Curt Schiling, head of 38 Studios has commented on the official forums in a bid to beat down the flames of anger. He reveals that the code that will come with all new copies of the game is in fact for Day 1 DLC, which in turn is free for those who purchase the game new thanks to that nifty little code.

There is of course the small issue of the second hand games market, a great source of revenue for high-street shops like GAME, but something which developers and publishers are less keen on. Curt explains his issue with second hand sales like so: “Every single person on the planet could wait and not buy Reckoning, the game would hit the bargain bin at some point and you could get it cheaper. 38 Studios would likely go away.” As such, he explains that the Day 1 DLC, free to those who buy the game new is a “REWARD [to] fans and gamers who commit to us with their time and money when it benefits the company.”

I for one have no issue with this approach, initial reports of there being an online pass have seem to be a bit wide of the mark as shown by Curt’s comments. In the current climate investing in new IP is seen as a risky proposition, as such developers and publishers are right to do whatever they can to ensure that they are able to maximise revenue from channels they are normally cut out of. In Curt’s post he goes on to say this:

“The industry is in a very odd place. The data coming in on used game sales is not saying the things many thought it should, or would. But companies are still trying to figure out how to receive dollars spent on games they make, when they are bought. Is that wrong? if so please tell me how.

Again, you can argue with methods, or process, and you absolutely can bitch and gripe about ANY DAY 1 DLC you are charged for, because I think I agree with many on that, but we are trying to create something here, product and company wise, and it takes dollars to do that”

I applaud Curt for his honesty, and I hope that this issue does not drastically impact on first time sales of the game which is looking quite nice. As we are talking about Kingdoms of Amalur, you may as well check out this new video showing off some of the possibilities you will find in the game.

Final Fantasy XIII split fans and critics down the middle, while many loved the change in direction for the series some hated it just as much. Reviewers were scoring the game at around 8 or 9 out of 10, praising the combat system and the production of the game while fans were upset by the lack of freedom and the slog to get through the first third of the game. Die hard fans of Final Fantasy will never like change, and yes from the days of FFVII -IX which was a personal favourite time for me, the game has changed and advanced a lot, but it wouldn’t it be somewhat foolish for a company to bring out thirteen or so games that were near exactly the same.

As a long term fan of the Final Fantasy games I can see just how much they have changed over the years bringing in all kinds of new aspects and abilities for each new game and revisiting and improving the parts we know and love. Square Enix has promised that Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be an huge improvement on its predecessor and it’s clear to see that they are determined to make some major developments, so much so that it has all become a little overwhelming. But just what have they changed for the new game and will it be for the better? Decide for yourselves after reading my hands on impressions from the demo and all the inside facts.

Story
It’s been three years since Lightning and co saved Cocoon from colliding with Pulse. Serah, now living in Gran Pulse, is looking for her sister who unknown to anyone has entered a new world, Valhalla, when she fell to the base of the crystal pillar supporting Cocoon. Time gates have begun showing up in New Bodham and further afield and it is said that by passing through one of these gates, one can eventually arrive in Valhalla.

The setting and story for XIII-2 is looking to be a lot darker and more mysterious and can be seen from the sneak peak of trailers and screenshots that have been released. In my opinion XIII was a bit over the top cute and almost kooky in places and made for some rather odd character interactions. Usually Square Enix manage to translate the Japanese humour and characters well but something just didn’t seem to fit. Having the story go to a darker and more mysterious place seems like a good direction and from the short amount of story that I saw in the demo the tone has definitely changed.

Time travel has been done countless times before in many different games and now it’s here for the first time in a Final Fantasy game. You are given the option to travel forward and backward in time to change events that have passed and that are yet to come and the outcomes can change the course of the game. The key word of many people who complained about the previous games shortfalls was linearity, it was too enclosed and straightforward. This addition looks to be opening the game up for more variability and exploration and hopefully the whole time travel experience can be done in a unique and interesting way.

Characters
Passing from sister to sister the main character of XIII-2 is now Serah Farron a character who was never actually controllable in the first game and only really seen during cut scenes. She is set on finding her sister Lightning who unknown to her has entered a new world, Valhalla. Everyone else believes Lightning to be dead and Serah will have a hard time convincing them otherwise.

New to the adventure is Noel Kreiss who has time travelled seven hundred years from the future to change the fate of the human race of which, in his time, he was the only survivor. He claims to have met Lightning and to have knowledge about time travel.

Snow Villiers and Hope Estheim both make a return looking somewhat different and more mature than when we last saw them and Lightning, the main character from the previous game will also be playable for short periods of the story.

The ever lovable, or depending on how you see it, incredibly annoying Moogles have returned to the world of Final Fantasy bringing with them new combat and treasure finding abilities.

Combat
The FFXIII ATB (Active Time Battle) combat system for me was probably the strongest point in the game. It allowed for a fast paced battle against numerous foes and using the Paradigm shift system, fast changes between a team that could cause a large amount of damage and a team that could tank and heal to recover from multiple attacks. The combat system is largely untouched for XIII-2 but some changes have been made. The inclusion of cinematic battle sequences during major boss fights is one such change. These cinematic battles allow you to deal larger amounts of damage than usual and even buff your team providing you can hit a series of buttons in quick succession that appear on the screen. From first hand play I can say that this looks as if it will be a great inclusion to the combat sequences. The cinematic sequences kept me interested, even in the longer battles and increased the pace and excitement.

Moogles have brought with them a new system for entering combat called the Mog Clock. Monsters won’t be seen walking around the map anymore and instead you will have a moogle companion with you at all times that will alert you of nearby foes only. When one does appear the Mog clock will begin to count down and depending on how long it takes you to initiate combat you could be aided or hindered. If you are quick to attack, you may receive combat buffs and the enemy will be immobilised allowing you a preemptive strike. If you take a little time and the enemy notices you, the battle will start as normal with no buffs to your team. If the Mog Clock runs out of time, the enemy will be fully aware and alert and should you fail the encounter you will be unable to retry.

Players can now tame monsters they encounter throughout the game and call on them to fight during normal game play, taking the place of XIII’s Eidolons. Each monster will have different attacks and abilities and can even heal you so choosing the right one for each encounter and situation could make a lot of difference to progression through the storyline.

It is now possible for your characters to become wounded during battle, meaning the maximum available health for that character has been reduced and cannot be healed past with normal spells or potions but instead with special ‘wound potions’. Enemies with these certain attacks and abilities and considered very dangerous. Fortunately some abilities that you gain in your Crystarium will have the same affect on enemies and can be used just as much to your own advantage.

Previously Final Fantasy games have not included difficulties and have set all players along the same route meaning that if you get stuck you just need to try again and again or go back and level up your skills before progressing further. However if you are finding it hard going, for the first time Square Enix have included a difficulty setting allowing you to make things a bit easier and hopefully progress that little bit smoother through the game.

Customisation
One thing that I really enjoy about Final Fantasy games are the deep levels of stat and combat customisations that you can experiment with. Being able to focus your character on a certain aspect whether it be damage, healing, tanking or a mixture of all of them and being able to freely choose stats to upgrade and advance is what really makes each persons playthrough of the game unique. This was somewhat lacking in XIII and the usual wealth of options were narrowed.

Luckily for us Square Enix have brought in Tri-Ace, a Japanese developer who are well known for giving their games action packed battle and deep and interesting skill systems. The result is the improved Crystarium system used for adding stats and learning new combat abilities, which will take the shape of the chosen characters weapon. This time around there will be no cap on how far you can advance the Crystarium at any point in the story and you will be able to access all of the main roles for every character right from the start. Instead of being tiered the Crystarium is now advanced in levels and at the end of each of these levels you are given a choice of things to advance, whether it be increasing you accessory capacity, adding an additional attack slot during battle or enhancing a characters role (ie medic, commando etc) allowing new abilities to be learnt. Tamed monsters will also have their own Crystarium allowing you to further improve combat efficiency.

From what I saw of the Crystarium in the demo it seemed a little confusing as to exactly what stats you were levelling up and how exactly it all worked. Compared to XIII it did seem more in depth though and the choice of advancements every time you levelled your Crystarium was a very nice touch.

Entirely new to Final Fantasy is the Live Trigger System. This is much like Bioware’s conversation wheel in that it allows you to choose different directions to take the conversation, each with different outcomes. These decisions can shape the story and multiple endings to the game are possible depending on your actions.

Graphics and Interface
The interface is largely untouched from the previous game with the same layout and only slight changes and updates for some of the new abilities, these all fit in seamlessly though and overall it has a very polished and easy to use feel. The graphics, as always with Final Fantasy games, are beautiful and move seamlessly between mini cutscenes and live controllable action. No major story based cutscenes were included in the demo which is a shame as this is where the graphics usually excel above and beyond what is expected. I’m sure any doubts on this part will soon be put to rest as soon as the full game is out.

—

While the demo is very short, it’s clear to see that Square Enix have taken in a lot of what people have been saying they want from a Final Fantasy game and brought it into XIII-2. They have also taken the time to include some aspects that have never before been seen in the Final Fantasy series. Exploration, customisation, great story lines, beautiful cutscenes and exciting battles are the things that make me keep coming back to every new Final Fantasy game and it sure looks like they are all present here. If everything pays off this looks as if it could be one of the best Final Fantasy games yet.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be released on PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 3rd around Europe.

Chris Evans – My god I love this game, this is worthy of a Red Mist, no questions asked. I played a fair bit of Oblivion, and I sure enjoyed that, but Skyrim is on another level entirely. I wasn’t sold on the introduction, but as soon as I had escaped the dragon and was walking along with that chap at the beginning, I was enthralled. Steam tells me I have played it for 19 hours, and in that time I have barely scratched the surface of what the game has to offer. I have completed a tiny proportion of the main quest and only visited three of the main cities.

The most enjoyable aspect of the title isn’t the main quest line, or indeed the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild, the best aspect of Skyrim is the wilderness. After getting to the first small village after the opening sequence I didn’t bother following any quest markers, instead I started to climb a mountain and was soon caught in a blizzard with a small group of bandits attacking me. After despatching those ruffians I came along my first dungeon and explored every nook and cranny I could find in there.

Somehow, I convinced myself that I had to stop playing Skyrim as much as I was, I feared it would completely take over my play time. Sadly that meant I have become entangled once more in Football Manager 2012, but I know that I will soon head back to that frozen world, even if it is only to become a werewolf like Nick.

Seriously, this game is brilliant, I saw one of my cousins recently and he was asking whether he should ask for Skyrim for Christmas, I enthused to him that he definitely should get it. This is a gem of game.

Nick Wheeler – If Skyrim has taught me one thing, it’s that there are few problems in life that can’t be solved by turning into a werewolf and killing everyone.

I am Druss. Wanderer of the snow-fields of Skyrim. Dragon slayer. Vampire hunter. Saviour of that guy chased by bears. In my spare time I enjoy chopping wood for the local lumber-mill, catching fish with my bare hands and transmogrifying into a giant terrifying beast of the night.

Since becoming a werewolf I’ve formed a new outlook on life. First thing I did was rid myself of that damned horse. Slow, lumbering and smelly it was, plus I could never find a space to park it in the stable. But now, ignoring the seconds of agonising bone-snapping trauma involved in transformation, all my travelling needs are taken care of with my own four paws. No matter the distance, miles of snow-covered landscape are devoured by the rhythmic thundering of my paws, as is any poor helpless wildlife that happens to cross my path.

In combat I am devastating. My claws rend both human and animal flesh with equal speed. But in the rare event I do find myself outmatched, I carry one final ace up my sleeve. There are few things in Skyrim that can run away as fast as a werewolf. Call it cowardice, but for me it’s an extension of the simple pleasure of watching the landscape drift by under my feet.

Us wolf-people have a somewhat bad reputation. My appearance at social occasions in wolf-form does seem to be frowned upon by the attending guards, no matter what vintage wine I bring. Perhaps it’s my tendency to dribble on the carpet, shed hairs on the rug and chase horses, I’m not sure. Or maybe it’s the fact that I have a habit of tearing people limb from limb before feeding on their mangled remains. Who knows, I’m no expert on court etiquette.

On the rare occasions where decency or clothing standards dictate a hairy wolf-man is not acceptable, I carry additional protection in the form of an ancient two-handed axe, Wuuthraad. Since coming into my possession, the already legendary axe has never been far from my reach, smashing its way through the faces of those who stand against me. I hear there are people out there able to control the elements with magic and spray fire from their fingers, but I just hit things with my axe until they don’t get up any more.

Part of my brain is screaming in the background saying this isn’t a game, it’s too easy. But the weapon I carry is enormous, heavy and sharp. I’d probably be a little more concerned if it didn’t rend foes in two after only one strike. So fights may be a little one-sided, so what? I just lopped off a bandit’s head with one blow and watched it bounce down a flight of stairs, and now I’m going to turn back into a wolf and eat his family.

Happy days.

Michael Johnson – I feverishly tore open the box, slamming the DVD in my tray and spent 20 minutes fidgeting as the game installed upon my trusty warhorse of a PC. I had done my best to ignore the hype, but it had taken a hold of me nonetheless and I was excited.

You can imagine my disappointment then, when it turned out that ‘Skyrim’ was not the experimental cloud-based Anilingus adventure I had been expecting. I held on to a vain hope that after the wagon based expository intro, we’d get to the real meat of the game. But within five minutes I’d accepted that this was in fact a game about Dragons and Beards. And not even a saucy one like The Witcher 2. In fact, it may even be the least saucy game ever made. Those of you have married in Skyrim, will have presumably snorted out laughter at TES V’s version of courtship, which seems to involve wearing a necklace and entering into a business partnership (in fact the main perk of marriage is that it comes with a shop!).

Skyrim doesn’t really have much time for things like ‘drama’ or ‘relationships’ or ‘good writing’, but it doesn’t really need them. It gives us an astoundingly large world, packed with places to explore, people to help or kill, loot to grab, weapons to craft or enchant and quests to complete. And despite the lack of passable prose, it manages you to draw you in to this beautifully crafted realm, full of snow-covered mountainsides, howling gales and starkly beautiful waterfalls, nestling in the otherwise rugged landscape. It also has INFINITE DRAGONS – the ultimate spectacle and they lend the game a sense of grandeur (the wonderful score by Jeremy Soule doesn’t hurt either).

Skyrim is a place that begs to be explored, The Elder Scrolls games may not give us freedom to change or really even affect the central narrative (or the ancilliary stories that run parallel), but they make up for this by giving us the most impressive world in gaming, filled with treasures and secrets, traps and monsters, friends, foes and dragons. We make our own stories in Skyrim (although I may have to turn to fan-fic after the misleading title gave me false expectations).

Jordan Harling – Until Skyrim I had never really understood the allure of the Elder Scrolls games. I had played Morrowind briefly and Oblivion fairly extensively and wasn’t really impressed. It was clear to me that both were technically extremely good, with massive world maps and deep quest lines but there just wasn’t any emotional weight to the games. The worlds felt strangely hollow and the NPCs lifeless.

This isn’t the case in Skyrim and it’s not easy to quantify why, which is a complement to the subtle changes that have been made to the AI. Thanks to the new radiant AI system NPCs act much more realistic than in previous games. Drop a pile of items in the middle of a town and some characters will pick them up for you, others will take them for themselves and some may even shout at you for littering.

The more realistic NPCs add a much greater sense of emotional weight to each quest, you’re not just completing a fetch quest for a robot, you’re adventuring for a family heirloom for Idolaf Battle-Born. This extra connection makes hacking your way through the interwoven quest trees feel much more satisfying in previous games.

One area where Skyrim hasn’t really improved though is in combat. Melee attacks don’t carry the weight they should and battles frequently turn into tedious bouts of clicking until yourself or everyone else is dead. Had Bethesda implemented a system more similar to the one found in Dark Souls then Skyrim may well have been the closest thing to a perfect game I’ve ever played. However, even with the flawed combat Skyrim is a sublime game, one that no doubt will be competing for many people’s Game of the Year award.

Dark Souls is quite a difficult game you see, and people who run in without really knowing what they’re getting themselves into quite simply won’t understand how to play it. Primarily it’s a hack and slash game, backed up with a complex statistics system of percentages, incremental improvements and diminishing returns. But in many ways it doesn’t play like a modern game at all; mechanics are explained in the vaguest of terms, combat is slow and death is frequent and often frustrating. Consequently, you have to learn how to play it – unless you’ve played Demon Souls, to which Dark is the spiritual successor. This means taking your time, inching forward through the grim and dangerous environments, approaching each new enemy with caution. As you play you’ll gather souls; used for levelling up and upgrading your equipment, but equally as important – you as a player level-up. You learn how to deal with enemies and situations, you’ll come to understand that patience is key and as your timing and evasion becomes more precise you’ll grow from a nervous neophyte to grizzled veteran.

Combat is methodical and dangerous (though with plenty of opportunity for flair, with counters and back-stabs). Charging in recklessly with a two-handed sword, might feel heroic and initially might even yield success, but at some point you’ll get hit. That’s the point where you discover being hit is not a good idea – as your health bar is cut in half and you find yourself desperately scrambling backwards to use an Estus flask (healing potion), your undead opponent tries to capitalise on your weakness. You roll backwards, evading the death blow, but your movement attracts the attention of another foe nearby and now you have two vicious skeletons moving toward you ominously, their savage red eyes reflecting their intent. You grab the shield from your back, holding it out in front of you, as you step from left to right, trying to find the angle that favours you. Skeleton number One lets out a roar and slashes at you with his blade, it deflects harmlessly off your raised shield and you consider a quick counter attack. Skeleton Two’s close proximity and your diminished stamina convince you otherwise. Instead you take a step backwards and let your shield down to recover for the next onslaught. Skeleton Two surges forward and attempts to impale you with an attack you recognise – a vicious lunge. You time the parry perfectly, swatting his blade away with your shield and perform the riposte, violently burying your sword in his ribcage, shattering the skeleton. You pull up your shield once more and turn back to Skeleton One. He comes at you with a combination of two slashes, and you roll behind him, slipping your blade between his shoulder-blades as he shatters into a pile of dry bone and dull steel. You take a moment to heal before resuming the standard exploration position. Shield up, you edge forwards toward the white globe on the ground signifying precious loot. You claim your treasure – a new spear – as the pile of bones on the ground just to your left reforms into a skeleton three times the size of those you just slew and with a blade as long as you are. For a brief moment, you consider running. But part of you wonders; ‘Just how many souls can I get from taking this joker out?’. You set your jaw in grim determination, preparing for battle. That is the essence of the Dark Souls experience; risk versus reward, gruelling combat and the knowledge that no matter how many enemies you’ve slain, bigger, tougher ones lie in wait.

Dark Souls’ biggest change from it’s predecessor is that it eschews the hub-level approach, instead giving us a seamless open-world to explore. The world retains a Gothic fantasy feel, while taking you through some remarkable environments. My personal favourite is a hidden area known as Ash Lake. You crawl out of a large hollow tree into this area and a stirring orchestral number, both haunting and ethereal greets you. On the horizon, you are made to bear witness to your tiny insignificance as hundreds of giant trees stretch into the mists all around. Stopping to admire the beauty is however, a perilous choice to make. The lake to your left contains a hungry looking Hydra, it’s eight heads snapping viciously as it launches a flurry of water jets toward you. The amazing environments combined with the enemy design and sparse NPC dialogue tell a tale of a world drained of all life as enroaching chaos and decay consume. It all sounds pretty grim (and it is), but it’s a setting which seems to make your heroism into an act of defiance so unexpected the game itself can scarcely believe it. My favourite NPC of the game is a man you meet just outside the tutorial area, who has forgotten hope. He mocks your chances of survival and with each success he grows more despondent, jealous that you have gained strength, where he gave in to weakness. I think he’s meant to be a metaphor for the people who slam their controller down in frustration and walk away from the game.

The biggest problem in my time with Dark Souls was the multi-player. On the surface it sounds like a unique proposition. You can leave messages for other players on their doomed journey upon the ground, be that a tip on how to beat the next challenge, or a cruel jape sending them to their death. You can also summon the phantoms of other players to your world, for co-op play. Your goal in co-op is to take down the area boss together, but it doesn’t conform to our expectations of integrated voice-chat and chat functionality in modern gaming. Communication is purposefully limited to a few vague gestures and it’s totally in keeping with the setting – these players are echoes of other heroes who tried and perhaps failed in the same quest you now undertake, to have you bantering away with each other would just feel wrong. Finally there are invasions, this is where hostile phantoms are able to invade other players worlds and attempt to slay them for various rewards – usually determined by which ‘Covenant’ you are a member of. Covenants are factional affiliations, some geared towards assisting other players, others to slaying them and harvesting their souls. The online ideas in play here are an admirable attempt to do something different (in keeping with the rest of the game), but at the time of writing I am often unable to connect to other players and it’s a source of frustration that this feature is so hit and miss. Even when you are able to connect to others, the balance of weapons and items for the PvP aspects don’t appear to be finely balanced and there are an abundance of cheesy builds and cheap tactics.

If you can face a sturdy challenge and have the patience to learn from your mistakes, Dark Souls is a game that is outright better than every other release so far this year (Portal 2 is a possible exception). It’s a captivating experience, that grabs you forcefully and drags you into its brooding landscape, daring you to fly in the face of overwhelming odds. In many games you save the world as part of the narrative, but the heroism credited to you feels unearned. Here, every victory is to be savoured, every gigantic boss you fell feels worthy of legend. If you dismiss this game because you’re afraid of failure, you’re missing the point. The victories you truly earn are the sweetest of all and few games come close to the sense of soaring triumph that success in Dark Souls brings.

Verdict – Red Mist

Platforms Available – 360, PS3
Platform Reviewed – 360

But Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is different. It’s not an FPS.

Part of the Serious Sam indie series, and the brain child of small-time indie developers Vlambeer, The Random Encounter is actually an RPG, and follows in the footsteps of Serious Sam: Double D – by applying the Serious Sam mould to alternative gameplay types. I know, right?

Surprisingly enough, then, the RPG setting is quite a welcome change to Serious Sam – after all, The Random Encounter (or TRE, as I’ll refer to it from here on out) is quirky, fun and highly accessible; just about everything you’d want from a budget turn-based RPG title.

And TRE really is a budget game. That’s not to say that the overall quality is lacking, there’s certainly more than enough high octane heart-pumping combat being dished out here, it’s just that it won’t take you very long, at all, to battle your way through it.

In short, you’re looking at three worlds with only a handful of stages for each, studded with five rather challenging bosses. In total this equating to an hour or two, at most, of core gameplay. There’s also an endless mode to keep you occupied for a little longer after you’ve ploughed through the storyline, but realistically you’ll probably have had enough by then. You see, the storyline delivers such a large dose of nostalgia-filled bang for your buck, that it makes the endless mode feel rather lacking as a result.

TRE is far more interactive that your average turn-based 8-bit action title, too, on the basis that combat requires more than just a dice roll. Every five seconds you’ll be thrown back to the attack menu, where you can change weapons, alter your direction of fire, or use consumable items. During the attack phase itself, you can direct Sam and his two companions up or down the screen, to avoid enemy fire and indirectly reposition the direction of your bullets. There’s no surrender or fleeing from a fight either, so expect to die. A lot.

Fortunately, when you run out of lives and are presented with the game-over screen, you’re only carted back to the latest level that you reached, rather than the very start of the game.

Puzzles frequent the levels, but, in keeping with the traditional Serious Sam style, they’re remarkably easy. More often than not you’ll need only kill enough enemies through random encounters to open a door leading to a key, which you can then use to clear the level. Power-ups are also in abundance, providing you with a little helping hand when you need it most. But a word to the wise – use them sparingly if possible, as you’ll really need them for the final stage.

Despite the intuitive attempt at incorporating an RPG-style battle system, then, the result is marginally infuriating, especially as you’re given the ability to move up and down, but no practical method through which to dodge enemy fire.

Allow me to explain. More often than not, particularly in the later levels, you’ll simply be presented with a wall of enemy bullets, which are impossible to avoid, making this game more about spamming health potions and damage buffs than it ought to be. And while it’s possible to dodge with only Sam, and just about doable when joined by one other companion, it’s not long before you’ll form a budding trio, at which point all three characters will remain a set distance away from each other during fights, considerably limiting your wiggle room when it comes to dodging enemy fire.

Also on the topic of unbalance, the final few random encounters of the final stage are almost agonisingly difficult, requiring you to use most of your consumables before the final boss. Evidently this isn’t a wise move, but, if lady luck isn’t on your side, it’s largely unavoidable. By design, the game also throws a random combination of enemies your way for each encounter, making any attempt at pre-planning simply impossible.

The Random Encounter has certainly captured the winning personality of the Serious Sam series, but the gameplay isn’t quite there just yet. At present, TRE feels very much like a half-baked product. The potential for success is great; the development team just need that final, helpful little shove in the right direction.

Still, for a cheap and cheerful title, and particularly one offering such an inviting twist on a popular gaming classic, it’s hard to criticize heavily. Got a fiver lying around? You could do far worse than to spend it here.

Verdict – On Target

Platforms Available – PC
Platform Reviewed – PC

For more information on our review system, please read this page.

“Our hope is that everyone who has not played an MMO before will come into The Old Republic treating it as a single player game and you can actually play all the way through the classes, levels one to fifty, in single player but there are some great multiplayer elements that we are going to tempt you with and there are a lot of things you can get only from the multiplayer side of the game. Ideally we’re going to take those people and teach them how to play an MMO and enhance their experiences in The Old Republic”

“Each class has a full Star Wars trilogy of chapters with each chapter in the story its own piece. Chapter one is longer by quite a bit than the average play through of the original Knights of the Old Republic and there are 8 different classes to choose between”

The verdict is still out on whether Bioware can pull off an MMO with no previous experience, but with an enormous amount of history and success behind them in the RPG genre at least we know the storyline and characters will be great.

The new 2.0 version of The Witcher 2 is going to be released on the 29th of September, it will be a free update and will include all nine pieces of DLC that have previously appeared for the game through store specific releases. This means everyone can play the Troll Hunter quest. In addition, there are going to be another 40 technical and gameplay improvements included. These will go on top of the 100+ improvements that have already been released.

The new tutorial, which will feature in both version 2.0 and the 360 release is going to be story driven, but importantly it will stand alone from the main story and take place in a new area. This should go some way to making things easier in the early game as you won’t be trying to figure out how to control Geralt while being attacked by a bloody great dragon.

The ‘Dark Mode’ is not just a hardcore mode as it also comes with a new item set, this set will cover a variety of armour and weaponry. What is intriguing about this set is that it will damage Geralt in combat if you haven’t been able to collect and equip all the Dark items. The armour has a nice black finish, and in combat there is a smoky black outline to the screen. CD Projekt Red will also be rewarding the first person to complete the game in this mode with some special items including a signed copy of the special edition of the game.

Arena mode is the final major addition to come in version 2.0, like the tutorial this takes place outside of the main story in a new location. This new area contains a fighting pit along with a crowd which will pelt you with apples if you back away from a fight, there is also a backstage area where you can buy new items, improve your stats and hire sellswords to help you in your fights. It is important to note that nothing you purchase in the arena can be transferred to your main story based build of Geralt.

Version 2.0 isn’t going to be the last update for the PC version of the game, all the new features that will come with the 360 version will be appear in the PC version when the console version is release in Quarter 1 2012.

Some of these new features include 4 minutes of new CGI along with an expanded backstory. The 360 version of the game is being described as an adaptation, not just a port. CD Projekt Red have made subtle changes to the way the camera works and have changed the controls on the Xbox pad compared to what we saw using it on the PC version. In addition the 360 version will probably cover two discs.

One final note, the PC version of The Witcher 2 has so far sold over one million copies.

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Dead Island shot into the limelight, thanks to an emotional and artful trailer, depicting the backwards zombification of a family at the holiday resort of Banoi, which serves as the game’s setting. The trailer managed to make a zombie game appealing again, at a time when many gamers seemed to be suffering from a touch of zombie fatigue after a deluge of titles dealing with zombie apocalypse, including Valve’s Left 4 Dead and Capcom’s Dead Rising series.

However, as gameplay videos started to emerge and give us a taste of the ‘real’ Dead Island, it became apparent that the game has very little to do with the trailer – it’s more of first person action RPG bruiser for want of an easy description (FPARPGB anyone?). In actual fact Techland have tried to crowbar some emotion into the game, via character interactions and cutscenes. As a result, most of the dialogue is unbearably serious, badly acted and poorly written. The cutscenes depicting what are presumably meant to be heartbreaking scenes are excruciating. You should probably skip them entirely (thankfully a skip option is included).

How does a game come back from this? The trailer that got our attentions is a smokescreen, the story elements are fragmented at best and the whiff of misogyny and incompetence hangs over the game like a bad smell thanks to the botched release. The answer is simple really – Dead Island is incredibly fun to play.

Melee action in FPS games has often been a curiously underwhelming proposition with imprecision and poor feedback leading to several lacklustre titles. Previously only Zeno Clash and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic have really succeeded at making first-person melee feel satisfying and fun for the duration of a game. But within just a few minutes of starting up Dead Island it’s evident that Techland have managed to perfect the elusive formula. Somehow the melee here just works. There are occasions where the timing feels a little bit iffy, or a zombie gets past an attack you’re pretty sure should have sent them crashing into the ground. But for the most part it’s a brutally satisfying experience. It follows in the footsteps of Zeno Clash in making the action feel truly weighty – sounds and visuals combine to ensure that you can feel and see the force of a sledgehammer weighing down on a zombie’s head. You might even find yourself flinching away from the screen as a hardened Thug Zombie slams you to the ground with a wild haymaker. The feeling of weight is further amplified by the way limbs have a tendency to splinter and snap, accompanied by gushing fountains of blood. It all amounts to an intensely visceral experience and you’d be forgiven for feeling as though you need a wash after a session with the game.

Longevity and depth come in the form of the RPG system which is reminiscent of the way Borderlands tackled the FPS genre. You choose from one of four characters (blunt weapons expert, edged weapons expert, throwing expert and firearms expert), each of whom has three skill trees to explore and upgrade, as well as their own unique fury ability which can be unleashed on the undead populace to devastating effect. Some combatants seem more useful than others in the single-player experience (the nearly invincible Sam B is a more straightforward proposition than the gun-toting group buffer Purna), but in co-op the skills compliment each other nicely, allowing different characters to take on specific roles. Further cues from Borderlands are taken with regards to the weapon system. Not only is there a pretty big variety in weapon types – from machetes to shotguns via morningstars and katanas – but assorted weapon mods can be crafted and attached to your weapons. The first time you zap a zombie with your customised cattle-prod police baton resulting in an impromptu ragdoll cartwheel is guaranteed to bring a smile. Early money management can be a bit of a chore, with expensive repairs rapidly exhausting your limited cash supplies. But later in the game and with the right character upgrades, you’ll have more freedom to experiment.

The Co-op mode is where Dead Island truly comes alive – within about five minutes of starting the game with a couple of friends (the game allows up to four player co-op) you’ll likely be grinning from ear to ear. Moments reminiscent of the ‘Don’t stop me now’ jukebox scene from Shaun of the Dead are commonplace, as you stand in a circle around zombies using crude wooden paddles to slowly bludgeon the (un)life from them. There is something inherently comic about the gruesome melee styling of Dead Island and one wonders if the game as a whole might have benefited from embracing the zanier aspects in a similar manner to Dead Rising. Even so, running around the resort (and later city and jungle environments) with your friends; smashing, stabbing and looting like a fiend, you may suddenly find that you’ve lost a day to the unassuming Banoi Resort and it’s rather unwelcoming inhabitants.

Lets deal with those inhabitants in a little more detail. Dead Island veers away from the slow/vs fast zombie debate by having it’s cake, eating it, regurgitating it in a putrescent spray of vomit and blood (and cake), then eating it again. That is to say, it has slow ‘Walkers’, the screaming maniac ‘Infected’ the deadly mutated ‘Suiciders’, the brutal hammer-fisted ‘Thugs’ and the straight-jacketed ‘Ram’ as well as several other varieties. One nice touch is the way in which zombies in different areas of the game are appropriately clothed. Resort zombies are likely to be chubby semi-naked tourists, in contrast with the more sensibly attired town-dwellers. On top of the zombified enemies you’ll find more traditional gun-toting human foes. They aren’t the most intelligent bunch but they do lend some variety to the game and are a handy source of ranged weaponry. The guns in Dead island aren’t the most effective weapons, but they can be useful in a tight spot and a lucky critical can be decisive when you’re under siege.

Dead Island will struggle to prove to naysayers that games are anything other than artless hyper-violent gore-fests. But for those of us who have accepted that sometimes running headfirst into a group of zombies and exploding out the other side in a whirling shower of blood with a shit-eating grin plastered across our faces is highly entertaining, Dead Island is pretty much a must have. If you have a similarly like-minded friend or three to play with, it may just be one of your gaming highlights of the year.

Verdict: Headshot

Versions Available: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Versions Reviewed: PC

For more information on our scoring policy please read this

While The Baconing isn’t quite as blatant as these examples you can still learn a lot from its name. It tells you that the game is chock full of pop-culture references to delight internet enthusiasts, enemies that can be harder to get through than extra crispy strips of bacon and absurdist humour that is almost as good a hangover cure as everyone’s favourite meat treat.

One curious omission from the name though is the protagonist, Deathspank. This becomes even more surprising when you realise The Baconing is a sequel to two previous games that each mention him in their titles. It becomes downright absurd when you find out that the entire game is based around the character’s humour.

Laughs can be found aplenty in The Baconing, Deathspank is a brilliant pastiche of the classic manly-man hero. Brimming with machismo and bravado and spewing hundreds of one-liners he takes on any quest in the name of justice no matter how farcical or illogical they sound. Jokes are fired off at an alarmingly fast rate with Deathspank and co cracking wise at every target possible, even taking a few pot shots at the games’ mechanics along the way.

The storyline is just as absurd as the humour. Following directly on from Thongs of Justice, Deathspank has grown bored of the perfect society he created. By wearing all the thongs of justice at the same time though Deathspank inadvertently creates an evil doppelganger of himself, the Antispank. The peace, and by extension Deathspank’s boredom, is then quickly cut short as Cyborques attack.

As the third game of the series, The Baconing carries on with the RPG aspect, but brings no real innovations to the table. The few new additions include ranged weapons that can now be charged up for extra damage and a new ability to reflect projectiles back at foes. For those who have played the previous games playing The Baconing will feel like returning to a well worn groove. Newcomers to the series are subjected to a baptism of fire, this is by no means an easy game and it does nothing to help out new players.

You find yourself thrown straight into the action without so much as a basic tutorial, even those who played earlier Deathspank games will see themselves swamped by enemies and forced to respawn at the nearest outhouse over and over. On all but the easiest and most aptly named “Downtrodden” difficulty The Baconing will test your abilities. Learning how to block and deflect attacks is a necessity, but even after mastering them losing attention for the briefest of moments may be enough for even the weakest of enemies to take you down.

Despite the difficulty, The Baconing never feels like it is taking cheap shots. It gives you every chance at winning each skirmish, yet forces you to use effective tactics and skillful blocking. Balancing things back toward your favour are the multitude of weapons and armours scattered throughout the game.

The Baconing is a scavengers dream as armour and weapons fall from almost every enemy. You’ll be constantly switching through your inventory as you gain crazier loot every few seconds. A tactical decision is needed when choosing each weapon as they are all wildly distinct from one another and each have their own benefits and drawbacks.

The different types of armour on the other hand all do essentially the same job with varying efficiency. This isn’t to say you won’t be delighted everytime you find a new pair of shoulder-pads. In fact finding new armour is one of the highlights of the game as each set has a wildly different look to the others. One second Deathspank will be clad in armour befitting of a god and a few kills later he’ll be dressed head to toe in a outfit suited for the golf course.

This variety is also true of the locales on show. Few games hop between such diverse and unique locations as The Baconing does. Throughout the game you’ll visit leprechaun-run casinos, dystopic wastelands and the inside of a super-computer to name but a few places.

All this diversity doesn’t quite compensate for the monotony of the game though. At heart this is a fairly standard RPG affair, full of repetitive battles, tedious grinding and overly complex quest trees. The spot on humour goes some way to rectify all these short comings but in the end it’s all The Baconing has to offer. If you enjoy RPGs in general and are looking for a laugh then The Baconing is for you, if you are looking for innovation, then move along.

Verdict - Off Target

Platforms Available – PC, PS3, Mac, Xbox 360
Platform Reviewed – PC