WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 empowers players more than ever to to define their gameplay experiences in a dynamic and ever-changing WWE. Along the way, gameplay scenarios change based on player decisions, allowing for more spontaneous WWE action in and out of the ring. Players can also enjoy a greater level of interactivity and have increased control of their destinies in the game’s popular Road to WrestleMania story-driven mode.
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 has more creative tools than ever to customize their Superstars, finishing moves and story designs. In addition, searching and sharing content are greatly simplified with improvements to the highly regarded WWE Community Creations feature, which generated nearly 10 million downloads, including more than 7.5 million Created Superstars, 500,000 story designs and 500,000 finishing moves in its franchise debut.
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 also features more than 70 of today's prominent WWE Superstars and Divas. In addition, a new physics system will ensure all matches and object interactions look and feel unique, dynamic and unpredictable to capture the full essence of the WWE Universe.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Gran Turismo 5: One Last Lap Before Launch
Gran Turismo 5 was announced in 2006, a few months before the PlayStation 3 was even released. It was before I worked in the videogame business. I've moved three times since then, fallen in love twice, had five different jobs, grown my hair halfway down my back, and then shaved it all off again. I've been to seven weddings, including my brother's, witnessed two funerals, and got to explain my Metroid Prime opus theory to Shigeru Miyamoto in a top floor suite in a Manhattan skyscraper. And that's the short version.
After all that time Gran Turismo 5 is almost here. If it hasn't already been certified and sent off to the disc-pressing factories, it will be imminently. As the November 4 launch date nears Sony came to New York with a demo build to show off GT5. For old time's sake. The demo was lovingly setup in a sturdy bucket seat with Logitech's officially licensed Gran Turismo wheel and 3D mode enabled. The demo was limited to two modes: Arcade, and Time Trial. There were two other options available in the menu—Drift Battle and 2 Player Battle—but both were crossed out with a forbidding red line. There was nothing in the demo that hasn't been shown before, but it provided one last look at the product of Kazunori Yamauchi's half-decade of love, labor, and car parts.
The most exciting thing I experienced was driving in Toscana, a dusty rally track set against the orange sky of a setting sun. I was racing with the traction control turned on but the feeling of sliding on the loose sand with the rumbling wheel pulling one way and then the other was fantastic. Completing a lap on this track in my Ford Focus RS WRC 07 '08 was a genuinely physical experience. My shoulders were tense the whole time and my forearm muscles were constantly trying to counterbalance the unbridled steering wheel. As I made it into the second lap, the sun dipped below the horizon, turning the sky dark blue and adding a small touch of eeriness to the race. The atmosphere was dramatic, a driver cutting through the desert in the middle of the night, relying on his headlights to keep him from catastrophe.
For the next race I took a tiny Fiat 500 1.2 8V Lounge SS 08 onto a city track, Tokyo R246. The aesthetic contrast with Toscana was immediate; the shifting desert sky traded for a changeless blue Tokyo afternoon, and long shadows crossing the asphalt. The feedback from the wheel provides a great sense of speed, pulling more as the speedometer climbs higher, while rumbling at different intensities when I drifted onto a patch of grass or one of the red and white safety runners. The car accelerated slowly and lost even more acceleration ability in higher gears, which felt about right for a small two-dour coupe shaped like a lunchbox from the future.
The last track I tried was the Super Speedway in Indiana, home of the Indy 500. I took a Zonda R '09 onto the track and got to let the engine roar into 6th gear with the accelerator floored for a few exciting seconds on the long straightaways. On a couple turns I'd let my speedy thrillseeker override caution and consequently went slamming into the barrier walls. This experience was disappointingly muted. After playing Need for Speed: Shift last year, I'd grown attached to the violent sense of disorientation and full body shake in that game's collisions. Going 110 miles per hour and slamming into a cement barrier only produced a small rumble and no real visual disruption. Yamauchi has reluctantly included a damage system in Gran Turismo 5, but it doesn't feel damaging. It's mechanical and detached, the product of a man more interested in the small differences of peak performance than the visceral consequence of failure.
It's easy to forget that games are built for our benefit, to give us experiences we couldn't have had on our own. The hype cycle of announcements, first trailers, and first hands-on sometimes give me the opposite impression: that we exist first as servants of the videogame industry, and as self-sacrificing buyers who funnel money into the ever-increasing pyre of visual splendor that remains so cherished in the game world.
A lot has changed since Gran Turismo 4 came out. I'm far removed from where I was the last time I sat down to tinker in Yamauchi's garage, pushing myself forward by half-second increments, fueled by millimetric tweaks. Playing Gran Turismo 5 one last time before it jumps the nest, everything felt remarkably familiar. The game has an exceptional physics simulation, bright and photorealistic visuals, a genuine cockpit view, and, at long last, car damage. Yet, it still feels the same. Or rather, the part of me that this kind of simulation appeals to feels the same. I haven't given it much attention over the last several years. GT5 reminded me it's still there. You could call that a lot of things, but one of them would have to be a gift.
After all that time Gran Turismo 5 is almost here. If it hasn't already been certified and sent off to the disc-pressing factories, it will be imminently. As the November 4 launch date nears Sony came to New York with a demo build to show off GT5. For old time's sake. The demo was lovingly setup in a sturdy bucket seat with Logitech's officially licensed Gran Turismo wheel and 3D mode enabled. The demo was limited to two modes: Arcade, and Time Trial. There were two other options available in the menu—Drift Battle and 2 Player Battle—but both were crossed out with a forbidding red line. There was nothing in the demo that hasn't been shown before, but it provided one last look at the product of Kazunori Yamauchi's half-decade of love, labor, and car parts.
The most exciting thing I experienced was driving in Toscana, a dusty rally track set against the orange sky of a setting sun. I was racing with the traction control turned on but the feeling of sliding on the loose sand with the rumbling wheel pulling one way and then the other was fantastic. Completing a lap on this track in my Ford Focus RS WRC 07 '08 was a genuinely physical experience. My shoulders were tense the whole time and my forearm muscles were constantly trying to counterbalance the unbridled steering wheel. As I made it into the second lap, the sun dipped below the horizon, turning the sky dark blue and adding a small touch of eeriness to the race. The atmosphere was dramatic, a driver cutting through the desert in the middle of the night, relying on his headlights to keep him from catastrophe.
For the next race I took a tiny Fiat 500 1.2 8V Lounge SS 08 onto a city track, Tokyo R246. The aesthetic contrast with Toscana was immediate; the shifting desert sky traded for a changeless blue Tokyo afternoon, and long shadows crossing the asphalt. The feedback from the wheel provides a great sense of speed, pulling more as the speedometer climbs higher, while rumbling at different intensities when I drifted onto a patch of grass or one of the red and white safety runners. The car accelerated slowly and lost even more acceleration ability in higher gears, which felt about right for a small two-dour coupe shaped like a lunchbox from the future.
The last track I tried was the Super Speedway in Indiana, home of the Indy 500. I took a Zonda R '09 onto the track and got to let the engine roar into 6th gear with the accelerator floored for a few exciting seconds on the long straightaways. On a couple turns I'd let my speedy thrillseeker override caution and consequently went slamming into the barrier walls. This experience was disappointingly muted. After playing Need for Speed: Shift last year, I'd grown attached to the violent sense of disorientation and full body shake in that game's collisions. Going 110 miles per hour and slamming into a cement barrier only produced a small rumble and no real visual disruption. Yamauchi has reluctantly included a damage system in Gran Turismo 5, but it doesn't feel damaging. It's mechanical and detached, the product of a man more interested in the small differences of peak performance than the visceral consequence of failure.
It's easy to forget that games are built for our benefit, to give us experiences we couldn't have had on our own. The hype cycle of announcements, first trailers, and first hands-on sometimes give me the opposite impression: that we exist first as servants of the videogame industry, and as self-sacrificing buyers who funnel money into the ever-increasing pyre of visual splendor that remains so cherished in the game world.
A lot has changed since Gran Turismo 4 came out. I'm far removed from where I was the last time I sat down to tinker in Yamauchi's garage, pushing myself forward by half-second increments, fueled by millimetric tweaks. Playing Gran Turismo 5 one last time before it jumps the nest, everything felt remarkably familiar. The game has an exceptional physics simulation, bright and photorealistic visuals, a genuine cockpit view, and, at long last, car damage. Yet, it still feels the same. Or rather, the part of me that this kind of simulation appeals to feels the same. I haven't given it much attention over the last several years. GT5 reminded me it's still there. You could call that a lot of things, but one of them would have to be a gift.
Killzone 3: Headshots with Move
This year Sony showed up to the New York Comic-Con in a big way. Bringing almost all of their big-name hits, the company was showing off new builds and slightly improved versions of the games that we last saw at Gamescom in Germany. Killzone 3 was in attendance with Sony Move support and jet packs ready to go.
The level we sunk our teeth into took place on a series of floating platforms and ships floating just off shore of a frozen coastline. The elements beatdown on environment with swirling snow and wind-blown particles filling the screen. At points it appeared as though there couldn't possibly be more visual effects fit onto one screen.
As we plowed through Helghan troops in the tight corridors of the ships the hallways swayed with the choppy water below us. It was reminiscent of first level of the original Modern Warfare, where the level seems to bob rotate around the player. You can get motion sick just watching it play out, so imagine what its like with Move drawing you further into the experience.
The rollercoster ride continued when we picked up one of the claw like jet packs worn by one of the Helghast. It doesn't so much allow players to torpedo through the air, as it boosts them upwards for short periods of time. The vertical platforms of the structures popping out of the water were the perfect setting to use this new toy.
As platforms exploded and collapsed in the heat of battle, we had to boost up and over the wreckage to the next firefight while somehow avoiding incoming fire all levels of the structure. The jet pack had claw like mandibles that hang down in front of the player, and these are equipped with jets. This means you can see when the jet pack is firing, giving players something to visual focus and helping them to keep their bearings.
Haters gonna hate... then die.
We already know that Move works, but its inclusion in Killzone 3 gives it a draw not unlike seeing a racing game in 3D. The screen bounces and twists with the action, and as you gesture and point at the screens feelings of vertigo and excitement are all the more palpable.
The level we sunk our teeth into took place on a series of floating platforms and ships floating just off shore of a frozen coastline. The elements beatdown on environment with swirling snow and wind-blown particles filling the screen. At points it appeared as though there couldn't possibly be more visual effects fit onto one screen.
As we plowed through Helghan troops in the tight corridors of the ships the hallways swayed with the choppy water below us. It was reminiscent of first level of the original Modern Warfare, where the level seems to bob rotate around the player. You can get motion sick just watching it play out, so imagine what its like with Move drawing you further into the experience.
The rollercoster ride continued when we picked up one of the claw like jet packs worn by one of the Helghast. It doesn't so much allow players to torpedo through the air, as it boosts them upwards for short periods of time. The vertical platforms of the structures popping out of the water were the perfect setting to use this new toy.
As platforms exploded and collapsed in the heat of battle, we had to boost up and over the wreckage to the next firefight while somehow avoiding incoming fire all levels of the structure. The jet pack had claw like mandibles that hang down in front of the player, and these are equipped with jets. This means you can see when the jet pack is firing, giving players something to visual focus and helping them to keep their bearings.
Haters gonna hate... then die.
We already know that Move works, but its inclusion in Killzone 3 gives it a draw not unlike seeing a racing game in 3D. The screen bounces and twists with the action, and as you gesture and point at the screens feelings of vertigo and excitement are all the more palpable.
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