Atmosphere is a word which game reviewers love to throw around, and gamers lap it up, without too much thought. An appropriate description is that atmosphere in games is the combination of writing, visuals, and sound to create a living world around the player. Of course, you don’t need all three and sometimes if a game excels in just one of those elements it can be highly atmospheric. Bioshock 2 had a lot to live up to as the first game, which excelled in visuals, sound, and most of all writing, had an abundance of atmosphere. Unfortunately this sequel fails to live up to high expectations.

The format is near identical to the original with your character wandering around Rapture trying to make sense of what’s going on around them. In the original you fought your way through many foes before finally climbing inside the huge metal Big Daddy suit. In Bioshock 2 you are a Big Daddy throughout and this slightly cheapened the experience for me as unlike the first game I didn’t feel as though I had earned the right.
Through most of the game you find yourself alone, apart from the lunatics trying to separate your head from the rest of your body, while various voices guide you on your journey for better or worse. The original title was defined by its great twist and because of this I was paranoid all the way through. I believed everyone was out to get me, including myself. This meant that when the inevitable twist happened, which isn’t as good as the one in the first game anyway, the impact was minimal.

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What do you get when you combine Half-Life 2, the first episode of Pokemon, and a big bucket load of stupidity?

You get Garrymon.

I have no idea what’s going on, so I’m just going to leave this here.

Square Enix have revealed their UK launch event plans for Final Fantasy XIII, the eagerly awaited latest instalment in the award-winning series that has sold more than 92 million units worldwide.  Fans attending the UK launch event on 9th March will be treated to a very rare opportunity to meet both Yoshinori Kitase, the producer of the game, and Isamu Kamikokuryo, the game’s art director, who will be available to sign games and answer questions. High-profile DJ and TV presenter Alex Zane will also be entertaining fans as the MC for the event.

As an added bonus, the first 50 people to attend the signing dressed in Final Fantasy costumes will be given a free Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack and everyone who attends the launch will have the chance to win goodies.

The event will take place on the 9th of March 2010 at the Oxford Street branch of HMV in London from 5.30pm – 7:30pm, with entry being free to all.

Capcom have announced more characters that are to be included in Super Street Fighter IV when it hits us later this year, and this time it’s the turn of Street Fighter III refugees Ibuki, Makoto, and fan favorite Dudley to join the roster. This takes the total number of new characters up to 9 as the new batch join the already confirmed newcomer Juri, Dee-Jay & T-Hawk from SFII and Adon, Cody and Guy from SF Alpha.

The thing is, how often does a company add an odd number of new charcers to a game like this?  So expect a final mystery announcement sometime before the games release, especially as there is an extra mystery voiceover at the end of the announce trailer, along with what sounds like oil being poured. So another big grappler, maybe the legend that is Haggar?  We can only hope!

See screenshots of the 3 new charcters in action after the break.

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In a recent interview with the LA Times Jimi Hendrix’s stepsister, Janie, about the future of Hendrix’s music in the face of the new album of unreleased material due out later this year, “Valleys of Neptune“.  During the interview she says that a Hendrix version of Rock Band will see the light of day before the end of this year. Before you explode with joy let me slightly deflate your bubble slightly, Joystiq did the legwork and contacted Harmonix to deny or confirm this startling announcement and got this reply:-

“While we have not made any official announcements regarding Jimi Hendrix and Rock Band, we are excited to say that we are in discussions to bring more of his music to our platform. Stay tuned.”

Seems like a no brainer to tie it into the release of the new album on March 9th if you ask me, but I guess we’ll see soon.

Sources: Joystiq & LA Times

Way back at the Eurogamer Expo ’08 I stumbled across an interesting little game PC being demoed in the Indie Arcade section of the event, Beatnik games ‘Plain Sight’. Since then the game has spent the best part of 2 years going in and out of public betas, not normally a good sign for an indie game, but Beatnik have managed to pull themselves through the dark times and Plain Sight will finally see the light of day on March 22 exclusively on Steam for the very reasonable sum of $9.99.

Playing as your average ninja robot about town, you begin each game with a sword and a quantum of energy. Leaping across each level leaving a bright trail in your wake, you must destroy other ninja robots to steal their energy. As you get more energy you change colour and get bigger, stronger and brighter. This is where the catch comes in! You only get to convert your hard earned energy into game-winning points if you blow yourself up. The more opponents you take out in the explosion, the higher the multiplier, the higher the score!

Key Features:

• 13 multiplayer maps
• Battle up to 20 players
• 5 self-destructive gameplay modes, ‘Deathmatch’, ‘Ninja! Ninja! Ninja! Robozilla’, ‘Lighten Up’, ‘Team Deathmatch/Weakest Clink’ and ‘Capture The Flag’
• In-game power-ups
• 30 different robot upgrades to spend your experience points on
• Perfect your skills against AI ninja robots in the offline practice mode
• Dedicated server software included

See our full screenshot gallery after the break.

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Face it people, thanks to the crazy legal mess surrounding the rights to the N64 classic shooter GoldenEye, we’re never going to see it on Xbox Live Arcade. It’s a shame, because it’s a bloody good game, especially in multiplayer.

The good news is that Rare and Microsoft Game Studios have also realised this, and instead of going off for an emo cry they’ve decided on a rather sweet compromise – they’re bringing GoldenEye‘s weapons and maps to their upcoming XBLA release of Perfect Dark. So said Microsot Game Studios’ very own Ken Lobb in a recent interview with Kotaku, anyway.

The details are a little vague, as some of the aforementioned GoldenEye goodies were available in Perfect Dark anyway (some renamed weapons and the Facility, Temple and Complex maps), but more GoldenEye can only ever be a good thing. Now if only someone could get those crazy-ass N64 controllers working with the Xbox we could have the full experience.

(via)

Here’s a video showing off some of the insane-o thinking behind Noby Noby Boy‘s imminent iPhone release. The 3D eating-things-and-growing-long “game” by Katamari creator Keita Takahashi has proven somewhat popular on the PS3, so let’s hope the transition to the iPhone doesn’t mess everything up (apparently there’s a Katamari game on the iPhone. Did you know? No, because it sucks.)

Two more videos after the break. I’m not sure what’s going on in any of these, but I’m old and boring.

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Adventures in Sex City! This educational game tries to teach teenagers about unprotected sex and the dangers of STIs, and features a cast of characters including Captain Condom, Power Pap (wat?), Willy The Kid, and, er, Wonder Vag. Our spunky superheoes have to fight the evil Sperminator and his plan for world domination, which somehow involves infecting everyone with his evil sperm.

Oh, and he also has cocks for arms.

The questions are pretty easy for anyone who isn’t retarded, but try for some “misfires” anyway. It’ll make you feel all warm and fuzzy slimy.

This week sees Harmonix reinforce their promise to bring more genres of music to rock band as we are graced with a 5 track pack from soul legend Otis Redding, including his timeless classic “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.  That’s about where my knowledge of Mr. Redding’s songs end, but I’m assured that the other songs in the pack are hits too, including “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)”, “I’m Sick Y’all” & “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember”.

Continuing the not-rock theme this week is “Let Forever Be” from British dance legends The Chemical Brothers, Danish popsters Alphabeat with their recent hit “Fascination” and American pop-punksters All Time Low.  Luckily there is one track flying the rock flag, Brian Setzer’s interpretation of his former band, The Stray Cats, greatest hit “Stray Cat Strut”.

The Otis Redding tracks will be available as a bundle for 680/£4.39, but if that much soul doesn’t float your boat then all of this weeks track will be available individually for the usual 160/£0.99 each when they are released on Tuesday via Xbox Live and Thursday on PSN.

Full tracklisting with video links after the break.

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