Swashbucklers: Blue vs. Grey

Mix the Wild West with the high seas and you get Swashbucklers: Blue vs. Grey, an action adventure game about pirates during the Civil War. However, the gameplay isn't as innovative as this offbeat premise, considering that Russian developer TM Studios has just duplicated Sid Meier's take on buccaneering from his Pirates! Games, right down to the arcade minigames. There isn't any amusement to be found in the derivative, go-through-the-motions gameplay that mimics a vastly superior predecessor. Ancient production values boast nonstop loading screens and outdated graphics, all of which nicely hammers home the bottom-drawer philosophy behind this second-rate rip-off.

Nevertheless, there are enough interesting aspects to the story to make you wish that Swashbucklers had been more ambitious with its gameplay. You take the role of Abraham Gray, a pirate plying his trade in the Caribbean and along the southeastern seaboard of the United States during the Civil War. Dropping the usual 16th-17th century piratical escapades for a more modern era is a great idea, especially given how the game dresses up the period with cowboy touches. Gray dresses more like a Texas Ranger than a buccaneer from Havana, what with his beat-up cowboy hat and twirling six-guns. City ports look like refugees from an old oat opera as well, with dirt streets, sheriffs' offices, and saloons. Another nifty touch is Gray's mental state. He's a schizophrenic who hears voices, which comes in handy when this hallucinatory alter ego provides tips on how to play the game. Not much is made of this during play, although the concept is at least an interesting way to handle the pop-up instructions provided during game tutorials.
Depressingly, that's about it for the positives. For starters, everything about Swashbucklers screams bargain bin. The PS2 version's visuals are dated across the board, although they at least look comparatively better to other games on this system than the PC version does compared with similar games on that platform. However, graphical elements of the game are often repeated, which means that every port features the same dirt streets and the same sheriff's department. Every section of the game needs to be loaded, too, despite the dated look and content. Most loads are nearly instantaneous, but they still break up the flow with continual screen fade-outs and transition screens. A comic-book vibe to the visual flair makes the archaic stuff a bit more tolerable, but you're still playing a game that looks as if it came out five years ago. Furthermore, the interface is a bit clunky, although at least its big "designed for a TV set" style is more at home here than it is in the PC edition of the game.
Audio is an even bigger advertisement for yesteryear. Presumably to avoid the costs involved with recording dialogue and then translating it for different markets, characters in Swashbucklers grunt conversations like angry, drunken versions of the adults in Peanuts cartoons. Unfortunately, this half-baked attempt at simlish doesn't work here, given that you're trying to make sense of a storyline, not groove on the cutesiness of virtual dolls expressing emotions without uttering any intelligible words. You can't get much out of this grunting, either, because it all sounds like a cross between a snore and a belch. Thankfully, there are captions for all of this snorted dialogue, so you can ignore these annoying noises and just read your way through conversations while listening to the pretty good Wild West-style musical score.
It's a pity that you can't similarly disregard the gameplay. This is a clone of Pirates! in every imaginable way, but without the depth and sense of fun that permeated that 2005 remake. Character development has some role-playing game aspects, although they're pretty rudimentary. You level up fairly quickly, but can apply the points gained to only three skills: fencing, shooting, and defense. Perks that provide special melee attacks, defense bonuses, and the like can also be chosen, which gives you at least a little more freedom to build a character. Regardless, there isn't enough choice here to let you really customize Gray. The arcade-style combat is equally straightforward on both terra firma and on the high seas.

Gamepad controls are much more fluid than the mouse-and-keyboard interface in the PC version of Swashbucklers, so you're better able to handle the fast-paced combat on the console. However, there isn't much depth to battles here regardless of the control method used. Gray is an expert swordsman with the skill to slash gangs of opponents to ribbons, and the vessels at his command are able to rip off cannon fire at Gatling-gun speeds. It's only when dueling enemy captains at the conclusion of boarding sequences that you're required to do any thinking, and this really just requires you to pace yourself by taking breathers every now and again or blocking nonstop as you run out of energy.
Quests are generally pretty basic delivery runs where you drop off supplies, hand over prisoners, sink vessels, and so on. There is little interaction with non-player characters, and no need to fuss around with loading ships or dumping off cargo. Consequently, with the many Fed Ex quests you simply land in a port, talk to someone to accept a job, sail to another port, and talk to someone about taking your delivery. Wash, rinse, repeat. You can make cash on the side by auctioning off captured vessels, or by running goods from one port to another and doing the old buy-low, sell-high thing. But there isn't any strategy here because the auctions are conducted automatically, and the prices for cargo remain static even when you're buying up tons of stock. You know you've got a pretty simplified market system when it doesn't even recognize basic supply and demand.
Earning money from ship-selling and trading isn't really necessary, either, given that you can make just about all of the cash that you want by taking on all comers in the boxing minigame on offer in various ports' bars. This is a bare-fisted version of the captain duel described above that is incredibly easy to win. All you have to do is pound away for a few rounds and occasionally pepper your opponent with a roundhouse special attack to walk away with as much as a thousand bucks.
If you're looking to recreate the Pirates! experience, just replay that fantastic game. Don't bother with this dull copy unless you've got a fetish for mentally ill buccaneers.

By Brett Todd, GameSpot

Wipeout Pulse Hands-On Impressions

Studio Liverpool is no stranger to the Wipeout franchise, having created 2005's well-received Wipeout Pure, a game that helped the PlayStation Portable establish a foothold in the handheld market. Two years on and Liverpool is back at it again with a new game for the PSP: Wipeout Pulse. We got some early hands-on time with the new title and took it out for a thrash in anticipation of the game's December global release.
Just in case you're new to the series, Wipeout is a futuristic driving game with high-speed antigravity vehicles which race above increasingly convoluted tracks--usually accompanied by a thumping dance soundtrack. Regardless of what kind of racer you are--whether your penchant is time trials, competitive AI slog-fests in the single-player campaign, or just blowing stuff up--Pulse seems to have all the major bases covered. Several different modes are available to play, including head-to-head, which sees you and another AI-controlled competitor race to be first past the post. There's also the obligatory time trial mode that lets you race the clock and break your own personal best times. Then there are speed laps, which are almost identical to time trials except that you receive one "boost" power-up per lap to be used at your discretion. Speed laps also allow you to do up to seven laps of the same circuit per attempt, and experience tells us that even on well-known venues, the last few tend to be your best as you Zen out and hit the perfect amount of airbrake per corner.
Zone and eliminator make up the last two modes. In the case of eliminator, players will try to destroy fellow drivers' rides while staying on course and protecting themselves from attacks. Zone is much like a crossover between speed lap and time trial mode in that you race it solo and without power-ups, but you race for as long as you can survive. This mode is particularly useful for first-timers to the Wipeout series or those who want a quick indication of their skill level. A dynamically generated rank flashes up above the vehicle as you do laps showing you what level you should be competing at. All the weapons and power-ups you've come to love from the Wipeout series make a return, with energy shields, machine guns, rockets, and mines randomly assigned once you drive over a power-up panel on the track's surface.
The single-player racing campaign in our demo included 16 grids, with each grid made up of between eight and 16 stages. These include various challenges from the six types listed above, and while you'll race across only three different tracks in the first grid, there's enough variety in the modes to keep it interesting. The mixture of time trials and races also helps you quickly learn the acceleration, braking, and power-up points of each track--skills that become invaluable when you take on other AI-controlled players.
Based on our race times and general progress through the demo code, completing each of the challenges per grid and then all the grids themselves means you won't blow through this game in one afternoon. Once the game is completed, you have the option of replaying to unlock more high scores and gold medals, or you can simply bump the difficulty and start all over again with faster vehicles and smarter AI. If after all that you're struggling for things to do, Wipeout Pulse will also offer both ad hoc and infrastructure wireless modes and Internet play. Sony has also said that it has plans to offer new tracks and vehicles via download once the game goes on sale, and while we have no idea what the intended release schedule looks like for this content, it's nice to know there will be extra content straight away as well as further down the line.
As always, music plays a huge role in the Wipeout series, and Pulse is no exception, drawing on licensed music from known DJs and artists such as Dopamine, Stanton Warriors, Aphex Twin, and Kraftwerk to provide the game's soundtrack. The range of tracks contributes to the gameplay, and we found ourselves dodging and weaving through traffic in time with the music on more than one occasion.
Wipeout Pulse will include a photo mode, allowing drivers to snap a couple of photos once their race is finished. Simply hit the select button after your race is done to enter the mode. From here you'll be able to cycle through internal camera, external front, and above-vehicle views, as well as shots of the track. You can use the PSP's analogue stick to cycle around the camera or zoom in or out depending on which view you're in.
So far, Wipeout Pulse doesn't present any significant departures from the games that helped make it a PlayStation identity. Fans of Wipeout won't be disappointed by the franticness and pace of the driving, while the arsenal of weapons at your fingertips means if you can't outrace your fellow competitors, you can always just blow them away. There's plenty here for both returning gamers and those who may have missed the boat earlier on in the series.

By Dan Chiappini, GameSpot AU

Burnout cruising to Paradise

At first glance, the term "burnout paradise" conjures up images of a coffee shop in Amsterdam--or a plush drug-rehab clinic in the Carribean. However, it's also the title of the next installment in Electronic Arts' destructive racing series, which will mark its PlayStation 3 debut. Burnout Paradise will arrive on the Xbox 360 and PS3 "this winter," which typically means a December or January release.
As evidenced by its first trailer, Burnout Paradise will feature the same sort of urban racing as previous Burnouts. However, its developer, UK-based Criterion games, has greatly improved the game's graphics. In the trailer, they are noticeably more detailed than those of Burnout Revenge for the Xbox 360, the only next-gen Burnout to date.

Though none of the series' trademark car crashes are present in the trailer, the accompanying press release promised the game would have more of them than ever before. That's because instead of the series' traditional event-based gameplay, Burnout Paradise will sport an open-world environment where players can "explore the city and discover events," according to EA. They can also run amok, committing random acts of wanton destruction with their cars, earning points that can eventually be used to acquire newer, faster cars.
"We have been working towards Burnout Paradise for quite some time," said the game's executive producer, Pete Hawley, in a statement. "Next generation consoles have opened up a raft of new gameplay opportunities and the Criterion team has leapt at the chance to innovate." Hawley boasted that EA had some "big surprises" in terms of new features and online capabilities," but promised the title's gameplay would remain true to the series."

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot