Review: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)

Can you believe that it’s been nearly six months since BlazBlue first hit stores in the United States? And in that time we’ve had a string of high profile, hardcore fighting game releases. On the list is a failed attempt to recapture the pure hand-drawn 2D market; a haggard old 3D fighter trying to carve out a new path in a ever increasing landscape of FPS’s and Western RPG’s; and lastly, a 2D fighter with authentic gameplay, wrapped up in lavish polygon graphics in a 3D visualised return to greatness.

I imagine any connoisseurs familiar with the genre will be able to name all three, but only one of which was worthy of your unrivalled attention. The rest you could leave bleeding out on the side of the street, or better still, decline the challenge altogether, as they represented a failure to not only capture, but also understand their audience. A shame if you ask me, since the genre needs more one-two-punch strikes of greatness to really bring it back solidly into the limelight. BlazBlue is one of those titles, and despite the fact that it lacks any recognised characters or fighting styles, does well to prop up the rising one-on-one beat’em up once again.

BlazBlue (BB) for the uninitiated is the latest glossy, hand-drawn 2D fighting extravaganza by ARC System Works, the creators of the Guilty Gear franchise and its long line of sequels (I’m looking at you X2). It feels very much like a spiritual successor to that franchise, with over-the-top combos, fast-paced aerial strikes, and a range of impressive counter moves, supers, and no less than three ways of guarding against attack. In short, BlazBlue has pretty much everything that Guilty Gear had, topped off with an increased simplicity whilst actually being deeper at the same time. There’s no doubt in my mind that giving Guilty Gear a rest, and instead starting a whole new saga with BlazBlue was the right thing to do.


The basic fighting engine is pretty straightforward, easy to learn but with loads to master and sink your teeth into. Essentially there are only four basic attacks to learn, A B C and D, which are light medium and heavy respectively, with D standing for a ‘Drive’ attack, which is specific to whoever character you are playing as. Most of the light and medium attacks correspond to either a punch or kick for most characters, whilst heavy is usually reserved for weapons, and drive, for a combination of all three – depending on the character - in a form of special move.

Basic moves can all be used to chain into combination attacks, or combos if you will. Done by pushing a series of light, medium and heavy attacks, along with the drive attack to build up a long and impressive offensive of moves. However, the larger the combo, the lesser the damage it will do, giving the opponent a fair chance at retaliation. Holds can be integrated into combos by pressing the B and C buttons together, then followed up, or finished off with either normal attacks, specials or even Distortion Drives, BlazBlue’s equivalent of Supers.

Using a combination of these moves, along with the obligatory SFII-esque quarter-circle special moves will only get you so far though. You would be missing a whole part of the game without at least stumbling into some of the advanced techniques that ARC have based the game around. The various Cancels, Drives and Finishers all use something called the Heat Gauge, which is basically the BB version of SF’s Super bar. Each of the different techniques use different amounts of the bar, labelled in percentages to make things easier, but also to allow a greater range of option.

Hitting A, B and C together during a move unleashes a Rapid Cancel, which stops the animation of your current attack returning your character to his or her neutral stance, and allows them to immediately execute another move to integrate into an existing combo. Useful if you know that the move you were doing would effectively end a combo. Alternatively, whilst the heat Gauge is filled to certain levels it is also possible to perform Distortion Drives (character specific Super moves) or something called an Astral Finisher, which is move that results in a single one hit kill if it connects.

Pushing back on the d-pad whilst holding A + B together performs a Barrier, a stronger version of your regular guard. A Barrier cannot be broken, but can only be held for a limited amount of time indicated by the Barrier gauge. If it empties whilst blocking the player will receive 150% damage until the gauge becomes at least half full during regeneration. You might also consider performing a Barrier burst if you’re being hammered constantly by your opponent in a corner of the screen. It’s a move which repels the opposing player across the screen, giving you some room to compose yourself and then retaliate. However the penalty for such a bail out is pretty severe, requiring you to not only forego the use of your Barrier Block, but also making you take 150% damage for the rest of the round. So you’d better know what you are doing when you use it.


Lastly, it is also possible to counter your opponent’s attacks by striking them at the same time as they attack, cancelling them out and opening them up for a combo.

Of course, you don’t actually have to use any of these techniques, instead sticking to basic attacks and specials. However the game is more difficult as a result, especially online, in which the rather niche nature of such a title quickly breeds experienced players. Thankfully the inclusion of the character specific Drive attacks negates this to some extent. Drive attacks are basically one button special moves which can be factored into any basic combo, or used on their own, giving inexperienced players or button mashers a chance to have fun with the game.

There are a total of 12 unique characters in BlazBlue, each with their own strange design and set of moves. Everyone of the fighters in BB is pretty different to most of the fighting games I’ve played before, being more off the wall, or bizarre than even the ones in Guilty Gear. Some of the characters even have specific attacks or functions, which are completely absent for others, and fit outside the standard range of moves. For example, Rachel has a separate gauge which controls how many times she can control the blowing wind in each stage, which is pretty cool, but also provides a greater level of depth than most fighters. Many of these individual nuances are tied into character specific Drive attacks, but not all, giving players much to learn.


Each of the character designs are typical ARC System Works creations. From silver haired, gothic-inspired ‘Ragna The Blood Edge’, to the giant red Hellboy look-alike ‘Iron Tager’. The style can be described as post-apocalyptic neo-punk, meets Victorian-gothic, steam-punk influences. It’s pretty weird to say the least, but will be familiar to anyone whose played Guilty Gear before. The mixture of darkly, eclectic character designs, cute and psychotic personalities are incredibly well designed, and bring an altogether different feel to most recently released 2D beat’em ups. Though Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is the exception to that rule.

Visually, BlazBlue is a lavishly designed mixture of hand drawn 2D sprite work and 3D backgrounds, with painted textures. All the game’s sprites are drawn in 720p, unlike in KOFXII, and have been intricately detailed. Shadows are cast on characters when moves are performed; clothing sways to and fro during battle; and lots of subtle details are visible on all aspects of the characters, from facial animation, to the small pins located on a character’s belt buckle. The backgrounds are proper 3D creations, complete with dynamic lighting effects and painted textures, which match the art style used for the characters and interlude artwork.

There’s no doubt that BB is the best looking 2D sprite-based fighting game available. It’s a truly beautiful game to behold. Sure it doesn’t feature the Disney quality animation of KOFXII, or the precision mapped, pixel perfect shadowing and shading on its characters. But then again, it doesn’t really need them, showcasing a lovely mixture of both 2D and 3D graphics; all polished in high definition with a finished and succinct art style. If anything, SNK could learn a thing or two from theses guys.

In terms of modes, BlazBlue provides you with the usual, Arcade, Versus, Training, Replay, Gallery and Online. There is also a ‘Story Mode’, which fleshes out each of the characters, and contains quite a well thought out, albeit confusing narrative. Playing through this mode with all the characters unlocks more of each character’s story, and slowly fills in all the gaps, explaining what the hell is going on. Short animated cut-scenes, and hand-drawn stills, break up the battles, complete with voice acting and text dialogue.

The Online Mode, touted on the back of the box as being ‘lag free’, comes dangerously close to doing just that. Even on my 1 Meg broadband connection (I still haven’t been upgraded yet) there was virtually no lag in most of the matches I played. Quite often I would encounter some slight lag at the beginning of a match, for only the game to seem to catch up with itself providing a responsive environment in which to fight. Occasionally I did encounter some laggy matches, but nothing to the extent of what I’m getting in SFIV at the moment, in which there is hardly any players with a good connection available. BlazBlue seems different in this regard, and is a welcome proposition considering the disappointments with other profile fighters in this area (yes, I’m talking about you Tekken 6).

One thing that is disappointing about the game though, is that after waiting for the best part of half a year for it to arrive on UK shores, we haven’t received any of the extra characters than we were promised. Instead ARC SW is including them in a sequel of sorts with the release of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, which I guess is the updated game we were expecting to get in the first place. Continuum Shift will be available on import this summer in Japan and the United States. Expect us Brits to be waiting a lot longer for it to arrive over here.


As you can tell, I rather liked BlazBlue. The mixture of gothic, neo-punk art styles, the in-depth combo-based gameplay, steeped in simplicity, and beautifully created 2D/3D combination of visuals. Really, it is one of the most refreshing beat’em ups I have played in a while, adding TvC to that list from back in February, and one which any self respecting hardcore fighting fan should at least check out.

Granted the game isn’t quite as accessible as the likes of Guilty Gear, featuring more bizarre fighting styles, and unusual characters. However there is plenty to play through and master, and once you get acquainted with a character you like, then your enjoyment of the title will really pick up. Getting to that point however, will take a few hours of well-versed gameplay. Learning some of the advanced techniques - which aren’t that hard to pick up at all - whilst coming to terms with the fact that with BB ARC have purposely created designs and play styles which are meant to be different from those of regular weapon-based 2D fighters.


BlazBlue is a great addition to the 2D fighting game roster, and despite its initially unfamiliarity and somewhat bizarre nature, is well worth picking up for any hardcore fighting fan. Not everyone will like the off-the-wall fighting styles, and I for one, found it much harder to get into than Guilty Gear, Last Blade or TvC. However that shouldn’t deter the die-hards out there, who like to get lost in learning the ins and outs of whichever character they choose. Certainly, as a hardcore player myself, I did enjoy what the game had to offer, especially online against a range of players, both ones mediocre in their delivery, and some which are arguably so much higher in their game than me.

VERDICT: 8/10

A Limited Edition of BlazBlue is available in small quantities at launch for the same price as the standard edition. It contains a two-hour long combo training DVD, with character specific strategies, showcasing many high level moves and specials; a 96 page full colour booklet, with art and illustrations from the designers at ARC System Works; and the regular version of the game. This is the version we picked up at IQGamer, however our review and score is based solely on the standard game, and not the extra content contained within the Limited Edition.

Review: Perfect Dark (XBLA)

I was pretty excited to find that Microsoft were releasing the original N64 version of Perfect Dark for XBLA. Having played Golden Eye relentlessly for the best part of a year back in 1999, the chance to finally have a playable version of its spiritual successor was too much to pass up, and an opportunity Rare should have taken advantage of a long time ago. Not least of all because the first Perfect Dark was a superior game to the 2005 sequel and 360 launch title - a game which felt barely like PD or Golden Eye at all - but also because it had so much potential, simply marred by an uncontrollable framerate held back by the constrains of the humble 64bit hardware it was running on.

You, know. I never actually played Perfect Dark when it first came out on the N64, instead sampling it’s flawed delights a few years later, after the Dreamcast had died and during a period in which I was hell bent on expanding my ‘retro’ collection, picking up titles I’d missed along the way. I first played PD around a friend’s house, and was left with distinct flavour of distaste in my mouth afterwards.

Although the game featured much larger level designs and more involving mission objectives, it was also almost completely unplayable for the most part. Slowdown seemed to occur within the slightest hint of more than two enemies appearing on screen, whilst at the same time, the developers though that it would be a great idea to include all kinds of nifty transparency and reflective effects, all to the determent of having a remotely smooth experience.

For the 2010 XBLA release, Perfect Dark has been given a full HD make over with a number of small graphical tweaks and upgrades. The game is rendered in 1080p and now runs at a solid 60fps, without incurring any slowdown or damaging framerate drops at all. It does this in all modes, including the rarely seen 4-player split-screen multiplayer mode lacking from most FPS’s of today.


Some of the game’s textures have seen a resolution upgrade, looking cleaner and clearer as a result, but not so much so as to take away from the slightly blurry look associated with N64 titles in general. The visual effects have also been given a small dose of polish, using more accurate shader effects for all the game’s reflective surfaces – real-time reflections and specualr highlights, rather than just the moving textures seen on the N64 game – whilst also adding in a few other subtle graphical touches. Like in the N64 original, lights can be shot out, gunfire and explosions illuminate areas dynamically, and lights can be shot out to create darkened areas.

What you have here is a fully authentic conversion of the original game, but with all the graphical improvements necessary to make it a completely playable experience – for the most part anyway. The framerate in particular, makes running around and gunning down baddies really good fun for the first time, whilst also bringing to your attention the sometimes dated game design, which has a real tendency to grate on you at various points through the game. This sometimes ruins all the hard work Rare have put into the title in creating a larger and more complex design, fearuring more thought provoking mission objectives, which require a greater degree of planning to overcome compared to those in their previous N64 FPS.


Perfect Dark’s gameplay is comfortably versed in the old-school nature of game design. There is a slightly open-end feel to the whole thing, leaving you free to roam around the levels making your own way to mission objectives, whilst at the same time, the game stubbornly refuses to tell you how they might be accomplished. You won’t find any hand-holding, instead often finding yourself meandering along various rooms and corridors either trying to find the item or person required to trigger the next objective, or just trying to actually find out how to complete said objective without mercilessly killing everyone who gets in your way – which leads to failure many a time I can assure you. Locked doors and dead ends are a plenty, which might leave anyone unfamiliar with the mechanics of decade old first-person-shooters rather lost and confused.

It’s not unusual for the game to require you to keep certain enemies alive in order to make progress through certain stages. However they are never pointed out to you, and in many cases you will probably kill one of the few people required to open a select door to progress, or who holds the item or information you might be after. Most of PD’s mission design is largely trial and error, requiring lots of repeat playthroughs in order to sometimes figure out what is going wrong, or how you should be approaching a certain situation. It is unforgiving and frustrating at the same time, but also slightly refreshing in the sense that it feels more realistic to be dropped inside a foreign complex without any sense of direction, having to track down you intended target based on pretty meagre intel.


Sometimes though, the game will fail your mission due to you accidentally blowing up an item needed to complete it, or because you failed to defend the right target from being assassinated, despite the fact that the target in question, nine times out of ten, is barely recognisable from all the other civilians.

It’s these things which frustrate, showing you how old and creaky the game’s tired and worn design has become. However when these sections are played through again, perhaps for the second or third times, it becomes a wholly more enjoyable experience. Like to a lesser extent with Golden Eye, once you know what to do, and how to do it, you can spend more time in having fun completing mission objectives than instead wondering around working out what they are and why you just failed them again for the third or forth time.

A lack of a directed nature hurts the game badly, but that doesn’t mean to say there isn’t a lot of fun to be had from it. It just means that you are going to need a much greater amount of perseverance to get to that point. At the same time the varied mission structure – which changes the level significantly depending on what difficulty setting you choose – keeps things interesting, especially when an empty room on the ‘Agent’ setting becomes a secret laboratory on ‘Perfect Agent’, which you are then tasked with destroying.


The physics and overall gameplay mechanics whilst dated are still pretty cool to look at for the most part. When shooting enemies in the leg, they will limp around the level until you decide to pop them off; shooting someone in their arm will make them drop their weapon, sometimes putting their arms up and allowing you to give them a good smack around the head; shoulder hits will disable enemies, whilst a shot to the head yields an instant kill. They can also get staggered from being hit, clutching their wounds, or simply kneeling over and dying right in front of you.

In terms of Multiplayer options. Perfect Dark is loaded with modes for both Online and local action. Every mode that supports more than one player is also fully playable online, making the deal so much sweeter. In total there are 6 different game modes, 16 maps, and 43 weapons, with the option to include bots to make up additional players if there aren’t any around. This can be done for both online and local matches keeping things interesting and upping the intensity by having more players on the scene. Split-screen makes a triumphant comeback in XBLA PD, with up to four players battling it out on a single console and TV screen, all the while the framerate doesn’t drop from it’s original 60fps update.


Now if that sounded good, PD also goes further than most FPS’s today with its range of multiplayer options. Along you the campaign and a competitive modes, you also have a Counter-Op mode, which sees one person take control of the enemy characters as the other player attempts to complete the game. You also can play through the standard Campaign mode in two players co-operatively, which can make working out what to do in the missions easier, but also thinks harder at the same time, as if one of you makes a mistake it’s mission over for both of you.

Disappointingly online play comes with a hitch. In all game modes and matches I played online there was noticeable lag. Sometimes this wasn’t particularly bad, and in these cases it worked really well for the most part. However, I was unable to find a single match that didn’t have some form of lag attached to it, which is a bit of a let down considering that it’s by far the biggest draw with this updated version of perfect Dark.

For the most part, Perfect Dark is an antiquated shooter with some particularly clever level design, hindered by the trial and error nature of many of its objectives. Having said that, it is still a highly playable fast and frenetic shooter, tense and particularly involving, it just requires you to adjust and adapt to its decade old gameplay to properly enjoy what it has to offer. Still, this is the first time that the game has been in any kind of playable state – outside of emulation of course – and whilst it isn’t as solidly constructed a game as Golden Eye, particularly with regards to the single player campaign, it is a pretty competent shooter which excels greatly in the multiplayer stakes.


If you’ve been longing for some repeat action in the same vain as that N64 classic, Golden Eye, than look no further. But be warned. Parts of the game have aged badly, and the confusing nature of the level design and mission structure will seem off-putting at first, certainly to those with a rose tinted view on what these games were like. Despite this, Perfect Dark manages to be a better all round package than its 2005 sequel, with original mechanics which feel like they should do with the reworked dual analogue controls, and a still fantastic multiplayer mode. Whilst not perfect, it is perhaps one of the last flagship titles, along with Banjo Tooie, in which Rare still showcases some glimmer of greatness, before sliding down into mediocrity.

Overall, Perfect Dark is worth picking up for fans of the original N64 outing and their other FPS success story Golden Eye. However anyone without prior experience of those titles and their stubbornly old-style method of trial and error progression, should probably avoid as they are unlikely to enjoy what they find. Multiplayer aside, which for a great offline experience, is worth every one of those 800 Microsoft points.

VERDICT: 7/10

Review: God Of War 3 (PS3)

Very rarely am I sucked into the hype machine, often remaining sceptical or decidedly unimpressed unless something awe-inspiring happens. Be that extraordinary visuals, a captivating story, or simply, a game in which through sheer polish and exemplary development becomes something much greater than it ever was before.

With God Of War 3 I was unimpressed from the very beginning. The initial teaser trailers didn’t look particularly great from a graphical point of view, and the gameplay seemed to be more of the same, something I never really took to when playing the first game some five years ago. My hands-on with the E3 demo both at the Eurogamer Expo and on PSN, completely failed to change my mind.

The final game, however, is a different beast altogether, delivered with such finesse and a sense of grandeur that it can only be described as one of the most intense, and visually alluring games yet to come out of a Western development studio. GoW3 is not only one of the most graphically impressive videogames I have ever seen, blending in both great art and benchmark technology. But it’s also the first time I have thoroughly enjoyed a God Of War title, being one of the most epic thrill-rides to grace the current generation of videogames consoles. It isn’t a perfect game however, and suffers from at least one gameplay quirk that threatens to break an otherwise awesomely fun, massively epic adventure.

This particular issue has to do with the control scheme, or more specifically, with how the game has you double jumping into a glide when leaping of the edge of a platform or ledge. More on this later on in the review but suffice to say that it isn’t enough to bring down the game, especially after a few hours of play in which you should have the mechanic mostly oiled down to a tee.

Other than that reasonably minor issue - seeing as you spend most of your time fighting hordes of Zeus’s minions rather than attempting to become the Greek equivalent of Lara Croft - the rest of God Of War 3 provides players with a solid and absolutely epic experience. One which presents you with more enemies and larger than life set pieces. If you thought the scenery destroying, screen-filling bosses of Bayonetta were impressive, think again, as God OF War 3 ups the ante even further along into chaos.


The beginning of the game alone is focused purely on a huge boss battle between a giant stone Titan (Gaia) and the ocean god Poseidon, with Ktatos having to jump back and forth between Mount Olympus, which the Titan is climbing, and Gaia, where the main battle takes place. All through this encounter you have to fend off waves of Zeus’s minions, before having to scale up the giant Titan to begin the final assault against the ravenous ocean god. All of this plays out like a blood soaked version of Shadow Of The Colossus, featuring huge characters making up what can only be described as an actual level itself, along with some of the most intense and downright impressive QTE action sequences in the entire game.

It’s a pretty incredible opening, which not only showcases the enormous sense of scale and epic gravitas the game provides, but also its insanely good looking graphical prowess, which stands right up there against both Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 for one of the best looking games this generation. Indeed GoW3’s recipe for success is not only making things look great, but also making every large encounter feeling very much like one giant endgame.


In terms of actual gameplay, not much has changed from the demo we played both at Eurogamer last year and the PSN download we locked horns with last month. However, the execution is far slicker, and the visual upgrade creates a smoother more responsive game outshining the demo in every single way. Whereas the demo ran mostly at 30fps during any combat or action scenes, the final game hits 60fps for the majority of its encounters, and only drops down to the 30fpos mark in the biggest of battles. In most heavy scenes through the game, 45fps is commonplace, and is still smooth enough to keep the controls responsive and the visuals suitably polished.

Like in the first two GoW games, the combat still hinges on you mixing various moves and specials together, changing weapons to deal with different enemy types and varying boss encounters, whilst having to dodge and counter numerous attacks and obstacles. But you now have the ability to change weapons on the fly, integrating different moves from different weapons all into the same combination attack. In addition a few new moves have been added making it easier and more enjoyable to take on the increased amount of enemies at any one time.

Whereas before there would have been a dozen or so enemies, now comes two or three times that, followed up with some of the largest bosses to feature in the series so far. At the same time the game gives you all the tools you need to deal with such adversaries. Which is a good thing too; as there are bloody loads of them to deal with, many of which are twice your size and capable of slicing you to pieces given the chance.


Thankfully, having the ability to change weapons mid-combo effectively allows you to take down larger foes without taking a massively long time to do so. For example, Kratos can use the Cestus Gauntlets to break through an enemies shield, before switching back to his trademark Blades of Chaos to finish them off with some prolonged combos and special attacks. You can of course, simply, just continue to use the Gauntlets for the entire battle, seeing as they are so powerful, but you then run the risk of being overwhelmed by many weaker enemies as a result.

This change makes the game feel far more varied as a result, especially when it throws at you bosses or creatures, which require specific weapons in order to defeat them. You will find that the game transcends its initial button bashing nature by making you think about what you’re doing, and how you go about doing it. It makes a great change from the grating nature of continuously pounding the ‘square’ and ‘triangle’ buttons in the hope of success, whilst also allowing you to experiment beyond using basic magic or shooting the odd arrow here and there.

Special weapons also have regenerative abilities now. Whereas in GoW 2 they would expire after a certain amount of usage, they now occupy the yellow bar below your health meter, which refills itself within a few seconds or so of you not using a special weapon. This means that weapons such as the Bow of Apollo, can be used continuously through the game, and can always be counted on for additional support knowing that it will regenerate a few seconds after being used. Occasionally you will find that it is pretty easy to exploit this trait by simply firing off ten shots or so, dodging any attacks while the yellow bar fills up for a few seconds, before once again repeating the process. This even works on bosses, though not all, and attempting to kill them this way takes ages compared to using the multitude of weapons at your disposal. However, it does make things easier for less confident players without compromising the challenge and integrity of the game.


To top off the game’s already polished combat system, GoW3 also speeds up the previously slow heavy attacks, now allowing them to be used in combos as a starter, or even mid way through. Using them in all situations is no longer a death sentence, but now becomes just another way of dealing with the increasing amounts of enemies being thrown your way. The result is that the overall game is far more fluid than any of the previous instalments, something more akin in some ways to Japanese style hack’n’slash titles like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry without loosing its trademark feel in the process.

Of course, GoW3 isn’t about all the gut wrenching and killing that comes with being a fallen god with a taste for revenge. There are a number of slower, more sedate parts throughout the game, with lesser amounts of enemies and more controlled aggression directed your way. These sections are home to the series trademark puzzle solving elements in addition to upgrading your skills through finding abilities, as well as gaining new weapons and magic.

Unlike GoW2, the puzzles in GoW3 are smaller in size and are altogether much simpler. They rely on the same box-pushing, lever pulling scenarios present in the last game, but are at the same time slightly easier to figure out, with solutions being down to common sense logic rather than anything cryptic or obscure. They also seem to span across one or two large rooms at the most compared to the long and sprawling puzzles laid out in the second game.


I didn’t find any of these to be problematic, instead feeling that they made the whole experience a far more interesting one. You could say that they made the sense of adventure surrounding the Greek mythology and architecture quite captivating at times, whilst also breaking up the button mashing nature inherent in other parts of the game. For once, during an action-based game, I actually really enjoyed and appreciated these thinking man’s moments, with only a few times in which I remained stumped – even then it was only for a few short minutes.

In addition to throwing a puzzle or two at you, the game also features some rather frustrating platforming sections, let down by the overly picky jumping system. Basically, most of the jumps in these platform sections need almost complete precision in order to be tackled successfully, relying on both your timing of the glide and double jump moves, while also giving you no leeway for any mistakes.

Jumping and gliding in itself isn’t particularly difficult. However, in GoW3 you seemingly can only perform the higher jump when there is solid ground below you, and not as you are throwing yourself off a ledge in order to leap across any pitfalls below. At the same time, having you glide by holding down the ‘cross’ button in the same button press required for the double jump feels particularly unnatural, being different from pretty much every game released that relied on such a technique.

This aspect of the game does much to potentially spoil the experience, and I often found myself frustrated at my repeated failed attempts to progress in these sections. Had the jumping and gliding mechanics been a little easier or more conventional in their execution then I wouldn’t have has many problems, and these parts of the game would have been another highlight. As it stands, they serve only to disappoint and take away some of the finely polished nature of the rest of the game.


The rest of the game doesn’t suffer from these problems, and is of course pretty awesome as a result. In my humble opinion it could well be described as the western equivalent to Platinum Games Bayonetta. GoW3 has all the tried and tested gameplay of its prequels down to a fine art, an art made even finer by the changes to the combat system and the epic scale of pretty much most things in the game. Everything from the boss encounters to the puzzles are extremely well done. And if it weren’t for that stupid jumping mechanic, there wouldn’t be much left to criticise at all, except for the fact that Kratos, as a lead character, is nothing more than a rancid, vile jock, who is in desperate need to be put out of his misery.

Even though I haven’t played through all of God of War 1&2, I would have at least expected his character to have developed from the mindless rage he displayed in the last two games. Instead, we simply see more of the same, with only a small glimmer of redemption later in the game. Even then, his anger and rage still shine through more than any other trait, making it hard to feel anything for him, except maybe disgust or distain.


Visually, God of War 3 succeeds on two levels, both artistically and technically. The art design whilst being a mixture of dark and uninviting colours, is never drab or unappealing, and in some scenes has a distinctly hand painted look residing over it. The backgrounds are a perfect example of this, in which the lush, hand-painted sky and distant horizon blends in perfectly with the painted textures of the environments and characters.

Technically, God of War 3 stops short of perfection, but still manages to define just what we should be expecting from these current-gen gaming consoles. Textures are incredibly detailed, clean, and extremely clear. And whilst they aren’t all as detailed as the ones found in Uncharted 2, they represent the art style chosen for the game almost perfectly. The lighting and showing system is another showstopper. It’s all completely dynamic, reacting with everything from the characters and the environments. Shadows move and lighting is cut off when something passes through it; Kratos’s weapons, when used, casts a short lasting glow which lights up the surrounding environments and enemies, with metallic objects reflecting the light back out into their surroundings.

The Anti-Aliasing on show is also something which needs to be seen to be believed. There’s no doubt in my mind that Santa Monica Studio’s implementation is the most accomplished form of AA in any console game to date. Much of GoW3 has very little, to next to no jaggies whatsoever, sans on a few distant background objects and scenery. Everything remains nice and sharp despite the high levels of AA on offer, and the areas which do suffer from jaggies, have much smoother edges than in other games which have little in the way of AA.


For me though, the real triumph isn’t the glossy visuals, the epic scale, or even the gameplay, but how they all come together to form a complete package which in the face of a few small flaws, easily stands up there with Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 as one of the defining titles on Sony’s machine. From the moment I laid eyes on that opening battle scene between the Titan and the giant God fighting it out over Mount Olympus, I was convinced. Then, just a few hours later, most of the things that I was unsure about from playing the last two games had been alleviated. Almost completely, with the exception of the game’s platform sections being the only blemish on an otherwise superbly crafted experience.

God Of War 3 might not be wholly original, or particularly different from previous instalments, but it is a far more polished affair, and one which does enough to rise above from being just a great game, becoming instead a genre defining one. It is a title which I was expecting nothing more than a rehash of previous games, and although arguably that is exactly what it is, it’s done with so much flair and attention to detail that it certainly doesn’t always feel that way. In that respect, God Of War 3 is exemplary, blending an established formula with some new found refinement and polish, both of which go a long way to making this pinnacle of the genre.

VERDICT: 9/10

Review: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

Final Fantasy XIII is very much a game of two halves. Had I written this review with only 10 hours of play put into the game I would advise anyone who liked the traditional JRPG that it was not worth those 10 hours. The main reason being that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer an RPG at all. As it turns out in the end, this does not make it a bad game, just a very different one to its twelve predecessors.

Final Fantasy XIII feels like an oversimplified and streamlined version of previous instalments. The battle system and levelling system are taught through needlessly long tutorials that drive the point home through repeatedly meaningless battle encounters. For 25 hours of the game you are prevented from having a full party or changing your playable characters that feels like an attempt by Square to make Final Fantasy XIII approachable to those who have avoided the series before. There are no towns to get lost in, or sub characters with whom to take on additional quests or learn more about the worlds of Pulse and Cocoon.

The game play is extremely linear and results in the 6 playable characters running from one end of the level to the other, only stopping for cut scenes or for battles. This and the battle system make it very fast paced but also makes it exceptionally repetitive and dare I say boring. Final Fantasy has always had an amount of linearity demanded by the story, but this is usually hidden through a sense of openness in the world maps. Final Fantasy XIII has no open world and suffers for it, the player has no choice in where the characters visit and this removes the sense of involvement, leaving the player feeling rather apathetic to the entire experience.


This is a shame because the characters feel like they are well developed, each with their own history and personality traits. The characters are of a diverse age, and balance off each other well, which helps to add familiarity to an otherwise unfamiliar territory for RPG fans. The story is not original but thanks to the characters remains captivating.

The game looks absolutely stunning. The colours are intense and bright, the two different worlds of Pulse and Cocoon seem huge and well designed, Pulse is wild and overgrown whilst Cocoon seems controlled and modern. The attention to detail is fantastic, so there's always something to catch your eye, and it feels like every single aspect of the world has been considered and individually designed.


The battle system is the gem in the game. You only have control of one character, the party leader, who is non-negotiable for half the game. You can select role-specific abilities for the leader to use each turn based upon a number of time bars which refill over time. Some abilities such as magic spells will require two sections of the active time bar where as a basic attack requires one.

I have neglected to mention one feature called the auto battle displayed on the battle menu system that appears to be another method of control over how the game is played. Its design is to increase the speed of battle and to aid new players and its usefulness decreases as the player gains familiarity with the game. However I believe the game would function better with its removal, at the sacrifice of the fast paced action. To me players should be able to make mistakes and spend time considering their actions rather than hammering on the X or A button repeatedly for hours on end. However by having this feature included you are able to concentrate much more on the other aspect of the battle system.

The majority of skill required is all in setting up Paradigms where you assign class role to each of the characters that you can freely change during battle to suit the situation. It is reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII's innovative Gambit system because it allows you to automate the behaviour of your party without having to control each individual character’s turn, and this once again allows battles to be fast paced and fluid affairs.


There are 6 roles in total. They are Commando- specialist in physical damage, Sentinel- defender or tank, Medic- akin to a white mage, Ravager- closest to a black mage although can deal in physical as well as magic damage, and finally the less commonly used Synergist- providing party with positive status effects (buffs) and Saboteur- weakens enemies through status changes (debuffs). To do the most damage and in some cases succeed in battles you must knock the enemy into a staggered state.

A staggered state leaves the enemy with weakened defense, attack speed and power, and is achieved through any combination of attacks, defense and debuffs. To achieve this state different paradigms and roles are needed throughout the course of most battles (all battles later in the game) which adds a real quality of strategy and challenge to the game. A star rating at the end encourages players to repeat the battles to achieve higher ratings and rarer item drops (used to upgrade equipment).

As you work your way through your enemies, you earn crystogen points that can be used on the Crystarium. The Crystarium allows you to progress your characters in both stats and new abilities and is set up in a manner akin to Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid system. It is well designed but still exhibits a certain amount of control as you follow a path through the various enhancements. However further into the game the game trusts you with more freedom in choosing your development’s direction and resembles more of a net like structure than a dictated course.


Halfway through the game the experience completely changed for me. On my arrival in Pulse it seemed that the developers had had a change of heart and turned back to the tried and tested formula of an open map, freedom of movement and side quests. At this point the paradigm system became complete with the party size consistently set at 3 people and the ability to teach all characters anyone of the six classes the player would like. For the first time the whole party could be changed which also increased the amount of control I felt I had over the game.

For me, if the whole of the game had been like the last half, I would have awarded this game 10/10. As the game stands I felt like it was a mediocre experience that I will remember as an astoundingly detailed and great looking game, but with a lack of depth and involvement I have come to expect from a Final Fantasy game. Despite this I respect what the developers have tried to achieve with Final Fantasy XIII as an attempt at revitalising the somewhat dying Japanese RPG genre and appreciate the development of a great battle system I hope to see refreshed and reused in future Final Fantasy games.

VERDICT: 7/10

Mary Antieul, Contributor

King Of Fighters XIII Finally Unveiled!

A few weeks ago SNK announced the latest instalment in their flagship King Of Fighters franchise with The King Of Fighters XIII, while also revealing that more information would be forthcoming at a private event due to be held later on this month. Today at that very event in Akihabara, SNK spoke publicly for the first time about what to expect from the game, detailing the inclusion of more characters and new gameplay systems.

Those of you hoping for a new trailer or any gameplay videos will be sorely dissapointed, as SNKP only released a few screenshots demonstrating how the new gameplay systems would work, whilst also showing three of the game's stages. We have some of these screens right here at IQGamer, all of which are scattered about down below somewhere.

Game director Masaaki Kukino, confirmed that KOFXIII would feature a storyline continuing on from KOFXI, bringing together a conclusion to the ‘Ash saga’ started in KOF2003 on the Neo Geo platform. Unfortunitely no other details were revealed on the matter, though at least there IS going to be a story this time around, seeing as the so-called rebirth of the franchise in XII lacked not only any kind of narrative, but also an end boss character too.


In terms of characters, Mai Shiranui, Yuri Sakazaki and King will be returning to the series, and some brand new faces would also be appearing, though again, no more details were forthcoming. It isn’t a gamble for us to speculate, with confidence I might add; that an incredibly cheap end-boss character will be making an appearance in addition to those three familiar faces and un-named new arrivals.

New stages were also announced at today’s event. Kukino mentioned that a Sumo festival style arena, a bus-filled British street, and an Indian temple themed area would at least feature in the game. Screenshots on this page show all three revealed stages along with the Capcom Vs SNK 2 inspired health bars and on-screen counters. The British street stage, with no less than three red London busses in the background, seems to be a direct homage to the England stage from King Of Fighters 94.


More importantly, Kukino revealed some of the interesting new gameplay mechanics that would be going into KOFXIII. The first of which was the addition of EX moves; these moves actually increase the power and damage ratio of your Super moves by using a segment of the Power Gauge to enhance their abilities. Think of it as like a super charged version of the EX moves seen in Street Fighter III, and more recently SFIV, but in a sense of Super combos rather than standard Specials.

Moving on to Supers, the new Drive Cancels allow you the ability to cancel out of one Super move and immediately go straight into another, delivering the possibility of opening up far longer and more damaging combos following on from a Normal attack, into Special, into Super, before cancelling, and then unleashing another Super all in the same combination of attacks. The last new feature is the use of something called Hyper Drive Mode. This is powered by the aptly named Hyper Gauge, and allows you, when the gauge is maxxed-out, to perform unlimited Drive Cancels, assuming of course that your super bar has enough segments left to perform those moves.


The King Of Fighters XIII is scheduled to appear in Japanese arcades sometime this summer, with the first of many location tests, used to gauge user feedback and correct any issues with the fighting engine, being held this weekend at the Hey arcade in Akihabara. We should be able to learn more from the event and will endeavour to bring you another report early next week if anything comes our way. Hopefully we wil have some more screenshots of the game, whilst at least seeing how much progress has been made with the game engine and character movesets.

Nintendo 3DS Announced

A couple of weeks ago IQGamer reported that Nintendo were in the process of developing a true successor to the Nintendo DS, and that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had maybe, by accident, let slip some details on what to expect, such as more powerful hardware along with something else entirely. Well, today Nintendo officially confirmed that they are working on a follow up to the NDS due for a full unveiling at this year’s E3.

The Nintendo 3DS, an official working title for the machine, is being considered the true replacement for the current line-up of NDS consoles, and will boast a completely glasses-free 3D gaming experience. The new handheld, due for a complete reveal at E3 this summer, in which it will be playable, is expected to launch in Japan sometime before March 2011, and will be backward compatible with all DS and DSi software.


Speaking to the New York Times, Ken Toyoda, chief spokesman at Nintendo stated that "We wanted to give the gaming industry a head's up about what to expect from Nintendo at E3," and "We'll invite people to play with the new device then."

Despite not announcing any other details, a few sources have been digging a little deeper in regards of finding out just what will be powering the 3D screen on the device, and also looking at what control methods could be included in its design.

Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, seems to have uncovered that the 3DS may in fact be using a Sharp 3D LCD panel in the console. This particular LCD panel uses a thin film attached to the screen, separated form the screen by a tiny space to create the 3D effect without the need for any special glasses, making the image look different to both eyes, thus giving the graphics a 3D look to them.

This way of driving a glasses-free 3D image via an LCD panel is known as the parallax barrier method, and was hinted at by Blitz Games chief technical officer, Andrew Oliver in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"I'm fairly sure it would be based on the parallax barrier method, which is better than lenticular screens and has seen some great advancements recently," he said. "It can also be turned off to give a perfect 2D screen as well. This screen already exists in the Fuju 3D camera and I have a 3D laptop from Sharp with this technology and it works very well for one viewer within a reasonable viewing area for a handheld."

In addition The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a paper usually responsible for breaking Nintendo hardware related news, reported that this latest handheld would in fact include a ‘control stick’ for moving characters around in 3D instead of the current d-pad seen on the existing DS’s, along with information regarding some kind of rumble technology being included too. Nintendo apparently acquired the patents for the rumble tech late last year, which also matches up with our earlier report in February surrounding this ‘mystery’ successor to the NDS.

Whilst the machine will be 3D enabled and feature rumble functionality, both the battery life and wireless range will be improved over the current DS models, as well as potentially boasting some form of motion control via an accelerometer, which would allow the user to control on screen characters by tilting the machine. Though at present this inclusion of motion is not set in stone, and is merely being ‘looked into’ according to the paper.


The last piece of the puzzle falls onto the technology powering the machine from inside, namely the combined CPU/GPU believed to be from the Tegra 2 family of chipsets by NVIDIA.

Around three years ago a report surfaced that Nintendo had entered into a contract with NVIDA to use it’s Tegra IP for use in the 3DS handheld. Now it’s not quite known whether the contract was for Tegra 1 or Tegra 2 architectures, however the fact that they have the rights to use the IP means that they could take the more costly and power hungry Tegra 2 chipset, and simply scale down the design to fit their needs for this new DS.

Given past custom choices for their handhelds, it is likely that Nintendo will go down the route of working with NVIDIA in developing a 3DS specific chipset from the established Tegra 1 or 2 IP chain. As we reported in our article last month, the use of such a chipset derived from Tegra IP could well mean that the 3DS will produce visuals on par with what we were seeing on the GameCube, or possibly even the Xbox depending on how advanced their chipset or CPU/GPU chip turns out to be.

Of course this is simply speculation at this point, although we shouldn’t have to wait to long to find out the truth about just what is inside the 3DS. Details should be forthcoming during or shortly after E3.


Nintendo will of course be fully unveiling the 3DS at E3 this summer, delivering what they promise to be the next leap in handheld gaming, the true successor to the Nintendo DS series of consoles. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, seeing as many people I’d imagine, are getting rather fed up of incremental upgrades to a nearly six year old hardware design. Thankfully being fully compatible with all DS/DSi software will mean that the sudden announcement of yet another Nintendo portable just weeks after the western launch of the DSI XL shouldn’t offend too many people.

IQGamer will be following any news on the Nintendo 3DS closely, and we look forward to bringing you an in-depth look at the system sometime in the future.