GTA IV_Part 2
Given the amount of trouble that you get into as you play through the story mode, it's inevitable that the police are going to get involved from time to time, even when their presence isn't a scripted feature of your mission. Liberty City's boys in blue are quick to respond when you get flagged with a wanted level of between one and six stars, but they're not nearly as tough to deal with as their counterparts in previous GTA games. They don't drive as quickly when pursuing you, they rarely bother to set up roadblocks, and you'll need to blow up practically an entire city block before the FIB (that's not a typo) show up. Furthermore, you're given an unfair advantage in the form of your GPS system; when you're not using it to plot a valid route to any waypoint of your choosing, it doubles as a kind of police scanner. Any time you have a brush with the law, the GPS shows you the exact locations of patrol cars and cops on foot in your area, and highlights the circular area (centered on your last-known whereabouts) where they're concentrating their search. To escape, all you need to do is move outside the circle and then avoid being seen for 10 seconds or so, which is often best achieved by finding a safe spot and just sitting there. It's not a bad system in theory, but in practice it makes dodging the law a little too easy, especially when your wanted level is low and the search area is small.
When you're not running missions for criminals, taking part in street races, stealing cars to order, or randomly causing trouble, you'll find that there are plenty of opportunities to unwind in Liberty City. Some of these optional activities offer tangible rewards that can prove useful in missions later on, whereas others are just a fun way to kill time and take in more of GTAIV's superb humor. For example, you can watch television, listen to numerous radio stations, check out some genuinely funny shows (including some big-name acts) at cabaret and comedy clubs, and use a computer to surf the in-game Internet.
GTA IV_Part 1
One of the many things that set GTAIV apart from its predecessors is Liberty City, which is more convincing as a living, breathing urban environment than anything you've seen in a game before, and which bears little resemblance to its namesake in 2001's GTAIII. Liberty's diverse population believably attempts to go about its daily business, seemingly unaware that several criminal factions are at war in the city. Niko has no such luck. He's compelled to start working for one of the factions shortly after arriving, when he learns that his cousin Roman has some potentially fatal gambling debts. Niko's military experience makes him a useful freelancer for employers in the business of killing, and though his reluctance to carry out their orders is often apparent, he does whatever is asked of him in the hope that completing missions for other people will ultimately give him the means to complete his own.
But Niko doesn't have to do everything that's asked of him. On several occasions as you play through his story, you'll be presented with decisions that afford you the option of doing what you think is right rather than blindly following instructions. You don't necessarily have to kill a target if he or she promises to disappear, but you have to weigh the risk of your employer finding out against the possibility that the person whose life you spare might prove useful later in the game, or even have work for you in the form of bonus missions. To say anything more specific on this subject would be to risk spoiling one of GTAIV's most interesting new features, but suffice it to say that every decision you make has consequences, and you'll likely want to play through the game at least twice to see how the alternatives unfold.
Grand Theft Auto IV's story mode can be beaten in less than 30 hours, and there are so many optional activities and side missions to take part in along the way that you can comfortably double that number if you're in no hurry. The majority of the story missions task you with making deliveries and/or killing people, and play out in much the same way as those in previous games. With that said, most of the missions are a lot easier this time around, partly because Niko is a more agile and efficient killer than any of his predecessors, and partly because the LCPD seemingly has better things to do than hunt down an illegal immigrant who's gunning down undesirables all over the city. Some of the more imaginative missions sprinkled throughout the story include a kidnapping, a bank heist, and a job interview. The cinematic cutscenes associated with story missions are superbly presented and are the sequences in which the game's characters really shine. Without exception, the characters you encounter benefit from great animation, great voice work, and superbly expressive faces. They're not always so impressive when they join you on a mission and refuse to do what they're supposed to (for example, not following you on an escort mission, or failing to negotiate a doorway). Nevertheless, these problems are few and far between, and they're made less painful by the new "replay mission" option that you're presented with whenever you fail.
HAWX Updated_Part 2
This first mission gave us the goal of defending the heart of Washington from PMC cargo planes dropping ground forces. It required us to divide our attention between enemies in the sky and those below. With such a huge altitude difference, this is where co-op strategy really comes into play, given that you'll probably want to divide your team into antiair and antiground forces. Taking out enemies in the air is definitely trickier because they can dodge and juke your missiles even when locked-on. Ground forces are usually easier, in that you're required to make a quick pass over the earth below, and your only real challenge is making sure that you don't get so low that you smash into a building.
The next stage in this mission took us from defending a bunch of politicians on the ground to one very important politician in the air, given that we had to escort Air Force One and keep it safe from a flurry of Russian MiG-23 jets. In this scenario, a good co-op strategy would be to let a pair of pilots play defense and the other two offense. That is to say, some players remain close to the president's plane and the others go take on the enemies before they get within firing range. Although our group was a little more scattered and freewheeling, we still managed to keep the president safe and sound.
The next mission brought us to the Midwest, above the skies of downtown Chicago. In this scenario, PMCs have installed a massive radar jammer in the city. Your role is to defend an AWAC used to detect enemy units as it flies over the city. The trick here is that you have to stay within a relatively small radius surrounding the AWAC because getting too far away will wreak havoc on your in-flight instruments, turning your heads-up display into a static-filled mess. If you're successful here, you can move on to the next stage of the mission, which involves defending ground troops on the streets below. As you'd imagine, this gets awfully difficult when it involves buzzing in close to the towering skyscrapers that make up Chicago's skyline.
Thus concluded our time with this pair of America-focused missions from HAWX. Other chapters in the campaign will bring you to places such as the Middle East, South America, and the Caribbean, so there should be a lot for globetrotters to enjoy. No release date has been announced, but you can expect to see more on HAWX in the coming weeks and months.
HAWX Updated_Part 1
e found in Ubisoft's upcoming air-combat game HAWX. Based on a gameplay session at a London press event, we told you about the basics of piloting a jet fighter in a team of four and how the game ties into the greater Tom Clancy universe. Recently, though, Ubisoft held an event in San Francisco to give American press a chance to experience a few brand-new co-op missions: Washington DC and Chicago.Before jumping into co-op, we acclimated ourselves to the game's controls by taking a sneak peek at the public demo, due to be released in February. This mission takes place in the skies above Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and offers a tutorial on the game's accessible control scheme. You're guided through the basics of moving through the sky and firing your weapons, plus a few advanced techniques such as drifting (which is essentially a way of performing a midair U-turn). It's all pretty simple stuff, at least on the default difficulty. However, you have the option to move to advanced difficulty, which makes piloting your jet substantially more challenging because it removes the various assists that keep your plane on the right track.
Having conquered the air drones terrorizing the skies of Brazil, we moved on to the first America-based mission in the game, which was Washington DC. Prior to the mission, we had the option to choose our aircraft, a process in which you need to consider the requirements of the upcoming mission against the attributes of various jets. Things such as air-to-air versus air-to-ground capabilities are key, but each plane also has attributes for speed, handling, and armor. We settled on the F-22 Raptor, a great balance of each.
Red Alert 3_Part2
GS: What additions and enhancements will be made to the game's multiplayer? Any chance of
some tweaks to make co-op games easier to get into and play?
Another reason for our decision to focus on single-player with Uprising was that it allowed for us to experiment more with different types of missions in the campaign. For example, the types of missions we wanted to make for Uprising, especially the Yuriko missions, wouldn't have worked well in co-op, and the new units were designed to be fun, powerful new units and tuned specifically for offline play.
GS: When will Uprising hit store shelves for the PC? Will we also see the game hit console platforms in some form, either as a separate game product like Kane's Wrath for the Xbox 360, or as an all-in-one special edition with the original game?
GK: Red Alert 3: Uprising will be available as a digital download in March. Right now, the team is entirely focused on making the PC version of Uprising, and we are devoting all of our energy into making this a great game for Red Alert fans at a price we think is right for this stand-alone game and a great value. Uprising is also the first-ever stand-alone expansion pack for a Command & Conquer game, meaning that you don't need to own or have played Red Alert 3 to play and enjoy Uprising.
GK: With Red Alert 3: Uprising, we wanted to focus on enhancing the single-player experience of Red Alert 3 in a number of unique ways while the game was still fresh in players' minds, and we think this new chapter will provide them with dozens of hours of enjoyment. We're really excited to see the response to some of the more-unique aspects of the expansion, such as the Yuriko campaign and the Commanders' Challenge mode.
Red Alert 3_Part 1
Last year's Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 was a new chapter in the over-the-top Red Alert real-time strategy series, which combines resource gathering, base building, and giant armies of tanks that come out of nowhere with an enthusiastic, over-the-top sensibility of the kind that you can find only in a game in which actors chew the scenery like there's no tomorrow, and in which the tanks in your armies march alongside dolphins and bears. Now, EA's Los Angeles studio is hard at work on Uprising, a new stand-alone expansion that will explore more single-player content and add more units to control. We sat down with producer Greg Kasavin to discuss the details.GameSpot: Why go back to Red Alert 3 with a new expansion pack? What stones were left unturned in the story and in the gameplay?
Greg Kasavin: We think we introduced a lot of great units and characters in Red Alert 3, and this new campaign expansion builds off of that while also allowing us to offer our fans some really cool surprises.
Red Alert 3: Uprising really gave us a chance to follow through on a number of interesting ideas that sparked up late in the development of the original game, around when Red Alert 3 was essentially complete and we naturally started thinking about what else we could do with the game. Shortly after the game came out, our fans also asked for more campaigns to take them deeper into this unique universe, and they wanted more of the over-the-top units we introduced in Red Alert 3.
The original game's three campaigns represented three different, parallel timelines, and the epilogue-style conflicts in Uprising allowed us to continue and broaden the Red Alert 3 story in some exciting new ways. We got to bring back a lot of our favorite characters, introduce some new ones that can chew the scenery with the best of them, and deepen the crazy fiction behind this universe.
GS: We understand the expansion will have four new playable campaigns that take place after the events of Red Alert 3. What's the story behind them?
One of the campaigns we're most excited about is centered squarely on the Empire of the Rising Sun's psionic commando, Yuriko Omega, and how she got to be a troubled, ill-tempered young woman who can tear apart aircraft carriers with barely a thought. The Yuriko campaign looks and plays different from the core game, and we think players will love it as a refreshing and viscerally satisfying change of pace.
GS: What other content will the expansion offer? For instance, we understand there will be an expanded set of skirmish maps for both co-op and competitive play?
GK: On top of the four new minicampaigns, we're adding roughly 30 new maps for traditional skirmish. Many of these take place in new environments, such as a spooky European village with low-hanging fog. So we're taking a few detours from Red Alert 3's usually-bright, colorful world to add more variety.
There's also the Commander's Challenge mode, which features 50 unique, successively tougher scenarios, some of which are unlike anything we've ever done before. For example, in one particular challenge you get to go toe-to-toe with a new breed of Soviet War Bear, which happens to be much bigger and much nastier than usual. This mode offers an additional 30 hours of gameplay that we think the fans will enjoy. We're really happy with the way it's shaping up.
GS: Tell us about the new Commander's Challenge mode. Will this resemble the challenge modes from the Xbox 360 version of Command & Conquer 3?
GK: The Commander's Challenge mode was loosely inspired by the General's Challenge mode in Zero Hour, the expansion pack to Command & Conquer: Generals. Like that mode, the Commander's Challenge pits you against a variety of different, colorful characters, including some returning commanders from Red Alert 3 as well as some new ones. However, the Commander's Challenge is substantially bigger and deeper than any similar mode we've done, as each of the 50 different scenarios have their own tricks and rules of engagement. They're a real blast to play and fit right in with the over-the-top and playful world of Red Alert.
You initially start off with limited access to forces, but as you finish the different scenarios, your arsenal grows. Of course, finishing scenarios also unlocks new ones, and you can either try to get through the mode in as few steps as possible or pursue some of the side challenges to unlock the biggest and best forces. It's a highly addictive mode, and for fans of skirmish--and we know there are a lot of you out there--we think it's going to become an instant favorite.
GS: Red Alert 3 offered plenty of distinctive and crazy playable units, like transforming robots and angry, angry animals (such as electro-dolphins, scout dogs, and parachuting bears). What are some of the new units that will be added in Uprising? What purposes will they serve--how will they better complement their faction's strategy, for instance?
GK: We think Red Alert 3 players are going to be very happy with the unique, powerful new units we've added in Uprising. One of my favorite to use is the Empire of the Rising Sun's Giga Fortress, the biggest and strongest new unit we're introducing. It's this gigantic, starfish-shaped floating fortress that can transform into a monstrous, flying Sinistar-style head that shoots a devastating beam weapon out of its mouth. It should more than make up for the Empire's lack of a heavy flying unit until now.
GS: Of course, Uprising will give players a chance to revisit the Red Alert 3 content they know and enjoy, including, hopefully, more of the series' signature cinematic sequences. We understand that Gemma Atkinson and Ivana Milicevic will be returning, for instance. What other acting talent will return, and can we expect to see any additional Hollywood talent that may or may not be creepy German character actor Udo Kier?
GK: Indeed, it wouldn't be Red Alert if we didn't include new full-motion video sequences. As the Allies and Soviets, you'll once again be getting your marching orders from Gemma Atkinson and Ivana Milicevic, respectively, who reprise their roles as the briefers from the previous game. They were two of the community's favorites from Red Alert 3, and we're excited we were able to bring them back this time around.
We'll have more announcements about the cast soon, but suffice it to say there's going to be a mix of new and old faces this time around in both the campaign and the Commander's Challenge mode. I'm glad some of the commander characters from Red Alert 3 get more screen time here, as some of those guys were really entertaining.
