CNet Asia's Techbuzz host Jacqueline Seng and GameSpot Asia's Jonathan Toyad duke it out with party games that are crowd-friendly for the December festivities. Challenge accepted! To see the last crossover, go here: http://l.gamespot.com/HjM9Ig
Following in the footsteps of last year's All 4 One, Ratchet and Clank continue their foray into multiplayer-focused action with Full Frontal Assault. There isn't a whole lot to this game; it's narrow in scope and priced accordingly. Here, the focus is on competitive multiplayer, and the one and only such mode requires you to balance making tactical decisions with blasting lots of things to smithereens. These two elements form a fast-paced whole that rewards your reflexes and your smarts.
He who controls the nodes controls the bolts. He who controls the bolts can buy more stuff.
Playing Full Frontal Assault's competitive multiplayer either one-on-one or two-on-two, your goal is to destroy the six generators in your opponent's base while ensuring that at least one of your own generators survives. Play revolves through three phases--a node-capturing phase, a defense- and squad-purchasing phase, and an assault phase.
During the first phase, called recon, you zip across the map, enjoyably aided by rocket boosters on the soles of your boots. Nodes around the battlefield are guarded by meager defenses; by defeating those forces, you can claim the nodes as your own. Of course, during this time, your opponent is also racing to claim nodes, and may even try to take nodes that belong to you. Capturing nodes rewards you with weapons for your hero, and more importantly, each node you currently control pays out a steady stream of bolts over time.
Those bolts start coming in handy once the squad phase begins. During this phase, you can spend the bolts you've got coming in on base defenses--turrets, barriers, mines, and so on--and on forces that assault the enemy base. Do you pour all your bolts into trying to build a nigh-impregnable fortress? Do you go on the offensive, trying to overwhelm your opponent in the early stages? Or do you hedge your bets? During the first few rounds, your supply of bolts isn't great, but nodes gradually dish out more bolts as games progress, ensuring that battles escalate over time.
If your opponent secured more nodes than you during the previous recon phase, it's not easy to come back from a big bolt deficit, but it's not impossible, either. There's no rule that says you have to spend your entire squad phase in your base. You can't capture nodes during this time, but you can whittle away at the defenses on your opponent's nodes, making them quick and easy to take when the next recon phase begins and setting the stage for a possible comeback. While some battles are one-sided affairs that end in a quick and decisive victory, others have an exciting ebb and flow as players vie for dominance. There are enough tactical options available to you and your opponent to allow for a good deal of unpredictability and some sudden and surprising shifts in momentum.
The squad phase gives way to the assault phase, during which any squads you purchased assault the enemy base, and your base comes under attack from enemy forces. As before, you have a choice to make, and it can make a huge difference. Do you stick around and protect your generators, or put your considerable muscle into the assault on the enemy base? If your opponent's base is poorly guarded, your presence there can be the deciding factor in the battle. But if your defenses are inadequate to meet the enemy onslaught, your absence at home may be the final nail in your own coffin.
Solid shooting action supports the tactical decision-making. You start out with a straightforward combuster, but as you take nodes, you acquire an assortment of alternate weapons, as well as support items like the death-dealing robot sidekick Mr. Zurkon and the attack decoy known as Dopplebanger. Ammo is somewhat scarce on the battlefield, so the more weapons you're packing, the longer you can hold out in a fight. Smart use of your support items can help you take nodes and fend off enemy attacks, and in true Ratchet & Clank tradition, weapons feel powerful and are fun to use. Unfortunately the AI of enemies you must sometimes use your weapons on isn't very sharp. You commonly find foes getting caught on the environment as they approach your base.
Ranked competitive matches rate your performance and then place you into one of several leagues. The system does a fine job of finding opponents at around your skill level, while also giving you the goal of getting better and climbing up the ranks. You can also host or join custom matches and play with friends.
In addition to the competitive multiplayer, there's a brief, rudimentary campaign that can be played either solo or in split-screen or online co-op. Most missions have you defending a base while venturing out onto the battlefield to take out enemy strongholds, and it all culminates in a decent boss battle. There are a few laughs to be had--seeing Captain Qwark flex heroically and pointlessly as he flies through the air is always amusing. But if you come to Full Frontal Assault hoping for a substantial single-player experience like those offered by so many Ratchet & Clank games, you'll be disappointed.
This $20 game does one thing well: it has a competitive multiplayer mode that blends tactics and action in a way that allows for some exciting and unpredictable battles. You also get the Vita version with your purchase, though that won't be available until January. It's unfortunate that there aren't more multiplayer modes; as good as the one here is, you eventually wish for a change of pace from the cycle of recon, squad, and assault. But having your forces lay waste to your opponent's base as you keep his forces at bay with the dance-inducing power of a Groovitron is still a satisfying way to win a fight.
Professional League of Legends player Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera has been suspended for a year from playing in the League of Legends Championship Series, developer Riot has announced. Vice president of eSports Dustin "RedBeard" Beck revealed the news in a post on the League of Legends forum.
The announcement was made following news that Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera had already been permanently banned from the game for "toxic behaviour".
The post states that he had been brought before the Tribunal "eight or nine times", and holds "a persistent record of in-game harassment, verbal abuse, offensive language and negative attitude".
In addition to the one year suspension from playing in the Championship Series, he has had other existing known accounts permanently banned.
"We take sportsmanship and player behaviour very seriously, and we fundamentally believe that pro players should not be exempt from scrutiny over their behaviour" the announcement read.
Christian recently represented international eSports team Team Dignitas at the Season 2 North American Regional Finals, placing second with his teammates. Team Dignitas' owner Michael O'Dell has confirmed that he will be replaced.
North American eSports team Quantic Gaming has reportedly been disbanded. The news was first hinted at on Twitter from the CEO of fellow eSports organisation Complexity Gaming, Jason Lake.
Whilst an official statement has not yet been made by the organisation, several of Quantic Gaming's rostered players subsequently shared their thoughts regarding the news via social media, including StarCraft 2 players Florence "flo" Yao, Chris "Illusion" Lee and Michael "theognis" McClelland.
Website cadred.org has reported on tweets from Rod "Slasher" Breslau, who cited that investors had pulled funding from the team.
Quantic Gaming had held a roster of professional players for Starcraft II, League of Legends and the Call of Duty series.
The organisation has posted on Twitter that a "more thorough message" regarding their closure will be posted soon. For a full list of players left teamless from the disbandment, see below.
Starcraft II
Josh "Agh" Bland
Kim "Apocalypse" Min Hyung
Zac "ChAnCe" Palmer
Moon "DdoRo" Jung Ho
Cho "Golden" Myung Hwan
Eugene "HasHe" Demenchukov
Devan "Hawk" Subramaniam
Chris "Illusion" Lee
Madeleine "MaddeLisk" Leander
Jeffrey "MaximusBlack" Johnston
Kim "SaSe" Hammar
Michael "Spanishiwa" Yabut
Ryan "State" Visbeck
Michael "theognis" McClelland
Choi "TheStC" Yun Sik
League of Legends
Ferris "AGeNt" Ganzman
Hai "Hai" Lam
Daerek "LemonNation" Hart
Zach "Nien" Malhas
Jason "WildTurtle" Tran
Gabriel "Yazuki" Ng
Call of Duty series
Patrick "Aches" Price
Sean "Mutation" Ellis
Tyler "TeePee" Polchow
Blake "Veng" Campbell
Lego: Lord of the Rings shipped last month for nearly every platform under the sun. It is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation Vita, PC, DS, and 3DS. However, the children's-themed Lord of the Rings game is not available for Wii U.
Fans of both J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction and Nintendo's new dual-screen gaming system may be wondering why the game skipped the Mario maker's first high-definition console. The answer, according to a Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment representative, is simple.
"The primary reason is that [Traveller's Tales] and Lego were already working on Lego City Undercover for Wii U," the representative said.
Nintendo director of product marketing Bill Trinen said in September that the company has been working with Lego on Lego City Underover for "quite a while," noting that it wanted to have a Lego game for Wii U launch. Though Lego City Undercover is not yet available, it is due out during Nintendo's "launch window" period, which spans November 18, 2012-March 31, 2013.
For more on Lego: Lord of the Rings, check out GameSpot's review.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot asks the question: is more of the same enough to satisfy you? If so, and if you don't mind starting a new game from scratch, then you already know what you need to know about the first major downloadable content for this great turn-based strategy game. For $6.99, you get three smartly designed levels, the latter two of which keep tensions appropriately high as you encounter the same horrifying aliens that hovered ominously over the original game. The DLC also provides certain tweaks that open up powerful technology, such as the fusion core, earlier than you would normally expect, and it also adds some cosmetic customization options to fiddle with. But ultimately, Slingshot is an hour's worth of "more," and it struggles to find a worthwile place in the XCOM project.
That isn't to say that these three missions aren't up to Enemy Unknown's high standards. The first, a rescue task that you face early in the game, introduces you to Shaojie Zhang, whose poker-faced expression and dramatic vocal tone contribute to the game's amusing campiness. His stoic presence is a continuation of XCOM's entertaining mix of pop-culture-inspired nuttiness and earnest characters that take each event with such dreadful seriousness. The mission itself is a standard rescue, but the map fits the setting--a detail the original game occasionally missed. The softly glowing lanterns, Chinese characters on signs overhead, blooming cherry blossom trees: these features impress upon you that you are, indeed, in China.
Aesthetics aside, the mission plays out exactly as you would expect for an early-game Enemy Unknown mission; you lead your squad through the mission, fending off almond-eyed sectoids, facing a spiderlike chrysalid, and ultimately escorting Zhang to safety. The central mission is structurally the most interesting of the three, having squad members sprint down the corridor of a passenger train and activating transponders while protecting their flanks--and taking position above, if you prefer. Why the hurry? The objective is timed, so you must perform the necessary activations before you reach your turn limit, an aspect that adds additional tension to an otherwise straightforward mission.
The final mission has you assaulting a rotating alien ship that hovers over a brightly lit cityscape. This is the lengthiest and most challenging level of the three, and as well it should be, since you encounter it once you're deep into the main game. Like many of Enemy Unknown's similar assaults, verticality is a concern here, though like in similar XCOM levels, the symmetrical layout prohibits the action from becoming too chaotic. Like the others, this is a good mission, yet in context, amid the dozens of surrounding missions, it doesn't greatly elevate the overall course of the game. After that initial mission, Zhang enters your barracks and makes for a powerful heavy in the few hours that follow his introduction. Yet even with his formidable presence, the Slingshot objectives blend into the rest, as do the slight attempts at storytelling.
The price might seem reasonable at first glance, but as nice as these missions are, they don't heighten Enemy Unknown in any significant manner--and you certainly wouldn't want to start a new game for the explicit purpose of experiencing them. If a new playthrough is already in your upcoming plans, then you might appreciate a few fresh objectives. Yet without an identity to call its own, Slingshot is too similar to the many hours that surround it to be considered a must-play to anyone but the most fervent XCOM fans.
Which version of Far Cry 3 has the juiciest-looking boar meat, you ask? We did a quick side-by-side comparison of Far Cry 3's opening scene to get quick idea of which one looks the best. What do you think? (Spoiler: It's PC)
this guy is funny....
what a poor sport...
whats the point of whining & complaining about every little detail?
he sounds like he is speaking to a therapist...
who cares about your excuses...
i agree with his point of being overly emotional, he definitely shows it in this interview...
does anyone teach him how to talk to the public?
pure train wreck...
if he has an issue with playing back to back tournaments, then why not tell your group or set up a schedule where he is practicing constantly..
if this is his job, then he should be constantly practicing & putting game time into his daily routine/schedule....
Well, never had seen NBA2K footage so when they started playing, since I wasn't really looking at screen, first few seconds I looked at it I genually thought it was a real life game, not simulator. Then I noticed the blue below the player and realised it.
This is to say that the game camera is really well done. In FIFA, I always know it's a game because it has a fixed view point, they don't do a close up footage of a play, which happens during real life game coverages. But here, since the playing field is way smaller, there is no real need for it and that makes it seem real.
As for being the Wii U version, doesn't have any real incentive to choose over the others so...
two things which I don't like, not sure if anyone else felt the same. First I am growing up with the likes of X-wing, TIE Fighter, and Jane's F/A-18. The third person view is just very annoying for me, especially for a space combat game. Second the cinematic constantly take your controls away, this I don't like it, it breaks the immersion factor. Instead they should have a "Look at" function where you choose if you want to look at an event or not, instead of forcing you to look.
