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X Rebirth Review

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Rabu, 25 Desember 2013 | 23.37

Einstein taught us that space is both homogeneous and isotropic--that is, on a large scale, the universe is smooth and uniform in all directions. It's empty out there. Like many space games before it, X Rebirth depicts an unrealistically vibrant universe bursting with color and texture, and that's as it should be. A near-vacuum makes a dreary backdrop for a video game, at least for a human observer.

It isn't X Rebirth's inauthentic view of space that should anger you; it's that this sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed. Just as the observable universe has no center, neither does space exploration game X Rebirth find a foundation from which to grow outward, and I am unsure how to begin describing its failures. I can only begin at the quantum level, pulling out each particle and analyzing its deficiencies. And so I start in the cockpit, where most galactic adventures begin.

The Albion Skunk is the aptly named vessel that carries you on this journey. Unless you're peering out of a space port's window or piloting one of the game's different drones, you always see space through the Skunk's front window, and overlooking the aesthetically dull control panel that tells you the ship's condition. In fact, you look at most of X Rebirth's menus in the cockpit, each list pulling up on a digital display viewable by both you the player and protagonist pilot Ren Otani.

This menu integration might have been a sensible way to draw you further into this universe, but no amount of immersion would have been enough to veil the system's grave deficiencies. Pulling up so much as a simple galactic map requires a ridiculous number of keystrokes, with each submenu buffered by just enough input lag and unnecessary animation to cause impatience. Furthermore, the menu doesn't always take up a sensible portion of the screen, making it hard to read intricate mission objectives--and even harder to read them when a particularly garish spacescape shines from behind the Skunk's menu screen.

For a near-vacuum, it sure is busy in space!

Garish spacescapes are common in X Rebirth, though there are sights of real beauty. Ships feature a remarkable amount of detail, and space stations and capital ships catch the eye with their intricate industrial designs. Rushing between systems via the game's space highways can be a visual delight, particularly as you watch ships and structures approach and then race by. When the color scheme embraces tranquil blues and developer Egosoft exercises visual restraint, the hazy background nebulae and tumbling asteroids are a treat. All too often, however, the view erupts with harsh orange and turquoise hues, making you wonder if you shouldn't stock the Albion Skunk with sunscreen. A vibrant vision of space is typically pleasing enough, but X Rebirth's depiction occasionally surpasses "meticulous" and surges straight into "gaudy."

Buy low and sell high. It's a solid economic policy, and it forms the backbone of X Rebirth's explore-fight-collect-build gameplay loop. It's an inviting loop, and I found myself pushing onward to collect enough funds, hiring enough ships to join my squad, and building enough structures in the hope of calling the result a true empire.

Sometimes, doing so means shooting spacecraft piloted by members of the slave-trading Plutarch Mining Corporation. Combat is functional, but ship controls are loose, though I never felt as though I wasn't properly directing the action. Regardless, the Skunk is your only ride for the duration, so get used to the way it looks and feels, though you can improve its performance with enhanced weaponry, shields, and so forth. Fortunately, you will build up an entire squad of vessels that perform various vital actions on your behalf, assisting you in combat, erecting structures, and ferrying goods about the sector. Massive battles are visually explosive, momentarily interrupting the slow-paced trading with fiery combat.

This sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed.

Oh God. Just... Oh God.

And boy is trading slow-paced. Buying and selling goods isn't an immediate process, or even an efficient one. Instead, you must wait for many minutes on end as your sluggish trading ship edges ever closer to the trade port, giving you an opportunity to poke around the sector, or more likely, to go grab a glass of wine and peruse the latest issue of Science Magazine from cover to cover. You also must maintain fuel reserves, which can come as a shock the first time a hired pilot informs you of his fuel shortage over the comm and has you scrambling to figure out how to rectify the situation, given how ordering your ship to fuel up is not an option you can find in the game's menus.

Building up a fleet takes time and money, and you don't find capable crew members free-floating in space, but rather within space stations, which you explore on foot after docking. First-person exploration could have been a grand addition, taking the X series that much closer to the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink games developer Derek Smart wanted his Battlecruiser series to be, but never was. It soon becomes obvious, however, that traversing cookie-cutter stations sucks the mystery out of space travel, leaving behind horrifying human visages that spout absolute drivel in the most excruciating tone of voice imaginable. You see the same grotesquely scarred faces over and over again, and engaging one of these unblinking ghouls results in absolute nonsense. Any given conversation is utterly devoid of logic. Characters are routinely rude when you approach them, then become delighted, and then lapse into obnoxiousness again. In the meanwhile, female characters frequently whine "Ew! Slimy green lizard things are everywhere!" in the shrillest possible manner, as if they are 1950s housewives from classic cartoons, crying atop the kitchen table and swatting at pesky mice.

Colorful is one thing, but X Rebirth's artists really should have turned things down a notch.

That line is shrieked in regard to the reptilian Teladi race, whose existence in the X universe is well established. Perhaps Egosoft wanted to use first-person exploration to further develop the game's tone and deepen its lore. Sadly, a universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.

Instead, having to dock at a station and walk around looking for the right merchants becomes a chore. My first foray into a station delighted me; I could loot lockers and crates for marketable items, leading me to believe that X Rebirth might spill into role-playing territory. Alas, clicking on lockers becomes monotonous busywork, as does roaming the cut-and-paste hallways looking for vendors and crew members for hire. These places are as lifeless as a white dwarf, even in their underpopulated lounges, each living statue stiffly waiting for you to click on it. Characters speak of their own accord only when prompting you to take part in a ridiculous-beyond-measure minigame in which you engage in surreal small talk to earn a few discounts. It wasn't long before I avoided this minigame altogether, however: no matter how deep the discount, I couldn't stomach the stupid dialogue, which made me question how such imbeciles could have devised any form of space travel.

It isn't just in the space stations where you go hunting for discounts. Out in the black beyond, you glimpse icons that urge you to investigate the objects they identify; examine enough of them, and you unlock discounts and side missions. Little lowercase i's are splattered all over the place, but you have to be close enough to see them, and you must have line of sight. And thus your adventure turns into a vapid Easter egg hunt in which you float around satellite arrays seeking icons, and then soar close enough to them to interact with them. It isn't uncommon to briefly see an icon identifying a side mission only to have it flicker away in a flash, forcing you to maneuver carefully around the starbase hoping to catch another glimpse.

According to the theory of special relativity, X Rebirth stinks.

Don't expect those missions to work properly once you graciously accept them from your sneering contacts, however. Each X game has suffered from a certain number of rough edges at launch, and you could be forgiven for assuming that like those games, X Rebirth would be superficially glitchy but eminently playable. Yet no matter how low your expectations might be for the newest X's stability, the game still manages to sink lower. Only a few hours in, and a mission proved impossible to complete, leading me to commiserate with other players suffering from the same game-ending bug in Internet forums. After downloading a saved game file from a helpful comrade, I continued my journey, only to have a side mission task me with destroying a story-critical capital ship, leaving me to wander for hours wondering why I couldn't find my mission objective.

A universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.

Listing all of the bugs I encountered would take up inordinate amounts of space, and so I offer here a random array. Crashes too numerous to count. Poor frame rates that had me wondering why I'd spent so much money on modern computer hardware. Suddenly unresponsive dialogue that left me stuck mid-conversation. Enemy ships flying around in the middle of space station geometry, keeping me from completing missions. Trading ships that simply wouldn't conduct the assigned transaction. That last one was particularly aggravating, considering how much time you must wait for functional transactions to complete. All too often, X Rebirth had me asking the age-old question: "Is it a bug or a feature?"

The fact that it's too difficult to tell the difference tells you all you must know about X Rebirth. You might assume a bright future for the game, given Egosoft's solid history of supporting its games after release--and given the community's dedication to crafting fixes and modifications that further improve these starry treks. X Rebirth's failings are rooted too deeply to simply be patched away, however. No matter what your level of enthusiasm for the X series is, do your best to escape the pull of Rebirth's gravity. It's only bound to cause a fatal crash.


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The Waiting Game - Best Games for Christmas

Waiting for that game you really want to play can be a painful experience, but it doesn't have to be one! The Waiting Game cherry-picks the best games to play, films to watch and even books to read while you wait for launch day, helping you prepare for th

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Xbox One and PS4 revealed: The start of the next-gen "war"

In this, the first of four articles, we look back at highs and lows of 2013, beginning with the unveiling of Sony and Microsofts' consoles and our collective reactions prior to E3.

2013 has been on the most hectic, exciting years in gaming in a long time. The launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may have taken the spotlight, but we also had a portable offering from Ouya, a redesigned portable from Nintendo (the 2DS), plus the unveiling of Valve's Steam Machine. Gaming itself may not have changed all too much in 2013, but the ways available to experience games were constantly evolving.

But although the industry is looking up now, the start of the year still felt uncertain and tumulutuous. The fate of any of these consoles was (and in some ways is still) uncertain, and there was far too regular news of layoffs and studio closures. One of the larger developers to leave the industry in 2013 was LucasArts. Disney acquired the developer along with LucasFilm, and early in the year Disney shifted the game studio to a licensing model, thus canceling (or at least putting on hold) anticipated games such as Star Wars 1313 and the Battlfefront sequel First Assault .

Given the state of the industry, it was easy to imagine an imminent collapse or some other disaster just around the corner. But all that just made it even harder to predict the circular route that Microsoft and Sony would take in their console reveals. We knew that the announcements would come soon in 2013, and that the new consoles would bear more in common with the PC than the 360 and PS3, but anything beyond that was pure conjecture. Both Sony and Microsoft were able to keep the design of their consoles tightly under wraps.

At the beginning of 2013, Gamespot made a number of predictions about what the future might hold. Some were right: Sony going with the simple PlayStation 4 title for their new console, the exploding popularity of MOBAs and League of Legends, and the rise of eSports to greater prominence in the gaming world.

However, some predictions were completely wrong. The reveal of Half-Life 3 and Source 2 from Valve, the Xbox tablet, and anything new with Final Fantasy VII were guesses that never materialized.

Early in the year, Microsoft suffered from a multitude of problems communicating the virtues of what was then still widely referred to as the Xbox 720. Gamers were outraged when it leaked that the system would require either a constant connection to the Internet (or at the least would need to check-in every 24 hours). And matters weren't helped when a creative director at one of Microsoft's studios responded to the outcry with the hashtag #dealwithit.

In addition, rumors were circulating that the next Xbox would be unable to play used games, and that users would be unable to unplug the Kinect. Microsoft said the Kinect would be able to be turned off at least (in an attempt to allay concerns of constant in-home monitoring), but by then it seemed too little too late.

Prior to E3, Microsoft revealed their console, but only managed to upset their fan base more by focusing on the system's social and media capabilities rather than on gaming. Some developers argued that getting the mainstream and television-focused information out of the way early would free up more time for games at E3.

Sony's press conference reveal took place before Microsoft's media briefing and did not include a hardware reveal, but Sony was willing to directly address some of their competition's biggest criticisms. The PS4, for example, would definitely be able to play used games. However, Sony remained suspiciously silent on whether or not their system would require the same 24-hour online check-in.

Still, Sony received praise for showing off their system's share features (which lets you record game footage or stream online at any time) and a first look at the PS4's games well ahead of E3. We got to see Sony exclusives like Infamous: Second Son, Killzone: Shadow Fall, and Knack, as well as confirmation that several highly anticipated games, such as Destiny (from Halo studio Bungie) and The Witness would be coming to next-gen. More game details and pricing would have to wait until E3, but Sony was already capitalizing on Microsoft's perceived problems...a trend that would continue in E3.

The problems around "always online" were especially prominent in the months before E3 because of a pair of games from Blizzard and EA that had non-negotiable internet requirements in order to play. A game-breaking bug in Blizzard's Diablo III was booting players from their servers. Meanwhile EA's reboot of SimCity hit serious launch problems in supporting the player base and just providing online server stability. The problems persisted for months and they were only exacerbated by the fact that the online component was not actually necessary to play the game.

Announcing a console that would potentially include those same problems with few obvious benefits was causing serious perception problems for Microsoft. Especially once Sony revealed that, due to the relative lack of high-speed Internet worldwide, their console would not have that prerequisite. But for better or worse, Microsoft stayed the course.

And in the background was the growing dominance of one of gaming's biggest phenomenons: League of Legends and the MOBA. It was a genre that was already wildly popular with a devotedly dedicated fanbase, but 2013 is when the MOBA came into its own in an even more mainstream way. League of Legends players were breaking audience records on their Twitch streams. And even in beta, Dota 2 from Valve was playing host to major league gaming tournaments.

There was a lot of excitement building up in the gaming world prior to E3, and fortunately, the rest of the year did not disappoint.


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Gamespot's Site Mashup

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Rabu, 18 Desember 2013 | 23.37

Gamespot's Site MashupAsk The Experts: Kinect vs PS4 CameraDr. Luigi ensures the Year of Luigi rolls to 2014Bandfuse: Rock Legends Review

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 18 Dec 2013 08:17:39 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/ask-the-experts-kinect-vs-ps4-camera/2300-6416625/ Are you ready to use your voice to control the new generation of consoles? They might not listen to you. Jeff and Peter breakdown how well the Kinect and PS4 camera are able to track your movement, voice, and more. Wed, 18 Dec 2013 08:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/ask-the-experts-kinect-vs-ps4-camera/2300-6416625/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dr-luigi-ensures-the-year-of-luigi-rolls-to-2014/1100-6416787/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2404950-dr+luigi.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2404950" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2404950-dr+luigi.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2404950"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1493/14930800/2404950-dr+luigi.jpg"></a></figure><p style="">Nintendo wasn't joking that the Year of Luigi would continue into 2014: Dr. Luigi will be released on the Wii U eShop on January 15.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Dr. Luigi, a block-busting puzzle game, will feature four game modes: Retro Remedy, Operation L, Online Battle, and Germ Buster. The latter mode uses simple capsules and touch controls, presumably with the Wii U GamePad, while Operation L features button control and new L-shaped capsules new to this game.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Retro Remedy, on the other hand, pairs the series' traditional basic capsules with button controls.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Pricing details for Dr. Luigi were not mentioned by Nintendo during the announcement. </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Dr. Luigi is a new spin on the long-running Dr. Mario series, which was originally released on the NES in 1990. The series saw later instalments on the Nintendo 64 and DSiWare.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knZFneOkUqY" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/knZFneOkUqY?wmode=opaque&amp;amp;amp;feature=oembed" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p> Wed, 18 Dec 2013 06:49:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dr-luigi-ensures-the-year-of-luigi-rolls-to-2014/1100-6416787/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bandfuse-rock-legends-review/1900-6415607/ <p style="">It has been quite a while since I've had a good excuse to pull out the old Ibanez sitting in my closet collecting dust, but BandFuse: Rock Legends' mix of rhythm game rocking and guitar training provided an excellent incentive. It blurs the line between musical rehearsal and plain-old fun, giving everyone from total guitar novices to more seasoned players the tools to rock out while improving their chops. While it might lack some of the more useful extras and visual pizzazz of the recent <a href="/phoenix-cms/reviews/form?id=6415495/" data-ref-id="false">Rocksmith</a> games, BandFuse is fun to pick up and play and delivers a straightforward guitar tablature-focused experience.</p><p style="">Getting the visuals and audio to sync up properly on HDTVs is one of the biggest nuisances plaguing the rhythm game genre. Spending a half-hour fiddling with finicky hardware tends to kill the mood when you just want to dive in and play. BandFuse takes a smart detour around all of that with the AudioLink adapter, a nice piece of kit that plugs into the back of your console and lets you stream the audio out to your TV or stereo through composite cables. It's lag-free, works perfectly, and sounds phenomenal. I also appreciate that the adapter includes a separate headphone jack to let you rock at high volume without blasting out your entire household.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/2/0/0/0/1922000-660954_20120412_003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1922000" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/2/0/0/0/1922000-660954_20120412_003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1922000"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/mig/2/0/0/0/1922000-660954_20120412_003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Luckily, BandFuse's sound is far classier than Godzilla's. </figcaption></figure><p style="">Once you plug in and tune up--a thankfully intuitive and speedy process--you can dive into any selection in BandFuse's entire 55-track arsenal with a quick play session or explore them all in a more traditional campaign mode. The latter does away with any elaborate story trappings or goofy character gimmicks. You simply rock your way through a series of increasingly tough tours with names like Venomous Licks and Behemoths of Rock, earning money with each performance to go toward unlocking subsequent stages. Each tour offers a mix of multi-song gigs and one-off challenges to plow through, and the natural progression weaves in harder songs at a gradual pace.</p><p style="">Track-wise, BandFuse's eclectic mix of jams skews toward the rock, punk, and metal end of the spectrum. Face-melters like Children of Bodom's "Are You Dead Yet" and Testament's "Souls of Black" top a pleasantly finger-punishing stretch of the list, though plenty of catchy hits spanning the past four and a half decades make it in there too. Some tunes are recycled more than once as you go along, but rather than irritate, this structure encourages you to crank up the difficulty a little bit higher to push your skills as you progress and encounter tunes you've already played.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/9/3/7/8/1839378-660954_20120224_001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1839378" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/9/3/7/8/1839378-660954_20120224_001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1839378"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/mig/9/3/7/8/1839378-660954_20120224_001.jpg"></a><figcaption>Don't worry, Slash. You'll be back from Cali in no time.</figcaption></figure><p style="">BandFuse's biggest strength is the way it balances its gameplay elements with more serious guitar practice. There's a welcome focus on realism, but the fun of playing a game and boosting your score isn't lost in the mix. While it's not the most attractive setup, the no-nonsense interface makes it easy to gauge what's happening onscreen and what you're being asked to play. Instead of flying at you down a vertical runway, Guitar Hero-style, notes are charted out on a side-scrolling horizontal fret board that mirrors standard guitar tab. Anyone who has thumbed through a guitar magazine or hopped on the Internet to look up the chords to their favorite radio hit will feel right at home.</p><p style="">A forgiving scoring system leaves lots of room to improvise and fiddle around between the notes and chords you're meant to play. You're not penalized unless you miss the notes altogether, and even then it's impossible to fail a song completely. This flexibility is awesome for experimenting on the lower difficulty tiers, where newcomers really benefit from the freedom to ease into more complex playing styles. It's a freedom that evaporates entirely on the highest difficulty setting when you have to play songs note for note as the fret board fills with dizzying chaos meant for pro-level players.</p><p style="">Despite five different challenge levels to suit a broad range of playing abilities--from the total newbie to the hair-twirling shredmaster--it's hard to find the sweet spot as you outgrow your current skill range and try tunes on a higher setting. Shifting up and down across different skill levels is an uneven, jarring experience to say the least. If you have moderate guitar-playing abilities, the easiest settings get boring in a hurry, but stepping it up a notch throws a whole lot more at you all at once. It's easy to get overwhelmed and flustered. This isn't a total drag, however, because it spurs you to actually practice and improve your playing.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/1/0/5/2/2031052-660954_20130307_005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2031052" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/1/0/5/2/2031052-660954_20130307_005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2031052"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/mig/1/0/5/2/2031052-660954_20130307_005.jpg"></a><figcaption>You like rock? BandFuse has you covered!</figcaption></figure><p style="">To that aim, BandFuse's learner-focused ShredU section packs lots of tutorial videos and inspirational vignettes from guitar pros like Slash, Mike Ness, Zakk Wylde, and more. While only a handful are interactive, they're very informative, assuming you're in the mood to sit and watch hours of footage rather than actually play. The Lick Lab and Practice menus are more useful if you're in a hands-on mood, because they let you tweak the speed of any song in the game to practice at a slower pace and even loop specific parts until you've mastered them. These diversions are helpful if you're looking to learn, even if they're not as entertaining as the musical minigame found in the competition.</p><p style="">Whether you plug in a guitar or a bass, the instrument sound quality is top-notch, and both offer a different challenge with a wide assortment of tracks that will keep even the most skilled musicians on their toes. A trio of virtual FX pedals include adjustable levels of autowah, overdrive, and digital delay to tinker with. Between those and a handful of amplifiers, there's enough to fine-tune your sound even if the limited selection doesn't come close to satiating the needs of more dedicated pedal enthusiasts. You can also plug in a USB microphone to sing along, though both this and local multiplayer require extra adapters and hardware.</p><blockquote data-align="center" data-size="large"><p style="">BandFuse's biggest strength is the way it balances its gameplay elements with more serious guitar practice.</p></blockquote><p style="">BandFuse's user-friendly approach to guitar mastery strikes some chords that Rocksmith misses. The tab-based gameplay is accessible and easy to grasp, which makes shredding through this heavy-hitting batch of tunes an entertaining and educational romp for players of all skill levels. A limited scope of extra bells and whistles, along with sharp difficulty spikes between tiers, is an occasional turnoff, but the rush that comes from improving your playing over time until you can nail these songs note for note smoothes out some of the rough edges.</p> Tue, 17 Dec 2013 17:44:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bandfuse-rock-legends-review/1900-6415607/

Gamespot's Site MashupAsk The Experts: Kinect vs PS4 CameraDr. Luigi ensures the Year of Luigi rolls to 2014Bandfuse: Rock Legends Review

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 18 Dec 2013 08:17:39 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/ask-the-experts-kinect-vs-ps4-camera/2300-6416625/ Are you ready to use your voice to control the new generation of consoles? They might not listen to you. Jeff and Peter breakdown how well the Kinect and PS4 camera are able to track your movement, voice, and more. Wed, 18 Dec 2013 08:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/ask-the-experts-kinect-vs-ps4-camera/2300-6416625/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dr-luigi-ensures-the-year-of-luigi-rolls-to-2014/1100-6416787/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2404950-dr+luigi.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2404950" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2404950-dr+luigi.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2404950"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1493/14930800/2404950-dr+luigi.jpg"></a></figure><p style="">Nintendo wasn't joking that the Year of Luigi would continue into 2014: Dr. Luigi will be released on the Wii U eShop on January 15.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Dr. Luigi, a block-busting puzzle game, will feature four game modes: Retro Remedy, Operation L, Online Battle, and Germ Buster. The latter mode uses simple capsules and touch controls, presumably with the Wii U GamePad, while Operation L features button control and new L-shaped capsules new to this game.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Retro Remedy, on the other hand, pairs the series' traditional basic capsules with button controls.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Pricing details for Dr. Luigi were not mentioned by Nintendo during the announcement. </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Dr. Luigi is a new spin on the long-running Dr. Mario series, which was originally released on the NES in 1990. The series saw later instalments on the Nintendo 64 and DSiWare.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knZFneOkUqY" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/knZFneOkUqY?wmode=opaque&amp;amp;amp;feature=oembed" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p> Wed, 18 Dec 2013 06:49:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dr-luigi-ensures-the-year-of-luigi-rolls-to-2014/1100-6416787/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bandfuse-rock-legends-review/1900-6415607/ <p style="">It has been quite a while since I've had a good excuse to pull out the old Ibanez sitting in my closet collecting dust, but BandFuse: Rock Legends' mix of rhythm game rocking and guitar training provided an excellent incentive. It blurs the line between musical rehearsal and plain-old fun, giving everyone from total guitar novices to more seasoned players the tools to rock out while improving their chops. While it might lack some of the more useful extras and visual pizzazz of the recent <a href="/phoenix-cms/reviews/form?id=6415495/" data-ref-id="false">Rocksmith</a> games, BandFuse is fun to pick up and play and delivers a straightforward guitar tablature-focused experience.</p><p style="">Getting the visuals and audio to sync up properly on HDTVs is one of the biggest nuisances plaguing the rhythm game genre. Spending a half-hour fiddling with finicky hardware tends to kill the mood when you just want to dive in and play. BandFuse takes a smart detour around all of that with the AudioLink adapter, a nice piece of kit that plugs into the back of your console and lets you stream the audio out to your TV or stereo through composite cables. It's lag-free, works perfectly, and sounds phenomenal. I also appreciate that the adapter includes a separate headphone jack to let you rock at high volume without blasting out your entire household.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/2/0/0/0/1922000-660954_20120412_003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1922000" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/2/0/0/0/1922000-660954_20120412_003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1922000"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/mig/2/0/0/0/1922000-660954_20120412_003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Luckily, BandFuse's sound is far classier than Godzilla's. </figcaption></figure><p style="">Once you plug in and tune up--a thankfully intuitive and speedy process--you can dive into any selection in BandFuse's entire 55-track arsenal with a quick play session or explore them all in a more traditional campaign mode. The latter does away with any elaborate story trappings or goofy character gimmicks. You simply rock your way through a series of increasingly tough tours with names like Venomous Licks and Behemoths of Rock, earning money with each performance to go toward unlocking subsequent stages. Each tour offers a mix of multi-song gigs and one-off challenges to plow through, and the natural progression weaves in harder songs at a gradual pace.</p><p style="">Track-wise, BandFuse's eclectic mix of jams skews toward the rock, punk, and metal end of the spectrum. Face-melters like Children of Bodom's "Are You Dead Yet" and Testament's "Souls of Black" top a pleasantly finger-punishing stretch of the list, though plenty of catchy hits spanning the past four and a half decades make it in there too. Some tunes are recycled more than once as you go along, but rather than irritate, this structure encourages you to crank up the difficulty a little bit higher to push your skills as you progress and encounter tunes you've already played.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/9/3/7/8/1839378-660954_20120224_001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1839378" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/9/3/7/8/1839378-660954_20120224_001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-1839378"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/mig/9/3/7/8/1839378-660954_20120224_001.jpg"></a><figcaption>Don't worry, Slash. You'll be back from Cali in no time.</figcaption></figure><p style="">BandFuse's biggest strength is the way it balances its gameplay elements with more serious guitar practice. There's a welcome focus on realism, but the fun of playing a game and boosting your score isn't lost in the mix. While it's not the most attractive setup, the no-nonsense interface makes it easy to gauge what's happening onscreen and what you're being asked to play. Instead of flying at you down a vertical runway, Guitar Hero-style, notes are charted out on a side-scrolling horizontal fret board that mirrors standard guitar tab. Anyone who has thumbed through a guitar magazine or hopped on the Internet to look up the chords to their favorite radio hit will feel right at home.</p><p style="">A forgiving scoring system leaves lots of room to improvise and fiddle around between the notes and chords you're meant to play. You're not penalized unless you miss the notes altogether, and even then it's impossible to fail a song completely. This flexibility is awesome for experimenting on the lower difficulty tiers, where newcomers really benefit from the freedom to ease into more complex playing styles. It's a freedom that evaporates entirely on the highest difficulty setting when you have to play songs note for note as the fret board fills with dizzying chaos meant for pro-level players.</p><p style="">Despite five different challenge levels to suit a broad range of playing abilities--from the total newbie to the hair-twirling shredmaster--it's hard to find the sweet spot as you outgrow your current skill range and try tunes on a higher setting. Shifting up and down across different skill levels is an uneven, jarring experience to say the least. If you have moderate guitar-playing abilities, the easiest settings get boring in a hurry, but stepping it up a notch throws a whole lot more at you all at once. It's easy to get overwhelmed and flustered. This isn't a total drag, however, because it spurs you to actually practice and improve your playing.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/1/0/5/2/2031052-660954_20130307_005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2031052" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/1/0/5/2/2031052-660954_20130307_005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2031052"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/mig/1/0/5/2/2031052-660954_20130307_005.jpg"></a><figcaption>You like rock? BandFuse has you covered!</figcaption></figure><p style="">To that aim, BandFuse's learner-focused ShredU section packs lots of tutorial videos and inspirational vignettes from guitar pros like Slash, Mike Ness, Zakk Wylde, and more. While only a handful are interactive, they're very informative, assuming you're in the mood to sit and watch hours of footage rather than actually play. The Lick Lab and Practice menus are more useful if you're in a hands-on mood, because they let you tweak the speed of any song in the game to practice at a slower pace and even loop specific parts until you've mastered them. These diversions are helpful if you're looking to learn, even if they're not as entertaining as the musical minigame found in the competition.</p><p style="">Whether you plug in a guitar or a bass, the instrument sound quality is top-notch, and both offer a different challenge with a wide assortment of tracks that will keep even the most skilled musicians on their toes. A trio of virtual FX pedals include adjustable levels of autowah, overdrive, and digital delay to tinker with. Between those and a handful of amplifiers, there's enough to fine-tune your sound even if the limited selection doesn't come close to satiating the needs of more dedicated pedal enthusiasts. You can also plug in a USB microphone to sing along, though both this and local multiplayer require extra adapters and hardware.</p><blockquote data-align="center" data-size="large"><p style="">BandFuse's biggest strength is the way it balances its gameplay elements with more serious guitar practice.</p></blockquote><p style="">BandFuse's user-friendly approach to guitar mastery strikes some chords that Rocksmith misses. The tab-based gameplay is accessible and easy to grasp, which makes shredding through this heavy-hitting batch of tunes an entertaining and educational romp for players of all skill levels. A limited scope of extra bells and whistles, along with sharp difficulty spikes between tiers, is an occasional turnoff, but the rush that comes from improving your playing over time until you can nail these songs note for note smoothes out some of the rough edges.</p> Tue, 17 Dec 2013 17:44:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bandfuse-rock-legends-review/1900-6415607/


23.37 | 0 komentar | Read More

Gamespot's Site Mashup

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Rabu, 11 Desember 2013 | 23.37

Gamespot's Site MashupThe Elder Scrolls Online Xbox One and PS4 release date is two months after PCThe Elder Scrolls Online - War in Cyrodiil TrailerVector Review

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:58:54 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-elder-scrolls-online-xbox-one-and-ps4-release-date-is-two-months-after-pc/1100-6416658/ <p style="">Upcoming MMO <a href="/the-elder-scrolls-online/" data-ref-id="false">The Elder Scrolls Online</a> will be released for PC and Mac on April 4, 2014, Bethesda has announced.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The Elder Scrolls Online will also be coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the company added, but not until June 2014.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Alongside the announcement, Bethesda released a new trailer for the upcoming subscription-based game, highlighting the conflict between The Elder Scrolls Online's three factions and the massive PvP battles that follow.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Invites for the game's secretive closed beta were distributed to some users <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/elder-scrolls-online-beta-invites-start-going-out-today/1100-6416268/">back in November</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6416521" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6416521/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:20:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-elder-scrolls-online-xbox-one-and-ps4-release-date-is-two-months-after-pc/1100-6416658/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-elder-scrolls-online-war-in-cyrodiil-trailer/2300-6416521/ The video highlights The Elder Scrolls Online's massive PvP system, allowing hundreds of players to fight together, and against one another, in a quest to claim the Ruby Throne. Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-elder-scrolls-online-war-in-cyrodiil-trailer/2300-6416521/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/vector-review/1900-6415596/ <p style="">The desire for freedom is common in stories in which control and oppression are law. In Vector, you play as a man in an Orwellian dystopia, no longer able to bend to the will of his masters. He casts aside his mind-control device, and apparently his shirt, and leaps from his skyscraper prison, sprinting across rooftops toward the distant horizon.</p><p style="">Vector is a celebration of artistic freestyle running, where you are awarded for pulling off parkour tricks such as barrel-rolling over edges or spinning through the air over office desks. This free-running platformer relies on expert timing to vault over--or slide under--obstacles, leap into the air, and wall jump, all the while being chased by a hunter displaying similar athletic prowess. The characters are stark black silhouettes that stand out cleanly against the gorgeously rendered urban backgrounds.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400182-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400182" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400182-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400182"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2400182-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>Escape your corporate masters and embrace freedom.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Vector's protagonist and his pursuer are beautifully animated and demonstrate realistic grace as they nimbly vault over objects. The goal of the game is to navigate each stage to a safe zone, before your pursuer catches up. The game is brimming with exciting moments. Your pursuer creates an inherent and constant sense of danger as you move through a stage. Leaping off high-rises into the air as doves dart out of your way like in a scene from a John Woo film, all to the rhythm of a pulse-pounding soundtrack, is an adrenaline-charged thrill.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400191-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400191" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400191-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400191"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2400191-0002.jpg"></a><figcaption>Earn rewards by performing tricks.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Hitting an action key at the wrong time yields dire consequences. Mistiming can cause a momentary disruption in pace, forcing you to stumble and slow down as you struggle to regain footing, allowing your burly pursuer the opportunity to close the gap. As the hunter draws near, the camera zooms in, and deadly electricity arcs from his gauntlets, vigorously increasing the tension. In these moments, the game demands all of your focus, because one false move means the end of your shirtless dash to freedom. You get a rush of relief and satisfaction upon reaching the goal when death is so near, and seeing the exasperation on the hunter's face as the door that seals your safety slams down makes your victory all the sweeter.</p><p style="">Your performance in a stage is rewarded in stars. Surviving until the end earns you one star, but to gather all three, you must perform every trick in the stage as well as collect all the floating bonus cubes scattered across the level. Stars and the occasional coin grant in-game currency you can exchange for tricks, which can be purchased just before the level starts. Also available for purchase in the in-game store is the force blaster, which temporarily stops the hunter, giving you some much-needed breathing room. But even with the weapon, it's still all on you to maneuver through the stage with expert precision in order to nab that three-star rating. One major slipup, and it's back to the start minus one potentially life-saving item. You can also buy clothing items such as a hat or a scarf, if you're into accessorizing. Later stages branch out into multiple paths. While all given paths eventually lead you to safety, only one includes every trick and bonus. Practice and exploration are highly encouraged, and it may take multiple replays to discover and master the best route.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400192-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400192" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400192-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400192"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2400192-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Don't slow down: the hunter is tenacious in his chase.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The game is short, and can be completed in around three hours. However, there are plenty of reasons to jump back into Vector. Levels generally take only minutes to finish, making quick visits to nab stars during breaks appealing. Collecting stars unlocks difficult bonus missions that test your parkour skills to the limit. To progress through the stages, you need to collect stars to unlock two of the game's main sections. The number of stars necessary to unlock these areas is high, meaning you need to purchase many tricks and master multiple stages just to proceed. In time, earning the necessary stars to increase currency and purchase moves becomes a slow grind. Mistakes get frustrating, and the game soon has you pounding away at the restart key, sometimes even moments after starting a stage. But when everything goes right, Vector is a fast-paced joyride that earns your attention.</p> Tue, 10 Dec 2013 17:41:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/vector-review/1900-6415596/

Gamespot's Site MashupThe Elder Scrolls Online Xbox One and PS4 release date is two months after PCThe Elder Scrolls Online - War in Cyrodiil TrailerVector Review

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:58:54 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-elder-scrolls-online-xbox-one-and-ps4-release-date-is-two-months-after-pc/1100-6416658/ <p style="">Upcoming MMO <a href="/the-elder-scrolls-online/" data-ref-id="false">The Elder Scrolls Online</a> will be released for PC and Mac on April 4, 2014, Bethesda has announced.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The Elder Scrolls Online will also be coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the company added, but not until June 2014.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Alongside the announcement, Bethesda released a new trailer for the upcoming subscription-based game, highlighting the conflict between The Elder Scrolls Online's three factions and the massive PvP battles that follow.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Invites for the game's secretive closed beta were distributed to some users <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/elder-scrolls-online-beta-invites-start-going-out-today/1100-6416268/">back in November</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6416521" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6416521/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:20:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-elder-scrolls-online-xbox-one-and-ps4-release-date-is-two-months-after-pc/1100-6416658/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-elder-scrolls-online-war-in-cyrodiil-trailer/2300-6416521/ The video highlights The Elder Scrolls Online's massive PvP system, allowing hundreds of players to fight together, and against one another, in a quest to claim the Ruby Throne. Wed, 11 Dec 2013 07:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-elder-scrolls-online-war-in-cyrodiil-trailer/2300-6416521/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/vector-review/1900-6415596/ <p style="">The desire for freedom is common in stories in which control and oppression are law. In Vector, you play as a man in an Orwellian dystopia, no longer able to bend to the will of his masters. He casts aside his mind-control device, and apparently his shirt, and leaps from his skyscraper prison, sprinting across rooftops toward the distant horizon.</p><p style="">Vector is a celebration of artistic freestyle running, where you are awarded for pulling off parkour tricks such as barrel-rolling over edges or spinning through the air over office desks. This free-running platformer relies on expert timing to vault over--or slide under--obstacles, leap into the air, and wall jump, all the while being chased by a hunter displaying similar athletic prowess. The characters are stark black silhouettes that stand out cleanly against the gorgeously rendered urban backgrounds.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400182-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400182" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400182-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400182"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2400182-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>Escape your corporate masters and embrace freedom.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Vector's protagonist and his pursuer are beautifully animated and demonstrate realistic grace as they nimbly vault over objects. The goal of the game is to navigate each stage to a safe zone, before your pursuer catches up. The game is brimming with exciting moments. Your pursuer creates an inherent and constant sense of danger as you move through a stage. Leaping off high-rises into the air as doves dart out of your way like in a scene from a John Woo film, all to the rhythm of a pulse-pounding soundtrack, is an adrenaline-charged thrill.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400191-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400191" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400191-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400191"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2400191-0002.jpg"></a><figcaption>Earn rewards by performing tricks.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Hitting an action key at the wrong time yields dire consequences. Mistiming can cause a momentary disruption in pace, forcing you to stumble and slow down as you struggle to regain footing, allowing your burly pursuer the opportunity to close the gap. As the hunter draws near, the camera zooms in, and deadly electricity arcs from his gauntlets, vigorously increasing the tension. In these moments, the game demands all of your focus, because one false move means the end of your shirtless dash to freedom. You get a rush of relief and satisfaction upon reaching the goal when death is so near, and seeing the exasperation on the hunter's face as the door that seals your safety slams down makes your victory all the sweeter.</p><p style="">Your performance in a stage is rewarded in stars. Surviving until the end earns you one star, but to gather all three, you must perform every trick in the stage as well as collect all the floating bonus cubes scattered across the level. Stars and the occasional coin grant in-game currency you can exchange for tricks, which can be purchased just before the level starts. Also available for purchase in the in-game store is the force blaster, which temporarily stops the hunter, giving you some much-needed breathing room. But even with the weapon, it's still all on you to maneuver through the stage with expert precision in order to nab that three-star rating. One major slipup, and it's back to the start minus one potentially life-saving item. You can also buy clothing items such as a hat or a scarf, if you're into accessorizing. Later stages branch out into multiple paths. While all given paths eventually lead you to safety, only one includes every trick and bonus. Practice and exploration are highly encouraged, and it may take multiple replays to discover and master the best route.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400192-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400192" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2400192-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2400192"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2400192-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Don't slow down: the hunter is tenacious in his chase.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The game is short, and can be completed in around three hours. However, there are plenty of reasons to jump back into Vector. Levels generally take only minutes to finish, making quick visits to nab stars during breaks appealing. Collecting stars unlocks difficult bonus missions that test your parkour skills to the limit. To progress through the stages, you need to collect stars to unlock two of the game's main sections. The number of stars necessary to unlock these areas is high, meaning you need to purchase many tricks and master multiple stages just to proceed. In time, earning the necessary stars to increase currency and purchase moves becomes a slow grind. Mistakes get frustrating, and the game soon has you pounding away at the restart key, sometimes even moments after starting a stage. But when everything goes right, Vector is a fast-paced joyride that earns your attention.</p> Tue, 10 Dec 2013 17:41:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/vector-review/1900-6415596/


23.37 | 0 komentar | Read More

World of Warplanes Review

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Rabu, 04 Desember 2013 | 23.37

With a fuselage chewed up by bullet holes, an injured pilot who's bleeding out, and smoke trailing out of your engine, few things are more gratifying than ramming your doomed fighter headlong into the jerk who put you in such dire straights to begin with. World of Warplanes makes as much room for tactical sneakery as it does fancy flying, which gives your likelihood of surviving an exciting air of uncertainty. When the skies are swarming with fighters, dogfights spill into one another as you rocket through waves of antiaircraft fire and near misses. Layer on top of this an exhaustive list of unlockable planes and part upgrades to tinker with, and you have a game that is far more enjoyable than its repetitive nature might suggest.

World of Warplanes is a streamlined arcade-style experience built for easy accessibility. It takes only a minute or two to come to grips with the simple controls, and after a quick piloting tutorial, you're booted right to the battlefield with minimal handholding. It's a whirlwind introduction to be sure, but the flow of battle quickly becomes a familiar groove once you get a few missions under your belt. The fact that there's only one competitive player-versus-player mode to dive into helps you get acclimated quickly, though that limitation is ultimately to the game's detriment.

Hang in the hangar for tinkering fun.

Matches pit opposing squadrons in 15-on-15 battles for air supremacy over massive square maps. Victory is achieved by dealing enough damage to your opponents' base or by blowing every enemy bird out of the sky. The latter tends to be the deciding factor in nearly every battle simply because aggressive players are always on the hunt for the next potential kill. This doesn't make bombing and air-to-ground strafing runs any less useful, since you still gain experience for them, but it does keep matches short. Most games rarely bump up against the 15-minute time limit because there's no one else left in the air at that point.

Given the flight speed of the zippier fighter craft, it isn't long before squads clash in explosions of gunfire and chaos. Whether they unfold high in the clouds or closer to the ground, the inevitable dogfights that erupt are a thrilling highlight. Jockeying for position as you dive and climb or circle around to flank a foe--contending with antiaircraft flak and dangerous mountain terrain all the while--makes for some exhilarating moments. Taking damage to key areas of your plane and getting your pilot injured can severely impact handling too. That usually draws enemy fighters to you like hungry buzzards eager for scraps, but it's pretty awesome to land those last few kills when you're limping along.

World of Warplanes' maps are packed with beautiful scenery both at ground level and in the skies.

Things are just as exciting near the ground.

Speaking of explosions, your time on the battlefield is often short-lived, at least until you sharpen your piloting skills and unlock better gear for your planes. The experience and cash rewards for making it through a match intact give you a big boost, although death is only a minor bummer thanks to the way missions are handled. Get blown up, and you can still stick around as a spectator to see how things play out, though hopping instantly back to your hangar lets you grab a different ride and start a new game. At first, it's a nuisance that planes are tied to each match you initiate, forcing you to wait until a match is completed before you can free up the plane again. But the upside is that this encourages you to try lots of different craft and gradually improve your whole fleet rather than rely too heavily on one favorite.

The depth that World of Warplanes lacks in its sparsity of modes and short-lived air battles pops up in the huge number of craft you can unlock. With hundreds of planes arranged in class tiers across five different countries--USA, USSR, Germany, Japan, and the UK--there's a lot of sweet military hardware to dig through. You'll find everything from old biplanes and burly bombers to more modern jets, and each craft looks outstanding. Gaining access to them is a slow but satisfying process that makes each match you play, no matter how short or long, feel like it's contributing to your overall progress.

Your first few aircraft are flimsy and get torn apart quickly in direct fire. Spending accumulated experience earned with each craft lets you access new planes and upgraded parts for each one, ranging from engines and guns to armor and special bullets. That's when they become a lot more formidable and fun to fly. It's a two-stage process, however. Once you spend experience to gain access to each additional ride and extra parts, you have to shell out accumulated in-game cash to actually buy and equip them. It's a grindy system, albeit one that lets you get a lot of cool stuff without having to pay actual cash.

Bombing runs are a nice break from dogfighting.

Spending real money on gold currency is needed if you want to expand your hangar to hold a larger number of planes at once, or to speed the whole process up, but you have a good amount of starting space to work with. A small handful of souped-up planes can only be obtained with gold. Aside from being a bit more powerful than their non-premium counterparts within the same class, these craft are not necessarily the absolute best you can fly, but they don't require research and they give you a boost in earned credits and experience. Elsewhere in the shop, you can purchase gold, credits, and temporary packages that boost your experience gain. These purchases range from reasonable to extreme in price, but they give you a solid advantage by providing quicker access to upper-tier crafts and powerful ammo.

Taking down a tough adversary is tops.

World of Warplanes' maps are packed with beautiful scenery both at ground level and in the skies. Diving close for bombing runs gives you a closer look at ships, buildings, and infrastructure, while the sun and cloud lighting effects are beautifully captivating. Flying high gives you a strategic advantage to divebomb planes below you, and cloud cover can obscure the view, allowing you to spring a sneaky surprise. The map topography and ground-level designs make a much bigger impact on combat when you drop down to hug mountain peaks, buzz past AA guns, and rocket through deep canyons to try to shake someone on your tail. Despite the game's good looks, it stinks that the map rotation is so limited. Each setting is impressively rednered, but you can't pick which map you play on in a given match. This leads to lots of matches where you fly over the same few vistas, adding to the repetitiousness of the experience.

Taking to the skies in a seemingly endless string of short and intense matches proves to be a lot of fun in World of Warplanes, even when you feel caught in a time loop playing the same maps ad nauseam. Every encounter is pleasantly unpredictable, and the crazy kills and near misses keep the steady grind for cash and experience interesting. Ultimately, it's the variety of planes and unlockable goodies available for each aircraft that keep you pushing through the more limited, recycled stretches of this airborne assault freebie. There's room to grow here, but World of Warplanes leaves the runway with a sound foundation intact.


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GameSpot's Buyer's Guide - Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Posted by | Dec. 4, 2013 7:05am

Assassin's Creed III was a bit of a let down, all things considered, but it looks like the latest instalment might have rectified a few problems and built something fairly special. Check out our Buyer's Guide to see if you should buy it, rent it, or leave it well alone.


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Microsoft outlines how you can find an Xbox One this holiday

Though the Xbox team is delivering new shipments of Xbox One consoles to retailers "as fast as possible," various stores remain sold out of the system, Microsoft has said. That doesn't mean it's impossible to find a console, however.

Writing on the Xbox Wire, Microsoft director of Xbox Live programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb outlined some "tips and tricks" you can use to find a console this holiday season.

In addition to the methods listed below, Hryb said tracking sites like XboxOneLocator and NowInStock are a good way to find out when systems are in stock. He also suggested following his Twitter account, where he will tweet details about availability.

  • Sign up for email newsletters and alerts from your favorite retailers and follow them on Twitter and Facebook for real-time updates.

  • Call your local retailers to find out which day of the week they receive shipments. You can check in each week to see if they have new stock.

  • Use retailers' online stock checkers to find a store with Xbox One in stock near you, although we recommend calling to confirm.

  • Check with stores outside of densely populated areas – you may have more luck in smaller locations.

On the same day that Sony announced PlayStation 4 worldwide sales have reached 2.1 million units, Microsoft said yesterday that the Xbox One is seeing "unprecedented" demand, but did not share a new sales figure beyond the 1 million units sold in 24 hours from November.

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Xbox One
Microsoft

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