Source: Kotaku

The effects of the experiments have taken their toll on Katorga 12 and its inhabitants. They’re now horrible creatures, mutated by the power of E99, and they’re coming for you. Singularity’s first impression is striking, taking influence from games such as Bioshock and Metro 2033, the world of Katorga 12 is detailed, haunting, and rich with character. Art-deco elements mixed with Red Army propaganda give Singularity a distinct look and sense of place. It’s just a shame the early environments later give way to some generic industrial warehouses. At times, the world can feel a bit contrived. Backwards R’s and N’s on your objectives give the game a “Russiany” look, I suppose, but it’s forgivable when you realize it’s all in good fun. Singularity isn’t trying to be Tolstoy, more like a Hollywood blockbuster’s Russian counterpart. Jerry Bruckheimervich, if you will. Somewhere along the way, history is altered. An evil man has seized power and taken over the world. It’s now up to Renko to travel through time to set things right.

Singularity sits on a foundation of solid first-person shooting mechanics. The ubiquitous pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle are naturally part of your arsenal but weapons which tie into the game’s time-travel motif are the standouts. The Seeker, a rifle that fires bullets you control as they travel through the air is pure masochistic fun. Other weapons like the sniper rifle have the ability to slow down time so pesky headshots are a thing of the past. In addition to the fun weaponry, Singularity relies heavily on a time mechanic afforded by the TMD or Time Manipulation Device.

Those mad Russian scientists managed to wield the power of E99 and create a handy (and portable, no less) weapon that can either turn back the wheels of time or move them forward. Use the TMD to age locks into dust allowing doors to open, turn enemies into ash, and restore broken staircases to their former selves. The time mechanics are, unfortunately, limited. It would have been nice to see more freedom in who or what you can move through time but, as it is, the game has a set library of objects that are susceptible to time manipulation. Mild puzzles are also sprinkled in for good measure but don’t go beyond simply figuring out how to traverse the environment. I felt like the time mechanics had so much potential, I wished the game had more of an emphasis on these puzzles. As the game progresses, upgrades to the TMD keep the action fresh and the game incredibly well paced. In another nod to Bioshock, the world is littered with upgrade stations which allow you to trade in currency for enhancements to yourself, your weapons, or the TMD itself. While Singularity doesn’t offer the dual-wielding of TMD and guns as Bioshock 2 did for plasmids and weapons, the action doesn’t suffer. The steady upgrades ensure that, even though you’re fighting the same enemy types throughout, the methods are constantly evolving and keep things feeling new.

As Renko leaps between the 1950s and the present, you’ll dispatch plenty of Russian soldiers along the way. The occasional boss battle against a gigantic monster keeps things leaning back into the realm of sci-fi. While these encounters offer some of the game’s more dramatic set pieces, it’s a shame they fall prey to the same “shoot-the-giant-glowing-spot” syndrome.

As a whole, Singularity isn’t a particularly long game. Most will get through it in a little under eight hours. It’s right in the sweet spot between offering just enough and overstaying its welcome. Fans of story-driven games will have a hard time putting it down. Bioshock-esque audio logs, notes, messages from the past which are rendered legible by the TMD, and a headache-inducing time twist really flesh out the narrative. In the end, a moral choice offers a variety of endings depending on which route you take. While the ending itself is interesting regardless of your choice, it was another area where the story felt contrived. None of your choices throughout the game up until that moment factor in to which ending you receive. It felt forced that suddenly the game introduced a moral choice when, all the while, you’d been doing what you thought was right.

Despite being a single-player focused game, Singularity does offer a decent multiplayer offering. While the standard deathmatch pitting human soldiers against the monsters of Katorga 12 is a fun, class-based distraction, it’s not likely to pull you away from your current online game of choice. Extermination is another game mode that, once again, pits humans versus creatures but is more objective-based. As the soldiers, it’s your duty to restore beacon points and protect them while they charge. As the monsters, it’s your job to stop them. If a team works well together, Extermination can actually get quite addictive. Soldier classes range from the typical medic, spec-op, and heavy units while the creatures offer a little more variety. The multiplayer isn’t the main draw of the game but it’s worth putting in for a weekend and seeing what it has to offer.

Singularity isn’t the most original game but it still manages to do a few things very well. The world of Katorga 12 is not the next Rapture but it’s damn close. Added to that, a time-travel mechanic, great shooting, and mind-bending story all work to shape a rich experience that’s worth seeing through to the end.

Additionally, Sony and HBO promise the rollout of shows such as The Sopranos, Sex & The City, The Wire, Rome, Da Ali G Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Flight of the Conchords.

This news comes hot on the heels of the ever-churning E3 rumor mill. Many sources are predicting Sony is set to unveil a premium Playstation Network service known as PSN+ during it’s June keynote. According to rumors, Sony will offer bonus content and perks while retaining the free-to-play online model for all users.

The features being thrown around include early access to demos, exclusive deals on Playstation Network titles, exclusive DLC, discounts on the Playstation Store, and more. Some have even speculated the PSN+ service will finally give players the ability to cross-game chat, a feature for which many have been clamoring.

While there is no known pricing, Joystiq reports a source which speculates the service could cost as much as $9.99 per month. At that rate, Sony is set to more than double the annual cost of an online service compared to Microsoft’s XboxLive Gold which costs $49.99 a year.

Source: cnet / Joystiq

Oh and the song? It’s Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead”

Bioshock 2 is set ten years after the events of the original. Much has happened since the fall of Rapture and the end of Andrew Ryan. In his place, Sofia Lamb, Ryan’s philosophical opposite, has taken over. Rather than supporting Ryan’s belief of complete independence from the system, Lamb embraces a more socialist view of uniting as one for the greater good. Her daughter Eleanor has been bound to you. As a prototype Delta unit Big Daddy that’s been separated from his Little Sister, the quest to reunite with her takes him through some of the oldest parts of Rapture. Returning to the underwater dystopia feels good and familiar, like a song you used to love or your Mom’s home cooking. My early concerns that this would somehow feel like a cheap cash-in on the Bioshock name were gone within the first few minutes once I realized the world is interesting enough to keep players content with exploring through another ten-hour experience.

Bioshock 2 addresses many of the issues contained in the first. The original was great, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t perfect. Everything in the sequel feels much more streamlined. Shooting is vastly improved. Players can now duel-wield between plasmids and firearms, making the combat far more efficient, fun, and open to experimentation. But the shooting overall, the sheer mechanics of aiming and firing, is much sharper. It feels more like a competent shooter which is, I assume, one of the reasons they added the multiplayer component— but more on that later.

As the Delta unit makes his way through Rapture, he’ll come across Little Sisters with their respective Big Daddies gathering Adam, the city’s all-powerful substance that drove people to madness. Players must defeat these “Mr. B” bodyguards and determine how to deal with the Little Sisters. The first Bioshock dabbled with the same morality structure of killing and harvesting them for a lot of Adam or saving the girls for slightly less. Depending on the player’s decision, the outcome this time around is much more than a different movie at the end of the game. In fact, Bioshock 2 encourages the adoption of the Little Sisters as the game’s best mechanic of gathering Adam was easily my favorite part of the experience.

Occasionally, Delta unit is tasked with protecting his adoptive Little Sisters as they gather Adam. During this time, Splicers, the crazed citizens of Rapture, will be attracted to the location, gunning for the girls. Fending them off, setting traps, and utilizing the game’s enhanced weaponry was addictive and, simply put, a blast to play. These horde-esque moments punctuated the action and were a fun diversion from the Bioshock formula. A strategy begins to emerge as Delta unit preps for the next Splicer onslaught, it’s great.

The game shies away from actual boss battles and with good reason. I imagine many would be hard-pressed to find people who absolutely loved the final encounter in the original Bioshock. The closest players will find to a boss in this game are the numerous run-ins with the Big Sisters. If a Big Daddy was the thing to fear in the first game, the Big Sisters are the equivalent. While not as tough as the Big Daddy seemed in the original, Big Sisters are grown up versions of Little Sisters who have taken to wearing a similar set of armor as their former bodyguards.

On the subject of difficulty, I found Bioshock 2 to be a wholly easier game than the first. Playing both games on Normal difficulty was a vastly different experience. I consider myself a moderately good player, nothing spectacular. I was surprised to see the Playstation trophy icon pop up for never using a Vitachamber (the game’s respawn system) as the credits began to roll. Meaning I never died during Bioshock 2. Whether or not other players have the same experience isn’t certain but it needs to be said that perhaps this is a more mass-market design. The game has its difficult moments, that’s for sure, but I was often so overpowered that, by the end of the game, I could take on pretty much any situation without fear of losing my progress.

Exploration has also been given a more streamlined approach. Gone is the ability to travel back to previous areas and while many will see this as a negative, at the very least it keeps the narrative moving forward. One word of advice— be sure to explore all possible areas within a level before moving on as the game moves along a train-track that only goes one way. While it feels inflexible, I myself didn’t have a need to back-track in the original Bioshock unless the game required it. The structure in Bioshock 2 is just as enjoyable. I still found myself obsessively searching every filing cabinet, every corner, and every Splicer for goodies before moving on.

Unfortunately, the environments of the game aren’t as varied to the same degree with which Bioshock fans are accustomed. The first took players to gardens, frozen fisheries, and everywhere in between. The sequel tends to exist within a lot of similar-looking offices, hotels, and apartment buildings. That’s not to say these levels look bad or were lazily conceived, it just didn’t have the same sense of variety. This could be a result of simply being a sequel and some of the magic of discovery is gone.

There are a few issues that went untouched. For the life of me, I don’t understand the need to make me tap right if I want to use a health pack. In a way, I see the strategy involved of waiting until my health gets lower before using a pack and risking death or playing it safe. But the system allows for Eve to be refilled automatically once it reaches zero if the player has a hypo available. It just seemed like an anachronistic design decision I wish had been rectified when crafting the sequel. In addition, the story of Bioshock 2 isn’t quite as strong as it could be and often feels shoe-horned into the experience.

Not only were fans hesitant to accept a sequel could be a good thing, but online multiplayer also didn’t seem to jive with some of the Bioshock diehards. But yet again Bioshock 2 surprises.

Set years before the original Bioshock timeline, the multiplayer has its own narrative, piecing together the civil war that erupted during the Ryan-Fontaine rivalry. Players can enter into a variety of multiplayer staples such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, a Little Sister-centric version of Capture the Flag, etc. In addition, the game takes cues from online heavyweights and incorporates a leveling-up system with perks and better weapons.The online is a fun distraction worthy of a long weekend. It isn’t going to replace player’s online standbys like Battlefield Bad Company or Modern Warfare but once players are dropped into a game throwing plasmids and shooting at fellow Rapturians, it can be a lot of fun.

Overall, Bioshock 2 is full of surprises. In many ways, the streamlined structure, improved gameplay mechanics, and faithful double-dip into Rapture paid off. The pacing is pitch-perfect, allowing me to even consider it to be the superior game over the original. While I wish some moments had been retooled to allow for greater difficulty, the game is not without some challenge and the harder modes only encourage the brave to play through it again. I realize I’m probably in the minority when I say that I prefer Bioshock 2 to the original but, story aside, it’s a better game in terms of mechanics and on the whole a far more enjoyable experience.

Heavy Rain innovates in a number of ways. Not just in terms of trying to tell a mature story in a videogame- it defies certain tropes of the medium. For example, characters can die in Heavy Rain, permanently. Unlike most games, when a character falls into a pit, gets shot, or gets eaten by the monster, the people of Heavy Rain don’t come back. If Norman Jayden dies during his investigation, he stays dead. There is no reset, there is no game over, there is no ‘Try Again’. The game employs an auto-save system to ensure player’s decisions stay that way. The story simply moves on and adapts to the change. While it is technically possible to go back and try things differently, players who do this are not just belittling the bold step taken by Quantic Dream, they’re doing themselves a disservice. Simply embrace what happens, take the good with the bad, and enjoy the ride. Remember, there is no right or wrong way for the story to unfold.

While it plays with the conventions of game design in that regard, Heavy Rain also does something with storytelling entirely unique to videogames. In films or novels, the story is the same no matter how many times it’s experienced. Being an interactive form of storytelling, videogames have the ability to change depending on how players interact with them. The story of Heavy Rain is set with a series of branching paths. Decisions made, characters lost, clues uncovered, these factors all add up to craft an experience that differs for each player.

Anyone who has played Quantic Dream’s previous game Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in North America) is already a little bit familiar with the controls of Heavy Rain. While there is far less emphasis on quick-time events (QTE, for short) the controls and button prompts are an evolution of that idea. Fight scenes and action sequences are punctuated with timed button prompts. If a character is careening down the highway or chasing a thug through a crowded market, button prompts will appear periodically. But the prompts are often meant to mirror or, in some way, be a close facsimile of the action occurring on-screen. If you take the example of running through the crowded market- flicking up on the right-stick, when prompted, will cause the character to jump onto the counter, press O to dodge the object being thrown at you, etc. The action plays out like an interactive cut-scene. Players don’t control the scene but the button presses guide the action. Fail to press one of the buttons and the character slips, falls down, or gets hit by the object. However, that’s not something entirely new to videogames. What is fresh is the way in which the developers use the buttons of the controller to convey a sense of urgency or tense emotion.

Often, players are tasked with holding down a series of buttons for a prolonged sequence. It’s usually used to convey the difficulty of what’s occurring on the screen. For example, early in the game, a character must walk up a slippery, muddy hill. A series of buttons must be held down as he makes his way up. It’s often like playing a game of Twister for your hands and just when you think you can’t hold on, they add another button. Usually, these sequences aren’t too taxing but the mechanic does get more challenging during certain parts of the game. It’s a simple design choice yet one that’s never been used so effectively.

However, not everything in Heavy Rain controls they way it’s supposed to. The developers made some odd choices when it comes to moving the characters around the environment. During the non-cinematic, free-roam segments, when players actually direct the characters, the controls are a bit unconventional. Holding R2 moves them forward in whichever direction they’re facing while the left-stick directs their gaze. Turn the character’s head to the left and they’ll turn and start walking that direction. Unfortunately, it feels very awkward. As I played the game, I was hoping that, by the end, I’d get used to the controls and would understand the decision. That didn’t happen. Even by the end of the game, I was still getting my characters turned around and frustrated when they didn’t go where I wanted them too. In a game with such high presentation standards, the hackneyed controls often broke the illusion of the storytelling, reminding me that, yes, I am playing a videogame.

Speaking of presentation, Heavy Rain’s production values set a high standard. Character models, particularly those of the main characters, are beautifully detailed and motion-captured realistically. It’s not often a review points out the motion capture work in a game, however, Quantic Dream took great efforts to stage out these scenes and the hard work has paid off. While occasionally falling into the uncanny valley, the world of Heavy Rain is gorgeous and, at times, incredibly lifelike. The story is set against a musical score that, like any great film soundtrack, reenforces the story and pulls all of the elements together. While the game looks amazing, the audio- particularly the voice acting- is a mixed bag.

While many characters sound believable, some of the actors portraying them are clearly working with English as a second language. In a story centered on the “Origami Killer” it was a little troubling to hear so many people unable to properly pronounce the word “Origami”. Again, in a game with such high production values and such an emphasis on creating a dramatic experience, it was disappointing to hear. None of it is a deal-breaker, it’s just odd when many of the supposedly American characters are voiced by people with French accents.

Yet, none of these quirks were remotely close enough to keep me from enjoying the game. Heavy Rain’s charm comes by way of many little moments, strung together, to create something wonderful. There’s a scene deep into the game, as Madison Paige, players must enter a nightclub- The Blue Lagoon. The mystery is building, the stakes are getting higher. Madison enters the club, the music is overpowering, lights are flashing, and the club is full of people. This isn’t a nightclub from any other game, it’s entirely believable. There aren’t five people in the club dancing, there’s close to a hundred. The scene is so engrossing, it’s here that players realize- they have arrived in an experience unlike anything that’s come before. Nothing incredibly dramatic has happened but there’s a powerful, tangible effect. Other moments like this are more thoughtful, more tender. Taking care of a baby in one scene- feeding it, changing it, rocking it to sleep. Again, other scenes may offer something far more frightening. These are the parts that build this world of interactive drama and make it something truly remarkable. The game has its flaws but players willing to overlook them will be given an innovative, exciting, even haunting experience.

The PS2 has gone down in history as the best selling console of all time. Selling more than 140 million units worldwide, the PS2 is a sales juggernaut, a phenomenon that, in such a young industry, has almost no means of comparison. Considering Sony was up against seasoned industry darlings Nintendo and Sega, the PS2 was a success beyond anyone’s imagination.

The Sega Dreamcast famously launched on 9/9/99, almost a full year before the PS2. Likewise, the Nintendo 64 had already been out since 1996, with the Gamecube still a year away from release. Yet despite the competition, Sony’s console sequel broke through and changed gaming forever. It’s amazing to consider that, even after ten years on the market, the PS2 still charts in Japan above newer hardware like the PSP-Go.

Kotaku recently asked its readers to take a photo of their PS2. Some were in storage bins, some in closets, but many were still hooked up to their TVs, going strong. For younger gamers, the PS2 was the first console with which they made some of their greatest gaming memories. For others, some PS2 games represent the high-water mark for creativity and imagination. Games like ICO, Katamari Damacy, Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 3, Grand Theft Auto III, Kingdom Hearts, God of War, the list goes on and on.

What are some of your favorite PS2 memories? Post them in a comment below.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - March 2nd

MLB 10: The Show - March 2nd

Major League Baseball 2k10 – March 2nd

Final Fantasy XIII - March 9th

Resident Evil 5 Alternative Edition - March 9th

Yakuza 3 – March 9th

Mega Man 10 – March 11th

Resonance of Fate – March 16th

Prison Break: The Conspiracy – March 16th

MotoGP 09/10 – March 16th

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening – March 16th

God of War III – March 16th

Just Cause 2 – March 23rd

How to Train your Dragon – March 23rd

Clash of the Titans – March 26th

Grand Thefto Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, The Ballad of Gay Tony, The Lost and Damned – March 30th

Resident Evil 5 was first unleashed on gamers in March of 2009. Almost a year later, Capcom is giving players another reason to re-enter the world of survival horror. Love it or hate it, Resident Evil 5 was a more action-oriented experience rather than a return to the series’ trademark horror stylings. The DLC pack “Lost in Nightmares” is a much-welcomed return to the franchise’s roots now available through the Playstation Network and XboxLive. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine are back in a creepy mansion, looking to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and it’s founder, Ozwell E. Spencer. The episode is a closer look at a side-story only glimpsed in a cutscene during Resident Evil 5.

The setting is a complete dose of nostalgia. Capcom has taken special care to bring the original game’s Arclay Mountain mansion into the current generation. Every turn creates another feeling of deja vu. It doesn’t feel recycled or lazy in any way, quite the contrary. It feels more like wearing your favorite pair of jeans or eating your favorite meal. Even though you may have experienced something like it before it feels familiar and, for a die-hard Resident Evil fan, it’s good to be back.

Jill and Chris explore the mansion looking for Spencer, running into various puzzles and some recognizable death-traps. It’s not a very long experience, most players will be able to complete the episode in a little more than an hour but it’s a great ride while it lasts. The developers behind Resident Evil have proven they still have what it takes to create a new, horrifying creature. Lurking beneath the estate is a new enemy, a giant monstrosity dragging some kind of large anchor, waiting to impale Chris and Jill at a moment’s notice. While the duo start off with a small arsenal, they are quickly stripped of their weapons, which really heightens the tension.Moves like this- pitting players against these hulking enemies, in a dungeon without conventional weapons, is genius. It forces players to work cooperatively with their partner to trap them. Not only that, it keeps the sense of terror alive in a series where too much firepower has taken away all the scares.

Lost in Nightmares stumbles a bit when players complete the chapter and realize there wasn’t a whole lot to do. The time spent exploring is almost entirely devoid of enemies, in fact there are only about ten or so apart from a boss battle. It felt like there were some missed opportunities. At one point, Chris is walking down a hallway lit by flashes of lightning. Dogs can be heard outside. In typical Resident Evil fashion, I was expecting something to come crashing through the windows but, to my dismay, nothing happened. There were a lot of moments like this where I kept wishing there were more enemies, zombified or not, to dispatch.

As I said before, the time spent in the mansion is short. However, it is spent going through a nostalgia-inducing good time and, for under $5.00, it’s an incredible deal. The DLC also comes with additional trophies/achievements as well as new characters for the Mercenaries mode, Excella Gionne and fan-favorite Barry Burton. Series purists are likely to declare this is what next-gen Resident Evil should have been from the start. While I wish the episode were longer, it’s definitely given me more hope for the next RE installment and I’m eagerly awaiting the next DLC, “Desperate Escape” coming in March. Both DLC packs will also come with the “Gold Edition” of Resident Evil 5, set to release this Spring.
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Thursday, February 11th, Playstation 3 owners will have access to a demo of Heavy Rain via the Playstation Network. The demo contains two scenarios. The first, a brief encounter with Scott Shelby, a grizzled Private Detective straight out of Raymond Chandler. The second stars Norman Jayden, an FBI agent with a penchant for using drugs and futuristic investigative gadgetry. Having played through the demo I can safely say my interest in this game has definitely been piqued.

The game is, in a word, gorgeous. Environments are detailed and carry a weight of authenticity. There’s a layer of grime that permeates this world and makes it wholly believable. Likewise, the character models are incredibly lifelike. Great graphics are one thing but the story is what really drives the game forward. Despite the fact that the demo moves scenes out of context, the narrative is still there and, like a good book, I’m excited to curl up with this game, maybe on a rainy weekend, and just get completely absorbed by it. The demo does, however, bring about a few concerns.

As I played through the Scott Shelby scenario, questioning a prostitute regarding the death of her son, I became aware of a few of Heavy Rain’s quirks. First, the controls. While fans of Quantic Dream’s previous work, Indigo Prophecy (Farenheit in Europe) will be familiar with the QTE-like (Quick Time Event) contextual controls, my gripes came from moving the characters through the environment. Since many of the context-sensitive motions are done via the right analog stick, the developers have made the R2 button an all-purpose ‘move forward button’. The direction of the character is determined by the left analog stick. It feels clunky and while I understand the developer’s decision to do it, it’s something I know I’ll have get used to.

Another issue I had was in regards to the voice acting. Quantic Dream is based in France and the voice work proves it as many of the actors are clearly French people doing their best to sound American. In a game with such cinematic flair, it took me out of the experience to hear French voice actors doing their best to cover up an accent. It just doesn’t always sound like an authentic American voice. It’s certainly not a deal breaker. In fact, the game has options to play it entirely in French. I took the French audio for a spin, turned on the English subtitles, and played the demo as I imagine many people at Quantic Dream might. It was certainly enjoyable and worth a try for curiosity’s sake if not for anything else.

In the end, these issues are likely to be very minor ones. The game, as a whole, is attempting to movie the medium into a new direction. While I won’t know for sure until I sit down and play the whole thing, it’s safe to say this demo has made me eager to find out what happens next. Expect a full review when Heavy Rain releases exclusively for the Playstation 3 on February 23rd, 2010.