by Tom Chick
Electronic Arts has given over the Command & Conquer franchise to an always-online, MMO scheme of leveling up to unlock content, which can work in a shooter, a role-playing game, or Scientology. But it's a fundamental misreading of the appeal of real-time strategy games. The basis for an RTS is that you have a box of different toys. Each game, you choose different toys. Do you go with tanks? Infantry? Aircraft? Your choice, pitted against the other player's choice, determines how the game unfolds. But when you start Command & Conquer 4, your choices are limited to about a fifth of the actual content. Leveling up is a slow laborious process. Expect to spend several hours fingering listlessly through the meager baseline stuff. Vanilla tank. Vanilla rocket buggy. Vanilla anti-tank soldier. Skirmishes against the A.I. and online games can inch you along that bar to the next level. The campaign is a big, fat, uninteresting experience point farm, and you're expected to play through it twice, once for each faction. You get the usual scripted guff, which is particularly frustrating when you have to play the more difficult missions at the mercy of A.I. teammates or -- even worse -- a timer. The story throws over the series' usual, B-level celebrity camp in favor of something earnest, but it doesn't work any better. It's clearly digging deep into its source material, so it's not going to make a lot of sense to folks who haven't kept up on the lore. Me, for instance. At one point, Kane says something along the lines of "when I found you people thousands of years ago, you were living in mud huts". Aside from having no idea what he was going on about, he really doesn't look that old. As near as I could tell, the story was about a one-of-a-kind Lasik procedure and some unlikely cosmetic surgery. Go figure.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.18.10
by IGN Staff
A new LOTR game is announced, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is selling millions, and Final Fight: Double Impact is dated for XBLA and PSN.
Podcast Beyond, Episode 129
by IGN Staff
GDC is over, and Beyond must go on.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.17.10
by IGN Staff
Peace Walker get's a release date later than expected, Skate 3 and Kane & Lynch 2 are also dated, and could we see an Xbox 360 Slim?
Three Red Lights Podcast Episode 138
by IGN Staff
A new voice joins the crew.
IGN_Strategize Video Podcast - Final Fantasy XIII - Character Guide
by IGN Staff
Get the most out of your characters in FFXIII.
Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising Review
by Kat Bailey
Dawn of War II was one of the more under-appreciated games of 2009, and that's a shame. The shift from large-scale tactics to a smaller, more personal outlook was an interesting development for the genre, and it worked well because developer Relic did a great job of fleshing out the concept with a wide array of loot and customizable units. But alas, it seemed to drop off the mainstream radar a month or so after its release. Now, though, it's time to make amends. Chaos Rising is an excellent DOWII expansion that rectifies many of the original's flaws. But even if you don't know anything about the Warhammer universe, it's a great strategy title that more than merits your attention.
Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver Review
by Justin Haywald
Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver is not in any way a new game. This latest from Nintendo is simply a re-release of the classic Game Boy game, Pokémon Gold/Silver; a port with shiny new graphics and all of the new Wi-Fi and multiplayer trappings of Diamond/Pearl. But any Pokémon collector knows that if you're still not playing these games, you're missing out on one of the most addictive RPGs available. HeartGold/SoulSilver doesn't do much new, but it does make the familiar formula feel polished to perfection. For full disclosure, I did not completely finish this game. I cleared the first area, Johto, but barely scratched the surface of Kanto. The sheer scope of the game is one of the things that made it so terrific back in 2000 and that makes it equally great today. You not only have one massive world to explore, with a full set of trainers and eight badges, but when you beat them, you also open up the entire world from the original game (or the FireRed/LeafGreen world, for those whose memory doesn't stretch back quite so far).
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.16.10
by IGN Staff
God Of War 3 out in stores, Splinter Cell: Conviction is getting a demo, & Arkham Asylum is going 3D.
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Review
by Thierry Nguyen
Let me tell you right now: Justice is "that one BioWare NPC" in Dragon Age: Origins -- Awakening. You know who I mean; how in every BioWare game one of your party members utterly breaks out to become a bizarre and awesome character. For the Baldur's Gate franchise, it was Minsc, the insane ranger. For Knights of the Old Republic, it was the sociopathic assassin droid HK-47. For Mass Effect, it was Wrex, the talking dinosaur wielding a shotgun, and for Mass Effect 2, it seems to be Mordin, the singing scientist. For the original Dragon Age: Origins, it was the curious golem Shale, and so for Awakening, it's definitely the ghost-from-another-dimension-trapped-within-a-medieval-badass's-body, Justice. Besides introducing another great character to the Short List of Badass BioWare NPCs, Awakening adds five other party members (two per class total, and only one is a returning character from Origins); an increased level cap; several skills, specializations, and talents for said level cap; additional items (and tiers that indicate quality; Origins stopped at Tier 7, and you can now have Tier 9 items); new enemy types (including monsters that look like a cross between giant spiders and the monsters from Critters); and a 20-25 hour campaign. It's basically the Dragon Age 1.5 that you knew you'd be getting, as opposed to a, "you expected Dragon Age 2 but actually get Dragon Age 1.5" situation.
Perfect Dark XBLA Review
by Scott Sharkey
Either you've played Perfect Dark before, or you haven't. Most readers who find their way here probably have, and the ones who haven't, well, you'll probably need some serious convincing to play a decade-old game that pretty cheerfully ignores the innovations the FPS genre gained from games like, say, Half-Life, and came out on a console that wasn't exactly known as the cutting edge of graphical holyshit-osity. For that first bunch it's really easy to say, yeah, with the HD upgrade Perfect Dark on XBLA looks every bit as good as you remember it. Which, if you actually pop in the cart these days, you'll realize is a hell of a lot better than it actually looked back in the day. Between the replaced textures and multiplayer over Live (in splitscreen, no less) this is a great way to re-enjoy a game you already love. It deserves that love. You should be proud to love it. More so now that it's been touched up without losing a single bit of its original character. On the other hand, Perfect Dark is old as hell and likely to alienate anyone who cut their teeth on games that came after. If you're one of those people...I'm sorry, but I'll be damned if I can think of a reason to say that this is kind of a major gap in your videogaming experience that you absolutely have to go back and fill in. Unlike some other genres, most first-person shooters are pretty far from timeless. We can't look back on, say, Tetris, and think, "Man, this would be way the hell better with snappier graphics, more block shapes, and an epic storyline that makes us question the nature of our humanity or whatever."
Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast Episode 69
by IGN Staff
Craig and his cohorts jump into the recording booth for some Nintendo (Sony) chat.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.15.10
by IGN Staff
Modern Warfare 2's pricey map pack, Crackdown 2 gets a release date, Insomniac goes multiplatform, and our Giveaway Winner.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.12.10
by IGN Staff
360 wins the month of February, new Mass Effect 2 DLC in April, New Deus Ex unveiled , and our Friday Giveaway!
Yakuza 3 Review
by Eric Neigher
Legend has it that the term "yakuza" derives from the classic Japanese card game hanafuda. Of the many combinations of cards you can draw as a hand, the worst is eight-nine-three -- pronounced, in an old dialect of Japanese, "ya-ku-za." In order to win the game with such a hand, you would need a combination of trickery, luck, and courage -- qualities that the gangsters who took the name as their own held in high esteem. Despite being the worst of society, they would use those strengths to attain power, wealth, and respect. Centuries later, the U.S. version of Sega's Yakuza 3 has been dealt an equally bad hand. Released without several of the features of its Japanese counterpart, Yakuza 3's Western release has generated enough nerd rage to intimidate the Incredible Hulk, and has suffered from a bungled, half-assed marketing effort that has failed to engage anyone beyond the series' cult following. Nevertheless -- and pay attention now, because this is important -- Yakuza 3 has what it takes to overcome the hype and go down as one of the PS3's all-time great titles, but only if you will give it a chance.
MLB 10: The Show Review
by Andrew Fitch
In videogames, just as in sports, competition's really the key to success. When you've got a rival challenging your every move, you're simply a lot more motivated to get the job done right. The year-to year competition with Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer helped propel EA's FIFA series to worldwide success as the top footballing sim, while many observers feel that Madden hasn't shown the same innovation since the NFL 2K franchise bit the dust. Last year, MLB: The Show faced competition in theory, but against a buggy, broken MLB 2K9 -- one of the worst baseball releases in history -- it wasn't much of a contest. And that might have lulled Sony into a false sense of security -- while MLB 10: The Show is still the baseball sim to beat, the competition's certainly much closer this year. For example, while I didn't personally experience any game-breaking bugs in The Show's franchise mode, some users have reported issues such as randomly completed trades and crashes in specific stadiums. I simmed the first half of my franchise season in order to speed things along and noticed some curious results myself: At the All-Star break, real-life San Francisco Giants ace (and the Cy Young winner two years running) Tim Lincecum stood at 2-10 with an ERA over 5, while underachieving Barry Zito had laughably transformed into the ace of the staff at 10-3, with an ERA well below 3. Maybe The Show just hates Lincecum for gracing the cover of MLB 2K9?
IGN UK Podcast #25
by IGN Staff
Recorded before a live studio audience.
Presented By:
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.11.10
by IGN Staff
Sony unveils their motion controller, Gran Turismo 5 out this year, Monkey Island 2 gets a remake.
IGN_Strategize Video Podcast: Final Fantasy XIII
by IGN Staff
Basic combat and paradigm role strategies in FFXIII.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.10.10
by IGN Staff
OnLive is fully unveiled, new Modern Warfare 2 map-packs are set to hit the 360, a new Battlestar MMO, and Street Fighter comes to iPhone.
Scrap Metal Review
by Eric Neigher
Banging things into other things has been a major form of entertainment since the pilot episode of "Caveman Jackass" back in 20,000 B.C. There's just something endlessly appealing about controlled destruction. So, if you're stupefied by slaughter, dumbfounded by demolition, and enthralled by evisceration, you're sure to be tickled by Slick Entertainment's new XBLA title, Scrap Metal. Sitting somewhere between a straight-up arcade action title and a lightweight racing sim, Scrap Metal has drawn comparisons to Rare's R.C. Pro-Am -- but the similarity to that old classic is mostly skin deep. Really, Scrap Metal's casual-game veneer hides a robust (if somewhat overly sensitive) physics engine, more levels than a Byzantine ziggurat, and a grip of imaginative set pieces. Both multiplayer (Scrap Metal offers local and online) and single-player are challenging without being too intense, offer plenty of tweaking without being overly detailed, and feature charmingly over-the-top graphics.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.09.10
by IGN Staff
Final Fantasy XIII is finally here, Harmonix announces Rock Band 3, learn to play REAL instruments in a new music game, and we debut the final new fighter in Super Street Fighter 4.
Command Prompt Podcast, Episode 78
by IGN Staff
Everything we know about Civilization V.
Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast Episode 68
by IGN Staff
Sexy Levi Buchanan lends his voice for this week's episode.
Game Scoop! Podcast, Episode 155
by IGN Staff
A Super Fan joins us to chat about the Activision/Infinity Ward debacle and GDC.
Daily Fix Video Podcast: 3.05.10
by IGN Staff
Portal 2 confirmed by Valve, the iPad hits stores this April, a possible Sony iPad killer, and enter for a chance to win C&C4 for PC.
Game Scoop! TV Video Podcast: IGNSolved Mysteries: Activision vs. Infinity Ward
by IGN Staff
IGNSolved Mysteries: WTF is going on at Activision & Infinity Ward?
