Shortly after Microsoft announced their new "Project Natal" the rumour mill started churning away about the possibility of a new Xbox sooner than we were originally thinking. Rumours suggest that a new updated console may appear even as soon as 2010 to coincide with the launch of Natal. This is somewhat contrary to the information which 360 fans received not that long ago talking about extending the Xbox 360's lifespan until 2015. It would seem that this new Xbox would be more of an upgrade than a full new console and has been described by IGN as "presenting a similar generation leap as that witnessed from Nintendo's GameCube to the Wii". While Natal and this new Xbox model will probably come in the form of a huge box full of gaming delight it is possible that we may see some kind of new hybrid incorporating the Xbox and Natal into a single unit. Predictably, Microsoft has refused to comment on mere speculation but I've decided to attempt to predict what sort of upgrades that we might be likely to see in this updated package: 1 Terabyte HDD (1,000 GB) - Rumours suggest that we will soon see the release of hard drives up in this region for the 360. This will be great once Xbox Live rolls out the sky player later on this year. Microsoft has mentioned that features of the Xbox will be included in this setup so we could soon see recording TV onto your 360 as "the norm" which would be great.
Gigabit networking - It only makes sense to see an upgrade to a Gigabit Ethernet connection on the 360 as standard. The PS3 has had it since launch and it’s time the 360 made the step as well in this media rich world society that we live in. Included media remote - Possibly, whilst it might make many people happy to use with Sky player, Microsoft would probably rather their customers used Natal to navigate their media.
Graphics/Processor upgrade - Who knows, it would be great to see some improved anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing but this may or may not be improved until the next major console release.
Whatever they may do, it has been stated various times that there will be no need to upgrade current consoles to be able to use Natal. However, myself like many people may find themselves tempted to upgrade to a bigger hard drive in preparation of what is coming soon especially if like me you still only have a 20 GB hard drive console model. I can’t help but feel it would be worth trading to the newer model if it lives up to the anticipation, especially with the extended life duration of the Xbox 360. What do you think this upgraded Console will sport when it arrives?
This week I've made the choice to introduce an ongoing series of 60 second reviews. These quick reviews of games will normally cover cheaper titles that have been out for some time, and are a good buy for little cash. I will attempt to be brief in these reviews to give a basic impression of what the game is like and if it is worth your cash or not. To start off the series of 60 second reviews, farcry 2 seemed like as good a place as any.
Far Cry 2 is quite a shift from the initial outing, taking place instead in Africa this time around. Whilst continuing the open world setup of the first one, Far Cry 2 introduces various side quests alongside the main story line to have you exploring the jungle to find a series of diamonds which can be then used to upgrade and unlock extra weapons (and some achievements).There are also plenty of nice touches such as ammo stashes which can be shot to cause bullets to fly in all directions taking out nearby enemies, and being able to look at the map you hold whilst driving to check where you are going. Sadly it lacks that certain something to keep you playing for any lengthy amount of time even with the nice graphics and good AI. If you aren't a massive fan of the genre I would give this one a miss. Not as good as the first but ok.
What it is:
Good fun fighting through the jungle where people want you dead at every turn
Rarely these days do I pick up a game for the purpose of purely having fun. Myself like many others these days find themselves being lured in by over inflated hype from the fan boys, corporate types, and the promise of some new and shiny achievements to add to their growing collection.
With the video game market bloated with sandbox world action these days picking out a gem can be increasingly difficult, but I can say I have at least found a gem encrusted nugget that comes this time in the form of Prototype from Radical Entertainment. It is clear that their previous experimentation with various titles which have missed the mark such as the Hulk titles and The Simpsons Hit and Run has helped the developers in refining their approach to such a game. Fortunately, compared to these previous games I can say that they have produced something worthy of your time and maybe money.
Our hero (or anti-hero I should be saying) goes by the name of Alex Mercer, who awakens in the morgue with no memory of who he is and more importantly, crazy cool shape shifting and consuming abilities! From here the games takes the player through various plot twists and turns as you discover the truth behind the outbreak of the infection that is sweeping New York City and the circumstances surrounding how Alex came to be as he is. To get to the bottom of the mystery, you will be using the included "Web of Intrigue" to piece together various people's memories to form a final picture of whats is going on. Though this does help in understanding various peoples roles in the situation, it can leave you feeling muddled until you obtain certain other memories. It can be argued that this drives the player to go and consume other important targets and to further explore the city.
Whilst Alex doesn't initially have all that many abilities at his disposal, given a short amount of time it is possible to be launching from roof to roof with the greatest of ease. I was sure to get my hands on the glide ability as quickly as I could to chain together my running around the city. Not only was this beneficial for my free running antics but also helped in various missions and side events which you can partake in to gain additional experience points (which I will revisit in a moment). You do get some time at the start of the game before the infection really kicks off, which is a great chance to get a feel for the layout of the city. The developers went to considerable effort in developing the game to get the layout of New York right, and you can feel that at least most of the time when you are adventuring around using your parkour abilities to flip between taxis in time square which is a pretty sweet feeling.
The game quickly kicks things up a notch however with the infection spreading and the arrival of the military to put it down, and you. The city is quickly falling into chaos around you and you are only interested in getting to the bottom of what has happened to you. I loved how one minute you will be running down a street weaving between cars only to be mowing through waves of infected only several minutes later when you enter areas of the city which are home to hives. These hives can be destroyed in the same way that military bases can be for good amounts of EP that can be spent to unlock new abilities and improve the ones you already have unlocked. These abilities range from upgrades to your jumping and speed to the various offensive abilities. These include claws for hands, huge pile-driver fists and a large slicing blade. There are of course others as well but I will leave these to you to find out about.
If guns and tanks are more your thing then you will be equally happy as you can use weapons ranging from rifles to grenade launchers which are effective at taking down military helicopters at extended ranges. These helicopters can also be piloted along with the other various vehicles in the game that you would want to cause some serious mayhem with. Whilst on this point, the game does offer semi-destructable environments and whilst you shouldn't be expecting anything like the destruction that comes with the Geo-Mod engine used in Red Faction you can still expect to be blowing up the odd building. It would have been fantastic to see the Geo-Mod 2 engine used in this game as it really would have kicked things into overdrive.
Whilst this game will not be defining anything about the genre or breaking new ground, it does provide some solid fun for a few days depending on how solidly you play it. The draw distance is not brilliant, more on-par with the last generation of consoles than this which is a shame when the cut scenes look pretty awesome. The game does get somewhat repetitive at times having you complete fairly similar missions, infiltrating yet another military base to consume another target and so on. Also the game length is pretty average for these days. We can hope however that there will be some downloadable content in the works as the game seems to have proven a hit from the sales it has received so far. Where this game really shines is in the gameplay which is fluid and great fun and I can’t stress this enough. I thought that I would be regretting ordering the game from the reviews that I read commenting on similar issues but I was looking forward to getting my hands on it quite a lot and I wasn’t disappointed.
If you loved Crackdown and the freedom that it gave and don't plan on picking up inFAMOUS any time soon for the PS3, I can safely recommend you will have a good few hours of your life literally consumed by this game.
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