iPad 2 "Optimized Games"

If you just got an iPad 2 and are looking to stretch its legs, the device launched with four games that have been "optimized" for the device. Only one of them is even a new game, the rest of them all had free updates land today to beef up the graphics (and the file size, unfortunately) for the iPad 2.


Real Racing 2 HD, $9.99 

 There's not a whole lot to say about this game that we haven't already other than it runs on the iPad and looks fantastic on the iPad 2. We loved the iPhone version in our review, and RR2 HDalmost feels even more immersive because of the increase of screen size. One thing though, with the bigger screen, just how flat the cockpits of the cars look is much more noticeable. I'd love to see some bump mapping or other depth given to them, as once you notice it, it's kind of hard to un-see. Obviously, it runs much better on the iPad 2 than the original iPad as well.


Dead Space for iPad, $6.99 

When it was first released it was amazing then, and now it's even better with some heavy anti-aliasing. Check out the crisp border of the sign in the above screenshot, on the original iPad that's jaggy as all get-out. This new iPad 2 version of the game looks good enough that it's worth re-playing the whole game over again just to see it.


Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD, $6.99  

This is the most underwhelming of all the "optimized" games. It runs great on the device, and the draw distance is crazy, but after playing Dead Space or Real Racing 2 HD, the lack of anti-aliasing really sticks out. Also, while the draw distance is far enough out to completely eliminate pop-in, power-ups and other cars still seem to pop-in even though the scenery doesn't. It's a good effort I suppose, but if you're only going to pick up one of these iPad 2 games, don't let it be this one unless you're just crazy about Burnout-style games.

Infinity Blade, $5.99  

"It doesn't get much more 'must-have' than this." That goes double if you've got an iPad 2. This gesture-based sword-fighter looks nuts. Infinity Blade is such an impressive display of what the iPad 2 is capable of that it should have come preloaded on the device.

These four launch day games are very impressive, and I doubt I'm alone when I say that I can't wait to see what developers come up with on this substantially faster device.

‘Brink’ Hands-on Game Preview – A Deft Balance of Innovative and Creative Gameplay

First-person shooter (FPS) games are starting to develop a certain stigma; if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Typically, FPS games fall into two categories: Call of Duty and Halo. If a game opts for realism, it’s compared to the Call of Duty franchise. Conversely, if a game goes with the fantasy angle, Halo fanboys will lash out with fury saying the game can never compare toHalo 2 or Halo Reach. Each franchise excels in both single and multiplayer play. So, when you go into a game demo and see an FPS, all you can think is, “Yeah, it’s like Call of Dutyor Halo with a few bells and whistles.”

Well, thankfully, Bethesda Softworks and the developers at Splash Damage have decided to shake up the world of FPS gaming with Brink.

After getting a good hour of hands-on time with the game, it’s clear that Brink is a deft balance of innovation and creative entertainment in a genre that was becoming more monotonous every year.

What sucks the most about playing an FPS title?

You either play it for the multiplayer component or the single player campaign. However, one usually comes up short. There’s only so much realism you can get in a single-player campaign mode before “realistic graphics” loses its significance. Also, no matter how many textures you add, the eyes tend to always look dead. Then when you hop on multiplayer, those realistic graphics are downgraded; plus, you usually end up with the same cache of Deathmatch and Objective missions.

Brink says screw realistic graphics. And, screw fantasy for that matter too. Splash Damage decided to give gamers a hybrid instead. Brink combines FPS play with MMO customization and a slight-Anime style. If you’ve ever watched the Jackie Chan cartoon or The Batman, you’ll know what I mean.

The game takes place on a floating city called the Ark, which is on the “Brink” of civil war. Gamers can play as the Security or the Resistance, in teams of up to eight players. The actual campaign is completely multiplayer based. So gamers can jump into and out of gameplay at any time. Hopefully, you’ll be paired with a good team so you can continue on.

There are four classes: the soldier, the medic, the engineer and the operative. Obviously, each class has its own benefit. But what’s different in Brink is that gamers can jump swap classes at any time. Gamers are also rewarded with experience points for playing out their character type. For me, playing as a Medic was finally fun. Actually, it was one of the most rewarding gameplay experiences. Giving my team health and speed boosts or reviving them before they bled out was handsomely rewarded. Soldiers can boost their teammates ammo and engineers can buff weapons or give out Kevlar ammo. Yet, there is no XP given out for buffing yourself with medic supplies or armor. Operatives are the only class type that cannot buff their fellow players, but they can walk up to downed enemies and dress up like them. They can also put a homing device on an enemy so that teammates can track them down.

This is a game that really rewards you for playing strategically. We’ve all played Objective multiplayer games, where one player will think that he or she is Rambo and go around killing people without helping out the team. Sure, at the end of the game they have a high kill-to-death ratio, but they didn’t actually do anything to support the mission. Brink makes team play absolutely necessary by design.

Richard Ham, the Creative Director at Brink who also worked on Prince of Persia, joined the Brink team to flesh out the overall direction on the characters. He opted for exaggerated body proportions in the design. As far as customization goes, you there’s an insane load of different facial types as well as character accents. Olivier Leonardi manages the art direction, while Tim Appleby (who worked on Shepherd and the main aliens in Mass Effect) handled the character designs. Instead of just regular fatigues, your grunts will wear more patchwork clothing like homeless people. These are fighters who use the resources around them to stitch loads of crap together into awesome designs.

It’s only fair to say that the customization in Brink is far superior to anything you’ve experienced in a multiplayer game before. Not only are the characters customizable, right down to the voicing, but the weapons have ridiculous levels of customization as well. You can add a silencer to a weapon, but it may take down the weapon’s overall damage. Putting on a drum magazine may slow down your fire rate. You can press a button at any time (Triangle on the PS3) to see how your character or your weapons would look outfitted as a Resistance or a Security soldier.

There are light, medium and heavy body types. Each type has its own benefit. Lighter types will be able to climb to certain places but headshots kill in one shot. Medium and Heavy types will need more than one shot to the head to die. Splash made the active choice to give characters a little more power so that newer gamers weren’t so easily killed. Heavy types can carry bigger guns and have access to different weapons. You can change anything at any time, except for tattoos, which are permanent. As for character classes, you can switch between class types seamlessly and you will still be able to use any weapon.

Levels are broken down in sections of 5, with gamers able to rank up to level 20 at present.

Scheduled to launch in mid-May, Brink may just be the game that will lead gamers through endless hours of play this summer.

EA: PC 'extremely healthy, may become our biggest platform'

Electronic Arts sees lots of room for growth in the PC market, which may become the publisher's biggest revenue generator, according to EA Games label president Frank Gibeau.

"The user base is gigantic," he told Gamasutra. "PC retail may be a big problem, but PC downloads are awesome. ... The margins are much better and we don't have any rules in terms of first party approvals.

"From our perspective, it's an extremely healthy platform. ... It's totally conceivable it will become our biggest platform," he added. "If you look at the way people play in Asia, PC is the model. I think that free to play model is coming to the west in a big way."

EA said last week that an open beta of Battlefield Play4Free is coming to PC in April, and that it thinks the title is comparable in quality to the industry's leading FPS games.

The global PC games market showed "surprisingly strong growth in 2010", bringing in record annual revenue of 

£10 billion, according to the PC Gaming Alliance.

Gibeau also told Gamasutra that EA's starting to think about the next generation of consoles, even though he thinks there's still plenty more to get out of PS3 and Xbox 360.

"What's interesting is the displays are maxed out already," he said. "Once you get to 1080p, it's not about increasing resolution.

"Obviously, more computing horsepower is nice, but to be honest, the Xbox 360 and PS3 still have a lot of horsepower that hasn't been tapped. I really think the next innovation is in the input device, but even more importantly, what will the online experience be like?" 

Microsoft goes on a hiring spree for new Xbox hardware devs, staffing up for next console push?

Before you go leaping to any conclusions, do remember that Microsoft plans on keeping the Xbox 360 going until at least 2015 so we're not really talking imminent changes here. Nonetheless, the software giant has listed a plethora of new job openings, with the most interesting ones being at its Mountain View research campus, where a team responsible for "defining and delivering next generation console architectures" is looking for fresh blood. A graphics hardware architect is sought to ensure that the next Xbox strikes the optimal balance between the awesome and affordable, while a design verification engineer and a few others will be hired to test and help develop prototypes. This bolstering of numbers seems to indicate Microsoft is starting to ramp up research and development on its next-gen home entertainment linchpin, and while nothing's likely to emerge from those Mountain View labs in the short term, the mere sound of clanking tools and buzzing electrons is getting us excited already.

New Crysis 2 video introduces the hologram decoy

EA's latest trailer for Crysis 2 showcases a brilliant new weapon upgrade - the hologram decoy! So how does it work? You fire a holographic projection of yourself in to the environment. It looks so much like you it lures enemies to attack it, and then... boom! You unleash on them, whilst they shout, "Damn! Fooled again!"

If this isn't a candidate for 2011's greatest multiplayer FPS innovation we don't know what is.

Our anticipation level just creaked up another notch.

The video also confirms that if you pre-order the Limited Edition now you'll get the weapon upgrade from the get go, along with the Scar weapon skin, a platinum dog tag and a level 5 ranking.

Crysis 2 launches on PS3, 360 and PC on March 25th in North America and Europe.

Watch it now and get excited.

Havok physics engine comes to Android 2.3, demoed on Xperia Play

Great graphics are often a component of great video games, but fancy physics can help too, and last week Havok announced that it was bringing those to Android, along with all of the requisite development tools. That means smartphones with Android 2.3 or up can potentially enjoy the same procedural animations and pretty dresses that we've enjoyed on PC and home console for years, and as the first gamer-centric smartphone with Gingerbread on board, Sony Ericsson's forthcoming Xperia Play got to be the first to demo them. Watch a pickup plow through road hazards, a gorilla get catapulted across a football field, and an Assassin's Creed-esque warrior run, jump and climb with the best of them in the video above. Oh, and just so you know, we got a (very brief) hands-on with all three demos in person at GDC 2011 last week, and each was practically enjoyable enough to be an Android game of its own. The realistically bouncing ball's in your court, developers. Don't let us down.

Xbox 360: "Fully 3D Capable!"

Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg has said that Xbox 360 is fully equipped to handle 3D games, although he again questioned the current level of consumer interest in the technology.

The Xbox director of product management said that the platform holder could embrace the technology eventually. But while rival Sony dives headfirst into the 3D revolution, Microsoft appears set to wait on the sidelines to see how it develops and consumers react to it.

"From the technical standpoint, we are fully 3D capable. We have 3D games running today… As consumer interest for 3D grows, we'll grow with it," he told G4TV at CES.

"It [3D] is the hot thing at CES and we've got 3D on the show floor, so we've checked the 3D box if that's important to people. If it becomes really important and people want to do more with it, we're absolutely happy to support it."

Greenberg added: "I think right now we're unsure what level of interest there is from consumers to really want a 3D experience in the living room. Many, many years from now when it becomes a reality, we absolutely can support it, we do support it today. If developers want to make more 3D games, they can."