Cooperative play in EA's new first-person shooter may win over even its biggest naysayers.

En route to a recent Syndicate event at Electronic Arts' HQ, I wasn't sure what to think. I hadn't seen the new Syndicate before, and as a longtime fan of the original Amiga strategy game, I think it's fair to say that I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of revisiting its dystopian world in a first-person shooter. But after spending an hour with the game across three co-op missions, my thoughts were not of the original Syndicate and of how badly I'd still like to see a true continuation of the series, but rather of how much fun I'd just had and how much I'm now looking forward to getting my hands on Starbreeze's game next month.

I'll be keeping an eye out for reviews of Syndicate next month, not because I expect it to evoke memories of the game I enjoyed during my formative years. Rather, because it has the potential to be an action-packed and entertaining shooter that--based on my exclusively cooperative experience with it--I'll enjoy with friends. Perhaps more of the folks being vocal about their disappointment following the game's announcement would be looking forward to it if they could get past the title--particularly given the developer's track record. Maybe if Syndicate had a different title, forums and comments sections wouldn't be filled with remarks like:

"Making syndicate a shooter, this is awful."

"As a shooter?!? Ugh. Dead on arrival, EA."

"i really was a fan of the syndicate series loved to play all parts so im definately [sic] wont get this one!!!"

Failing that, perhaps folks will be won over by the consumer demo that's coming at the end of January. The demo will incorporate the first of the three missions that I played at EA, which, incidentally, is the only one that I'm cleared to talk about until sometime next month. I don't want to get hung up on the specifics of the nondisclosure agreement, though, because while the scenery and the objectives in the three levels were different, the levels were near identical mechanically.

As I sat down to play Syndicate, the first choice presented was selecting a defensive, offensive, or support agent. I ended up opting for the latter because, after taking a quick look at their respective default loadouts, I decided I'd rather have a sniper rifle as my primary weapon than a shotgun or machine gun. Zooming in on enemies and quickly taking headshots with some subtle snap-on targeting assistance, I was pleased with my choice. Hanging toward the back of our foursome, I not only picked off enemies from a safe distance, but was also ideally placed to heal my fellow agents by simply holding down the "breach" button when prompted to do so. (My secondary weapon, incidentally, was a pistol with an impressive rate of fire that made it fun to use when enemies got too close for comfort.)

Anytime an agent in front of me had a health bar that was less than full, there I was, topping them up with the L2 button on my PlayStation 3 controller. Different classes of agents have different repertoires of breach abilities (damage-over-time attacks and squad heals, for example) at their disposal, but all have the ability to heal other agents and, when necessary, to disable the otherwise impenetrable armors on some enemies by holding down the same button. Agents cannot, however, heal themselves, so it's a bad idea to stray too far from your co-op buddies.

Click on image to check out five new Syndicate screenshots.

My experience playing through that co-op level--set in Western Europe--wasn't wholly unlike playing through a small dungeon in a massively multiplayer online game. We didn't have clearly defined tank, healer, or DPS roles, but we were relying on each other for heals (and for resurrection-equivalent breaches when the heals failed) at all times, and we were mowing down dozens of vanilla enemies between more meaningful and challenging encounters with minibosses. There was no loot, but we were free to swap out our weapons for those that enemies had left behind at any time, and when those minibosses went down, we could extract the chips from their heads and use them to upgrade our own chips between missions. At that time we could also queue up various weapons and weapon accessories for research, all of which had point costs associated with them; score enough points with your persistent agent during a mission, and there might be a new gun or hair trigger waiting for you at the end.

After finishing the Western Europe mission, I couldn't wait to get into the other two, and after making it through those, I wished I could have taken a copy of Syndicate away with me. Did I leave EA feeling like my memories of Syndicate are being betrayed somehow? Or that as a matter of principle there's no way I'll ever play the finished game? No way. I left EA that day eager to experiment with more of the game's weapons, trying to figure out which of my friends will play through the co-op missions with me next month, and wondering if it was me or one of the other agents who had somehow managed to cut an enemy clean in half at one point.

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Project director Sheldon Carter discusses more about the story, the engine, and even the PC specs of the comic-laced gore-fest.

With the development of the upcoming shooter based on the comic book franchise coming to an end, we figured it would be best to get a bit more insight into the game's development. We recently had a chat with The Darkness II's project director Sheldon Carter, whose previous acclaims include being a producer for Dark Sector, as well as contributing to the development of BioShock 2 and Jade Empire.

GameSpot Asia: It seems natural to bring Paul Jenkins on board because he wrote about The Darkness in comics. Elaborate on the process of how both the writer and a group of game designers work together for The Darkness II.

Sheldon Carter: Paul had an understanding of the way the games and comic lore work right away. After all, he also did writing work for the first Darkness game. We had a very collaborative experience on The Darkness II, in which both sides bounced tons of ideas off each other and we tried to be as integrated as possible.

A good example of this is in one of the scenes from the demo we've used to introduce the game to everyone. There is a moment where Jackie is being crucified by our main antagonist Victor. In the starting point of the script, Jackie is trapped and Victor is trying to take the darkness away from him. We worked together and started figuring out the methods and rituals that the Brotherhood--the ancient organization that Victor controls--would use and eventually came up with the scene you will see in the game.

GSA: Was there at one point any consideration by the team to get the original creators, specifically David Wohl, Garth Ennis, and Marc Silvestri, on board The Darkness II for writing duties? What made the team decide on using Paul Jenkins' talent in the end? SC: The most important thing for us in making The Darkness II was to strictly stick to the story of the first game. The comic books were our inspiration, but the first game was our model.

As such, we kept the same writer from the first game. Paul wrote a bunch of the Darkness II comics, he wrote the first game, and he maintained that storyline for the second.

GSA: Tell us what is unique about the game engine you're using, in terms of technology.

SC: The game runs on our own engine called the Evolution engine. The great thing about using our own tech is that we were able to tailor it to best express the graphic noir art style that so beautifully stands out in the game.

"Graphic noir" is the name of our game's vibrant and red-lighting-heavy art style that's directly inspired from the comic books. Every texture in the game is hand painted to give you the feeling that you're playing in a graphic novel. We wanted to use as broad of a palette as we could for this game because when you look at the comics, you really notice the vibrancy of that palette.

GSA: In terms of the level design for single-player mode, are we looking at linear corridors or more wide-open spaces for combat?

SC: One of the key aspects of the gameplay is "quad-wielding." This means that the player can use a grabbing demon's arm, a slashing demon's arm, and two weapons all at the same time. On top of that, you have this huge assortment of powers and talents, which made level design such a crucial component.

The player needs to be able to have objects to grab and throw, places for cover, and the right space to use the powers. The mixture we've tried to come up with is to keep the game's pacing just right.

GSA: Will there be a subway system linking each stage ala The Darkness I, or will the game have a level-after-level structure like most shooters?

SC: The subway system made sense in the first game because Jackie was a "hitman" working for the mob. In The Darkness II, Jackie is the don of the family, so he takes his limo instead. It also means that Jackie has a mansion, a place where he can go and talk to his crew, learn background information, and practice his skills.

GSA: Given the first game's huge focus on single-player, why did your team decide to add in multiplayer for The Darkness II with obvious nods to Left 4 Dead?

SC: Everything we've done in The Darkness II has been focused around one key pillar: the service of the story. When we thought about multiplayer for this game, it was very clear to us that we had to advance and complement the single-player story for the player.

We worked with our writer to come up with a campaign that you can experience from the perspective of four unique characters--complete with their own talent trees and very different personalities--that ties directly into the single-player campaign.

GSA: Speaking of which, what kind of locales are we expecting in The Darkness II apart from the seedy underbelly of the city?

SC: Ha! The seedy underbelly is definitely a critical piece of where the game takes place, but we travel to a lot of different locations. Examples include the very top of the New York scene, Jackie's own penthouse mansion, the Brotherhood's makeshift base in a carnival, as well as in otherworldly places that I don't want to spoil.

GSA: Give us a brief description of the level design for Vendetta mode.

SC: Vendetta is a fast-paced narrative co-op experience that corresponds to the single-player story. There are four characters that you can choose from and they all have [their] own unique darkness weapon, powers, and talent tree. It was designed as a team-focused, mission-based experience, and it explores the roles each character plays in Jackie Estacado's fight to defeat the Brotherhood.

GSA: Will The Darkness II's online play use dedicated servers, or are you using another means to handle networking?

SC: Peer to peer. We're a co-op game and our engine handles that very well.

GSA: What are the minimum and recommended specs for the PC version of the game?

SC: Here they are:
Minimum
- OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
- Processor: Intel Core 2 @ 2GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
- Memory: 1.5GB RAM
- Hard disk space: 10GB
- Video card: 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD 2600

Recommended
- OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
- Processor: 2.4 GHz quad-core processor
- Memory: 2GB RAM
- Hard disk space: 10GB
- Video card: 512+MB Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
- Sound: DirectX compatible

GSA: Why was the game delayed twice from its original release date: one on July 10 and one on October 4? Was it due to multiplayer additions, or was there something else?

SC: To make a better game! We wanted to make sure that we only put out the best possible game we can. We hold ourselves to high standards, so we polished this game as much as possible and we needed more time in order to do so. Our publisher, 2K, was good enough to allow that.

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What happens when you mix a little bit of Mortal Kombat, BioShock, and Red Dead Redemption?

The rush of holiday releases hasn't done any favors for The Darkness II and its impending release on February 7, so we thought it would be a good idea to get everyone caught up on all the pertinent details and interesting tidbits about the game before it hits store shelves. The Darkness II captures much of what made the previous game successful and introduces some new features--both cosmetic and mechanic--that are a direct attempt to fix issues with the first game.

It's in Development at Digital Extremes, Not Starbreeze
The original Darkness was developed by the same team that produced the lovely Chronicles of Riddick. The sequel is in development at Digital Extremes, which you might know from the entertaining Dark Sector, as well as its collaborative efforts on BioShock 2, various Unreal Tournament games, and even the original Unreal.

It's Cel-Shaded
This might seem like an obvious departure from the first game--which shared the darker, almost sterile tone of Starbreeze's previous work--but the effect doesn't really make an impact until you see it for yourself. It's an obvious nod to The Darkness's comic book roots and certainly creates an interesting dichotomy between the onscreen violence and the vibrant world that it inhabits.

It Has Red Dead Redemption-like Auto-Aim
The shooting in the original Darkness wasn't exactly the highlight, but it worked well enough in tandem with Jackie's darkness powers. The Darkness II makes the shooting a little more user-friendly by making the "snap to" far more generous when you aim in the general vicinity of a foe. This gives the shooting a Red Dead Redemption feel where firefights feel more like a series of quick draws as opposed to prolonged sharp-shooting affairs.

It Has BioShock-like Skill Upgrades
The Darkness II has a skill tree system where you can spend points to unlock new skills that are then separated into different sections that focus on Jackie's abilities with firearms and the darkness itself. For example, in the firearm section, you can find a skill that lets you infuse darkness power into bullets, making them stronger. In the darkness executions section, you see skills that will give various bonuses (like health) for executing enemies. A personal favorite is the skill that turns every object you can throw into a bomb.

It Has Fatalities
Eat your heart out, Mortal Kombat! No, really. The darkness will eat a heart out, rip through a belly, or tear off the head of an incapacitated foe. Of course, these fatalities don't serve just as violent window decorations; Jackie gets a boost in health for going that extra mile.

It Has a Brothel Level That Will Likely Cause Some Controversy
About halfway through the game, Jackie makes his way to a brothel because of information he receives on the group that wants him dead. Needless to say, there are some…questionable choices of taste in terms of what's showcased in this particular level. That's not to say that these things are completely out of the thematic realm of what The Darkness is, but it's quite surprising nonetheless.

It Has a Cooperative Multiplayer Mode
The Darkness II doesn't have competitive multiplayer, but it will let you play cooperatively with friends taking on the role of different characters that have unique darkness powers. You can watch more about it below!

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Ubisoft's "realistic" survival adventure looks to post-disaster movies, not games, for inspiration.

If the end of the world turns out like games told us, we'll do fine. With the scavenging smarts of a Fallout vault escapee, the immunity to infection of a Left 4 Dead survivor, and the expert gunshootery of all the rest, we'll have the wasteland bandit-free and society back on its feet by Tuesday.

Except the actual post-Apocalypse will be more like I Am Alive. Cities will be depressing rubble heaps; there will be no food or water, let alone bullets; and the great bullet famine will hardly matter, because a gun is dodgy defence against your feral neighbours when you've never fired one before.

I Am Alive is pitched as the antithesis of gaming's postapocalyptic power fantasy. "It's definitely the opposite of that," says Ubisoft Shanghai's Aurelien Palasse. "Post-disaster [in games] is often unrealistic, and I Am Alive is realistic. I think it's different from all the other games we've seen: it's more mature; everything is real."

So the game lifts its setting and atmosphere from movies rather than other games: the film adaptation of misery travelogue The Road, with a dash of The Book of Eli, which is inferior but has machetes. "We are definitely closer to the movie inspirations than the video game inspirations," says Palasse, "because no games have done this before."

The protagonist of I Am Alive is less a one-man army and more the beleaguered dad from The Road. Before a set of cataclysmic earthquakes laid everything to waste, he'd never fired a gun. Now, after a yearlong cross-country trek, he's back in his home city, searching for his girlfriend and young daughter, carrying only a bullet-less handgun and a climbing harness.

The city is an ashy mirage: a desaturated skyline, dust clouds, and city blocks turned to shadowy wreckage. As the game begins, our hero faces it across a broken bridge, poised for a climbing tutorial. His one pre-Apocalypse talent is climbing, hence the rope looped over his shoulder, but monkey-man Nathan Drake he is not. Stints of climbing are time-limited by a regenerating stamina bar which drains while you hang or clamber around. Further on, you get more mountaineering gadgets: a grappling hook and pitons to create temporary rest points on the long climb up a skyscraper.

He's a climber, not a fighter (mostly).

The feel of manoeuvring along broken girders and up bridge supports wasn't as slick as the equivalent clambering in, say, Uncharted, but at least our man is a cautious, sure-footed climber--you won't be carelessly steering him off edges or leaping into open space. The stamina gauge makes climbing sessions short and tense; when it's nearly empty, you can hammer the right trigger to have him overexert himself, but it damages your stamina reserves more permanently, and you have to later restore that lost stamina with food items.

Holding the right trigger (in the Xbox 360 version) makes him jog, while tapping the trigger makes him sprint, with sprinting also limited by stamina. The upshot is an easily winded protagonist who might frustrate players who'd rather control a superhero, but is consistent with I Am Alive's idea of an everyman's post-disaster scenario.

Fights, like climbs, are short and tense. The protagonist is vulnerable and underpowered; with no bullets, you have to bluff your way through confrontations with violent survivors. You can keep unarmed survivors at gunpoint to ward them off (aiming the gun pops the view from third-person into first-person), or surrender and let them get close enough for you to attempt the grisly one-button "surprise kill" with your machete. When you do scavenge a single bullet, you must use it strategically: look for the mouthiest member of a gang, take him out, and the others will back down.

You also eventually pick up a bow and arrow. Though the protagonist's ability to headshot body-armoured thugs with arrows undermines the impression of Joe Average's postapocalyptic adventure, it at least lets you shoot more things, since you can retrieve the arrow from the split skull of a victim.

In keeping with I Am Alive's take on grim realism a la The Road, there's sinister stuff on the streets of the city. Early on, we see a feral mob pursue a young woman into the thick dust haze. In the sewers, there are a few terrified survivors locked up by cannibals (you can sacrifice your single bullet to bust the lock, or you can walk on by). The cavernous, lethally dusty space below a monorail is littered with shrivelled corpses. Later, you find a leering gang trying to drag a little girl, Mei, out of her hiding spot; a portion of the game after that is spent protecting Mei--by giving her a piggyback ride through fights and climbs.

Weapons include knives and a bow and arrow.

I Am Alive has 10 levels through which you explore the ruins of the city, climb, scavenge, and deal with other survivors. It isn't an open-world game, though levels aren't entirely linear. You mark the map with red scribbles as you encounter the obstacles that narrow your options down to a single path, but there are some areas off the beaten track in which you might find survivors who can shed light on what happened to his family. Though Palasse won't be drawn on the campaign's length in hours, he calls it "longer than a lot of triple-A [campaigns] now on the market."

Checkpoint retries are almost as scarce as bullets (after you've spent the few you have, you must restart the level), as are first aid kits; at one point, we couldn't save a woman's injured son because we'd already used on ourselves the single kit we'd seen in an hour of play. It was a pleasingly harrowing moment of helplessness in what could be a routine fetch quest in another game. For a postapocalyptic experience that has you scraping by instead of conquering all, we're looking forward to I Am Alive, available for download on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before too long.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Ubisoft's "realistic" survival adventure looks to movies, not games, for inspiration.

If the end of the world turns out like games told us, we'll do fine. With the scavenging smarts of a Fallout vault escapee, the immunity to infection of a Left 4 Dead survivor, and the expert gunshootery of all the rest, we'll have the wasteland bandit-free and society back on its feet by Tuesday.

Except the actual post-Apocalypse will be more like I Am Alive. Cities will be depressing rubble heaps; there will be no food or water, let alone bullets; and the great bullet famine will hardly matter, because a gun is dodgy defence against your feral neighbours when you've never fired one before.

I Am Alive is pitched as the antithesis of gaming's postapocalyptic power fantasy. "It's definitely the opposite of that," says Ubisoft Shanghai's Aurelien Palasse. "Post-disaster [in games] is often unrealistic, and I Am Alive is realistic. I think it's different from all the other games we've seen: it's more mature; everything is real."

So the game lifts its setting and atmosphere from movies rather than other games: the film adaptation of misery travelogue The Road, with a dash of The Book of Eli, which is inferior but has machetes. "We are definitely closer to the movie inspirations than the video game inspirations," says Palasse, "because no games have done this before."

The protagonist of I Am Alive is less a one-man army and more the beleaguered dad from The Road. Before a set of cataclysmic earthquakes laid everything to waste, he'd never fired a gun. Now, after a yearlong cross-country trek, he's back in his home city, searching for his girlfriend and young daughter, carrying only a bullet-less handgun and a climbing harness.

The city is an ashy mirage: a desaturated skyline, dust clouds, and city blocks turned to shadowy wreckage. As the game begins, our hero faces it across a broken bridge, poised for a climbing tutorial. His one pre-Apocalypse talent is climbing, hence the rope looped over his shoulder, but monkey-man Nathan Drake he is not. Stints of climbing are time-limited by a regenerating stamina bar which drains while you hang or clamber around. Further on, you get more mountaineering gadgets: a grappling hook and pitons to create temporary rest points on the long climb up a skyscraper.

He's a climber, not a fighter (mostly).

The feel of manoeuvring along broken girders and up bridge supports wasn't as slick as the equivalent clambering in, say, Uncharted, but at least our man is a cautious, sure-footed climber--you won't be carelessly steering him off edges or leaping into open space. The stamina gauge makes climbing sessions short and tense; when it's nearly empty, you can hammer the right trigger to have him overexert himself, but it damages your stamina reserves more permanently, and you have to later restore that lost stamina with food items.

Holding the right trigger (in the Xbox 360 version) makes him jog, while tapping the trigger makes him sprint, with sprinting also limited by stamina. The upshot is an easily winded protagonist who might frustrate players who'd rather control a superhero, but is consistent with I Am Alive's idea of an everyman's post-disaster scenario.

Fights, like climbs, are short and tense. The protagonist is vulnerable and underpowered; with no bullets, you have to bluff your way through confrontations with violent survivors. You can keep unarmed survivors at gunpoint to ward them off (aiming the gun pops the view from third-person into first-person), or surrender and let them get close enough for you to attempt the grisly one-button "surprise kill" with your machete. When you do scavenge a single bullet, you must use it strategically: look for the mouthiest member of a gang, take him out, and the others will back down.

You also eventually pick up a bow and arrow. Though the protagonist's ability to headshot body-armoured thugs with arrows undermines the impression of Joe Average's postapocalyptic adventure, it at least lets you shoot more things, since you can retrieve the arrow from the split skull of a victim.

In keeping with I Am Alive's take on grim realism a la The Road, there's sinister stuff on the streets of the city. Early on, we see a feral mob pursue a young woman into the thick dust haze. In the sewers, there are a few terrified survivors locked up by cannibals (you can sacrifice your single bullet to bust the lock, or you can walk on by). The cavernous, lethally dusty space below a monorail is littered with shrivelled corpses. Later, you find a leering gang trying to drag a little girl, Mei, out of her hiding spot; a portion of the game after that is spent protecting Mei--by giving her a piggyback ride through fights and climbs.

Weapons include knives and a bow and arrow.

I Am Alive has 10 levels through which you explore the ruins of the city, climb, scavenge, and deal with other survivors. It isn't an open-world game, though levels aren't entirely linear. You mark the map with red scribbles as you encounter the obstacles that narrow your options down to a single path, but there are some areas off the beaten track in which you might find survivors who can shed light on what happened to his family. Though Palasse won't be drawn on the campaign's length in hours, he calls it "longer than a lot of triple-A [campaigns] now on the market."

Checkpoint retries are almost as scarce as bullets (after you've spent the few you have, you must restart the level), as are first aid kits; at one point, we couldn't save a woman's injured son because we'd already used on ourselves the single kit we'd seen in an hour of play. It was a pleasingly harrowing moment of helplessness in what could be a routine fetch quest in another game. For a postapocalyptic experience that has you scraping by instead of conquering all, we're looking forward to I Am Alive, available for download on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before too long.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Ubisoft's "realistic" survival adventure looks to movies, not games, for inspiration.

If the end of the world turns out like games told us, we'll do fine. With the scavenging smarts of a Fallout vault escapee, the immunity to infection of a Left 4 Dead survivor, and the expert gunshootery of all the rest, we'll have the wasteland bandit-free and society back on its feet by Tuesday.

Except the actual post-Apocalypse will be more like I Am Alive. Cities will be depressing rubble heaps; there will be no food or water, let alone bullets; and the great bullet famine will hardly matter, because a gun is dodgy defence against your feral neighbours when you've never fired one before.

I Am Alive is pitched as the antithesis of gaming's postapocalyptic power fantasy. "It's definitely the opposite of that," says Ubisoft Shanghai's Aurelien Palasse. "Post-disaster [in games] is often unrealistic, and I Am Alive is realistic. I think it's different from all the other games we've seen: it's more mature; everything is real."

So the game lifts its setting and atmosphere from movies rather than other games: the film adaptation of misery travelogue The Road, with a dash of The Book of Eli, which is inferior but has machetes. "We are definitely closer to the movie inspirations than the video game inspirations," says Palasse, "because no games have done this before."

The protagonist of I Am Alive is less a one-man army and more the beleaguered dad from The Road. Before a set of cataclysmic earthquakes laid everything to waste, he'd never fired a gun. Now, after a yearlong cross-country trek, he's back in his home city, searching for his girlfriend and young daughter, carrying only a bullet-less handgun and a climbing harness.

The city is an ashy mirage: a desaturated skyline, dust clouds, and city blocks turned to shadowy wreckage. As the game begins, our hero faces it across a broken bridge, poised for a climbing tutorial. His one pre-Apocalypse talent is climbing, hence the rope looped over his shoulder, but monkey-man Nathan Drake he is not. Stints of climbing are time-limited by a regenerating stamina bar which drains while you hang or clamber around. Further on, you get more mountaineering gadgets: a grappling hook and pitons to create temporary rest points on the long climb up a skyscraper.

He's a climber, not a fighter (mostly).

The feel of manoeuvring along broken girders and up bridge supports wasn't as slick as the equivalent clambering in, say, Uncharted, but at least our man is a cautious, sure-footed climber--you won't be carelessly steering him off edges or leaping into open space. The stamina gauge makes climbing sessions short and tense; when it's nearly empty, you can hammer the right trigger to have him overexert himself, but it damages your stamina reserves more permanently, and you have to later restore that lost stamina with food items.

Holding the right trigger (in the Xbox 360 version) makes him jog, while tapping the trigger makes him sprint, with sprinting also limited by stamina. The upshot is an easily winded protagonist who might frustrate players who'd rather control a superhero, but is consistent with I Am Alive's idea of an everyman's post-disaster scenario.

Fights, like climbs, are short and tense. The protagonist is vulnerable and underpowered; with no bullets, you have to bluff your way through confrontations with violent survivors. You can keep unarmed survivors at gunpoint to ward them off (aiming the gun pops the view from third-person into first-person), or surrender and let them get close enough for you to attempt the grisly one-button "surprise kill" with your machete. When you do scavenge a single bullet, you must use it strategically: look for the mouthiest member of a gang, take him out, and the others will back down.

You also eventually pick up a bow and arrow. Though the protagonist's ability to headshot body-armoured thugs with arrows undermines the impression of Joe Average's postapocalyptic adventure, it at least lets you shoot more things, since you can retrieve the arrow from the split skull of a victim.

In keeping with I Am Alive's take on grim realism a la The Road, there's sinister stuff on the streets of the city. Early on, we see a feral mob pursue a young woman into the thick dust haze. In the sewers, there are a few terrified survivors locked up by cannibals (you can sacrifice your single bullet to bust the lock, or you can walk on by). The cavernous, lethally dusty space below a monorail is littered with shrivelled corpses. Later, you find a leering gang trying to drag a little girl, Mei, out of her hiding spot; a portion of the game after that is spent protecting Mei--by giving her a piggyback ride through fights and climbs.

Weapons include knives and a bow and arrow.

I Am Alive has 10 levels through which you explore the ruins of the city, climb, scavenge, and deal with other survivors. It isn't an open-world game, though levels aren't entirely linear. You mark the map with red scribbles as you encounter the obstacles that narrow your options down to a single path, but there are some areas off the beaten track in which you might find survivors who can shed light on what happened to his family. Though Palasse won't be drawn on the campaign's length in hours, he calls it "longer than a lot of triple-A [campaigns] now on the market."

Checkpoint retries are almost as scarce as bullets (after you've spent the few you have, you must restart the level), as are first aid kits; at one point, we couldn't save a woman's injured son because we'd already used on ourselves the single kit we'd seen in an hour of play. It was a pleasingly harrowing moment of helplessness in what could be a routine fetch quest in another game. For a postapocalyptic experience that has you scraping by instead of conquering all, we're looking forward to I Am Alive, available for download on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before too long.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Remedy's looking to have a little fun with this downloadable spinoff.

For all its gloomy aesthetics and creepy storytelling, the original Alan Wake was a deceptively cheeky game. Sure, you spent the bulk of your time wandering through the woods battling terrifying shadow monsters, but let's not forget that epic heavy-metal-and-fireworks stage battle, or pretty much any scene featuring hapless sidekick Barry Wheeler. So it probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise to see that Remedy is taking Wake in a decidedly more outlandish direction with the downloadable spin-off called Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

"In terms of tone, Wake was more Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock," says Remedy CEO Matthias Myllyrinne. "Here we're going for much more of a Quentin Tarantino and From Dusk Till Dawn kind of approach." American Nightmare represents a stylistic shift toward a different subgenre under the horror umbrella: the eccentric world of pulp horror, though the game could also be described as a pop culture melting pot encompassing desert highway urban legends, classic sci-fi, and even a little bit of grindhouse minus that particular genre's propensity for awkward sexual lewdness.

The idea is that Wake is living through an episode of Night Springs, Remedy's tongue-in-cheek nod to The Twilight Zone. The action has moved from the Pacific Northwest to small-town Arizona where Wake not only has to battle even more bizarre and powerful shadow creatures, but also has to chase down a serial killer who just happens to be an evil manifestation of his own self. The latter, cutely enough, is portrayed via in-game television sets that show live-action video of bizarro Alan Wake (called "Mr. Scratch" in the game) taunting you in suitably creepy fashion.

But a new tone isn't the only departure from the original game. "There's a different focus here. If Wake was maybe two-thirds story and one-third action, American Nightmare is two-thirds action and one-third story," says Myllyrinne. "It's really the Remedy team kicking back and having fun."

There are some scary new enemies in this spinoff.

Of course, that move toward a more action-heavy game does raise one particularly glaring question: wasn't action the weak link in the first game? One of the most common complaints with Alan Wake was that its combat started out strong but failed to evolve in a meaningful way as the game went on.

Myllyrinne, for his part, recognizes that this was a flaw that needed correcting. So what American Nightmare does, according to Remedy's man in charge, is take the core combat of the original game and expand outward from there. The idea of light and darkness still plays a significant role, with Wake weakening enemies with his flashlight before even thinking about firing a weapon.

This time around, however, Remedy is taking advantage of the "exaggerated pulp-action tone" to go wild with enemy designs that present new challenges as the game moves forward. You'll find shadow creatures that split into two or more smaller versions of themselves when shot, a monster who rapidly shape-shifts between a crawling human and a flock of crows (what Myllyrinne calls a "tip of the hat" to fellow Finnish video game property Angry Birds), and more than a few massive saw-wielding creatures who are easily twice as tall as Wake. But in an act of fairness to you, Remedy has included newer, more powerful weaponry that presents interesting strategic options, such as a crossbow that can kill enemies without the need for a flashlight, but it takes forever to reload.

Get your fix on Route 66.

Remedy is so confident in the expanded combat system that it has even included a timed survival mode (what it's calling "arcade action mode") that has Wake trying to survive 10 minutes in a cemetery until daylight arrives. As the name suggests, this mode is all action, giving you a multiplier system and leaderboards to encourage high score runs. But sticking with the game's theme of survival, you still need to be smart with your ammunition because you've got only so much to spare.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Remedy's looking to have a little fun with this downloadable spinoff.

For all its gloomy aesthetics and creepy storytelling, the original Alan Wake was a deceptively cheeky game. Sure, you spent the bulk of your time wandering through the woods battling terrifying shadow monsters, but let's not forget that epic heavy-metal-and-fireworks stage battle, or pretty much any scene featuring hapless sidekick Barry Wheeler. So it probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise to see that Remedy is taking Wake in a decidedly more outlandish direction with the downloadable spin-off called Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

"In terms of tone, Wake was more Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock," says Remedy CEO Matthias Myllyrinne. "Here we're going for much more of a Quentin Tarantino and From Dusk Till Dawn kind of approach." American Nightmare represents a stylistic shift toward a different subgenre under the horror umbrella: the eccentric world of pulp horror, though the game could also be described as a pop culture melting pot encompassing desert highway urban legends, classic sci-fi, and even a little bit of grindhouse minus that particular genre's propensity for awkward sexual lewdness.

The idea is that Wake is living through an episode of Night Springs, Remedy's tongue-in-cheek nod to The Twilight Zone. The action has moved from the Pacific Northwest to small-town Arizona where Wake not only has to battle even more bizarre and powerful shadow creatures, but also has to chase down a serial killer who just happens to be an evil manifestation of his own self. The latter, cutely enough, is portrayed via in-game television sets that show live-action video of bizarro Alan Wake (called "Mr. Scratch" in the game) taunting you in suitably creepy fashion.

But a new tone isn't the only departure from the original game. "There's a different focus here. If Wake was maybe two-thirds story and one-third action, American Nightmare is two-thirds action and one-third story," says Myllyrinne. "It's really the Remedy team kicking back and having fun."

There are some scary new enemies in this spinoff.

Of course, that move toward a more action-heavy game does raise one particularly glaring question: wasn't action the weak link in the first game? One of the most common complaints with Alan Wake was that its combat started out strong but failed to evolve in a meaningful way as the game went on.

Myllyrinne, for his part, recognizes that this was a flaw that needed correcting. So what American Nightmare does, according to Remedy's man in charge, is take the core combat of the original game and expand outward from there. The idea of light and darkness still plays a significant role, with Wake weakening enemies with his flashlight before even thinking about firing a weapon.

This time around, however, Remedy is taking advantage of the "exaggerated pulp-action tone" to go wild with enemy designs that present new challenges as the game moves forward. You'll find shadow creatures that split into two or more smaller versions of themselves when shot, a monster who rapidly shape-shifts between a crawling human and a flock of crows (what Myllyrinne calls a "tip of the hat" to fellow Finnish video game property Angry Birds), and more than a few massive saw-wielding creatures who are easily twice as tall as Wake. But in an act of fairness to you, Remedy has included newer, more powerful weaponry that presents interesting strategic options, such as a crossbow that can kill enemies without the need for a flashlight, but it takes forever to reload.

Get your fix on Route 66.

Remedy is so confident in the expanded combat system that it has even included a timed survival mode (what it's calling "arcade action mode") that has Wake trying to survive 10 minutes in a cemetery until daylight arrives. As the name suggests, this mode is all action, giving you a multiplier system and leaderboards to encourage high score runs. But sticking with the game's theme of survival, you still need to be smart with your ammunition because you've got only so much to spare.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Originally touted as the first game to use CryEngine 3, Nexuiz disappeared but is back and is hoping to get the attention of fans of arena first-person shooters.

The Penny Arcade Expo can be a great place for independent developers to showcase their upcoming releases to a wider audience. The games get to be in the hands of those they are intended for, but at the same time, doing that can also be a risk. Back in 2010, developer Illfonic used PAX to show off its upcoming arena first-person shooter, Nexuiz. The company touted the fact that it was going to be the first game released to use CryEngine 3, months before Crysis 2 would be available. Unfortunately, Nexuiz wasn't up to snuff, most people avoided Illfonic's booth, and the game went dark shortly thereafter. The team has been silent since then, but because THQ is now assisting with the publishing, the developers hope they can win the hearts of FPS fans with this multiplayer-only downloadable release.

Nexuiz is hoping to rekindle the love of arena first-person shooters

Nexuiz is an online team-based shooter in which eight players on two teams square off against each other for supremacy. The game will have two modes: Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch. The modes will be available on nine maps--three focused on CTF and six designed for TDM. While these modes don't help to separate the game from the plethora of FPS titles available, the inclusion of dynamic mutators is what the developers hope is enough to entice people to their game.

What dynamic mutators do is give you the opportunity to modify aspects of the game in-match. While some shooters give you the ability to make changes to a match before it begins, the mutators available in Nexuiz are scattered around the arena and can be triggered as soon as they’ve been collected. There will be 100 mutators available. They range from expected modifiers like increased shields, firing power, and speed, to out-of-the-ordinary ones like color blindness, which turns your screen completely black and white and forces you to use your reticle to determine who is friend or foe. Other rare modifiers include one that forces you to play part of the match with inverted controls.

Dynamic mutators work in a number of ways. Some can be triggered to benefit your team, while others are triggered to affect the opposition--and some give everyone an advantage. Also, mutators aren't controlled solely by one person; they are scattered throughout the arenas, and anyone can find them and initiate them. While only one mutator can be active at a given time, it's possible to have others ready in a queue. Lining up mutators can make an entire match completely dictated by them.

The developers tout that there are over 100 mutators which will allow for more than 1.7 million match possibilities. The mutators will be broken up into tiers to ensure that certain ones don't appear as often as others. On top of that, when you're playing online, the points you earn in-match from your kills can be spent to increase the odds that a given mutator appears. Upgrading a specific modulation to its max doesn't necessarily ensure it will be available in a future match, but if other players have also upgraded the same mutator, the greater the liklhood that particular one will appear in-game.

Of course, mutators won't be mandatory. Because Illfonic is looking to cater this game to hardcore players, these can be turned off, and normal FPS rules will apply. As for everything else in Nexuiz, the game is pretty standard. Console players familiar with the genre will be able to pick up a controller and get into the action with no need for practice. On the PC side of things, when the game is released, the developers are promising better match finding and hope to implement modding tools that will let you tweak many aspects of the game. There is no date when PC players will see this inclusion, but it is expected shortly after launch. Lastly, while the console version of the game will have some aim assisting, PC players won't have that aid available.

Things look pretty crazy in here!

Deciding to hold off on releasing the game back in late 2010 seems to have been a smart move by Illfonic. But at the same time, there are so many first-person shooters on the market that Nexuiz is still going to be in a position to have to try hard to earn an audience. Mutators seems like they could do the trick, but the smaller-scope matches, where only a maximum of eight players can play, might not be enough in comparison to other games that allow for greater numbers of players. But to combat that, when Nexuiz is released on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in early 2012, it will cost only $10. Hopefully the less-than-regular price point and the planned post-launch support and PC bonuses will be enough to get those who grew up playing arena first-person shooters a reason to play Nexuiz.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Originally touted as the first game to use CryEngine 3, Nexuiz disappeared but is back and is hoping to get the attention of fans of arena first-person shooters.

The Penny Arcade Expo can be a great place for independent developers to showcase their upcoming releases to a wider audience. The games get to be in the hands of those they are intended for, but at the same time, doing that can also be a risk. Back in 2010, developer Illfonic used PAX to show off its upcoming arena first-person shooter, Nexuiz. The company touted the fact that it was going to be the first game released to use CryEngine 3, months before Crysis 2 would be available. Unfortunately, Nexuiz wasn't up to snuff, most people avoided Illfonic's booth, and the game went dark shortly thereafter. The team has been silent since then, but because THQ is now assisting with the publishing, the developers hope they can win the hearts of FPS fans with this multiplayer-only downloadable release.

Nexuiz is hoping to rekindle the love of arena first-person shooters

Nexuiz is an online team-based shooter in which eight players on two teams square off against each other for supremacy. The game will have two modes: Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch. The modes will be available on nine maps--three focused on CTF and six designed for TDM. While these modes don't help to separate the game from the plethora of FPS titles available, the inclusion of dynamic mutators is what the developers hope is enough to entice people to their game.

What dynamic mutators do is give you the opportunity to modify aspects of the game in-match. While some shooters give you the ability to make changes to a match before it begins, the mutators available in Nexuiz are scattered around the arena and can be triggered as soon as they’ve been collected. There will be 100 mutators available. They range from expected modifiers like increased shields, firing power, and speed, to out-of-the-ordinary ones like color blindness, which turns your screen completely black and white and forces you to use your reticle to determine who is friend or foe. Other rare modifiers include one that forces you to play part of the match with inverted controls.

Dynamic mutators work in a number of ways. Some can be triggered to benefit your team, while others are triggered to affect the opposition--and some give everyone an advantage. Also, mutators aren't controlled solely by one person; they are scattered throughout the arenas, and anyone can find them and initiate them. While only one mutator can be active at a given time, it's possible to have others ready in a queue. Lining up mutators can make an entire match completely dictated by them.

The developers tout that there are over 100 mutators which will allow for more than 1.7 million match possibilities. The mutators will be broken up into tiers to ensure that certain ones don't appear as often as others. On top of that, when you're playing online, the points you earn in-match from your kills can be spent to increase the odds that a given mutator appears. Upgrading a specific modulation to its max doesn't necessarily ensure it will be available in a future match, but if other players have also upgraded the same mutator, the greater the liklhood that particular one will appear in-game.

Of course, mutators won't be mandatory. Because Illfonic is looking to cater this game to hardcore players, these can be turned off, and normal FPS rules will apply. As for everything else in Nexuiz, the game is pretty standard. Console players familiar with the genre will be able to pick up a controller and get into the action with no need for practice. On the PC side of things, when the game is released, the developers are promising better match finding and hope to implement modding tools that will let you tweak many aspects of the game. There is no date when PC players will see this inclusion, but it is expected shortly after launch. Lastly, while the console version of the game will have some aim assisting, PC players won't have that aid available.

Things look pretty crazy in here!

Deciding to hold off on releasing the game back in late 2010 seems to have been a smart move by Illfonic. But at the same time, there are so many first-person shooters on the market that Nexuiz is still going to be in a position to have to try hard to earn an audience. Mutators seems like they could do the trick, but the smaller-scope matches, where only a maximum of eight players can play, might not be enough in comparison to other games that allow for greater numbers of players. But to combat that, when Nexuiz is released on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in early 2012, it will cost only $10. Hopefully the less-than-regular price point and the planned post-launch support and PC bonuses will be enough to get those who grew up playing arena first-person shooters a reason to play Nexuiz.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot