It seems this generation that developers are really trying hard to bring real time strategy’s (rts) to us console owners. C&C3 for the 360 was a pleasant surprise from being a long time PC rts’s player, as the controls did indeed work and weren’t complex to learn. So what was the problem? It was just damn slow when it comes to building bases or building units. Combine that with the fact your using the Xbox 360’s awful dpad for the build menu which really is the worst of its kind and you’ve got a build menu which you’ll be using the majority of the game feeling like a complete chore.

Kane’s Wrath the standalone expansion for 360 seems to fix this problem. With the “command stick”, or as i’ve come to call it: The wheel. Here we see a video of the command stick in action and it does seem to speed the whole process up a heck of a lot compared to the old build menu. It’s not clear if you use the analogue stick or the dpad for the “command stick” but hopefully its the analogue stick. Lets avoid using the dpad at all this time, shall we? I’m quite impressed by how EA continues to innovate the control scheme. Lets just hope it meets our expectations. Feel free to discuss this on our forums, HERE.

- Walker

Skate
Xbox 360 - EA
The below is based entirely on the Xbox 360 Demo*

There has been no real information given about this game up until the demos release. The only things we had to go on were all those great looking videos and even those didn’t reveal all that much.

EA has finally released the demo for this game and I am honestly left kneeling on the floor begging for more! Where the more recent Tony Hawk games have failed, Skate seems to make up for immensely. Proving Ground will have a lot of work to do if it even wants to come close to the surprisingly gratifying and incredibly smooth gameplay.

Visuals
Graphically, Skate looks incredibly good in almost all areas. Only real issue comes from a few bad textures which are seen after your face gets planted into the ground. That however, does almost nothing to effect the outcome of the titles visual feats and you will be damned to find much else that looks bad.

Controls
EA has done a great job of making the “flick it” control scheme feel fluid and smooth. The controls are much better then that of any previous Tony Hawk games tedious button mashing. You control the character with the left analog stick and the board with the right. Moves are pulled off by moving your right thumb in directional patterns which represent actual moves of the skating world. Nailing a move in Skate leaves you satisfied and thinking of new ways to combine the wacky, yet precise flick it system.

Hit the jump for the rest

-Mike

Discuss & share your thoughts

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Finally today I got to play Fatal Inertia. As Kenny K reported, it went up in the Japan and US territories this morning as a tiny 320mb download. Originally an exclusive for the PS3, the game was recently announced for the 360 as well due to ‘development problems’ with the PS3. The game has been talked about for a while, and I think its pretty much been the consensus of the entire community that it looks a lot like a Wipeout rip-off. So does this futuristic racer stand out on its own? Or will it fade into the background like a future that will never exist? Read on as I dish out some impressions.

Starting up the demo, we’re given 3 different race options, I fire up the first one and while the level loads I’m bombarded by the controls which honestly look incredibly confusing at first. To accelerate you use the A button, and in order to brake you press X. If you hold A&X together, as you come out of the brake you get a quick boost of speed. In order to strafe you use the triggers (takes a bit of getting used to as I kept mistaking it for accelerate and brake. You’re also able to fire weapons using LB, RB - more on that later.

Graphically the game is powered by UE3 so it does look damn good, the vehicles don’t have too much detail on them however - unsure if this is by the futuristic design or lazy developing. As I got going I noticed straight away a lot of frame stutter; I figure this is due to the fact that it’s a demo and isn’t representative of the final frame rate.
After a few initial crashes, figuring out the controls as I went along, I was soon into the swing of things and zipping around the track in my anti-grav racer. Unfortunately the tracks in the demo all appear to be the same one, so I found myself going around in circles for the races. Its possibly that some of the tracks were different - but if so then I certainly couldn’t be sure; which is quite telling of the level design quality.
Racing over purple rings on the ground allow you to pick up weapons. I soon fired off a few shots and watched my weapons find their way towards the enemy racers. I honestly wasn’t too impressed by what appeared to be an impact (at times I wasn’t even sure of whether I’d hit them).
Using the strafing buttons it becomes easier to turn some of the corners -but I expected them to be a bit more responsive than they were, I almost didn’t notice I was strafing it at first.
The sound effects on the game didn’t really leave me too impressed. The engine didn’t sound particularly beefy and the generic techno sound track actually began to send me to sleep at some point.
From the press releases that I have read in the past, the game is apparently quite proud of its physics system - something which I didn’t exactly see shine through in this demo. Sure when I got hit by enemy fire, my ship rocked from side to side but that was probably about all I noticed. Unless you want to count crashing into a rock and coming to a dead stop.

As a summary of my play of the demo, I’d say the game might be worth it if it was a budget title - however it really doesn’t feel better than that quality. Who knows? They may nail it by the September 11 release date, but I’m honestly not sure. I guess if there’s one way I could describe it, it would be using a term I’ve found appropriate for a lot of next-gen games recently. The game doesn’t seem to have any ‘soul’ or ‘feeling’ behind it. Its almost like it was made for the sake of being made and nothing else.

Finally I apologise about these impressions being short; there simply isn’t too much that’s worth saying about this game. Stick to Wipeout and F-Zero guys. Well established futuristic racers that have something nice and unique about them. Fatal Inertia just isn’t worth it.
Discuss over at the forums.

-Andy

When one thinks of Square Enix, you usually think of Japanese style Role-Playing Games.  You also think of anything but a pretty game being released on the Xbox 360 for $39.99, but surprisingly enough that’s what Project Sylpheed is going to be priced at when it comes out in America.  Even so, is the game going to be worth your time?

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Not really having much information on this game other than it was guaranteed to be hilarious, I went ahead and downloaded the demo when it was released to day. I have certainly been blessed today by playing two of the best games in a long time; this and BiA DS.

Overlord is basically about you becoming well..an overlord. You control minions which you must use to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies. The game plays much in the same way as Pikmin does; but with no Pikmin 3 on the horizon, I’m not about to call foul on it.
The graphics are pretty neat, they could honestly be better but they’re visually pleasing anyway so its not a problem. The game is indeed funny! From the first line in the game I was laughing, don’t expect anything to be taken seriously here. “Rub acid in his eyes, that will liven him up!”
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Thank god this demo didn’t last an actual hour, don’t forget to click more to see some member impressions too!

Well, what can I say? The trailer hit a few months back and left a lot to be desired. I thought it looked very plain and basically a rehash of everything we had seen the past five years. Was I wrong? Short answer: No. Long answer: Certainly it would seem that I was not incorrect in my assumption.

The demo begins offering you 3 different characters to choose from. Bull (guess what he is), a Sniper and a ‘Stealth’ character. I started off with the sniper and got straight into the game. It starts off pretty hectic and while some guy starts talking to me about how the Jerry’s are on their way, I start to look around. First thing I notice? Its taking me forever to look around! Going into the options, the sensitivity is set to 0, so I bump that up about half way – much better.
Stepping out I start to get shot, so I quickly duck into cover by pressing B (Oh, did I mention the controls are horribly mapped like that?) Right clicking into my sights, I take a look around the field and see a bunch of soldiers shooting me, so I start to pick them off one by one. They drop like rag-dolls, and I move on. At this point I notice the only saving grace that this game has to offer! A Welsh voice shouted “Glad ‘e’s on our side!� – it felt great to hear a Welsh voice in a game, something I hadn’t heard since Gimli in LOTR!
Anyway, as I move on some explosions start to go off around me, but oddly I only noticed them visually. The sound is so dulled when they go off that I thought they were miles in the distance – they didn’t even sound like explosions, more like someone jumping into a patch of sand. Most of the sound effects are like this unfortunately, sounding very dull and out of place.

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