“This is truly a historic day for both EA and Mythic as we prepare to send more copies of WAR to retailers than any other newly launched MMORPG in North America and Europe. Over the course of our beta, over a million gamers throughout the world sent a clear signal to us - they want WAR, and we are more than happy to oblige them,” said Mark Jacobs, co-founder and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. “In three days the real battle begins – we have declared September 18th the ‘Day of Reckoning,’ and WAR will soon be upon us!”

WAR set a company record for the most retail pre-orders placed by consumers for a PC title in EA’s 26 year history. Overall, the company has sold 1.5 million units of WAR to retailers.

Real name: Unknown
Occupation: Professional criminal
Base of operations: Gotham City
Eyes: Unknown
Hair: Unknown

Born a prisoner for crimes committed by his father, the child who would become Bane survived cruel solitary confinement in a Santa Prisca prison. During his long lonely years, he developed incredible powers of concentration, and, once released into the prison population, studied every book he could get his hands on. After nearly four decades of imprisonment, he was chosen for a military experiment with the drug Venom, which greatly enhanced his strength. Escaping, he sought out Batman to prove himself to the world by destroying the greatest specimen of mankind. Bane broke Batman, but the Dark Knight went on to recover and defeat Bane.

• Master strategist
• Enhanced stamina
• Enhanced strength
• Superior hand-to-hand combatant

After his circus aerialist parents were murdered by criminals, young Dick Grayson was adopted by Bruce Wayne, becoming his ward...and his partner in the war against crime as Batman's sidekick, Robin. Years later, Robin struck out on his own as Nightwing and now lives in the corruption ridden city of Blüdhaven where by day he serves as a member of that city's police department...and patrols its streets by night as Nightwing.

Attributes:

• Expert in most known forms of martial arts
• Trained in all aspects of criminology
• Trained gymnast
• Trained in stealth and espionage techniques
• Expert escape artist

Powers and Abilities:

In LEGO Batman: The Videogame, Nightwing is a bonus character, he can also utilize all of Robin’s technology suits.

Real name: Basil Karlo
Occupation: Former Actor, Professional Criminal
Base of operations: Mobile
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black

Initially an actor in horror films, Karlo went mad when he learned a classic film of his was to be remade. He donned the mask of the film’s villain, Clayface, and killed several of the remake’s cast and crew before being stopped by Batman and Robin. Later, Karlo joined a collection of villains who subsequently used the name Clayface in an alliance that came to be known as the Mud Pack. While that group was defeated, Karlo tricked his allies, injecting himself with the essences of several of them, becoming a superhuman imbued with the abilities to change shape, melt others into protoplasm with a touch, and mimic the powers of heroes or villains he copies.

Attributes:

• Clayface can alter his physical form, adopting the appearance of anyone or anything.
• If those whose appearance he adopts have super powers, he copies those as well.
• His touch can reduce an enemy to proptoplasm.

Powers and Abilities:

In LEGO Batman: The Videogame, Clayface has the ability of super jump allowing him to jump to heights unattainable by other characters and even make his body elastic to reach higher characters. Clayface also has the ability of super strength, enabling him to pick up super strength objects and smash super strength walls.

The unsated demand is costing Nintendo more than face. Estimates from industry analysts and retailers indicate that the company, which is based in Kyoto, Japan, is giving up $1 billion or more in sales in the ever-important holiday retail season, not including sales of games for those unbuilt consoles.

“It’s staggering,” said James Lin, senior analyst at the MDB Capital Group in Santa Monica, Calif., who estimates that Nintendo is leaving $1.3 billion on the table. “They could easily sell double what they’re selling.”

NCSoft has released new screenshots of Lineage II The Chaotic Throne: The Kamael for the PC. The expansion includes the following features:

Click the link to view the official site.

Gaming Horizon will be following this story as it develops. E3 2006 will surely have more information.

“Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory™ received record-setting reviews and countless awards,” said Yves Guillemot, president and CEO of Ubisoft. “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell® 4 will be even more thrilling and heart-pounding than its ground-breaking predecessors. This new version will both enrich the gaming experience on current consoles and take full advantage of the capacities of next-generation consoles to deliver players the most fabulous gaming experience ever.”

The game is expected to launch in Spring 2006.

Much like razor blades, expansion packs help clear away the scruffy, wooly tedium that builds up as a game grows old. They’re also overpriced, generally – but ideally provide newly-sharpened features that snap snugly into the original engine, helping things feel clean and new again. With its initial release coming a year ago, fans of the series may be sprouting Santa-sized whiskers at this point, but Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs is Ensemble Studios’ well-sharpened solution to this beard-of-boredom, and the blade in question is the addition of three native nations as playable armies, along with 15 new campaign missions. But does the supplement make its way across your hard drive without leaving any nicks?

The real-time strategy genre being known for its replayability, even finer gems like Age of Empires become naturally dull with time and repetition. Knowing this, it’d be difficult for Ensemble to find ways to sour the deep experience that fills Age of Empires III. Instead, we examine an expansion by its value, and whether or not it truly expands upon the original features that drew us in in the first place. Luckily for fans of the series, the answer is a solid “yes.”

In the original, Ensemble packed eight civilizations into its product for players – the Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russians, British, Germans, and Ottomans. Though each had its unique set of fortes and foibles you’d expect in an RTS, for a game that was largely set in the “New World” of pre- and post-colonial America, the absence of a fully playable Native American tribe in the game left some fans feeling that the factions were a little Euro-centric. Indian clans were scattered throughout AOE III as NPCs, and did play a significant role in the game’s story, but Ensemble made sure to answer to its fanbase’s smoke signals for a more varied cast of armies in The WarChiefs.

The Iroquois, Sioux, and Aztec comprise the additional civilizations, and each offer players a genuine contrast to its cross-Atlantic counterparts. The Iroquois, the most versatile of the trio, bear some resemblance to existing militaries, as they borrow a bit from European technology. They’re the only race that comes loaded with artillery, and the Iroquois pack additional siege units as well, including battering rams and mantlets to complement their light cannons. Players that rely on speed will look to the Sioux. Masterful horse-trainers, the Sioux focus almost entirely on cavalry; offering axe, bow, and rifle-bearing riders, and can also produce powerful dog soldiers. The Aztecs are also known for their quickness, but do it on foot – the eagle runner knight effectively substitutes for cavalry, and other units, like the stealth-able jaguar prowl knight, make the Aztec a stout foe. The Europeans won’t feel left out, though, as they receive elite units ranging from ninjas, gatling guns, petards, ironclad warships, and spies to counter a few of the strengths that the Native Americans offer.

Aside from some capable infantry, the other strong suit that Indian armies call upon is a useful little structure known as a fire pit. Like a farm or plantation, settlers can be allocated to the fire pit, but instead of gathering food or coin for you, they’ll provide bonuses on-the-fly as they dance in unison – banging drums and fox-trotting around the flame. As more settlers are directed towards the pit by your able mouse cursor, they’ll cumulatively increase your maximum population, pump out medicine men to heal your units, boost your attack, or improve your experience trickle rate, depending on which bonus you select. The fire pit allows your army to be more flexible and change as its needs change – it isn’t quite as practical early on, but once resource-gathering becomes less of a priority, amassing parties of dancers can be surprisingly effective as the end-game nears.

But sometimes dancing gets tiresome: settlers get anxious and want to join the fight themselves. If you’ve ever considered moving your farmers from the fields to the frontlines, you can employ the major gameplay element that Ensemble added in WarChiefs: the ability to initiate a revolution. The revolution acts like another advancement, but takes the place of aging-up one’s civilization to the Imperial Age. Designed as a last-ditch, risk-it-all option, declaring a revolution converts any and all settlers you have into militia, and allows you to call in mighty units like the gatling gun through your home shipments. On the flipside, a revolution disables your ability to produce new units or structures, meaning that you’re nearly limited to what you have on the screen to defeat your foes. Either way, it opens up new tactics to players, and will suit generals that prefer an aggressive style of play.

While new units and the revolution supplement the features at hand, WarChiefs’ campaign mode represents the heart of the experience. A loosely-connected, pseudo-historic series of events tours us through the battles of Bunker Hill, Yorktown, Saratoga, Valley Forge, and others, and while the story does keep things interesting, rightly so, it’s the missions themselves that shine. War Chiefs appropriately assumes that players enter the game with a few battles under their belt, and the missions start getting tricky as early as the third, where you’re ordered to hold a hill and two coastal cannons while protecting against oncoming enemy squads.

What stands out about the missions is how Ensemble finds new ways to re-imagine and re-tool objectives, or at least how the player goes about accomplishing them. Some levels will have you juggling multiple skirmishes at once, managing your forces in different areas. Some will encourage you to take your time in amassing an attack division. Others require small-scale tactics, like Yorktown, where you’ll lead George Washington on a particularly thrilling stealth mission across the Delaware to disable the enemy. Each is unique and appealing in its own right, without feeling tiresome, too linear or too easy.

One of the early missions from Act II is a good example of Ensemble’s ability to keep things varied and non-repetitive. Initially you’re tasked to guard a group of settlers as they chop wood to build a fort. Armed with only a handful of militia, you rely on resources from your trading posts as wagons travel past. After enough trees have fallen and you’ve fended off wave after wave of attackers, your commander directs you to move in on the Sioux village and eliminate your opponents. A short dialogue occurs, and main character Chayton Black objects, saying “I won’t kill women and children.” Unimpressed by your insolence, your former commander is now your enemy, and the once-pesky Sioux (who were after your settlers just seconds ago), now become allies under your command. It’s moments like these, ones that twist the story and gameplay in unison, that keep the campaign dynamic and force players to re-think their objectives on-the-fly.

Presentation-wise as well, Ensemble carries the same quality from the original. The score that runs through WarChiefs is especially enjoyable: cinematic, epic melodies don’t contribute to the game’s repetitive nature. The voice acting falls somewhere between respectable and basic, though it never fails to get the job done during ingame-rendered cutscenes.

Age of Empires III doesn’t hinder itself by putting more emphasis on mobility rather than base-building; on commanding units instead of managing structures, but newcomers to the series will find just two defensive emplacements (the tower and the fort, which is extremely expensive, and large enough to be a base itself) to choose from. During development, Ensemble spoke openly about how it didn’t want to encourage players to turtle (some members of the team were even opposed to including walls as a structure), but at the same time, the game lacks a fulfilling feeling of crafting defenses around one’s base. We like that most multiplayer matches on WarChiefs don’t drag and dwell and become battles of attrition, but the expansion was an excellent opportunity for Ensemble to create more defensive options for players.

AI responsiveness also continues to be an infrequently frustrating issue in WarChiefs. In several campaign missions we played, enemy patrols waltzed right through our lines and into our base, ignored like a younger sibling. Likewise, there are some cases where you’ll need to guide your infantry like infants, especially when moving them through complex maps – while you may be aware of the best route to take to get from point A to B, your units aren’t the best navigators, apparently.

Expansion packs are generally hit-or-miss in terms of the features they supply versus the price tag they’re pegged with. In this way, Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs hits its target pretty accurately – representing a healthy addition to what’s already there. With good reason, Ensemble is a company that seeks to provide a specific kind of experience in its titles, and though some gamers may miss additional content like added defensive structures in WarChiefs that could have been added, overall the game remains balanced, and is improved by the addition of three new factions, the ability to declare a revolution, and other minor improvements. For details on Age of Empires III, click here.

More structures would have been nice, but otherwise the expansion truly expands.

Still stunning – buildings break apart fluidly, and the Native armies are well-represented.

An epic score sprinkled with a symphony of cannon- and musket-fire. Impressive for an RTS.

Each battle feels richly unique and different.

New units for the Europeans help refresh what’s already there, but it's mostly more of the same

]]> Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:57:00 -0500 Tim Grube http://www.gamebump.com/go/lineage_ii_epic_collection_ships_to_stores http://www.gamebump.com/go/lineage_ii_epic_collection_ships_to_stores http://www.gamebump.com/go/lineage_ii_epic_collection_ships_to_stores# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.

“With our customer base continually growing both here in North America and abroad, we felt it was time to offer both fans of Lineage II and new players a truly unique retail package,” said Dorothy Ferguson, NCsoft North America’s vice president of sales and marketing. “With the huge amounts of content we have added to Lineage II – more than doubling the game world’s size since launch in 2004 – we thought it made perfect sense to offer this unique collection. We hope current customers and new players alike will enjoy the benefits of The Epic Collection, which offers a lot of good extras for the same cost of a regular game time card.”

Lineage II: The Epic Collection is available at North American retailers and at the PlayNC online store for an estimated street price of US$29.99. ]]> Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:42:00 -0500 Brian Mohr http://www.gamebump.com/go/elite_beat_agents_tracks_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/elite_beat_agents_tracks_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/elite_beat_agents_tracks_announced# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.

The upcoming music game Elite Beat Agents is a hit in Japan titled Osu! Tatakae! Oendan! The game is finally making it's way to the U.S. and will be completely original for the U.S. market.

By being original, the game will feature songs for a stateside market. Songs in the game include:Walkie Talkie Man - Steriogram ABC - Jackson Five Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne I Was Born to Love You - Queen Rock This Town - Stray Cats Highway Star - Deep Purple Y.M.C.A. - Village People September - Earth, Wind and Fire Canned Heat - Jamiroquai Material Girl - Madonna La La - Ashlee Simpson You're the Inspiration - Chicago Survivor - Destiny's Child Without a Fight - Hoobastank Believe - Cher Let's Dance - David Bowie Jumpin Jack Flash - Rolling StonesMakes No Difference - Sum 41 The Anthem - Good Charlotte

Elite Beat Agents will officially release for the Nintendo DS on November 8th. ]]> Mon, 16 Oct 2006 23:47:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/eidos_announces_chili_con_carnage http://www.gamebump.com/go/eidos_announces_chili_con_carnage http://www.gamebump.com/go/eidos_announces_chili_con_carnage# Eidos has announced they are developing a third-person shooter for the PlayStation Portable titled Chili Con Carnage.

The Mexican style shooter will have gamers play as Ramiro Cruz who is fighting the underworld of Los Toros as he tries to avenge the death of his father. In the process, he is looking to battle local drug hound Cesar Morales' and his drug cartel. The game looks to feature 19 missions in seven different locales including ones as diverse as the city and jungle. The game promises four different game modes both in single and multiplayer.

Deadline Games CEO, Chris Mottes said, "Eidos gave us the challenge to create the fastest and most gun crazy action game to be released on the handheld machine. And we have delivered Chili Con Carnage - a burning hot Mexican shooter with the biggest explosion frequency and the highest takedown rate you will ever experience on the PSP."

NHL: Eastside Hockey Manager 2007 is slated for release across North America and Europe in September 2006 priced at $34.99. It will be released for the Mac and PC.

The information trickle has become, well... less trickle-ish.

For those of you, like myself, slavishly devoted to the Warhammer IP and following the development of Warhammer Online like some sort of digital messiah, WAR's website has finally been updated with the first two of six race descriptions: Dwarves and Greenskins.

Expanding on the "tanking classes" update, the army pages provide more Warhammerish-fluff on the available races, and a better idea of the flavor involved in the game.

So named because of the color of their waxy skin, the greenskins are savagery personified. They are ill-tempered, primitive, and live only to fight. In the absence of another foe, greenskins will eventually turn on one another for want of violence. In their culture, might makes right and the weakest members of society are one false step away from being dinner.

The greenskins have no homeland to speak of. They capture other race's settlements and then make those places their own, decorating them with tribal graffiti, wood and scrap materials fashioned into crude symbols, and oftentimes, the bones of those they have slain. This leads to a very unique form of architecture that is distinctively ramshackle.

Periodically, a powerful Orc Warboss will unite the greenskin tribes into a single swarming mass called a "Waaagh!", named for the common greenskin battle-cry. In a Waaagh! , the greenskins unite into a stampede of frenzied Orcs, Goblins and Snotlings bent on destroying everything they encounter. Save for pure Chaos itself, there is no force in the Warhammer world as devastating as a Waaagh! set in motion.

Ah, the savagery that is the Waaagh. My eyes mist up at the memories.

We'll keep you updated on all the newest happenings of this greatly-anticipated challenger to the Warcraft hegemony.]]> Tue, 08 Aug 2006 08:15:00 -0500 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_blade_dancer_lineage_of_light_psp http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_blade_dancer_lineage_of_light_psp http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_blade_dancer_lineage_of_light_psp# This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

Though the PlayStation Portable may have its shortcomings, if it’s one thing Sony’s sleek handheld doesn’t lack, it’s basic RPGs – most of which have been coming from Sony’s in-house Japan developers. Titles like Kingdom of Paradise and the Untold Legends series have at least given PSP RPGers something to tide them over until more high-quality games (including Square’s just released Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth) have hit the market, and in that vain comes NIS America’s Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light, another Sony in-house title made in Japan.

Blade Dancer is a basic RPG that throws in an average hero, a “save the world” quest, a flashy opening, tons of enemies to plow through, and a lovely anime style that RPG fans will appreciate, but it isn’t enough. Despite the fact that the title is actually playable, its flaws will combine to overwhelm you and will leave you both frustrated and infuriated at its gameplay.

Blade Dancer begins with a typical plot-base: gamers are cast as Lance, a young adventurer hoping to test his skills in the secretive kingdom of Foo, which has just begun opening its doors to the rest of the world. Though Lance is eager to jump into the fray and help as many people as he can get his hands on (slaying dozens of foes while he’s at it), Blade Dancer doesn’t start with a traditional main quest; instead, the game allows the player to freely roam around town while picking up side quests, meeting NPCs, and learning the immediate layout of the land. Eventually the player is thrust into the primary storyline, which sees Lance (who may, or may not be the famed “Blade Dancer” – judging from the moon on his face, I’d say it’s a solid bet) fighting against an evil force from Foo’s dark past. In the process, there’s a pretty girl who needs rescuing and a world that needs protecting from this sinister figure, and of course a few allies who are willing to help Lance along the way. 

The action in Blade Dancer can be summed up in a simple formula: you maneuver Lance through the town, picking up quests and preparing for danger before actually trading the security of those big gray walls for lots and lots of monsters. The missions are quite standard and involve you seeking out characters, foes, and items to exchange for rewards. Prior to leaving town to embark on an adventure, however, you’re forced to stock up on items – especially crafting objects – because every piece of weaponry in the game has a durability meter that represents the likelihood of its shattering during combat.

And because your weapons break, you’re faced with two options: either purchasing duplicates from the weapon store (easy, but pricey) or making your own copies. To do this it’s off to the appraiser’s office, where an NPC will charge you the flat rate of 100G to disassemble your desired object (weapon, potion, or armor). Once you’ve broken Lance’s new sword into pieces, you can then pay to have the appraiser break each piece into its pieces, and so on until you’ve got a set of recipes that will eventually lead you back up to your new sword.

After you’ve enriched the appraiser it’s off to the crafting broker, who will sell you some of the basics needed to craft duplicates of the sword you just reassembled yourself (that lazy appraiser won't help you here). Crafting is a big highlight in Blade Dancer’s gameplay; if you’re the RPGer who is delighted by the opportunity of creating junk and then selling it at mark-up, or using that junk because weapons constantly break on you, you’ll have a great time. Lance is gifted with 100 item slots to hold all those crafting materials, complete with an arrange (i.e., stack) option, so there’s plenty of room to collect crafting goodies. To obtain them, though, you’ll have to use both the crafting broker and the game’s battle scheme, as some materials are only dropped off monsters.

Once you’ve filled Lance’s slots with potions and duplicate swords, it’s time to move outside for some actual fighting. Enemies in Blade Dancer come in small groups and are represented on-screen by giant flying skulls; the skulls’ color indicates how below (blue) or above (red) your level the opponents are, while a nice, angry white skull is a perfect target. The skulls patrol set paths and either make chomping gestures while they’re fleeing from Lance or soar right into him to instigate a fight. Then the now-traditional active-time battle system kicks in and things get a bit more interesting. Blade Dancer’s fight sequences make use of lunar clocks, which are small circles next to each teammate’s name. As the “hand” on the clock comes full circle, an exclamation point lights up and it’s time to select that character to plan an attack; characters can also use items, run away (always handy), or equip a different weapon (preferably one that won’t break during the fight). However, there's no defense option.

Each attack, whether it’s derived from an opponent or an ally, fills up the shared lunar gauge, which is the bar at the top of the screen that determines a character’s “lunabilities”. Lunabilities are special abilities that are unleashed from within each character, and each requires a certain amount (points... ) of lunar energy, which is taken from the lunar gauge. They range from solo specials to powerful group attacks that involve the whole team, and also contain the typical heal, defense up, attack up, etc., spells. The lunability feature definitely increases the game’s difficulty level, as you’ll want to use up points on the lunar gauge before your opponents do and also keep tab on whose raising the bar the most/preparing to go lunar on Lance’s team. When someone is about to launch a lunability, hitting that person (again, friend or foe) will often break the charge and return those lunar points to the gauge.

All of this fighting and exploring would be incomplete without several towns to visit and various environments to explore, and Hit Maker at least made an attempt to enliven the experience. The game makes use of the typical waterfall or steam, along with lush, green forests and blue skies overhead. For more enhanced visuals, character animations are smooth and are highlighted by long segments of Lance running from place to place, while the cutscenes (which use in-game graphics and vibrantly colored storyboard character depictions) give the game much needed presentation points. Lunabilities performed during battles are also nice touches and provide the gamer with some graphical flash. 

To keep up with the average visual presentation, Blade Dancer features some lovely background music used for towns and important moments. The game’s opening theme is also very catchy, and voiceovers thankfully offer two options: either the energetic English approach, or traditional Japanese voiceacting (pick the latter). Typical ambient sounds – Lance’s feet hitting the earth, sword slashes, etc., - also abound. 

A key word used for describing the majority of Blade Dancer’s gameplay is “mediocre,” and that’s on a respectful note. To put it bluntly, nearly every aspect of the game is going to irritate you, beginning with the plot. Lance just sort of falls into the main storyline: He journeys to Foo, seeking adventure, and happens to find it (i.e., the bad guy). He essentially does what he can because he can, and despite his noble promise to help people, the gamer doesn’t take away much in terms of explanation or character depth – which is why I didn’t bother to detail the rest of the party. Tess, Gozen, and Felis are as static as Lance and should be considered as nothing more than animated place holders for Lance’s back-up attacks, and this is a bad thing for an RPG because RPGs encourage you to form attachments to characters and events – which requires context.

The next fault concerns the representational skulls in place of real enemies, which not only cheapens the experience (you’re not avoiding life-threatening dragons or challenging terrifying pirates, but skulls... ) but aggravates you as the skulls line up while they chase you down. In the end, you’re fighting several battles as the skulls catch up to you, such that you’re battling in succession; the real pain here is that you can’t stop to heal yourself between the mayhem (Hit Maker recommends lengthening fights in order to cast heal spells before the win for precisely this reason). You get the same problem during exploration when you’re stuck in certain areas – like closed corridors – because the skulls quickly regenerate and resume patrol. Add to this the fewer save spots/life points (save circles don’t heal you, and therefore the game needs life points) and weapons that routinely break for a hellish good time.

Moreover, there’s a serious balancing issue. Despite the blue/white/red marked skulls, some of the blue skulls house opponents that can and will decimate your team on occasion, while white skulls can be harder than the red. The improper balancing (paired with the inability to heal before the next fight) means that you’ll be dying a lot, especially while traversing areas teaming with white/red skulls. And frequent dying, of course, adds to the already frequent loading times, which occur as you zone into new segments of town or even enter/leave a house.

Another flaw is really three-fold. Lance runs quite slowly throughout the large areas, so when you’re running from place to place (in town) before you set out for monster-slaying and girl-saving, prepare for a lot of backtracking, which amounts to a lot of wasted time. More so when you’re working with fewer save spots, because when you load up after a death you’re headed straight through the same areas only to die again. Furthermore, due to the game’s poor balancing, you’ll be spending a lot of hours leveling up, going back to town to re-equip and forge duplicates, and then more travel time running all the way back to where you left off.

Blade Dancer’s presentation also takes a few hits. The environments are quite bland and amount to a bulk of gray – castles, walls, streets – or brown – walls, streets, etc., - or green (those forests again). There’s also a slight draw-in problem for characters and items, as they only pop up when you’re approaching them and hence, you can rarely see anything off in the distance. Many of the areas feature spots covered in a light mist or very tight hallways (that you can’t avoid baddies while you walk through), and again, this cheapens what you’re seeing. Characters models, while average, are also recycled between characters of the same class/type (i.e., peasants). Animations are smooth when you do get them during cutscenes/while Lance plays errand boy, but in some spots they’re almost removed entirely. For example, during battle sequences when Lance or an ally approaches an opponent, he just pops up in front of the selected target and swipes – there’s a three second gap during which Lance is running to his foe that is removed from the action, and Blade Dancer doesn’t need that gap.

The audio fares no better. The player gets absolutely no sound while she travels through areas outside of town, with the exception of Lance’s footfall and the strange noise emitted from the skulls as they target Lance for the kill. The game offers no music during very long bouts of roaming for missions, and that’s an extreme downside for an RPG that forces you to put in that extra roaming time.

I’m also displeased with the crafting system, which is supposed to make it easier (and cheaper) to create duplicates so that Lance and friends can level up with less worries. Unfortunately, some of the items needed for more advanced weaponry aren’t sold at the crafting broker, and this becomes added frustration when you can’t get the items to drop on the field.

Finally, the game’s worst fault is that because the action, the missions, the battles, and Lance are so ungodly slow, you’ll be in the same stage of the game 15 hours in as you were at 1 hour, and that’s just painful. You can spend a dozen hours of your life wading through Blade Dancer’s enemies and not get anywhere – few directions, too many re-spawning baddies, breaking weapons, no music during your hours of struggle, widely dispersed save/life circles, bland environs, lots of repetition, backtracking, and lots of boredom are all present in Blade Dancer – and all are the aspects of the masochist’s RPG. 

And if you are a masochist, feel free to encourage your friends to purchase additional copies so you can create teams for network play because suffering through the main game just isn’t enough. 

As an avid RPGer and NIS America fan, I was definitely expecting more from Hit Maker and Sony's Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light. As it stands, the goal of the game seems to be that you level up to the point that you can walk through a new area without dying in the middle, and this isn’t enjoyable in the slightest. If you’ve got an urge for an extremely challenging and unrewarding (yet functional) RPG, give it a go. Everyone else is better off waiting for the next PSP game. 

Functional, but painful, and I’m not a fan of repetitious pain.

The environs are livable and animations work well, when we get them. Needs more flash.

When we get it. Town music, opening theme, and Japanese voiceovers are nice, though.

It’s not completely terrible and is far from a very bad game, so you may have some fun.

As with most RPGs, if you like it enough to finish, you’ll spend a lot of time with it.

]]> Wed, 02 Aug 2006 19:31:00 -0500 Aaron Dunlap http://www.gamebump.com/go/video_first_look_at_ninja_turtles_from_ubisoft http://www.gamebump.com/go/video_first_look_at_ninja_turtles_from_ubisoft http://www.gamebump.com/go/video_first_look_at_ninja_turtles_from_ubisoft# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.

Those lucky enough to be young in the 1990s probably have a special connection with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and probably even more-so to their famous entries into the videogaming arena (I still say TMNT IV: Turtles in Time is the best beat-em-up ever made).

You've probably already heard about the new CGI Ninja Turtle movie in the works, a teaser trailer was just released this week. Well, did you know that Ubisoft is making the game adaptation? Every other Turtles game in history has been made by Konami, but sadly the latest creations have been... less than awesome. Well, for the people on the fence regarding whether or not to be excited about this new TMNT game, Ubisoft has released this behind-the-scenes video for Comic Con.

Ubisoft is one off the most infallible game publishers right now; they're responsible for Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, GRAW, and pretty much every game that plays as well as it looks. This game is being made specifically by the Montreal office of Ubisoft, the same office responsible for the upcoming Rainbow Six: Vegas. From what we can see of TMNT from this video, it looks like they're working on their trademark specular and bloom lighting, as well as a very fluid Prince of Persia-esq acrobatic movement system.

The game is set to release along with the new movie in March of 2007 (that means PS3, folks), so there's still plenty of time to (hopefully) make this the best TMNT game ever.

 You'll need the Divx web player if you want to watch the embedded version, or you could download the video directly here (23mb).

divxMovie('http://files.gaminghorizon.com/TMNT_Comicon_2006_Final.divx',true); ]]> Sat, 22 Jul 2006 14:29:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_age_of_conan_hyborian_adventures_pc1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_age_of_conan_hyborian_adventures_pc1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_age_of_conan_hyborian_adventures_pc1# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Nate Francis.

MMO.

Those three letters are the key to some of the most profitible game franchises ever launched. From stubbornly popular titles like EVE Online to the industry juggernaut World of Warcraft, the MMO represents the chance for a good studio to write its own check. The lure of that kind of cash has led to an explosion of subscription-based games, most attempting to convince potential customers that their game is worth somewhere from 9-15 dollars a month, in perpetuity. 

From the "frontier days", when three titles - Ultima Online, EverQuest and Asheron's Call -  blazed the path for those that would follow, we've come now, in nine short years, to a cutthroat MMO battlefield. Dozens of more or less successful titles litter the landscape, with dozens more ever in development. As one game dies, two more take its place. Innovators are copied, sometimes within a matter of weeks. In this type of environment, anything is possible for a developer with talent, vision, a marquee franchise and dogged determination. 

Into this fray, the mighty Conan will cast his bloody gage. 

Age of Conan, Funcom's second foray into the MMO market, will trade on the world's most recognizable fantasy hero while thrusting its players into a dark, savage and deadly world of demonology, wanton cruelty and human sacrifice. Going to retail with a Mature rating from the ESRB, a potentially risky move for a subscription-based game, will ensure that players will be able to revel in the gritty (un)reality of the Conan universe - complete with in-game guttings and beheadings. However, that's only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, in this highly anticipated game. 

Your Hyborean journey begins ignominiously: In the belly of a slave ship, chained to an oar. That is, unless you happen to roll a female character. In that event, you're chained to the wall, as crew entertainment. It's at this point, early on, when you begin to understand that you're in an edgier, less politically-correct environment than your standard-fare MMO. Yes, you'll escape the mildewy confines of your rowing bench, and wash up on a beach, where your journey will truly begin. Armed only with your manacles and a broken length of wood, you'll have to fight your way across an island and begin your progression through the single-player portion of the game. 

Yep. The next twist in your new MMO experience is that you don't start it online! Age of Conan features a single-player game which takes you to level 20. Therein, you'll be exposed to all of the elements of story, mechanics and gameplay which will carry you to level 80 in the multiplayer game. Funcom, true to its name, knew that this would prove tedious to plow thorugh over multiple characters; once you've completed it the first time, subsequent characters on your account will have the option to skip the single-player introduction and begin the game at level 20. 

Of course, the process of completing that levelling will require you to kill a whole hell of a lot of people. It's then that the next hook buries itself into your flesh: Conan's combat mechanics share a lot more with Oblivion than EverQuest. The game requires meleers to aim their weapons with the mouse, and then use one of six different attack angles to try to hit exposed parts of their enemy's body. Archers, on the other hand, will be drawn into what closely resembles a first-person perspective, complete with targetting reticle. The idea here is that your dexterity will count, and skill will matter. While combat occurs at a pace that more uncoordinated players can still manage and be comfortable with, dextrous players like those used to the frantic pace of shooters will likely be rewarded with outstanding ability and results. As players level, new combos and finishing moves are unlocked; beheadings become possible, and one finisher is said to involve impaling someone, then kicking the corpse off your blade as you turn to face your next opponent. 

If you're anything like me, that made you grin. 

At level 20, you'll move into the real game, where you'll adventure with other players (and sometimes kill them). A quest-based system will help you progress through to endgame - 60 more levels of oily barbarians, loincloth-sporting Picts and the various monsters and demons that generally make Hyborea a very, very dangerous place. A robust guild system will support full-scale town construction and sieging. Player crafters will make some of the most deadly equipment in the game. A PvP system will be implemented in such a way as to make it available for those who desire it, while allowing more casual players to enjoy the PvE game on their own terms. While that's sure to create some angst and ill-will among those of you who are straight-up PvP-gangstas from the hood (that hood being Shadowbane, presumably), harken then to this: The game has been designed and coded in such a fashion that, should demand be present, full PvP servers can quickly be implemented and brought online. 

Oh, and did I mention the return of mounted combat? Grab your lance, kick your horse (or camel, or... mammoth) into a gallop, and get ready to explode some kids. The power of a mounted attack brought at full speed is said to be utterly devastating. 

Excited yet?

The world waits breathlessly to see if any MMO can begin to knock World of Warcraft off its pedestal - heck, even to find out if someone can make a dent in its massive playerbase. Age of Conan may not necessarily be the game to do that; its M rating is well-earned, and purposefully so. It is a game developed to appeal to an older, smaller audience and give them an engrossing, perhaps more realistic experience. 

Yet, there are many, this reviewer included, who tire of WoW's endless grinds. We tire of the ridiculousness of much of the playerbase. We're the people who understand that "Barrens Chat" is akin to cursing. We tire of running the same instance over and over and over, for months, to earn a dozen pieces of gear that will only assist in conquering the next grind. Six million apples ripe for the plucking. We are, collectively, looking for the next big thing - and for the adults among us, Age of Conan might be just that.

Look for beta to begin soon, with a planned release in Q4 2006.  ]]> Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:55:18 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/rampage_to_rampage_ps2_and_gc http://www.gamebump.com/go/rampage_to_rampage_ps2_and_gc http://www.gamebump.com/go/rampage_to_rampage_ps2_and_gc# Remember George the Ape, Lizzie the Lizard, and Ralph the Werewolf? Kudos to those that do, but for those that don't, you'll be able to acquaint yourselves with them when next Spring comes. Midway, today, revealed that the Rampage franchise will make its return in Rampage: Total Destruction.

The original games were simplistic, only involving destroying everything in sight including buildings, cars, helicopters, and even eating people. Midway has mentioned that more monsters other than the original three will be unlockable.

Rampage: Total Destruction is set for a Spring 2006 release for the PS2 and GameCube with an MSRP of $19.99.

"Finally a home console system is being released that can do Football Manager justice", comments Miles Jacobson, Managing Director of Sports Interactive. "We promise the most in-depth console management experience ever! "

"It's only fitting that the most powerful games console in the market has the most popular and powerful football management game" commented Matt Woodley, Creative Director of SEGA "I'm particularly impressed by the way SI have re-designed the interface and controls to make it Xbox 360 perfect"

Football Manager 2006 for Xbox 360 and Football Manager for PSP are due for release in early spring, 2006. Football Manager 2006 will release in November 2005 on PC/Mac.

Additional content will be added to all existing European civilizations as well. More info is expected at this years E3 in May.

S2 Games has published a new gameplay trailer for its Savage 2: A Tortured Soul on the PC, sequel to Savage: The Battle for Newerth. The game is currently slated for release this fall. Enjoy, and if you're interested you can check out the game's official site, located here.

Download the DivX Browser Plug-In.

]]> Tue, 21 Feb 2006 11:09:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/age_of_kings_announced_for_ds http://www.gamebump.com/go/age_of_kings_announced_for_ds http://www.gamebump.com/go/age_of_kings_announced_for_ds#
This new Age of Empires game introduces turn-based strategy and features five different civilizations (Britons, Franks, Mongols, Saracens, and Japanese), hero units (Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan), 50+ technologies for research (chemistry, siege craft, spying) a combat advisor, wireless multiplayer up to four players, and all the musical treats from the PC version.

"Age of Empires has set the gold standard for real-time strategy games and its global audience continues to grow," said Ken Gold, VP Marketing, Majesco. "Our portable version provides an exceptional game experience by taking advantage of the new DS features, and we are excited to have such a high-profile and well-regarded property spearhead our DS lineup for the back-half of 2005."

Age of Empires: The Age of Kings is scheduled for release this holiday season. Originally written by Shiva Stella]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:37:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/midnight_club_3_release_date_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/midnight_club_3_release_date_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/midnight_club_3_release_date_announced# Rockstar Games has announced a release date for their upcoming racer Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition.

The game is scheduled to ship for the Playstation 2 and Xbox on April 12th, 2005. DUB Edition lets you race through the streets of Atlanta, Detroit and San Diego. The game also looks to feature eight-player online support and vehicle custimizations.

Though we now have the date for the Playstation 2 and Xbox, Rockstar didn't give any date for the PSP version yet.

The titles are based around the idea to keep your brain active and have had a lot of success in Japan by selling over 1 million units each.

Nintendo Executive Vice President of Sales, Reggie Fils-Aime said, "Our brain-training series, led by Brain Age, builds on the popularity of word and number puzzles and acts as a treadmill for the mind."

Brain Age: Train Your Brain is scheduled to release on April 17th, while Brain Age: Big Brain Academy will hit retailers on May 30th.

Playlogic just released a new trailer for their upcoming sandbox/free-roaming swashbuckling game entitled Age of Pirates. Consider yourself warned though - the trailer doesn't show anything from the gameplay, just a prerendered montage of sorts. You can check it out right below. Age of Pirates is scheduled for a March 2006 release.

Age of Pirates Trailer #2 (22.3 MB) ]]> Thu, 05 Jan 2006 00:38:00 -0600 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/new_blade_dancer_screens http://www.gamebump.com/go/new_blade_dancer_screens http://www.gamebump.com/go/new_blade_dancer_screens# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.

Our friends over at Joystiq are running a story that announces an online petition for Konami to bring the 1991 classic game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time, or any other games in the series to Xbox Live Arcade. As of press time, there are a total of 22 signatures. Head on over and sign it by clicking the link below.

Online Petition]]> Fri, 09 Dec 2005 13:41:00 -0600 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_3__mutant_nightmare_ds http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_3__mutant_nightmare_ds http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_3__mutant_nightmare_ds# This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare’s console renditions have not been well received, but Turtles fans should be pleased by Konami’s DS version, which utilizes the same storyline as its big brothers but with more functional gameplay mechanics. In a lot of ways the game is a return to Konami’s successful handheld past, but while it’s certainly better than its console relatives, it’s still not the Turtles handheld experience of a lifetime.

Mutant Nightmare’s plot is the same one utilized in the console versions with little variation. There are four episodes (three normal, one nightmare) and the plot revolves around Fugitoid, a robot that the turtles need to save from the triceratons because he’s... super smart, and it’s the right thing to do. Along the way players encounter the “mysterious Bishop” (the guy out to snatch turtle DNA to create monsters), Shredder (the franchise’s famous bad guy), and – once again – Ultimate Drako (an evil dragon creature just thirsting for revenge). The storyline’s strongest twist is that game allows each turtle to personalize the experience some, as each gives a different version of each world’s introductory events.

The game offers four typical modes of player. You can enter the story (single-player campaign) mode, select a turtle, and go through the six stages/four worlds for the meat of the game. Each stage takes about five-ten minutes to complete depending on its difficulty (levels in the latter worlds pose a significantly greater challenge than in the first two), and essentially you just walk through, defeating enemies as the exclamation icon pops on-screen. You can also check out the battle mode, which sports 12 stages and has you collecting crystals under a time limit; this mode is perhaps the game’s best aspect, as the levels get progressively harder (and thus, much more fun) as you go on. Practice mode is just a light training level for each turtle, and multiplayer grants you access to 2-4 player matches in battle mode (once again, collecting crystals against each other), practice mode (a training arena), and cooperative mode (again, you’re collecting crystals; this is not the actual story mode played out with the four turtles).

The turtles have very basic and effective maneuvers, aided by a simple control scheme. The A button performs jumps and helps swing you up or down a ledge; Y does a special attack (be forewarned: this attack drains your own health when used); X summons a turtle brother for a special screen-clearing attack (you get at least three of these attacks/level); and B performs basic swipes, kicks, and grabs. Enemies in Mutant Nightmare aren’t very bright – sometimes they’ll sit below you for a few moments until they finally decide to swing themselves up to your level – but they’re functional; they punch, charge, shoot, toss bombs at, and throw mutant goo at you. The game includes boss fights which provide some variety, along with vehicular control (motorcycle, sky vehicle) and ally characters that you sometimes get to fight side by side with (or simply carry throughout) during a stage. A few levels also feature jump platforms that hoist you into the air, watery areas, electrical shortages, steel gates, giant boulders, and wall poles for swinging, and to help you navigate, the game includes a boxed map.

Mutant Nightmare’s presentation isn’t too bad, and the Turtles franchise is more visually suited for the DS than the consoles. Characters are highly detailed, down to the turtles’ bandannas blowing in the wind, and certain special attacks are very cool to observe (especially the tag-team ones, which involve turtles flying through the air, slicing and dicing). Environments feature detailed backdrops usually visible through windows, and the color palette is appropriate, if typically dull. The music isn’t bad either, but it is monotonous, with almost the same song looped throughout each level (with the exception of boss fights or “important” stages).

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned the game’s distinct feature for the DS, that being the unit’s touch screen capabilities. This is because there is extremely little player interaction. You tap the screen to turn water valves or line up pipes, and not only is this the bulk of your use of the stylus during actual gameplay, but these segments are very sparse. On occasion you may find it convenient to tap the appropriate turtle for a help maneuver, but it’s faster to just hit the X button. That I used the stylus more to navigate through the menus than I did in actual gameplay is extremely disappointing. Why not just make it for the GameBoy Advance?

One of the title’s biggest problems is that once you’ve played through a world or two with a single turtle, you won’t have much interest to finish the game, much less switch to another turtle and complete the same levels all over again (though a few of the levels are restricted to a particular turtle). The battle mode is fun, but the single-player mode – especially if you’ve experienced the console versions – is just a bore. A few stages that utilize AI friends or a boss aren’t going to make up for this. And multiplayer is out of the question – how are you going to convince friends to buy this thing just so you can collect crystals together? A versus mode would have been more appropriate. 

The previously mentioned map could use some obvious adjustments, like the inclusion of an actual layout. The map presents levels in long boxes and shows a gold star to head to, but it’s quite useless except in battle mode, where it displays a crystal marker so players know what part of the mini-stage to run to next.

There isn’t too much wrong with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare for the DS, except that it’s lackluster, dull, very rarely uses the touch screen during gameplay, and is repetitive to the point where you know you won’t even convince one friend to pick up a copy for multiplayer “fun”. And yet the battle mode is actually enjoyable as its set to a timer, and offers the only real challenge to be had in Mutant Nightmare for the DS. Pick it up if you really love the Ninja Turtles, because although the game does have more merits than its console brethren, that’s not saying much.

Functional, but quickly becomes dull. Battle mode is its saving grace.

Not bad for the DS, though little to no flash. Decent character animations, but dull environs.

Not bad, but monotonous. Music could have used some additional tracks.

Do you really enjoy playing the same levels over again, just with a different colored turtle?

You’ll enjoy battle mode and maybe single-player.

]]> Thu, 08 Dec 2005 20:49:00 -0600 Aaron Dunlap http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_editorial_rip_ngage http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_editorial_rip_ngage http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_editorial_rip_ngage# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor.

I don't know anybody with one, and you probably don't know anybody with one, but the N-Gage is no more.

The idea is still valid, we're all still looking for the next big device "that's also a phone!" to come along. Apple fans fill up the MacWorld expo just hoping it'll be the year that Steve Jobs pulls an iPod phone from his pocket, and when the PlayStation Portable was still in development we were all expecting it to come out as a Sony Ericson cell phone that played games. Everyone wants to consolidate their gadgets; they want something else to be a phone.

And there is the key to Nokia's failure with the N-Gage. People wanted a game system that was also a phone, and they got a phone that played games.

As a game system, it was poor. As a phone, it was even poorer. As an all-around device, it was a horror story. Rest in piece, N-Gage; but don't even think about coming back to life.

Just before E3 2003, Nokia held a press conference in downtown LA and all of the gaming media was invited. They played loud music and dancers jumped around onstage while someone listed off bullet points about a fantastic new gaming platform that was also a phone. It played games in 3D, it could play MP3 music, and it even had a directional pad! "How much would you expect to pay for something like this?" the announcer asked as the music hit a crescendo.

"About $150, tops," someone in the audience chimed in.

The music silenced with a beat, and one of the dancers lifted the bottom of her shirt to reveal the price painted on her stomach: $299.99. Silence.

That had to be a joke. $300 for a portable system with a two-inch screen? It had better be one heck of a phone.

It wasn't. The first N-Gage was a total mess. On the games side of it, the MMC cards the games came on had to be installed while the unit was powered off and with the battery removed; the screen was taller than it was wide; and the graphics could best be described as pathetic. First generation PlayStation games like Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater had to be toned down to be ported onto the N-Gage. The phone side wasn't much better; the classy menus standard to other Nokia phones had been replaced with a buggy and confusing menu, and to actually talk on the phone you had to hold it up to your face sideways so you looked like a giant idiot rubbing the edge of a taco against his cheek. All that for only $300. Not to mention how big of a hassle it is in most cases to get a new cell phone, as you have to renew your wireless contract and worry about service plans and data packages and text messages and overage coverage and rollover minutes and Federal Cost Recovery Fees.

Initial response was predictable, as very few people wanted to pay $300 for a new phone with no camera or PDA features that people willing to spend $300 on a cell phone are looking for. A few gaming addicts with too much money to throw around got theirs and realized that side-talking was not very much fun at all.

Then at E3 2004, Nokia held another press conference. We wouldn't have gone, but we knew there would be free stuff given away so we cut it into our schedule. The conference was held on the fifth floor of a building with one tiny elevator in the heart of the section of LA you would wisely avoid. The show room was flooded with this atrocious red light that made it impossible to take pictures of the new upgraded N-Gage they were announcing.

Spread around the room were demonstrations of the new N-Gage that were affixed to kiosks at about waist height, so you had to sit on your knees or bend over at a 45 degree angle just to see what you were looking at. Some actress/model/part-time-waitresses were there with N-Gages tethered to their belts, and they were walking around and coming up to the journalists and asking if they'd checked out this cool new game. One of them came up to me while I was already playing another game. She called her game "Duty" and let me know that it was "reaaally good". I quickly realized that I was looking at a brief port of Call of Duty, a defacement of a spectacular game, I might add; and boy did I feel like the champion of awesomeville while standing there and playing a game on a tiny screen attached by a leash to an attractive and underpaid spokeswoman in the middle of a hellfire-red room.

Oh, and the sushi was terrible.

Then the main presentation was made from a stage. Representatives from Nokia went on about how they'd learned from their mistakes and were putting out the N-Gage QD. It was smaller, cheaper, and you didn't have to dissect the thing to swap games. All the while, the wireless microphones the presenters were using were cutting out and filling the room with a fine hiss intercut with ear-crunching static.

And now, a year and a half later – and three years after first launching the N-Gage product – Nokia is pulling the plug on the N-Gage, writing it off as a big fat mistake. They expected 6 million owners by this time (laugh), and according to them there are only 2 million. Even the 2 million sounds like a stretch, but having sold only a third of your projected number is just too darling.

So the other Big N is out of the gaming racket again, and hopefully everybody out there can learn from their blunder. It's already a huge task to break into the gaming market from scratch, just look at the Gizmondo (if you can find one), but to try to do so with a half-baked product that costs four times what it should and can't even match current generation technology is just madness.

Nokia has long been my favorite phone company, but they'll always be my least favorite gaming company.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare is the third installment in the recent batch of Turtles games released for this generation of consoles, and is based on events in the currently running cartoon show. The game of course stars everyone’s favorite reptiles – Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael – destined to save the planet from all sorts of evil beings, and casts players as their chosen turtle (with computer-controlled allies) or allows them to team up with three friends (all in single-player mode). The game sports a few improvements in comparison to its predecessors, but they’re clearly not enough, and Mutant Nightmare’s one glaring, unavoidable fault make it a bust: it quickly gets repetitive and dull.

Mutant Nightmare doesn’t have a storyline per se; it utilizes episodes to tell several individual stories and then tie them all together in the final, bonus episode. In one you protect the planet from angry alien invaders; in another you stop a crazed government agent from creating fiendish monsters with the Ninja Turtles’ DNA. The episodes aren’t dramatic, but function as a backdrop to the gameplay.

Mutant Nightmare features three modes of play but focuses mostly on its normal mode, which contains three regular episodes of about sixteen-eighteen stages each as well as a nightmare mode, which pits the turtles against a sum of the group’s “nightmares”, i.e. past foes and opponents from other worlds. You can select one turtle and allow the computer to control the other three, or grab some friends for a foursome. Each mission has a single objective that, when completed, unlocks the next level and occasionally grants a fun cartoon clip from the series. Most of the levels, usually the ones providing boss fights or minigames, are rather short, but there are lengthier ones that require navigating an area accompanied by a decent radar highlighted with arrows and target bubbles. The bulk of the gameplay has you and your computer-controlled brethren taking on various opponents – either dinosaur aliens, specialized government agents, or foot soldiers – sprawled throughout the stages. The AI is functional and sufficient for single-player progression, but it’s far from genius – your turtle buddies will routinely jump into walls, swipe at the air, and run into laser beams. Thankfully you can always gather them on you with a simple call, which keeps them from unnecessarily gobbling up health items or getting themselves pulverized by a boss.

Mutant Nightmare also makes fair use of several minigames that are sprinkled throughout the episodes, including fancy shuriken shooting (opponents rush directly into the camera for prompt disposal), hovercraft racing (you race against bad guys on bikes), and hang gliding (you dodge air mines during your descent). While they’re not the most engaging, they do break up the repetitiveness of walking through the same areas to kill stuff.

During regular play, perhaps to lighten the monotony, players can swipe things (canisters, barrels, etc) into the air and target them at opponents, and levels are dotted with breakable items. Some of the missions involve safely escorting characters (April, Master Splinter) throughout a small environment while others are more ordinary: get from point A to point B, or get from point A to point B to destroy target C. The objectives and minigames aren’t too grandiose or interesting, but considering the game’s target audience – Ninja Turtle fans watching the latest series – this is probably fitting.

The most intriguing aspect of Mutant Nightmare concerns its ninja scrolls, which are purchased by exchanging crystals (points) for spells/abilities. Some of the feats grant additional health or attack power while others enable the turtles to slowly drain an enemy’s HP or even don “ultimate” gear sets to annihilate any opponent. The ninja scrolls provide a light RPG touch and enable players to modify their teammates, but each turtle can only wear so many scrolls at a time. To offset this, Konami included special group attacks that flash button combinations on-screen in succession; if each player hits his buttons quickly enough (ideally in the right order) then the gang gathers for a devastating attack.

If you’re tired of normal mode you can always try out challenge or arcade mode. Challenge mode pits one turtle against a stack of foes for prizes, while arcade mode offers a true gem for the old-school gamer: Turtles in Time, revamped for a new generation and updated to present more enemies on-screen at once. Turtles in Time accommodates four players, which is a refreshing inclusion in Mutant Nightmare.

Due to the game’s top-down camera I can say that the turtles are graphically well presented and appropriately cell-shaded, but you’ll hardly notice. The 3D environments (accented by cell-shaded cars, items, canisters, and so on) are also nicely done, but again the game isn’t going to win any visual awards. What’s most important is that all the turtles move fluidly and spin about the stages independent of the player, performing flashy “strong” combos or dull “weak” ones. The cartoon cutscenes are a pleasant bonus, but more enjoyable is the inclusion of short CG sequences presented in the cell-shaded style, granting the game some graphical consistency.

To support the visual presentation, Konami included a light techno-rock theme played throughout every level as well as voiceovers done by the actual new cartoon voiceactors. The swipes, kicks, and punches are decent combat noises, but I personally preferred the music (and ambient sounds) from Turtles in Time over Mutant Nightmare’s bland offering.

There’s so much wrong in Mutant Nightmare that it’s a wonder Konami was able to get anything right. The game is extremely boring and dull, as its hack n’ slash gameplay becomes tiresome after the first five minutes of initial playtime. You run, you swipe, you run, and you swipe some more. The minigames are cute additions that don’t detract from the title’s insane boredom, and that they’re splattered throughout only does little for variety; tweaking the gameplay and giving players a reason to go through Mutant Nightmare would have been a tremendous improvement. Instead, on occasion you may use the special turtle attack, but it’s unnecessary as the game’s ninja scrolls, which you don’t need until the last boss battle in the nightmare mode, unbalance the gameplay. Mutant Nightmare is easy enough to play through without the slightest worry or concern that you’ll need this or that ninja scroll to win. Just tap the attack button and wait for all the opponents to run up and die. And without the ninja scrolls, you’re essentially just re-visiting the last Turtles game, which was also a flop. To complicate matters further, using the ninja scrolls for any other stage than the last boss fight makes the gameplay incredibly easy; just sit back and let the AI turtles swipe for you. Riveting.

The AI turtle buddies do function and make the game playable, however they also routinely bounce off walls, gobble up health items at inappropriate times, and run into laser beams. During boss fights they also become practically useless, as they don’t “think” about a boss’s attacks and only run up to get pummeled, placing the bulk of the fight on you.

The cutscenes that cut off prematurely in my preview build did not do so in my final version of the game, however they’re still presented in a cut-and-pasted manner. You hop from one level to the next with barely any connection or idea as to what the hell is going on, or why you’re even playing the game. The level descriptions don’t help: “use the hoverboard”, “fight the bad guys”, and so on aren’t enough to set the game. The audio catches also appear to have vanished from the final build, but that doesn’t make the audio any more enjoyable. The bland, silly background music alternates from unmentionable to annoying, and the dialogue delivered between turtles is plain and uninspiring. The game has its presentation moments, but they’re both few and still dull.

The lag that I experienced with a multitude of enemies on-screen at once has not disappeared, though it mostly worsens when you throw explosions into the mix, which apparently is too taxing for the game to handle. The bigger problem is the game’s use of repetitive, boring environments like sewers, laboratories, and street corners, and Mutant Nightmare has several stages per episode that utilize the same environmental setting. There’s nothing like spending an hour running through the same setting in multiple stages.

I also have a problem with the game’s overlay map, as it uses the same marker for both target objectives and new areas, and the two are not one and the same. Sometimes you’ll circle around in search of the target because you’re not sure if that highlighted circle is a new area, or a new area that leads to the target, which further wastes your time. 

I remain unimpressed with the updated Ninja Turtles franchise; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare does offer some multiplayer support which should be fun for children, but the game would be better if it just consisted of Turtles in Time and a few party games. As it stands, it’s a boring, repetitive, dull hack n’ slash game with bland visuals, unbalanced gameplay, and useless ninja scrolls. The cut-and-pasted presentation and lack of a consistent storyline (or even a more intense focus on the individual episode plots) also lower its quality. Pick this up if you’ve got kids in love with the Turtles franchise, but only as a rental.

It’s playable, but incredibly, horribly dull. Supports four players. Uninspiring hack n’ slash.

The visuals aren’t too bad, but they’re still extremely bland and don’t help the stale gameplay

Audio is equally as boring and repetitive, but quirky. Decent voiceacting for such bad dialogue

Maybe you’ll enjoy yourself by reliving some old Turtles memories. But I doubt it.

The odds that you’ll actually finish this game the first time do not look good (for the game).

]]> Wed, 16 Nov 2005 11:42:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_age_of_empires_iii_pc http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_age_of_empires_iii_pc http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_age_of_empires_iii_pc# This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Chuck Landry.

I doubt the Age of Empires franchise is new to anyone out there. If you’ve never played one of the games, I’m sure everybody has at the very least heard of them. The AOE series offered some of the first truly great RTS games out there, releasing on Windows back in 1997. It only required a Pentium 90 and a 1MB videocard, but even back then it sported some sharp graphics. But at the same time, it gave birth (in my mind at least) to the era of robotic, synchronized animation, when dozens of spear-throwers moved in unison on computer monitors around the world.

Age of Empires III comes to gamers at a time when the RTS genre is a much more competitive one than it was many moons ago. There are a lot of good games out there competing for the same precious allowance money so Ensemble Studios certainly knew they couldn’t half-ass the third AOE installment. Luckily they’ve released a polished title that might be worth shoveling snow for an extra neighbor or two.

First and foremost, the graphics in AOE 3 are simply stunning. The water looks better here than in most first-person shooters. It’s fantastic at looking realistically choppy and also at reflecting the environment such as nearby trees and wooden ships. All of the trees are animated so they sway and bend just a tad. That may not be new, but the artists actually did a great job of making them all just move slightly and seemingly at random, rather than having all the trees sway in exactly the same patterns over and over again simultaneously.

The high point of the graphical fanfare is definitely the special effects showcased as cannons destroy buildings. Every shot at a building seems to damage it realistically and the damage is modeled. Chunks of roofs pop off and fall to the ground; wood splinters and flies off, spinning into the air; and even the physics of crumbling buildings is realistic. The remains that separate from the still standing structures hit the ground realistically and actually stay there for a while. When a piece of the roof flies off, it doesn’t just fall from the sky directly through the ground to disappear, but it acts like a real slab of concrete, staying put until you’ve brought the entire building down.

But aesthetics don’t make a game – they only support it. AOE 3 is a typical RTS in most veins although it does do a little to expand the normal constraints of the genre. AOE 3 takes place during three chapters, each outlining the adventures of a different hero but all three part of one lineage, or family. The game takes place in the “new world”, so you’ll start off as an explorer vying for territory in the Americas, settling the new continent, claiming land for your home country, fighting Indians and all of that jazz we associate with the colonial age. The campaign mode is the best part of AOE 3, including a decent story, plenty of cutscenes, and lots of short bursts of objective-based chaos in the form of levels. The first chapter alone is a story that includes arriving at the new world, the Fountain of Youth, pirates, a secret cult, Mayan ruins, betrayal and friendship.

The actual mechanics of the game are mostly what you’d expect, and thus work rather well although there are some new twists you’ll need to adjust to. Some of them are natural and easy to grasp, such as the fact that your gatherers don’t need to “return” anything in order for you to add it to your supply. Foresters simply chop down trees in the woods until there aren’t any left. Farmers just cultivate the land to create food. Gatherers pick bushes dry. Miners…mine until the…mines are empty. The great part about this is that you don’t have to worry so much about exactly the best place to build a lumber mill or anything like that because it doesn’t matter – nobody has to walk back and forth between any buildings and their respective job. That’s one less thing to have to worry about – logistics. Good riddance!

Another nice thing is the sheer variety of ways in which to collect every resource. If you need food, you can send settlers after the wildlife, and they’ll hunt as long as they can. Or, you can find a berry bush and have them gather food there. Alternately, you can actually just build a food creating structure, such as a farm or an animal shelter and assign up to 10 settlers there. The beauty of that is in the choice, not to mention the fact that when you’ve run all of the resources dry, a building that never runs out of food like the farm is a welcome addition that should have been introduced sooner. Similarly, food can also be harvested from fish in the water using a fishing boat, and coin can be gathered from mines, by hunting whales, or sometimes by controlling key points, like treasure ships.

Another mechanic AOE 3 introduces is the hometown. This is kind of like a mix between a supply depot and your “crib” in ESPN’s later b-ball games. It’s customizable using points earned in normal gameplay, meaning you can add jugglers or a horse and buggy to your streets or even customize the color and size of the important buildings, but the most important function is the supply factor. As you earn experience points in the campaign, you can choose “cards” at your hometown. These cards are then deliverable boosts you can send to your town center during gameplay. Every once in a while you will have another shipment available, and by clicking the appropriate button, you are transported to your hometown (complete with juggler by now) to choose what you need the most. You’ll end up shipping cannons, crates of supplies or food, or even military units or upgrades.

Of course once you’re done with AOE 3’s campaign mode, you’re free to play in skirmishes or online with up to eight other players. In these modes you’ll slowly be able to “update” your civilization’s era. You’ll go from the colonial age to the frontier age and more, choosing with each change one of two paths. Sometimes you’ll choose a diplomatic leader, other times a naval commander or army sergeant, and each choice comes with its own upgrades and advantages.

Nothing bad can be said about the game’s production values. The graphics are nearly flawless. Most importantly, the clone-like synchronization is much more masked than it was eight years ago, and the battles look really, really great in AOE 3, especially when you bring in the heavy artillery, or during the naval battles which are equally spectacular. The musical score consists of the appropriate fanfare but never overexerts itself to the point of annoyance, and although the cutscenes are made with in-game graphics and are thus slightly less realistic than, say, those in Halo, they are well voiced and work just fine.

The changes in gameplay work very well in the instance of resource gathering, but the whole hometown idea where your mother country is supposedly shipping you supplies across the Atlantic still seems a little awkward even after 10+ hours with the game. I understand the theory and even agree with the idea of getting help from Europe arriving in the Americas, but it wasn’t necessary to graphically model the town and let you customize it. It seems like customization for the sake of customization, and I could have done without it. I’m playing AOE 3 for the RTS elements, and if I want to customize the people in my “hometown” I’ll play the Sims. For the record, I think it’s ridiculous in sports games, too.

Finally, I was left a little under whelmed with the skirmish and online aspect of the game. Nothing is wrong with them – they play like a natural progression of the series, but the experience was a little ho-hum, and even tedious. The campaign mode is much more enjoyable due to the storyline, hero characters, and the feeling of an actual objective other than “build up a base faster than the opponent to win”. In this instance, AOE 3 has a campaign mode akin to those found in Blizzard’s Warcraft III, and nobody is going to complain about that. Everything else seems like par for the course.

Colonial America hardly seems like the most exciting backdrop for an RTS, but the campaign mode in AOE 3 makes it not only worthwhile, but also leaves players longing for more. This game sets a new bar for graphical effects in RTS games, one that seems mighty high but is very welcome. It also brings about a few changes – some more appropriate than others, but everything is done well enough that I’m willing to forgive it for trying to ride the customization-craze wave and failing. The verdict: fans of the first two should pick it up for sure, and other RTS fans would be smart to do the same. Even if it isn’t a perfect ten, it’s still worth the price of admission.

Genre veterans will feel right at home. Not too complicated like most others.

Absolutely amazing graphics. The best yet for an RTS.

Suffers from the familiar repeating acknowledgments, but otherwise good.

The campaign is where it is. Everything else is standard fare for the genre.

As for replay value, you’ve got skirmish and multiplayer. What did you expect?

]]> Tue, 08 Nov 2005 20:39:00 -0600 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_3__mutant_nightmare_ps21 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_3__mutant_nightmare_ps21 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_teenage_mutant_ninja_turtles_3__mutant_nightmare_ps21# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare is the third installment in the recent batch of Ninja Turtles games released for this generation of consoles, and is based on events in the currently running cartoon show. The game of course stars everyone’s favorite reptiles – Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael – destined to save the planet from all sorts of evil beings, and casts players as their chosen turtle (with computer-controlled allies) or allows them to team up with three friends (all in single-player mode). From what we’ve played so far, it seems to have a host of improvements from its predecessors and should give Ninja Turtles fans a fun multiplayer game to enjoy. 

Mutant Nightmare features three modes of play but focuses mostly on its normal mode, which contains three regular episodes of about sixteen-eighteen stages each as well as a nightmare mode, which pits the turtles against a sum of the group’s “nightmares”, ie past foes and opponents from other worlds. You can select one turtle and allow the computer to control the other three, or grab some friends for a foursome. Each mission has a single objective that, when completed, unlocks the next level and occasionally grants a fun cartoon clip from the series. Most of the levels, usually the ones providing boss fights or minigames, are rather short, but there are lengthier ones that require navigating an area accompanied by a decent radar highlighted with arrows and target bubbles. The bulk of the gameplay has you and your computer-controlled brethren taking on various opponents – either dinosaur aliens, specialized government agents, or foot soldiers – sprawled throughout the stages. The AI is functional and sufficient for single-player progression, but it’s far from genius – your turtle buddies will routinely jump into walls, swipe at the air, and run into laser beams. Thankfully you can always gather them on you with a simple call, which keeps them from unnecessarily gobbling up health items or getting themselves pulverized by a boss.

Some of the minigames that I’ve sampled include fancy shuriken shooting (opponents rush directly into the camera for prompt disposal), hovercraft racing (you race against bad guys on bikes), and hang gliding (you dodge air mines during your descent), and while they’re not the most engaging they break up the repetitiveness of walking through the same areas to kill stuff. During regular play, perhaps to lighten the monotony, players can swipe things (canisters, barrels, etc) into the air and target them at opponents, and levels are dotted with breakable items. Some of the missions involve safely escorting characters (April, master Splinter) throughout a small environment while others are more ordinary: get from point A to point B, or get from point A to point B to destroy target C. The objectives and minigames aren’t too grandiose or interesting, but considering the game’s target audience – Ninja Turtle fans watching the latest series – this is probably fitting.

The most intriguing aspect of Mutant Nightmare concerns its ninja scrolls, which are purchased by exchanging crystals (points) for spells/abilities. Some of the feats grant additional health or attack power while others enable the turtles to slowly drain an enemy’s HP or even don “ultimate” gear sets to annihilate any opponent. The ninja scrolls provide a light RPG touch and enable players to modify their teammates, but each turtle can only wear so many scrolls at a time. To offset this, Konami included special group attacks that flash button combinations on-screen in succession; if each player hits his buttons quickly enough (ideally in the right order) then the gang gathers for a devastating attack.

If you’re tired of normal mode you can always try out challenge or arcade mode. Challenge mode pits one turtle against a stack of foes for prizes, while arcade mode offers a true gem for the old-school gamer: Turtles in Time, revamped for a new generation and updated to present more enemies on-screen at once. Unfortunately my version’s Turtles in Time wouldn’t operate, but I assume that’s due to a faulty disc, as I occasionally ran into audio catches, excessive lag (worse with multiple enemies/explosions), and cutscenes that cut off mid-sentence, but the final product should lack these problems. 

Due to the game’s top-down camera I can say that the turtles are graphically well presented and appropriately cell-shaded, but you’ll hardly notice. The 3D environments (accented by cell-shaded cars, items, canisters, and so on) are also nicely done, but again the game isn’t going to win any visual awards. What’s most important is that all the turtles move fluidly and spin about the stages independent of the player, performing flashy “strong” combos or dull “weak” ones. The cartoon cutscenes are a pleasant bonus, but more enjoyable is the inclusion of short CG sequences presented in the cell-shaded style, granting the game some graphical consistency.

I can’t speak much for the audio because my version has a few bugs, but the voiceovers are done by the actual cartoon voiceactors (or seem pretty damn close) and the music is a light techno-rock theme played throughout every level (or it’s just so predictable that it sounds like it).

My version has some obvious flaws – cutscenes that end prematurely, sounds that catch and replay until the level is completed, music that’ll just stop halfway through a stage, etc – but judging from the build we received Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Nightmare should be a light, easy action game for kids that supports fun multiplayer. The inclusion of Turtles in Time, for traditional Ninja Turtles fans, is the perfect boon for the franchise-faithful. Expect this one on November 1 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Nintendo DS.]]> Fri, 21 Oct 2005 22:45:45 -0500