Taking a different approach than previous SMT games, this one will be a first person Sci Fi RPG. While this SMT game will be wandering in new directions, the classic SMT: Nocturne will be an influence on this new title.

Check out some screens and art for the upcoming release.

The story of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is about becoming a soldier picked to research a black spot that appeared in the Antarctic. Once passing through the spot, called the Schwarzwelt, a whole other world in found and finding out what this new world is before it engulfs the Earth is the mission.

New features for Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey are:

Return to the dungeon crawling of SMT: Nocturne
A new science fiction theme
Teaming with the over 300 types of demons

At its core, Skate 3 still contains what makes the series different from other skateboard games. I got to sit down with both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 pre-alpha builds and have a chance to experience the new focus of the game, Teams.

Teams are the focus of this third iteration of the game, along with the story of Skate 3 about becoming a brand name in the new city of Port Carverton. From the small sections that I was able to play, Port Carverton contains many similar locations of the first two games, but makes them more skate-friendly. Fans who played Skate 2 might agree that the downtown area was a little broken in continuous lines for tricks. In Skate 3, lines can be found and modified much easier.

The overall goal of Skate 3 is to become famous and make yourself into a brand. Progression through the game will create notice throughout Port Carverton with logos showing up in the city. The necessity of teams is important to growing the brand through completing challenges and participating in the online portion of the game. The city contains three new environments, the University, Downtown, and the Industrial Area. Each will cater to different skating styles and I was able to play mainly in the University sections.

The Hall of Meat will be expanded for Skate 3 and for those who complained about the off board mechanics, be very happy. Black Box went back and created new animations for the off board mechanics and they are faster and much more realistic. Along with those animations, additional animations were added for partial bails. Tripping and losing balance look more realistic and if fast enough, bails can be avoided with quick reflexes.

Skate 3 features some new things too, some updated from Skate 2 and others brand new.

Skate Create

Under Skate Create, returning are Skate.Reel and Skate.Create along with the new Skate.Park. Essentially a level creator, having your levels downloaded will effect the brand status.

Honestly, I never knew people created some really awesome graphics.

New Tricks

Darkslide and Underflip. In this build of the game, all of the tricks from previous games were already in, but the addition of these tricks, especially my all-time favorite, the darkslide, were also in the game.

Darkslides are performed by either starting with a kick-flip or heel-flip and mid board spin, holding the right bumper or R1 will stop the rotation with the foot. Properly lined up, the darkslide is very satisfying.

The underflip is performed by an opposite kick-flip motion. It was a little difficult to catch when watching the animation because it’s really fast, but it is in the game proper.

Skate School

Skate School was created to help new fans get a hang of the controls. There wasn’t much talked about it in the preview other than that it will be in the game.

Challenges

The focus of the preview was to show how the team focus would work in online challenges. There are five challenge types in the game.

Domination

Domination is all about posting high scores in areas and at the end of time, owning more spots than the opposing team. With a strong team, posting high scores isn’t a problem, but playing with people new to the series might create a challenge of its own.

Death Race

The returning race mode from Skate 2. It still feels mainly the same, but on new courses.

1up

In a best of three, team vs team, each team has to post the highest score possible. But if one member bails, the trail is over and it’s the other team’s turn. The cool thing about 1up is that teams have to beat or fail the high score before the next level starts. So best of three can actually take some time.

Own the Lot

The level starts with a set of challenges that each team must complete as quickly as possible. Once each member of the team completes the set, that team wins.

Contest

A bit tweaked from previous games, Contest still features both teams trying to post the highest score possible based on terms for each area. Much like the contests in Skate 2, one area might be flip tricks only or grabs only. Contest really shows the ability of those playing.

Considering Skate 3 was pre-alpha, I was very impressed. The engine was tweaked and will worked on further, but all the tricks were present, the core gameplay still feels solid, and the new team focus felt perfect. Skate is the skateboard game for consoles and this third entry in the series is only evolving it further.

My only gripe was that the darkslide exit animation looked a little strange. The board would pop back mere millimeters from the group and the animations were slow, but it’s pre-alpha so I’m sure my small concern will be corrected before the proper release.

And I jumped the shark. Multiple times.

Check out this new video of the Coke Zero Dodge Viper SRT10, some screens and how to get the code to unlock the car.

To find out how to get the Coke Zero Dodge Viper SRT10 unlockable head to Facebook and MyCokeRewards for more information.

Unfortunately for this title, the game suffers from a lot of issues that should have been caught early on.

What Fairytale Fights does right is the setting and graphics. Using various locations from the children’s books, the game takes place in a variety of environments and circumstances that look good and feel deep. The levels aren’t simple foreground and background, there is a nice draw distance so the world is realized in a nice lush way.

The story is interesting enough, the four forgotten fairytale characters are on a mission to bring back notice to themselves by helping other known characters and stopping evil that is causing havoc in the Fairytale Kingdom.

Control of the character is mainly though the two analog sticks, the left analog moves the character while the right analog is for combat. Moving the stick in different directions creates different combat actions, but isn’t direction specific. Combinations are easily created and depending on which type of weapon used, either blunt or sharp, enemies will fall dead or fall into pieces.

Unfortunately, the basics of the game do not carry throughout the rest of the title. The basic gameplay for the game is to work through highly detailed, but extremely linear levels killing everything in sight. While it was fun at first, it felt like playing the same levels with different environment skins. There wasn’t much to differentiate levels from one another.

Some levels were designed so unfairly towards gameplay. In a middle level, I had to maneuver through a race track with cars passing, but when I was run over (instant death) and respawned, a brand new car would run me over again. It became a frustrating moment where I wondered why a level would be created this way.

Platforming in the title should have been removed since the game plays in a two-dimension form with three-dimensional movement, but jumping over water required a much more precise control scheme than what was in the game.

A dedicated lock-on would have helped immensely because enemies pour at you in later levels, and haphazardly moving the right analog does do damage, but more often locks the character into a combo animation and allowed enemies to kill me. And considering blunt objects are useless in the game against crowds, finding sharp weapons becomes priority before getting killed over and over. Ranged enemy attack triumph against the character and blocking is useless.

There are also graphic and physics glitches. In a tower level, I fell off a ledge and should have died, but I slowly clipped my way to the bottom of the level and then my character died.

One aspect of the game that I really don’t understand is why the game did not feature a load/save game feature. Loading the game goes straight into the menu screen and there isn’t a place to load the game from as it loaded before I entered the hub. During my first playthough, I started the game to find that my save game file had been lost while my profile data was still intact causing me to have to restart from the beginning of the game.

Fairytale Fights could have been a fun party game since it allows for four people to play together, but the nagging issues with the game and the repetitive nature of it really make the game more unplayable than even bearable. Playlogic should have done more QA with the game beyond just the technical and found if the gameplay as it stands could work for the amount of time it took to complete it.

Apparently there are some of you out there who haven’t heard of Borderlands. Apparently there are some of you out there who are skeptical of Borderlands. Well let me give you the scoop, because this game is freaking awesome!

You know me, though, I love me some Role Playing Games and I love me some First Person Shooters, and Borderlands is the beautiful love child of the two. Thank you 2K Games for providing me with a copy of this wonderful game. Released on October 20th for the 360, PS3 and PC by Gearbox Software and 2K Games, here’s my thoughts on Borderlands.

ZeitgeistGameReview.com

Uncharted 2 is somewhat of a semi-sequel to the first game, as the time frame from the original to Among Thieves isn’t really clarified. In this instance, Nathan Drake is after the secret of Marco Polo’s armada and the treasure that was supposedly taken from Mongol lands years ago. With that simple beginning, a great ten to fifteen hour adventure starts.

Uncharted 2 contains more of what made Uncharted excellent. The cast of characters is expanded, but still given the proper focus on believable characters. Along with the old cast, the new players are all acted and animated with beyond realistic ability and the graphics show more than the first game did.

Before just watching Drake submerge himself in water and see realistic soaking of clothes was amazing, but now watching the snow and its effect on clothes on the characters surpasses that. Character animations in reaction to levels is more impressive with Drake’s climbing animation bordering on perfection. Hand grips and leg boosts are all animated and along with the stellar voice acting, it is very much like watching a movie.

On the audio side, Uncharted 2 is an amazing listen through surround sound as the direction specific sound like characters behind you or ambient noise filters through each speaker correctly depending on the position of Drake. Honestly, Uncharted 2 could have the best sound in a game this year.

As for the fixes, melee combat is more capable than it was previously. The animations are quicker and the stealth combat is very useful in many of the scenarios. The AI of the enemies is pitch perfect most of the time, though they have an uncanny ability to locate Drake even through a snowstorm.

The gun combat felt a little more fine-tuned and weapons reacted better, though some combat scenarios were a little skewed in the unfair range on some occasions. Blind fire also played better with the proximity of enemies to Drake reacting more realistically than before.

Uncharted 2 is a linear game, a point A to point B story, but Naughty Dog created a story that surpassed Uncharted, partially by removing long stretches of combat with almost invulnerable enemies like in the first game. There are sections that are focused on run-and-gun as a necessity, but the open nature of the game usually caters to the stealthier combat. Playing through the game, I started to wonder when the climax was going to start because the story was so dense and new branches seemed to be introduced every chapter.

The platforming of the game through the various environments is still one the best parts of the game, but the new fidelity of the title and more detailed areas caused me some confusion on where to go. Almost everything looks climbable now, and sometimes the proper path didn’t even appear because it looked too simple.

Uncharted 2 added a 5-on-5 multiplayer mode with a leveling system to gain different skins and weapons. While the multiplayer works, it really isn’t the star of the package. I did enjoy the multiplayer, but the matchmaking occasionally created biased teams. The combat in multiplayer does not play like the single player and it is very apparent from the first match played. It works, but the lifespan of the multiplayer might be diffused over time.

Uncharted 2 is a strong contender for Game Of The Year. Naughty Dog proved that there are titles that can only be run on the PlayStation platform and other developers should take notice. Even with the small nagging issues, like enemy AI and overpowered enemies, this game is a required library entry for any PlayStation 3 owner.

Well, here we are again with the next episode of Tales of Monkey Island. Released this past Friday, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood continues right where episode 3 left off.

Recall that Guybrush had just escaped from the stomach of a giant manatee and got a hold of La Esponja Grande when out of the blue; Morgan La’Flay betrayed and captured him to return him to the Marquis DeSinge. If you haven’t yet seen my reviews of episodes 1 through 3, you’ll want to check those out first, otherwise, here’s a quick run-through of what you’re going to experience in The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood.

ZeitgeistGameReview.com