While the PS3/360 game is largely criticized for being exactly like God of War, we could only wish the same held true for the PSP version of Dante's Inferno. Developed by A2M, the PSP version falls short of every benchmark set by Ready at Dawn's critically acclaimed Chains of Olympus. While few developers have been able to wring such incredible power out of Sony's handheld, it's immediately clear that A2M's efforts fall flat. Whereas Chains of Olympus featured volumetric fog and dynamic lighting, Dante's Inferno looks dull and lifeless.The console versions of Dante's Inferno do a remarkable job of copying Kratos' moves, button for button. The PSP game also does a copycat job: everything, from the standard strike, to the spin move, to the dodge, is mapped exactly according to the blueprint laid out by Sony. However, a good game requires more than just copying another game's controls. Dante's Inferno misses the flourishes that made Ready at Dawn's game so successful: visual flourishes, subtle pauses when striking, dynamic camera movement, and easily accessible finishing moves.
Andrew: "Oh my god, you shot her in the face!"Ross: "Hey, we're an army of two. I don't want a third wheel."Seconds after booting up the Tokyo Game Show demo of Army of Two: The 40th Day, we managed to completely botch a hostage "rescue" operation, while brutally murdering the four terrorists involved. Our morality meter went down quite significantly after that, we're sure. Had we managed to progress with some more finesse, we would've been able to sneak behind two enemies, grab them and "negotiate" a solution for the others. Is there a morally "good" way out of a situation like that? Perhaps, but we'll never know.While it's easy to simply accuse Ross of insatiable bloodthirstiness, his less-than-graceful approach at this scenario could be blamed on the (admittedly early) build's choppy framerate, and the sometimes confusing controls. Ross found it difficult to stick to cover, and move from one place to another; I found myself inadvertently switching between crouching, cover and something in between.
ASCII Media Works, Bandai Visual, Enterbrain, Fujimi Shobo, Futabasha, Hakusensha, Kadokawa Group, Kodansha, Shogakukan, Shueisha and Square Enix -- these names may not be too familiar to those outside of Japan; but within Japan, they represent the entirety of the massive manga (comics) industry.Starting December, the Japanese PlayStation Store will be updated with new content from all of these publishers, with titles including Bleach, Evangelion, Detective Conan, Fullmetal Alchemist and more. A lineup like that would certainly entice many of us at Joystiq, but America will have to stick with downloadable Marvel comics for now.
It's a question we ask ourselves every day: How can we expose our children to the glories of warfare while shielding them from the unpleasant realities of blown-off-arm-stumps? Microsoft has announced not one, but two upcoming war games for the younger set. The first, Toy Soldiers, is a tower defense game with over fifty different units and online (as well as offline) multiplayer. It's being created by Signal Studios, though we believe this is the developer's first project, so we can't really call that a loss or a win. Stay tuned, we'll have impressions of it for you soon. The second announcement, Snoopy Flying Ace, is an aerial combat game being developed by Smart Bomb Interactive, the same house behind Snoopy vs The Red Baron. The big shock? It doesn't look half bad. No, seriously! Check out the trailer after the jump to see for yourself. Source -- Toy Soldiers Source -- Snoopy Flying Ace
Is one blurry image from Famitsu not enough to sate your desire to look at the new characters in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker? We hope it isn't, because we have many images of the game, and we'd be sad if nobody wanted to look at them. Our new gallery includes not only screenshots (featuring many Snakes crouching in front of all kinds of different things), but renders and Yoji Shinkawa character artwork for Snake and the new characters. Check out Snake's armor! There's also some new Ashley Wood artwork (the stuff with the yellow and red highlights) that exemplifies the art style used in the cutscenes. But we're guessing you know that by now.
