First look at Sega’s Iron Man 2 videogame

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Review: The Bigs 2 for Xbox 360

The Game: The Bigs 2 from 2K Sports

The Platform: Xbox 360 (also available for the PS3, PS2, Wii and PSP)

The Review:

Overall

2K’s The Bigs 2 is a relatively easy game to pick up and play compared to more serious titles, like MLB 2K9 or MLB 09: The Show, but experienced Bigs “vets” will find a handful of new features to keep the experience of the Big Show challenging making the game worth picking up. If that’s not enough to sway you then check out the rest of the review. I triple dog dare you.

Improvements

If you’re feeling confident with your pitcher and he’s painting all the corners then attack the opposing team’s big hitters early to shrink their “wheelhouse.” It’ll pay off in later innings when their sweet spot has gone from the size of a big rig down to a Mini or something like that.

Homerun Pinball was a big hit in the first title and it makes its triumphant return in The Bigs 2. It’s still a lot of fun and I’m glad they brought it back. 2K dropped a few additional all new mini-games and you’re confronted with Prince Fielder (the guy on the cover) in the Power mini-game, which is the jump off for the rest, including the Contact mini-game against Chipper Jones. I’m still working to unlock the rest.

You wanted a full 162-game season, right? Well, 2K listened and there’s a full season mode now. I could be wrong, but there’s no way of tracking “league leaders.” Who doesn’t want to know if they’re leading the league in homeruns? It’s a surprising omission to say the least.

Rounding out the improvements from the first Bigs title are the graphics. They’re improved, sure, but you might not notice it.

Negatives

Can the AI in a game be that good? Maybe but not in The Bigs 2. Even in hard mode, the AI makes some unbelievable snags that are way too “legendary” or “great” for my tastes. It seemed like they had a couple outs every single inning.

League stats are a no show as I mentioned before. What’s up with that?

I don’t typically pay attention to game soundtracks, but someone must have been in an emo mood when they compiled the music for Bigs 2. Who listens to Daughtry or P.O.D.? Korn I can tolerate if I need to but Daughtry? I’d rather listen to nails on a chalkboard.

And what’s the deal with only letting me attempt one pickoff per inning? I can do it, Coach, I swear!

Squeeze plays don’t seem to register with 2K Sports. It’d be nice if I could lead off of third base. Just sayin’.

Mixed Bag

The “Power Blast” is still available, but there’s an added “Big Slam” feature that gives you four pitches to four batters (one each) giving you the chance to load the bases for a grand slam. Any contact with the ball results in a hit adding a skill oriented dimension to the game. But here’s why it’s in the “mixed bag” section. If you’re pitching against a “Big Slam” then you have no control over your pitcher in the final three pitches of the four-pitch sequence. I wouldn’t willingly give up a homerun or hit.

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Overhaul for the PlayStation 3?

Will PlayStation 3 enthusiasts find a revamped version of the game console under the tree this holiday season?

Sony is reportedly readying a complete overhaul of the PS3, which will be released later this year, according to VG247.

The site's sources likened the overhaul to last year's New Xbox Experience (NXE), a revamped Xbox that includes streaming HD movies from Netflix, an updated dashboard, and movie and game purchases via Xbox.com.

What will the updated PS3 include? VG247 pointed to several possible new features:
- A system for players to evaluate one another
- Ability to report questionable behavior to Sony by taking screen shots
- Patches will download in the background so gaming can continue uninteruppted
- Simultaneous HDMI and digital optical outputting

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Review: Overlord II video game

If it's true that in the fight between good and evil that evil has more fun, then a video game which boasts a diabolical cad with glowing eyes as its central character should have players lining up around the block. Overlord II contains such a protagonist and more; it's a game in which players are able to indulge their inner Sauron. Like its predecessor – the enjoyable if slightly flawed Overlord – it plays like a third-person Dungeon Keeper mixed with gameplay elements from Pikmin. It also contains an element of moral choice, but in this case players have the option of being evil or being really evil.

Format: Xbox 360, PS3 and PC
Developer: Triumph Studios
Publisher: Codemasters
Released: 26 June 2009
Score: 8/10

The game kicks off shortly after the where the last one ended, with the minions of the deceased Overlord scuttling through the land in search of a new leader; "we were like fleas without a dog," one of them hisses. As luck would have it, they discover a suitable candidate in the Overlord's illegitimate son, the Overlad, who is living in the snow-capped village of Nordberg. The Overlad is off to good start in his evil career; his glowing eyes have already made him a social pariah and, with the exception of his only friend Kelda, all the village children pick on him.

This quickly changes with the arrival of the minions; once the Overlad demonstrates innate magical abilities and a willingness to bash anything with a cudgel, they are duly satisfied they have a potential Overlord on their hands, and decide to help him wreak revenge on his tormentors. After pounding a number of children and burning down the village Christmas tree, the Overlad and his minions are ejected from Nordberg and chased into the surrounding forests by the forces of the "Glorious Empire" who are set on eradicating any magical creatures in the land. The Overlad sinks beneath the frozen wastes and begins to plot his revenge. If only the other children had been nicer to him...

From the game's opening stages it's immediately apparent that Overlord II is staking out the darker side of the fantasy/comedy world of Fable as its territory. The game's writer, Rhianna Pratchett has described the Overlord character as something of a foil she can use to vent her spleen about every wet and limp-wristed aspect of the sword and sorcery genre. The Overlord and his minions wreak vast amounts of havoc throughout, but the game's sly humour, however, makes the proceedings more than palatable. Moreover, while the Overlord may be a nasty piece of work, the good characters in the game are flat-out unlikable; Elves, for example, are portrayed as annoying tree-huggers, while the rulers of the Glorious Empire come across as at best tedious bores and at worst gluttonous boors. Being bad in this game doesn't just feel good, it feels positively righteous.

As the Overlord, players start the game with a collection of nasty, giggling, brown goblins as minions who attack and move on command. Pulling a trigger makes them charge enemies ahead of them and the right analogue stick sweeps them around the screen, makes them attack specific enemies and move along pathways that the Overlord can't traverse. The minions are only armed with mêlée weapons to begin with, but as the game progresses, players will gain access to different coloured minions with different attack types and special abilities – red minions can hurl fireballs, for example, while blue minions can swim. The minions are also able to mount creatures, depending on their colour – green minions ride spiders while the brown ones ride wolves – and this in turn opens up a whole new host of attack and movement abilities; minions on wolves are naturally far more lethal when charging enemies.

The minions themselves are a pleasingly mischievous bunch and the game infuses them with quite a bit of character. Their dialogue is never-ending stream of wise cracks and they have the tendency to pick up enemy weapons or wear the skulls of freshly clubbed seals as hats. You can also give them names and level up their abilities. It's actually possible to become quite attached to some of your minions, so it's a boon that you're able to resurrect them if they get killed. Less sentimental players will be happy to learn that forming attachments with minions isn't mandatory, and that they can be destroyed in order to give their Overlord a health boost. They can even be turned into magical projectiles and hurled at enemies. Beyond levelling up their minions and magical abilities, players can also choose to enslave or destroy the populations of towns they come across, forge new weapons and armour and decorate their fortress to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

The game's camera sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. Not only does it zoom in if the Overlord enters a confined space, it suffers somewhat from being mapped to the right analogue stick; at times, searching for an attacker can result in your minions charging around uselessly while the Overlord sustains damage from off-screen. Also, while the game features a mini-map, it's not always clear which way your Overlord and his pint-size army are supposed to be heading in. The campaign has a slightly erratic checkpoint system, but overall its learning curve and length are perfectly matched, and the multiplayer mode is satisfying, if a little lightweight.

There's a lot to enjoy in Overlord II on a purely aesthetic level. The game's visuals are a gorgeous mix in which well-rendered, cartoon-like characters are complemented by sumptuous fantasy backdrops. The voice-work and audio is also excellent, and, thanks to the strong writing, frequently hilarious; a scene in which the Overlad gets his minions to dress up as children and they all sneak into Nordberg while singing 'Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses' is one of the many laugh-out-loud moments Overlord II contains. It's probably this impish sense of humour which makes the game such an easy recommendation. Yes, you can club baby seals to death. Yes, you can punch a panda in the face. But nothing about it feels mean-spirited or ardently malevolent and a sense of mischievous fun is maintained throughout the proceedings.

In short, Overlord II is a gleefully amoral riot of a game shot through with a devilish sense of humour. It's not perfect, and it's certainly not as immoral as it pretends to be, but it is consistently enjoyable throughout and more than guaranteed to put a smile on your face. At the very least it proves true the adage that bad guys have all the fun.

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SECOND LIFE has more than just sex

Virtual reality game 'Second Life' is not just about sex and pornography, it also educates its users about a wide range of health rel
ated problems, according to researchers at the University of Toronto and the University Health Network's Centre for Innovation in Complex Care (CICC).

'Second Life' is free for users with basic accounts, and reported over 16 million registered users worldwide in 2008 and players of the game create online alter egos who live full lives, including having jobs, relationships and children.

But, despite instances of pornography and "cheating" spouses, the web-based platform is also used to educate people about illness, train physicians, nurses and medical students with virtual simulations, enable disease-specific support and discussion groups, fundraise real-life dollars for medical research, and to conduct research.

The researchers found that health-related activities in the virtual world have significant implications in the real world. "Virtual worlds and the social networks that populate the Internet offer a new domain for healthcare. Although it is early in the development, there is a great opportunity to use these platforms for education, research and even disease surveillance," said Dante Morra, Medical Director of the CICC.

Jennifer Keelan, the Principal Investigator on the project, suggested that a major feature for users is the "relative anonymity where patients can seek out information and share health experiences in a safe environment.

She added, "There is also a great potential for patients to practice being patients by virtually experiencing a mammogram or navigating a hospital's virtual ward-they can gain insight into medical procedures and processes to become more informed."

"There is a great opportunity here to understand the design features of social media that make it so appealing and accessible to people. Once we understand what pulls people to Web 2.0, we can design and apply more effective communication strategies both within and beyond the Internet," said Leslie Beard, the designer on the team.

The findings have been published in the open access publication Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Review: Disney's new racing game

Walt Disney Co is taking the wraps off an advanced new car racing video game that the entertainment company hopes will bolster its succe
ss in the lucrative gaming sector.

As sales of video games prove relatively resilient in the economic downturn, Disney is betting that it can prosper broadly from new games that it makes on its own. Rather than licensing Disney content out to game publishers, Disney's in-house gaming team wants to generate video game characters and story lines that can be the basis of movies as well.

"That is the Holy Grail for video games, to see them successfully become franchises," Graham Hopper, head of Disney's game division, told The Associated Press.

To that end, the company is investing in projects like the latest from its Brighton, England-based Black Rock Studio, a car racing game called "Split/Second" for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PCs, set within the world of a reality television show.

With a release date of early 2010, the studio behind last year's off-road racing game "Pure" has employed new graphics-rendering technologies to pit racers against both the track and explosions triggered by competitors. A sneak preview to the AP showed a race track on an airport stage set, complete with an air traffic control tower that can come crashing to the ground.

The title is part of Disney Interactive Studios' strategy of injecting around 20 percent of its investment dollars into new intellectual property. The company invested about $170 million in overall game development last year and plans to increase that by $40 million to $50 million this year.

The video game market continues to expand even as music and DVD sales slump. San Diego-based consultancy DFC Intelligence predicts that the worldwide video game market — including consoles, portable machines, their software and PC games — will hit a record of $57 billion this year, up from $33 billion just three years ago.

Nintendo Co's success with the Wii, which helped to expand the market beyond "hard core" gamers over the past few years, could play nicely into Disney's reputation for family-focused material. In fact, Disney has had mixed success with a mature-rated game, "Turok," a violent shooter game that was distributed under the Touchstone label. Hopper declined to comment on reports that a sequel to "Turok" had been scrapped, but he said that building a big Touchstone game portfolio was not a priority "right now."

Disney is taking more production in-house, rather than licensing its own characters and content to other developers. It rejected a pitch from its longtime video game partner THQ Inc. — which made the games based on Disney's "Ratatouille" and "Cars" movies — to create the game for the upcoming "Toy Story 3" film.

The company has a goal of self-publishing 80 percent to 90 percent of games, acquiring five development studios in recent years, including Black Rock and Austin, Texas-based Junction Point Studios.

However, Disney has not been immune to the economic downturn. Its Vancouver, British Columbia-based Propaganda Games recently cut 30 positions. Disney also plans to combine its Fall Line and Avalanche studios, both based in Salt Lake City, resulting in the loss of around 20 employees.

One problem is the high cost of producing and marketing major games. Disney Interactive Media, the unit that includes Disney's online division as well as Disney Interactive Studios, reported a $45 million loss in the most recent quarter.
Higher sales volumes were more than offset by an increase in production costs and more expensive marketing.

Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Shub Mukherjee have forecast the unit will steadily increase revenue to around $1.3 billion in 2014, from $719 million in 2008. But they also note that the division's pretax losses are likely to extend to more than $385 million in 2014, from $258 million last year.

One pillar of Disney's strategy involves new twists in the way the games look. "Split/Second," for example, feels more like a movie — with cars surging through dissipating smoke while light refracts through exploding buildings — thanks to developments in graphics-rendering technologies such as "deferred lighting."

Video games have traditionally have been able to appear as if the action has one or two sources of lighting. "Split/Second" uses a "deferred renderer" that can generate hundreds of virtual light sources, including ones on exploding particles of buildings.

That kind of realism is backed up by "fluid dynamics" — a movement technology that allows "Split/Second" to flow more smoothly.

For instance, smoke and dust generated by explosions in the game are realistically generated so that "cars can punch through the smoke," said Nick Baynes, game director at Black Rock.

And "if you are at the back of the pack," he said, "you'll get a clearer view of the world in front of you than the car who's had to drive through it first."

Review : Street Fighter 4

Rating:

Pocket money. I used to get about 20 bucks from my father every week. It doesn’t sound a lot at all now, but back then, it was good enough to f
it 3 needs -- arcade gaming, WWF cards and food. Gaming parlours as they were called, was our hangout. The need for some serious button mashing was satisfied here and this is where boys became “street” boys. Of course, there was the usual “Pacman”, but no other game was better than drum roll Street Fighter!

The game was simple, the characters were great and the fights were awesome! I as a kid started playing Street Fighter 2 more than 15 years ago; but the memories are as fresh as ever. As every game does, Street Fighter came to the PS3, and I was seriously impressed! My fingers have never felt this sore in a very long time. Here’s why:

Does the game look awesome?
Hell yeah! It looks brilliant. From the second I popped in the disc, it was vibrant colours all the way! Right from the opening AV to the gaming environments, it all looks good. The characters have gotten quite a good makeover with extra large biceps, big teeth, super long feet and electric green skin!

Unlike other games in the same genre like “Tekken”, the characters are 3D, they don’t exactly look that. It looks like a 2D-moving picture character, the best way I can put it. The downer would be that the cut scenes are quite average with no flair at all. But then again, you are just going to skip through the cut scenes right?

Everybody likes Kung-fu fighting! Let’s fight!
Round 1. Fight! Familiar words aren’t they? The fights in Street Fighter 4 are simple yet so entertaining! The kicks and punches are skilfully revamped with a whole host of new special moves like the focus effect and better countering. As with all button mashers, the moves in Street Fighter 4 are easy to do, but difficult to master! Newbie luck plays a serious role here.

The sad part is that there is no depth in gameplay, it doesn’t go beyond the jabs and the awesome moves. Character list is pretty much the same with the addition of 4 new characters Abel, Crimson Viper, Rufus and El Fuerte. The fights will keep you entertained for a while, but soon enough you are going to pop in another disc and forget all about this one.

Is Streetfighter 4 worth my time?
Considering all the fond memories that it brought back for me, I would say thumbs up. The gameplay is good, the environment is beautiful and I like winning at this game. But if you are not a fan of the franchise, then it’s totally ok to skip this and go for something with a little more meat. Street Fighter 4 is rated at 3.5 stars.