Gamespot's Site Mashup

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Sun, 24 Nov 2013 06:43:15 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/persona-5-announced-for-playstation-3/1100-6416360/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2388790-persona5.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2388790" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2388790-persona5.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2388790"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1179/11799911/2388790-persona5.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Today during a special Persona event, Atlus officially announced <a href="/persona-5/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 5</a> for the PlayStation 3. The game launches during winter 2014 in Japan. Details about a Western release were not provided.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Atlus released a short trailer for Persona 5 (below), which does not feature any gameplay to speak of, but does include images of shackles and a series of chairs. Check out the <a href="http://persona5.jp/" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Persona 5 teaser website</a> for more.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Person 5 is the fifth game in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series, which dates back more than a decade. <a href="/persona-4-golden/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4</a> for the PlayStation 2 is the latest core entry in the series, which hit the PlayStation 2 in 2008 and PlayStation Vita last year as <a href="/persona-4-golden/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4 Golden</a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The special Persona event today also brought news of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etfqRXPXbQQ" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth</a>, an all-new entry in the series for 3DS, which will launch in June 2014 in Japan. It will be the first entry in the Persona series available on a Nintendo platform.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Atlus also today announced rhythm game <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BIRWiifo8" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4: Dancing All Night</a>, a collaboration between Atlus and Dingo, for PlayStation Vita. It will launch in Japan next fall. Lastly, Atlus announced <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqmnp2wZRU4" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">P4U: Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold</a>, a fighting game set to launch in Japan for PS3 in 2014. It is a follow-up to last year's <a href="/persona-4-arena/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4 Arena</a>. </p><div data-embed-type="video" data-src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mZssK05WYo" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2mZssK05WYo?wmode=opaque&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;feature=oembed" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Sun, 24 Nov 2013 04:23:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/persona-5-announced-for-playstation-3/1100-6416360/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/top-5-skyrim-mods-of-the-week-drunk-cows/2300-6416313/ It's finally happened, Cam and Seb are now playable in Skyrim. As if that wasn't enough, Kevin gets his own bespoke armour and celebrates by drinking, with a cow! Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/top-5-skyrim-mods-of-the-week-drunk-cows/2300-6416313/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/mario-party-island-tour-review/1900-6415575/ <p style="">When you hear "minigame collection," the first game that usually springs to mind is Mario Party. The series has been responsible for hilarious memories and strained relationships since the Nintendo 64 era, though the series hasn't always set a good example: some of the installments, like the miserable Mario Party Advance, have dragged you to the dregs of party hell. Fortunately, Mario Party: Island Tour is a raucous portable entry in the series that adds some refreshing new elements.</p><p style="">Island Tour adheres to the same structure as many of the other Mario Party games: two to four human or AI players move around a traditional board-game-style map in a competition, playing minigames for prizes and attempting to hinder other players throughout. Most Mario Party games have focused on the collecting of coins and stars to determine a winner at the end of a game, but Island Tour's boards feature different objectives and modes of play. Some, like Perilous Palace Path, simply require that you be the first to reach the goal, while others have you collecting items to see who can end the game with the most stuff. Even if the boards have a similar objective, there are other factors at play that alter gameplay significantly: Banzai Bill's Mad Mountain might let you summon a giant bullet that sends everyone in its path back several spaces, while Kamek's Magic Carpet Ride forgoes dice and assigns movement to an inventory of numbered cards, making your selections about how far to advance a strategic consideration. There's a nice bit of variety here, and the game helpfully gives ratings to luck, skill, and minigame categories when you're choosing a board to play on (though their accuracy is debatable). Most of the boards don't take too long to run through, but that's probably for the best given that the 3DS is a battery-based console, and nothing kills a party like running out of juice mid-game.</p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2386419" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386419-0001.jpg" data-size="medium" data-align="left" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386419-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386419"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/78/787590/2386419-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>What would a race game be like if you drifted ALL THE TIME?</figcaption></figure><p style="">It's pretty easy to get things hopping, thanks to the 3DS Download Play feature. Much like Mario Party DS, Island Tour allows up to three additional players to access and enjoy the full game in multiplayer, even if they don't have their own copy. It takes a few minutes to send the game to other 3DSs--and, of course, they can't keep it once the host disconnects--but after the wait is over, the players have access to the entire game (though the host player controls all the settings and selections). It's a nice way to ensure that there's always an opportunity to get a party started as long as everybody has a system. Unfortunately, there's no way to play online. Yes, Mario Party is more fun in a local, group setting, but the omission of any sort of online option is puzzling, especially given that the 3DS supports friends lists and voice chat.</p><p style="">If you've got a party of one, however, Island Tour has a special single-player mode called Bowser's Tower. In this mode, your chosen character scales a tower, playing a minigame on each floor and winning to proceed. On every fifth floor, you face a boss character, and these fights are minigames in themselves. Compared to the single-player story mode in Mario Party DS, Bowser's Tower is weak: there's no variation on events depending on character choice; it takes a long time to complete a runthrough (and, if you're really unlucky, a bad roulette spin can send you back to the start); and you have to finish it more than once to unlock everything. Yet Bowser's Tower is a nice diversion, and as you play and complete board runs, Bowser's Tower, and individual minigames in either single- or multiplayer, you earn points that you can spend on unlockable content. </p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2386420" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386420-0004.jpg" data-size="medium" data-align="right" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386420-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386420"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/78/787590/2386420-0004.jpg"></a><figcaption>You can't always bite the bullet. Sometimes you just gotta run.</figcaption></figure><p style="">But the meat of any Mario Party is its minigame menagerie, and Island Tour has more winners than duds in its mix. While you have the expected minigames of the "collect stuff," "knock other players off a platform," and "dodge things coming at you" varieties, there are some more inventive offerings that make good use of the 3DS hardware. Since the 3DS offers a variety of control methods--controller, buttons, stylus, microphone, and gyroscopic motion--the minigames can use one or more of these elements to make more interesting snack-size experiences. This leads to some neat outings, such as Buzz a Fuzzy (a motion- and circle-pad-controlled archery minigame) and Match Faker (a memory-type game that lets you use the stylus to take notes). The game takes advantage of the fact that each player has their own display, resulting in things like the third-person, arena-based blasting in Tanks a Lot and the hyper-gliding ice racing in No Traction Action. There are even a few auxiliary minigames that use the oft-forgotten 3DS AR cards. Unlike in Wii Party, where only one player could use the GamePad, everybody is on equal footing with the same controls and view, and many of the minigames do a good job of both recognizing and taking advantage of that in their design.</p><p style="">But there are still some stinkers in the mix. Strictly luck-based minigames turn up in the rotation frequently, and they're not any fun. A few others feature sluggish controls that hamper your ability to move well. (In minigames that involved moving the system along with another control method, I found that the game had an obnoxious tendency to lose calibration when it shifted back to motion controls, which required an experience-interrupting recalibration.) Though you can switch between preset standard and easy minigames and turn mic-using games on or off, you still can't disable individual minigames or make a custom set, which is a disappointing oversight.</p><p style="">It's not a perfect party by any means, but some good design considerations, better-than-average variety, and always-enjoyable Mario thematics put Mario Party: Island Tour a few notches above your average video game bash-in-a-box. It's nicely portable, uses the hardware well, and has a mostly good minigame mix, making this the easy-to-play multiplayer vacation you've been looking for.</p> Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:37:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/mario-party-island-tour-review/1900-6415575/

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Sun, 24 Nov 2013 06:43:15 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/persona-5-announced-for-playstation-3/1100-6416360/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2388790-persona5.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2388790" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2388790-persona5.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2388790"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1179/11799911/2388790-persona5.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Today during a special Persona event, Atlus officially announced <a href="/persona-5/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 5</a> for the PlayStation 3. The game launches during winter 2014 in Japan. Details about a Western release were not provided.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Atlus released a short trailer for Persona 5 (below), which does not feature any gameplay to speak of, but does include images of shackles and a series of chairs. Check out the <a href="http://persona5.jp/" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Persona 5 teaser website</a> for more.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Person 5 is the fifth game in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series, which dates back more than a decade. <a href="/persona-4-golden/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4</a> for the PlayStation 2 is the latest core entry in the series, which hit the PlayStation 2 in 2008 and PlayStation Vita last year as <a href="/persona-4-golden/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4 Golden</a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The special Persona event today also brought news of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etfqRXPXbQQ" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth</a>, an all-new entry in the series for 3DS, which will launch in June 2014 in Japan. It will be the first entry in the Persona series available on a Nintendo platform.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Atlus also today announced rhythm game <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BIRWiifo8" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4: Dancing All Night</a>, a collaboration between Atlus and Dingo, for PlayStation Vita. It will launch in Japan next fall. Lastly, Atlus announced <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqmnp2wZRU4" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">P4U: Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold</a>, a fighting game set to launch in Japan for PS3 in 2014. It is a follow-up to last year's <a href="/persona-4-arena/" data-ref-id="false">Persona 4 Arena</a>. </p><div data-embed-type="video" data-src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mZssK05WYo" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2mZssK05WYo?wmode=opaque&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;feature=oembed" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Sun, 24 Nov 2013 04:23:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/persona-5-announced-for-playstation-3/1100-6416360/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/top-5-skyrim-mods-of-the-week-drunk-cows/2300-6416313/ It's finally happened, Cam and Seb are now playable in Skyrim. As if that wasn't enough, Kevin gets his own bespoke armour and celebrates by drinking, with a cow! Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/top-5-skyrim-mods-of-the-week-drunk-cows/2300-6416313/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/mario-party-island-tour-review/1900-6415575/ <p style="">When you hear "minigame collection," the first game that usually springs to mind is Mario Party. The series has been responsible for hilarious memories and strained relationships since the Nintendo 64 era, though the series hasn't always set a good example: some of the installments, like the miserable Mario Party Advance, have dragged you to the dregs of party hell. Fortunately, Mario Party: Island Tour is a raucous portable entry in the series that adds some refreshing new elements.</p><p style="">Island Tour adheres to the same structure as many of the other Mario Party games: two to four human or AI players move around a traditional board-game-style map in a competition, playing minigames for prizes and attempting to hinder other players throughout. Most Mario Party games have focused on the collecting of coins and stars to determine a winner at the end of a game, but Island Tour's boards feature different objectives and modes of play. Some, like Perilous Palace Path, simply require that you be the first to reach the goal, while others have you collecting items to see who can end the game with the most stuff. Even if the boards have a similar objective, there are other factors at play that alter gameplay significantly: Banzai Bill's Mad Mountain might let you summon a giant bullet that sends everyone in its path back several spaces, while Kamek's Magic Carpet Ride forgoes dice and assigns movement to an inventory of numbered cards, making your selections about how far to advance a strategic consideration. There's a nice bit of variety here, and the game helpfully gives ratings to luck, skill, and minigame categories when you're choosing a board to play on (though their accuracy is debatable). Most of the boards don't take too long to run through, but that's probably for the best given that the 3DS is a battery-based console, and nothing kills a party like running out of juice mid-game.</p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2386419" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386419-0001.jpg" data-size="medium" data-align="left" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386419-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386419"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/78/787590/2386419-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>What would a race game be like if you drifted ALL THE TIME?</figcaption></figure><p style="">It's pretty easy to get things hopping, thanks to the 3DS Download Play feature. Much like Mario Party DS, Island Tour allows up to three additional players to access and enjoy the full game in multiplayer, even if they don't have their own copy. It takes a few minutes to send the game to other 3DSs--and, of course, they can't keep it once the host disconnects--but after the wait is over, the players have access to the entire game (though the host player controls all the settings and selections). It's a nice way to ensure that there's always an opportunity to get a party started as long as everybody has a system. Unfortunately, there's no way to play online. Yes, Mario Party is more fun in a local, group setting, but the omission of any sort of online option is puzzling, especially given that the 3DS supports friends lists and voice chat.</p><p style="">If you've got a party of one, however, Island Tour has a special single-player mode called Bowser's Tower. In this mode, your chosen character scales a tower, playing a minigame on each floor and winning to proceed. On every fifth floor, you face a boss character, and these fights are minigames in themselves. Compared to the single-player story mode in Mario Party DS, Bowser's Tower is weak: there's no variation on events depending on character choice; it takes a long time to complete a runthrough (and, if you're really unlucky, a bad roulette spin can send you back to the start); and you have to finish it more than once to unlock everything. Yet Bowser's Tower is a nice diversion, and as you play and complete board runs, Bowser's Tower, and individual minigames in either single- or multiplayer, you earn points that you can spend on unlockable content. </p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2386420" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386420-0004.jpg" data-size="medium" data-align="right" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2386420-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2386420"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/78/787590/2386420-0004.jpg"></a><figcaption>You can't always bite the bullet. Sometimes you just gotta run.</figcaption></figure><p style="">But the meat of any Mario Party is its minigame menagerie, and Island Tour has more winners than duds in its mix. While you have the expected minigames of the "collect stuff," "knock other players off a platform," and "dodge things coming at you" varieties, there are some more inventive offerings that make good use of the 3DS hardware. Since the 3DS offers a variety of control methods--controller, buttons, stylus, microphone, and gyroscopic motion--the minigames can use one or more of these elements to make more interesting snack-size experiences. This leads to some neat outings, such as Buzz a Fuzzy (a motion- and circle-pad-controlled archery minigame) and Match Faker (a memory-type game that lets you use the stylus to take notes). The game takes advantage of the fact that each player has their own display, resulting in things like the third-person, arena-based blasting in Tanks a Lot and the hyper-gliding ice racing in No Traction Action. There are even a few auxiliary minigames that use the oft-forgotten 3DS AR cards. Unlike in Wii Party, where only one player could use the GamePad, everybody is on equal footing with the same controls and view, and many of the minigames do a good job of both recognizing and taking advantage of that in their design.</p><p style="">But there are still some stinkers in the mix. Strictly luck-based minigames turn up in the rotation frequently, and they're not any fun. A few others feature sluggish controls that hamper your ability to move well. (In minigames that involved moving the system along with another control method, I found that the game had an obnoxious tendency to lose calibration when it shifted back to motion controls, which required an experience-interrupting recalibration.) Though you can switch between preset standard and easy minigames and turn mic-using games on or off, you still can't disable individual minigames or make a custom set, which is a disappointing oversight.</p><p style="">It's not a perfect party by any means, but some good design considerations, better-than-average variety, and always-enjoyable Mario thematics put Mario Party: Island Tour a few notches above your average video game bash-in-a-box. It's nicely portable, uses the hardware well, and has a mostly good minigame mix, making this the easy-to-play multiplayer vacation you've been looking for.</p> Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:37:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/mario-party-island-tour-review/1900-6415575/

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Gamespot's Site Mashup

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:42:21 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gran-turismo-7-could-be-released-in-2014-on-ps4/1100-6416332/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/536/5360430/2383519-ronda_05_1384770855.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2383519" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/536/5360430/2383519-ronda_05_1384770855.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2383519"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/536/5360430/2383519-ronda_05_1384770855.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style=""><a href="/gran-turismo-6/" data-ref-id="false">Gran Turismo 6</a> for PlayStation 3 isn't even out yet, but its sequel could land on PlayStation 4 sometime next year, Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi has said.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"We don't want to take too long on Gran Turismo 7," Kazunori told <a href="http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/gran-turismo-7-is-coming-in-2014-2013-11-20" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Top Gear</a>. "Best-case scenario? Next year. In GT6 we really had to tune the software 100 percent to maximize the PS3's architecture, but of course the PS4's hardware is much better, so I think the overall quality of the game across the board will be boosted when you come to play it."</p><p dir="ltr" style="">In September, Yamauchi said Gran Turismo 7 for PS4 would be ready in about a "<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/polyphony-gran-turismo-7-for-ps4-in-a-year-or-two/1100-6414389/" data-ref-id="1100-6414389">year or two</a>" and will feature a significant community component, though this was not specified. If Gran Turismo 7 is released in 2014, it will arrive alongside <a href="/driveclub/" data-ref-id="false">DriveClub</a>, another first-party racing game.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Top Gear also asked Yamauchi how he feels about Gran Turismo 6 going up against Microsoft's own racing game, <a href="/forza-motorsport-5/" data-ref-id="false">Forza Motorsport 5</a>. He explained that competition is good because it raises the racing scene overall.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"We always respect our competition," he said. "The racing genre isn't really that big in its entirety, so I'm glad that everyone works hard to boost the genre as a whole."</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6413257" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6413257/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:07:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gran-turismo-7-could-be-released-in-2014-on-ps4/1100-6416332/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/playstation-vita-tv-unboxing/2300-6416309/ Peter Brown rips into the PlayStation Vita TV a mere week after release in Japan and discusses the function of the compact device. Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:06:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/playstation-vita-tv-unboxing/2300-6416309/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/redshirt-review/1900-6415574/ <p style="">In the future, social networking is still a big deal. It's mandatory, in fact. Your account on Spacebook, the proprietary social network of space station Megalodon-9, doesn't just let you share your life; it dictates it. The food you eat, the activities you take part in, the people you befriend, the dates you go on--it's all dictated by buttons on a screen. Everything is a few clicks away.</p><p style="">It would all be very sad if it wasn't also quite funny. Redshirt is a sci-fi life simulation that puts you in the role of a titular redshirt--you know, one of the guys in sci-fi shows that is always sent to die first. You're a bit player in this space opera, not a member of the main cast, so there's no guarantee that you will survive any tragedy that might strike. And rest assured, tragedy is coming.</p><p style="">So what else do you have to do other than be on Spacebook all day?</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385975-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385975" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385975-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385975"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/78/787590/2385975-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>Unlike the real Facebook's UI, Spacebook's UI never changes. You'll stare at this screen a lot.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The entire game is played through this fake social network. Each day you are allotted a certain number of action points to put toward your daily activities, which can have varying effects on your stats, your interests, your health (both physical and mental), and your relationships. The most obvious benefits are in the types of jobs you can apply for. Getting a better job means more money and a higher rank among the space station's residents. However, better-paying jobs can also have a negative effect on your health, which in turn means you need to spend time relaxing with friends (or alone) rather than working yourself to death. It's a time management balancing act.</p><blockquote data-size="medium" data-align="right"><p style="">You don't get those kinds of dynamic relationships in many other games.</p></blockquote><p style=""><span>Everything can come down to your relationships with others to the extent that Redshirt is almost more dating sim than anything else. Don't get too attached, though, because plenty of your acquaintances die before the end (you're all redshirts, after all), but if the right people like you, you can schmooze your way into jobs you aren't otherwise eligible for or relationships with very important people. </span>In addition to "normal" activities, your action points can be spent on seemingly mundane tasks such as "liking" a friend's Spacebook status. It might seem like a waste of time (especially considering how little free time you have on the game's weekdays), but Spacebook interactions can be critical to making new friends and fostering important relationships.</p><p style="">Using relationships for personal gain can backfire, however. In one instance, the hiring manager of a job I wanted (but was not quite qualified for) showed a romantic interest in me. I didn't feel the same way, but Redshirt had already taught me that being a despicable person can sometimes pay off. In fact, I was able to sleep my way to another job earlier, so why not use the same tactic again? So I went out with the guy. The next day, I applied for the job, which the game told me I was a shoo-in for based on how the hiring manager felt about me.</p><p style="">I quickly found myself with a denied promotion request, a loss of much happiness, and an angry ex-boyfriend who promised to "end me."</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385981-0005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385981" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385981-0005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385981"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/78/787590/2385981-0005.jpg"></a><figcaption>Choosing whom to invite to events is one of the most important decisions you'll make every day.</figcaption></figure><p style="">And that's awesome. You don't get those kinds of dynamic relationships in many other games. Even if you choose not to be a horrible excuse for life and try to treat everyone you meet with respect, there is a lot to consider when making choices about whom to interact with. You don't get much in the way of dialogue choices, but your time can be precious to a lot of people other than yourself. Friends often get jealous if you stop inviting them to events, though this is occasionally frustrating when they say they want to hang out yet always seem to be busy. I guess that can be true of real life, but it's often an annoyance here.</p><p style="">The bummer is that managing all this becomes repetitive after a few hours, before you've found even one of several ways off the doomed space station. This isn't simply because you start to see the same text, the same statuses, and even the same goals over and over again (though that's unfortunately true); it's also because the actions you perform grow tiresome. Like the social network it skewers, Spacebook can be a wonderful tool for interaction that quickly devolves into the mindless act of clicking on friends' activities simply because it's the thing to do. After the first couple of times you go through a serious breakup or your friend dies on a mission, you become desensitized to the experience.</p><blockquote data-size="medium" data-align="left"><p style="">Like the social network it lambastes, Spacebook can be a wonderful tool for interaction that quickly devolves into the mindless act of clicking on friends' activities simply because it's the thing to do.</p></blockquote><p style="">It may be fitting to the theme, but the more I was able to see the station's inhabitants as a means to an end, the more I found myself getting bored with the formula. Fortunately, I was pulled back into the "just one more turn" mentality as the end neared and I had a solid plan for escaping certain death, but too much of the middle felt like a slog. And then there's the ending: a picture with text that basically reads, "Yay! You win!" Unless any of the other ending paths are somehow less anticlimactic (I saw two of them), it's a disappointing conclusion to many hours of play.</p><p style="">Redshirt is most effective as a parody. Its skewering of social networking is often of the "it's funny because it's true" variety. Comments and status updates from Spacebook friends can be appropriately groan-inducing in ways that should feel familiar to most Facebook users. You may recognize, for instance, the incredibly cheesy public declarations of love from couples or the use of random song lyrics as a status. You realize that despite your best intentions, you somehow always end up Spacebook friends with people who are horribly racist, sexist, or otherwise terrible beings.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385971-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385971" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385971-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385971"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/78/787590/2385971-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Being randomly selected for an away mission means one thing: people are going to die.</figcaption></figure><p style="">While that may sound like it hits too close to home to be entertaining, Redshirt does manage to successfully poke fun at a lot of social media's worst aspects, and it can be good for some genuine chuckles. It does lean a little heavily on pop culture references, some more timeless than others (the song titles "Hail Me Maybe" and "Since U Been Gorn" may soon lose their effectiveness), but much of the humor is appropriately clever.</p><p style="">The space station where Redshirt takes place is filled with people who are depressed--something it informs you of when you interact with them. It could be because their jobs suck and their deaths are probably around the corner, but it doesn't help that they spend all their time letting a computer screen dictate everything about their lives. Doing so can be harmless and enjoyable for short periods, but prolonged exposure can suck all the fun out of the experience. Kind of like Redshirt itself.</p> Thu, 21 Nov 2013 13:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/redshirt-review/1900-6415574/

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:42:21 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gran-turismo-7-could-be-released-in-2014-on-ps4/1100-6416332/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/536/5360430/2383519-ronda_05_1384770855.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2383519" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/536/5360430/2383519-ronda_05_1384770855.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2383519"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/536/5360430/2383519-ronda_05_1384770855.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style=""><a href="/gran-turismo-6/" data-ref-id="false">Gran Turismo 6</a> for PlayStation 3 isn't even out yet, but its sequel could land on PlayStation 4 sometime next year, Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi has said.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"We don't want to take too long on Gran Turismo 7," Kazunori told <a href="http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/gran-turismo-7-is-coming-in-2014-2013-11-20" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Top Gear</a>. "Best-case scenario? Next year. In GT6 we really had to tune the software 100 percent to maximize the PS3's architecture, but of course the PS4's hardware is much better, so I think the overall quality of the game across the board will be boosted when you come to play it."</p><p dir="ltr" style="">In September, Yamauchi said Gran Turismo 7 for PS4 would be ready in about a "<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/polyphony-gran-turismo-7-for-ps4-in-a-year-or-two/1100-6414389/" data-ref-id="1100-6414389">year or two</a>" and will feature a significant community component, though this was not specified. If Gran Turismo 7 is released in 2014, it will arrive alongside <a href="/driveclub/" data-ref-id="false">DriveClub</a>, another first-party racing game.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Top Gear also asked Yamauchi how he feels about Gran Turismo 6 going up against Microsoft's own racing game, <a href="/forza-motorsport-5/" data-ref-id="false">Forza Motorsport 5</a>. He explained that competition is good because it raises the racing scene overall.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"We always respect our competition," he said. "The racing genre isn't really that big in its entirety, so I'm glad that everyone works hard to boost the genre as a whole."</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6413257" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6413257/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:07:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gran-turismo-7-could-be-released-in-2014-on-ps4/1100-6416332/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/playstation-vita-tv-unboxing/2300-6416309/ Peter Brown rips into the PlayStation Vita TV a mere week after release in Japan and discusses the function of the compact device. Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:06:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/playstation-vita-tv-unboxing/2300-6416309/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/redshirt-review/1900-6415574/ <p style="">In the future, social networking is still a big deal. It's mandatory, in fact. Your account on Spacebook, the proprietary social network of space station Megalodon-9, doesn't just let you share your life; it dictates it. The food you eat, the activities you take part in, the people you befriend, the dates you go on--it's all dictated by buttons on a screen. Everything is a few clicks away.</p><p style="">It would all be very sad if it wasn't also quite funny. Redshirt is a sci-fi life simulation that puts you in the role of a titular redshirt--you know, one of the guys in sci-fi shows that is always sent to die first. You're a bit player in this space opera, not a member of the main cast, so there's no guarantee that you will survive any tragedy that might strike. And rest assured, tragedy is coming.</p><p style="">So what else do you have to do other than be on Spacebook all day?</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385975-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385975" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385975-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385975"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/78/787590/2385975-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>Unlike the real Facebook's UI, Spacebook's UI never changes. You'll stare at this screen a lot.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The entire game is played through this fake social network. Each day you are allotted a certain number of action points to put toward your daily activities, which can have varying effects on your stats, your interests, your health (both physical and mental), and your relationships. The most obvious benefits are in the types of jobs you can apply for. Getting a better job means more money and a higher rank among the space station's residents. However, better-paying jobs can also have a negative effect on your health, which in turn means you need to spend time relaxing with friends (or alone) rather than working yourself to death. It's a time management balancing act.</p><blockquote data-size="medium" data-align="right"><p style="">You don't get those kinds of dynamic relationships in many other games.</p></blockquote><p style=""><span>Everything can come down to your relationships with others to the extent that Redshirt is almost more dating sim than anything else. Don't get too attached, though, because plenty of your acquaintances die before the end (you're all redshirts, after all), but if the right people like you, you can schmooze your way into jobs you aren't otherwise eligible for or relationships with very important people. </span>In addition to "normal" activities, your action points can be spent on seemingly mundane tasks such as "liking" a friend's Spacebook status. It might seem like a waste of time (especially considering how little free time you have on the game's weekdays), but Spacebook interactions can be critical to making new friends and fostering important relationships.</p><p style="">Using relationships for personal gain can backfire, however. In one instance, the hiring manager of a job I wanted (but was not quite qualified for) showed a romantic interest in me. I didn't feel the same way, but Redshirt had already taught me that being a despicable person can sometimes pay off. In fact, I was able to sleep my way to another job earlier, so why not use the same tactic again? So I went out with the guy. The next day, I applied for the job, which the game told me I was a shoo-in for based on how the hiring manager felt about me.</p><p style="">I quickly found myself with a denied promotion request, a loss of much happiness, and an angry ex-boyfriend who promised to "end me."</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385981-0005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385981" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385981-0005.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385981"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/78/787590/2385981-0005.jpg"></a><figcaption>Choosing whom to invite to events is one of the most important decisions you'll make every day.</figcaption></figure><p style="">And that's awesome. You don't get those kinds of dynamic relationships in many other games. Even if you choose not to be a horrible excuse for life and try to treat everyone you meet with respect, there is a lot to consider when making choices about whom to interact with. You don't get much in the way of dialogue choices, but your time can be precious to a lot of people other than yourself. Friends often get jealous if you stop inviting them to events, though this is occasionally frustrating when they say they want to hang out yet always seem to be busy. I guess that can be true of real life, but it's often an annoyance here.</p><p style="">The bummer is that managing all this becomes repetitive after a few hours, before you've found even one of several ways off the doomed space station. This isn't simply because you start to see the same text, the same statuses, and even the same goals over and over again (though that's unfortunately true); it's also because the actions you perform grow tiresome. Like the social network it skewers, Spacebook can be a wonderful tool for interaction that quickly devolves into the mindless act of clicking on friends' activities simply because it's the thing to do. After the first couple of times you go through a serious breakup or your friend dies on a mission, you become desensitized to the experience.</p><blockquote data-size="medium" data-align="left"><p style="">Like the social network it lambastes, Spacebook can be a wonderful tool for interaction that quickly devolves into the mindless act of clicking on friends' activities simply because it's the thing to do.</p></blockquote><p style="">It may be fitting to the theme, but the more I was able to see the station's inhabitants as a means to an end, the more I found myself getting bored with the formula. Fortunately, I was pulled back into the "just one more turn" mentality as the end neared and I had a solid plan for escaping certain death, but too much of the middle felt like a slog. And then there's the ending: a picture with text that basically reads, "Yay! You win!" Unless any of the other ending paths are somehow less anticlimactic (I saw two of them), it's a disappointing conclusion to many hours of play.</p><p style="">Redshirt is most effective as a parody. Its skewering of social networking is often of the "it's funny because it's true" variety. Comments and status updates from Spacebook friends can be appropriately groan-inducing in ways that should feel familiar to most Facebook users. You may recognize, for instance, the incredibly cheesy public declarations of love from couples or the use of random song lyrics as a status. You realize that despite your best intentions, you somehow always end up Spacebook friends with people who are horribly racist, sexist, or otherwise terrible beings.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385971-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385971" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2385971-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2385971"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/78/787590/2385971-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Being randomly selected for an away mission means one thing: people are going to die.</figcaption></figure><p style="">While that may sound like it hits too close to home to be entertaining, Redshirt does manage to successfully poke fun at a lot of social media's worst aspects, and it can be good for some genuine chuckles. It does lean a little heavily on pop culture references, some more timeless than others (the song titles "Hail Me Maybe" and "Since U Been Gorn" may soon lose their effectiveness), but much of the humor is appropriately clever.</p><p style="">The space station where Redshirt takes place is filled with people who are depressed--something it informs you of when you interact with them. It could be because their jobs suck and their deaths are probably around the corner, but it doesn't help that they spend all their time letting a computer screen dictate everything about their lives. Doing so can be harmless and enjoyable for short periods, but prolonged exposure can suck all the fun out of the experience. Kind of like Redshirt itself.</p> Thu, 21 Nov 2013 13:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/redshirt-review/1900-6415574/

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Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare Developer Feature (Xbox One)

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Ryse: Son of Rome Review

Ryse: Son of Rome is huge in scale, but small in scope. For all the stunning spectacle it throws at you--the sight of a hundred-strong army laying bloody waste to a barbarian horde, the march of a legion as hulking great fireballs rain down from the sky--your part in it all is that of an outlier, a lone wolf single-handedly trying to save a crumbling empire. What you're left with, then, are the scraps: small melee battles against a procession of mindless opponents who you slaughter in painfully shallow third-person combat.

What initially seems like an impressive system based on precision and timing, largely thanks to some nice visual cues and elegant slow-motion animations, quickly becomes an exercise in mind-numbing tedium--and with just a sword and a shield attack on offer, it's hardly surprising. Sure, there are blocks, dodges, and counters to help things along, but when you're faced with opponents whose repetitive moves you'll have seen in their entirety after the first hour of the game, it's not long before you've experienced everything the combat system has to offer and figured out a sequence to repeat ad nauseam.

Even the gruesome stabs and bloody dismemberments of hero Marius' quick-time finishing moves do little to ease the banality of it all. Blood is spilled with such ferocious regularity in Ryse that what was once shocking and impressive is soon reduced to just another repetitive sight to endure. Killing enemies is less and less satisfying every time you lop off another limb, and for a game that's all about the combat, that's a really big problem. It's not as if you can avoid the bloody finishing moves either, with bonuses such as health regeneration and experience boosts tied to the attacks.

And so battles quickly blur into one another as you're endlessly marched from one small group of opponents to another, spilling litres of barbarian blood along the way. The odd turret defense mission and sections where you march a small legion towards a tower--raising shields to avoid a flurry of fiery arrows along the way--do their best to mix things up, but these moments are short-lived and so painfully easy that you feel like you might as well not be in control of the game at all. Even the moments when it seems like the game is drawing you into the larger fight offer only the illusion of control. You can bark orders at the Kinect to unleash a flurry of arrows, or choose where you want to station your archers while you fight, but all you have to do is play such battles a few times to discover that your choices have little bearing on the battle at large.

Ryse is all sizzle and no steak, a stunning visage paired with a vapid personality.

It's a good thing that stream is there, because Marius will need a bath after this battle.

That you're funneled into these battles along tightly controlled paths without any sense of exploration hammers home the fact that Ryse is a graphical show pony for the Xbox One, rather than a fully fleshed-out experience. Incredibly detailed cities and huge, beautiful vistas with impressive draw distances lure you into thinking that this is a living, breathing world, but as soon as you try to venture off the beaten path to explore it, you're sent crashing back to reality. Sure, many games put up invisible walls in an effort to keep the narrative and action flowing, but Son of Rome does little to disguise its limitations. You can climb up a huge towering wall one moment, only to have the savior of the Roman Empire stopped dead in his tracks seconds later by a small plank of wood. It's simply maddening.

With brain-dead combat playing such a large role in Ryse, it falls to the story to keep you ploughing through the battles. The trouble is that the hackneyed tale of murder and revenge is so full of cliches and iffy dialogue that it's hard to take it seriously. That I actually laughed out loud when Marius was asked to "put on this hat" to take his place as a centurion speaks volumes about the script here. Things pick up a little later in the game, particularly when you meet the wonderfully acted and thoroughly despicable sons of Emperor Nero, but for the most part, the story--like the combat--serves to showcase impressive visual touches such as the eerily good facial animation, rather than flesh out the game.

The online arena co-op mode mirrors the campaign's problems. The impressive-looking Colosseum is filled with spikes and obstacles, and it's there that you perform mindless missions like knocking over a cauldron to burn a catapult, or--in a wonder of originality--knocking over a cauldron to burn a pit of barbarians. It doesn't help that you're stuck using the same monotonous combat system as in the single-player game to fight off the waves of barbarians hurled at you, the only tweak being that you must choose a single bonus power such as health regeneration or strength boosts, rather than have access to them all. It's a mode you'll play once, and then never touch again.

Ryse 2 will be a buddy comedy.

Ryse is all sizzle and no steak, a stunning visage paired with a vapid personality. Everything from the leveling system that's so painfully easy to complete (and so devoid of any impact on the game that it might as well not be there), to the story that does little to flesh out its lead characters beyond puerile notions of revenge is a testament to how little Ryse can back up its gorgeous visuals with anything more than a shallow set of fisticuffs.

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Heavenly Sword dev on Xbox One: "It's completely the wrong direction"

Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry) cofounder Tameem Antoniades did not hold back when speaking his mind about the Xbox One at the Slush conference in Helsinki recently, saying Microsoft is moving in the wrong direction with its next-generation console.

"So you heard the Xbox One announcement? TV, TV, TV. That couldn't be further from the truth; it's completely the wrong direction," Antoniades said, as reported by Edge. "It does seem like, despite the best intentions of Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, they've still got too much momentum to steer."

He was also critical of the AAA business model, saying the barriers to entry for $60 games is too high for many new developers.

"The AAA games console model is a little bit broken," Antoniades said. "The platform holders control the platform and the distribution, the publishers control the marketing and the funding." He also said for developers, creating a 15-hour AAA game is "crushing" and it "constrains creativity."

Antoniades spoke more positively about Valve's upcoming line of Steam Machines, which he said is most likely to disrupt traditional gaming if executed properly.

"One platform that does seem to be going in the right direction is the Steam Box. It's an open development platform, fully digital and a media server, will doubtless integrate with mobile and tablets, and includes all the flexible pricing included from Steam," he said. "If I was to make a bet, I'd say that the Steam Box has the capacity to disrupt before mobile does. There are still technical limitations on mobile--bandwidth for streaming, processing and battery power that will just hold it back for a few years. After a few years, I fully expect mobile devices to be the dominant form."

Home consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 aren't going away anytime soon, Antoniades made clear. He said if Microsoft and Sony can incorporate lessons from mobile platforms, then traditional platforms will remain popular for the next decade.

"It's not all doom and gloom for consoles. If they embrace some of those lessons, we will get there. I think consoles will be the main hub of entertainment for the next 5-10 years," Antoniades said. "To do that, they do have to adapt to what mobile is leading. They have to be fully digital open platforms, media servers for all their entertainment and integration with mobile."

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Xbox One UI Overview

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Forza Motorsport 5 Review

Mount Panorama is a treacherous circuit, but at the crest of its dizzying 174-meter climb is a view of the Australian countryside so gorgeous that for a few fleeting moments all that exists is you and the howl of a roaring engine. Moments like this are what make Forza Motorsport 5 so special. This is a game that expertly captures the bond between car and driver, improving on a world-class racing simulation with just as much human touch as technical wizardry.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in Forza 5's redesigned career mode, where the hosts of Top Gear serve as entertaining guides through all manner of automotive styles and eras. It's a format made up of dozens of mini-campaigns, each focused on a specific class of vehicle, ranging from vintage touring legends to hot hatches to modern hypercars. It's a much more a la carte approach than previous Forza games: each series is unlocked from the start, lasting between one and two hours each. You're given the freedom to progress through these themed categories in any order you wish, the only limit to what you drive next being the number of credits in your virtual bank account.

With this approach comes the freedom to navigate your own pathway through the history of motorsport, but with an overarching progression of credits and RPG-style leveling that encourages you to continually poke through Forza 5's eclectic selection of vehicles. It's a career mode made even better by an expanded Top Gear partnership that takes the form of narrated voice-overs preceding each series. Whether they're playfully mocking the third generation of Ford Mustangs or recounting the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula One season, Clarkson, Hammond, and May shine as automotive historians. Their entertaining yet informative prologues lend both context and humor to every category of car you choose to spend time with.

The 1971 Elan Sprint has its charms, but the 2013 E21 is the standout Lotus in Forza 5.

That same flair for personality can be seen in the new drivatar AI system. The idea is that each car you compete against throughout your career is modeled after a real player's driving habits, a sort of cloud-based doppelganger meant to reflect how aggressive a person is in the pack or how well they can negotiate the trickiest of chicanes. Exactly how accurate these portraits are is up for debate, but the system does succeed in filling each 16-car grid with distinct personalities, drivers whose tendencies you can never take for granted. Their mistakes are far less predictable than the vanilla AI of previous games--especially when you reduce their penchant for aggression by climbing the ladder of eight difficulty settings--making those moments you capitalize on their errors that much more rewarding. There are odd AI hiccups here and there, like when they side-swipe you in the straights for no apparent reason, but such goofs are rare and nothing that a quick tap of the rewind button can't solve.

This is a game that expertly captures the bond between car and driver, improving on a world-class racing simulation with just as much human touch as technical wizardry

All of this amounts to a career mode that feels more lively and personable than anything Forza has done in the past. There are faults, though. A sense of repetition can creep in thanks to a track list roughly half the size of that found in Forza 4, already a game that carried a profound sense of environmental deja vu. But those tracks that did make the cut have received the full next-gen treatment. Classics like Laguna Seca and Silverstone are significant improvements over their prior iterations in terms of both look and feel, bristling with race day atmosphere and up-to-date tweaks to track layouts. And then there are the new circuits: the sloping forest hills of Spa-Francorchamps, the classical European streets of Prague, and the demanding ascent of Mount Panorama. These excellent additions don't remove the sting from the modest track count, but they do serve as wonderful complements to the stable of well-updated classics.

Easier to forgive is Forza 5's reduced car count. While smaller overall, this is the broadest assortment of vehicles the series has ever seen, highlighted by the introduction of open-wheel Formula One and IndyCars. Piloting a 750-horsepower Lotus E21 mere inches above the asphalt is an experience every bit as exhilarating as it is terrifying, making you feel as though any switch on that cockpit could send you rocketing into outer space. But whether you're cruising around in a Ford Focus or a McLaren P1, every car in the game's catalog looks absolutely remarkable--both in their pristine showroom forms as well as those post-race close-ups where flecks of grime litter the exterior and scratches adorn the disc brakes.

Indeed, Forza 5 has hardly forgotten its roots as a racing sim known for its staggering dedication to realism. Improved tire physics give you a better sense of your car's shifting weight as you barrel through sloped corners, while a clever implementation of the Xbox One trigger rumble delivers valuable haptic feedback about your current traction and stability levels. But as with previous games, Forza 5 is only as demanding as you want it to be. A generous collection of driving assists allows you to settle into your own personal comfort zone on the track, with rewards for ratcheting up the difficulty and penalties for overusing the rewind function.

But a steadfast dedication to racing physics is only part of the story. Forza 5 is a game brimming with audiovisual flourishes, little touches that elevate the driving experience just as much as the underlying science. The way sunlight comes flooding through your windshield as you race across the Prague circuit's cobblestone bridge, or the excellent orchestral soundtrack that makes each race feel like the climax of a James Bond movie--Forza 5 is an absolutely beautiful game full of immersive detail. And nowhere is that more visible than in the remarkable cockpit views, where intricate stitch work and high-resolution textures serve as rich palettes for the game's drastically improved lighting effects. Even the Dolby cassette deck on a '92 Golf GTi is a thing of beauty.

Forza 5 goes out of its way to ensure that every feature carried over from previous games has seen meaningful improvements. The Autovista mode that debuted in Forza 4 (renamed Forzavista here) has expanded from a handful of cars to the game's entire roster, making it easy to lose time ogling your latest purchase from every conceivable angle. Rivals mode remains an exciting means of challenging your friends' best lap times, but now it has been fully integrated into the career mode so that you're automatically presented with a new lap time to beat even as you're racing your way toward your next extravagant supercar. Even the livery editor has been expanded with new vinyls and surface materials, giving you the opportunity to defy all that is holy by designing a wood-grain Ferrari 458 Italia, or a Lexus LFA made entirely of brushed copper.

Unfortunately, I had limited access to Forza 5's multiplayer in the game's prerelease review state, with only the option to choose between a pair of hoppers for A- and S-class cars respectively. But my time competing against other players revealed a stable networking environment (thanks in some part to the game's dedicated servers, no doubt) and a lovely matchmaking system that lets you tinker around in any mode you please while it searches for an acceptable match.

All of this combined makes Forza Motorsport 5 an outstanding improvement to an already excellent racing franchise. It's far more than just a great racing sim, or a gorgeous showcase for the types of feats the Xbox One hardware is capable of. This is a game built on the romantic thrill of motorsport in all its forms, and that love for its subject matter is all but impossible to resist.

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More Borderlands 2 DLC out November 26

More Borderlands 2 DLC will be available in time for Thanksgiving, 2K Games announced today. "The Horrible Hunger of the Ravenous Wattle Gobbler," the second Headhunter expansion for the game, will be available November 26 on Xbox 360, PlayStation, Steam, and Mac for $3/£2.39/€2,99

In the DLC, players will participate in a hunger-themed competition hosted by Mr. Torgue where they are challenged to hunt down a giant turkey, the Wattle Gobbler, pictured above.

Players will also meet Mr. Torgue's grandmother, Grandma Flexington, in the content for the first time. "Grandma Flexington reminds us that we should be nice to Grandma during the holidays, even if she rambles on for way too long," 2K Games said.

Additionally, new character heads and skins will also be available as part of The Horrible Hunger of the Ravenous Wattle Gobbler. Lastly, 2K Games announced today that the third Headhunter add-on, called How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day, will be released in December.

The first Headhunter expansion, the Halloween-themed TK Baha's Bloody Harvest, was released in October.

Borderlands 2, released in September 2012, is the most recent entry in the shooter series. It has shipped over 7.5 million copies to date and is on pace to become 2K's best-selling game of all time.

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Borderlands 2

Gearbox Software

2K Games

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GS News - PS4 sells 1 million, ‘blue lights of death’ and Fallout 4 happening?

Now i'm really confused.........I just read another article about how Call Of Duty: Ghosts broke GTAV record. .......the last thing Gamespot said is that they shipped $1 billion worth of games to retailers, not that customers actually bought them all. 

i know a lot of stuff is focused on the console launches....but you report on Fallout 4 being copyrighted, but not on the whole Ghosts being the best selling video game of all time, or at least updating the older article OR Uncharted for the PS4s teaser trailer? 

c'mon Gamespot....get it together

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Deadfall Adventures Review

In many games, you unlock ancient discoveries and acquire grand treasures as a reward. But not all tombs offer something grandiose, and a long trek down a musty corridor may sometimes yield disappointment.

Deadfall Adventures is one such trek. The game draws its history from H.R. Haggard's Allan Quatermain series of adventure novels written in the late 1800s, but the plot of Deadfall Adventures bears a closer resemblance to the Indiana Jones movie--which were in part inspired by Haggard's books--than to Haggard's books themselves. Set in 1938, Deadfall Adventures stars Allan's great-grandson, James Quatermain, a hard-drinking, hard-fighting adventurer who must keep an all-powerful ancient artifact from Nazis who will use its power to gain an edge in the upcoming world war. Similarities to the Indiana Jones movies don't end there, as familiar traps and even a minecart ride that barrels through caverns and over bubbling pools of lava make an appearance. But Deadfall Adventures' biggest problem isn't familiarity: it's tedium.

Quatermain's notebook helps you solve puzzles.

Deadfall Adventures feels like a game out of its time. It relies on tired, two-dimensional characters to tell its all-too-familiar story. The rugged Quatermain is paired with Jennifer Goodwin, a tough and flirtatious love interest, and the two are pitted against melodramatic comic book villains. Wooden voice acting and emotionless facial animations put a damper on the presentation, and Quatermain himself is lost as to what period of time he's in. He occasionally spouts references to Indiana Jones, which merit little more than an eye roll, but sometimes he says or quotes phrases that are completely out of place. Despite living many decades before, Quatermain seems to have no qualms shouting lines from The Terminator and, believe it or not, Darkwing Duck.

Deadfall Adventures becomes hopelessly predictable, breaking down into a tiresome formula of kill rooms and effortless puzzles.

Unlike The Farm 51's previous game, Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, Deadfall is slow paced, and your inventory is limited to three weapons at once, split into three categories: pistol, rifle, and special weapon. Combat revolves around shooting from cover with a variety of weapons, many of which are World War II-era firearms. Guns and ammunition are always plentiful, so Quatermain is rarely at a disadvantage. He absorbs massive amounts of damage before needing to drop behind cover to recharge his health. Enemies repeat the same animation to get out of cover, so it's entirely possible to sprint into the field of battle and take each one out like a game of Nazi Whac-a-Mole while taking little damage in the process.

James Quatermain: like Indiana, except without all the fun.

Enemies exercise little caution in fights, only occasionally taking cover, and leaving their vulnerable bodies exposed in the process. They never seem to have any clue what they're shooting at and have a habit of shooting in your direction, even if you're in another room. It's one thing to watch a Nazi soldier fire his gun into the crate he's hiding behind, but it's a rare treat to hear the sound of rifles popping in the next room as enemies desperately try to kill you through layers of dirt and rock.

Deadfall Adventures delves into the supernatural by introducing mummies who spur to life to protect the homes of their ancient masters. The mummies are invulnerable at first, but you damage them by focusing your flashlight beam, which sets them on fire after a short period. I found myself enjoying fighting these undead guardians, because they at least provide some sense of danger, and they back away or shield themselves against the harmful rays of the flashlight. In the final act, mummies charge in large numbers at a breathless rate. With every encounter, you are forced into a game of finding a corner and blasting away with a shotgun, ruining one of the few things going for Deadfall Adventures.

Glitches plague Deadfall. You can pass through some fences or rocks, while other times, enemies are stuck running along an invisible floor. Cover in combat is often untrustworthy; one boss in the game proved that if you have a big enough gun, any form of cover is penetrable, from wooden boxes to stone pillars. You might sprint off a ledge and keep charging forward in midair, and during combat, enemies may shrug off explosions from grenades or red barrels, even if they detonate mere inches away.

Not only do the invisible walls impede exploration, but their often bizarre placement creates some frustrating moments during combat.

Every so often the game prompts you to pull out a notebook owned by great-grandfather Quatermain to solve one of its many puzzle rooms--a method that should sound familiar to fans of Uncharted. Don't expect to stress your brain solving these ancient enigmas. More often than not, the book demonstrates the steps you need to take--which lever to pull, which buttons to press in what order--to solve each mystery, turning what could have been a welcome break in the pace into a brief pause in the action while the game holds your hand through every step. If you are still having issues with a puzzle, no worries; your companions sometimes shout the solution for you, and continuously repeat it until you follow the command. There are several puzzles, however, for which the book offers no clear solution.

Solving these puzzles in particular requires an arbitrary solution. One has you placing a bundle of dynamite in a hook attached to a platform, which you then use to blow up a hanging engine block, which, amazingly, leaves the platform intact. Another has you deciphering a puzzle with your flashlight, which I solved by randomly waving my light around until it granted me access. These puzzles are thankfully rare, but they provide some of the more frustrating moments in the game.

Deadfall Adventures features some impressive-looking locations.

At the very least, the puzzles allow you to take in Deadfall Adventures' attractive environments. Underground areas, from ancient catacombs to twisting mines, and the wild jungles of South America look astonishing. In the arctic tombs, for example, the orange of blazing pit fires complements the blue luminescent frozen walls and stalactites. Vine-choked, Mayan-inspired temples in Guatemala look appropriately aged. The style and design of these environments are an impressive foil to the blemishes and stand as the game's champion feature.

Mummies can be lured into one of the many instant-kill traps, further enhancing the importance of strategizing your moves.

Though Deadfall Adventures includes open terrain and large underground passages, it feels claustrophobic because it's plagued by invisible walls. For a game taking the guise of an adventure, it's sadly ironic that any sense of exploration is stagnated by these nagging restrictions. In Deadfall, you are funneled down linear paths where you can only proceed forward if you follow the developer's exact design. Short walls, stone formations, crates, and even some plants are little more than fancy dressing to hide irritating blockades. Not only do the invisible walls impede exploration, but their often bizarre placement creates some frustrating moments during combat. I remember fondly a time when I walked into a firefight and tried to quickly duck behind a box directly to my left. But no matter how hard I pushed the left key, I stayed in place, catching a few bullets in the process, all due to an invisible wall blocking me from taking cover.

Hunting for treasure? Take out the compass and follow the needle.

If you're looking for more game time with Deadfall Adventures, it does include two different multiplayer modes. Standard multiplayer offers five different classes to play as, which allows you to jump in and play with your method of choice. You can build your own classes, and you don't need to hit a certain level to do so. Custom classes are available right from the start, but certain weapons will not come into your employ until you reach a necessary level.

More interesting is Survivor mode, which mimics the ever-popular Horde style of cooperative multiplayer. Here, you are rushed by the game's undead mummies, and since defeating them requires a flashlight, it takes more thought than simply lining up your iron sights and blasting away. This mode requires more tactics, and with a partner, you can find rhythm in the mayhem. In my play time, I used my flashlight to set the mummies alight, while my partner fired as soon as they were vulnerable. The game is set in rounds, and at the end of every rush, you get to replenish ammunition or grab a new weapon. Mummies can be lured into one of the many instant-kill traps, further enhancing the importance of strategizing your moves. Unfortunately, my time in the game's multiplayer was limited. As of this writing, I spent more time in the lobbies than in combat. The game's multiplayer is a ghost town, and the few players I met disappeared shortly after a round was finished.

Glitches, stereotypical characters, and dull combat betray any chance of Deadfall Adventures providing any real incentive for your troubles. Digging into this game yields not a rough-cut gem, but rather a lump of coal that should have stayed buried.

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