the police to keep you challenged as you wreak havoc on the roads of Tri-City Bay. Driver AI has been enhanced so that if you do something particularly stupid like nudge someone off the road at 90 miles per hour, you'll have the cops called on you. In other situations, you'll have them on your tail at the start of a mission, like in the Driver Job event we tried that had us stealing a police cruiser (a Nissan GT-R squad car, of all things) and bring it to a shop to sell it off. No matter the origins, getting rid of the cops is the same: You need to put some distance between you and the police cars, and if there's a helicopter, you need to find a tunnel or bridge to hide under.

As you progress through the game's story--a tale about a police officer so deep undercover that only a few people know who he is--the narration will unfold in the traditional cutscene format of the Need for Speed series. This time around, there's a new focus on taking these video sequences out of the stone age and into the modern era, where games don't need to remain stuck in the trappings of the mid-'90s. What this means is cutscenes shot on a live set rather than a green screen, real actors (well, at least the main characters--we're not sure if Jessica Alba's brother playing a side role counts as a real actor), and a director pulled from the show 24. Based on the three cutscenes we saw, these ingredients have come together to form a more mature look for the series. You'll have the chance to see how well the whole package comes together when Need for Speed Undercover is released on November 17.

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Guitar Hero World Tour Hands-On - you'll be making your own music in this ambitious sequel to Activision's massive rhythm franchise

In case you missed it, Activision recently let the cat out of the proverbial bag by confirming the entirety of Guitar Hero World Tour's 86-song tracklist. We had the chance to play through a good chunk of these songs earlier this week when Activision held a Guitar Hero press event in Santa Monica, with every song in the game available for Quick Play fun. In addition, we were treated to a demo of the Music Studio mode by members of the Neversoft team, and a run-through of the basics of the Wii-exclusive Mii Freestyle mode from the folks at Vicarious Visions.

The recently unveiled tracklist is a behemoth that spans an eclectic mix of music. At one end of the list are laid-back tunes such as Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" and The Allman Brothers' "Ramblin' Man," whereas situated at the other end of the spectrum are more frantic, aggressive numbers such as "One-Armed Scissor" by At The Drive-In and the borderline schizophrenic "B.Y.O.B." by System of a Down. And to make sure you're not overwhelmed by pure rock and roll, wildcards have been thrown into the mix as well, including Michael Jackson's "Beat It," the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," and Los Lobos' "La Bamba."

Another item of note about the soundtrack is the number of repeats. Whereas Rock Band had only one song per artist in the original game (before adding to an artist's stable of tunes with downloadable content later on), Guitar Hero has isolated a few artists for special attention right out of the gate. Jimi Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne, and Tool all feature more than one song in the game--two each for Jimi and Ozzy, and three in the case of Tool.

Many have been clamoring for a "No Fail" mode in Guitar Hero World Tour, and though the game won't offer one per se, there are a few alternatives that we picked up on during an evening spent watching a large number of people getting acquainted with the game's new setup. For one, there's the beginner difficulty level that sits even lower than easy. This one is monumentally difficult to fail out of, and though it makes playing the actual instruments a touch on the boring side, it gives you the ability to embellish your singing quite a bit without suffering a substantial penalty. Another option to approximate No Fail is the ability to change your instrument's difficulty in the pause menu without exiting back out to the song-selection process. Just hit start, raise or lower the challenge level, and the song will start over.

World Tour's Music Studio mode stands as one of the most interesting weapons being wielded in the escalating battle between multi-instrument rhythm games. Whereas Rock Band 2 has a massive catalogue of DLC songs going into its release, World Tour adds the ability to create your own music and expand the game's tracklist with a virtually infinite number of player-created songs. In the past, we've seen this feature demonstrated numerous times by members of Neversoft, but this was our first time getting the chance to run through it on our own. What we didn't realize before is the tiered level of accessibility to the Studio. Prior indications led us to believe that the Studio was more for the hardcore crowd, but after spending some time with it, we can see that's not necessarily the case.

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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Updated Hands-On - new starting areas in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion

Logging into The Wrath of the Lich King feels just like logging into normal World of Warcraft. Things don't start to get a little bit different until you travel to a major city for, what else? A shave and a haircut. When you see the red and white barber's pole, you'll think "Why not? I've had this mullet for 70 levels. It's time for a change!" So you'll sit down in the barber's chair to flip through hairstyles, hair colors, and facial-hair dos just like you would in the character-creation screen; except that this time, your new look will cost at least a dozen gold. Now, before we go any further,
we must warn you that this preview may contain spoilers on the expansion's new content. Also, please note that our impressions are based on an unfinished beta version of the game, so all information here, haircut-related and otherwise, is subject to change.

Once you settle on a new look (Good-bye, comb-over; hello, red Mohawk!), you'll be ready to introduce your new self to the new zones. You're free to travel to either the Borean Tundra or the Howling Fjord, but you should definitely check out the Howling Fjord first. The quests here tend to run a level lower than they do in the Borean Tundra. They're also more concentrated around their respective horde and alliance strongholds. Once you've gained three to four levels in the Howling Fjord, you'll easily breeze through everything in the Borean Tundra for another quick and easy level or two. That's the beauty of having two starting zones; you'll always be ahead of the level curve if you complete them both.

The Howling Fjord is a zone dominated by the Vrykul--huge Viking men with terrible manners. Though there are many factions, none of them are friendly. As you make your way through the Howling Fjord quest lines, so too will you make your way through each Vrykul village. In many cases, you'll simply kill a set number of them, but in others, you'll burn their towers, blast their structures, and kill their dogs. Some of the best quests, though, involve a pirate stronghold known as Scalawag Point. The first two characters you meet are a Blood Elf-worshiping artifact collector and a beefy Tauren bookie. The quests of these two characters intersect because the collector owes the beefy bookie money; so don't be surprised if, when turning in a quest to the collector, another player comes in and kicks his butt.

You'll also meet the pirates' second in command, who won't let you get a word in edgewise before she assumes you're there to kill her boss; then she tells you how. You'll track him to a cave, where you'll face him and his giant bear pet. Both are tough as nails, so make sure to bring friends. Other quests in the Howling Fjord have you freezing contaminated spores, as well as shattering them, hunting critters with your brand new falcon pet, and running around in the body of a reactivated rune golem. This, in turn, will get you ready for the siege weapon warfare in Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients.

Lake Wintergrasp is not a battleground or an arena. Rather, it's an entire world zone dedicated to player-versus-player combat; the first in World of Warcraft. The basic idea is that one faction will defend a keep and the other will assault it. Each battle will last a set amount of time, with both honor points and arena points on the line. Also, as you gain honorable kills, you'll gain ranks and access to siege weapons. At the first rank, you will only be able to make a simple catapult, but assuming you are able to kill enough of the enemy, you'll gain access to siege engines and flying machines. While the siege weapons will be balanced like rock-paper-scissors, it is less clear how Blizzard intends to balance the zone itself. Because this is an open-world PVP zone, it is likely that in any given battle, one faction will be able to field more troops than another. Blizzard is considering ways to equalize this, such as bestowing bonuses on a faction that has lost several battles in a row or on one that is fielding far fewer combatants. When we know more about the subject, you will, too.

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Civilization IV: Colonization Multiplayer - The New World isn't any easier with friends, but it's more fun

If there's one thing settlers learned as they colonized the New World, it's that you always need a little help from your friends. Be it in the form of corn-farming lessons from the natives or an extra shipment of supplies from the homeland, a helping hand could ensure survival through a harsh winter in a strange new land. With that in mind, Civilization IV: Colonization is a strategy game more focused on trade and forging new alliances than it is about wiping out natives and competing colonies with musket fire.

We learned this lesson playing a LAN multiplayer match of Colonization this week. In addition to traditional LAN play and online modes, there's a direct IP connection, a hot seat mode in which multiple players take their turns on the same computer, and a slower-paced play-by-e-mail mode for those who don't have four hours to spare for the quick game. Yes, that's four hours for a quick game.


We took control of Samuel de Champlain set off in hopes of establishing a fruitful French colony, and quickly began construction on Quebec in the Southern Hemisphere. The Cherokee and the Arawak tribes were both located in close proximity, but gifts of rum and tools kept them happy neighbors. Keeping the natives happy, you'll quickly learn, is of immense importance in Colonization. What their villages lack in technology is offset by the huge combat advantage braves have in the forests, swamps, and hills. Building too closely to their villages is the easiest way to start a costly war that, early on in the game as you don't have many guns, you will lose.

It wasn't long before we ran into a village belonging to the English—controlled by another player. The city was low on resources, and it was the hope of that player that founding near our border would stymie our nation’s growth. In a way, this worked, because as it turns out, you can place citizens in your city’s town hall to increase patriotism. This caused the small borders of the city to expand so that several production squares in our city, Montreal, were cut off.

At the same time in the far north, another of our opponents, playing as the Dutch, was growing his holdings at a tremendous pace. The Dutch begin the game with advantages in trade, such as the Merchantman ship class from the opening of the match, and the colonies' treasury was filling quickly by trading raw silver and fur coats. However, we did commission a privateer unit to start raiding these wealthy Dutch ships for their goods. Privateers sail without their nation's colors, so they can attack without declaring war. Utilizing privateers in multiplayer is a fun way to pester your opponents without entering a costly war.

By building up your resources early in the game, you can focus on weapons production later during the endgame. Early on it seems the best strategy is to offer open trade borders to your counterparts, even building an alliance when your king eventually sends its expeditionary force after you when you declare independence.

With France’s skilled lumberjacks and carpenters, we constructed new buildings at a rapid pace. With expert iron ore miners, blacksmiths, and gunsmiths, tools and weapons became widely available through our domain. In another of our nearby cities, we ordered pioneers to improve the land by building lodges, mines, farms, and roads--this increases the amount of resources produced, and also decreases the time it takes to transport goods overland via wagon train. The French faction seems to have the ability to build a powerful economy indeed--we were also able to commission expert silver miners to producing staggering amounts of the precious metal. We then shipped the silver back to our home nation of France to purchase elder statesman and master tobacconists. Elder statesmen in city hall increase production of liberty bells that increase rebel sentiment--necessary to declare independence from your home nation later in the game--as well as increase the size of territory belonging to your nation. When your nation possesses enough influence--especially when you commission such powerful helpers to your cause--your borders can eventually come to surround several Native American villages. In this case, the chiefs of the villages we surrounded offered the settlements as gifts to our cause and relocated to the west. Tobacconists, naturally, produce tasty cigars that can be sold in Europe for a tidy profit

Over time, we developed our colony and attracted powerful founding father characters like Patrick Henry and Martha Washington. However, we remained mindful of the number of turns we had remaining in the game, since the ultimate goal of the game is to build your fledgling settlements into a nation that’s powerful enough to fight off the advances of your home country and declare independence. In fact, this end game provides the most difficulty in Colonization. As rebel sentiment in our colonies grew, the king of our home nation of France added soldiers, artillery, and warships to his expeditionary forces. We found our own forces to be woefully inadequate in comparison, but rebel sentiment in our colonies had eclipsed 50 percent. Rebel sentiment increases over time as your home nation levies more and more usurious taxes from your overworked colonists. In our case, the tax rate soared to 25 percent and our elder statesmen finally clamored for revolution.

And so, we declared our independence in the game year of 1755 and formed a new nation. When you take this bold step in Colonization, you must draft a constitution that declares a decisive direction for your new nation. This includes whether or not your nation will allow for slavery, whether it will subscribe to the belief of Manifest Destiny (versus rights for the natives), and whether you wish to have separation of church and state (versus a theocracy). Each of these decisions offer a variety of bonuses. For instance, you’ll have more production if you adopt slavery, but you have increased combat strength if every man is created equal. After crafting the constitution, our citizens were ready for a new beginning without taxes and tyranny. They were ready for a new country. And in the game year of 1762, just seven turns later, they were squashed flat

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Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Hands-On - Very Realistic Graphics?

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway looks set to carve a niche for itself in the overcrowded World War II genre. But Ubisoft and Gearbox's insistence on qualifying its historical accuracy is becoming rather jarring. We were recently invited to central London to meet veterans of Operation Market Garden, the battle that features prominently in the game. The ex-servicemen offered their personal take on their involvement in the turning point of the second world war, which was both fascinating and moving to hear. The problem is that the game wants it both ways--it clearly wants to honour the soldiers, but it can't help glamourising the act of war itself.

Take the first level, for example, where we managed to score a headshot on an unlucky German. The camera moves from the first-person perspective toward a third-person view of your victim, at which point the directors of The Matrix take over and frame the blood-splattering, cranium-popping spectacle in painstaking slow-motion detail. On the second level, the same viewpoint is used to highlight the damage of a grenade as the explosion sent the limbs of two soldiers spiraling off in every angle.

If you're not surrounded by war vets, though, Hells Highway looks like it will be a more entertaining experience. The game has great cinematics with the obligatory Band of Brothers/Saving Private Ryan cinematography, while the excellent tutorial mission eases you into the game's cover-based combat system. It's heavily based on the "find, fix, flank, finish" combat style actually employed during the war, which means you have to pin your enemy down and then attack from a different angle to finish him off. You can use your teammates in either the fixing or flanking role, but you need to fire at the enemy until the red circle above his head turns gray to indicate he's been pinned down.

We got to fight alongside two different sets of teams during the first four levels--regular assault squads that use rifles and a bazooka squad for more explosive support. Both teams are easy to command--you hold down the left trigger to pull up a cursor and then point to where you want them to go. If you point at enemies, they'll start firing automatically, but if you try to send them somewhere dangerous, they'll automatically take cover and fend for themselves. On one occasion, our bazooka squad simply refused to pop out from around a corner to fire at our target, but otherwise, the system seemed to work just fine.

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Saints Row 2 Hands-On - Story, Co-op, and Zombies - digging deep into the story and jumping into some co-op mayhem

By their very nature, sandbox games are open-ended experiences where the balance between story progression and time-wasting mischief is entirely up to the player. It's hard to take that formula and squeeze it into a short demo, which is why THQ recently invited us to spend an entire day with Saints Row 2. This extended play-through gave us ample time to plug away at the bandages-to-riches storyline, cause some chaos with real and improvised side missions, and take a spin through Stilwater in a co-op setting.

The first Saints Row greeted players ready to embark on their journey into gang life with one of the more elaborate character creation systems seen at the time. Saints Row 2 takes that system and beefs it up considerably, giving you the option to customize a truly ridiculous number of attributes. Using sliders adjusting everything from your overbite to your septum width, you can craft an avatar of either gender that looks anywhere between "perfectly normal" and "abomination of nature." Once your base physical attributes are set, you can set the mood of your face with a number of fixed facial expressions to make yourself look confused, joyous, or just plain evil. From there, you have three voice options for each gender (including a wonderfully out-of-place English accent for the gents) and the ability to choose your taunts and walking style.

Your character then begins the game on a prison hospital bed, awaking from a five-year coma caused by the explosion that capped off the first Saints Row. You're whisked away from these confines by a friendly prison mate only to realize that the Saints are no more. Other gangs still roam the newly expanded streets of Stilwater, but the purple-clad clan you worked so hard to build up in the first game has been more or less eradicated. Thus begins the story, with you working to build the 3rd Street Saints back to glory. And because you're ostensibly playing the same protagonist from the first game despite crafting a brand-new avatar, Volition has tossed in plenty of self-deprecating dialogue like, "You look different. Did you get a haircut?"

First on the agenda is rescuing fellow Saint Johnny Gat, who's currently on trial with over 200 counts of homicide to his name. This mission involves storming the court trial with some heavy firepower, taking out the guards, and ushering Johnny out the door. The idea of storming a particular stronghold with guns blazing becomes a familiar refrain for the first few missions of the game, as the next item on your list--securing a base of operations for your gang--involves clearing all the Sons of Samedi and gang members (and a few scattered hoboes) squatting in a local abandoned mission.

Once you've got a base, the story missions begin to offer more than just shooting scads of people. One mission requires you to recruit some fresh blood for the Saints, and you go about this by doing odd favors for some of the local talent. One girl has you proving your worth by flying off a few of the big jumps lurking all throughout Stilwater, while another would-be Saint asks you to take his tow truck and impound the car of someone who owes him some money. But these types of missions are more the exception than the rule, as most tasks require you to exercise extreme prejudice against rival gangs in your quest to take back the city.

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FIFA 09 Updated Hands-On: 10-versus-10 Online - We join 19 real humans on the virtual pitch in our exclusive first look at FIFA 09's 10-versus-10.....

We're running up the field, heading into the offensive zone of Chelsea. There's not a defender within 15 yards of us. Ahead, an Arsenal striker is making a deep cut toward the Chelsea goalkeeper and, to his left, renowned striker Emmanuel Adebayor is positioning himself to try to make something happen. Suddenly, our teammate behind us sends the ball our way, which we deftly receive at full gallop. Two Blues defenders are closing in on our striker, but we manage to sneak in a perfectly timed through pass, which he fields, passes to Adebayor, who manages to get the goalkeeper out of position and... GOOOOAL!

Now, technically, our crucial through pass doesn't count as an assist on the scorecard, but it surely felt good to us, especially as an introduction to the new 10-versus-10 online play that looks to be one of the brightest features in EA Sports' upcoming FIFA 09. During a recent trip up to EA Canada we got the first look at 10-versus-10 play, playing a match with 19 developers and producers behind FIFA 09, and we can safely report that the new mode puts an entirely new spin on the virtual sport.

For those familiar with another EA Canada-developed sports game, NHL 09, FIFA 09's 10-versus-10 play is remarkably similar. As with the hockey title, you'll be able to form a club with your friends (a club can have as many as 50 members). Club members can take on other clubs in team matches, with the individual and team performances all counting toward that club's rankings in the overall standings. As for the FIFA league, it still seems to be in its organizational infancy in that there aren't set fixtures between clubs--instead it's a matter of ad hoc matchmaking between clubs and letting the results happen as games are completed. Still, as a first step, it's an exciting beginning for a feature that is destined to grow in the years ahead.

Other similarities between the online team play of FIFA and NHL are obvious. Take, for instance, the hockey game: When you enter a match with your friends, you'll be taken to a lobby where the team captains will be able to set team tactics. After that, you'll be taken to another screen where a mad scramble will result as players pick the position they wish to play on the pitch. As with NHL 09, with players rushing to take the forward position, you can expect to see most FIFA 09 players trying to get those coveted striker and midfield positions. However, it's important to note that regardless of the position you play (except for goalkeeper, which isn't playable in FIFA 09… look for that in next year's game), you always have a way to contribute to your team's success.

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Multiwinia - "It really kicked off when we told publishers we didn't want them f**cking up our game," said director Tom....

Introversion Software has come a long way since it started out in a small English bedroom. From shipping its first game on CD-Rs to signing a distribution deal with Valve's Steam, Introversion is now successful enough to have a central London office where it's developing its fourth original title. The company's Tom and Vicky Arundel met with us in the south of the capital to give us an overview of the company's development, followed by a hands-on with new modes from its upcoming Multiwinia.

"It really kicked off when we told publishers we didn't want them f**cking up our game," said director Tom, referencing the company's famous IGF award acceptance speech for Darwinia. "Straight after, pretty much every publisher in the business approached us," he continues. He recounts how one major British name turned down his request for £50,000 of funding on one of the company's early titles--a decision that meant he had to survive on nothing, but one that's allowed Introversion to stay completely independent ever since. Having inked deals with Microsoft to develop titles for the Xbox 360, Introversion is now lucky enough to work with the business' major names while continuing to play by its own rules.

Today though, we're meeting with Introversion to see Multiwinia, the multiplayer take on the developer's first major hit, Darwinia. The game is pretty much complete at this stage, and although the control scheme went through a major rehaul recently, the PC version is on track for its September 19 release. Darwinia fans should be able to grasp the concept behind this four-player strategy game, but those unfamiliar with the company's games should imagine a game that crosses real-time strategy resource management, pikmin-like cuteness, and Tron-esque visuals.

It's clear that Multiwinia is designed from the ground up to be accessed by as many people as possible. It's designed for both PC and Mac, and it will run on fairly humble machines with just the keyboard and mouse for controls. You move the camera using the W, A, S, and D keys and zoom in and out using the mouse wheel. Control of the Multiwinians is all on the mouse buttons--hold the left down to circle the units you want to control, and then move them using the right button. New Multiwinians constantly spill out of your home base, though, so to stop you from having to go back and forth, you can create officers who will automatically traffic other units to certain destinations. If you have an Xbox 360 controller or other USB-compatible pad, then you can use that too.

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BioShock - We take the PlayStation 3 version of 2K's acclaimed shooter for a test drive

BioShock made some big waves when it was released for the Xbox 360 last year. The unique game wrapped a rich story with first-person shooter mechanics in a stunning art style that made for one of the most engrossing experiences seen on consoles in a long while. Thankfully, PlayStation 3 owners will get a chance to see what all the fuss is about with the upcoming conversion of the game for Sony's console. We've seen demos of the game in the past few months but only just had the chance to try the game ourselves courtesy of a recent visit from 2K.

2K has roped in a cavalcade of development teams to handle the conversion of the game for the PlayStation 3. 2K Marin, 2K Boston, 2K Australia, and Digital Extremes are tag teaming the project, which aims to come up with a faithful conversion of the original game. The teams are also including a few bells and whistles in the form of content, as well as visual tweaks. Fans of the original game will be familiar with the single-player Story mode, which follows the trials and tribulations of plane crash survivor who stumbles onto a mysterious underwater utopia called Rapture.

The PlayStation 3 game, as we've noted before, is on the right track to capture the look and feel of the Xbox 360 game. The visuals are comparable, although there are some subtle differences in color and texture. The controls map intuitively to the PlayStation 3 controller and feel a bit better. The PS3's D pad seems like a much better fit for the hacking minigame. The controller's rumble support also had a nice feel to it. Although the experience is pretty much the same in the single-player mode, we noticed subtle tweaks, such as manual cycling of the load screen stills. The game also incorporates all the downloadable content that's been available on the Xbox 360. In addition, the game features trophy support, some of which are the same achievements seen in the Xbox 360 game, while others are different.

Outside of the proper single-player experience, we had a chance to try the Survivor mode, which offers a greater level of challenge that forces you to be smarter about how you play the game. Enemy behavior has been tweaked, and the damage you cause has been modified, so you won't be sailing through the mode even if you're familiar with the original game. We also got a look at the other big addition to the game, the puzzle rooms, which are a very slick brain-busting addition to the main game. 2K reps noted that the rooms will vary in scope and size, which will affect how long it takes you to play through them. While some, such as the Ferris wheel, we've seen before and can be done in short order, others will require more work.

BioShock remains a must-play game for this generation, so if you haven't checked it out yet, the PlayStation 3 version of the game is one more chance for you to give it a try. The game is coming together really well. The faithful conversion of the main game is looking good and might even be sharper in places. The additional content, challenge rooms, modes, and trophies are nice extras to have, although we obviously would have liked to see more. BioShock for the PlayStation 3 is slated to ship this October, so look for more soon.

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Silent Hill: Homecoming - Awkwardly hot zombie nurses? Foggy, poorly lit streets? Pyramid Head?

The titular homecoming of the upcoming Silent Hill game holds a number of meanings. It first and foremost refers to the return of protagonist Alex Shepherd to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, but it also in many ways signifies a return to the roots of what Silent Hill itself is meant to be--a really, really creepy place. We recently had the chance to play through the first few hours of Silent Hill: Homecoming, and we've gathered our impressions together in one place about this, the most atmospheric Silent Hill yet.

The game begins quite literally inside of a nightmare. Alex finds himself strapped down onto a gurney inside of the Alchemilla Hospital (a location that fans of the series will no doubt recognize). He is pushed, struggling the entire way, through the sinister hospital, and along the way bears witness to a number of horrifying sights. Finally left alone in an operating room, Alex is able to break free of his bonds just as an unseen foe runs a nurse through with a massive and unwieldy blade in the hallway.

After wandering the halls, you find Alex's little brother, Joshua, drawing just out of reach behind a locked door. Alex is determined to save his brother, but with a locked door between the two the only thing you can do is try to find the security code. Luckily, the six-digit number can be conveniently found written across an x-ray, and after tracking down the errant half the door is opened, and Josh takes off down the hall.

You chase Josh into a bathroom, but instead of a younger brother you find a knife oddly embedded into the shattered mirror. Upon securing the weapon, Alex begins to feel lightheaded, and an air-raid siren can be heard in the distance. While in past Silent Hill games the transition to the even more hellish Otherworld took place off camera, usually when you were incapacitated in some way, Homecoming makes it an entirely real-time shift that borrows heavily from the 2006 Silent Hill film. The world begins to change as rust and rot creeps in and paint peels off and flies upward. Once it's done, you find yourself in a very different version of the hospital, and you're immediately thrown into battle with one of the series' trademark nurses.

Though combat in Silent Hill was in the past very stilted and basic, Homecoming has made vast improvements to this experience--Alex was a soldier, and his familiarity with battle definitely gives him an edge over previous series' protagonists. Attacks come in weak and strong varieties that can be strung together in combos to stun or incapacitate aggressors, who can then be taken out with a powerful coup de grace. You can even perform evasive ducks and rolls and follow these up with counterattacks. Don't let it get to your head, though; enemy AI has been significantly improved to compensate for your higher degree of combat prowess, and it's also not uncommon to fight multiple monsters at once.

Once clear of the bathroom, you continue to chase Alex's brother through the Otherworld while fending off overly sexualized zombie nurses and giant insects known as Swarm. You finally catch up to Josh, but after some dialogue it's obvious that he isn't as interested in his brother as he is in finding his lost stuffed Robbie the Rabbit (the creepy mascot of the Lake Side Amusement Park). However, reuniting him with his toy only makes him run some more, and when you chase him into an elevator you're jolted back to reality courtesy of the gigantic sword you caught glimpses of earlier.

Alex, it turns out, really was just dreaming. He awakes in the cab of a semi driven by Travis Grady (who some will remember as the protagonist of Silent Hill: Origins) and is subsequently dropped off in his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, which seems to share a number of similarities to the titular town of Silent Hill. Both cities have eerie "Welcome to..." signs, are covered in an all-encompassing fog, are located off the shores of Toluca Lake, have streets named after people (horror film directors, in the case of Shepherd's Glen), and are suspiciously short on citizens.

Upon returning home, it becomes clear that things aren't too well off for the Shepherds. Alex's near-catatonic mother informs him that Josh has gone missing, and a search through the house reveals nothing but a flooded basement puzzle; a heavy steel pipe to smash things with; and a new monster, the clawed Lurker. With a promise to his mother that he'll find Josh, Alex heads out through the backyard, and into the Shepherd's Glen Graveyard.

The cemetery is every bit as spooky as you would expect it to be and then some, thanks to the presence of yet another new monster, the Feral--an enormous, skinless hell hound that's just asking for your steel pipe to be put through its head. It also doesn't help that there's some creepy guy hanging out at the mausoleum digging graves. Or is he digging up bodies? It's really unclear. One simple puzzle and a dozen piped-in-the-head Ferals or so later, you manage to find your way back on the streets again near the SGPD.

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MotoGP 08 Updated - two-wheeled racing series, including a peek at the Career mode.

Though we saw the game last week at the 2008 Games Convention in Leipzig, Capcom is still eager to show off more of its latest entry in the MotoGP series, MotoGP 08. Reps from the company came by earlier this week to show off the game and give us a glimpse at the game's Career mode. It won't be winning any awards for innovation, but MotoGP 08's Career mode looks to be another fun way to get into two-wheeled racing in this sim-style game.

Career mode joins a number of other modes in MotoGP 08, including Quick Race, Time Trial, Championship (where you play a single season run-through of the MotoGP calendar), Challenges, and online play, which will support up to 12 players. Your MotoGP 08 career will last five years, and during that time, you'll sign with a team, as well as build up your bike's attributes. You'll also do your best to win the championships in the different bike classes in which you'll run (125cc, 250cc, and MotoGP).

Scoring points in race events will let you spend points to upgrade your bikes in four different categories: maximum speed, acceleration, braking, and traction. You'll also unlock new teams in your specific class, and you can choose to sign with those new teams. By unlocking teams, you'll eventually be able to work your way up to the pinnacle of the sport--MotoGP class--where you will be racing with the top two-wheel riders in the world.

As with the rest of the game, MotoGP's Career mode is very flexible in terms of setup. Difficulty comes across in a number of different ways--both in the strength of your AI opponents (for which there are four settings) and the handling of your bike (easy, advanced, simulation). We tried all three handling settings during our time with the game, and as you might expect, simulation riding is a much different experience from riding on an easy level. Feeling particularly masochistic, we took on a wet race at Laguna Seca in the full rain on sim settings, and, well, we fell. Multiple times. But, then again, we were asking for it.

Still, even on the slightly tamer advanced handling style, it was very easy to feel the bike slipping and sliding underneath our fingers, calling for delicate throttle and brake controls. Powersliding--that staple of advanced MotoGP video game fans--was in place in this game, letting you rip around quick corners by giving just enough throttle in deep corners, slipping the wheel out from under you, and leaving a trail of black rubber behind.

Capcom reps were quick to point out that the developers behind the game have worked to make this a more accessible MotoGP experience, at least more so than the company's promising but very difficult debut on the PlayStation 2. It's difficult to say if easier settings will attract non-MotoGP fans to the game, but those who are playing the game for the first time will probably have an easier time of it.

Naturally, MotoGP 08 will have the full MotoGP license, with real riders, such as Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi, as well as well as the full schedule of locales that make up the MotoGP tour. This includes old standbys, such as Philip Island, Mugello, and Jerez (all of which we tried during our time with the game). More-recent additions to the sport will also be included, such as Laguna Seca and new-for-this-year Indianapolis, which looks a lot like the old Formula One track at Indy--only run counterclockwise--and with a few more turns. Also, true to real life, the race in Qatar is run at night in the game, which makes for a slightly different experience.

In all, MotoGP 08 looks to strike a balance between veterans who have been playing MotoGP games since they were published by THQ and series newbs who've never played raced on anything with fewer than four wheels. We like what we've seen of this approach and look forward to playing more of the game in the coming weeks. MotoGP 08 is due for release in October on multiple platforms.

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GC 2008: Bayonetta - The vixenish witch was here at Leipzig, and Sega had a brand new stage to show us

After being announced earlier this year at an event in central London and on show at the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit, Bayonetta was here at the Leipzig Games Convention 2008. The supernatural action game is being produced by Platinumgames' Yusuke Hashimoto, and he kicked off our presentation with a level of the game that we'd seen previously at E3. In the level, Bayonetta enters a garden area and subsequently has to face off against a number of angels before fighting her way through to a huge boss in the form of a gigantic, hideous-looking angel.

In a reverse on Devil May Cry, the titular character Bayonetta is a good witch who'll have to fight through scores of evil angels in her as-yet-unrevealed mission. In addition to carrying guns in her hands and strapped to her ankles, she'll have some rather impressive supernatural skills. It turns out that her hair can summon a giant fist punches, stiletto heel kicks, or even a huge dragon to slay her enemies. While fighting, you'll fill up a power meter shown onscreen. If you manage to fill it without being injured, you can also summon some nasty and amusing torture devices, such as an iron maiden or a guillotine.

In addition to arming herself with pistols, Bayonetta can equip other weapons, such as twin katana blades and shotguns. Hashimoto-san said the team was planning some more weapons that "you could hardly imagine," so expect to see more announced later on. We were given a quick demonstration of the swords, hacking and slashing through a score of opponents with ease. You'll be able to pull off some impressive combos with Bayonetta's weapons, and the katanas were no different. If your current weapon isn't cutting it, however, you can quick change to a different set midfight without having to jump out of the action. Hashimoto-san used the katana blades to dish out some damage to the midlevel boss we saw at E3, and as it takes damage, its body will show signs of injury. This damage includes exposed flesh on its neck and arms, as well as a gush of saliva dripping from its mouth.

We were then shown a brand new level, referred to as The Climax by Sega. While Sega wouldn't let on where in the game's story the level takes place, it did hint that it might be part of a flashback later in the game. The level begins with a prerendered cutscene with Bayonetta and an unnamed female accomplice--possibly another witch--on the edge of a cliff. Bathed in the full moonlight, Bayonetta jumps from the cliff onto what looks like part of a medieval church that's hurtling towards Earth. On the broken-off section of the church, she runs into more angels, which she engages in combat. Behind them, pieces of the destroyed church can be seen falling from the sky, as well as dozens of other angels flying around. After fighting for a few moments, the church smashes into the side of a cliff. Then, Bayonetta jumps back onto the spiraling platform and continues fighting.

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GC 2008: Enchanted Folk - Konami's latest portable offering at its Games Convention stand and had a quick play with this cute.............

At its 2008 Leipzig Games Convention press conference, Konami kicked things off with a video for a brand-new game, Enchanted Folk and the School of Wizardry. Although the game wasn't discussed in much detail, the video revealed a Nintendo DS game that takes place in a school of magic. We decided to head down to the show floor at Leipzig Games Convention 2008 to see if we could find out more on this real-time adventure game, which looks as if it also has a mix of role-playing, Animal Cross, and Harry Potter thrown into it.

Unfortunately, the demo that we played featured a combination of German and Japanese text, but we did our best to interpret some of the story. It seems that you take the role of Charli, a character at a wizard school. We had a quick venture around the school and its surroundings and bumped into a few interesting characters along the way, including Director Sol (presumably the school's principal), a jolly man with a face that was actually a sun. In his office were also two talking books with whom we briefly chatted (in German, naturlich).

We then headed out to the school grounds, which featured some manicured gardens, a few characters including one called TV-20C who had a TV set as a head, and a few smaller buildings. The world scrolls around you like a cylinder, similar to Animal Crossing. We found a shop in which you can trade or buy items, and later on we discovered a few caves and some weisse (white) flowers that you can pick. Charli can gain other items, too, including a pair of jeans, shoes, and a shirt, as well as a broom, a guitar, and a diamond. We also encountered a graveyard, a brook, and what looked like a haunted house to explore.

According to literature that we received from Konami, you'll be able to interact with and make friends (and even boyfriends and girlfriends) with the other 100 school students, as well as solve mysteries, all the while trying to earn your magician's licence and the title of "master wizard." You'll also be able to send your character to other DSs as part of a "school exchange."

Enchanted Folk and The School of Wizardry is due out in 2009. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more details as they emerge.

Away: Shuffle Dungeon - We play as Sword, the not-so-lucky 100th person about to be whisked away by the mysterious phenomenon known as "Away."

Hironobu Sakaguchi, head of Mistwalker, and composer Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame team up in another role-playing game, but this time it's on the Nintendo DS. Away: Shuffle Dungeon is a combined effort from Mistwalker, AQ Interactive, and Majesco Entertainment that offers a unique twist on the usual hack-and-slash RPG. As the title suggests, dungeons will shuffle, which changes up the gameplay to keep you on your toes.


You play as Sword, a young man who washed up on the shores of a village called Webb two years ago. He is stranded there because the village apparently doesn't have any maps, but he seems quite content living in this seaside town. However, there is a phenomenon called "Away," where in the last century 99 people have disappeared without a trace from Webb, and people are worried about who will be next. Sword and his friend Anella were having a pleasant conversation one day when suddenly that mysterious Away started to happen and had Sword as its next target. Being the heroine that she is, Anella sacrificed herself in his place, so the Away took her in a beam of light and the rest of the village instead. Thanks to Anella's heroic efforts, you now have a lot of work to do.

Since the entire village has vanished, except for you and your house (where you can sleep and save), you have nothing left to do except go around Webb and find objects that are linked to specific villagers. When you come across one of these artifacts, whether it's a sword, a piece of armor, or an instrument, it opens a portal to a dungeon. Once you get to the bottom of the dungeon, you'll find your missing villager. To set things up for the rest of the game, you'll find the village chief first, who comes back and opens a general store. Next you have to go find Helmut and Macy, the two guys who run the armor and weapon shops and who both have a thing for a girl named Giggles.

When you venture down into a dungeon, the 3D village environment changes to a 2D maze-like area that spans two screens. The top or bottom of the screen will have a timer. When it hits 0, the screen will shake and shuffle to a new screen. If you get stuck in the shuffle, you are booted back to the first level of the dungeon. This is a strange but interesting concept, and it makes the game a little more frantic than typical action RPGs. You'll have to traverse quickly to hit switches or move obstacles to try to uncover the stairs leading down--or up, if you're trying to lead your villager back safely. When you're aboveground, the top screen provides a map of Webb and shows you where the shops and portals are located. A star will show up next to the name of the area if there is something important going on that will move the story forward, so there is some guidance in case you don't know what to do.

Sword gains one experience point for every monster he slashes and kills, and he can pick up bouncy colored blobs that hang out in dungeons, which he fondly calls fupongs. Fupongs come in a variety of flavors depending on their element, and they are your source of magic. They can be used only one time on each level of the dungeon, so once you use them, they will be grayed out until you move to the next floor. Up to six fupongs can tag along with Sword as he navigates through the maze, but since they trail slightly behind him, you have to be careful that they don't get caught in the screen that's about to be shuffled, because then they'll get severed from the partyturn gray. They can also get severed from the party if you get it caught in sliding blockades. If you leave your fupongs at the general store and feed them food that you find in the dungeons, they'll level and become more powerful. When you start to bring the villagers back, they'll rebuild their shops, and you can help them upgrade by selling them special items that you find in the dungeons. You can also choose the location of the store, and Giggles will tell you whether the location has ideal feng shui or not, which can affect pricing and inventory. The items will start off fairly pricey, though you would think you'd get a discount for trying to rescue everyone in the village. Giggles can also tell you your fortune, for 300Gs.

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Goosebumps HorrorLand - You're never going to find these rides at Disneyland.

Those who were conscious in the '90s or who happen to wander into the children's book section at Barnes and Noble every once in a while might recall Goosebumps, a popular children's horror series by R. L. Stine. More than 300 million books have been sold in 32 different languages, and Stine is still expanding the Goosebumps world with a new spin-off series titled Goosebumps HorrorLand. Elastic, Scholastic Interactive's new publishing label, and developer Gusto will be bringing an adventure game of the same name to the Wii, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 2 for the young crowd who want to immerse themselves in the Goosebumps world.

The game's storyline isn't based on any of the books, but the story's themes should be familiar to those who have read the series. When you start the game you can choose to be a boy or a girl, and you receive a ticket to HorrorLand, a fright-themed amusement park with no way out. You have to collect the missing pieces of your ticket to leave in one piece. The park has five areas, each appropriately named with its own theme: Carnival of Screams, Vampire Village, Fever Swamp, Mad Labs, and Terror Tombs. Each area consists of six minigames to play so that you can earn frights that help you unlock new areas. Exploring the surroundings by kicking over trash cans can yield tokens that you use to play the games or go on the rides. In this preview build, we got a chance to play around with 30 minigames, 12 of which can be played with a friend.

Some of the highlights include Bumper Carnage, a bumper-car game in which you tilt the Wii Remote to steer and use the 1 and 2 buttons to move forward and back. When you shake the remote, you'll thrust yourself forward, and the goal is to knock out your opponents three times. Before the timer runs out, a gaping hole will open in the center of the arena, so you have to make sure you don't fall in or else the game is over.

Wheel of Misfortune has you running down a platform and then jumping onto a wheel on which you're trying to get the most points or earn some tokens. To get your character to run, you have to hold the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in each hand and shake them up and down as if you're running, and at the critical point you'll hit A to jump. Once you jump, you have a meter that will indicate how long you can hover in the air while you wait for the perfect moment to hit A again to land on the wheel. If you wait too long or if you miss the red zone, you'll find yourself face-first in a pool of water at the base of the wheel.

HorrorLand Derby is similar to those carnival games that have multiple horses lined up on the right, although in this case it's you and a bunch of monsters. You have to throw a ball across a panel and watch it fall into a slot to see how many steps your character can take. You aim with the Nunchuk and flick the Wii Remote to throw the ball. This game is also very much like Mummy Run; the targets are a little different but the gameplay is still the same. There are a few games that are similar but with different themes, including mini-putting games as well as batting-cage-like games in which you swing a bat or a racket at bats and flying beetles.

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GC 2008: Killzone 2 Multiplayer - some hands-on multiplayer time with its upcoming shooter at Leipzig.............

Killzone 2 was one of Sony's key titles at E3 2008, and at the show details on the multiplayer mode were revealed by the game's senior online designer, Eric Boltjes. Killzone 2 has some interesting options available for multiplayer, including customisable character classes, match settings, squads, and community integration with the game's official Web site at killzone.com.


In addition to being able to tweak match settings, you'll have the choice of five different mission types: assassination, bodycount, capture and hold, search and destroy, and search and retrieve. You can also combine mission types when playing; for example, you might play one round of assassination, followed by search and destroy, culminating in a tiebreaking round of search and retrieve.

Boltjes revealed a new multiplayer feature at Leipzig including AI bots. They'll look like and mimic the behaviour of regular competitors and will be available in offline and online matches. In addition to standard run and gun duties, bots will also be able to complete mission objectives, and have access to the same abilities and weapons as regular players. We got some hands-on time with the game but unfortunately didn't get a chance to see any AI participants in action.

Killzone 2 supports up to 32 players, and has eight maps that are designed for between either 2 to 16 players, or 16 to 32 players. You'll be able to have any combination of players on any map, but be prepared for some fast-paced, close-quarters battles if playing on smaller maps with large teams. There are several spawn points available in each map, depending on the size and once you've captured them they'll be available for your team to spawn to. You'll also be able to spawn directly to your leader's position and straight into the heart of battle (if he's doing his job properly).

The first map we tried was one of the smaller ones, and we joined one of the two five-man sides. The level fit the look and feel of what we've already seen of Killzone 2 with the action taking place in a battle-scarred warehouse. There were several levels in the stage with gantries above us and staircases leading down to several underground basements. We started off as a standard ISA soldier, equipped with an assault rifle and sidearm. The rifle worked effectively at short range and we were able to snipe a few enemies across the way using the gun's sights.

We then moved on to a much larger map, designed for up to 32 players, and the level featured a prominent, central outdoor courtyard. This time around we chose a Helghast engineer but combined his abilities with another class to be able to deploy sentry guns and call in AI-controlled air support. Depending on your class you'll have access to other abilities such as being able to heal others (medics) or repair equipment (engineers). Throwing a beacon directs air support in, and the airship will hover over the beacon's coordinates for a short time, attacking any enemies in the immediate vicinity. Because it needs line of sight it's only useful in maps with outdoor areas. Sentry guns, on the other hand, can be deployed in any part of the map and will keep watch until being destroyed by enemy troops. The objective in this map was to assassinate an enemy soldier, chosen seemingly at random by the game. The target's name and health will be displayed on every player's HUD, which makes the pace of each round a bit more hectic. After each round, the game will randomly select another assassination victim.

There were a further six maps that we didn't get a chance to look at but expect those to offer a healthy range of variety and size. If eight maps doesn't sound like a whole lot to you, Guerrilla told us that more are being planned for distribution over the PlayStation Network postlaunch. If you can't wait that long to get your hands on Sony's upcoming off-world shooter, a public beta program is also planned before launch.

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GC 2008: Madworld - Producer Inaba-san gave us an updated look at PlatinumGames' gorefest at Leizpig and showed off a new bloodbath challenge.

Madworld has attracted a lot of attention after its introduction at a Sega Europe launch event earlier this year, and it's easy to see why. The game features outlandish, almost hilarious graphic violence combined with a black-and-white palette, with splashes of red blood as the exception. Madworld creatively uses the Wii's control scheme to let you punch, kick, and wield your trusty chainsaw, as well as encouraging you to use nearby objects to decapitate, maim, impale, and generally cause grievous bodily harm to enemies.

For those new to the game, you'll take the role of Jack, a contestant in a killing game known as Death Watch. The idea behind Madworld has been done before (Smash TV, The Running Man, Battle Royale), but some of the ridiculous, and unique, executions that Jack can perform truly need to be seen to be believed and appreciated.

We last saw Madworld at E3 2008, and at that point Sega focused on highlighting Jack's basic combat moves, including punches, kicks, and his trusty chainsaw. At Leipzig, the company wanted to show how Jack can use his environment to blood-splattering effect. We started out in a nondescript area of the city, and Jack began with some wise words: "Time to kick some mother****ing a**." Inaba-san, the demonstrator for our presentation, got straight to business by throwing two enemies into a nearby Dumpster, which then split their torsos in half. After fighting a few more thugs, he strolled into a nearby warehouse, where he encountered a behemoth of a man who wore a bull face mask. Jack engaged in a chainsaw duel with him, and after shaking the controllers for a few moments, Inaba-san cut him to pieces and then disposed of a few other enemies by pushing them into conveniently placed spinning blades.

We were then shown how simple objects such as a spare tyre lying around can be used to good effect. After exiting the warehouse onto some docks, Jack picked the tyre up and threw it over a thug's head, pinning his arms. He then impaled him with a signpost and threw him into the river. Combining different environmental aspects will increase your score.

Some of the Bloodbath Challenge minigames have already been revealed in the past, including the hilarious Man Darts, and we were privy to a new challenge at Leipzig, the aptly named Death Press. In the one-minute game, Jack has to get a series of enemies into a nearby pit where a spiked ceiling drops every 20 seconds or so. At the end of the game, you'll be given some performance stats, including your overall ranking--in Inaba-san's case, an A rank.

Although the chainsaw is Jack's default weapon, you'll be able to find and equip new weapons, including the daggers akimbo that Inaba-san demonstrated. You'll be able to use the twin blades to deal out some serious slicing and dicing. Each weapon in the game will be able to perform multiple finishing moves, and in the daggers' case you'll be able to slice off heads, plunge them straight into an enemy, and more.

Given that Death Watch is a contest, it wouldn't be complete without a commentator, and this particular one is full of amusing sayings such as "He should've seen the signs" when you're using a signpost to impale an unlucky enemy. The commentator will speak up throughout the game to offer numerous corny one-liners, which suits the light-hearted yet violent nature of Madworld.

A new level was introduced to us at Leipzig in which Jack could travel around the city on motorbike. From what we could tell, the game doesn't have an open-world design, and you'll need to select your destination before jumping onto your motorbike. Although there was no one else on the road with us, you'll encounter other vehicles in the game and have to fight them on your bike while getting around the city. After a few moments we arrived at an abandoned street in which several tornados dominated the landscape. Pieces of debris and even cows could be seen flying around above our head. This particular part of the game requires platforming and timing skills to get past the tornados unscathed, and from what we were told, there will be other similar parts in the game that will require you to do more than just beat people to a pulp. Once Jack reached the end of the street, he encountered a boss battle. Inaba-san briefly engaged with the huge, hulking, tornado-controlling creature before our demonstration came to a close.

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GC 2008: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - some upcoming content and DirectX 10 features for Age of Conan.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has been live for just more than four months right now, and though it's undoubtedly a great game, its players have been very vocal as far as complaints and suggestions are concerned. Funcom has always thought of itself as a company driven by its community, and if you're a fan, it'll probably come as no surprise to you that the Age of Conan team is currently working on implementing a number of fixes and new gameplay features. There's also an expansion pack in the works, by the way, but all we know about it is that it's scheduled for release sometime in 2009. Judging by a piece of teaser art that we were shown today, the expansion pack will feature masked Asian warriors who look a lot like the immortals that the Spartans go up against in the movie 300.

One of the more damning criticisms being leveled at Age of Conan since its release is the fact that, at certain character levels, there's simply a dearth of content to play through. There are a number of new content areas in development that will be appearing in the live game soon, and today we had an opportunity to check out a few of them.

First up was Tarantia Commons, a slum district that's part of the existing Tarantia City but which players are currently kept out of by a locked gate. Given that it's home to two warring gangs, Tarantia Commons is a dangerous area to frequent at night. As a hero in the Age of Conan world, you'll be able to undertake missions for either or both of the gangs in question, and though there will undoubtedly be plenty of violence involved, we're told that Funcom is aiming to incorporate more puzzle elements in the game via future updates. Tarantia Commons is a locale designed for players of level 40 and above, which, if you've ever played a character at that level, you'll know is definitely an area in need of new content.

Another all-new area that we had an opportunity to take a look at was a mountainous zone known as The Dolmen that's designed for level 50 to 55 characters. Bandit forces are a constant threat in the area, and one of the sample quests that we were shown will task you with lighting signal fires dotted around the region in an attempt to call reinforcements to the aid of a settlement under attack. We were told that this zone will add "dozens of hours of content" on its own, and it also appears to be a great example of how Funcom is starting to incorporate Conan influences from a variety of different sources. For example, we saw the "wheel of pain" structure that appeared in the 1982 Conan movie, and later we encountered a beautiful frost giant's daughter lifted from a story by Robert E Howard. The beautiful, scantily clad girl was clearly beckoning the player to follow her up into to the mountains, and we're told that, sometimes, she'll reward those who oblige her with some kind of reward. It was a trap on this occasion, though, and within moments of reaching a spot where we could be alone with her, two angry giants (her brothers) showed up.

Still exploring the same mountains, we were surprised when the entire zone started to shake as if there was an earthquake. As it turned out, there was, but it wasn't being caused by shifting tectonic plates or anything like that. Rather, a giant named Frost Father was to blame. Currently bound in chains deep inside an evil-looking, amphitheater-themed prison, this giant is the son of a god and, as we later discovered, he's much larger than the giants that we encountered earlier.

In addition to new quest zones, Funcom is working on the construction of new dungeons as well as the revamping of existing ones. One of the new dungeons that we were afforded a brief look at is the aforementioned Frost Father's place of imprisonment, a gigantic structure populated by all manner of demons and the like that will be suitable for characters at level 65 and above. Your goal in this dungeon, other than killing bosses to collect new-and-improved loot, will be to free the Frost Father, though we should warn you that it's not yet clear if he'll be appreciative or resentful of your efforts on his behalf.


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