EA Sports is also has decided to follow in their footsteps making players buy an “EA Sports Pass” to use the online features of the very popular sports games they make.

But the question I’m asking is, what do you think?

Many people are against this idea for the reason that they think multiplayer should be free, because it always has been, but if it is a one time payment to get access to all the online features and maybe more (in the case of COD:Elite) and will help the company recoup any losses during the general release and help to fund future DLC’s, though I doubt Modern Warfare 3 will have to worry about any losses.

Feel free to leave your opinion in the comments below!

• “Toy Soldiers: Cold War” (Signal Studios/Microsoft Studios). Jump into the fray with playful ’80s combat action in “Toy Soldiers: Cold War.” Bring your favorite action toys to life and wage war against the red menace. Need backup? Call in a friend for co-op campaign action on the couch or over Xbox LIVE. Take a break from the main battle with Survival mode and playful minigames. When you beat your LIVE friends’ scores, they’ll be gunning to reclaim the top spot!
  

• “Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet” (Fuelcell/Microsoft Studios). This side-scrolling, 2-D, action-adventure game takes players on a journey through the curious Shadow Planet worlds, unique environments filled with twisted life, surreal ecologies, hostile creatures and environmental hazards. Players explore the depths of several interconnected themed areas, fighting swarms of enemies, battling bosses, solving mind-bending puzzles and acquiring power-ups to unlock new parts of the map.

• “Fruit Ninja Kinect” (Halfbrick/Microsoft Studios). The worldwide gaming phenomenon “Fruit Ninja” is now coming to Kinect for Xbox 360 in its juiciest form yet — YOU are the ninja! Your arms are now blades, and the battle against the world’s most delicious produce is just beginning. “Fruit Ninja Kinect” is an amazing evolution of the slice-em-up genre created by Halfbrick, utilizing next-generation precision power for the juiciest combat ever!

• “Bastion” (Supergiant Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment). “Bastion” is an action role-playing experience that redefines storytelling in games, with a reactive narrator who marks your every move. Explore more than 40 lush hand-painted environments as you discover the secrets of the Calamity, a surreal catastrophe that shattered the world to pieces. Wield a huge arsenal of upgradeable weapons and battle savage beasts adapted to their new habitat. Finish the main story to unlock New Game Plus mode and continue your journey!

• “From Dust” (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft). Discover a unique Modern God game in which nature is the star. “From Dust” is the latest original concept by Eric Chahi, visionary creator of “Another World.” Behold the beauty of a primitive world pulsing with life and face the might of nature. Beware the danger of a world that is constantly changing under your command. Control the destiny of a tribe struggling to survive and help it recover its ancestors’ lost powers. Immerse yourself in a world as exotically beautiful as it is dangerous. A universe where nature reclaims what is hers and you are your people’s only chance of survival.

Source – Major Nelson

CAMPAIGN

Halo: Reach is a prequel to the first Halo, and gives fans a deeper perspective on how things went down, even if you’re a reader of the Halo novels. The story follows a group of Spartans, the Noble Team, with you playing as the Spartan named “Noble Six”. As a rookie to the team who has a reputation for being a lone gunner, you’re quickly reminded to work well with your team. As the game progresses you will learn more about the Spartans, and although the story probably won’t win any awards, it fits well into the Halo universe and is interesting enough.

As I alluded to earlier, you won’t find many new surprising things if you’ve played the previous Halo game. The overall feel of the game is similar, though there have been some tweaks. Just as previous games, you’re usually teamed up with A.I., but they don’t really change much of anything. You are the main player who pushes the game forward. Bungie could have done more to focus on the teamwork aspect of the Noble Team, to make you feel like you really needed to stick with your team-mates, but overall this is what we’re used to. It’s Halo – not a squad shooter.

New to Halo: Reach is special armor abilities, activated by the Left Bumper button. In the campaign you’ll immediately be able to sprint, which is something Modern Warfare 2 fans will be grateful for. As expected, even a Spartan can get tired, so don’t expect to be Superman and run through the mission. Other armor abilities include a jetback to fly around (my personal favorite), the cloaking we’ve seen in previous games, an armor lock which paralyzes and prevents you from being damaged for a few moments, and the ability to shoot off a holographic image of yourself to confuse enemies.

The solo campaign lasts around 9 hours, on average. Depending on your skill level, you could finish it much faster. I highly recommend you grab some friends online and run through the campaign co-op style, which works very well in Halo: Reach and adds to the fun. For the first time, you can use the online matchmaking service to find team-mates, for when your friends aren’t online. The combat is very similar to other Halo games and the campaign is more of the same. You walk a bit, you find a group of enemies, you kill them, and then find walk to find more enemies. This is rinse and repeat gameplay, but at least it’s a good time.

The graphics are the best we’ve yet to see in a Halo game, but they’re nothing groundbreaking. The frame-rate is mostly smooth and things feel a bit more real, not only due to the graphics, but also the improved sounds and Spartan movement. Players are now able to earn points in the game to unlock more armor options and you’re able to select the gender of your Spartan too. I’ll be honest, the female Spartan has a nice butt.

MULTIPLAYER

For gamers like myself, the campaign is a fun distraction, but the main reason to play Halo has been the multiplayer. Reach gives us more options than we’ve seen in any other Halo game. You now have the ability to find matches in cooperative game types (Campaign and Firefight) in addition to competitive. Firefight was first introduced in Halo: ODST and pits you against as many waves of enemies as you can handle. Your goal is to rack up the highest score you can by surviving and killing aliens of increasing difficulty. Halo: Reach lets you set many custom options for Firefight, such as the type of enemies, how much health you have, the weapons you can use, how much damage the weapons do, and much more that we didn’t see in its last iteration. This adds longevity to the Firefight mode, which honestly could get a bit boring after a while in ODST.

Besides the new cooperative stuff, the classic online warfare we’ve enjoyed since the release of Halo 2 is back and has more options than ever. The idea of classes is new to the series, where you can specialize your Spartan or Elite with special abilities, though overall you’re still very similar in abilities to your opponents. This isn’t Team Fortress 2, so don’t expect any dedicated “sniper” or “medic” class.

Matchmaking searches have been expanded to allow you to vote on three or more choices of gametypes. This is a big improvement over Halo 3, which only let you veto one match and pray the randomly selected one that replaced it was better. Another new mode to the multiplayer is Invasion, an objective-based gametype that pits Spartans and Elites against each other, taking turns on offense and defense.

It’s now easier than ever to jump into a game with friends. If they’re already in a match, no problem. Just hop in their party and wait for them to finish. You no longer need to keep manually checking to see if they’re finished. The possibilities for an improved atmosphere are further increased by the concept of a Psych Profile. Fill in the details about yourself (are you nice or foul-mouth? Lone wolf or team player?) and Halo: Reach will attempt to match you up with others of similar interests. The verdict is still out on how well this works, but I appreciate Bungie taking a cue from eHarmony and matching us up with the type of people we want to play against.

In the end, this is Halo. It is more of the same. Many gamers are reporting enjoying this one more than they have enjoyed the previous two, so that’s a good sign. If you weren’t a big fan of Halo before, try giving it a go one last time. It may impress you. If not, there’s always Call of Duty…

I give it a 9 out of 10 on the Zippy Scale.

Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter IV revived the series with its fantastic gameplay and art style. Even if you’re not traditionally a fighting-game lover, you may find something to like here with all the bells and whistles that are thrown in. You can tell Capcom spent a lot of time balancing and paying attention to the details. Easy to learn and tough to master, Street Fighter IV is a new classic.

Average critic score: 9.3 out of 10

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Considered by many to be the best game in the series, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a must-play for all fans of first person shooters. Although many have moved onto Modern Warfare 2, its multiplayer mode was great and challenged Halo 3 as the most played online Xbox 360 game. With an insane amount of action packed in, even the single-player won’t be disappointed, albeit the campaign is a little short. The realistic sounds of guns and explosions really help to immerse you, especially if you’re playing with a nice set of surround sound speakers. Give this one a try!

Average critic score: 9.4 out of 10

Resident Evil 5

Taking a more action-oriented perspective than before seen in the series, Resident Evil 5 (along with RE4) caught the attention of those who had previously ignored the series for many years. Solid game mechanics and a fantastic co-op campaign sets this game apart from the norm, especially if you have a friend to blast your way through it with. Mercenaries mode adds a lot of replayability as you can team up with a friend to kill swarms of enemies and rack up new high scores.

Average critic score: 8.6 out of 10

Rainbow Six: Vegas

If you’re a fan of tactical shooters then you will love Rainbow Six: Vegas. It’s a nice change of pace to the frantic type of shooting we find in games like Halo. The new health system makes the game much more stress free, and could very easily fix the problems you had with the other ones. The campaign is top-notch and the multiplayer modes were considered to be some of the best yet seen on Xbox Live.

Average critic score: 8.9 out of 10

Bioshock

BioShock is widely considered to be an outstanding game and is ranked as one of the best games of all time. The game has a fantastic story and atmosphere that you will not find in 99.9% of other games. Besides that, the game has a great soundtrack and a mix of first-person-shooting and RPG elements combined to make a unique gameplay experience. Be sure to give this one a try.

Average critic score: 9.4 out of 10

Conclusion

You have likely played at least one of the above titles, but be sure to give a try to any that you’ve missed. There’s no need to break the bank on buying the latest titles. Pocket the extra cash or spend it on something important, like pizza. Maybe set aside a little for your girlfriend.

What are your favorite games for under $20? Let us know in the comments below!

The free game that so many of us loved, 1 vs. 100, has been canceled. It was just recently confirmed that there will be no third season for the popular Xbox Live title.

This is a shame, since it was arguably the best free game on the Xbox Live network and was a lot of fun to play with friends if you were in the mood for some relaxing and non-serious gaming. It was also a very unique experience, an online trivia game show with a live host and real prizes.

The developers plan to take the lessons they’ve learned from the development of 1 vs. 100 and apply it to future games.

We knew starting on this project, that 1 vs 100 was completely different and would be an idea we would continue to evolve. We’ve learned a lot from this experience and we’re committed to applying these lessons to the cool, new stuff we’re working on, but can’t yet discuss.

We’d like to thank them for the two seasons we had and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next.

Welcome to the honeymoon trap.

In most single player games while the second playthrough can never recapture the thrill of discovery and the novelty factor of the first playthough, if the game has good moment-to-moment gameplay that can be enough to keep you going beyond the honeymoon period. If it does not have quality moment to moment gameplay, its stock will drop like a rock on the second playthrough.

No game that I can think of illustrates this better than Batman: Arkham Asylum.

With really good single player experiences, the second playthrough reinforces my high opinion of the game in the first playthough– but with Batman AA I felt like the second playthrough exposed the lack of substance behind the shiny veneer of the first playthrough.

Don’t get me wrong, Batman Arkham Asylum is a really good game and is clearly the best Batman game ever (which is not saying a lot) — but it’s still overrated. However it’s not easy to see why until you make it past the honeymoon period of the first playthough.

A game needs some freedom/leeway in the gameplay to really keep bringing you back– and this is the main thing Batman AA is missing.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

JUMPING

In Super Mario Bros. basic jumping was fun because you completely control the height and direction of Mario’s jump and a mistake can kill you.

You can also do stuff like slick jumping turning hit the ground and slide type moves because of that leeway in the gameplay. And stuff like that is what keeps you coming back (and not the harrowing tale of rescue of the damsel in distress).

In Batman, if you want to jump over a ledge just hold ‘X’ and forward and Batman automatically runs toward the ledge and jumps over it perfectly every time — there’s no technique to employ– no timing, no lining up the jump, no skill necessary.

CLIMBING

Take a game like Infamous. When I climb a building there’s a million different ways to climb the same building (including wrong ways that can result in you falling all the way back to the bottom and thus making you pay attention) — I can climb up a ladder, shimmy across a ledge until I find a handhold to climb up, climb a pole, climb up windows, ect– thus climbing is fun.

In Batman, if I want to climb I need to find a designated spot that allows me to look at it and be prompted to press R1. When I press R1 and Batman shoots his grapple hook thing, he’s always going to climb up the same way– seen it once, seen it a million times.

Thus climbing in Batman is not fun– it’s not annoying either– but not fun– just meh. It’d be nice if there was more variety to it somehow (and/or if they found some other area of gameplay to flesh out to make up for this lost ground).

FIGHTING

In Batman AA, there are a lot of offensive attack moves that are “hotspot” oriented– ie. the vertical takedown, the crashing through the glass, the simplified fighting scheme– that reminds me of Def Jam: Fight for New York.

In Def Jam Fight for New York there was a bunch of “hot spots” (ie. if you press a certain button when the enemy is near a car you’ll do a prearranged sequence where you smash their head in the door of the car) — it was awesome the first time you see each hot spot move but it gets more and more boring and you yearn for the variety and complexity that earlier incarnations of the Def Jam engine (ie the AKI wrestling titles) had.

Likewise in Batman the fighting is fun but you eventually yearn for the added complexity of fighting in games like God of War and Ninja Gaiden.

To be fair, there’s plenty of variety in the gameplay itself, but the problem is the lack of any one gameplay mechanic that by itself is fun to do over and over. The fighting comes closest to this, but it’s not quite up to par with some other games.

To make an analogy– take MLB the Show. The default batting mechanic makes you as the batter have to locate the ball as well as time it to get a hit. If you want to make the game really easy to play so your little sister can play it, you can alter the settings so that all you have to do is press X at the right time– thus making it all timing and taking away the skill in recognizing pitch location.

In Batman, it’s like it’s set up for your little sister with the way that the reversals are all pure timing based (tap triangle and Batman does the rest, no matter where the enemy is), and the striking is all button mashing based. There’s a little bit of skill involved in fighting guys with knives or stun batons in that you need to either hit them with a batarang and then press R2 and triangle to ground and pound, or press x to jump over them and attack from behind, but that alone falls short of gameplay that would keep me coming back.

So a lot of things feel like auto-pilot (ie. the Batarang is auto-aim, reversals are all pure timing as I stated above, the jumping and climbing as stated above).

Like I’m playing Gran Turismo with all of the assists on– which is fine for people that like that, but I wish there was an option to turn these assists off.

It feels like the gameplay in this game is halfway between a game like KOTOR (where it looks like I’m really playing and swinging the lightsaber but I’m really just supervising) and games like Super Mario Bros and Infamous and Twisted Metal 2 and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (where I really am in full incremental micro level control and not just macro level control).

CONCLUSION

Too many single player games are like a disposable razor: use once and throw away. Granted, lots of games offer things like trophies, treasures, branching paths, ect, to give you a reason to come back and play again, but that stuff, while appreciated, only serves to kick the can down the road. The big factor that extends a game’s replay value indefinitely, the renewable resource you’re left with when the fossil fuels of story and presentation are exhausted, the thing that separates the games that come and go from the true classics is the  gameplay. In Batman AA, the basic moment to moment gameplay isn’t enough by itself to keep the game entertaining– the greatness of the game really depends on the story and presentation and atmosphere (which all lose their novelty on the second playthough) combined with the deceptively shallow, automated gameplay (the shallowness of which becomes much more apparent after you’ve beaten the game).

All the most memorable stuff that happened in my experience with Batman AA was scripted– in a game with deep gameplay you should be able to create your own memories via creative stuff that the game allows you to do– and the prospect of creating new experiences like that on the fly is what keeps you coming back.

What I remember about Super Mario World was how much different stuff Mario could do with a turtle shell (ie. carry it around, kick it up in the air, kick it forward, have Yoshi eat it and gain powers, ect). It’s not the story that sticks out in my mind, it’s the gameplay, and how little things like playing with a shell were fun.

A mega hyped, shiny new video game is like a hot woman in a dark nightclub who starts sweet talking you while you’re drunk– you might be head over heels in love that night– but you don’t really know what you have until you see what you wake up next to in the morning.

Image credit: Tony J. Case

Although Tanner has the ability to roam freely around the streets of San Francisco, this latest installment of Driver will focus on the movie style car chases. Reportedly, there will be upwards of 100 vehicles to chose from, and plenty of road to keep the chases flowing. There will also be a large amount of classic vehicles thrown into the action, and this should make for some never before seen chases.

This latest version of Driver will also include the option to play online. This mode will offer fans some pretty exiting chases as well. The screenshots from Driver: San Francisco detail some excellent graphics, and these new added features will offer some unbelievable game play. Driver: San Francisco will be available for Playstation 3, X-box 360, Wii, PC, and Mac.

Microsoft recently announced a new design for the Xbox 360 console. Improvements include built-in WiFi, a bigger standard hard drive (250GB), smaller size and quieter operation. It will be available later this week in North America and will cost $299.

The question on everyone’s mind is if the Red Rings of Death issue has finally been fixed. Some have reported that the ventilation on the new machines seem to be better, so that’s a good sign, but ventilation wasn’t always the cause of problems in other models. We hope Microsoft has resolved the hardware reliability problems that have plagued Xbox 360 owners.

It will release in Australia, New Zealand and the UK during July for $499 NZD, $449 AUD and 199 GBP respectively.

To prepare for the new release, Microsoft is giving $50 discounts on older models. The Xbox 360 Arcade will now retail for $149, with the Elite model at $249. Retailers are likely to run specials to help clear out old inventory as well. For Father’s Day, customers who purchase an older Xbox 360 at Wal-Mart will receive a $50 gift card, a wireless controller and two extra games (Viva Pinata and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts).

To say that Microsoft went all out this year at the E3 Expo is probably an understatement. Rather than just telling us the new name of “Project Natal”, they hired Cirque du Soleil to put on a custom 45-minute show, which took months of planning and included 76 performers. If you’ve never been to a Cirque du Soleli, let me tell you, it is an unforgettable experience. And I imagine this is what Microsoft was trying to do – stick in your head.

Kinect is Natal’s new official name. There’s a lot of hype surrounding the new controller-free device and many of us are curious to see if it flops, but we hope for the best. Microsoft showed off many games for the Kinect at the show, so let’s get to it.

Kinect: Star Wars

It’s hard to imagine a better use for the technology than a Star Wars game. Honestly, I thought the same thing for the Nintendo Wii announcement. Maybe I’m just a Star Wars freak. The game showed the player as a Jedi going through a stage of enemies and reaching the end to face Darth Vader. Players will be able to control the light saber and use their arm to “force push” the enemies.

Joy Ride

Take your Xbox Avatar for a spin in Joy Ride. Steering is controlled by pretending to hold a wheel and you can also do stunts by positioning your body and hands in specific ways.

Kinect Adventures

In this demo of an adventure game, players were riding on a raft and mind cart. The aim was to grab targets that showed up and you could control the speed by jumping. Kinect Adventures takes photos of you while you’re playing and will show you a compilation of them at the end of the level.

Dance Central

Is this the future of Dance Dance Revolution games? Who knows. The player’s goal is to match the moves shown on the screen. If the player does well, the song plays on like normal. If they screw up, then the music slows down and you receive instructions to redeem yourself.

Kinect Sports

Not surprisingly, Microsoft needs something to compete with Nintendo’s wildly successful WiiSports franchise and Kinect Sports is how they plan to do it. In the demo we saw volleyball, soccer, track, and bowling. Volleyball will support online play, though overall many game journalists are not impressed with this showing. The bowling game looked inaccurate and much of the game is automated, as in your players move on their own and do their own thing.

Kinectimals

This is a virtual pet game where you will take care of your own digital animal(s). In this demo the pet is a tiger, and you could interact with it by petting it, teaching it tricks, throwing a ball and other stuff like that.

This is neat in theory – and Nintendo has already proven the concept is profitable – but this game seems a little sad to me. Wouldn’t it be much better to just go play with a real dog? I know we can say the same thing about many other games – but the point really stands out to me with this game. It’s one thing to play in NBA Live as your favorite team instead of shooting some real hoops, but to pet a virtual dog is very strange to me.

Conclusion

This is just a quick look at some of the games shown. Nothing too impressive yet, but it gives us something to chew on. Personally, I’m not expecting the Kinect to do much more than the Nintendo Wii has already accomplished, but time will tell. Good luck, Microsoft.

Driver 2 was an early precursor to the Grand Theft Auto series, which went on to become more successful then the Driver series. Hopefully Ubisoft, the publisher of Driver 1999 will be able to capitalize on their latest endeavor. Like many other fans of the Driver games, I have always anticipated the next installment. Ubisoft revolutionized the video game industry with Driver 2, but was unable to capitalize on the concept they created.

The trailer for Driver 1999 looks great, but it doesn’t showcase any actual game play footage. As of now, the features that are offered by Driver 1999 are sketchy. Ubisoft will be offering new details this coming week at E3. I hope that the publisher can revive the Driver franchise. Fans of the series have been awaiting the release of a new Driver game for years now. Only time will tell if the wait was worth it. Zippygamer will be following Driver 1999 during E3; we will keep you posted as these details become available.

Teaser Trailer