New Game Preveiws and such!

[Enishi]

SmackDown vs. RAW 2006: The Online Mode
Bigger, better, faster, and stronger. New match types, title defenses, and created wrestler trades!
by Jeremy Dunham
October 10, 2005 - As someone who played the first SmackDown vs. RAW pretty extensively, one of the features I was looking forward to most this year was an improved online mode. As some of you may remember, last year's online feature was thoroughly under-realized with few options worth noting and little to do outside of the typical exhibition match. Luckily, WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 aims to move beyond the bad memories of 2004 and into the future -- where players can do just about anything they want against other users.



Evidence of that growth can be found in the latest build of SmackDown vs. RAW 2006, as the online portion of the game has finally been opened up so that we can see those changes for ourselves. The good news is that a lot of our problems from last year have been fixed. Up to four players, for example, can now participate in almost every supported match type at once. And while the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber still can't be played online, a ton of other matches can be. Which matches would those be? Glad you asked! Here they are:

Single, Tag (Normal, Tornado, Elimination Normal and Elimination Tornado), Special Referee, Triple Threat, Fatal 4-Way, Handicap, Backstage Brawls, Battle Royal (Four Player only), Buried Alive, First Blood, Fulfill Your Fantasy, Hardcore, Hell in a Cell, Iron Man, Ladder, Last Man Standing, Steel Cage, Submission, Table, TLC, and Title Matches.


Don't get too attached to your created belts, you could lose them... fast.

Yes we said title matches. For the first time ever, players will be able to defend user-created belts online against their opponents just like they always wanted to. And since ten created belts can be held on a single memory card at one time, an awful lot of title defenses can be participated in. Luckily, players won't be able to trick the system into letting them keep their titles if they lose either, as the server automatically rips the belt from your memory card the moment the challenge is accepted. This means that should a player lose and not want to part with his strap, that's too bad for him -- the server will transfer it to the winner's memory card.

Assuming they don't have a title to defend, players can also gamble a bit and take part in "Cash vs. Title" matches. THQ Creative Director Cory Ledesma states that, "this is a great way for people to be competitive online against champions regardless of their belt status, so that should be a big plus." Tag Team champs can defend their titles too, and you can engrave your new straps in the "Create-A-Belt" screen after you've won them just as you can when offline. Sadly, an option to create custom tournaments and headset support will not be included for this year's version, but at least there will be keyboard support in the lobby again. Cable and DSL users should also be happy to know that the game is broadband only -- so dial-up WWE fans looking to rumble online may want to consider getting an upgrade.

THQ will also be keeping server-side rankings for every player that enters their name in the database. Powered by GameSpy, the SmackDown server will keep total Wins, Loses, Win Percentage, Winning Streaks, Disqualifications, Title Match Victories, Title Defenses, Longest Title Reign, and Title Value / Prestige. These stats will ensure that players can find the top ranked gamers in their class whenever they hop online and also help them spot cheaters since the game won't be supporting any anti-cheat device software (yeah, that one's a bummer).

But that's not all (we've saved the best for last). The biggest, most impressive feature of the entire online mode will be the ability to trade created wrestlers online from one user to another. Gamers will no longer have to worry about typing up huge lists of numerical values in order to let other people make their favorite creations -- now it's as simple as logging on, going into a lobby, previewing someone's Created Wrestler, and trading. And to answer the inevitable question of "how many guys can you make," the final number is just under 30 per memory card (though you can't import any of them into season mode beyond the one player character).

Unfortunately, THQ's SmackDown vs. Raw 2006 servers weren't up and running in time for us to report on lag and connection issues, but even if it has the same latency as last year, it's a positive sign... especially with this year's robust feature set. We'll be back with more in the coming weeks.

[Enishi]

Devil Kings Hands-On
We pick up our blades and shotguns and head to the battlefield.
by Chris Roper
September 15, 2005 - Ah, violence. The act of killing hundreds of men sure can be satisfying, especially when you've got access to a giant sword and a magic cape to rip said hundreds of peons' limbs from their soon-to-be corpses.



Capcom's Devil Kings will be compared repeatedly to Koei's Dynasty Warriors, and for obvious reasons. Both games feature armored (or not so armored in some cases) warriors slaying hundreds of hapless soldiers on a large battlefield. While on the surface the two games are indeed very similar, there is a number of underlying and "cosmetic" differences between the two titles.

Firstly, Devil Kings is a little less period-centric as Koei's title. While the game does heavily feature swords, metal armor, simple wooden structures and other ancient items of this sort, you'll also find more modern weapons and whatnot like muskets, shotguns and even lasers thrown into the mix. It does have a very ancient feeling overall, though the inclusion of some modernized weaponry throws its timeline into a spin.


The combat system in Devil Kings relies on a combination of stringed attacks, special attacks and Priming your enemies. Prime status is in effect a sort of stun, where enemies are much less likely to block your attacks or pull of relevant attacks of their own. Prime attacks are generally short range though they're an area effect, capable of stunning multiple enemies simultaneously.

Primed enemies are important not only for gaining an edge but because only foes in this state will fill up your Fury meter (aka the special attack meter). Once you've maxed that out you're able to perform a Fury Drive that is generally pretty damn destructive, and from what we've played so far they're the coolest part of the game.

For example, Devil King (the character) wears a blood-red cape over his armor and his Fury Drive unleashes it in a devastating attack that's somewhat reminiscent of Spawn, though much more brutal and destructive than anything we've seen from said franchise. Red Minotaur's Fury Drive calls for a devastating blanket of fire that literally scorches everything (and everyone) in sight. Lady Butterfly unleashes blue magic in a way that somewhat resembles a volcanic eruption, decimating anyone near her.


Aside from pulling off optimally timed Prime attacks the game's combat is rather basic, though it's masked a bit by the title's varied animation set and the total amount of destruction and carnage happening onscreen at almost all times. Square essentially becomes your best friend while you slaughter your foes, sometimes combining it with an R1 press to perform a stronger but slower Boost Attack while occasionally interjecting a Triangle press when you first engage a group to Prime them.

The build we got our hands on let's us run through a Free Play mode where we're allowed to pick from a small set of characters and a number of battle grounds, each with a goal that generally requires killing a whole bunch of people.

Chase at the Tablelands first pits you in a one-on-one battle with Azure Dragon, who runs off like a pansy and requires you to chase him down and kill him in front of his pitiful men. Ah, beautiful brutality in all its glory.

Hunting the Reaper pits you against, dun dun dun, The Reaper. Red skies blanket the scenery with various fire pits marking the lands. Oddly, the fire pits are surrounded by wooden lookout towers, which you'd think would catch on fire and burn up.

Another level, Pilgrimage to Cathedral City has you begin outside the city's opening staircase, working your way through the city until you find and defeat Q-Ball. One of his greater minions, Mecha-Q, lurks part of the way through the city. This guy features frickin' laser beams for eyes, but a rapid-fire thumb quickly dispatches him.

Before entering any of the lands you're able to customize your weapon and Boost Attacks from any that you've earned. Enemies drop shards during the battles that you'll use to gain these extra weapons and moves, so as the game goes on you'll have a lot more options as to what weapon and skill set you take into battle.

So far the game is looking much like the aforementioned Dynasty Warriors in spirit with a few twists of its own, like lovely laser beams. The build we've run through lacks the title's main Conquest mode so we can't comment on that as of yet, but we'll have more on the game's main campaign as we approach its release next month.

[Jedi Master Arlon Kyjar]

Ummm... Wrestling, hooray.

[Enishi]

TGS 2005: Soulcalibur III Update
More hands-on time with the game that burns our soul.
by Andrew Alfonso
September 16, 2005 - The Tokyo Game Show has just opened its doors, and already the masses are rushing in to play all of the latest titles. Over at the Namco booth, there are several titles for play, including the strangely addicting Idol Master, but that's not why you're reading this, right? In addition to that lovely game, Soulcalibur 3 has a significantly updated demo playable, which features 18 characters in total.



The character roster in the demo is basically most of the returning cast, sans a few notable characters, such as Yoshimitsu and Cervantes. Will they be playable in the final version? Who knows, but there are a total of 8 slots left on the bottom of the roster for more characters.

Available for play at the Tokyo Game Show are Astaroth, Talim, Raphael, Maxi, Mitsurugi, Xianghua, Seong Mi-na, Yeong Sung, Ivy, Nightmare, Seigfried, Taki, Kilik, Cassandra, and newcomers Zazasamel, Tira and Setsuka.



What's new in this demo version compared to the one we played at E3 was pretty much everything. Not only were the amount of characters available tripled, but many of the move properties have changed, as well as the commands. For example, Astaroth's bear hug move has completely changed commands compared to the May version of the game, and he has some absolutely new fierce combos. Now, Astaroth can throw opponents up in the air and then connect with his rotating spin attack, for a combo that takes off about half of your life bar!

The other characters have equally impressive moves and combos. Setsuka seems to be the fan favorite at the show right now, with her bouncing bosoms and incredible speed, making her one of the top characters in the game, and definitely the easiest to use of the three newcomers. Zazasamel was also popular with gamers today, but the eccentric Tira did not receive a warm welcome, as players thought she was a little too hard to control, and didn't do as much damage as the other characters.

The single player modes that were available were Story mode as well as other traditional modes such as Time Attack, the much-vaunted Character Creation, and more. We decided to give the Story mode a try, and it seemed to work in a similar fashion as before. You'll choose one of the main characters in the game and then go through the entire story of Soulcalibur, facing off against not only your rivals but randomly generated characters as well. Just before we faced off against Zazasamel, we had to endure a tour de force against three different characters that were generated by the game. Don't worry though, although we won the fight, it's not necessary to defeat all of the battles to progress through the story. At certain points you'll also have to choose between two options, but it doesn't affect the ending of the story at all, just the journey.

Overall, the demo of Soulcalibur 3 has shown that the game has progressed nicely since we last saw it, although the question of character balance is still up in the air. Despite it being a fighting game, all of the demos that were available were limited to single player battles, so it was impossible to check how all of the characters stack up to each other when placed in a competitive environment. Still, Namco has announced that there will be a tournament for the game on both Saturday and Sunday, so we'll have the chance to see the game being played by top players soon enough.

[Enishi]

THE CHAR CREATION IN SOUL CALIBUR 3 IS CRAZY!!!

soulcalibur3.namco.com/

[Lu Kane]

dude, just post the link to the site, posting all the previews is just spam

[Pele]

all those games look boring

[Lu Kane]

pele said:

all those games look boring

thats what i was thinking

[Enishi]

[Enishi]

kressh said:

dude, just post the link to the site, posting all the previews is just spam

Yeah, it's called, "Advertising". It's against the rules.

[Lu Kane]

you can't advertise a forum site you foo, but you can post urls to ign or whatever game preview site, cuz spamming all the previews is worse than ads

[Jedi Master Arlon Kyjar]

[Lu Kane]

if you couldn't post a website url then most of all the threads on this site would be locked as a result

[Enishi]

*Sigh*

[Enishi]

th-american-wasteland.com/

Tony Hawks American Wasteland.

Out in the US currently