Afro Samurai Hands-On

We sever limbs with great panache in this exclusive look at Namco Bandai's upcoming action game.

It's hard not to notice Afro Samurai, the game in which the main character of the same name sticks out like a sore thumb in feudal Japan with his enormous hair and tattered clothes. Even harder to miss are the well-choreographed moves, copious amounts of blood, colorful commentary by Samuel L. Jackson, and never-ending number of enemies to slice through. We had the opportunity to play through several levels of a preview build and are impressed by the beautiful visuals, hilarious dialogue, and over-the-top limb-chopping violence.

Ninja Ninja always has something offensive to say.

If you haven't been following our coverage, we've been able to see and play through several demos, so for more details you can check out our other previews here. This is the first time we've been able to spend some quality time with Afro, the tortured samurai out to avenge his father's death. The titular character is actually rather quiet and stoic, and it's Ninja Ninja--Afro's imaginary antithesis, a perfect embodiment of Jackson--that livens up this bloodfest with expletives that flow naturally. Not only does Ninja Ninja provide humor with his obscenities, but he also acts as your guide if you're not sure where you need to go next. He talks a great deal, so consider yourself warned. When you press down on the D pad, he'll appear in the direction you need to head and then vanish in a puff of brown smoke. If you call on him often, he'll say things like "I ain't your GPS b****!" or find other delightful ways of expressing himself.

Afro Samurai is a button masher--a very elegant one in which you can pull off sweeping flourishes and acrobatic flips. Combos unlock as you progress through the game so that you don't grow tired of mashing the same combination of buttons over and over again. There are some moves you'll learn that are aptly named: Where's My Money, Pimp Hand, Hardwood Thrust, Oh That Hurt, and Dayam That Really Hurt. Using the left trigger, you can briefly enter a focus mode where Afro can charge up his katana and dismember with deadly precision. A line will appear so you can determine if you want to take off a particular limb, cut the person clean in half through the midsection, or perhaps just slice straight down the middle between the eyes. You'll eventually get a feel for how long you can stay in this mode and use it to optimize your attacks. In the early stages, you'll be able to instantly kill opponents by neatly slicing them in two in this mode. Against tougher enemies and bosses, the focused move will do additional damage, but it won't be a one-slice kill. Because the game is visually stunning and the moves are fluid and graceful, it's always a blast to watch your character do his deadly ballet routine. What wasn't so smooth, however, was the camera, which we hope will be fixed by the time the game ships. There were a few instances when we'd get a close-up of a wall or the side of a cliff face and couldn't see Afro unless we went into our focus mode.

In between the slicing and dicing, there is some light platforming. Running wall jumps can be performed with ease, and even if you slip and fall, you won't be bumped back very far. Afro generally won't fall off a cliff unless it's part of the platforming sequence, so you don't have to worry about tumbling over in the heat of battle. The game consistently provides you with hints on where to go, even though it's already straightforward and linear. In addition to Ninja Ninja's friendly guidance, points of interest will sparkle and the cutscene focuses on what you need to do next. Afro Samurai is relatively easy and accessible by anyone, though the profanity and gore will probably mean that only an age-appropriate audience will be able to enjoy the game.

One noticeable change from what we saw at Namco Bandai's pre-Tokyo Game Show event is that your health is no longer indicated by the dark tunnel-vision lines on the screen. The amount of blood on your clothes will indicate how much damage you have taken. Your opponent's health is also measured this way, and after you deal the finishing blow, the sound of gushing liquid also indicates whether or not you did a good job. Hint: The more blood the better. Statistics from the main menu will tally how many gallons of blood you've spilled if you want to get really specific--which is rather morbid. Achievement junkies should note that as long as you continue to brandish your sword and lay waste to your enemies in style, points will be earned.

That can't be pleasant.

The cel-shaded art style is gorgeous, and there's nothing like slashing through bodies like they're tofu, with the glow of the setting sun at your back and the deep blue ocean that bleeds out into the horizon. One of the new environments that we got to play through included a lush bamboo grove with cascading waterfalls, which was very different from the village rooftops that we originally started off in. The score is inspired by Wu-Tang Clan member, The RZA, which includes hip-hop mixed with some authentic-sounding Asian instruments. This interesting combination works well and complements the action and story.

Afro Samurai is not all blood and violence; it's about loss, revenge, betrayal, and even love. The game's events unfold as though you're watching a movie--from the cinematic opening to the cutscenes, gameplay, and voice-overs. Be prepared to wield Afro's blade with finesse, because the game is set to be released on January 27, 2009, on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Credits:By Sophia Tong, GameSpot

Tom Clancy's EndWar Exclusive Hands-On - Single-Player, Multiplayer, and World War III

If you thought gas prices were bad now, wait until 2020 when Russia becomes the world's largest supplier of oil and natural gas production in Tom Clancy's EndWar. This development fuels a military buildup not seen since the Cold War. A missile defense shield is constructed that protects the United States, Europe, and Russia from nuclear annihilation, but instead of peace, the tension escalates into a massive ground war spanning the globe. In EndWar, World War III has begun, and the future may be bleak, but it's never been brighter for console strategy fans.

Scheduled for release this October, EndWar is a different sort of strategy game, built from the ground up with consoles in mind. We recently visited with creative director Michael de Plater for the latest on EndWar. Hands-on multiplayer sessions and a few new details were included in our visit, as well as whispers of a possible PC version.

Though purple, this orbital laser strike is one of three WMDs in EndWar.

You can't fight a war without an army, so the first thing you'll do in EndWar is choose and customize your own battalion. After selecting either the US, European, or Russian factions, you then choose the type of battalion, be it airborne, mechanized, armored, signals, or assault. For example, airborne will feature increased gunship and riflemen ranks, armored will have tank bonuses, while assault will be a balanced attack force. From there, you select a task force bonus. Airborne gunships, for example, can immediately unlock a rocket barrage, a volley of 80mm unguided rockets that deal "kinetic damage" and "blast damage." Artillery units of mechanized battalions can grab a bunker buster shell, an incendiary warhead for increased penetration. The list of bonuses is lengthy; there are about 90 different upgrades for each faction that can be purchased with credits earned based on your performance.

The customization space in EndWar is called the barracks. This is where you'll edit your battalion's camouflage and purchase the aforementioned battle upgrades. The barracks were inspired by, believe it or not, the garage in Forza 2, a place to tweak and enjoy your creations. The units--riflemen, engineers, tanks, transports, gunships, artillery, command vehicles--will gain experience in the persistent online campaign called Theater of War and will rank up. There are six ranks, and by the time you have a unit maxed out with combat bonuses and field experience, you will have grown quite attached to it. But if a unit is eliminated in battle, it will be replaced by lowly privates. War is hell, after all.

Ordering your army about is a breeze, thanks to the slick voice command system.

In the single-player campaign, you'll play as Gen. Scott Mitchell of Ghost Recon fame and command the United States faction against Mother Russia. The warzone spanning most of the northern hemisphere is broken up into battle points. This is the same map that will be used online for Theater of War. In the campaign, you will choose which battle is most important to win, and the AI will handle the remaining battles on the map. Online, success in each battle will be decided by which faction has the largest winning percentage.

The multiplayer modes have been changed somewhat since we last saw EndWar. There's Conquest, the battle for uplink stations on one of the 29 maps. The uplinks are responsible for protecting the area from nuclear strike. Once a majority is controlled, the losing team will have five minutes to regain a point or be annihilated. The losing team will at least gain access to a WMD to even the odds--a kinetic strike fired from space for the Americans; an orbital laser blast for the Europeans; a tactical nuke for the Ruskies. If you do use a WMD, be warned. Aside from general devastation to the environment and local plant life, your enemy will also be able to launch a WMD following your attack. The Assault mode is a basic deathmatch, while Raid is an attack-and-defend match using multiple uplink points. The final mode, Siege, is another attack-and-defend match in which the defenders have 10 minutes to protect one major point on the map, like the US Capitol or the Eiffel Tower for instance (both fully destructible, by the way).

We jumped in a two-on-two conquest map at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was supposed to be a great day for the Americans as they launched a shuttle into space. Instead, the Russians destroyed the shuttle, and it's all-out war on the ground. We teamed with de Plater to take on the enemy AI and immediately felt the strategic appeal of EndWar. Thanks to the seamless voice command system, you feel like a general on the battlefield, reacting immediately with tactical changes to enemy advances. It will only take a few minutes of ordering "unit one to attack hostile two" and "unit three to secure Yankee" before you'll be fully engrossed in the battle. Having such seamless controls is important to keep the rock-paper-scissors gameplay flowing. Gunships destroy tanks and artillery, tanks destroy transports, and transports can take out gunships with AA flak. The core combat flows from this system and the voice commands make it that much easier to master.

World War III comes to a video game console near you later this year.

If you look closely, you can almost feel the influence of the Total War strategy series at work. De Plater also headed up Rome: Total War, so it's no coincidence that the units are spread out on the bottom of the screen in much the same way. Instead of trebuchets and catapults, you have riflemen and nuclear weapons. De Plater goes so far as to call it Total War meets Clancy. Resources are not won or lost in an over world map, however. Gaining access to uplinks will allow you to deploy more units on the battlefield. Once you've secured an uplink, engineers can unlock three levels of air support, electronic warfare, and force recon. Air strike will call in H.A.W.X. fighter jets to deliver destructive payloads; electronic warfare attacks are electromagnetic pulses that disable an enemy's electronics; forced recon are highly trained Ghost Recon units that can easily take over enemy positions.

Multiplayer promises to only get bigger as you jump into four-versus-four battles and have to coordinate with other battalions. So far, we had a blast playing quarterback with our troops using the voice command system, blowing up famous landmarks, and customizing our army in the barracks. Our in-depth coverage of EndWar is just beginning. Be sure to check out our exclusive gameplay video and enjoy World War III for yourself.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Updated Impressions

With his pair of sharply curved knives in hand, Riddick stalks the halls of the pirate ship Dark Athena, looking to deal some pain. Creeping through the shadows in a room full of cargo crates, Riddick is hidden yet surrounded by a number of drone soldiers--mindless automatons that patrol the ship and that can be remote-controlled by members of the Dark Athena's crew. Skulking in the shadows, Riddick sneaks up behind an unwitting drone, takes him out, and tries to take his weapon from him. But wait--the gun is attached to the drone's hand. No problem for Riddick; he simply picks up the drone and begins blasting the other enemies to bits with the attached weapon. It's just one of the grimly enjoyable approaches to combat in the upcoming The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, which we had a chance to check out at a recent Atari press event.

Riddick is back for another adventure, and things are about to get messy.

Though the game was initially conceived as a fairly straightforward remake of the classic original Xbox game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, the developers at Tigon Studios and Starbreeze have pushed the project beyond a mere port to include both a remake of the original game and an entirely new chapter in the Riddick storyline, Assault on Dark Athena. Picking up more or less directly after the events in Escape From Butcher Bay, Assault on Dark Athena finds Riddick and his captor, the bounty hunter Johns, onboard the Dark Athena, a pirate craft that's led by a mysterious captain that Riddick might have a history with. After being locked in cryostasis for a good long stretch, Riddick--being the badass that he is--manages to wake himself up and begins stalking the corridors of the Athena, looking to escape.

During the demo, the developers at Starbreeze showed off the trademark multiple gameplay elements that began with the original game and certainly continue here. Stealth is obviously a big part of the fun here, with Riddick sticking to the shadows (complete with the familiar blue tint to the screen when Riddick is concealed), and either sneaking around, or sneaking up on, his enemies. Then there's the wet work with the aforementioned ulaks that Riddick acquires early on in the Dark Athena storyline. They're perfect for making short work of an opponent you've snuck up on, and they seem to be pretty effective even in a face-to-face fight.

But where Dark Athena really shines is with the drones. As mentioned previously, drone soldiers are mostly mindless, zombie-like humanoids that patrol the halls of the ship. In their unoccupied state, they seem to be easy enough to avoid; however, if a drone is being "piloted" remotely, it's a different story. They'll be more alert, and they appear to have quicker reaction times, too. You can capture a drone that you've taken down, but you'll only be able to walk backward while holding up a drone. As a result, if you want to use its attached arm gun and still stay mobile, you'll need to move quickly from one downed drone to the next.

Regardless, the best use of a drone is actually piloting one yourself, which we got to check out in the demo when Riddick made his way into the drone control room. After quickly dispatching of a crew member who was in the process of controlling a drone, Riddick saddled up and took a few for a ride. Although most of Riddick's gameplay is stealthy by nature, controlling a drone feels most closely akin to a run-and-gun first-person shooter. The kicker is that drones are expendable and, as a result, you can charge right in with drone gun blazing. That said, during the mission we watched, there was only a finite amount of drones available to Riddick and, once one went down in a hail of gunfire, Riddick simply fired up the next drone and continued on his way.

Scary enemies and big guns are no match for Riddick's skills.

Given that the demo focused entirely on the new content in the game, we didn't get a chance to re-experience Butcher Bay for the first time on the Xbox 360. What we do know is that, even though the original game is being remade in Dark Athena, game upgrades will touch on all content in the game, both old and new. One example is that AI enemies will use improved team tactics to take you down. That's in addition to the stunning graphical upgrade that the original game is getting, completely remastered audio, and user-interface improvements such as a radial weapon-selection menu. Naturally, Vin Diesel will reprise his role as Riddick, with actress Michelle Forbes (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, Al Roach: Private Insectigator) taking up the role as the captain of the Dark Athena.

When you add the fact that the content for Escape From Butcher Bay and the Assault on Dark Athena seems to be about the same length, as well as multiplayer features that the company has yet to reveal, it looks like the game will be jam-packed with features. We look forward to peeling back the new pages of Riddick's chronicles in the coming months and will keep you up to date on all of the latest developments until the game's release, due for spring 2009.

Credit:By Brian Ekberg, GameSpot