Sony Computer Entertainment subsidiary SN Systems has reduced the price of its PSP development tools by 50 per cent. The reduction covers all SN Systems PSP development and support fees. The move suggests Sony is trying to get studios to boost the PSP support.
Poker Smash (a puzzle game with a poker twist) will be available on Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday for 800 points. Also Crystal Quest will receive a free gameplay update this week. Developer Stainless Games has added a fresh twist to the puzzle action by incorporating a score multiplier. This update will make the game slicker and faster than before and opens up the possibility of even higher scores.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer outlined their growth targets for the Xbox during his annual “Strategic Update” for Wall Street analysts. Ballmer told investors to watch Microsoft continue to push for broader Xbox acceptance in less popular markets like continental Europe and Japan. Ballmer said they also plan to attract \”non-classic gamers\” so that they continue to build their market share.
According to a dutch site Microsoft is planning a spectacular price drop on the Xbox 360 Arcade. They say MS will cut the price of it to 199 Euros on February 14th making it cheaper than the Wii. Earlier we reported on Microsoft\’s strategy for the 360 in 2008 include attracting non-classic gamers & gamers from Japan/continental Europe. Could MS really be planing such a spectacular price cut?
A company known as KontrolFreek are set to release a new product in their range - the FPS Freek which is an extention to the analog sticks which they claim will make it easier to move and will help a gamer in two main ways - adds extra leverage to make analogs move easier and second \’adds travel\’ to the surface of the analog.
Mark Rein of Epic has responded to news of a supposed Gears of War 2 exclusive for GamePro by stating it is complete nonsense and that Epic has not announced a sequel to Gears of War to GamePro or anyone else for the matter.
Enjoy the following super slick FIFA Street 3 promo, there are some very advanced skills on display although one must question if they are all real.
Check out the latest madcap action from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past week, you’ll know that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is on the streets in Japan and currently taking the Wii by storm. We’ve finally nabbed our own import copy of the mash-happy four-player brawler and started putting it through the usual paces, pitting one happy-go-lucky Nintendo mascot against another in brutal combat. We’ve barely scratched the surface of Brawl in our limited time with the game so far–after all, Nintendo has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into this one, from online versus features to a level editor and more. But we’ve amassed a bevy of screenshots and movies in addition to our quick initial impressions, to give you an idea of what to expect.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that this is definitely Smash Bros. at its core. The fundamental gameplay hasn’t changed much since Melee on the GameCube–which means that if you loved the series’ trademark frenetic, flashy combat, you’ll find plenty more of it to love here. (Conversely, if all the button mashing and high-flying antics haven’t been your cup of tea up to now, we haven’t seen much in Brawl that will change your mind.) Though the game’s full roster was leaked on the Internet recently and proved to contain a wide array of characters, the starting lineup sticks pretty close to the faces you know. Mario, Link, Kirby, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Fox McCloud, and Yoshi are a handful of the characters you can use when you first start out.
Those old mainstays are joined by a handful of Brawl’s new characters, such as Olimar from the Pikmin series on the GameCube. Olimar’s attacks seem a little ineffectual upon first playing him, until you realize that his attacks depend on having an entourage of little pik-minions (sorry) at your disposal. You can summon pikmin right from the ground by standing still and hitting B, and then you can fling them at enemies individually, shoot them out diagonally in a lance formation, and more. You can also call your wayward pikmin back to you, but then again, you can also just grab more out of the ground whenever you need them.
The gang’s all here (and then some).
Then there’s the anonymous pokemon trainer, who doesn’t fight by himself (he hangs back in the background, looking like an assist trophy). Instead, you’ll have three pokemon–ivysaur, charizard, and squirtle–at your disposal, and you can swap one out for another at any time. In fact, you’ll need to do this regularly; each pokemon will get tired and perform poorly if you use it for too long at a stretch. Luckily, each pokemon has its own set of elemental moves that are relevant to the character, so it shouldn’t get old having to swap between them frequently.
We’d wondered if the new final smash moves would throw off the balance or be too powerful, but so far they seem to fit into the action well. For one thing, you have to grab the orb that enables the smash once it’s thrown into play, so every player in a match has an equal chance of getting the final smash. The ones we’ve seen so far tie into each character’s personality. Samus fires a massive beam that catches all opponents. Bowser becomes huge and much more sinister-looking. The ice climber twins cause a massive, pointed mountain of solid ice to jut up through the bottom of the stage. Diddy Kong gets to fly around firing peanuts rapid-fire at the other players. Luckily, while these moves are impressive to see and can help you rack up a lot of damage, they don’t seem like the kind of thing that will swing a match entirely in the favor of a user, even if they’re a skilled Smash Bros. player.
Nintendo has crammed plenty of nostalgic value–and some endearingly fresh ideas–into the stages we’ve played so far in Brawl. Everything from Animal Crossing to the original Super Mario Bros. is represented here, and in fact, two stages styled after the latter actually scroll actively to the right, forcing you to jump over pipes and pitfalls in addition to fending off attacks from your foes. Other backgrounds based on F-Zero and Mario Kart both challenge you to stay off various parts of the tracks contained within them, lest you get smeared on the pavement by oncoming racers.
There’s some real creativity in the level designs so far.
We especially like the Metal Gear Solid-themed level, which depicts the snowy base on Shadow Moses Island–and which is interrupted halfway through a match by Metal Gear Rex tearing its way through the barrier wall. There’s a Wario Ware-themed level that pulls you through a door to have you fight within one microgame after another. And our favorite background of all is one based on the Nintendo DS’ built-in communication software, Pictochat. Your fighters will duke it out within the drawing window, and an unseen user will draw background elements that actually affect you during battle. Scribbled platforms become solid and allow you to stand on them, hastily drawn flames will actually set you on fire, and slow, simplistic rockets that move across the sky will explode and send you flying if you’re unlucky enough to run into them.
As we said, there’s far more in Super Smash Bros. Brawl than we could ever hope to see in a single day, and we expect the multitude of online fighting, replay, and stage-creation features will keep fans occupied on this one for a long time to come. We’ll dig deeper into Brawl–including a more thorough look at the English-language version–in the weeks leading up to its March 9 domestic release.
-If Its Games
When Pursuit Force was released in early 2006, it marked a great debut for newcomer Bigbig Studios. The game’s innovative vehicle-to-vehicle jumping mechanic turned otherwise garden-variety high-speed car chases into action-packed sequences straight out of Hollywood. The game also offered variety courtesy of third-person shooter levels played on foot and rail-shooter levels in which you manned a helicopter gun. Two years later, in a sequel that’s fittingly set just a couple of years after the events of the original, Pursuit Force is back. Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice doesn’t mess with the original formula too much, but it adds a number of new features to the mix and, crucially, it isn’t as frustratingly difficult as its predecessor.
In Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice, you reprise the role of the first game’s protagonist, a rookie cop who has since been promoted to the rank of commander. The gang leaders you locked up last time have all escaped and, as you’ll witness in the intro movie when they “crash” your wedding, they’ll stop at nothing to get revenge. Furthermore, the Pursuit Force now has competition in the form of Viper Squad, another zero-tolerance law-enforcement unit that seems more interested in taking the credit for arrests than in actually making them. The story that plays out as you progress through the single-player game is every bit as Hollywood as the fast-paced gameplay, and though it’s entertaining, it’s also painfully predictable. Regardless, this isn’t a game you’re likely to be purchasing for its narrative; like so many movies before it, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is all about fast-paced, great-looking action sequences.
Some vehicles can’t be commandeered and must simply be stopped.
The single-player story mode spans some 30 missions, and the majority of those missions feature several distinct gameplay sequences. For example, a mission that gets underway with a car chase might also task you with sniping enemies from a helicopter, infiltrating an enemy base on foot, and then making your escape in a hovercraft. The most enjoyable sequences in Extreme Justice are those in which you’re at the controls of a vehicle and, specifically, those in which you’re encouraged to jump between vehicles in midchase simply by pulling up alongside them and hitting the O button. All of the vehicles–including motorcycles, trucks, hovercraft, speedboats, jet-skis, and plenty of different cars–handle differently, but they’re all equally fun to drive. When taking control of an enemy’s ride, you’ll initially land on top of the vehicle and will have to shoot the occupants before you can climb inside, all the while using the dodge button to avoid their retaliatory attacks. Considering that the majority of your time in story mode will be spent in driving sequences, you might think that they’d start to feel repetitive, and you’d be right. However, your objectives are a little more varied than they were in the original game, and they might task you with driving either carefully or recklessly, for example, or with taking out enemies that are vulnerable only to certain methods of attack. There are also plenty of action sequences that don’t involve you driving at all.
There are some variations on these themes, but for the most part Extreme Justice’s rail-shooter sequences come in three distinct flavors: helicopter with a sniper rifle, helicopter’s turret-mounted machine gun, and off-road vehicle’s rear-mounted machine gun. The challenge in these levels is trying to line up your shots while compensating for the movement of the vehicle, which is especially difficult when you’re trying to snipe enemies from a helicopter at the mercy of a pilot who flies like he’d spectacularly fail a breathalyzer test. Toward the end of the game, the rail-shooter sequences are some of the most challenging, but given that Extreme Justice’s missions employ a new checkpoint system, at least you never have to play through other stuff over again to retry them.
The third-person shooter sequences would benefit from a second analog stick.
By far the least-impressive sequences in Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice are those in which you go up against enemies on foot. The PSP’s lack of a second analog stick really hurts here because, when you’re running around, it’s impossible to look or shoot in one direction while moving in another. In the absence of a lock-on feature like the one used in driving sequences, holding down the left shoulder button lets you zoom in on enemies so that you can aim more easily and, whenever possible, take them down with headshots. While you’re aiming, your movement is limited to strafing left and right, so regardless of how you’re playing, you never get the best of both worlds. The control limitations don’t make Extreme Justice’s third-person shooter sequences overly difficult, but that’s only because few of the enemies have any interest in self-preservation. In fact, they’re more likely to charge at you than to take cover, and if they get too close for comfort, you can put them in handcuffs simply by entering the correct combination of button presses as it appears on the screen.
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Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice
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| GamePro | 3.5 / 5 |
| PlayStation: Official Mag (US) | 4.5 / 5 |
| NZGamer | 7.5 / 10 |
| Game Revolution | B- |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | 6 / 10 |
| Game Informer | 7.2 / 10 |
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| GameSpy | 3.5 / 5 |
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Pursuit Force
Pursuit Force lets you play as a police officer in a fictional state in America. In the effort to track down criminal gangs, you must jump behind the wheel of a variety of vehicles equipped with weapons.
Crash Tag Team Racing
Crash Tag Team Racing is a vehicular combat and racing game starring Crash Bandicoot. The game allows players to ‘clash’ two vehicles together during the game to create new, more powerful vehicles.
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