PowerColor Radeon 6850 PCS+ review

For this editor one of the more exciting product releases this year has been AMD's Radeon 6800 series. Now we are all still waiting on the best from AMD which has yet to arrive, the 6900 series, but the Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 have had a warm welcome already in the mid-range gaming segment of graphics cards.

PowerColor is as always never late to arrive at the party, they submitted a Radeon HD 6850 for a test and as such we'd be more than happy to bring you a full review on one of their newest products today, the PCS+ version of the Radeon HD 6850.

The new mid-range series 6800 delivers a very decent chunk of gaming performance, a set of new features and, as always, will carry a nice price tag.

PowerColor has been busy though, merely a week or two after the official launch their 6850 range already has a non standard product with custom cooler, custom PCB and a totally non-reference design.

It's positioned in their PCS+ range and as such comes factory overclocked as well. Now remember, the R6850 is clocked at 775 MHz right? PowerColor clocks it at towards 820 MHz for you, and if you feel a little brave then apply some tweaks yourself as that will get you over 900 MHz quite easily. The memory as well, standard you'll need to work with a 4000 MHz (effective data rate) memory clock frequency PowerColor takes that to 4400 MHz on this product. And sure, there as well is some room left to fool around with tweaking wise.

Let's have a quick peek at the new duo and then head onwards into the review, where we'll cover the features, architecture, power consumption and heat levels.

Both cards released in the Radeon HD 6800 range are based on what is now know as the 'Barts' codenamed GPU. The cards deriving from it will in fact be segmented into mid-range, not high-end as many people expected. So yeah, the best has still to come. The reason? AMD needed to clean up some numbering as next year a lot of new products in the fusion line will eat away the lower segment of the numbering scheme.

The Radeon HD 6800 will segment itself in the mid-range market, whereas the Radeon HD 5800 series will be updated with the Radeon HD 6900 (Cayman) series, with a dual-GPU part named Radeon HD 6900 (Antilles), I can't say it often enough to make this clear I guess.

So that is certainly something to think about, as the naming scheme has changed. Also, why did AMD start with the Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 and not 6900 you might ask. Well, obviously it's easier for AMD to release a slightly lower spec GPU but more importantly, currently the only product that really bothers AMD is NVIDIA's lovely GeForce GTX 460 (GF104). This is a very successful product for which AMD does not have a good answer, as such there's a gap in their product line-up and that gap needs to be filled up first.

Within it's own lineup the Radeon HD 6850 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5830 and the Radeon HD 6870 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5850, but not faster than the 5870 . The Radeon HD 6870 will be a pure reference product, while the Radeon HD 6850 will see many custom designs and boards. In the end it will be all about pricing of course.

Let's have a quick comparative overview of some of the specifications representing a certain cope of mid-range performance products

Specifications         Radeon HD 5770      Radeon HD 5850   Radeon HD 6850  Radeon HD 6870
GPU                      Juniper XT                Cypress Pro            Barts Pro               Barts XT
Manufact. tech.      40nm                         40 nm                     40nm                     40nm
GPU frequency      850 MHz                   725 MHz                775 MHz              900 MHz
Stream processors 800                            1440                       960                       1120
Memory frequency 4800 MHz                 4000 MHz              4000 MHz            4200 MHz
Memory bus          128-bit                       256-bit                   256-bit                  256-bit
Memory buffer      1 GB GDDR5            1 GB GDDR5        1 GB GDDR5        1 GB GDDR5
Power consumption  108 watt                 151 watt                 ~ 127 watt            >150 watt
Performance              -                                  -                      Faster than 5830 Faster than 5850


So the two R6800 SKUs each have a separate codename, the R6850 being Barts Pro and the 6870 being the Barts XT. We'll leave the entire codename thing for what it is now and move a little onward into the architecture.

Both cards are of course updated DX11 class products with a couple of new features. Armed with 1.7 billion transistors the Radeon HD 6850 is pitted against the competition's GeForce GTX 460 768MB model, the 6850 which is clocked at 775 MHz on it's core and shader processors domain and comes with a full GB of graphics memory. This memory is 256-bit and running at an effective data-rate of 4000 MHz.

The product has 12 SIMD clusters, 48 texture units, 960 shader processors, 32 ROPs and a TDP of 127W, 19W in idle. Despite the memory bus, you can recognize similarities close to the R5770 here. This product however will bring you 1.5 TFLOPS of performance, and combined with that 256-bit gDDR5 memory it will leave the R5770 far behind it.

You guys will notice that the new 6800 series cards have a plethora of monitor connectors. Quite a bit has changed. The reference design cards will carry two mini Displayport (v1.2) connectors, one HDMI 1.4a connector and two DVI connectors of which one is single link, the other dual-link.

Display ports are now up-to snuff at revision v1.2 and that allows for a lot of extra bandwidth, in fact per connector you could drive up-to three monitors, so if you use both DP 1.2 connectors, up-to 6 monitors will be supported. Unfortunately that isn't all, connecting six monitors to two display port connectors will require an external breakout-box or monitors that supports daisy chain (very expensive). The external breakout-box I mentioned will be called a MST HUB (Multi Stream Transport), to date pricing and availability for that is unknown.

Of course you can configure Eyefinity as you please, through multiple monitors per DP connector, or one at a time with the help of the DVI connectors.

Power consumption

Lets have a look at how much power draw we measure with this graphics card installed.

The methodology: We have a device constantly monitoring the power draw from the PC. We simply stress the GPU, not the processor. The before and after wattage will tell us roughly how much power a graphics card is consuming under load.

Our test system is based on a power hungry Core i7 965/X58 based. This setup is overclocked to 3.75 GHz. Next to that we have energy saving functions disabled for this motherboard and processor (to ensure consistent benchmark results). On average we are using roughly 50 to 100 Watts more than a standard PC due to higher CPU clock settings, water-cooling, additional cold cathode lights etc.

Keep that in mind. Our normal system power consumption is higher than your average system.

Measured power consumption
Advertised TDP = 127W
System in IDLE = 175W
System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 297W
Difference (GPU load) = 122 W
Add average IDLE wattage ~ 19W
Subjective calculated GPU power consumption = ~ 141 Watts

Recommended Power Supply

Here is  power supply recommendation on the Radeon HD 6800 series:
Radeon HD 6850 - On your average system the card requires you to have a 450 Watt power supply unit.
Radeon HD 6870 - On your average system the card requires you to have a 500 Watt power supply unit.

The PCS+ R6850 is a very potent product, in its baseline performance it already is a decent chunk faster than the reference 6850 products available on the market and there's some overclocking headroom left as well. Unfortunately PowerColor opted to use a non standard (Chill) Voltage management regulator IC that with current software availble on the market does not allow any voltage tweaking. So on that front the competition like MSI and even reference boards might go a notch higher.

The feature set itself is of course top notch. That improved feature set of course is grand with the new HD3D and UVD 3 update of the video processor. While capable, the HD3D implementation we feel is a loss 3D gaming wise. Pretty much what AMD is doing is saying, "here's a hardware capable product... and you guys do the rest". The complexity of finding the right TV/Monitor, glasses and then 3rd party software you need to buy is, in our vision, too complex for the generic end user without any guarantees that the 3D experience will work properly as it's not backed by AMD whatsoever. Time will tell though, we think that the complexity of a 3rd party for a lot of end-users will simply be complicated, making them choose the competition's solution as that's a handy straight out of the box kit alright. But sure, with the introduction of HD3D and HDMI 1.4a AMD also brings 3D Stereoscopic features towards the new 6000 series graphics cards, which is a welcome addition of course, yet requires optimal monitors and shutter glasses. As stated we do not like the complexity of the 3D gaming side at all, but watching movies and pictures in 3D is an easy to accomplish task.

Architecture wise, it merely improved the efficiency tweaks based of the last-gen architecture. There are no ground-breaking new designs aside from some feature updates. Price performance wise however you have noticed that the R6800 offers a truckload of value for money.

The cooler that PowerColor uses is very silent and brings in plenty cooling performance. The fact remains that we brought this card over 900 MHz on the core frequency without any temperature issues, is a statement all by itself and let's not forget the fact that this card comes factory clocked at faster frequencies offering more performance in it's baseline configuration over the reference products.

So the baseline performance of this product is grand... the cooling is just extremely silent, and all that can be purchased for roughly 179 USD. If you are not planning a massive overclock session with voltage tweaks, then we can wholeheartedly recommend this product. PowerColor tops it off with a free game as well, included is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Agreed, COD Black Ops would have been nicer of course, but still this bundle offers great performance for any modern game at a very fair price.

Gigabyte H55N USB3 motherboard review

With the ongoing trend of HTPCs and System on a Chip designs in the past year or so we have seen a growing demand for hardware that's getting smaller. Next to the actually ICs especially small form factor motherboards are definitely a topic of growth and trend.

See, today's tested motherboard for example is only 17 x 17 cm on size, and while it has limited options here and there, it can function even as a full high-end PC if you wanted it to. There's no real limit to what processor you use, and if you pop a Core i7 870 processor on this motherboard and inject a dedicated graphics card you might have created the smallest yet fantastic gaming rig you can carry around.

But of course products as the H55N-USB3 motherboard we test today are intended for generic PCs, typically armed with an Intel Clarkdale based processor (which has an embedded GPU), paired with dual-channel memory and an decent HDD. This handful of components will get you a fully functional mainstream PC, perfect for usage as HTPC or generic Desktop work PC.

Gigabyte decided to up all this up a notch or two. They took the extremely small Mini-ITX form factor very serious, and each inch on this motherboard has been equipped with an component. As such we see that the H55N-USB3 motherboard is ready for all LGA 1156 Core i3/i5 and i7 processors, it is equipped with four SATA 2 ports, a x16 PCIe Slot for high-end graphics, durable components like solid chokes and very quality capacitors, optical Toslink SPDIF output, and when paired with a Clarkdale based Core i3 or i5 processor the ability to utilize the D-SUB (VGA), DVI or HDMI connector. Oh and it's got USB 3.0 as well.

All that for 90 EUR, not bad at all we say. Let's pop in a Core i5 661 processor and see if we like it.

So today we'll discuss a topic amongst many of the male and female species for decades now ... does size really matter ?! Is 17 cm is enough ? And yeah, we'll be answering that mythological question today.


We'll be reviewing a very cute and small motherboard sized only 17cm x 17cm, and for those that do not recognize it, this is the Mini-ITX form factor.

Popular in many scenario's like automotive, industry implementations but as we'll show you, with a motherboard like tested today truly excellent for HTPCs and even regular desktop PCs as well.

The product comes from Gigabyte and is tagged as H55H-N-USB3, despite what you might think or feel about Mini-ATX, this little motherboard has it, it's packed and loaded with features. Pop on a Clarkdale based processor like the Core i3 or Core i5 series and you can use it's HDMI, DVI of D-SUB monitor connector. Audio ? No worries the embedded Realtek ACL 892R eight channel audio codec will happily output to analog or coaxial or optical TOSLINK S/PDIF connectors, need USB ? Well, the rear panel even has USB 3.0, need SATA2 ? Here we spot four ports and one eSATA, dual channel memory ? Yep supported, up-to 1600 MHz and in the end if you do not want to use the embedded graphics from the processor, then you can even pop in a full x16 PCIe graphics card and make a wicked gaming rig out of this incredibly handy H55H motherboard.

To facilitate the Clarkdale processors, Intel needed to come out with a specific chipset, in fact they'll be released two of them each with their own derivative sidekicks. This is needed to run the integrated graphics via what's labeled as the Flexible Display Interface (FDI). Intel is offering two new chipsets to the market, H55 and H57/Q57. P55 actually should also work fine, yet obviously not with the embedded IGP. We will actually put this to the test today.

Now you might think the platform will be cheap and well, honestly procing is average at best. Intel will charge its partners 40 USD per chip per 1K units. In a pale comparison, Intel charges almost 40 USD for a P55 chip to the motherboard manufacturers.

The motherboard tested today we'll pair it with a Core i5 661 dual core processor for a test run. But first, let's have a look a some photos of the motherboard itself.

These little motherboards always offer heaps of fun and features don't they ? It's just good to see how much stuff you can chuck into something so small. The end results as such was impressive. Though the boards are not the cheapest at roughly 90 EUR / 105 USD you are building a platform that is small, easy to carry around yet you still get an excellent feature set. The inclusion of the full PCIe x16 slot, the USB 3.0 headers, the wide range of monitor connectivity and even the Optical SPDIF Toslink audio output it all makes the motherboard, as tiny as it is, very feature rich and up-top date on modern standards.

The Mini-ITX motherboard is a perfect example of getting the most out of your hardware. At 17x17 CM we see a PCB fully utilizing everything it can. Face it, this motherboard performs as well as any regular H55 based motherboard and comes is packed with 95% of the regular features as well.

So for a reasonable amount of money you get a proper baseline performing Core i3 and i5 ready motherboard. Pop in a Clarkdale based processor and et voilla, you'll have working 2D/3D graphics as well. It's pretty much all you need to get Windows Vista or 7 going properly. Should you want to game in a more serious fashion, then just make use of the PCIe slot and pop in a dedicated graphics card.

Though we did not cover it deeply, you can even overclock your processor in the BIOS. A somewhat decent selection of features is offered there including Multiplier control and the ability to over and undervolt the processor. Memory overclocking is also fairly good, all memory timings are available, and each timing has an AUTO parameter scales properly with frequency. How much overclock options you actually need on a motherboard like this remains trivial though, but the implementation certainly is very decent should you need it.

Overall the Gigabyte H55N-USB 3.0 is a really fair and good motherboard. Performance is as expected good thanks to H55, and for the money the features are plenty decent for any environment you can think of: automotive, HTPC, desktop, internet, work and even high-end gaming is a very possible alternative here.

Gigabyte stuffed the 17x17cm PCB full with all the features the H55 chipset has to offer and then some more. The one thing you might miss is say an extra PCI x1 slot for more high-end audio. But yeah, there's no room left on the PCB really. Ehm, two things we feel are missing, RAID support and an extra FAN header along with proper FAN RPM control from within the BIOS. But that's all I can think of really.

The H55N-USB 3.0 motherboard comes very recommended as a fair value product. Size apparently doesn't matter, as you can gain every foreseeable and modern option a regular sized mainstream ATX motherboard offers as well, and what makes this a great deal is that you can pair it with any socket 1156 processor. Fast, versatile, feature rich, petite and even USB 3.0

GeForce GTX 580 3-way SLI review

See, one GeForce GTX 580 is already a power-house in terms of performance, with two cards we already started noticing CPU-limitation in certain titles, e.g. the two GPUs would like to go faster yet the processor (an overclocked Core i7 965 @ 3.8 GHz) is, with somewhat dated titles, not able to keep up with the GPUs 100%.

With GPU performance nearly doubling up each two years this is going to become a problem in the years to come. See, a lot of games these days do have multi-threaded processor support, yet often that is limited to two or three CPU cores. The processor industry is making a huge shift to multi-core processing and with the serial architecture of the processor it poses an issue for multiple and high performance GPUs gaming wise.

In short, we really need faster per core processors to deal with that issue, unfortunately processor manufacturers are only focused on more cores. In the upcoming year for example AMD scheduled production of 16 core CPUs in the second quarter of 2011 and launch with widespread availability in the third quarter. Yep, AMD has revealed its latest Interlagos processor featuring up to 16 CPU cores, of course initially HPC / Server targeted... but that's where we are headed.

Why this tremendous comment on processors in a GPU article? Well, 3-way SLI on the GeForce GTX 580 allows us to look into the future. Two to three years from now what you'll see will be the new high end single 'GPU' performance. Showing you the great potential so much raw horsepower really has also shows drawbacks, in terms of CPU limitation.

So before starting up the article, rest assured we'll be showing you performance of our standard benchmark suite, that means some older titles, some modern titles and some DX11 titles. There's some shock, some awe and some coolness to be found in this article.

Let's head on over to the next page where we'll walk you through, well... everything.

Multi-GPU mode explained



Okay, first we are going to walk through our standard bit explaining multi-GPU gaming. We tend to get a little repetitive with this chapter, but honestly newcomers often do not know how, when and what multi-GPU gaming is and how it functions.

Both NVIDIA's SLI and AMD's ATI Crossfire allow you to combine/add a second, third or fourth similar generation graphics card (to add in more GPUs) to the one you already have in your PC. This way you effectively try to double, triple or even quadruple your raw rendering gaming performance (in theory).

Over the years one thing has proven itself though, the more GPUs you add, the worse the scaling becomes, though two GPUs in most scenarios is ideal.

How do multi-GPU setups work? Think of a farmer with a plough and one horse. One horse will get the job done yet by adding a second or third horse, you'll plough through that farmland much quicker and (hopefully) more efficiently as the weight of that plough is distributed much more evenly. That's roughly the same idea for graphics cards. One card can do the job sufficiently, but with two or more you can achieve much more in less time. And that's what you want in your PC, graphics frames rendered with the least amount of time equals performance.

So along these lines, you could for example place two or more ATI graphics cards into a Crossfire compatible motherboard, or two or more NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode on a compatible SLI motherboard.
A Crossfire compatible motherboard is pretty much ANY motherboard with multiple PCIe x16 slots that is not an nForce motherboard.
An SLI certified motherboard is an nForce motherboard with more than two PCIe x16 slots or a certified P55 or X58 motherboard. If your motherboard does not have the SLI certification mentioned on the box, it's likely not SLI compatible. Keep that in mind. For 3 and 4-way SLI your motherboard will need additional NF200 chips. Thus make very sure your motherboard has support for these extensive modes. Otherwise the driver will refuse to activate.

Once we seat the similar graphics cards on the carefully selected motherboard we just bridge them together, with a supplied Crossfire connector or in NVIDIA's case, an SLI connector. Then install/update the drivers, after which most games can take advantage of the extra horsepower we just added into the system.

These are some pretty nifty parts and bear in mind, when you opt for multi-GPU gaming, always have your gear right. You'll need that quality power supply, you'll need that beefy motherboard and processor, and then you'll need a chassis with some very good airflow keeping the graphics cards nicely chilled down.

Alright then, these are the facts. With 3-way SLI the more 'dated' games will run into that dreaded CPU bottleneck fairly fast unless you really make it heavy on the GPUs, that means resolutions of 1920x1200 and above and flicking on everything you can image quality wise. With the more GPU limited titles like Metro 2033, Battlefield BC2, Crysis and even Far Cry 2 with say 8xAA 3-way SLI does show noticeable gains. But as stated you do need to seek it at the extremely high resolutions.

On the topic of high-resolutions, there are more situations where you can reap the benefits of multi-GPU modes. 3D stereoscopic gaming for example with a modern title can cut your framerate in half. Also, gaming with three monitors where you literally increase the GPU load by threefold, these are situations where a setup like shown today makes sense.

What doesn't make sense obviously is the massive amount of money you need to spend on a setup like this :) The three cards alone will set you down roughly 1400 EUR, and then you still need to build a PC around it. Make no mistake, you'll need heavy duty gear. A top of the line 3-way SLI compatible motherboard, a nice overclockable processor, as you really want some more processor performance, and then obviously we need to have a chat about power consumption and your power supply. The very bare minimum you'll need to get is a kilowatt PSU, and you'll need quality of course. In the worst case scenario with the GPUs overclocked and our processor running at 3.8 GHz we here and there touched 950W (!). So we say, get yourself a good 1200 Watt PSU, and make darn sure that the PSU you choose has these 6-pin AND three 8-pin PCIE PEG connectors to feed the graphics cards.

When it comes to CPU bottlenecking you might wonder... why not overclock that processor any higher? Well, with the complexity of three GPUs you need to find yourself a stable symbiosis of components. We could say overclock to 4.4 GHz yet would need to alter CPU cooling to LCS or better and that PSU would need to be rated higher as well. Remember, overclocking requires additional voltage on the processor, if you need to step from 1.3v towards 1.5v or even higher your overall peak power consumption will rise significantly. An additional 100 to 200 Watts would not be weird at all. And that's why we kept the processor at our 1.35v / 3.75 GHz sweetspot as overclocking it dramatically higher would endanger system stability by pushing the 1200 Watt PSU close to its limits.

So then, in conclusion as always, this is x-factor stuff, extreme, nearly silly stuff to do and show. But people out there do purchase setups like shown today. At least you now know the pros and cons. Our recommendation is simple, if you have the hots for a multi-GPU setup based on the GeForce GTX 580, we recommend a 2-way SLI setup at best. With 3-way you'll run into heaps of curiosities like power consumption, noise levels and then the CPU bottlenecks - that last one is just sheer dreadful.

Flipside of the coin, 3-way SLI can be really helpful with 3D Stereoscopic gaming and a triple monitor gaming setup. The drivers, as always, are done well, we did not have any issues significant enough to mention, so from NVIDIA's side it's all good. But on a single monitor we do think that the infrastructure and sheer cash needed outweighs the extra performance you'll get for it in return. But that doesn't mean it's not tremendously cool stuff to play around with though.

Oh and 4-way SLI you wonder? Worse... that's 2-3% performance increase if you are lucky, with 3DMark Vantage as the exception. So yeah, stick to 2-way SLI we say -- unless you need to break 3DMark records of course

Lost Planet 2 Review

Lost Planet 2 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was a good example of how messing up gameplay basics can render a gorgeous and full-bodied third-person shooter hopelessly un-fun. How refreshing, then, that developer Capcom has addressed some of the shortcomings that plagued the console release, making the newly released PC version noticeably more enjoyable. The package still sports a number of flaws--a dumb and puzzling story, silly online rewards, and a reliance on frequent knockback attacks to create difficulty. And yet a variety of tweaks and fewer communication gaffes make a big difference in Lost Planet 2's overall playability. For that matter, so do the mouse and keyboard controls, which are smooth and intuitive as long as you turn off aim assist and tweak the sensitivity sliders. This still isn't the sci-fi shooter to end all sci-fi shooters, but it's a gorgeous technical achievement and a substantial package that will provide a comfortable home for action junkies looking for something a little different.

This sequel offers up a lot more variety than its predecessor. You sprint through a number of diverse locations, and fantastic visuals bring the planet of E.D.N. III to life. Some frigid areas hark back to the original Lost Planet, including the prologue, which features great Lost Planet standbys: giant mechs known as vital suits (or VSs), enormous aliens called akrid with glowing orange spots (hint: shoot them!), and snow flying everywhere. In other levels, red light bathes industrial corridors, lightning flashes brightly above a turbulent sea, and cyclones sweep across the desert plains. There are plenty of beautiful vistas to take in and many attempts to vary the pace. Over the course of the game, you will rush through the desert on a roaring speeder, defy gravity in the blackness of space, and bring down a giant akrid from the inside. Lost Planet 2 is absolutely stunning on the PC, particularly if you own a video card that can handle its fancy DirectX 11 effects, yet it runs surprisingly well on a medium-powered machine, even with many of the options cranked up.

The early levels have some weird pacing idiosyncrasies. They take just a few minutes to complete, too often coming to an end just as things appear to be picking up. Eventually, the action settles into a better rhythm, and you begin to pick up on Lost Planet 2's various delights and quirks. Perhaps the game's greatest claim to fame is its frequent boss battles versus the giant akrid that often loom above you. In one level, that might mean a giant multi-limbed creature rising from the water; in another, it's two lizardlike beasts paralyzing you with sonic bursts, and then lumbering in your general direction. Like its predecessor, Lost Planet 2 is big on knockback attacks. Monsters might send you flying backward, which can be frustrating, because it takes control away from you while you wait for your character to get back up. However, animation times seem to have been adjusted, and other elements have been changed to make for a much better experience. For example, the sonic attacks in that aforementioned dual akrid battle are much less frequent than in the console versions, which means you spend more time shooting and less time scowling while hammering on the keys that let you break free from paralysis.

The most notable improvements come into play in a level involving a speeding train under attack by a gigantic akrid worm. On consoles, you had to deal with a number of awful design elements during this level, such as absolutely putrid friendly AI, total communication failures, and an infuriating pair of turrets. Instead of dealing with a horrific barrage of missiles, you now set your sights on a flying gunship, which is a lot more fun than getting knocked off of a train over and over again. Your teammates, while still occasionally brain-dead, are less likely to run in place against a train door that won't open. (Too bad your humanoid foes are still as dumb as a box of rocks.) And the final stage of this level, in which you have to load a giant cannon, extinguish fires, and man side turrets, now identifies what you must do via a robotic voice-over and interface markings. This act's first sequence, which you can easily exploit by running to the rear of the train with a sniper rifle, is a total bore, but the rest of the act lets you enjoy the dusty environments as they rush by, all while sniping enemies from afar and mowing them down from within a clanging mech suit.

In light of the imperfect AI, it's best if you grab a few friends or strangers to join you in online cooperative play. Some fights, particularly against the giant bosses, are almost epic this way, particularly with a full contingent of players. One player gets in one of the many different types of mech suits, another rides on the mech's side, and others pummel the oozing creature above with rockets. Yet even co-op play doesn't turn out to be as simple as you'd want. There is no drop-in, drop-out play, so you can't join a friend already in progress. More importantly, you can't join a buddy at all if you haven't already played to that point. (If you want your buddy to help you through the train level but he's only in episode 2, it's a no-go.) The respawn system, which gives players a limited number of lives to share, can still be a frustration, but because the knockbacks here aren't as prevalent as in the other versions, it's a minor point.

Like most of Lost Planet's visual aspects, the cutscenes look great and convey a great deal of action-movie gusto. Unfortunately, they don't tell much of a tale. The original Lost Planet was not big in the story department, but it still made the attempt, and at least you got to know a few of its leading players. Lost Planet 2 doesn't even try. Its characters are nameless and have no discernable personality. A group of speeder-piloting bandits are apparently meant to inject a bit of humor, but they come across as embarrassing racial stereotypes. Without any character development, proper story exposition, or a better antagonist than a faceless corporation you know little about, there's no reason to care about the fate of this attractive world.

Competitive multiplayer is another reason to visit this planet. There are a robust number of modes here, along with an intriguing and occasionally silly system of persistent rewards meant to keep you invested. Many of the modes are shooter standards: Elimination, Team Elimination, and variants on two-flag Capture the Flag and Conquest, called Akrid Egg Battle and Data Post Battle, respectively. Fugitive mode has returned as well and pits a small team of lightly armed fugitives avoiding capture against a fully equipped team of hunters. Some modes come in several variants as well. For example, Team Elimination victory conditions can be customized so that the first team to use up a set number of respawns loses, or the victory might go to the team with the highest point total. These modes can be further customized by the host in a number of ways, from setting the default weapon types, to setting the number of mech suits on the map. Some of the mechanical drawbacks of the campaign are still an annoyance. For example, getting hit in the midst of throwing a grenade interrupts your toss. But the vertically designed maps and cool mechanical monstrosities can lead to some enjoyable shoot-outs.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people playing online, which is a shame, since the game features a persistent mode in which five factions fight it out for control of a larger world map, a la Chromehounds and EndWar. The game also offers a problematic but intriguing system of persistent rewards to keep you invested. The crux of this system is the points you earn while playing, which in turn can be spent on a chance to earn something useful at the game's slot machine. Rewards include new weapons you can add to your default loadout, passive bonuses to equip, and new parts for customizing your character. They also include emotes and titles, called "noms de guerre." It's an intriguing system, but over time it lends itself to disappointment. Unlocking a new shotgun for multiplayer matches is cool, but most of the time, you're getting a new nom de guerre or an emote. So now you can run around with the words "lookin' for love" floating over your head and perform a new kind of fist pump. Customizing your weapons and appearance is great, but the more useless rewards make this system feel unnecessarily padded.

In spite of its occasional awkwardness, Lost Planet 2 is a worthy offering for shooter fans who enjoy the awe-inspiring sight of a colossal creature towering above them. It's good to see this game's better elements getting their fair dues, even if some of the other core issues weren't so readily repaired. The gameplay oddities and small online population keep this celestial object from shining too brightly, but if you're interested in shooting big bugs on a resplendent sci-fi world, or just want to show your friends what your fancy new video card is capable of, then Lost Planet 2 is an entertaining way to pass the hours.
 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

The gameplay for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will be different from the previous games after developers decided the game required a new direction to suit its growing adult audience.The player will control the character Harry Potter from a third person over-the-shoulder camera, and will be played in the style of a third-person shooter. The Deathly Hallows: Part I game will include a progression system where Harry gains experience and can upgrade his spells.

Combat in Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will involve casting spells by tapping the buttons (each a different spell) on the d-pad. The player will be able to change the spells on the d-pad by going to the menu and selecting the weapon wheel.[9] The spells in Deathly Hallows: Part I include Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Confringo, Confundo, Expulso, Impedimenta, Wingardium Leviosa, Protego, Expecto Patronum, Petrificus Totalus, Finite Incantatem (to free other wizards from Petrificus Totalus) and a Four-Points spell that points which way to go. The spells will also have an effect on enemies and the environment with the player being able to use Wingardium Leviosa to throw objects at other players or to clear paths and the Confundo spell being able to make the enemy fight for the player (which is used in a sniper point of view). Head shots will also be a feature in the game with the player being able to control Harry to aim a spell at their opponent's head. Part of the combat sequences will involve the cover-based gameplay where the player hides behind an object to protect themselves against their opponent until it has been destroyed.

Potions will once again be involved with the player collecting them throughout the world of the game. The player will be able to use the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and Garrotting Gas to make an escape while the Exploding Fluid can be used to blast away multiple enemies. The game will also include potions which are beneficial to the player's health including Elixir of Life, Strengthening Solution, Fire-Protection Potion, Murtlap Essence and Blood-Replenishing Potion. When there is an infestation the player is able to use the Doxycide potion while the Polyjuice Potion can be used as a disguise from enemies. The Felix Felicis potion will allow the player to temporarily cast perfect spells and avoid enemy fire.

During stealth missions the player can progress through the level using the Polyjuice Potion, Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder or the Invisibility Cloak.While maneuvering under the Invisibility Cloak the player must move slowly to ensure the stealth meter on the screen does not turn red. If the meter has turned red it means the player is in danger of getting caught and must stay still until the meter has re-generated. When the player gets close enough to an enemy while under the Invisibility Cloak they are able to cast a stunning spell at them, or use the shield charm as a knock-out melee attack.

Dirt 3 Preview

While Dirt 2 was another highly praised, commercially successful racing game for Codemasters, the studio received plenty of feedback from fans about how to improve it. Tackling criticism is never an easy task, but the team is up front about how it aims to appease fans. More rally driving, more cars, and more variety in stages are the main points they are aiming to address, as well as a greater level of visual and aural fidelity. We found out about the developer's aims during a recent visit to Cardiff, Wales, and spoke to legendary driver Ken Block about gymkhana's inclusion in Dirt 3--the first time the discipline has ever appeared in a racing game.

The main criticism that Codemasters faced post-Dirt 2 was that the game sacrificed rallying for other disciplines. As a result, Dirt 3's career mode will be 60 percent rallying. We got to race the Audi Sport Quattro around one of the new rally stages set in Finland and were impressed with the myriad of improvements. The physics engine is noticeably more advanced, resulting in very realistic differences between surface types. As we went around corners, the wheels touching the grass would slow down, meaning that we could use the rougher surface to tactically aid drifting. As one representative noted, the undulating dips on some of the tracks can also be used to your advantage, acting as grooves for your wheel to follow round the bend.


There are also new assists that help novice rally drivers when they're just starting out. These were turned on by default in our playtest and included stability control, corner braking, and throttle management. Once disabled, the car became more difficult to drive and more prone to spinning out, but not uncontrollably so, just adding another layer of challenge during our third and fourth run-throughs of the track. Codemasters has also chosen to keep the flashback feature of the second game, allowing you to rewind and retry any section of your run. However, the overall difficulty levels are still being tweaked at this stage, so we'll have to wait and see what levels of accessibility and simulation are catered for.

One thing's for sure--with gymkhana now included in the game, rally aficionados are going to have a serious challenge on their hands. Gymkhana is a series of stunts and jumps that are performed in quick succession, and it's a sport that has been popularised by Ken Block on YouTube. The track that we got to play on was a short section of the DC Compound, otherwise known as London's Battersea Power Station, which also appeared in Dirt 2. The compound will gradually open up as you progress through the career, but we got a short section to drive around and test our skills in.

The compound run contained six challenges that we had to try to complete as quickly as possible. Pole Dancer required us to lock the handbrake and donut around one of the pillars on the track--a tricky skill that needs a gentle finger on the accelerator and precise application of the brakes. Other drifting challenges were Trailer Thrash, Pipe Dream, and Can You Dig It, which have you balletically careering your car under trailers, through pipes, and under a digger's arm, respectively. Finally, there were Airborne and Block Buster--the former rewarding a jump with a clean landing, and the latter being about smashing all the foam blocks dotted around the track. This course took us many minutes to complete, even after numerous runs, but it's clear that gymkhana will offer hardcore players proving grounds that will separate the best from the best.


Developers at the studio have managed to clock a 36-second record--an impressive time that they admit will no doubt be smashed by players once the game is released. Bragging rights will also be improved by the fact that you can edit and upload gameplay clips to YouTube, meaning that Ken Block's real-world runs could very well be bettered by virtual ones.

With two-player split screen play for the first time and a new selection of party mode options for eight players online, Dirt 3 is shaping up to be a robust multiplayer package as well. The game is currently slated for a second-quarter 2011 release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. For a more general overview of the new game and its features, be sure to check out our first hands-on preview, and keep an eye on the site for more on Dirt 3, including trailers, very soon.

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Diablo III Preview

PARIS--The Barbarian sees, and the Barbarian smashes. The Witch Doctor sees and usually lets something else do his dirty work. The two character classes shown off during today’s announcement of Diablo III (unveiled during the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Blizzard Invitational in Paris) is a mixture of old and new, representing the formula that the Blizzard development team seems to be aiming for with the latest installment in its blockbuster action game series.



We'll spend some time recounting our observations of both classes in a bit, but first, we should talk a bit about the trailer that introduced the world to the game for the first time. It started off with your typical dire portents of dread, backed by spooky music and gorgeous visuals. What stood out to us was the variety in those visuals, as well as what they could mean for the gameplay and story. First, we saw a number of different settings in the trailer--including more than one city setting. In addition, the color palette seemed to be much larger than in previous installments; we noticed a grimy, dusty-looking battlefield teeming with soldiers and war machines, as well as at least one night-time landscape, backed by a huge full moon. While maintaining that grim gothic feel to the game, it seems like the Blizzard artists are getting a full chance to explore a larger visual palette that should give the game some variety.


The same impressive look continues on to the actual gameplay. Characters were big and richly detailed (especially when wearing more elaborate armor) but nicely scaled to the environments. In other words, the characters are big, but they can still be easily dwarfed by some of the bigger creatures in the game, as the demo proved with that massive spike-wielding demon at the end. While we thought at first that this was a boss, due to its sheer bulk and the complexity of its attacks, it was later confirmed this was just a run-of-the-mill mob, the likes of which you can expect to see on a fairly regular basis. In addition to monsters of various sizes, the enemies in the game will demonstrate a variety of behaviors. During the demo, we saw the Berserker, a large, mace-wielding monster that’s equal parts strength and bad attitude. During a post-announcement game design panel on Diablo III, we also saw the skeletal shield bearer, a slow-moving skeleton wielding a huge shield. Often accompanying larger enemies as support, the shield bearer will be a tough enemy to deal with, as you’ll first have to take out the monster’s shield before attacking it properly. As a result, shield bearers will be ideal support for enemies who are strictly focused on dealing damage.
With different types of monsters on hand, it's fortunate that the character classes in Diablo III will be just as epically powerful as you remember. The Barbarian is still a melee specialist (though not without his specialized ranged attacks). The Barbarian's skills will be familiar to Diablo II fans--we saw the whirlwind in effect, sweeping through scores of enemies--but he’ll have some other tricks up his sleeves (that is, if he wore sleeves), including the sweep, which can blast multiple enemies around him. During the on-stage demo, the Barbarian managed to take down a stone wall on a group of zombies, pointing to more interactive environments throughout the gameplay. While environments won't be fully destructible, you can look forward to many instances, such as this one, where you can use the environment to your advantage, with a certain amount of real physics involved in the destruction.
If the Barbarian is all about wading into the fray with both weapons blazing, the newly announced Witch Doctor is all about variety. He (or she--Diablo III will let you play as a male or female version of your chosen class but will not offer more advanced customization options) will have more straightforward attacks, like the firebomb, which drops fiery death onto the enemy, as well as more interesting attacks that seem more in keeping with the class.
The Witch Doctor will have control over disease, can summon pets, and can even control the minds of his or her enemies. We saw a few examples of these different approaches in the game demo: Locust swarm is a spell that summons a nasty horde of flying locusts that can overwhelm an opponent. Better yet, the locusts will automatically spawn to attack additional enemies in the area. We saw one pet in use too; the mongrel. This pet can attack enemies and can be buffed with other Witch Doctor spells; during the demo, the player cast locust swarm on his mongrel, giving the pet an attack bonus. We also briefly saw the horrify spell, which causes enemies to temporarily flee in terror. By far, his coolest ability was the wall of zombie, which was truly terrifying. If you've seen a wall of fire or ice in a game before, you probably have a pretty good idea of what this skill involves.


At first glance, the Witch Doctor resembles the Necromancer from Diablo II, both in his relatively skinny appearance (at least, when compared to the Barbarian) and through the class abilities (pet summoning, disease control). When asked about it during the gameplay design seminar, Blizzard developers were quick to point out that the Witch Doctor is very much its own class and that its presence in the game wouldn't necessarily require the removal of the Necromancer in Diablo III. In other words, it's conceivable that both classes could end up in Diablo III, even if it looks unlikely to us at this point.
Using new skills will be easier than ever in Diablo III, thanks to a new combat system and user interface that seems to put a premium on skill usage over potions. As explained during the gameplay seminar, Blizzard developers felt that potion use was too prevalent in the previous game, resulting in combat encounters that were rarely more than wars of attrition because the user kept pounding health potions en masse. In another seminar, Jay Wilson, the lead designer, confirmed that the interface would not be customizable with mods; while this is nigh-on essential for World of Warcraft, Wilson said that it would be detrimental in Diablo III and was not on the table.
In Diablo III, potions will still play a part of the action but their importance has been downplayed, thanks to a couple of changes. The first are health globes, which drop off defeated enemies and will serve to boost the health of your character, as well as those around you if you're playing co-operatively. As the developers put it, the idea of enemies dropping health is one that will keep the player moving forward in the game, as opposed to trying to avoid combat. In addition, a new skill toolbar, similar in location to the old potion belt in Diablo II, will make your skills that much more accessible, easily allowing you to switch between skills on the fly. You’ll even be able to swap skills quickly using the roller on your mouse for even more ease of use. The result is a game you’ll likely be able to play almost completely with your mouse; no more hunting for skills using the F key on your keyboard. Here's one more important addition regarding cooperative play: When a character picks up a health globe, any surrounding allies also benefit from that health globe, which seems like it will encourage players to stick together when hacking and slashing their way throughout the game. To our ears, it also makes it sound like practically any class will be able to tank effectively (as long as someone is picking up the health globes and standing nearby), but we'll have to see how it plays out as the game develops.
Random dungeons will still be a big part of Diablo III. In fact, randomness will prevail throughout the game (and we mean that in a good way). In addition to having randomly created dungeons to explore, the developers have introduced random monsters, random loot droops, and new random scripted events into the game to make each play-through a new experience. In terms of monsters and loot, the stage demo alone was proof of that concept--we saw loads of different types of beasts to fight, from snakelike monsters to hulking brutes, like the final big bad beastie. Blizzard didn't go into much detail regarding loot, but we do know that it's hard at work creating custom-designed armor and weapons that will look great, as well as get the job done in the field of combat. More tie-ins with lore with higher-level drops have been promised than was the case in Diablo II, with items being one of the development teams key focuses in increasing your feeling of involvement with the story as you progress. During the demo, we saw the Barbarian decked out in a suit of golden armor with an imposing-looking helmet and wielding a pair of axes: one enchanted with frost; the other with electricity. We also saw him wielding a fire-enchanted two-handed mace, trailing fire impressively as he spun through a crowd of skeletons.
The random scripted events sound like one of the coolest additions to the game. Each play-through, players will encounter scenarios that are quite different from their previous trip through the game. In one area, you might see a house filled with undead enemies--along with a story about the home's former residents. The second time you play through, that same area might contain a caravan that you'll be prompted to escort to safety. The next time that area might simply be filled with monsters just begging for the opportunity to be killed by you. Scripted events look to greatly increase the level of immersion into the world of Diablo III while keeping the player coming back for more at the same time. There will also be a conversation system in the game, which will give voice to your character in the game; more so than the handful of exclamations your character had in the previous game. We hope to learn more about the conversation system for Diablo III over the weekend and will report back with more details.
Much has yet to be settled in the development of Blizzard's latest game. The pair of character classes we know about are just two in an undetermined (or at least, unreleased) final number of classes that will be in Diablo III, though Blizzard has confirmed that not all the classes from Diablo II are going to make the cut. In addition, while we do know that the online cooperative play will be a huge part of the game, Blizzard hasn't settled on the final number of people that will be able to play together: eight is the current theoretical maximum, but Blizzard made it clear that the final decision was going to be based on what was best for the player and that this number was likely to be lower than the theoretical maximum. Indeed, even the fate of "hardcore" mode is as of yet undecided, though Blizzard devs said they see no reason why it won't be in the final game, given its popularity in Diablo II. As for a secret cow level...when pressed, all Blizzard reps would say was "No comment."
On the other hand, we can confirm the game's release date; it's the same date as for all Blizzard-developed titles: "When it's ready." Until that time--however far in the future it may be--we'll be sure to bring you the latest coverage of the game, including more coverage from this weekend's 2008 Blizzard Invitational, so stay tuned.
[UPDATE] We've just added a wrap-up of this morning's Diablo III discussion panel, regarding the game's art and storyline. Check it out on the GameSpot preview blog, Work in Progress.


 

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Preview

What better time to visit Blizzard HQ to see the new World of Warcraft expansion than the week right before the Electronic Entertainment Expo? We hit the ground running toward the Irvine, California-based studio to try out Cataclysm, the new expansion for the massively addictive, massively multiplayer game World of Warcraft. We got a hands-off demonstration of some of the game's new features, and we also got a chance to sit down and play with some of the new content ourselves. Please be advised that this story contains minor spoilers.


Cataclysm will add an enormous amount of new playable content to World of Warcraft (the previous expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, launched with about 1,000 quests; the pre-beta version of Cataclysm already has more than 3,000), including lots of new places to explore, new high-end "raids" for ambitious adventuring parties, new high-end competitive player-versus-player, and greatly revised versions of existing in-game geography. This will reflect both the game's ongoing story and encourage new and returning players to try out the game's lower-level content again or for the first time.
In the wake of the previous expansion's events, which included a destructive rampage by the elder dragon Deathwing the Destroyer, the face of World of Warcraft's realm Azeroth has been forever changed. Key characters central to the game's lore have been defeated or gone missing, such as the orc chieftain Thrall, while several notable geographical locations have been altered dramatically to accommodate the ongoing story, as well as the ongoing needs of players. For instance, Deathwing's raid on the Alliance hometown of Stormwind has left the once-pristine park district a smoking ruin (fortunately, the druid trainer escaped and has relocated), while both Stormwind and the Horde hometown of Orgrimmar have been rezoned with additional trade districts, as well as secondary player banks to help manage overcrowding. Orgrimmar has also been rezoned to allow for separate districts for the tauren, troll, and new goblin races, while the undead starting area of Silverpine has been changed to indicate the faction's new designs on conquest. Once it was just the site of a few moldy, old graves, but now Silverpine's forest is full of war machines for churning out disease-ridden abominations to take over Azeroth, while the tauren starting areas of Thousand Needles and Shimmering Flats have been flooded and changed from desert mesas to rocky riverbeds.



Numerous other minor and major gameplay systems are also being revamped for the expansion. The user interface is getting tweaked to give better alerts (such as a reminder to train new skills your character has earned). Other gameplay additions that had been tossed around at last year's Blizzcon event have also undergone further consideration, and some won't make the cut. The previously announced "path of the titans" feature, for instance, is being scrapped in favor of enhancing the game's glyph system with a third, "medium" glyph to help players further customize their characters. Cataclysm will also offer a new trade profession, archeology, which will tap into the game's lore and backstory by letting players dig up and assemble common artifacts or occasionally find rare ones. These artifacts will primarily be cosmetic accoutrements or "toys," though the Blizzard team suggests that a few may be extremely powerful weapons, armor, or other stuff.
In addition, the "guild currency" system suggested at Blizzcon will not make the cut, though Cataclysm will offer new interface elements that are more supportive of guild members, such as the ability to directly find craftsmen who have the recipes and skill level needed to concoct whichever weapons, armor, or other items you're after. The expansion will also have a new guild advancement system that will let your guild gain "levels" that unlock new global abilities for the group, as well as special guild-only items that can be purchased if you've gained enough faction standing with your guild to unlock them with such activities as raiding and doing well in PVP competition. Guild advancement will come with a new guild interface that will let you more easily call out notable news and achievements, as well as an achievement list that will record who completed which raid or attained which battlegrounds rank and when.

We were then shown some of Cataclysm's new zones, which include "Uldum," a huge outdoor expanse that bears a striking resemblance to ancient Egypt, including pyramids, palm trees, and a Nile-like river. According to the game's lore, this zone houses "titan machines," ancient magical weapons of great power and was previously hidden by illusions, though the illusions were disrupted by Deathwing's attack. And now, exposed area's weapons and quests represent juicy targets of opportunity for both factions. Other zones include various elemental planes presided over by powerful beings known as elemental princes. The plane of air, for instance, appears in the clouds and has the dreamy, hazy look of a grand Arabic city in the clouds, not unlike the palaces in the Disney movie Aladdin. The plane of earth, however, is a gigantic crystalline cave suspended between time and space, in which Deathwing incubated for many years before emerging.

In addition to new player-versus-environment zones, Cataclysm will add plenty of PVP stuff, including new PVP playfields and a new mode of competition. This will come in the form of "rated battlegrounds," which Blizzard describes as "competitive battleground play" that will do a better job of rewarding skilled players. The current game's battlegrounds do offer an opportunity for skilled players to earn precious honor points to purchase valuable rewards, but they also let random players in pick-up groups act like compete jackasses. The new rated battlegrounds will more strongly encourage team-based play by offering a new reward type, "conquest points," while offering two new, tightened-up playfields on which to compete. This will include "Twin Peaks," a mountainous zone with extra graveyards smack dab in the middle of the map, so that defeated players can respawn in an area much closer to the action.


Other additions include a good chunk of high-end raid content, as well as new ease-of-use options for raids, such as the ability to "downshift" larger raids into smaller groups. For example, in the event of playing in a 25-person raiding party one night, you might find out the next night that not everyone can make it. Rather than simply giving up on the raid, you can "downshift" the raid to up to three 10-person raids, which will offer slightly easier content and rewards that aren't quite as good...but you'll at least be able to keep your progress. "Raid lock," the state of being committed to a single raid area after defeating one or more bosses, is also being modified. If you do happen to make some progress into a raid but lose your group, you can join another raiding party that has gotten at least as far. The expansion's new, marquee raiding content is the Bastion of Twilight, a huge subterranean citadel presided over by one of Deathwing's chief lieutenants, and on the hardest difficulty, it houses a dark and terrifying secret below ground that may or may not involve eggs of some sort.
After getting a demonstration of the new high-end features in the game, we changed gears and played through the starting areas for the expansion's two new races: the Alliance worgen (a race of werewolves that can switch back to their human forms) and the Horde goblins. They begin their lives as full-on humans that later become infected by a curse that changes them to wolf-people, though they also possess the racial ability to briefly switch back to their "true form," which gains them a temporary burst of running speed. The race starts off in a remote kingdom besieged by other worgen who attack the settlement relentlessly. Your earliest quests require you to coordinate with the settlement's royalty to evacuate merchants and rustle up livestock before they're butchered until you yourself get infected by the worgen curse. Fortunately, the town alchemist treats you with a potion that lets you keep your humanity, and your ensuing quests involve defending the town from an undead encroachment.
Goblins, on the other hand, are the Horde's "whimsical" race and intended to be a foil to the Alliance's gnomes. The goblins' starting area is a broken-down scrap yard converted into a functional, half-working gadget town, complete with rickety freeways on which to drive your equally rickety hot rod (a drivable vehicle that gets added to your inventory shortly after you arrive). As a goblin character, you're part of a massive corporation of other money-grubbers who are all trying to oust the town's administrator, the merchant prince, who thinks he's so big, riding around in a miniature steam-powered mech and all. Your initial quests require you to collect trade components, hop in your hot rod to rustle up some non-player character followers who help you fight temporarily, and to don a cool leisure suit, sunglasses, and a "bling" necklace to attend a corporate pool party at the filthy, broken-down (but still functional) communal swimming pool. At the pool, you must use new temporary hotkey abilities like "pour a drink," "serve hors d'oeuvres," and "dance" to entertain a certain number of other goblin guests to help your character climb the corporate ladder.

The quests for the new races clearly have a lot of variety and are a whole lot different from the original game's "go kill 10 of these" or "go escort this character or talk to that character" quests. They also have lots of variety and interactivity, both with other characters and with the environment. Cataclysm will clearly have a lot to offer, including the entirely new experience for both new races, plus a redone "old world" Azeroth with new environments and tons of new quests, along with lots of new high-end content. The expansion will launch…when it launches.



 

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Review

The PC version of the original Star Wars: The Force Unleashed took a fine game and turned it into a technical mess. The Force Unleashed II takes a lesser game and delivers it in a perfectly playable state. This may come as a relief to players that suffered through the original's performance difficulties, but truth be told, this sequel isn't much of a step forward. Rather, it is less enjoyable, less varied, and shorter than the game that came before it. The art design, while not very diverse, is still impressive, and the story, while not always emotionally convincing, is still dotted with poignant moments. But the frustrations of the original haven't been improved in any meaningful ways, and an incredibly bland final boss battle brings a decent action game to a limp conclusion. The Force Unleashed II has none of the spark or diversity of the first game, and though it isn't as technically troublesome, it harbors some bizarre bugs of its own.



The story is The Force Unleashed II's first notable element. On the watery planet of Kamino, Darth Vader hovers over a familiar figure. It looks to be Starkiller, the original game's leading man and Vader's unauthorized apprentice. But is it really Starkiller--the one said to have sacrificed himself for the Rebellion? Thus, you step into this man's shoes and begin your search for the truth, not to mention the search for Juno Eclipse, Starkiller's former pilot and lover. Excellent voice acting and facial animations give cutscenes emotional impact, and a sequence near the end of the game in which you are plagued by visions is a great touch that melds storytelling with gameplay. It's unfortunate that a lengthy central stretch that focuses on the combat needs of the Rebellion brings the narrative to a halt. It's also unfortunate that you may encounter broken cinematics that play audio and display subtitles over a dark screen. This common glitch is disappointing, given that the story, while not up to the standards of its predecessor, is both fitting and fulfilling. This is in part because it harks back to the original Star Wars trilogy, in which the action was not gratuitous but was granted context by human emotion and complicated relationships.
The game's art design is the other standout facet. On the world of Cato Neimodia, a rich color palette of gold, orange, and red makes an opulent palace come alive. In the final hour, the lights of looming edifices punctuate the murk. As in the first game, striking lighting and painted textures give many of your surroundings a warm, lush look. It's unfortunate that the drawn-out middle section squanders The Force Unleashed II's good looks as much as it squanders the story. The hangars and hallways capture the Imperial vibe, but the lack of diversity will have you missing the temple on Coruscant, the junkyards of Raxus Prime, and the fungal jungles of Felucia--all beautiful and prominent locations featured in the first game. A visit to an important planet in the Star Wars canon may have you excited to explore its humid regions, but there's little gameplay here, and you end up flying away to far less interesting places. A great deal of artistry went into making these locales leap off the screen, and it's regrettable that many of them are so similar that one bleeds right into the next.

The lack of variety extends beyond the game's environments. While The Force Unleashed featured Jawas, Wookies, Felucian skullblades, Rodian rippers, drones, scrap creatures, and more (in addition to the expected troops and walkers), this sequel relies heavily on the same few enemies, repeated over and over again. Armed with your dual sabers and some of the same basic Force powers of the original, you leave behind a trail of stormtroopers, AT-ST walkers, and other trooper and walker variants. You do so by slashing them with your dual lightsabers, zapping them with Force lightning, flinging them back with Force push, and using Force grip to fling objects and enemies around. The powerful physics are still impressive to behold as you toss around barrels and grab TIE fighters out of the air, as is using Force repulse to clear away a crowd of menacing robotic spiders. However, like in the original, the targeting is still imprecise, though less maddeningly so. You can now lock the camera on to a particular enemy, but this pointless addition is of absolutely no help. You still grab objects other than those you intend, and you still fling junk in directions other than that of your target. And as before, the camera might insist on an unhelpful view in linear environments, of which there are more in this outing.

The Force Unleashed II adds a few new abilities to your repertoire. One is Force sense, which is a guidance system that directs you to your objective and negates the need for a map. Another is mind trick, which confuses humanoid enemies and causes them to attack their comrades. However, neither skill is as game changing as the grapple, in which the camera zooms in while you get a good look at the powerful attack. This is cool the first few times, but the same few canned animations lose their edge quickly. Another drawback is that it grappling often works as a win button, allowing you to dash around and exterminate your humanoid foes without much resistance. The final drawback is that in one of the two grapple types, the animations break when you try to deliver a final saber slash, causing your foe to teleport back to the ground.


You can simply avoid the move if you want a greater challenge, but if you stick to standard tactics, you might get frustrated. The game tries to vary the combat by mixing up enemies in different combinations, making for annoying battles in which you face acolytes resistant to Force powers and heavy troopers resistant to lightsaber attacks at once, all while a robot spews flames at you or a couple of walkers fire missiles at you. It's nice that you can deflect those missiles or grab and fling them back, but when you're dealing with a half-dozen other enemies that might temporarily stun you on top of the ranged attacks, you stop feeling like a powerful Jedi, and the combat stops being fun. That's especially true when you want to grab an incoming rocket in the heat of battle and seize some meaningless object instead.
There are a few thrilling set-piece sections to enjoy, such as those in which you hurtle toward the ground, avoiding debris or Force pushing it out of the way. Boss fights, on the other hand, don't have the same driving momentum. A boss battle versus a hulking monstrosity is frustrating due to a limited camera, invisible walls, and unpredictable collision detection. It also drags on and on, which makes it seem like it was meant to pad the campaign's five-hour length. (Luckily, this same fight ends with a fantastic cinematic tour de force that makes the tedium almost worth it.) The final encounter is similarly protracted and perhaps the blandest chore in the game. This battle is unthinkably easy, having you perform the same exact actions over and over again for upward of 10 minutes and never requiring you to mix up techniques. It comes directly after an overlong and boring platforming sequence that dissolves any tension the game may have accumulated to this point. It's a disappointing end to a game that never reaches its potential.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II at least performs better than the original game did on the PC, but it doesn't improve on any of its core mechanics. That's unfortunate because the core combat is fun. It's a thrill to fling your foes into dangerous force fields and to zap jumptroopers with lightning and watch them uncontrollably zip around. And while the story isn't as affecting as the original's, great voice acting and cinematics (at least, the ones that work) help it make an impression nonetheless. Yet with less enjoyable boss battles, less environmental variety, and more enemy repetition, this sequel is a missed opportunity. Perhaps you can't get enough Force Unleashed; in that case, you could always return to the game wearing one of the unlockable costumes or try out some of the unlockable challenge rooms, which are timed combat scenarios of disparate quality. But Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is too predictable and glitchy to inspire extended play time.



 

Fable III Preview

While we just saw Fable III a few weeks ago, logging in a chunk of time from the start of the game, Microsoft offered us another opportunity to spend more time with the game at its Washington offices. As we've noted previously, the latest entry in the role-playing series leans into the theme of choices--great and small--and how they affect the world. Our time with the game let us cover some of the territory we just saw, albeit tightened up some, and also take a more exploratory route through the game.



The early stretch of our time with Fable III played out as before with players being given the choice to pick their gender and familiarize themselves with the current state of Albion, where things start to go poorly pretty quickly. Once the setup is complete, the game still keeps its training wheels on for a bit as you're guided to some set locations and directed through the start of some of the main story quests. However, once you've cleared those required to set up the story and introduce you to the concept of followers and the Road to Rule leveling system, you're free to move along at your own pace.
Your trusty canine buddy is back and always eager to direct you to loot--both obvious and hidden--so you can go exploring for a while if you like. If you're the more devoted sort, you can invest a good amount of time mingling with the various locals you'll meet in towns and other places to build relationships with them that yield guild seals. These are Fable III's nearest equivalent to experience points. Not only does this help with moving through the various gates along the Road to Rule that require a certain number of followers and seals, but it also makes new quests available to you that are specific to building your relationship with a particular character.
If you're feeling more entrepreneurial, you can take on various jobs and make some cash you can use to get a house, set up a shop, or get yourself some nice clothes. But, if you're a no-nonsense linear-gameplay-loving type, you can choose to bypass the side stuff and work your way through the story, which appears to give you just enough followers and guild seals to keep you moving along through the Road to Rule.


However, if you opt to stick to the central story religiously and don't let yourself get sidetracked, you may regret it. Your guild seal count will force you to make some choices about how to upgrade your character, as many upgrades will require more seals than you'll have if you try to tear through the game. We learned fairly quickly that it's probably in your best interest to pick up every upgrade you can on the Road to Rule to ensure you're buffed up enough to deal with the mobs of enemies you'll encounter. Speaking of enemies, the revamped combat system works amazingly well, even in the work-in-progress version of the game we tried. Combos are key to battle and the three-button system keeps them attainable. Juggling straight melee combat with magic and firearms is a very satisfying experience, thanks to the charge moves you can work into the mix. As before, the tactics you favor will help your character evolve in a specific direction, which lets you buff up in the areas that are central to how you play.
The visuals in the work-in-progress version of the game we played were coming together well. Albion is a picturesque place teeming with variety. The different environments we've seen strike a nice balance between new and familiar. The world has a more “lived in” look to it this time out, which we expect is due to all the oppression going on, though we did come across some places that still had some natural beauty to them. The residents and your chosen character are an expressive bunch that come alive as you try out whatever interaction options you have on them. Animation on your character and the various non-player characters you'll come across tend to be where you'll find the game's broadest stabs at humor so far.
In terms of effects, there's quite a bit going on during combat, thanks to the different options open to you. Magic is obviously where you'll find the flashiest effects; the fire and shock spells we saw were impressive and tossed around a good amount of particles and lighting. Melee and gunplay, while not quite as showy as magic, featured more cinematic flourishes tied to camera angles and more subtle lighting to reflect your charged attacks. The unfinished version of the game ran fairly smoothly, although there were the occasional hitches that are to be expected when dealing with an unfinished game.

Based on these recent sessions with the game, we're anxious to spend more time with Fable III. The various refinements and overhauls Lionhead's done give the game a decidedly different feel from its predecessors. While this has changed the game's pacing and balance to a more action-oriented direction, it doesn't appear to have diminished the fun to be had in single-player. We're also very anxious to see how the experience we had is affected by the multiplayer elements. We'll be curious to see how the whole promising package fares when the game ships next month for the Xbox 360.



 

Test Drive Unlimited 2 Preview

The original Test Drive Unlimited was a massive, open, online racing game that let you cruise around the magnificent island of O'ahu and challenge other players at a whim through its seamless online integration. The goal of the game was to earn money to purchase the most luxurious (and expensive) cars in the world, and the sequel's premise pretty much follows the same idea. However, this time, the game has a new narrative and you start off on the gorgeous Mediterranean island of Ibiza. We sat in on an hour-long demo of Test Drive Unlimited 2 with senior producer Nour Polloni, who went over several new features as we drooled over the sweet cars that will likely only exist for us in a virtual world.



Polloni began the presentation by highlighting some of the key features of Test Drive Unlimited 2. You can now progress through the game through four different means: competition, social, discovery or collection. The social aspect of the game seems to be a huge focus this time around. Like other massive online games, you can now form a club (similar to a guild or clan), as well as work with others to earn money and build up your reputation. By being active in a club and making friends, you'll increase your social level, which will also go toward raising your global progression. Taking on challenges or creating them will increase your competition level. Now, you'll also be rewarded for wandering off the beaten path, as well as exploring every nook and cranny of the 380-square-km. island. Like a treasure hunt, if you come across car wrecks, you can salvage them and build your own car that won't be available to a dealer anywhere. It looks like regardless of what you decide to do with your time, you'll earn some kind of reward and be continuously working toward your raising your level.
To enhance your experience of admiring or shopping for a car, you can wander around garages, lobbies, and dealerships with your customizable avatar. Instead of navigating through menus, you can now sit and chat with friends in a car at the dealership as you debate the vehicle's features or pick the colors from the car manufacturer's catalog. The shimmer of metallic paint was noticeable as we walked around a bright blue Audi TT RS and were told that the definition in the modeling had been increased. For example, you can see all the minute details, from more refined lines down to the texture of the leather and the stitching within the car. For now, we're only able to reveal the cars that will be in the game, including: Gumpert Apollo Sport, Dodge Viper SRT10, Dodge Charger SRT8, Aston Martin DBS, Ford Mustang GT, Koenigsegg CCXR Edition, and the Audi TT RS Roadster. There were several other high-end cars that we got a chance to look at, but the developers are saving that information for another time.
  Based on community feedback, the developers added a day-night cycle so that you can cruise around at night or sit back in your convertible and watch the sunrise from the coast. The cycle takes two-and-a-half hours, so that if you play at the same time every day, you'll be experiencing a different time of day in the game. The developers drove the TT out along the deserted but sandy beach while the waves lapped calmly along the shore and just sat back to admire the golden glow of the sky as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. Now, if only all of this were real. Snapping us back to reality, we zoomed out to view the island from a satellite view and saw that the surrounding sea has been reworked. You can now see the coral reefs and sea depth, as well as the varied landscape that exists on Ibiza. The weather can also change, so it's one thing to be cruising with the top down on a sunny day; it'll be a little more difficult having to navigate through a thunderstorm. Now that vehicle damage has been added, it'll cost money to fix the cosmetic wounds, so tearing across the fields in your Gumpert Apollo may not be such a good idea.

There is 930 km. of road, and 310 km. of it are off-road trails that are indicated by yellow lines when you zoom out of your map, which could take you about 20 hours if you wanted to drive over all of it. We were told that there will be 4x4 cars to handle this kind of terrain, so if you want to go wild with the drifting and skidding, you'll earn money for showing off your skills--just try not to hit anything. Minor damage will show in the form of scratches and can reach a point where the body parts loosen up. All of this is just for looks however, so it won't affect your driving (just your wallet). Dirt will get on your car if you spend a lot of time in the backcountry, but you can always wait for the weather to change to get a free car wash.

Launching an instant challenge is faster now, and there are dozens of multiplayer challenges that we saw on the map, but we weren't given any details about them. You can still create your own challenge with the editor, choose the type of race that you want, mark off your start/finish line, and then drive the challenge to give it a reference time to beat. Your challenge is posted to the gambling hall where other players can pay the fee you set and try to earn your reward. Other online players will drop in or drop out of your game, and you can filter the kinds of drivers you want to see. For example, you can choose just to have your friends or Aston Martin owners. Your avatar isn't the only thing that represents your personality online. To show how tacky you can really be, you can swing by the sticker and car paint shop to customize your vehicle by slapping on as many decals or layers of paint as you like.


To give players a sense of community, you can create or join a racing club where everyone will band together to try to build the reputation of that club and earn money (or donate) for upgrades. The president is responsible for managing the club, but responsibilities can be assigned to other members. You can challenge other clubs, as well as take on internal challenges between members. While you wait on the street for your competitors to show up, you can walk around and chat with your opponents in the virtual lobby instead of waiting on a menu screen. There are three upgrades to a club, which will give you and up to 32 members access to exclusive cars (like the Gumbert), as well as swanky club houses. Only one member can drive the club-exclusive car at any given time, so if you see one on the road, you'll know that the member is part of a club that has earned one of its upgrades. You can only be a part of one club at a time, so pick wisely.
The whole point of the game is to go from rags to riches, and in order to be able to collect all 208 cars, you need to have the space the house them. There are 100 different homes you can possess and many have breathtaking vistas or even a yacht. You can customize the furniture and tiling in your home, as well as invite friends over at any given moment. To see the stats and achievements of other players, each individual has a MyLife profile where you can take a photo of you avatar, as well as filter the achievements you want shown on your profile.
One of the last things we were shown was one of the game's cooperative modes. You can have a friend jump in a car with you and give you directions to his or her house. Your friend can bring up icons to direct you or be your GPS through voice chat. This allows the other player to just take the passenger seat and cruise around with you. We ended our demo by heading over to another player's yacht--the most expensive house you can buy--where we promptly changed into our bathing suits and jumped into the Jacuzzi. Details were vague, but we were told there were advantages to owning such a place and that it would offer "activities."


There was a lot that was shown in the course of an hour, as well as plenty of other features that have yet to be revealed, and we'd like to play the game for ourselves to see how everything handles. The game looks great so far and was running fairly smoothly for the most part. Another important aspect of the game has to do with the airport; as you progress through the game, you'll eventually gain access to the Ibiza airport. From there, you can then take a plane (and your car) to O'ahu and drive around that island all over again. The graphics have been redone and another 600 km. of asphalt, as well as off-road trails, have been added. There will also be new missions and side missions, so those who spent a lot of time with the first game should have enough reason to head back. Polloni stressed that Eden Games is paying close attention to the community feedback and there are already plans to have downloadable content. Motorcycles won't be available on day one, but they are something the developers intend to include.
The next time we'll see Test Drive Unlimited 2 will be at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, so be sure to stay tuned for more information as soon as it becomes available. The game is scheduled to be released this fall on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.