PC | Guild Wars 2: Inside the First Hours of the Beta

The beta for ArenaNet's highly anticipated sequel gets underway.

This past weekend marked the first time the press has been able to get into the beta for Guild Wars 2, the follow-up to the popular RPG that took a different approach with MMOs. The sequel looks to continue that trend as the first few hours give a taste of both epic battles with dozens of other players and small quests devoted just to your character and the selections made during the character creation process.

We had a few of the beta participants sit down to talk about their initial impressions and what they're looking forward to from the game. Also be sure to check out our extra gameplay videos of the event down below.

Guild Wars 2: Inside the First Hours

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Xbox 360 | Transforming the Fall of Cybertron

Developer High Moon Studios is transforming War for Cybertron's weaknesses into strengths and rolling out a new adventure in Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.

Transformers: War for Cybertron had issues. Developer High Moon Studios isn't afraid to admit that. They're proud of what the game accomplished, but it also recognizes its faults. With the upcoming Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, the developers are aiming to turn those weaknesses into strengths. That means more variety, a better camera, and plentiful ammo. At this year's D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, we got the chance to sit in on a hands-off demonstration and see some of these changes in action.

Vortex has the right transformation for any situation.

Nothing says variety like a helicopter that transforms into a jet. The first sequence featured Vortex, a Decepticon that could transform in just such a way. Its mission was to scrap a massive bridge being guarded by the Autobots. To traverse this battlefield quickly, Vortex would start in jet mode and zip between Autobot encampments. Next, it would switch to helicopter mode for a few strafing runs. Finally, it would end in robot mode to mop up any hard-to-reach survivors. The entire sequence was very bombastic, with a constant rumbling of radio chatter, explosions, and the death throes of dying Autobots.

The next scene was something completely different. Jazz, an Autobot, was locked in a frantic sniper duel against a pack of long-range Decepticons. The area itself was a collection of towers, which Jazz would hop between using a grappling hook. Green laser sights from the enemy units crisscrossed the arena, and Jazz had to move fast to line up a shot before the beams converged on him. It had a very hit-and-run pace, as staying in one spot for too long meant being surrounded by a half-dozen foes.

Jazz can charge his sniper shots for extra damage.

A few scenes later, we finally set eyes on Optimums Prime. Things haven't improved for the leader of the Autobots since the last game. To put it bluntly, the Decepticons have won. For the Autobots, that means getting off Cybertron as quickly as possible in The Ark, which is a massive starship. Thankfully, Prime still has some powerful allies; chief among them is the hulking, city-sized transformer: Metroplex. As Prime, the player could direct Metroplex--seen stomping around in the background--by targeting enemy buildings, ships, and whatever else got in its way. Metroplex would respond in kind with a healthy dose of lasers and/or missiles.

The final snippet swapped gunplay for melee combat with Grimlock. High Moon figures if a giant, mechanical dinosaur that breathes fire can't get you excited for Fall of Cybertron, nothing can. Because Grimlock brings a sword and shield to a gun fight, its main method of ranged attack is hurling enemies at other enemies. This tactic was demonstrated in a clever scene that involved Grimlock hurling the devious Starscream into a computer console. In combat, the mechanical brute could unleash its primal side after crushing enough foes to fill a special meter. Once in full-blown dinosaur mode, it had a time limit on wreaking havoc and chomping down on enemy robots.

Grimlock likes his Insecticons severed up extra crispy.

Multiplayer in Fall of Cybertron is also seeing some changes from the previous game. The cooperative campaign is out, but in its place, the developers are promising some new additions to the competitive side. While they weren't ready to talk specific modes, we did get a peek into character customization, and there's a lot of it. Arms, legs, chaises, color schemes, and more were all available, but High Moon was most excited to show off how all these parts still transformed fluidly no matter what combination was selected.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron will be available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 later this year.

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PlayStation Vita | Ragnarok Odyssey: The Vita's Monster Hunter-type Replacement

We kill lots and lots of monsters in action-RPG fashion while teaming up with random strangers with GungHo's latest.

Make no mistake: Gameart's latest foray in the game scene, titled Ragnarok Odyssey, reeks of the action RPG odor stemming from Capcom's Monster Hunter. After all, you go off on a series of chapters divided into a multitude of quests ranging from the banal 'kill a number of creatures' to 'collect a bunch of stuff by breaking barrels and killing monsters' equipped with generous time limits. Occasionally, you fight a giant monster or two with weak spots that also perform huge elaborated attacks with few windows of opportunity for your warrior to strike.

This does not mean that Ragnarok Odyssey is devoid of any entertainment; far from it. Ragnarok Odyssey is billed as a multiplayer title; gamers can partner up with other Vita users playing Ragnarok Odyssey via ad-hoc or online play. It's here that you can party up with other classes and kill together in hopes of gathering the most loot within sessions.

It will be a while before players go toe-to-toe with this Godzilla-sized villain.

Players get to pick between five classes: the Swordmaster, the Hammersmith, the Hunter, the Cleric, the Assassin, and the Mage. Each has its own style of play: the Hammersmith trades speed for a high attack rating, while the Assassin's quick strikes deal little damage. To be fair, the Assassin can at least take a few more hits thanks to its defense rating. The class is quick on its toes too, so players will need to learn to time dodges and evades against enemies.

The Hunter has the highest attack speed and range among the classes, but has horrible damage output and hit points. However, mid-game attacks like the Vulcan arrow can deal good amounts of damage and the Arrow Shower can soften up a cluster of enemies. Since they're a primarily ranged class, it's best that they stay far away from enemies and snipe them from a distance.

The Mage in the game is a bit of an oddity; the class has good attacks and area-of-effect spells, but the combos that throw out their fancier and hard-hitting spells come from melee attacks. Add to the fact that their hit points and defense ratings are atrocious, and we couldn't figure out a reason to pursue this class.

While the Hammersmith was our personal favorite--any class with a huge hammer-drill hybrid that deals big damage is a winner in our book--new players should stick with the Swordmaster. Attacks are reasonably speedy, you can deal high damage if you time your inputs for the end of their combo strings, and it's one of the few classes that can guard.

Speaking of which, each class has different attacks coming out of their combos. For the Hammersmith, pressing triangle, triangle, circle and circle made our female warrior perform a slow-but-damaging upper swing followed by a ground pound multi-hitting drill finisher. Pressing triangle, triangle, triangle and circle made her pull off a delayed charge that also hits multiple times. These are just a few examples of how each class is different in terms of its repertoire of attacks.

While the scenery is nice from time to time, do remember that quests have time limits.

Players can also tweak classes with the use of cards. Before each mission, you can choose as many cards as you can to equip, depending on how much space they take up on a character's card-equipping slot. Some common cards with a one-star rating take up as much as one, while rare ones can go as far as three or four slots.

Ragnarok Odyssey also makes use of its platform's touch capabilities. Expanding the map only requires you to tap the top right icon, while sending out a quick emoticon is as easy as touching the side icon. After mapping your potions before a mission, you can just drink them by tapping their icons at the bottom right part of the screen instead of pressing the select button and the face button they're mapped onto. Whether you prefer doing things the old-school way or by touching, the game's interface has got you covered.

After much questing involving killing orcs and giant eagles using our female hammersmith, we capped off our play sessions with a few brutal boss fights: one with the Orc King and one with a purple basilisk named Hjahanir. Most bosses in the game require you to hit certain parts of its body to break down its defenses, but be careful as they gain additional moves and move even faster.

The Orc King can pull off a windmill ground slam that sucks players close to it and can also do a few air stomps followed by a charge when it has been damaged enough times. We had to run away from it while it's pulling off that move while taking care not to empty our action point gauge so that we could attack it with air combos and hammer blows.

The Hjahanir can do a belly flop and shoot out purple beams in its initial state, but can pull off a wider purple blast and will move slightly faster if it's hit enough times. It also didn’t' help that its attacks can easily afflict poison status onto players; poison in this game can drain your life bit by bit and also lasts pretty long when compared to most RPGs. The trade-off is that they're prone to being launched into the air for an air combo; players can tell if they're in that state or not by locking onto them with the trigger buttons.

Mages in this game are hard to master.

Luckily, your character can be in a berserk state (called 'dainslef' here) whenever his or her berserk meter is full. Tapping the blood-red icon on the right side of the screen will make your character move faster, deal more damage and immune to knockdowns at the cost of his or her life draining bit by bit. To prevent your life from decreasing drastically, you will just have to kill as many enemies as possible. As such, it's wise to activate dainslef when you're surrounded by a huge mob of tough enemies. If you're careless and you kick the bucket mid-mission, the game allows you to come back to life two more times. Once that's used up and you die, you fail the mission and have to restart from scratch.

While playing this game alone is decent, the main draw is its multiplayer mode. Teaming up with a bunch of different classes while hacking and slashing away was really fun. Coordinating with others was a bit on the tough side due to language barrier as the majority of players we found were from Japan. The developers did say before that the online components are still being updated, as GungHo will be releasing their first online expansion called 'online multiplay update' in the middle of March. The company will also release a second update mid-April featuring new monsters, new stages, and new quests, though it did not state whether the content is free or comes with a price tag.

In any case, Ragnarok Odyssey can serve as a temporary substitute for fans of the action RPG genre tailored after Capcom's moneymaker. Even if it seems like it's riding on that imitated coattails, it's the only one the Vita has at the moment that isn't a port of a PSP title. So far, it's a decent role-playing jaunt thanks to its flexible controls and range of classes, each with their own strengths and flaws. Having said that, the single-player mode seems too mundane to stand out on its own and can only thrive with its multiplayer feature.

While the game is out now in Japan, there isn't any official word on a North American and European release.

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PC | Sleeping Dogs: Fist fights, vermin problems, and nifty gadgets

Different name, new setting, same old series? We find out how the title formally known as True Crime: Hong Kong handles in our first hands-on.

We know what you're probably thinking: Sleeping Dogs? Has GameSpot, my favourite video and/or computer game internets website lost its mind and moved into the fast-paced world of pet accommodation? No sir, we have not. Sleeping Dogs is the recently revealed name for the game formally known as True Crime: Hong Kong, a title Activision kicked to the curb a little over a year ago after saying "it just wasn't going to be good enough". While Square Enix swooped in to save the game from cancellation, the name has been overhauled, but is still the same Hong Kong cinema-inspired open-world game that was always planned.

The game follows Asian-American cop, Wei Shen, as he leaves US shores to return to the motherland in hopes of infiltrating and stemming the tide of Triad control across the region. We recently got an updated look and chance to play this (hopefully) second-time lucky game.

Our demo opened with Wei Shen being held prisoner in a jail cell. The familial bonds of a previous and less scrupulous life were mere feet away, and seconds pass before we run into a former gang brother, Jackie Ma. The pair catch-up briefly, and Wei is emphatic he wants back in on his old turf. Jackie provides instructions on who to meet, and where, before Wei is dragged off to an interrogation room. Away from prying eyes, Wei gets a little verbal abuse before a senior officer reaches over and disables the camera in the room. It's all a ruse. Wei has been called in as a deep undercover officer who knows the scene, the players, and the way they operate. The friendly chat ends and Wei leaves without as much as a scratch--a telltale sign of a jailhouse snitch. The camera lingers, and the pair of officers discuss whether he can be trusted. One suggests Wei's history of "extreme behaviour" and risk of exacting revenge for the slaying of his parents at the hands of the Triad makes him more of a liability than asset.

Inside the kitchen of a dingy local restaurant we meet with Jackie and his boss, a heavily tattooed but small-time crime boss. There are no fancy cars, no suited entourage, and his mother, Mrs Chu, mills around the workspace with food and drink as we chat. There are no illusions about the sort of people her son associates with, or the business her son conducts, but she remains silent and without judgment. Her son needs protection, and we're out to build our reputation. A man named Ming owes money, and our job is to teach him a lesson in manners.

Outside on the street, garish neon lights assault our senses, hawkers spruik suits and I love HK t-shirts, as a dragon performance entertains watchers. You can interact with some stalls, spending money earned from combat and completed missions to buy short-term buffs, such as reduced physical damage for 10 minutes.

The city is nowhere near as dense as the real place it's modelled on--though we're unsure if it's designed this way for the comfort of the player navigating the world, or simply a technical limitation of the hardware the game runs on. We push through the odd body blocking our path and after confronting Ming, we take off at speed down narrow alleyways, over locked fences, and vault waist-height obstacles. The same button handles sprint and interaction, so you need to ease off the gas, release, press to scale or jump, and then repress to resume pursuit. There wasn't a great momentum penalty for the multiple presses, but it felt like it would benefit from being mapped to one of the other face or trigger buttons during these encounters.

Our chase came to a halt when we were confronted by a handful of Ming's cronies. Low-level grunts were easily belted into submission with a few quick jabs, while larger and more experienced fighters required adept use of the one-button counter-grapple mechanic. When it came time to finish the job, we could grab a target and push them around the arena to trigger finishing moves--slamming skulls against walls, pushing bad guys into electrical boxes, or shredding faces in spinning fan blades. Rival gangs seldom appeared to roll alone, but even while beating on one of their friends, they were often reluctant to attack more than one at a time. We felt brief flashes of Batman's fluid melee system here, but the hand-to-hand combat wasn't as natural or free-form as the Dark Knight taking out the trash. Goons defeated, we took on Ming alone, but before we had the chance to finish the job, Hong Kong officers stormed the rooftop.

The timeline jumped around greatly during our demo, and with her son now mysteriously out of the picture, the once quiet Mrs Chu was out for blood like any mother scorned. Criminal, Johnny Ratface, was implicated in the disappearance, and we used some of the more advanced detective tools at our disposal. Making a prank call and keeping him on the line long enough to triangulate (or is that Triadulate?) his position, we arrived at a nearby industrial estate. As you'd expect, Wei knows his way around a machinegun, and we blasted our way to the end of the area, blowing up cars and wasting suckers shooting back from ledges.

The chase gained speed when we borrowed a motorbike to follow the fleeing Johnny Ratface's car. Aiming weapons while driving cars and riding bikes slows the world around you to give you a chance to fire accurate, well-placed shots, rather than spray and pray. Vehicles that take enough damage, or have their tyres shot out, spin and flip like stunt cars. Once close enough to our mark, we leapt from our bike to the roof of his car, taking him hostage and driving back to Mrs Chu, who was waiting, meat cleaver in hand, to serve up her own justice.

Though the storyline will focus on Wei Shen and remain quite linear, this is an open-world game. We weren't given much chance to explore the wider city area, but side missions, called Favours, will give you a reason to complete optional content and reward you with money and "Face" points--the game's reputation system. One side mission we saw had a friend asking us to destroy a rival street racer's car with a tyre iron, which we gladly helped with. Think of it a bit like a Triad stress ball.

After its tumultuous development, fans will be happy to know the game is finally going to make it to shelves. While not bearing the same name, True Crime supporters can rest easy knowing this looks and feels like a genuine follow-up experience that melds melee combat, third-person shooting, and on-road antics. While our hands-on gave us a limited taste of all three elements, we're hoping for a chance to explore more of the city soon. Can Wei Shen stay on the straight and narrow, or is the lure of returning to a life of crime too great a temptation? Stay tuned to find out when the game shoots up consoles and PCs this year.

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Xbox 360 | New Max Payne 3 Trailer, Screens

Rockstar delivers exclusive new screenshots of Max Payne 3, as well as the second official trailer for the game.

Rockstar Games just released the second official trailer for Max Payne 3 and also sent GameSpot a couple of exclusive screenshots to accompany it, including this one, in which one of Max's enemies appears to lose his gun, and his face:

Max Payne inflicts maximum pain.

Max's broken pane.

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Xbox 360 | The Split Personalities of Far Cry 3

Opposites attract in Ubisoft's latest open-world shooter.

There's a scene in Far Cry 3 where you're desperately trying to escape a sinking boat, its hull filling with water and the floating bodies of enemies you've recently killed. In your frantic rush for survival, music rises from the background. Rather than an action movie chase theme or some intense tribal drumroll befitting the game's tropical island setting, the soundtrack to your life-or-death moment is a serene, twinkling piece of music that wouldn't sound out of place at the tail end of an indie rock album. The effect is a profoundly bizarre sense of tranquility and calm considering you're trapped in what might easily be called a nightmare scenario.

Whether you choose to look at this scene within the standards of first-person shooters or not, it's a powerful moment. It's also one of the clearest examples of Ubisoft Montreal's drive to combine seemingly conflicting ideas into one harmonious experience. From the mission structure to the song selection, Far Cry 3 is very much a game of contrasts. Let's explore a few:

Scripted Missions and Open-World Exploration

One of the most ambitious goals Ubisoft Montreal has is the idea of marrying the tightly scripted set pieces of a corridor shooter with the free-form nature of a sandbox action game. The world itself--a tropical island paradise gone slightly to hell--is yours to explore however you wish. There are no real constraints on where you can go at a given moment, with plenty of side quests and discoverable secrets out there to steal your attention away from the main storyline.

That world sounds a bit like Far Cry 2, right? Well it should, because the overall structure is largely the same. In fact, a lot of the missions are similar as well, giving you a simple task and the flexibility to approach your goal from whichever angle you want. One example has you assaulting the rusted skeleton of a beached ship in order to disable the radio antenna perched atop the main deck. You can sneak in through the bottom and silently pick off each enemy in your way, or simply grab a hang glider, find a tall mountain, and fly straight onto the deck of the barge without messing with a single bad guy.

But mixed in with that hands-off approach to mission design are some set pieces of a more tightly scripted nature. The sinking boat is one example; it's a mission that has you infiltrating an enemy vessel (apparently you assault a lot of boats in this game) to find a friend of yours. While starting out fairly open-ended, this mission gradually funnels you toward a single, predetermined conclusion: you throw open the doors to a room filled with explosives just before they go off and send the boat sinking into the watery abyss. That's the point at which the game says, "Hey, I'm gonna show you this really cool scene. Feel free to keep playing along, though." Cue your desperate attempt to swim back up to the surface.

Calming Beauty and Unsettling Insanity

Everyone here is just a little bit off.

This is an approach you don't see very often in video games. Players tend to spend their time in either a violently morphing corridor of roller-coaster thrills (think Call of Duty) or the static landscapes of an open-world sandbox (think Borderlands). Rarely do the two overlap. With Far Cry 3, however, Ubi Montreal wants to marry the two--at least in some of the key story missions. If it works, it could make for a very exciting experience.

Your character, Jason Brody, comes to this tropical island with a few friends looking for a sunny getaway only to discover that this place is filled with a militia's worth of violent and insane criminals. Even the friendly characters you meet, like a doctor you turn to for medical assistance, are teetering on the brink of insanity. In fact, characters like the doctor might be the most unnerving because you can't pinpoint what's wrong with them; they just seem slightly off.

Now, contrast that with the island itself. Far Cry 3's geography is absolutely gorgeous, from the cascading waterfalls to the towering green mountains. It's the type of setting where your survival instinct is constantly battling with your desire to just stop for a moment and stare at the fireflies. You don't have to rely on the story's suggestion that this is a place that would attract tourists and backpackers. All you have to do is look around, and you can tell that for yourself.

These two things--the island's calming natural beauty and the deeply unsettling undercurrent of insanity present throughout your journey--should make for an interesting combination. There's very much a Heart of Darkness feeling to it all, the idea that there's something twisted inside all of us, and this place is the catalyst for its emergence.

Shoot-Outs and Rabbit Holes

Sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty. (With lots of blood.)

Far Cry 3 is definitely a first-person shooter…except when it isn't. In addition to those aforementioned missions where you need to assault an enemy holdout in search of some objective, you'll encounter other missions that Ubi Montreal likens to good old-fashioned Alice in Wonderland rabbit holes.

One of these missions has you going off in search of a particular species of cave mushroom for that slightly batty doctor mentioned earlier. You swim through an underwater tunnel entrance, climb up the walls of the cave, and begin to scour the place for that one specific mushroom. But along the way you start to get a little woozy, and before long that wooziness transforms into a full-on psychedelic experience. The cave walls morph into a forest, a house appears out of nowhere, and each time you approach the door, the entire house moves back 10 or so feet. In other words, Jason Brody is tripping hard, and he has to gather himself back together before he finds himself passed out alone in a desolate cave. Maybe that mushroom Jason was looking for wasn't the only special one in the cave.

It seems safe to assume that these missions will make up only a fraction of the overall storyline, but it's interesting to see this sort of thing in there. Far Cry 2 didn't offer much in the way of palate cleanser missions, so it's pleasing to see that Ubi Montreal realizes that doing the same sort of missions over and over can get a bit tedious. If that means casting aside your AK-47 for a few minutes in order to have a bizarre out-of-body experience in some magical cave, then why not? There are plenty of bad guys to shoot when you're done.

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PC | Gods Kings brings big changes to Civilization V

This upcoming Civilization V expansion brings a ton of new content, including religion and espionage. Get the first details here!

An age of discovery is coming to Sid Meier's Civilization V. With its new expansion, Civilization V: Gods and Kings, developer Firaxis Games is aiming to bring back some fan-favorite features that didn't make it into Civilization V's original release back in 2010. These include a new religion system and the return of espionage. We got to chat with Ed Beach, gameplay and AI programmer, and Dennis Shirk, lead producer, about these changes.

Your religious selections are permanent, so make sure you're happy with what you pick.

Religion

Religion is back, but in an entirely different way. It's designed to be an extremely flexible system that can enhance all types of play styles through a series of small benefits. The cornerstone of religion is a new currency called faith. Faith is used to purchase beliefs, which are small benefits that shape your nation's religion. Civilizations starting near the coast may wish to purchase the God of the Sea belief, which grants additional production from fishing boats; while mountainous civilizations may prefer the Stone Circle belief, which generates additional faith from stone quarries.

Initially, you are only allowed to purchase one belief. As you progress, a great prophet is born in your nation that lets you purchase two more. This occurs a second time late in the game to complete your five-belief religion. In addition to purchasing beliefs, faith can be used to purchase unique buildings and units that are otherwise unavailable. Faith-generating city-states, wonders, and buildings will also be available.

Espionage

Espionage returns as well in Gods and Kings, and it mimics the options available in Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. Spies weave a web of intrigue, and though they never appear as units on the map, there is a special panel used to assign missions. These include stealing technology, working on counterintelligence, and listing what's inside an enemy city. In single-player, spies can even report on the future military operations of AI opponents. If you learn that France is going to invade Spain, you can blow the whistle and give Spain a heads-up, which will have serious diplomatic consequences.

Unlike in Civilization: Revolution, spies are not trained by a civilization. Instead, they are awarded at certain intervals along the timeline. Should one of your spies get captured or killed, you'll have to wait a set number of turns before you get a replacement. "It's almost like an executed spy is in time-out," Beach said, adding that your new spy will start back at level one. Spies can also be used to sway the influence in city-states by rigging elections or attempting a coup.

New mercantile city-states have access to luxury resources you can't find elsewhere.

Diplomacy

"The nature of diplomacy is going to change as you progress through the ages," explained Beach. In the early ages, religion will be one of the crucial factors in how other civilizations respond to you. Later in the game, those religious prejudices will give way to ideology preferences. When a civilization commits to the freedom, order, or autocracy culture tree, it will become the new driving force behind international relations.

City-states are also being expanded in numerous ways. "Feedback suggested city-states were dominated by who had the most gold and could offer the most gifts," Beach said. Therefore, completing city-state quests will become the most effective way to gain influence over them. City-states can now offer multiple quests at once, and some, such as "generate the most faith in 20 turns," don't require direct action from the player.

Combat

In addition to some overall pacing changes that Firaxis wasn't ready to divulge, combat in Gods and Kings is being expanded in two key areas: new World War I-era military units and several additions to naval combat. The new WWI-era units were added to give players the joys of flight earlier in the game. Units include massive, clunky tanks (referred to as Land Ships) and early fighter planes. On the naval side, the team wanted to make sea battles more dynamic. With that in mind, it built a new class of ships--melee ships--to complement the preexisting ranged ships. A new privateer unit can capture enemy ships and launch raids on costal cities.

The Mayans are pulling out their best headpieces for Gods and Kings.

And what would a Civilization expansion be without a few new civilizations to play with? Nine new civilizations are planned for release, including the Celts, Byzantines, Mayans, and Netherlands. When pressed, Beach noted that the Celts have the ability to gain additional faith when their cities are settled against a forest, while the Byzantines can purchase a bonus, sixth belief. Some of the original civilization abilities are also being tweaked to accommodate the changes coming in Gods and Kings. This expansion is targeted for a late spring release this year in stores or through Steam for $29.99.

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PlayStation 3 | Prototype 2: militant priests, lukewarm rage, and missing science projects

We doubled our attacks, took in the view from the top of the city, and listened patiently in this revenge-fuelled sequel.

What would you do if you stumbled upon super powers? Would you channel them into something positive to build a better world and fight for justice, or would you seethe, ball up your fist at fate, and tear humanity apart like a hot chicken? It's a well-trodden path in film and games, and one that Prototype 2 uses to transport you from the previous boots of Alex Mercer, the original game's amnesia-stricken protagonist, to focus on Sergeant James Heller. The new lead role is a husband left alone in a cruel place after his family is taken by the outbreak slowly strangling New York City.

Our demo began with a flashback sequence of Heller's past. Serving a tour of duty overseas, the voices of his wife and daughter called lovingly for him to return home soon. Shortly after, the pair were killed, and this act became the driving force behind the revenge that he seeks on Alex Mercer; who is singled out as the cause of the biological situation, and the namesake of the Mercer Virus.

The scene skipped forwards, and we rejoined present day, with Heller riding in the back of an armoured personnel carrier. Surrounded by young recruits mouthing off, he sat silently, sharpening the blade of a menacing-looking hunting knife. Moments later, the convoy was attacked, and, as consciousness returned, the squad lay dead around us. Alex arrived, and requested that we follow. For a man fuelled by murderous rage, Heller was surprisingly cooperative, accepting the request and renouncing his Blackwatch allegiance to step gingerly across the destroyed roadways and pursue the departing Mercer seeking payback.

Eventually, we caught up, and the duo finally tussled, with Heller plunging his blade into Alex with little effect. Mercer's Force-like push knocked Heller back against a wall--and while the mind was willing, the flesh was weak. Once finished playing with him like a toy, Alex eventually grabbed and infected Heller with a viral tendril, disappearing into a nearby building to watch as Blackwatch helicopters swooped in and took the now-infected deserting soldier as a prisoner of shady organisation, Gentek.

Snippets of fever-dream-like conversations gave us titbits to start building the web of deceit at the centre of the story, and--like the original game--will be expanded on as you consume unwilling human participants and suckle on their memories. When we awoke, we were bound inside an underground lab. Small groups of infected humans were periodically released from behind roller doors to test our reflexes, acting as a basic tutorial that got us up to speed on melee attacks. Button presses caused us to lash out with quick fist strikes, while holding the button winds up sliding high kicks to the face--useful for knocking down multiple targets at once.

Like any good science project gone wrong, Heller immediately got in touch with his new-found brute force, busting out of the compound and again coming face to face with Alex. Though sworn to revenge, Heller was again surprisingly patient as Mercer attempted to tell his side of the story, using a nearby soldier as a conduit to show (through visual memories) why he was merely a scapegoat in Gentek's larger biological experiment. Confronted with this new, conflicting information, Heller sought out an old friend for guidance. His go-to guy was Father Guerra, a local priest with a shady background, who looked like the love child of Ron Jeremy and Vito Corleone from The Godfather. He suggested that while Mercer's motivations were questionable, they ultimately shared the same goal of wiping out the virus and making Gentek pay, so it couldn't hurt for the two to combine forces. Right?

Story set-up out of the way, the rest of our demo focused on the same subterfuge, consumption, and shape-shifting mechanics seen in the first game. Each situation could be approached in either disguise to covertly infiltrate without drawing attention, or more verbosely, if you'd rather fight off the hordes of military men who come to the aide of injured compatriots.

One new addition to Heller's utility belt is Sonar ability for finding specific quest individuals across the city. Clicking the thumbstick sends out a wave of energy that selectively re-colours the screen in the direction that the target is located on its return pulse. Much less useful at ground level, it appeared to be more effective when done from the height and safety of the city's tall rooftops.

Eventually, we located and consumed the memories of a commanding officer, and used the information gained to arrive at what we thought was a safe meeting point. The name should have been a giveaway; Operation Flytrap snared us in a fenced-off area as trucks backed up and let loose some nasty mutated creatures. Late evasion dives were crucial to stay alive, and we ducked and weaved out of their melee strike range. Heller felt speedy and agile, and movements were fluid as we chained together fatal blows on multiple attackers. Killing them rewarded us with our own set of claws: long steel talons that shredded humanoid enemies.

Weapon effectiveness will vary in Prototype 2, depending on what you're attacking. This has been designed to help avoid the trap of learning and then exploiting a single weapon strategy for all enemy types during the campaign. Later in the game, you'll unlock the ability to equip multiple weapons and map them to the face buttons using an easily accessed radial menu system. This will give you the chance to team differing combinations together, such as softening up a target with fist hammers before knocking them into the air and using sword arms to cleave them in two. A little more interesting than simply swiping at them until they die.

While the start of our demo gave us a look at the very early part of the game and Heller getting to grips with some new toys, the conclusion dropped us into New York's Red Zone as a fully fledged super human. Besides being able to use the full suite of arm attachments, we also had access to a mutated personal army that--not unlike the Assassin's Recruits in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood--when summoned, swooped in and helped control large crowds and dealt with enemies that you don't want to. Basic commands, such as focused fire, can be given, and can keep you on the ground shaking down the army, while they pelt attack choppers with bits of torn-up road on your behalf.

Prototype 2 adds a new main character, extra combat abilities, and the chance to choose the path you follow to exact your revenge, but it remains very much in the vein of its predecessor. If you haven't yet had your fix of superhuman strength, nasty genetic abominations, and making the city your playground, then look for more on Prototype 2 before it ships in the coming months.

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PlayStation Vita | Sumioni: Demon Arts: Ninja Finger Painting on the Vita

Touch-screen painting and 2D platforming collide in this Vita-only title.

Spike's new 2D platformer, Sumioni: Demon Arts, seems to be taking a lot of cues from 2006's Okami from an aesthetic standpoint. You have your sumi-e art style for the background, cell-shaded characters and enemies in the foreground, the Japanese folklore setting, and even the gameplay bits, where you have to use ink to affect the landscape. But whereas Okami is an epic adventure game, Sumioni sticks to being an arcade-style action platformer with multiple branching levels for added longevity.

Before you start a stage, you are shown a level roadmap displaying where each stage branches. Getting an excellent rating on a particular level can get you access to another path leading to newer stages and a longer journey. Yes, you can actually blaze through and finish the game within six stages with a decent rating. If you play your cards right, however, you will go through 13 stages and see the real ending. Players will be given the option to either save their progress or restart their run if they wish to check out what's on the other pathway.

Players control main character Agura no Sumioni by using the left analog stick or D-pad to move left and right, with dashes available by double tapping the corresponding control. Attacks are performed with the square button, while a spinning jump only needs you to add a midair jump. Pressing down and the square button while in the air makes Sumioni perform a downward thrust with his spear.

We had problems getting used to the fact that pressing up on the D-pad or left analog stick makes him jump. Since the jump command is also mapped to the X button, it not only feels redundant, but can also cause players to accidentally jump when they mean to simply move the main character onwards. We suffered plenty of unnecessary injury due to this odd control scheme during our play.

This quirk aside, the touch-screen controls are perfect. We had no problems summoning platforms on the fly by drawing a straight line on the screen, be it to help our demon reach higher parts of the stage or to push spiked wheel traps away from our path. We could also clear out unneeded sumi ink platforms by tapping the water icon on the bottom right of the touch screen.

Pressing the left trigger pulled up the technique screen, which not only provided a breather from the action, but also gave us access to other fancy moves. Drawing lines while on this screen made flame waves appear instead of platforms, and this was extremely useful for killing off multiple enemies, as well as breaking down certain giant bosses that we couldn't touch during one of their wide-screen area-of-effect attacks.

To help us out through the tougher bits of the game, we first brought up the technique screen and then tapped the bottom right icon. We then proceeded to follow the drawing gesture onscreen, and voila: instant gargantuan flying bird! The bird, called Yomihi, can shoot out blue crescent projectiles and do charging attacks, as well as shoot out a giant purple laser beam before disappearing.

Activating the bottom left icon and performing the requisite gesture will summon a four-legged beast companion called Shidou, who follows your every move and lunges at anything in its path. Shidou also erupts into a blue laser beam before exiting stage left, so you have to find the perfect opportunity to unleash it and its bird counterpart. We suggest you do this for the end-of-level boss fights against the towering contraptions and demonic folklore beasts, since you can use them only once per stage.

Each stage comes with two types of objectives: go from start to finish and kill off the boss, or survive until the top right counter reaches zero. The stages aren't too long, and, with the exception of some of the end-game bosses with higher hit points, most can be completed in less than five minutes.

One of these late-stage bosses, a giant eyeball, fires a one-hit kill laser beam. The only way to avoid being killed is to save up ink and build an ink platform while it's sizing up its attack. Stages restart from the beginning if you lose all of your health, but the fact that each level is so short only makes it a minor hindrance.

So far, Sumioni: Demon Arts seems to be a nice, quick 2D platforming game with an inventive art mechanic, perfect for old-school gamers after something old-fashioned and bite sized. While the Vita title is out now in Japan, a North American and European version has yet to be announced.

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PC | Why Fall of the Samurai is the most modern Total War yet

Find out how traditional Japanese and modern Western values clash in the upcoming Shogun 2 expansion Fall of the Samurai.

Set 300 years after the events of Shogun 2, Fall of the Samurai lets you shape Japan's fate during the Boshin War, a civil war that changed the face of the island nation forever. It takes place at a time when the ruling Shogunate opened Japan's borders to traders from the West. With firearms, railways, and industrialisation pitted against the old-fashioned ways, Fall of the Samurai is the most modern Total War game yet.

Now that the borders are open, American, British and French forces are willing to trade with you. Building your relations with a nation grants you access to units such as the Royal Marines or the US Corps to add more firepower to your army. Countries will have an initial predisposition to either the Shogunate or the Imperials, and will be more likely to trade and negotiate with you if you belong to that faction.

Trading exclusively with the foreign powers will grant you big bonuses in the long run. Befriend the British, and later in the game you can "borrow" the powerful HMS Warner, a huge ship capable of blowing others out of the water with its cannons--a useful addition to any naval force.

Powerful ships can be key to your success in Fall of the Samurai.

Naval warfare has had a complete overhaul in the game. While you're still able to blockade enemy ports, you can now choose to lay siege to them as well. Ships that are within cannon range of land can be called in to fire on enemy towns and cities and reduce their production of units, which can be a great benefit on the battlefield. You won't be defenseless in the face of a naval onslaught, though; those who wish to defend their coastline can upgrade their coastal defences to deter enemy naval forces.

Historical battles are back and allow you recreate some of the better-known fights from the Boshin War, such as the naval battle of Miyako. The real-time battles are bigger than ever, with the roster doubled to accommodate up to 40 units. With enough research points, you can unlock some powerful weaponry such as the Gatling and Armstrong guns.

The Western traders introduce some devastatingly powerful weaponry to Japan.

Selecting a weapon and tapping the 'H' key allows you to go into the optional new third-person mode, where you can take control of the weapons and mow down enemy units yourself. While the Gatling and Armstrong guns hold some substantial firepower, they can be overwhelmed and destroyed by enemy forces if you're not careful.

The map has been expanded since Shogun 2, and reflects the changes in Japan at the time of industrialisation. Small settlements become towns, then expand further to become cities with huge factories that release pollution. As the map evolves, you'll notice the music changing from traditional Japanese to more Western-style orchestral music.

For the first time in a Total War game, railways make an appearance. Researching them allows you to connect your provinces, and enables you to move troops and resupply faster, increasing the pace of the game. You can also sabotage enemy railways or claim them for your own.

Move whole armies quickly and easily using the new railway system.

The realm divide feature makes a return in this expansion, but it has been tweaked somewhat. In previous games, if you got too big for your boots other clans would turn on you. In Fall of the Samurai though, it's less black and white. Become powerful enough, and you can choose to either become the Imperial or Shogunate Vanguard, or choose to form your own republic. Becoming a Vanguard means that any clan who supports that faction will come flocking to your side. But beware, clans are always trading and making deals with others, and if you're not careful, your allies may defect to the opposing side.

As a standalone expansion, Fall of the Samurai does not require Shogun 2 to play, but players who have the game can carry their multiplayer avatar over. Multiplayer has been balanced, so if you do bring your avatar from Shogun 2, you will not be at a disadvantage to those who are using the more modern units from this new expansion.

Fall of the Samurai is set to be released on March 23 for PC. Are you looking forward to getting your hands on the most modern Total War to date? Let us know in the comments.

PlayStation Vita | Gravity Rush Import Hands-On: A Possible Killer App For The Vita

We play through the first few hours of what could be the definitive game for Sony's tech-heavy handheld.

Readers may recall a recent article on the Vita that criticised the lack of "killer app" titles among other things. After playing through what seems to be the latest open-ended adventure du jour from Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama since his stint with Siren for the PS3, there may be a silver lining within all the device's proclaimed gloom and doom. If the four to five hours we've spent in Gravity Rush was of any indication of its quality, we could very well have both a sleeper hit and a darn great justification of buying a new gaming portable device.

To elaborate further on the last write-up, you play a girl named Kat who ended up in the town of Hekseville in nothing more than her unique one-piece uniform, a mission to rebuild the dying world of Auldnoir, and the awe-inspiring power to control gravity in her vicinity. Thanks to her black-glowing cat familiar who tags alongside the blonde heroine, Kat can float and fly around unreachable places, stand on the sides of buildings and any other flat surface in any position, use her stasis powers to carry objects and even human beings, and perform a gravity slide that turns her into the world's anti-gravity equivalent of Tony Hawk.

Newton's Law of Motion being put to practical use here.

The latter technique required us to touch and hold the left and right edges of the screen; as she slides, we tilted the PS Vita left and right to steer her, and shook the device to make her jump sky high. Kat can also speed up her gravity shift and descent by holding down the X button so that she can get to places quicker.

She will need all the help she can get since she's up against a group of black and red monstrosities called the Nevi that seeks to eradicate all life on Auldnoir. These enemies come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from the small versions that fling black goo at our heroine to hulking brutes that can somehow elongate its hand to smash her to bits. The Nevi have a glaring weakness, however, as they have red glowing crystals that serve as their weak spots. Hit them, and they dissipate into nothingness. Some Nevis have more than one glowing crystal and a few of them even have shell carapaces that require a good bashing before they can be damaged.

Kat is definitely a kitten with more than just an attitude and claws, as her repertoire of combat moves are simple yet effective. She can do a flurry of kicks when on the ground and can also dodge (via swiping the touch screen). To use her patented gravity kick where she floats in the air and speeds into full force feet first onto an enemy's weak spot, make Kat float in the air and then press the square button.

The farther you are from your target, the more powerful the kick becomes. While you will need to aim at your target when using the kick, you don't need to be too precise as long as it's within the centre reticule and the surrounding grey circle around it. Kat will automatically home in on the target upon launch.

When she uses her gravity stasis field to pick up objects, she can fling them at a target with a press of the circle button. Some enemies can dodge out of the way of a gravity kick, so finding nearby objects as makeshift projectiles is key during combat scenarios.

The coup de grace of Kat's arsenal is her special attacks, which can be pulled off by pressing the triangle button while in zero gravity mode. So far, we've unlocked her amped-up auto-homing gravity drill attack and this other move where she summons a cluster of gravity projectiles to rain down and hit fools within her radius.

Do keep in mind that she can't float forever, as there's a gravity meter that gradually empties the longer she stays in zero gravity mode. Luckily, the meter refills pretty quick and there is an abundant supply of gravity crystals littered in the city that replenishes the bar in a jiffy.

Simply put, the controls were really easy to get the hang of. Combat so far is a blast, as there's so much space for us to navigate and position ourselves for gravity kicks, as well as knowing where our enemies were coming from. While standing upside down on areas during quests may take some time getting used to, the game's camera has done a great job in not disorienting our heads too much.

We had to confess that at times, we spent too much time flying around and checking out the scenic route, as well as perfecting our score at the game's side missions. Yes, there are side missions you can partake while traversing around Hekseville. Gamers will come across energy canisters that require a small amount of power crystals; these not only brighten up the area and make it cheery, but also unlock combat and navigation trials that can earn you more power crystals.

The former requires Kat to kill off a number of enemies for points, while the latter requires her to reach checkpoint after checkpoint using a specific gravity technique. Power crystals that are earned can be used to upgrade Kat's gravity abilities, be it to make her gravity kick more effective or making the handling of her gravity slide manageable.

After a tutorial that came in the form of an intense scene where Kat rescues a boy from a black hole in the sky, we tarried off into the old district of Hekseville to forward the story along. Players will get to explore Hekseville in open-ended fashion in locales like the old city district and the perpetually night-time Rainbow Street area.

Along the way, Kat has to recreate and restructure lost parts of Hekseville, help find a missing student by searching for clues and exploring an academy, and even fight against another gravity-shifting nemesis called Raven. Without giving too much away, Gravity Rush will also bring gamers to otherworldly areas like a planar space filled with broken-down ruins, a void filled with ceiling inferno pits and pathways suspiciously arranged like a roller coaster, and even a barren wasteland filled with giant Nevis where Kat's gravity meter can't regenerate.

What also elevates this adventure game for us was the aesthetics. Toyama mentioned before that the game's art was based on the style of French comics. Upon our initial impressions, the game impresses with its bright palettes and environmental designs, particularly at the later areas we mentioned briefly. The narration itself is a mix of cutscenes and comic panels. Players can switch to the next page by swiping the screen and even move the accelerometer of the Vita to check out different angles of the panel.

One in eight girls in Hekseville will start glowing red and wreck the laws of physics upon reaching puberty.

It's pretty unique, we must say, and adds to the charm of its French aesthetic while also getting the story's point across without the need of drawn-out machinima. The soundtrack by Kohei Tanaka, who is famous for composing music for anime like Gunbuster and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, also accentuates how everything comes together in one beautiful-looking title.

Fans may be disappointed that the director's latest game isn't anything like a survival horror title, but what we got instead was something potentially close to adventure-gaming greatness that couldn't be achieved on any other mobile device given its scope and presentation. With its unique sense of style and gravity-shifting gameplay already warming up to us, we do hope the later parts of the game lives up to what we've experienced.

Gravity Rush will be out soon in North American and European territories, but gamers fluent in Japanese can check out the import version that is available now from their local parallel import stores.

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PC | SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online Hands-On

We took our miniaturized mechs for a spin in the early Southeast Asian version of Softmax's free-to-play Gundam-themed MMO.

Readers from Asia may be familiar with the long-running Mobile Suit Gundam spin-off called SD Gundam which caught on with fans in various forms such as manga, trading cards and capsule figures. The mini mech phenomenon did prove popular in video game form; case in point the turn-based strategy and brawler titles like the SD Gundam Force and SD Gundam G Generation series. South Korean company Softmax decided to make an MMO based on the popular spin-off and launched the game way back in 2007 called SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online.

Four years later, Bandai Korea agreed to publish the game onto North American servers with OGPlanet. As for Southeast Asia, Shanda Games will be launching its version early next year. After checking out an early build of the latter version, we suspected as much that the game will appeal towards the hardcore Gundam fans.

For starters, the game will feature all of the Gundam mechs from all eras, ranging from the Universal Century timeline to the Future Century era. Customization options for each mech are plentiful. Apart from being able to purchase certain robots, either through the standard cash shop or buying random mechs through the Gashapon screen (akin to a capsule machine, only with pilotable SD Gundams), gamers can deck out their mechs with custom paint jobs and stickers by spending points earned in battle.

Players can also assign different operators for missions; these pilots essentially make you earn more experience points and currency for a fixed amount of days. They're used mostly to speed up a player's level-grinding as most free-to-play MMOs are purposely slow in this regard.

Players control their Gundams with the keyboard and mouse. You use the WASD keys to move your mech around while you use the mouse to look around and aim. All attacks are done using the left mouse button; you can switch between melee and ranged attacks using the number keys 1 to 5. As you aim by moving your mouse, you can auto-aim onto moving targets by clicking on the right mouse button.

Covering a lot of ground on a map requires you to double-tap the WASD keys to boost and pressing the spacebar twice and holding it down to double jump and hover respectively. Clever usage of the mech's dashing is required to outmaneuver human opponents, though you have to take into account the boost gauge as it depletes when you're frantically blazing around.

What is it with Japanese IPs and super deformed characteristics?

When we were checking out the controls during the training missions, we only had access up to three weapons; the charged shot attacks and special moves (which invoke a cinematic-style attack when it connects) were only available when the game goes into a closed beta stage next year. Still, what we experienced in this build proved that the game's controls and the mech's maneuverability will need some time getting used to. While not as complex and lumbering as robots in the MechWarrior and Steel Battalion franchises, we're just glad that the tutorial gave us some leeway in piloting our selected Gundams in the heat of battle.

Speaking of which, the game utilizes a rock-paper-scissor element when determining Gundam types. The red rock icon means that your Gundam is melee-focused, while the green paper icon means that it's suited for sniping opponents from afar. The blue scissors icon means that a Gundam is balanced between using close-ranged and long-ranged attacks. Rock property Gundams are strong against scissors but weak against paper, while paper property Gundams are strong against rock but weak against scissors.

You can probably guess what scissors property Gundams are strong and weak against at this point. However, this doesn't mean that a rock property Gundam will obliterate a scissors property Gundam. Skill still matters in the long run, but in terms of damage-dealing, the former will have a slight advantage.

The rock-paper-scissors system also helps in picking multiple Gundams for online skirmishes. For four-versus-four battles, gamers will have to pick multiple Gundams to slot onto battleships so that when their main pick dies, they can switch to the next one mid-battle. As such, it's usually better to pick a varied mix of Gundams with different properties.

Just remember the rock-paper-scissors properties, and you'll do fine in the usual skirmishes.

For our current session, however, we only could pick one for both mission mode and online versus mode. We went for the MSA-0011 S Gundam, which was an AR-ranked mech with pretty high stats and top-class weaponry. Even with that advantage, we had to get use to the controls as the mech's default speed was slow. We had to rely a lot on its boosts to navigate on the stage.

One single-player mission had us protecting an NPC mech for an amount of time, while another took place in deep space where we had to blow up supply crates and kill a specific number of enemy mechs to complete the stage. What was unique about the latter mission was that we had to take into account vertical movement in space; we had to keep watch of enemies above and below us.

When we faced off against another player online, we fought in both a train station and an area with a giant elevator at the center of the map. The former stage had moving trains we could use as vantage points and makeshift transportation from one end of the map to the other, while the latter had the aforementioned elevator that went up and down during intervals. What these maps had in common was cover which we used effectively to avoid our opponent's long-ranged attacks. Our quick boosts across the map helped get us to higher ground.

Cue 70s mecha anime intro song by Ichiro Mizuki.

We had a few qualms with the minimap on the interface. The information so far only displays the location of your objectives, but not surrounding enemies as well as their vertical position. This proved detrimental on our first try of the space mission as enemies blindsided us from all corners of the map without us knowing where they were. We also had a lot to say about the game's not-so-polished graphics, but to be fair, the game was made back in 2007 and it is tailored for computers with low specs.

Gamers in Asia looking for their miniature Gundam fix can check out the closed beta test that will be held in early 2012.

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PC | Continent of the Ninth Seal: Busting Heads and Chaining Combos in a Faraway Place

We try out the first few hours of Webzen's latest free-to-play offering in the Asian MMO circle.

Gamers who have had a taste of the Chinese massively multiplayer online scene may recall an action title called Continent of the Ninth Seal (or C9) a year or so ago. Fast forward to this month, and GameSpot Asia recently got some hands-on time with the global version of the MMOG. Bugs notwithstanding, we were surprised about how effectively it conveys its message of unbridled action.

After dealing with a tutorial that involved a fight against a giant beast monkey and a village rescue from a pack of gnolls and goblins, we were thrust into quest after quest to move the plot along. We were accompanied by AI soldiers John and Fortz; they weren't much help, but they serve more as companions to forward the story, thanks to their banter. While minimal and predictable in nature, the publisher, Webzen, is doing its best within the free-to-play structure.

Players will get to choose from the close-ranged fighter (which we picked), the long-range hunter, and the spellcasting shaman, as well as the option to not only customize how they look, but also see how they would look covered up with high-level armor in the future.

Whether you're a melee brawler or a spellcaster, juggling enemies will be commonplace in C9's combat.

Players have their basic attacks mapped to the left and right mouse buttons, and additional skills from specific classes can be mapped to numbered keys. Each class has its own set of active skills, command skills pulled off with the basic controls, and passive skills that increase stats. Leveling up earns you skill points, which you can spend on the aforementioned skills via a designated trainer in the town hub. There's also a short clip of each activated skill on the right of the skill menu that shows off how each action looks, so that you have a clear idea of what you're upgrading with a trainer or what you wish to chain together for your future battles.

Within mere hours, we were chaining up attacks and beating up mobs of imps, goblins, birdmen, gnolls, and other humanoid uglies until kingdom come, thanks to the easy controls and tweaked-up action role-playing gameplay. Every hit we dished out felt impactful, and every special move we lined up came out responsively, making us feel like badasses from the get-go. Our elite fighter could bust up a mob with a combination of a thrust kick (a thrust attack followed by circular swipes) and a wide-range bash and kick attack. To clean up the mess, we finished the mob off with the upper swing technique, which launched enemies into the air, allowing us to juggle them with normal attacks as long as we were standing at the correct distance.

On top of that, we could activate fury formation by clicking both the left and right mouse buttons after our purple fury meter was full from all of the bloodshed. This triggered an aura surrounding our warrior that gave him super armor (can't get knocked down), increased attack and movement speed, and heightened damage and defense ratings for a short period of time.

The brutal kruger lives up to its moniker.

The only time we used this was when we were overwhelmed during a boss fight at the end of a dungeon. Specifically, we had to use it during a fight in the Imp Mines against the brutal kruger, a giant ogre that used a flail and shield to deal huge areas of knockback damage. Because we couldn't rely on potions due to their cooldown periods, we resorted to using all of our accumulated skills in tandem with the fury formation technique to best giants like the kruger.

If you have any experience with action games like Devil May Cry or even the recently released Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, you'll feel right at home with C9's mechanics. Because there isn't a targeting system at work here, gamers will have to land their special moves at anyone or anything within their line of sight. Mastering the distance of each class's attacks is key in pulling off the longest chain possible, especially against tougher bosses in future instances that do not give you room to breathe.

Bumping up the difficulty within the same instance showed some differences in level layout and introduced a tougher version of an existing enemy. Case in point: We came across a purple imp with higher hit points in the Imp Forest and more bomb-chucking mole creatures on a harder version of the Imp Mines. We recommend that you find a cooperative group if you're playing a dungeon on the highest difficulty.

By the time you reach level 10, which really shouldn't take too long in the standards of an MMOG, you have the option to promote your class via a time trial. You have to kill a mob of enemies in an arena for three rounds before time runs out, either on your own or with an online party. Traps mix things up, like a lightning bolt shooting downward after every five seconds during a bout. As soon as you reach level 20, you can choose different classes that have their own sets of skills and abilities.

Daily bonuses are given for each day of the week that you are playing on the servers; whether you get a short boost in experience-points acquisition on a Monday or an increase in gold rewards on a Wednesday, it's a nice feature to have, and it gives an incentive to players to keep on grinding. Noncombat activities include getting a job as an artisan; once you select your craft of choice, you can start leveling up your artisan skill to make items for selling or equipping yourself. Later on, you can even change how your items and gear look as you level up by using the town blacksmith.

There is more to C9 than just birdman genocide. Kinda.

MMO fans craving player-versus-player action aren't left out of the loop, although at this point in time, most of them aren't available in the beta. There's a deathmatch-esque mode called Rank Destroy and a practice arena where you can test your skills against bots.

While C9 isn't aiming to replace WoW or Star Wars: The Old Republic, gamers who just want to go in for a fight with like-minded groups should give this MMOG a try. At its primal level, the combat feels satisfying, even in a closed-beta state, and the crafting and customization systems are promising enough to give long-term players the tools to deck out their avatars. The closed beta is currently going on until February 28. Webzen stated that the open beta will be available this later this year.

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PlayStation 3 | Ever Want to Play as a 2-Year-Old Tiger Woods?

The latest entry in EA's golf series gives you the opportunity to live the life of Eldrick Woods.

As a person who likes a little sports history in video games, I wholeheartedly enjoy the inclusion of a mode that focuses on the incarnation of a sport from years ago, and the latest game to give players a taste of history is the upcoming Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13. Rather than experience the great golfing moments of tournaments past, you are given the opportunity to play as Tiger Woods and relive his greatest moments throughout his life--minus that whole messy divorce thing--in Tiger's Legacy mode.

Fooling around your backyard as a 2-year-old.

Video games omit the past few years of his career for obvious reasons, so you begin the mode controlling Tiger at 2 years old and his famous appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. Starting off, the objectives are pretty straightforward. As the toddler, you have to complete fairly simple tasks, such as sinking a short distance putt and hitting a few balls into a net. These were the exact things he did when he appeared on the program. Later on, you're transported to his childhood backyard where you experience training exercises designed by Tiger's father, Earl.

Tiger's Legacy is broken up into segments, and each focuses on particular moments in his career. Of course, the early stuff as a young Tiger should be fairly easy to accomplish, but the later challenges (like the 1997 Masters or the Tiger Grand Slam in 2000-01) take a lot of time and effort to complete.

On top of trying to re-create moments already accomplished in Tiger's career, the developers have even gone so far as to do a "what if" scenario and predict how Tiger's career will end, including his eventual overtaking of Jack Nicklaus' record of most major titles. Unfortunately, we didn't have the opportunity to see how old they've made Tiger look when he accomplishes this feat.

Additionally, it will be interesting to see just how much detail EA Tiburon puts into this mode. While the level of detail used in designing Tiger's childhood backyard was impressive, how much more detail has gone into every other aspect of his life? History lessons in other sports games have failed to really go into detail about the importance of the players and events. While you can easily find footage of Tiger Woods on YouTube, it would be nice if some added unlockable content with Tiger discussing those moments were included.

I'm pretty certain I wore similar outfits when I was this age.

After completing the objectives for each phase in Tiger's life, you can access them for play in other modes, including online. It will be both cool and weird when gamers get to take a 2-year-old Tiger Woods and play courses like Augusta National a few weeks after the game is launched.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 hits the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in March.

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PlayStation 3 | Five Reasons Mass Effect 3 Will Beat Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 3 will be a renegade punch in the neck of its predecessor. Here's why.

If you've been paying attention to Mass Effect 3, you'll be au fait with a handful of headline features. The new cooperative multiplayer. Kinect voice commands. Freddie Prinze Jr.

You'll know this is the third and final act in a galaxy-wide fight for survival. The implacable Reapers are preparing to purge the Milky Way of organic life, for real this time, setting the stage for an epic, space-operatic endgame.

You'll have noticed how pretty it all is, from the scuffing on Shepard's N7 battle gear, to the sleek squidbots descending on Vancouver harbour. In our recent hands-on with the upcoming demo, we watched red storm clouds roll in over the Mars horizon, flickering with otherworldly lightning, and they looked spiffy too.

But beyond the all-new co-op, celebrity cameos, and ever shinier visuals, Mass Effect 3 is about to hand Mass Effect 2, masterful though it was, a beating on a galactic scale. Here's why.

[Warning: may contain traces of spoiler. If story hints bring you out in a rash, click away.]

Don't fear the Reapers.

1. More customisation

Mass Effect's weapon and character customisation is richer and more meaningful than that of its forerunner, which cut a bit too deep when trimming the customisation fat. Options are still on the streamlined side, but this time your Shepard (and his or her crew and gear) will be a creation all of your own.

Biotic, tech, and combat powers are at the heart of customisation again. You can level up each of a character's powers through six ranks, with a branching choice after rank three, offering a couple of tempting specialisation options. Compare that to the four ranks per power in Mass Effect 2, with the option to finally evolve it into one of two more-powerful versions right at the end, in rank four. Evolving a power much earlier makes the choice more significant, not least because you'll spend much more time using it before (probably) nipping through a Mass Relay for a heroic final rumble with the Reapers.

Weapons also hit a sweet spot of streamlined customisation. Take scavenged upgrades to a weapons bench, and you can add a couple of mods to each gun, boosting damage, range, and the like. And your choices are reflected in the weapon models as well as the all-important stats so, hey, your gun will look different to how your gun looked before.

2. Shepard's got moves

Shepard is scrappier and more agile this time around. In addition to that flashy omni-blade melee kill, Shepard can sneak in, grab an enemy from behind cover, and give it a surprise helping of holographic stabbing. Other abilities include tossing grenades, sliding into cover, and vaulting up onto obstacles without pause.

Getting in, out, and around cover is smoother in general, and there's more up-and-down action, too; the levels we saw were generously populated with ladders to showcase Shep's all-new ladder-climbing power and designated points for hopping down onto lower levels.

And those early concerns that some shooter extremists at BioWare were turning Mass Effect 3 into a balls-out gun game and nothing else have resolved into something much more agreeable: shooting stuff is just plain more fun in 3 than it was in 2, whether you're sniping a riot-shielded enemy right in the eye slot or peppering a Reaper minion with space bullets from up close.

Omni-blade action.

3. The old gang is back

So what has Liara been up to? Is Miranda still genetically perfect? Did Garrus ever fix that gaping hole in his armour? This we need to know. Tighter gunplay and fuller character customisation are grand, but it could all go hang if this last game in the trilogy weren't a big old Mass Effect reunion party. Luckily, it's a little bit of just that: all the squad members from the first two games make a return in Mass Effect 3. If you didn't get them killed, obviously.

They won't all be coming back as playable squad members; we're told there are fewer characters to team up with than in the expansive Normandy roster of the second game, with its crowded character select screen. But everyone's back in some form, with "a lot more of an organic feeling to the relationships," says associate producer Mike Gamble.

The first mission, in which Shepard swings by Mars on the way to the Citadel to investigate a Prothean technology archive, reunites her with two Mass Effect old-timers: Liara and either Kaidan or Ashley, according to which one you sacrificed all the way back in the first game. With Liara conjuring biotic singularities over clusters of bad guys, Kaidan snap-freezing them with cryo blast, and you gunning down the lot, it feels just like old times. Aw.

4. Cerberus are baddies, for real this time

We spent Mass Effect 2 uneasily cooperating with Cerberus because they had the resources and the intel we needed, but they were always shifty pro-human militants named after a triple-headed hellbeast; it's well past time those guys showed their true colours. Look for that in Mass Effect 3.

As the game begins, Shepard has severed ties with the Illusive Man and his posse, though Kaidan (or Ashley, presumably) is still giving you trouble for having done their dirty work. And up on the red planet, Cerberus soldiers are getting their hands bloody, executing the staff of the Mars base housing the Prothean archive.

They may have spared no expense bringing Shepard back from the dead in game two, rebuilding him or her around a charred scrap of corpse, but like holographic Martin Sheen says: he needed you once and now "your time is over." We predict plenty of Cerberus thugs mixing it up in the enemy ranks, alongside all the multiracial Husk variants. As a pitiless, genocidal machine-race, the Reapers are officially the Big Bad, but we're looking forward to being back on the right (wrong) side of Cerberus.

He's back as well.

5. Earth, at last

Though we had a tantalising peek at Earth from the moon, Mass Effect never let us set foot on the blue planet. Through all of Shepard's planet-hopping, there has been no trip back to the cradle of humanity--until now.

Mass Effect 3 kicks off in future Vancouver, home of humanity's Defence Council, and with respect to that city, we can't imagine that's the only Earth location in the cards. Though the early trailer depicting a Reaper attack on London may have been just for flavour, not a promise we'd be omni-stabbing Husks in Hyde Park, we'd bet on Earth turning up more than just once.

"Earth in general has some significance," says associate producer Mike Gamble, and that's all the encouragement we need to be daydreaming of epic ground battles across semi-familiar territory. Because there's no place like home(world).

The Mass Effect 3 demo launches on February 14.

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Wii | Let the Rhythm Take You to Heaven

Rhythm Heaven Fever looks to end the Wii's life cycle on a high note.

The popular handheld series Rhythm Heaven is finally making its debut on the Wii, and rather than requiring you to use motion controls to complete minigames, the new entry goes back to basics, incorporating properly timed button presses as its main mechanic.

For the unfamiliar, the Rhythm Heaven series has always been about using musical and onscreen cues to complete objectives. The series has been known for its fantastic use of music, its quirky art style, and its bone-crushingly difficult objectives. And that hasn't changed with Fever. You are still going to have a tough time mastering the 50-plus challenges that come your way. But unlike in the DS version, which incorporated the stylus to complete puzzles, you only have to worry about pressing the corresponding button at the correct times.

We sat down with the game and took a little rhythm test to get things started. The first test simply had us watch the screen, and when the A button appeared, we followed suit by pressing the A button on the controller. This was done to give us an idea of how to keep with the rhythm. The second test also incorporated pressing the A button, but we had to do so at certain intervals. In this test, we were required to hit the button every eight seconds. Early rounds of the test gave us a full countdown to help, but the last few rounds not only stopped the countdown, but also obscured the screen so we didn't have any idea how accurate we were in hitting the right rhythm

After the test, we moved on to some of the six games available. The first game was a golfing minigame where a chimp and a mandrill threw golf balls that we had to hit. While the chimp had an obvious pattern and lead-up to his throw, the mandrill was very fast, and we had to react quickly to avoid getting hit by his ball.

The second puzzle was a toy assembly line where we had to fasten the heads of robots. Not only did we have to place the head on the body in time, but we had to hold it there for the right amount of time for the head to fit properly. If you hold it too long, the robot will break, but if you let go too early, the head will more than likely fall out before reaching the toy store.

Our performances varied from getting a superb rating in a board meeting game (which required us to perform an action on par with the other people in the office), to downright awful in a game where we had to repeat the pattern of a tambourine-playing monkey.

Getting the timing right in most challenges will take a few tries.

Rhythm Heaven games are known for their difficulty, and although we made our fair share of mistakes as we played, it was still a lot of fun, and the songs accompanying the challenges were quite delightful. We sampled only six of the games available, but there will be more than 50 in the final game, including some two-player ones, which we didn't have a chance to try out. On top of that, there will be bonus content to unlock, including an endless mode that contains challenges designed to see how long you can perform them before failing.

Rhythm Heaven Fever hits stores shelves on February 13, only for the Nintendo Wii.

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PlayStation 3 | Tokitowa: The RPG That Harks Back to 2D/3D Days of Yore

Image Epoch's latest action RPG aims to blend the best of anime and games with a twist of monogamy.

As we have seen time and time again in PlayStation-era role-playing games, mixing 2D sprite animation with 3D graphics can have mixed results. Developer Image Epoch knew that such an experiment would be risky, but the company that made Arc Rise Fantasia and the Luminous Arc series decided to say "screw it" and go for gold with Tokitowa, a game that claims to be an anime in video game motion.

As was evident from the Image Epoch webcast hosted by CEO Ryoei Mikage and producer Kei Hirano, Tokitowa is an action RPG for the PlayStation 3 centered on a blue-haired protagonist (which we would control) and his pink-haired wife, Toki. The key themes of the game's narrative are time and the bonds of marriage.

From the tiny clips of gameplay shown during the teaser, we can assume that Toki is a ranged character who uses her flying dragon pet as a combat assist. We didn't see any sign of the main protagonist in action, so we can't gauge whether players will have a two-person party or just tag in the other during combat.

What was also apparent was that every character and enemy will be in motion via traditional hand-drawn animation. Animation studio Satelight (Macross Frontier) and illustrator Vofan (Bakemonogatari) are handling the entire game's 2D art and look, while Yuzo Koshiro is responsible for the game's music. Speaking of characters, the teaser also showed other female members of the cast, ranging from a bespectacled brunette who may be an outdoor alchemist, to a blonde doppelganger of Toki.

What was interesting was that Mikage joked that players can cheat on the main character's wife and instead find another person to marry and date. Whether the extra glimpse of the cast means they're potential party members or spouses is still open to interpretation, but the possibilities make for something akin to a faithfulness meta-test (like Catherine did last year).

While we aren't fully convinced that what we saw would translate into a smooth gameplay experience, Mikage did state that the game is only 20 percent done and will be ready for display in time for this year's Tokyo Game Show. That said, the brief clips demonstrated the high-quality animation blending in very well with its background.

If all goes to plan, gamers can check out what could be a pleasing marriage between traditional animation and gameplay when Tokitowa is out on Japan shelves this year.

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PlayStation 3 | Five Ways SSX Reinvents Itself

SSX makes its return after a five-year vacation. We highlight what makes it different from previous games in the series.

The latest entry in EA's snowboarding popular snowboarding series is available on February 28. We've compiled a small list of features to help get you caught up on just how different this SSX is from its predecessors.

RiderNet

As we've seen with Autolog and Battlelog before it, RiderNet is your way of connecting with friends, racing against them, and posting scores. It lets you go all out to prove that you're the best SSX player around. RiderNet will appeal to you in the number of ways you can compete against friends and earn rewards. The longer you are better than your friends, the more rewards you get. You don't even have to be playing, and if your friends can't beat your score, you still earn credits.

[ Watch Video ]

RiderNet will give you the option of selecting which of your friends to focus on and letting you race only in the races where they have better scores than you. On top of that, with recommendations, you'll get around a dozen course suggestions, so picking the next challenge to beat will never require you to do a lot of searching.

And just like Autolog, RiderNet will have an app that lets you not only track your friends' progress on the various courses, but also send them messages outside of the game to really rub in your greatness over them. Who doesn't love to intimidate while stuck in a boring meeting or on the bus?

Global Events

On top of racing and challenging friends, being able to compete in global events against hundreds of thousands of players around the world for snow supremacy should be quite a treat. In these events, you can go after the highest score on a particular peak, and if you think you can do better, you can try it as many times as you want before the event ends. Online is the focus in SSX, and the better you are, the more rewarding being that awesome is. Rewards for global events will be based on percentages. The top score, along with those within 3 percent of it, will get diamond status. But even if you're not good enough to diamond an event, you can settle for platinum, gold, silver, or bronze. The rewards will work dynamically based on the number of people who take part. You'll want a lot of people taking part, so when you win it, you have even more reason to gloat.

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Deadly Descents

Want to experience the thrill of a squirrel suit? Perhaps you enjoy racing through areas filled with fallen trees and other debris. Well, the Survive It courses in SSX will have you riding through some extremely dangerous locations in the hopes of lasting as long as possible. A cool aspect of these courses is that even after you successfully reach the bottom, you get right back in the chopper, return to the peak of the mountain, and do it over again. Surviving a descent down a mountain once is nice, but doing it three times is super rewarding.

GeoTags

Apparently geocaching is a popular thing, and SSX will have its own version of it online. You can buy and place geotags on courses and have your friends try to collect them. The rewards work the same way as being the best on a course; the longer your geotag is in a spot without someone collecting it, the more you earn. It's up to you where you place them on a given mountain, so picking a spot you think others won't be able to get to will be a game in itself.

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Customization

Customization isn't new to the SSX series, but customization goes further thanks to the number of race types, specifically the different Deadly Descents courses that you'll encounter. Character progression goes up to level 10, so you'll want to unlock the coolest gear to be successful down a mountain. You can unlock and purchase different snowsuits and boards, and items like armor, oxygen tanks, geotags, and other treats will help separate you from your competition. Leveling up a character won't take long, especially if you're a seasoned SSX player, so the only thing separating you from getting the coolest gear is the amount of free time you have available.

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PC | Darksiders II: Putting the Action Into Action RPG

We pick up our scythe and get harvesting with a look at the role-playing elements in Darksiders II.

It would have been easy to dismiss the original Darksiders as the equivalent of a gaming pickpocket, liberally pilfering ideas from third-person action adventure titles such as God of War and The Legend of Zelda. But for a game that borrowed so heavily, Darksiders carved out its own clear and fascinating identity. At the centre of the experience was War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who had been summoned to Earth believing the last of seven seals keeping the forces of heaven and hell at bay had been broken, in the process signalling the endwar.

Darksiders II takes what the development team at Vigil confesses was originally a game of experimentation and refines the formula by stripping back the ideas that failed to meet the grade and expanding further on its strongest traits. We recently got an updated hands-off look at the sequel and found that while much of the basic structure that made it such a solid first outing has remained intact, this isn't the safe, cookie-cutter follow-up many may have expected.

The game takes place during the same time period as Darksiders and runs concurrently to explore what older brother Death was doing while War sliced and diced his way through the armies of angels and demons. With the stage for battle set, the development team is using the sequel to branch out with more exotic locations than in the previous game, and to move away from the human planet setting to investigate events occurring above and below the surface.

Though of the same stock, Death and War are very different in their approach to movement and combat. War's hard-hitting, lumbering way made taking care of business deliberate and brutal. Death is no less violent than his brother, but forgoes blocking and slower, more powerful strikes for zippier hit-and-run pokes and scrapes with scythes and fist weapons. That's not to say that slower, higher-damage-dealing weapons like hammers aren't available in his arsenal, but they act as secondary tools of the trade. New ethereal powers let you trade energy earned in combat to summon tombstones filled with zombies that act as crowd control in multitarget fights. Alternatively, you can take a page out of the skunk playbook, dousing yourself in shadow and dealing hurt to anyone who invades your personal space.

Straight brawling has been tossed aside to usher in combat that rests on two new skill trees. Spending points on Harbinger abilities increases Death's agility, speed, and proficiency with melee strikes, while earning and unlocking those on the Necromancer side boosts his magical prowess. The addition of these trees gives the game a more role-playing feel, while another change is that enemies receive designated levels of difficulty, complete with visibly depleting health bars as you whittle them down with your attacks. Damage figures scroll across the screen as you land hits, and though Vigil is playing its cards close to its chest for the moment, we saw sporadically increased amounts of damage that suggests the new gear items that drop from bad guys may help raise your chance to perform critical strikes.

Before you go throwing your hands up to condemn this new attempt at a more cerebral experience, it's worth noting that platforming, puzzle-solving, and skull-splitting with big metal weapons, which made the original so great, are back in spades. In fact, in response to user feedback, Darksiders II will be more difficult than its predecessor and will have less-generous windows of timing when you're performing specific objectives. Quickly rising lava in one room showed an example where precise pillar jumps and Death's wall-running and Ghost Hand skills were needed to avoid being burnt to a crisp. The new construct robot unit lets you smash corruption crystals blocking access to new areas, like the gauntlet did previously. Firing chain-tethered arms from the machine as makeshift walkways helps you retrieve items, while its raised control position from on top of its humanoid body keeps you safe as you coast across dangerous environmental hazards.

If you're going to be traipsing across the newer, more-open world, you're going to want rewards for your troubles. Darksiders II hopes to provide both tailored gameplay and incentives to replay the campaign by offering multiple sets of armour to collect and wear. We were told about the slayer, necromancer, and wanderer ensembles, but so far we don't know where they all come from, or what we'll need to do to obtain them. Loot dropped frequently during our demo, and while we were impressed with having the simplicity of quickly equipping it on the spot, or tossing it in a bag for later with a single button press, new items seemed difficult to spot on the ground. Optional side quests and dungeons will now also be available, some of which may take several hours to complete outside of the main campaign. It's worth pointing out that though this is a single-player game, Vigil has hinted at the possibility of letting players trade bind-on-equip items online with friends rather than vendor-trash them.

Our demo ended with looks at two of the nastier foes you will encounter in your travels. The first, Ghorn, was a miniboss who exploded and rebuilt himself at will. Carrying a huge cleaver, he spurted waves of lava through open grates on the floor of the arena. The second enemy was a mixture of organic and robotic, with giant black tendrils pulling together parts to build a kit-form monster who loved to pound the ground. Doing so sent out a huge shock wave, but in both cases, Death's nimble movements allowed us to deftly jump to safety before returning fire.

Certainly not as pointy-headed as some of the other action role-playing games already available, or soon to be released, Darksiders II appears to be cutting its own path. The addition of a more open-world map, optional side content, and a more fluid and thoughtful combat system has us interested to see more of the game running. Look for more on it during 2012 ahead of its launch on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC.

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PlayStation 3 | Sniper Elite V2 - I Can Wait All Day

By incorporating sandbox level designs, varied weapons, and other tricks, Rebellion looks to deliver a different action experience with Sniper Elite V2

The number of military action games based on the events of World War II has tapered away during the past several years, with the setting focusing on either current or futuristic storylines. Bucking this trend, Rebellion Games is going back to the tail end of WWII with its upcoming third-person action game. Sniper Elite V2 is the follow-up to the 2005 game Sniper Elite. The developers are hoping that the game's open-ended nature and "kill cam" camera mechanic will set it apart from other games.

Sniper Elite V2 puts you in control of Karl Fairburne, a US sniper. He has been sent to Berlin in the midst of post-WWII conflicts between Nazi and Russian forces with the mission of trying to eliminate, capture, or rescue those involved in the famous V2 rocket program.

The story is spread across 11 missions, but how you approach each mission is where the game's open-ended nature comes into play. Like so many other action games, you can customize your arsenal to best suit your play style. Fairburne is equipped with a primary sniper rifle, a machine gun, and a sidearm, as well as a number of different supplementary items. These include explosive mines and trip mines, which can be set up in locations to serve various functions, such as defense mechanisms or traps.

Even though Fairburne is a sniper, you won't be restricted to playing as stealthy soldiers. The different weapons and items let you approach an area in various ways. With your silenced sidearm, you can slowly creep behind enemies and eliminate them. If you're the kind of person who enjoys running and gunning, then your machine gun will let you play with no regard for your safety.

Still, the primary focus is to snipe enemies and use the terrain to your advantage. Enemies will often be far away, so you can eliminate entire squads before they can react. When sniping, the game features both a heart-rate monitor and breathing bar, which factors into shooting. Holding your breath will allow for a more precise shot, but if you're being fired upon and under a lot of pressure, Fairburne's high heart rate makes shooting more difficult.

Proper sneaking will help you to accomplish any task.

Kills with your rifle also showcase the game's kill-cam mechanic. When you pull off incredible kill shots, the game momentarily stops the action and goes into a bullet animation that slowly highlights the bullet's trek from the muzzle of your rifle to its target. Based on where the bullet goes, you are treated to an X-ray animation that points out exactly what internal damage has been done, such as shattering skulls and exploding livers. During our presentation, these animations were shown a lot, but we were promised that the frequency of these moments--which can take you out of the experience--will only happen at key moments.

Sniper Elite V2 is scheduled to hit the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 this May.

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