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Deep Silver, the publisher behind this year's Dead Island, has announced that their upcoming game Risen 2: Dark Waters will be releasing April 24. In this sequel to the 2009 game Risen (which, to be honest, flew below my radar), it seems as though "monstrous sea creatures" are causing quite a ruckus for a little harbor town called Caldera.

Screenshots and official press release below.

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Release Date for Risen 2™: Dark Waters Announced

Pirate RPG by developer Piranha Bytes sets sail for a April 24^th, 2012 release date (North America) and April 27^th, 2012 (Europe)

Deep Silver and Piranha Bytes today announced the official release date for the epic pirate RPG “Risen 2: Dark Waters” as April 24^th, 2012 for USA and Canada and April 27^th, 2012 for countries in Europe.

About Risen 2: Dark Waters

In Risen 2: Dark Waters, the Inquisition dispatches the hero to seek a remedy against the monstrous sea creatures that are interfering with the shipping lines, thus cutting off the islands' supplies. The pirates seem to know how to deal with these critters ... but they are hardly cooperative.
New gameplay elements add to the diversity of Risen 2; for example, players can also use firearms now. And, being pirates, adventurers can also employ special new skills called Dirty Tricks, allowing them to confuse or attack enemies in combat.

Deep Silver will release Risen 2: Dark Waters for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Windows PC, and PlayStation®3.

Official Website: http://www.risen2.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/risengame

Community: http://forum.deepsilver.com

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E3 has come and gone, and enough time has passed to percolate on the Wii U and its potential. Very little tangible information was given, which when considering Nintendo is not too much of a surprise. But the conference did beg the question, exactly how will the Wii’s next iteration fit into the future gaming landscape?

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll say right from the start that I grew up as a staunch Nintendo supporter. I played my older brother’s NES as a toddler and owned every Nintendo console (save Virtual Boy) since. But as my Wii gathered dust, my interest in Nintendo waned. Then with its lack of 3^rd party support, sluggish release of cornerstone titles (Metroid, Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc.), and inability to adapt to the western market’s desire for a robust online experience, any excitement I had came to a screeching halt. My faith in the charming company from Kyoto finally evaporated into a fine, nostalgic vapor.

That’s not to say I hate Nintendo, merely that the increasingly aged carrot it dangles in front of me is no longer dazzling. Where I used to dream about getting my hands on Ocarina of Time before its release, I now check up on Skyward Sword’s development only when I remember that it even exists. I suppose Nintendo’s vision for the Wii came true, in that I treat the console almost as casually as I would my George Foreman Grill. Nintendo has turned me into a casual gamer in regards to its products - it’s not a great feeling.

In Nintendo’s defense, the Wii opened up the gaming industry to the masses in a way that had not been realized before. With its introduction came millions of new gamers, of all shapes and sizes – which perhaps helped clean up the stigma associated with being a “gamer.” It let the community discuss the value of new game mechanics that were led by peripherals, rather than internal hardware. It even helped some of us get in shape. It has certainly succeeded very well on some levels.

But with the Wii U, something will have to happen that probably has never happened before – The casual gamer will have to upgrade. Will your grandma (the one that loves to play cooking mama and waggle to her heart’s content) take the rather daring step of buying another Wii? It’s hard to say at this point, but I wouldn’t count on it. The Wii U has to do something special. Something so special that it captures not only the hardcore, a demographic keen on upgrading whenever a new system is available, but also the casual. Of course, hardcore gamers might not care about whether their senile relatives are interested in the same platform as them. Most of us closely tied to the evolution of this medium are curious – does the Wii U have what it takes to win gamers like me back?

To answer this question, we need to look at what Nintendo promises the Wii U can do, and then see how that might translate into what it actually will do.

Let’s start with graphics. The Wii U will reportedly be more powerful than both the Xbox 360 and PS3. During E3, Nintendo showcased a little bit of its potential in a HD imagining of Zelda, in which Link fights a giant spider. While the demo ran, the user was able to switch between day and night, which changed the lighting effects and cast shadows dynamically. While it tantalized my dormant Nintendo taste buds, it was not enough to get me fully on board. After all, the Wii was supposed to be more powerful than Gamecube. Yet there are plenty of titles for the purple box with a handle that are much easier on the eyes than many for the white oblong… thing. It comes down to how this power will be used by Nintendo and other developers to achieve the graphical prowess that Nintendo fans have been waiting for. On this note, the pre-rendered tech demo of a bird flying around some Japanese scenery looked surprisingly lackluster.

I have no doubts that, in general, the Wii U will enjoy a significant jump in quality of graphics from that of the Wii. However, I am a little bit skeptical as to how evenly spread this newfound fidelity will be amongst Wii U’s library. After all, the Wii is the console that released such shovelware as Cruis’n, Ninjabread Man, and Chicken Shoot. Who’s to say that lower shelf Wii U titles won’t end up looking like something from the original Xbox, or even Dreamcast (R.I.P.)? In the coming months, Nintendo needs to show us multiple titles that not only match current generation aesthetics, but ones that clearly surpass them. Still, if I am buying a game on the Wii U in lieu of picking it up for the 360 or PS3, is there any reason it would be a better experience other than its graphics?

Well?! Is there? This is precisely what the Wii U’s controller is slated to bring to the table. In fact, most (if not all) of Nintendo’s Wii U demonstration focused on showing off the controller. It goes without saying that this will be the real focal point of the Wii U. The controller has been described as a sort of lightweight iPad with buttons. In the center is a fairly large screen that is framed by the current standard of D-pad, four face buttons, and triggers. What is not standard are the analog sticks – which aren’t analog sticks at all but rather sliders more akin to the 3DS’s circle pads. Nintendo claims that this layout will allow for hardcore gamers to have the control they desire, while providing a new “window” into the gaming world. The controller is designed for tandem use with one or more Wiimotes, and many of the conceptual demonstrations involved just such a grouping. One of the more striking ones showed a player using a Wiimote as a golf club, with the Wii U controller on the floor displaying a golf ball.  When the player swung, the golf ball left the confines of the controller’s display for the television’s roomier real estate as it travelled down range. This was promising, but a bit confusing. If the main focus of the Wii U is the controller, why am I still using a Wiimote (even if it is a Wiimote Plus)?

So what does Nintendo have up its sleeve for control schemes? Will gameplay more likely focus on the new Wii U controller, a Wiimote, or a combination of both? The first option is sadly unlikely, as Reggie (President of Nintendo of America) has stated that the Wii U was not intended for simultaneous use of multiple Wii U controllers. The second option would be a downright disappointment, as the Wiimote has spent the last five years frustrating the hell out of me. And the third (and most likely) option only seems to favor single player experiences and buyers who already own Wiimotes. This is a huge issue – and one that Nintendo desperately needs to clarify before I can start getting excited about its new console.

Finally, Nintendo needs to show me that it is still a developer. More explicitly, it needs to prove to me that it has full, AAA retail titles coming down the pipe – and ones that are more Windwaker and less Twilight Princess. If Nintendo must stick to iterating past IP’s instead of creating new ones, then show me Earthbound, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Eternal Darkness, a real Pilot Wings – then maybe we’ll have something great. Hell, it might even bring things back to the N64 days of awesome.

So you see, it is possible for the Wii U to be everything Nintendo says it can be. It has the potential to retain its casual market and still recapture the hardcore’s attention. However, its success in this is clearly yet to be seen. If the console does not come through with well-realized aesthetics, cohesive and innovative gameplay, and a decent lineup from both Nintendo and third party developers – it might find itself losing the next generation console race before it even begins.

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June 23, 2011 - Valve, creators of bestselling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead,and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), announced today that after four years and over 200 updates, its popular and critically-acclaimed online action game Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is now Free To Play (F2P).

The F2P announcement comes as part of the "Über Update". Released today, it is the largest content pack delivered to TF2 since it shipped in 2007.

New players interested in experiencing what PC Gamer calls "the most fun you can have online" will have access to training and offline practice modes,so they can hone their skills before jumping into the ever-expanding TF2 universe.

To celebrate the launch of the Über Update, Valve has released "Meet the Medic," the latest in its series of TF2 animated shorts.

TF2 is now Free to Play for PC & Mac players via Steam.

For more information on Free to Play,please visit http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay.

Technorati Tags: f2p, free, free to play, mmo, online, team fortress, valve

With Crysis 2, Crytek aims to widen their prospective audience, and with the adaptation of CryENGINE 3, their efforts result in a stunning game on all current gen consoles (Wii excluded… at least Nintendo has The Conduit?). The impressive aesthetics of the game are coupled with a unique style of play, one that has renewed my enthusiasm for the engrossing nature of FPS single player campaigns – the scope of which falls somewhere between Halo: Combat Evolved, and Half Life 2.

LOOK & FEEL

Crysis 2 takes place in New York City in the year 2023. Without giving too much away, shit just hit the fan. You play as Alcatraz; a marine sent in on what seems like the first response to a combination of citywide epidemic, hostile private militia takeover, and alien invasion. All of which seems to be happening almost independently of each other as you play the game, only to later find out that it is all connected (duh).

Uh oh.

Now, if that seems like too much plot stuffed into one wrapper, that’s because it is. The game’s story suffers from something that many FPS’s are also afflicted with – an overly grandiose story told passively as the character progresses in order to serve the purposes of gameplay. All too often I found myself realizing that I wasn’t sure whether a character was someone I was supposed to trust, or even why I was following certain orders. This is partly due to the fact that Alcatraz does not speak – which can be seen as both a positive and negative. Much like Gordan Freeman in the Half Life series, Alcatraz’s silence allows the player to assume his own attitude towards what is happening around him. However, it also leaves the player with the task of creating a foundation that makes Alcatraz’s motives and actions believable.

This is not to say that the story is terrible – far from it. Personally, everything washed over me, giving me a general sense of dire straits that increased the level of tension, and more importantly, the level of responsibility that rested on my character’s shoulders. For those that go out of their way to find collectibles or dig deeper into the plot, there is definitely an entertaining and emotional value to it. Even if you rush through the game in a half drunken stupor at 3am, you will still get an incredible sense of drama and immediacy to the tasks at hand.

In terms of graphical presentation, Crysis 2 achieves something formerly thought to be impossible – its console counterparts (specifically the Xbox 360 version) look nearly identical to the fully optimized PC version. The characters have a great level of detail, the animations are fluid, the lighting and fire effects are nothing short of amazing, and firefights occur in large, multi-tiered settings (often spanning multiple city blocks). Aside from the occasional texture popping issue, where textures don’t load immediately, this game looks amazing from beginning to end.

Did I mention this game is gorgeous?

GAMEPLAY

But how does it play? A pretty landscape is nothing without it being any fun, right? Luckily the developers at Crytek have that more or less down too.

Your character, Alcatraz, finds himself in a highly advanced suit from the very start of the game. Like the first Crysis, you have the ability to use armor, power, or stealth in order to approach each firefight and adapt to new situations. However, unlike the previous Crysis games, Crysis 2 streamlines the process, allowing a much smoother transition between these powers. All it takes is a simple tap of the left or right bumper to switch between the three modes.
The powers are pretty self-explanatory but what the hell - let’s go through them briefly. By default your suit is set to power. This allows Alcatraz to jump several feet into the air, hurl enemies off of windows and rooftops, sprint like a jackrabbit, kick cars into unsuspecting enemies, and sucker punch 10-foot tall aliens. Armor decreases mobility, but allows for a heavier beating before dying. Stealth makes you nigh invisible, only noticeable if you are directly in front of an enemy.

The catch is that all of these powers take up energy and though it is quickly restored, depleted energy in the middle of a firefight can get you killed – fast. This is where Crysis 2’s gameplay really gets engaging. Each confrontation in the game is presented in a way that allows you to survey the scene before becoming noticed. Via your helmet’s visor, you can tag enemies, objectives, and tactical locations on the map that might be advantageous should you choose to use them. The game will suggest points at which to throw grenades, snipe, resupply, etc., and it is up to you whether you want to follow these suggestions or create your own method of engagement. The result is a game that you can tailor to suit your style. I found myself relying heavily on stealth, turning my character into a calculating assassin and each scenario into something that would feel right at home in games like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Splinter Cell: Conviction.

Getting the drop on a fool.

When I wanted to spice things up, or when my stealth attempts failed and I needed to take charge of the situation, my suit’s powers allowed me the freedom to adapt to anything, snapping into armor mode and clearing the immediate area before finding cover and rethinking my strategy.

On easier settings, it is definitely possible to blindly charge in and kick ass, but for more patient players, the game’s higher difficulty settings create challenges that require careful consideration before attempting.

But all this flexibility comes at a price. The A.I. suffers in the game – to the point of being partially broken. There was a point not too long ago when enemy A.I. was the main focus of FPS’s. Moving away from scripted waves of enemies running into your turret’s stream of bullets (a la Medal of Honor: Frontline) to enemies that flank, deceive, and push forward (Half Life 2 and Halo: Reach come to mind). With Crysis 2’s focus on amazingly complicated terrain, enemies are forced to traverse the rubble of former Manhattan while actively trying to bring you down.

Sometimes, this results in an amazingly aggressive patrol, where enemies will inspect your last known location, and then branch out to the most likely areas that you might want to sneak off too. I often thought I was safe from harm only to spot an enemy quickly advancing on my location, forcing me to choose between fight and flight. And that was GREAT. However, this complexity of terrain and behavior often put enemies in an endless loop, literally running around in circles, stuck in a wall, or just completely unaware that they were trying to kill me (or visa versa). Still, the gameplay is so satisfying that the shortcomings are easy to forgive.

Crysis 2 also has a decent online multiplayer setup. You are afforded all the same powers as in the single player campaign, though they seem far less effective in multiplayer. As you play more you can upgrade your character’s abilities and weapons, but this requires a lot of time to actually get anywhere. I often threw up my armor as I shot at an opponent, only to have him or her whip around and take me down with a quick headshot. After getting crushed for a couple of matches I realized that I had turned aim assist off (which the game has on by default) and that most others probably just left it on. After switching it back on I faired much better. It is a little disappointing to me that aim assist is even an option in online competition, but I suppose the developers are merely trying to make up for the obvious constraints of a controller verses a keyboard and mouse. All in all the multiplayer aspect is sufficient, and I definitely had moments where I felt it was a unique and admirable contribution, but the real test will be whether the community remains lively in the months to come.

Crysis 2 is a gorgeous, lengthy game that tries to go above and beyond in almost every category – and is mostly successful. The gameplay allows for variety, the story adds some much appreciated drama, and the levels are so ambitious and breathtaking that it is sure to influence future games in the genre. If you are a first person shooter fan who loves a strong single player campaign, Crysis 2 is definitely a must buy.

nine
out of ten

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Amidst the Mickey-branded lunchboxes and NES cartridges of Mickey-starring games that comprise the environment of that stage (Mickeyjunk Mountain) there were probably some really great relics of the character’s glory days.

But Mickey’s recent history and especially his history in video games - perhaps today’s most important popular communications medium - has hardly come close to achieving the sort of artistic importance the character was known for in the days of “Steamboat Willie” and “Fantasia.”

And to a large degree, these points provide the reason for the existence of Junction Point’s Epic Mickey.

Disney recruited gaming god Warren Spector, the man behind such classics as “System Shock” and “Deus Ex,” to bring Mickey roaring into the 2010s but also to reawaken the character’s mischievous early personality.

Through its level designs, story and unlockable content, “Epic Mickey” doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the rich history of Mickey and the Walt Disney Company, and it also does a great job of making the character interesting again to a broad audience.

The game’s wonderful story begins in the opening cut scene, when one night Mickey's curiosity gets the better of him and he ends up in Yen Sid's workshop. There, the mouse finds the sorcerer working on a miniature world in which forgotten Disney characters can reside. When Mickey accidentally dumps a jar of paint thinner all over the vibrantly painted creation, the pastel colors wash away and the world becomes known as Wasteland.

Although Mickey escapes without incident that night, the Shadow Blot, the creature that Mickey's clumsiness birthed that fateful night, eventually pulls the mouse into the now-ravaged miniature world.

The player guides Mickey through an alternate-universe Disney World presided over by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit - Walt's original animated rodent. Each of the areas is based on a section of a Disney theme park (Tomorrow City standing in for Tommorowland, Ventureland instead of Adventureland, etc.) and Mickey travels between them via 2D side-scrolling stages that are all based on classic Disney cartoons.

Although he’s initially standoffish and jealous of Mickey, Oswald comes around and teams up with the mouse to rid Wasteland of the destructive forces the Blot has brought and assist Mickey in returning to whence he came.

Along the journey, Mickey meets up with many half-remembered co-stars of his animated past, as well as a handful of familiar faces, and assists them in generally interesting side-quests.

All of the 2D levels are wonderfully designed and pay homage to some of the great, but largely forgotten early works of Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. However, as the player travels through these levels over and over to advance the narrative and complete the numerous side-quests, the stages become nothing more than memorized series of platforms in need of transcending.

Mickey is equipped with a paint brush that, in the main 3D stages, can either restore the environment by shooting paint or degrade it by shooting thinner. In certain situations, the player can choose to use paint or thinner to different ends. A player who pursues the "thinner path" can often gain more e-tickets, the in-game currency, but risks upsetting some of the other characters. The "paint path" is sometimes more work but generally increases the cooperation and support from other characters.

This morality system doesn’t drastically affect the outcome of the game but you will occasionally see the decisions you make earlier come back to help or haunt you. One unfortunate aspect of the game is that in pursuing the game’s main mission objectives, your actions can permanently and without notice close off paths to side-quest items.

“Epic Mickey” also features an auto-save feature that exaggerates the side-quest-ending issue because once you reach an auto-save checkpoint, there’s no way to go back and first pursue a side-quest.

Learning to properly aim the paint stream takes some time and even once a player is hours into the game, he’ll likely have to contend with issues like Mickey firing at the ground or into the Z-axis, rather than away from it.

The camera too has issues, especially as the platforming becomes more involved in the game’s later stages. My inability to perceive how far the next ledge was because I couldn't adjust the camera properly definitely sent Mickey hurtling to his death a number of times.

“Epic Mickey” features quite a few imaginatively drawn cut scenes but for whatever reason, the entire game is devoid of voice acting. Just as in “Banjo-Kazooie” (circa 1998), each character makes only a distinct noise before his or her on-screen dialogue begins scrolling by. At first this illogical omission was glaring but as the game proceeded and my appreciation for the story, the music and the unlockable content grew, the lack of voice acting no longer struck me as such a big deal.

The game's narrative structure starts faltering and the gameplay really loses some of its freshness as the story putters to the end. The seemingly final boss battle with the Shadow Blot turns out to have simply been a fight with a lesser form of the real Blot.

Once Mickey catches up with the real Blot, there's no ultimate battle between the antagonist and the protagonist but rather a series of skirmishes with smaller enemies players have encountered numerous times throughout the game and some rudimentary puzzles to solve.

Imagine the final face-off with Ganon excised from the ending of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and replaced with an unchallenging but time-consuming mission to uncover four final heart pieces.

The feeling of accomplishment I felt after winning the game's hardest boss battle, the one against the Shadow Blot, greatly outweighed anything I experienced after the game's final quest: removing the last of the real Blot from Wasteland by shooting a few of his static tentacles with paint while smaller bad guys annoyed me somewhat.

Considering the sizable number of units it has sold since its November release and its interesting, updated approach to the character, “Disney Epic Mickey” should succeed wildly in reintroducing Mickey Mouse to the young Wii audience.

As for the merits of “Epic Mickey” not as a corporate marketing tool but as a video game, it too succeeds. It certainly has its flaws but none so big or persistent that the game ever loses its fun for too long.

“Epic Mickey” may never rank among Mickey Mouse’s classic depictions and it may not even be among the Wii’s best platformers, but its reverence for the iconic character’s past combined with some really enjoyable platforming and adventuring make for a wonderful and unique experience.

eight
out of ten

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