Preview

A skyscraper sized mechanical beast towers over grassy Icelandic hills. At first it inspires awe, since few games are rendered with such literal, uncontained immensity. But something is askew in Resistance 2, because when it comes down to the true sense of it all, it’s hardly impactful.

Playing the earlier levels of Insomniac’s latest effort left a feeling of indifference. For all its attempts at imbuing a sprawling scale, the highly deliberate crescendo of chaos generally remained at a mild plateau. Much is going on, most of it blurred together. Continue »

It starts with a heavy boot sinking into ashen, damp sand. Despite the cold and alien landscape, this is a battle with a distinct familiarity: it’s harkening back, drawing inspiration, and twisting it in a new light. If you haven’t already sensed it, Killzone 2 is oddly recognizable. The vivid, iconic imagery of war parallels great battles from the past, and, of course, the games they inspired. But rather than being wholly derivative of what it so explicitly admires, the enormity of developer Guerilla Games’ vision puts it a cut above the rest. Continue »

An umbrella, to say the least, is an interesting parting gift after a sleek, stylish and classy gaming event. Seeing as no precipitation was in the forecast, perhaps Sony felt that any smidgen of sun would shrivel the pasty Canadian gaming press. Or maybe it’s a message that we should all use that proverbial umbrella to weather out the storm of games that looms upon us this autumn.

Shame that it’s all so appealing though, I might have brave the rain.

The annual Playstation Holiday Preview Event was held in a posh, brightly lit studio turned media venue in downtown Toronto yesterday, complete with an affluent source of drinks, and, more importantly, an avalanche of new titles. Here’s a look at the games that received briefer playtimes. Lengthier ones will get the full preview treatment soon, namely Killzone 2 and Resistance 2, so stay tuned. Continue »

A massive bulkhead door slumbers open; it creaks, it groans and it gapes to expose a tunnel. There is light at the end of it. You begin walking through; a shrivelled corpse is curled up at the side. One of the many, they probably clawed at the vault doors for entrance, looking for solace in a world burnt asunder. The walk continues up the passageway, no turning back now, and you come upon a weathered door to the outside world.

A stark white light shines on fresh eyes and the journey of Fallout 3 begins. As a vault dweller, born to a 1950’s style happy-go-lucky underground existence, you have never before seen the true daylight. Nor the ravages of the apocalyptic war that had you stuck in there in the first place. Continue »

It’s appropriate that F.E.A.R’s sequel takes place in a city gone nuclear. The newly and insipidly named Project Origin blows everything you hated about its predecessor to pieces, while retaining everything that made the original such a celebrated shooter.

The section we played at X’08 opens, teasingly, in a long white hallway; a dreaded image that embodies the repetitive environments that F.E.A.R ultimately became infamous for. As you walk down the stale corridors you’ll soon realize that it’s a subway terminal, the wide open and freeing streets are above. Continue »