F.E.A.R. Hands-On - Impressions of the Retail Version, Poster, Previews & Features, Images and Trailers

This highly anticipated shooter ships next week. We’ve got our hands on our copy, but we thought you’d appreciate some initial thoughts while we begin to work on our review.

Gameplay Footage

The firefights in F.E.A.R. are unlike any you’ve ever experienced in a shooter.

It has been 18 months since we got our first glimpse at F.E.A.R., and right from the beginning we knew that this game would be something special. F.E.A.R. promises to combine incredibly wild gunplay with atmospheric horror like no other game to date. With this highly anticipated shooter finally set to arrive in stores next week, we got our hands on the final game to begin work on the review. But before we weigh in with our final verdict, we thought you’d appreciate some impressions on the final game.

So what the heck is with that creepy little girl? We’ll find out soon.

In F.E.A.R., you are the newest member of the military’s elite First Encounter Assault Recon team, tasked with investigating, and dealing with, paranormal threats. You’re in for a heck of a first day on the job, too, because you and your team are sent in after Paxton Fettel, a rogue officer, who takes command of a battalion of elite, cloned soldiers and sets them loose in the confines of a city. Yet that’s but the tip of the iceberg in terms of the plot. What made Fettel go insane? What are they trying to accomplish? And what the heck is up with that freaky, ghostly little girl who keeps cropping up in the corner of your eye? The answers to all these questions are, hopefully, almost here. Read more …

Legendary Adventure Updated Hands-On, Poster, Previews & Features, Images, Hints & Cheats, Video Trailer and Preview PS3

London is burning and we shoot werewolves by the river.

In the upcoming first-person shooter Legendary, you’ll find yourself attempting to protect the fleeting remnants of humanity from a scourge of mythical beasts that have come spilling out of Pandora’s Box. It’s a battle that takes place across several major international cities, a fight in which modern weaponry is pitted against creatures such as minotaurs and werewolves. We recently took a spin through a portion of the game’s London setting that let us try to blast griffins out of the sky using–what else?–rocket launchers.

Just picture the fallout of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but with more helicopters and werewolves.

The level that we saw occurs later on in the game. It begins with you strolling through an underground science facility deep beneath the streets of London. All around you are researchers and soldiers doing their part to maintain calm in the face of this newfound terror. We began by hitting up the firing range to get acclimated with the controls. For the most part, the game controls similarly to most sprint-and-zoom first-person shooters in the Call of Duty mold. The one major difference is the triangle button. (We played the PlayStation 3 version, but others will be released for the Xbox 360 and PC.) The health of recently deceased enemies lingers above their corpses in the form of a floating energy ball, and hitting this button lets you siphon that health. This goes into a pool of health that you can cash in through one of two ways: either by using it to boost your own health or by triggering a pulse attack that stuns enemies to give you an upper hand when things get hairy. Read more …

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Updated Hands-On - Through the Howling Ford and Borean Tundra, Poster, Images, Trailers, Preordered, Interview and Private Server

We take a look at not one, but two new starting areas in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion.

Logging into The Wrath of the Lich King feels just like logging into normal World of Warcraft. Things don’t start to get a little bit different until you travel to a major city for, what else? A shave and a haircut. When you see the red and white barber’s pole, you’ll think “Why not? I’ve had this mullet for 70 levels. It’s time for a change!” So you’ll sit down in the barber’s chair to flip through hairstyles, hair colors, and facial-hair dos just like you would in the character-creation screen; except that this time, your new look will cost at least a dozen gold. Now, before we go any further, we must warn you that this preview may contain spoilers on the expansion’s new content. Also, please note that our impressions are based on an unfinished beta version of the game, so all information here, haircut-related and otherwise, is subject to change.

This do is all the rage in the frozen north, ho ho ho!

Once you settle on a new look (Good-bye, comb-over; hello, red Mohawk!), you’ll be ready to introduce your new self to the new zones. You’re free to travel to either the Borean Tundra or the Howling Fjord, but you should definitely check out the Howling Fjord first. The quests here tend to run a level lower than they do in the Borean Tundra. They’re also more concentrated around their respective horde and alliance strongholds. Once you’ve gained three to four levels in the Howling Fjord, you’ll easily breeze through everything in the Borean Tundra for another quick and easy level or two. That’s the beauty of having two starting zones; you’ll always be ahead of the level curve if you complete them both.

The Howling Fjord is a zone dominated by the Vrykul–huge Viking men with terrible manners. Though there are many factions, none of them are friendly. As you make your way through the Howling Fjord quest lines, so too will you make your way through each Vrykul village. In many cases, you’ll simply kill a set number of them, but in others, you’ll burn their towers, blast their structures, and kill their dogs. Some of the best quests, though, involve a pirate stronghold known as Scalawag Point. The first two characters you meet are a Blood Elf-worshiping artifact collector and a beefy Tauren bookie. The quests of these two characters intersect because the collector owes the beefy bookie money; so don’t be surprised if, when turning in a quest to the collector, another player comes in and kicks his butt. Read more …

Silent Hill: Homecoming Hands-On, Poster, Previews & Features, Images, Trailer and Interview

Konami’s survival horror series makes its first appearance on the Xbox 360 and PS3 soon. We shuffled along to the company’s booth for a new hands-on.

Even in the hustle and bustle of a busy convention centre, there’s something unsettling about playing Silent Hill. From the creepy intro to the grainy look of the game overall, we had an enjoyably scary time playing it on the Xbox 360 at this year’s Leipzig Games Convention.

The demo itself was similar to the one that we played at this year’s E3, but we were able play a different level of the game in Germany. It started with us viewing through the eyes of the protagonist, who was strapped down to a medical stretcher that was being led through a hospital. As we looked around, we could see people being operated on (or tortured, as is probably more accurate) by the crazed creatures who had taken over the establishment. Shortly after, we were left in an operating room while a strange creature waited outside. Thankfully, we were able to tap the X button to escape from the shackles, allowing us more freedom to explore the world. Read more …

Vampire Rain: Altered Species Reviews, News, Images, Videos (Trailer, Blood Donor Summer, Gameplay)

Vampire Rain: Altered Species Tech Info

Publisher: AQ Interactive
Developer: Artoon
Genre: Horror Action Adventure
Release Date: Sep 2, 2008 (more)
ESRB: MATURE
ESRB Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence

Game Information

Resolution: 1080i, Widescreen, 1080p
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Online Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1 Player
Number of Online Players: 8 Online
Vampire Rain: Altered Species Review

A year after its disastrous debut on the Xbox 360, Vampire Rain is still a pain in the neck.
The Good

* Combining stealth gameplay with vampires remains a great concept

* A few minor tweaks to the difficulty and storytelling make the campaign marginally more playable than it was a year ago on the 360.

The Bad

* No significant changes from last year’s atrocious version of the game for the 360
* Truly insane difficulty with vampires that are almost impossible to kill
* Enemy vision cones give only a rough approximation of what the bad guys can see
* Dark and confusing–yet somehow still linear–level design.

Vampire games apparently can’t be staked. If they could be finished off a la Van Helsing, you can bet that Vampire Rain: Altered Species would never have made it to the PlayStation 3. Developer Artoon’s blend of Splinter Cell-style stealth gaming with toothy creatures of the night was so awful when it debuted for the Xbox 360 last summer that it deserved to be locked inside its coffin for good. Alas, the game has been resurrected for a new platform with a subtitle added to it in the hopes of fooling people into believing that this is a superior sequel. It isn’t. This is a mostly straight-up reissuing of last year’s debacle, loaded with the same crippling design screwups and absurd difficulty. Read more …

Dead Space’s Poster, Pictures, Exclusive Dead Space Previews & Features and Dead Space Preview Trailer (Xbox 360, PS3)

EA’s upcoming sci-fi horror game Dead Space drops you into the not-so-lucky space suit of Isaac Clarke, a member of a deep space rescue team. Unfortunately for Clarke, his own rescue team finds itself in need of rescue quicker than Corporal Dwayne Hicks of Aliens can say, “Game over, man!” The game is being developed internally at EA and has been making us jump since we got our first look some months ago. We finally got our hands on a work-in-progress version of the game for the Xbox 360 to see how the various demos we’ve seen all fit together.

Our version of the game let us start a brand new game, which eased us into the story. If you’re a fan of science fiction movies and games, Dead Space’s narrative should feel familiar. Like at the start of a lot of hair-raising sci-fi tales, the game has a team of folks going to investigate a ship (in this case, the USS Ishimura) with which contact has been lost. And just like in those sci-fi nail-biters you may be familiar with, things end up going horribly wrong for said team. In fact, your ship will meet an unsightly end early on in the game. And in Dead Space, Isaac’s special lady is onboard the derelict ship…which makes things personal.

Your core goal is to find your lady friend and get the heck out of there with your surviving teammates. Of course, because you just know things aren’t going to be easy, there’s also a mystery to uncover, namely what happened to the Ishimura’s crew of 1,000 people. To add some urgency to the proceedings, the Ishimura has seen better days and requires you to do some repair work to get around. This is, of course, all complicated by the fact that there’s all manner of unpleasant creatures lurking between you and just about everywhere you need to go.

Exclusive Dead Space Preview

Read more …

Resident Evil 4 Game Guide

Resident Evil 4 Game Guide

Leon Kennedy is dead set on rescuing the President’s daughter from the clutches of the evil Saddler, but he’ll need some help! This guide for Resident Evil 4 will provide you with a detailed walkthrough, stats on all of the weapons, and strategies, as well as walkthroughs and tips for the bonus unlockable games.

Resident Evil 4 is an amazing achievement, especially in how its inspired, state-of-the-art cinematic presentation works so well with its relentlessly exciting,…

Since its debut on the PlayStation in 1996, the genre-defining Resident Evil series has had its ups and downs, though it’s always remained at the forefront of survival horror games. Yet it’s not enough to call Resident Evil 4 one of the high points of the series, because this is probably the single greatest horror-themed action game ever created. Resident Evil 4 is an amazing achievement in a variety of ways, especially in how its inspired, state-of-the-art cinematic presentation works so well with its relentlessly exciting, white-knuckle action, all of which is wrapped up in a decidedly lengthy adventure chock-full of hidden secrets and bonus extras. It obviously isn’t for the squeamish or for those otherwise not qualified to play this gory, mature-rated GameCube game, which is too bad for them, because it’s hard to imagine anyone else not being consistently thrilled and impressed by what Resident Evil 4 has to offer. Read more …