The story of Rage is probably a familiar one.  An asteroid has devastated the earth, and the post-apocalyptic aftermath is a wasteland of roaming gangs, thugs, and brutes all set on violence and destruction.  Following the asteroid’s impact, the governments of the world initiated a program to lock chosen people into pods buried deep beneath the earth in suspended animation to ensure the survival of the human race.  Players emerge from one of these pods and are immediately thrown into this frenetic new world to eke out an existence.  Set against you are mutants, bandits, and the Authority – an oppressive government regime that seems to have arisen to power amidst the chaos.

The presentation we were shown featured a few things.  The demo started out in a canyon of sorts, and the first discernible thing about Rage and what will probably be most talked about is the graphics.  This is one of the best looking games that has probably ever been developed.  It’s not a realistic art style necessarily, it’s somewhat animated with a tendency towards realism (the characters don’t have overblow features or anything), but its environments and effects are truly eye-opening.  The world is a devastated place in the wake of asteroid-destruction, but it’s still a beautiful sight to behold, and Rage shows every pixel of that beauty.  The technology behind this brave new world is id’s new Tech 5 engine, featuring something they’ve dubbed Megatexture.  It also promises to always run at 60 frames a second.  Possibly the most impressive aspect of this new engine and even the game itself is that it can perform at this quality without making any cuts and sacrifices to run at that power even on consoles.

Moving out of the canyon, the first thing our demonstrator did was throw one of Rage’s engineered weapons, which was a type of three-pronged boomerang that swiftly and easily decapitated an incoming bandit.  Echoes of laughter and praise echoed around the room after this, just as they would every time something ultra violent would happen.  After a minute or so, our protagonist came to a city, dubbed Well Spring, that was immediately likened to the old west, though at the same time we were assured that this wasn’t a western.  We were shown some of the town features, including some holographic games of chance that were almost tongue-in-cheek in their presentation, and were also said to be money-makers should players need to scrape together some cash.

The next area shown was the hideout of one of the gangs, in this case the Ghost Clan.  They had plans to poison the town’s water supply and it was up to the player to stop them (despite the fact that he just rolled in to town and no one even knows who he is).  The Ghost Clan’s signature is their acrobatics.  The majority of the Ghost Clan members we saw opted away from gun use and instead would flip and jump off walls in an attempt to get to the player and slice them up with bladed weapons.  The wall jumping in particular in Rage is not something I think I’ve even seen in a game before, and programming the AI to respond to environmental objects seems like tricky business (but what do I know, I just write about games).  Our demonstrator took them to task however, utilized his boomerang, the standard machine guns and pistol, and even improvised a little towards the end.  At one point he dropped a turret, which did a fine job of not only attracting enemy aggro, but of mowing them down.  Even cooler was a bit of engineering we were shown later on that featured an explosive RC car that the player sent down into a full room of bandits with grisly results.  Soon after he constructed another piece of ridiculous machinery that I immediately dubbed a spider turret (he had a different name for it, but mine was better).  It was just like it sounds, a turret that walks along on mechanical legs, decimating anything it comes across.  Our presenter explained that while powerful, such devices would be fairly limited in availability.

The next portion of the demo featured another gang, this time a group of mechanical specialists.  Their environs featured garages and run down buildings and the like, and we were told that vehicular combat would also play a large role in Rage.  Our demonstrator proceeded to devastate this particular gang as well, despite their gratuitous use of chain guns and car-ramming power.

The final area of the presentation was called Dead City, and we were told that no one ever makes it out of Dead City alive (foreshadowing!).  Our demonstrator began to walk down a street and was quickly met with rumblings.  There were no enemies in sight, but the ground shook as though an earthquake were rocking the streets.  Naturally these weren’t earthquakes but a giant monster.  The scope of this guy was pretty impressive.  I suppose if you took the super mutants from Fallout 3 and made them triply super, you might have something approaching what came around that skyscraped towards us.  It was suitably impressive, and I could already feel my fingers eager to bring the titan down.  Unfortunately, the demo ended right there and we were unable to see it fall.

I walked out of the demonstration room impressed.  I hadn’t even known Rage would be on display until we arrived at the Bethesda booth and were ushered in (I figured we’d be shown more Fallout: New Vegas stuff, which I was fine with).  The game’s visuals are every bit as gorgeous as everyone is saying.  Every texture is unique, the water effects are second to none (always an important factor), and the open world itself is breathtaking.  The game itself has a definite Borderlands/Fallout vibe, but obviously with its own twist.  The mechanics seem like a blast to play around with, from the engineering of new weapons to the pain specific combat mechanics that damage an enemy precisely where you shoot it.

Honestly, it looks polished enough to release tomorrow, which is more than I can say for some games that are already on store shelves.  I suppose the only critique I could levy at the game would be its setting.  Personally, I love the post-apocalyptic driven games.  I generally can’t get enough of seeing what the world would be like after the end.  But with the slew of them out in the past few years and even more on the way, id runs the risk of blending in with the pack, though their impressive new technology might just elevate them out of that same pack after all. 

Rage is slated to come to the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 some time in 2011.

The first thing we were told before the demo even started up was that XCOM is all about fear and terror.  The setting is 1950s America and an alien invasion is striking into the very heart of the country.  No one knows what to expect and no one is prepared for what’s to come.  This is where the government organization XCOM originates.  XCOM was created to fight the unknown, and as William Carter you are an integral part of that fight.  In fact, it was an alien artifact that Agent William Carter found that began the entire organization because the best way to fight an unknown enemy is to use their own weapons against them.  Indeed, using alien weaponry is key to XCOM’s combat, but more on that in a bit.

For our demo, Carter is dropped into a large airplane hangar.  This is to be the base of operations for XCOM.  It will be the place where missions are accepted, where research is conducted, and where the strategic points of the game are unveiled.  Our presenter claimed that XCOM was a mix of strategic planning and first-person shooting, and so I assume we will see more of this planning than we were shown during the demo.  While at the hangar, all we really saw was Carter talking to members of XCOM, researching one of the weapons that he would use in the upcoming combat mission, and browsing the available missions.  I’m not sure where the strategy bits really come into play, at least not in regards to how most people might think of strategy in a game.  There is some decision-making in regards to which mission players can take.  During the demo, we saw the presenter choose between three missions.  One was an operation to recover a precious resource needed to research weaponry.  Another was similar in that it didn’t involve story necessarily but rather upgrading or increasing stores of something.  The mission we were shown involved a distress call from a suburb.  It was explained to us that even recognition is a form of resource, and if they were to go and help this suburb out, that it would increase that particular resource pool.

Carter, in addition to his weaponry, has access to a team of two other agents that follow him around and assist him on missions.  From what we saw, these agents have a few useful benefits.  For one, they assist in straight up combat, both in killing enemies and in taking hits that otherwise might kill Carter.  In fact, the mission we ended up completing saw the deaths of both agents, which actually surprised me and left me wondering if agents are merely replaceable or if there is any ill later result of them dying on missions.  Carter also has some cool weaponry to choose from before going on missions.  Our demonstrator chose a standard shotgun and an elaborate and weird contraption that shot lightning.  Here, it was explained that players can choose to use real world weaponry or alien technology.  While the alien technology is obviously superior, using it comes at a higher cost as its ammunition is extremely limited.  He also picked up an incendiary grenade that used the alien technology and created a literal firestorm when he threw it.

The aesthetic of XCOM is very BioShock-oriented.  Basically, if we were to pull the citizens of Rapture out of the ocean and mill them about in 1950s America, you’d have XCOM.  The characters look like caricatures, and everything is awash in pastels and old-timey designs.  Fortunately it works, and the game looks really good.  It also seems to play well, as we were shown next when Carter reached the suburb area from which the distress call emanated.

At this point we’re given a taste of the more subtle side of XCOM.  The suburb we’ve just arrived at is completely quiet.  There are no birds chirping or people murmuring.  It’s eerily silent, and one gets the sense immediately that something is wrong.  In fact, playing around with sounds and shadows is something the demo showed off very well, and it does indeed instill a sense of terror into the overall game.  Wasting no time, Carter quickly moved down the road towards some obvious black slime trails.  These trails lead the player to where they need to go, but there are also side paths one can take in just about any mission that might grant additional resources or bonuses.  We’re shown one of these side passages, which reveals an unfortunate victim of alien attack: a man completely charred on the outside and very, very dead.  It is at this point that we’re given another BioShock-like feature in the form of a research camera.  Players can take photographs of aliens or alien handiwork for lab analysis.  This rewards Carter with damage upgrades and the like.

Eventually we come to the main part of the action.  There’s a house overrun by blobs of black goo, which seem to be a common staple of the game.  They’re attacking the inhabitants, and while they’ve managed to kill most, there is one woman in obvious need of rescuing on the top floor.  Finally we get some combat, and it looks downright fun.  Our demonstrator started out blasting blobs with a shotgun, but eventually pulled out the lightning gun and really went to town.  The electric streams coming out of the weapon chain from one enemy to another, creating a virtual storm of lightning death.  A similar bit of chaos is unleashed when he throws down one of the goo grenades, creating a fiery inferno in the middle of the living room (which thankfully doesn’t catch the drapes aflame and start a real housefire).  The team heads upstairs after clearing the first floor and that shadow and sound effect I mentioned before hits home as they reach the top.  A blood curdling scream erupts from the next room, and through deft use of shadow angles, all the team can see down the hallway is the shadow image of a woman fending off a writhing ball of black ooze.  Thankfully they save her and the mission pops up as accomplished.

But the mission isn’t really over.  The objective becomes now to escape as something nasty is coming, and there’s just no fighting it.  Anyone following XCOM has probably seen the screenshot of the floating circle-like being that disintegrates some hapless idiot (shown above).  That’s what began to chase the team away from the house, and it’s an impressive foe.  It throws out what I can only call disintegration bombs that land in a certain area and completely un-make anyone unfortunate enough to be within that radius.  Our demonstrator snapped a picture for research of the being, but then high-tailed it out of there, even losing his second henchman during his escape.  He explained that some foes cannot be fought, proving so by firing a few ineffectual shots off at the thing, but hinted that eventually even these beings could be taken down.

The demo ended there, and despite a promised Q and A session, we were shuffled out of the room.  I made quite a few BioShock references in this preview, but I don’t want it to seem like we all sat down and watched BioShock: Land Alien Adventures.  The game has plenty in common with the Rapturian series, but I definitely got the impression that it was its own game.  Good developers mimic and great ones steal is the old adage, and hopefully they’ve stolen just the right amount from their previous works to make XCOM a fully-realized entity.  It looks like it’s on the right track to become an interesting shooter with potential strategic elements, but time will tell how relevant it is to its source material and what kind of audience it appeals to.  So far, it’s appealing to me, and I’ll do my best to keep the information drip steady until its PS3, PC, and Xbox 360 2011 release.

The multiplayer modes of Kane & Lynch 2 all feature the same control scheme found in the single player portion of the game. You can use cover, grab cops to use as shields and the Down not Dead mechanic will also be there. The Down not Dead mechanic works alright but too many times I felt that I hit someone with a headshot and they went into the “last stand” mode and killed me. It can be frustrating and needs a bit of tuning. When you grab a person for cover it works the same as long as it’s a CPU. If you  try to do that to a user they can fight back by hitting button combos and as the person holding them as a shield you’ll have to fight back by hitting buttons yourself, so don’t think you are in control if you grab someone to use a shield.

In both of these modes your objective is to work as a team to execute a heist and escape with as much of the loot as you can. The heists are actually based off of real heists. At the start of the mode you’ll have to take out the people protecting the cash and collect the loot. Once you gather the money you’ll have to fight your way through a horde of policemen to get to your getaway vehicle. In the level that I played you had to go through a few alleyways in a financial district that ended in a standoff with policemen lining the street leading to the getaway point. The map was relatively short which made me think it was much easier than it actually was. You’ll have three rounds with a time limit of 4 minutes in each round to reach the getaway vehicle with as much cash as possible.  As you progress, the rounds get tougher and tougher.

Throughout the mode you’ll be getting points for killing cops on top of gathering the cash. If you die you will respawn as a cop and you have to stop the robbers from escaping with the loot. Here’s the twist, you can betray your teammates and make off with all the cash. You can shoot them in the back and systematically take them out one by one but as soon as they know you’re trying to betray them — they will turn on you.  They can also turn on you if they feel like you aren’t pulling your weight so you can’t sit back and let everyone else do the work. Since this mode can get chaotic there might be times where you accidentally shoot at your team… Which is fine as long as you stop at some point. Fire at them too much and you’ll get a yellow card above your head which is a sign to the other players that you are turning on them and they can kill you with no penalty at all. If you choose to not betray you team you will split the loot or you can get to the getaway vehicle first and bribe the driver to take off and leave everyone else to the cops.

The Arcade Mode is the single player version of this mode. You’ll be partnered up with the CPU and in the few matches I played it seemed like the AI was pretty good at helping me get through the round. Though they didn’t try to betray me it wasn’t that easy to take them out. I did manage to take out the entire team at one point but I did it too soon and though I had a lot of cash, it took me too long to get past the cops at the end of the level so time ran out. You definitely need to pick and choose when it’s a good time to try to betray your partners. Playing this mode will help you with the multiplayer version but you can also compete with friends in a Leaderboard if you rather play on your own.

In Fragile Alliance, the online multiplayer version, pretty much the same rules apply but you’ll never know when someone is going to turn on you. During my play session I turned on the entire team once we were at the end and almost escaped with all the money but one of them killed me after respawning as a cop. It seemed to me that the AI cops become a bit smarter when playing online as well. You can play with up to eight players and after a few rounds you will really have to work as a team if you want to succeed, though if you want to leave with the getaway vehicle before anyone else you can definitely do that. This mode, along with all multiplayer modes in the game, features a system that rates your skill or tendencies. If you tend to betray your team, get a lot of kills or simply hang out in the back a label will be given to you which can be seen by everyone in the lobby. This way if a player always betrays a team they can look out for them, or if they know they don’t get that many kills they can plan accordingly.

The modes also feature the ability to unlock weapons using the money you gathered in the game. These weapons are much better than the standard weapon given to you at the start of the rounds but there will be weapons lying around the map from the cops and some of them are quite powerful. In the matches I played none of them turned out the same every time even though we were going through the same map over and over. There is a good bit a strategy involved in this game and it takes the horde mode system in a different direction. There’s nothing like being able to be the cop trying to stop your former teammates from cashing in on a big score. I think the direction that Io Interactive went, which was to stay away from the mainstream modes, was a good idea. They offer something that no other game has and I enjoyed every minute of my time with these modes. Make sure to check back with us in the coming weeks as I’ll be giving you my impressions of the rest of the multiplayer modes found in Kane & Lynch 2.

The story picks up where the first one left off. If you haven’t played the original, Kane was left with an important decision to make at the end of the game.  For the sequel, Io Interactive makes that decision and forces you down their path. Dog Days is set in Shanghai where Lynch has been making a living as a henchman. Kane, on the other hand, hasn’t been in the violence business for some time. After some convincing on Lynch’s part, he goes to Shanghai to assist him with one final score. What was meant to be an easy job turns into an all out war across the streets of the city.

The story is told in a 48 hour period. During this time you will follow Kane and Lynch. Whatever they see and hear, you will see and hear. You won’t be seeing cut scenes with any other character unless Kane and Lynch are in it. This was done to give a more personal attachment to the characters and to sync with the “reality TV” presentation of the game. Presentation is the first thing gamers will notice when playing the sequel. It is from a closer 3^rd person perspective with “shaky cam” movements and a lower-quality camera feel much like you would see in a YouTube video.  You’ll notice things like grainy effects, visual artifacts, and lighting that will over-saturate the camera.  Adding to this style is the pixel blur effect that pops up to cover nudity and extremely gory violence. At first, I didn’t really like this effect because I want to see a head blown off, but it actually works well with this style. If you haven’t seen the trailers yet, check out this one which features all in-game footage.

Karsten Lund, Game Director on Kane & Lynch 2, said to get the right movement of the camera and the visual effects down they had a team go to Shanghai and run around with camcorders. Using that footage, they were able to accurately portray the reality presentation. The actual character graphics seem like an improvement from the previous title, but it’s not going to blow anyone away. Instead, the very unique presentation further immerses you into the game and offers gamers a style they haven’t seen before from a shooter.

The big question is how well the game controls, and after getting to play a couple of levels I can say that the controls are very much improved and more in-tune with the types of 3^rd person shooters we’ve seen lately. You can expect the normal controls, and you will now have a cover option. In one of the levels I played, Kane and Lynch were stuck in a dim sum restaurant in a firefight with some policemen. Taking cover is key in this game, but you also have to think about what kind of cover you are hiding behind because some objects in the environment can be shot through and destroyed. While in cover, you can blind fire and also hold down the left stick to quick move from cover to cover or hurdle over it much like in Gears of War.

As Kane & Lynch 2 has you in Lynch’s world, the gameplay revolves around his “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset. You shoot everyone you see that is firing back at you, and you don’t have many weapons at your disposal as planning isn’t his strong suit. You will run out of ammo from time to time, so picking up ammo and new weapons off of enemies is a must. There are also no grenades. Instead, you have to use your environment, like propane tanks or fire extinguishers, to cause explosions. At times, you will also have to run down enemies or run through smaller corridors. This adds to the fast pace, shoot-first attitude of Lynch.

In one of the levels I played through, I had to run through a sweatshop, which had little cover, ultimately onto the streets where I had to try to shoot around the civilians milling about to take out a huge police force. Running through an area with scant cover can be tough, but there are a few things players can do to get through them. You can grab someone and use them as a human shield, which will cause the enemies to think before they shoot. Sometimes they will shoot through the shield or sometimes they won’t shoot until you do. There is also a feature called “Down not Dead” which gives a player a second chance when they get shot too many times. This can also be triggered by a big blast or a shot that would knock you down to the ground but not kill you. From this point, you can crawl to safety or cover or you can shoot the enemy until it’s safe to get up.

Once in the streets of Shanghai, the firefight didn’t last too long.  I was instructed to shoot at some tanks inside a DVD shop that set off a massive explosion which ended that portion of the level. Having played through two chapters of the game, it’s safe to say that it plays much better than the first and the overall presentation and pace makes it very enjoyable. You can play the entire campaign via co-op online or offline, and there will be moments where you and your partner will have to split up.

The environment of Shanghai is an excellent setting for the gritty gameplay Io Interactive is trying to portray. I feel that The Down not Dead feature could still use some work as could getting in and out of cover. The A.I. seemed smart, being able to flank and effectively take you down if you get too cocky. Overall, I think fans will be quite pleased with the improvements made to the game.

Dog Days is set to release on August 24th, 1010 across Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Be sure to check back with us as we will be posting our hands-on impressions of the Arcade and Fragile Alliance multiplayer modes soon.

As with most demos, we don’t get much story going in.  We meet Will, our pilot protagonist, stereotypical for the game’s time period with his plastic hair and bomber jacket.  We also meet a weird islander who I think was named Tavi, though we don’t get much from him aside from some ineffectual voice acting and a few radio directions. 

It’s also right at the beginning that we hear an all too familiar voice.  Yes, Will bears the voice of Nolan North.  I’m sure I’d heard this somewhere before, but it still gave me pause when it actually happened in game.  For anyone unfamiliar, Nolan North is probably the most active voice actor in video games, period.  He is famous for his portrayal of Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games, but he has been in so many that it’s impossible to list them all here.  His bigger roles include Drake, Desmond from the Assassin’s Creed series, the Prince from the latest Prince of Persia game, and Jason from Shadow Complex.  But if you can name a game made in the past five years, chances are ridiculously good that his name is attached to it.  He plays the lead in Dark Void, and as much as I respect and love his work over the years, I’m not sure I appreciate hearing him in so many roles.  It just reminds me that I’m playing a video game when I hear the same guy’s voice as every male lead. 

Anyway, voice acting rant aside, the demo wastes no time slapping that jetpack on Will’s back and sending him flying.  Yes, not two minutes in players literally take flight into some open skies, and for that initial take off it’s an exhilarating experience.  I love flying in games.  I can’t get enough of it most times.  Many developers won’t allow it because it because of the technical hassle of giving players access to…well everywhere.  But for those who do, your efforts are appreciated because flying is the one thing I do in video games that I wish I could do in reality (yes, I cast spells and teleport in real life).  The flight controls are simple enough.  One button accelerates, one breaks, and there is a hover button that will allow Will to pull up and bring out his assault rifle or whatever weapon he has equipped.  The jetpack itself is equipped with turrets that players can fire while in non-hover flight mode.  The left analog stick controls direction, and the right analog stick controls spin. 

Once the controls are accustomed to, players are given directions to destroy some stationary sensors way up in some mountains.  This is where those jetpack turrets come in handy, though Will’s equipped weapon does the job as well.  The turrets just do it much faster.  This is followed by a straight up dogfight as some drones some winging Will’s way, and unfortunately this was about the most awkward bit of the demo.  I love flying, but I’m not too accustomed to it because outside of flight simulators, which I have played 0 of, few games allow players to wing it.  Even the ones that allow it generally have their own methods, and Dark Void is a bit different than any I’ve played.  Perhaps with more time and practice dealing with the controls, I might have fared better or enjoyed it more.  As it was, I found attempting to shoot these drones out of the sky far too difficult.  I failed two or three times, and only won on my fourth by spinning around in one place and shooting them all down.  The flight also becomes less exhilarating after the initial rush.  Though Will has the ability to boost his speed for extended periods, I still didn’t feel as though it was fast enough.  I wanted to zoom along.  I never felt like I was zooming.  There does seem to be a system of aerial tricks to be toyed with, but they only give a taste of it in the demo, and it’s also kind of awkward.   

After drones and sensors are destroyed, Will is instructed to land on the structure that just had its shields evaporated by his mayhem, and the game transitions from flight combat to third person shooter.  In this rendition, it’s completely familiar territory.  It plays just like the standard Uncharted or Gears of War cover system gun battles.  Will can melee enemies to death if close, one shotting the standard dudes every time it seems.  He kills robots and some weird alien manta ray with legs type creature.  He’s instructed to destroy a console aboard the structure, and then get out.  Once out, a nasty robot scorpion emerges, kills a bunch of dudes, and the demo is over.  It hints at an interesting boss battle, and to be honest I would have liked to experience that bit of it.  The scorpobot planted itself out in the open with plenty of maneuver room and if it’s possible to engage in both land and air combat with the thing, I’d find myself suddenly much more interested in the game.  But it ends, and that’s that. 

The demo is quite short.  Maybe too short?  It’s hard to say.  I don’t feel as though I received a hearty impression of just what the game is all about.  I appreciated test driving the jetpack, so to speak.  I appreciated that it showed off the combat, both on land and in the air.  But I’m still left with an unsatisfied grumbling in my stomach in regards to the game itself.  Demos are usually, for me, enough to tell me whether I will buy the game or not.  Infamous and Dante’s Inferno are both two recent examples of games that demos completely sold me on.  Capcom has something here with this jetpack business, but I’m not sure they’ve done enough to convince people of that.  I suppose the reasons for this will become clear on the 19th when people start getting their hands on Dark Void officially.  Personally, I’d like to see it work.  We’ll see.