It’s a weird game. The previous crossovers have taken two particular routes. The first, the “Vs.” series, is a hyperkinetic caffeine-driven lightshow of a game, packed with hundred-hit combos, superjumps, and Ryu nonchalantly generating a laser blast roughly the size of the blast corona on an orbital rocket. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom more or less went this way. The second, the Capcom vs. SNK games, tried for the best of both worlds by making both styles of gameplay available for selection in-game, so it actually could at times feel like the two series were fighting head-to-head.

SFxT, on the other hand, is wedging the Tekken cast into an otherwise-ordinary Street Fighter title, with few nods to where those characters actually came from in the first place. You’ll recognize their trademark moves, but they’ve been effectively reimagined from the ground up as 2-D characters in the Street Fighter engine. If you strip away SFxT’s new mechanics, it feels like nothing quite so much as a new iteration of Street Fighter 4.

The plot is pretty much ridiculous, and you don’t see any of it unless you play arcade mode with specific two-man teams. A meteor has landed somewhere on Earth, and both of M. Bison’s terrorist organization Shadoloo and the Mishima Zaibatsu are racing each other — and the authorities — to get a hold of it. For some reason, anyone who wants to get a piece of this action is going to end up in about half a dozen pitched street brawls before getting anywhere near the meteor, but that’s how these things usually work.

Matches in SFxT are two-on-two tag matches, and the first team to get a character KOed loses the round. You can do a hard tag at any time by pushing the two medium attack buttons, or combo into the tag by ending an ordinary hit string — light punch/kick, medium punch/kick, heavy punch/kick — into your character’s launcher. This burns off one-third of your super meter, knocks an enemy into the air, and brings in your backup character, who has a narrow window in which to do something horrible to the opponent.

SFxT uses a three-part super meter, which fills via attacking or taking damage, and you can very easily burn off the meter as fast as you can fill it. EX moves, supercharged versions of your standard special attacks, use one-third of the meter, and super attacks burn the whole thing at once. Weirdly, every character can also use a super for “free” by holding down the attack button on one of their special moves — for Ryu, it’s his Hadoken — for long enough.

You can spend all three meters on a tag super, where your character lands a canned combo that ends in a flurry of attacks from your off-screen character, or a short-lived beatdown where both characters go on-screen at once. It’s a bit like the all-or-nothing nature of the last Mortal Kombat game, where you rarely actually saw supers in high-level play because it was way more useful to hold back the meter for EX moves.

There’s also a last-ditch desperation move called Pandora, which can be triggered when your active character is at 25% health or lower. This knocks that character out and brings in your backup, who’s rocking a photonegative “evil” look, a full super meter, and a vast power boost. You then have a short window in which to win the match because when Pandora wears off, your character’s knocked unconscious.

The strangest feature of SFxT, and the one that’s likely to be the most controversial, is the ability to equip gems. These provide your character with a short offensive, defensive, or ability bonus, and each one comes with an activation condition or an associated drawback. Successfully landing three special moves or a normal throw, for example, can trigger a gem that gives you a +10% damage or speed bonus for 20 seconds, and it’s available once a round. Another kind of gem permanently adjusts the rules under which your character operates. One lets you automatically escape normal throws, but lowers your damage output by 10%. Another widens the window in which you can link moves together in a combo, but your super meter shrinks by one-third.

I’d initially assumed that gems would be something you earned over the course of play somehow, but in the build of the game I’m playing, there are a few dozen of them available right from the start of the game in a customization menu. You can put up to three at once on a character, with five predetermined loadouts that you can pick after you select your team.

I won’t go so far as to say that gems break SFxT, but after playing with them for a few hours, I could see how they’d blow up the game a bit. With the right gems, you can get a slightly weaker Zangief, for example, who’s suddenly a combo machine, or provide Asuka with a surprisingly long window of opportunity in which she hits like a freight train. Gems can go a long way toward addressing or mitigating characters’ built-in weak points, and there’s going to be some kind of world-beating, instantly nerfed gem/character combo about 10 seconds after the game hits retail shelves.

Street Fighter X Tekken is an odd approach to a crossover game. It feels like nothing quite so much as a Street Fighter sequel with a weird selection on the Capcom side of the roster — Poison? Hugo? Rolento? —  and two dozen brand new characters. With the gems, tag combos, and comeback mechanics, it’s a bigger, flashier SF4 with a host of new characters to learn. My only true disappointment at this point is that, when I fight Kuma as Zangief, Zangief does not comment on how he finally gets to wrestle a bear on-screen.

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The long-running platform franchise gets an HD facelift, as the first three games in the series head to the PS3 in one incredibly value packed offering.

If you are a fan of platformers, and you are looking for a value buy on the PS3, then you can stop reading this review right now and go out and pick up the Jak and Daxter Collection for the PS3. Not only does it contain three remastered PS2 hits from developer Naughty Dog, it is even lower priced than most PS3 games at $39.99. So if value is your thing, there you go.

There are two current trends that this collection is capitalizing on right now. The first is the slight revival of platforming games that is bordering on vogue. There have been several releases of the ilk recently on all systems, from the 3DS’ Super Mario 3D Land, to the PS3’s Ratchet and Clank All 4 One, to last Fall’s Rayman Origins. The second trend is the move to re-release classic games with a new HD shine.

Reintroducing old games with a new look can be a potentially risky maneuver for publishers. There needs to be a very good reason to bring the games back. It needs to justify its own existence. The Metal Gear Solid Collection not only brought back a series of incredibly popular games, it introduced Peace Walker to fans that didn’t own a PSP. The God of War Collection allowed PS3 users to play the full trilogy. The Ico/Shadow of the Colossus Collection reintroduced two of the best games that nobody played to a new audience. In all cases, there was a good reason for the re-release. The same is true of the Jak and Daxter Collection.

The Collection contains the first three titles from the franchise, all of which originally appeared on the PS2: Jak and Daxter, The Precursor Legacy, which originally released in December of 2001; Jak II from 2003; Jak 3, which hit stores in 2004. The Collection arrives just in time to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the series.

For those that missed the originals, if you have even a minor inclination towards platformers, this collection contains one of the best (or in this case, three of the best) examples of the genre from the PS2–and that is saying something. The Jak and Daxter series was always somewhat popular, but never came close to reaching the same level of appeal as other games made in the same style like Mario or Sonic. That was a shame too, since they were all great games, which makes this collection a second chance to check them out.

The content is unchanged, so all the great moments return—the humor and imaginative levels are present. Some of the frustrating moments return too—the camera still tries to murder you in the first two games, for example. For those that have played the games, the content remains unchanged. It looks much, much better though.

This is actually one of the best remasterings to date. Of the three games in the collection, the graphics improve as you would expect, with the third looking the best and the first the worst—relatively speaking. The cut scenes are actually worse than the gameplay in the first game, but the deliberately cartoony design works in favor of the 10 year gap between then and now. The blocky nature is unmistakably dated, and they still look like PS2 cut scenes, but late PS2 cut scenes. The gameplay and level design, however, look like early PS3 at least, if not better. The gameplay holds up as well. It feels a bit old school, but the level design was so well thought out to begin with that it still holds up.

The second and third game are where the HD graphics shine the most. Both games look on par with many current PS3 games, and the gameplay—which was always a highlight—remains smooth and fun.

The three games mark are a true trilogy in terms of story. There was a fourth title in the franchise, released on the PSP and PS2, but it was developed by a different studio, and its omission makes sense. Playing through these three games in order makes for a good history of developer Naughty Dog as well. You can see how the developer grew and evolved. On the surface it might seem like a far stretch from the lighthearted platforming of Jak and Daxter to the action oriented movie-games of the Uncharted series, but you can almost see the way the shift.  Each game shows more confidence, and each game is more impressive than the last.  

Conclusion

If you have even the tiniest inclination towards platforming games, then this trilogy is worth the money without question. You get three great games for the price of one, and all three look good (two look great). The re-releases of older games continues to succeed—especially on PS3—principally because the games that have been re-released are games that hold up regardless of the graphics. That remains true of the Jak and Daxter Collection. The games were brilliantly designed to begin with, both in level design and in the presentation that included a charming and generally witty story. They were already classic games, adding updated graphics and packaging them together is just the cherry on top.

For those whose first foray into Tamriel came this year with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the series’ maker is now offering the preceding entry, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion combined with another outstanding role-playing game, Fallout 3. The combo is $US29.99 on Xbox 360, $US19.99 on PC.

What about PS3? Bethesda Game Studios’ Pete Hines told Joystiq that they aren’t allowed to release the combo for that console yet. “We will continue to work to try to change that,” he said. “But at present it is still not approved. We would like to release a PS3 version a well.”

Fallout 3 and Oblivion unite in double pack on April 3 [Joystiq]

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Story by Stephany Nunneley

Sat, Feb 18, 2012 | 20:37 GMT

Evolution Studios’ Paul Rustchynsky, game director for MotorStorm RC, believes PS3 has “a lot of legs left in it” and doesn’t feel people should “dismiss it right now” even with all rumors of next-gen floating around the Internet.

Speaking in an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine, Rustchynsky feels that like PS2 before it, the “technological barriers” will be “pushed quite until the past minute,” as Naughty Dog, he said, has done with The Last of Us – proving there’s more that can be used inside the black box than what is assumed by the public.

“I think the PS3 has a lot of legs left in it yet, I don’t think people should dismiss it right now,” he said. “There are so many exclusive developers working for Sony right now, making really exciting games and I don’t many of those have been announced yet.

“As proved with the PS2, I don’t think the technological barriers are pushed quite until the past minute. I think The Last Of Us, when they announced that trailer was all in engine, I think people were wowed by that and rightly so. Those guys are incredibly talented.”

Rustchynsky said that at Sony, a lot of internal technology groups work with each other, and use a lot of Sony-developed internal tech to create games. So, using Naughty Dog as an example again, if the firm “innovate and produce something really good that’ll proliferate through the streams,” other studios will get access to the technology.

“It’s difficult though sometimes because technology isn’t always compatible,” he said. “People usually build things in isolation, they won’t always think about how you might want to implement in their games. People will develop different technologies but it won’t always be applicable for your game.

“Sony do work together well as a worldwide studio. The results you see from internal studios is that we always get the best out of the platform. That’s partly because we know the platform the best and also we collaborate as developers.”

To reiterate: PS3 is still relevant; developers can still create great-looking games for it; and tech created at Sony can be shared with others.

Motorstorm RC will launch alongside Vita February 22, and a PS3 version will be released as well.

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Tags: evolution studios, MotorStorm RC, Paul Rustchynsky

The most significant addition to Undisputed 3 is the inclusion of the PRIDE Fighting Championships. Japan’s dominant kickboxing league was bought out by the UFC fairly recently, but until now, it has never appeared in a game. That’s all changed, as Undisputed 3 showcases PRIDE in all its glory, complete with the full fighter roster, outrageous entrances, original announcers and, of course, special rule sets. Fighting purists will cheer the inclusion of PRIDE’s more brutal rules, including series first such as face stomps, soccer kicks and knees to the head of a downed opponent. Also, whereas UFC fights often focus on grappling, wrestling and submissions, PRIDE has always primarily been a stand-up fighting organization, so punches and kicks come as the order of the day. Kudos to the development team for so thoroughly and seamlessly implementing an entire second league into this year’s game.

Another major change for the better comes in the revamped Career mode, which allows players to grab either a current UFC fighter or one they’ve created and attempt to rise through the ranks. The last game was incredibly convoluted, requiring players to juggle training, sparring, media events and rest in order to get their fighter ready for the next bout. While it may have been a more true-to-life presentation of the demands of a celebrity fighter, no one really wanted to play a time management sim. That’s why this year’s streamlined presentation is so much better. Now, players typically have the opportunity to partake in one or two actions before a fight, with the options pared down to training drills, attending a camp and formulating a game plan. On the whole, it’s much simpler to track a fighter’s progress and feel like you’re more in control of preparation than before.

While the focus of training in Career mode is largely improved, the actual execution still leaves a lot to be desired. Drills are often obtuse and confusing, leading to several failed or poorly executed sessions before you get the hang of it. Even then, some of the training exercises still don’t make sense (flipping a tire using grapple transitions comes to mind), and players will struggle from time to time because the game refuses to help them succeed. Let’s hope that next year’s edition goes back to the drawing board with the training exercises and makes them a bit more intuitive.

Some new tactics have been added in the cage as well, including feints and sways. Players can now fake punches and kicks to keep opponents off guard, which is a major boon to high-level strategists and those who like to play online. Also, those who find themselves in a bad position on the ground can now attempt to sway to dodge their foes’ punches and create openings for escape. Again, it’s mainly an advanced tactic, but when you find yourself on the ground with Junior Dos Santos trying to turn your face into a lumpy mess, you’ll take any advantage you have.

You’ll likely notice that the additions to the fighting engine are mainly for expert-level tactics, and that leads to a major point of concern: the franchise is becoming less and less newcomer friendly. There is an option to change the grapple controls, so a simple flick of the right thumbstick executes transitions, but beyond that, the game is incredibly complex. Those who don’t have the patience or skill to sit through all 62 tutorials will find themselves being pummeled by tougher AI foes or human opponents. MMA is an incredibly complex sport, so you hate to ask for THQ to dumb it down so it appeals to a wider audience, but given the sheer multitude of attacks and modifiers, there aren’t a lot of people who are going to be able to remember how to execute every hold, strike and throw.

Perhaps the strangest revamp comes in the submission system, which THQ has struggled to perfect since the beginning and still can’t seem to nail down. Rather than spinning the control stick like mad, submissions initiate a “chase sequence” where the attacker must catch and cover the defender’s icon while the defender plays keep away. It’s an odd system that doesn’t really do much to convey the realities of attempting to execute or escape a submission, and the giant graphic that completely overlays the screen takes away from the action of the fighters. This part of the game still isn’t quite there yet, and if anything, this year we take a step backward from the eventual solution.

On the presentation side, Undisputed 3 does well, nailing down the fighters to the finest detail. The television-style pre-fight screens are nicely done, too; it’s just a pity there are so many of them and they can’t be skipped through any faster. The announcers also do a nice job of calling the fight, though they get a bit repetitive from time to time. Still, I attribute that more to players picking a fight style and sticking with it more than I do not having enough lines of banter recorded and loaded up.

The only real visual flaw is that some of the attacks show a lack of “oomph,” which is made abundantly clear during the post-fight replays. Most attacks look like one fighter merely touched the other and caused the opponent to go down, and the game never really conveys just how vicious these punches and kicks are. When George St. Pierre delivers a knockout head kick, it should look like he did more than lightly swat his opponent with the top of his foot. I’d encourage THQ to look to the Fight Night series for inspiration, as those games do a great job of conveying just how nasty these hits can be.

At this point, it feels like THQ has gotten its UFC franchise in fighting shape; now it’s just a matter of cutting weight and honing the technique until it’s ready to stand as a champion. The game is impressive, and it seems we’re on the cusp of something truly special.

Score: 8.5/10

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Written by Michael Rohde

Friday, 17 February 2012 11:08

GoozerNation has 50 codes to giveaway for the PS3 Back Karkand Map and the Skid Loader vehicle. Simply leave a comment on this post and the first 50 people will get a code.

 This contest is made possible from the good folks who made the movie Act of Valor. 

Movie Synopsis: An unprecedented blend of real-life heroism and original filmmaking, “Act of Valor” stars a group of active-duty Navy SEALs in a powerful story of contemporary global anti-terrorism. Inspired by true events, the film combines stunning combat sequences, up-to-the minute battlefield technology and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure.

“Act of Valor” takes audiences deep into the secretive world of the most elite, highly trained group of warriors in the modern world. When the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a deadly terrorist plot against the U.S., a team of SEALs is dispatched on a worldwide manhunt. As the valiant men of Bandito Platoon race to stop a coordinated attack that could kill and wound thousands of American civilians, they must balance their commitment to country, team and their families back home.

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Redemption Instructions for the PS3 Code:

1. Sign in to your PlayStation Network account.

2. Visit PlayStation Store via your PlayStation 3 system.

3. Select the [Redeem Codes] icon from the [Store Top]

4. Enter your 12-character promotion code and select [Continue].

5. Select [Continue] and follow the on-screen instructions to redeem the voucher code

6. Once complete, the downloaded product with be accessible from the XMB (XrossMediaBar).

The codes are good for the PS3 as part of Back to Karkand:

Back to Karkand Map and Skid Loader.

Q: What accessories will PS Vita launch with in the US?

A: PS Vita will launch with a wide array of accessories. For gamers looking for a complete solution, a Starter Kit with Memory Card will be available for $39.99 (MSRP), which includes a 4GB Memory Card, Pocket Pouch, Protective Film, Game Card Case, Headphones, and Cleaning Cloth. Standalone Memory Cards will start at $19.99 (MSRP), providing plenty of options for storing games and save data, videos, music, photos and more.

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Sometimes, the media - and gaming communities - can blow something very much out of proportion. Other times, it’s not exaggeration but reality.

And when it came to the problems PS3 gamers experienced when sampling the admittedly epic greatness that was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, fans seemed split on the issue. Some said the glitches weren’t so bad, while others called the game virtually unplayable.

Well, Bethesda has responded. Game Director Todd Howard told IndustryGamers that although his team has been working hard to set things right, “statistically, it is not nearly as bad as it seems.” In fact, according to both internal and external data, Skyrim is their most solid release.

“It’s also our most popular by a large factor, so we do have a lot of people on the PS3 who play the games a lot and their games are at a state that the game is just taxing the PS3 enough. That’s a fact; so, it really wasn’t until we were able to get save games from the users – because, literally, how they play the game over 100 hours – some of it, very little of it, we were able to reproduce and take care of on our own and a lot of it that you’re seeing now, we weren’t. So over the course of, like, December, the community helped us. We got their save games. We’d literally have to look in and say, ‘What quests do they have running, what order? Oh, he’s doing this. He’s got these dragons here. This script is running. Why is it kicking out this many things?’ And the 1.4 update is coming out today on the PS3 and it should – in our internal tests on those games - it fixes it, it takes care of it. But, going through this, we now know, there will still be – a smaller set, but there are probably still people we don’t have their saved games and they have [other problems].”

Howard went on to talk about how the PS3 handles things differently (which we already know), and finished by saying that for the “vast majority” of those who played Skyrim on Sony’s machine for 100+ hours, the game was “fine.” Would you agree with that statement?

Tags: the elder scrolls v, skyrim, skyrim ps3, bethesda

2/17/2012 9:00:56 PM Ben Dutka

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The PS3 version of immensely popular shout-laden, dragon-killing RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was until recently, pretty damned broken. The last patch seems to have fixed most of the big issues, though some people still seem to having issues. Members of the church of Bethesda have defended the company, saying things like “It’s a huge open world, of COURSE, it’s going to have bugs.”

Here’s the kicker: Bethesda knew the Ps3 version had issues.

“The team knew the PlayStation 3 version could run into a ‘bad memory situation’ and they coded solutions that they felt would work – and in their tests the solutions did work,” Bethesda clarified in a statement.  “Post release a ‘small percentage’ of users were still experiencing issues where it couldn’t keep up, and the team is working hard on solving it.”

Yeah..no. This problem of releasing buggy broken games and then patching them up is too widespread. Games are obviously much more complex than they were in the past, but back then – because games were confined to physical media – you had to make damned sure your game worked properly or face ludicrously expensive recalls.

Still Bethesda head-scratchingly believes Skyrim was their least buggy game.

“All of our internal and external data show that Skyrim is our most solid release, including the PS3 version,” Bethesda’s Todd Howard told Gameinformer. “ The percentage of people that have a problem on any particular system ends up a low percentage, but the raw number ends up being larger than we would have expected. We saw some of [the issues] that we were able to solve very quickly, but we eventually had to go to the consumer and ask for their saved game files. You’re looking at saved games where, not everybody, but certain people played for 100s of hours. And lots of different reasons it was happening. Fortunately we were able to fix it with the latest update.”

“It’s hopefully a much smaller number now,” he added. “When you put all this time into something and someone can’t play it, you feel terrible. They have every right to be pissed off. We already have more updates out for this than Fallout 3 and Oblivion in their lifetime, so we’re really committed to fixing everything. “

Skyrim has garnered just about every Game of the Year award, including ours – but none of us played it on PS3.

[Thanks to Purple Dragon for the tip]

NewsFebruary 17, 2012

Action packed co-op missions now available for Mass Effect 3 demo

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Posted by: Matt Liebl

On Tuesday, the highly anticipated Mass Effect 3 singleplayer demo went live on all platforms.  By now, you’ve probably had a time to blast your way through the singleplayer demo, but that isn’t all BioWare has in store for you. 

If you’ve been following Mass Effect 3 news then you’re probably aware of the new multiplayer component added to the game.  The strictly co-op multiplayer is referred to as Galaxy at War and is “meant to complement the amazing game” and “give fans a bonus for those who want to experience Mass Effect in different ways.”

In it’s most basic form, the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer is like a glorified sci-fi “Horde mode” from Gears of War.  For those of you unfamiliar, you will play alongside other players and defend against wave of invading enemies.  As you play through it, you will gain levels that will, in turn, help you play through the singleplayer campaign.  BioWare made to not “compromise the power of the singleplayer campaign”, and has decided to make the multiplayer component completely optional. 

It may sound confusing, but it’s really pretty simple.  And REALLY fun.  But don’t take it from me.  If you are near a console I suggest you download the Mass Effect 3 demo and see for yourself.

Now available, on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, is the newly added multiplayer component to Mass Effect 3.  The Mass Effect 3 multiplayer demo went live for all platforms last night, and should be available for everyone today.

The demo will give you a brief taste as to what you can expect from multiplayer when the full game releases - an all out war where players will face hordes of enemies with friends, which, in the final game will also contribute to your campaigned progress via the previously mentioned Galaxy at War.

You can choose from all of the six classes from the full game: Soldier, Vanguard, Sentinel, Engineer, Infiltrator, and Adept.  You will also gain XP to level up, but none of it will be carried over from the demo into the final game.  The demo includes two maps: Slum and Noveria.

As I said before, the Mass Effect 3 demo is available on all platforms.  The Xbox 360 version of the Mass Effect 3 demo can be added to your download queue via the Xbox LIVE marketplace. Kinect isn’t required for the ME3 demo, but as you can tell by our impressions, it is definitely awesome.  The PC version can be found on Origin.

Tags: Mass Effect 3, demo