Little Big Planet (PS3)

Although Little Big Planet could be described as a platforming game, its dedication to creativity in every area takes it far beyond the confines of the genre. Everything from your character to the environment is geared towards user creation and adaptation, via stickers and costumes right up to a full-blown level creator. Each level of the story mode is an unforgettable trip through the wild imagination of the designers, and it would be difficult to find a game that's as much fun to play with friends co-operatively. It's a little disheartening that the Story mode is over so quickly, and although there's some longevity to be had from finding all the hidden extras, you can still see everything the story has to offer in six hours. Then there's the level creator--an astoundingly powerful toolset that theoretically allows you to recreate anything you see in the included levels and much more. However, it still requires a great deal of time and skill to develop something that people will actually want to play, and despite the best intentions of the developer, it's a feature that not everyone will be able to take full advantage of. The overall result is a game that's incredibly fun while it lasts, and one that has the potential to be taken further by its community.

The titular Little Big Planet is the place where all human imagination collects--the planet above the cosmos where our untapped creativity escapes when we're asleep or daydreaming. That's the background, anyway, and though characters occasionally refer to each other in the game, this fantastical journey has little in the way of exposition or backstory. There are eight themed worlds in total, and they vary in style from places such as the African savannah to the Mexican desert and ninja-obsessed Japan. Each world has either three or four individual levels, most of which can be completed in less than 10 minutes, and each level also has a bonus challenge or race if you can find the key hidden within. These bonus levels offer some of the most fun and imaginative experiences in the game, with an homage to Line Rider, skipping contests, and even drag racing competitions.

Little Big Planet's emphasis on creativity is completely embodied by its mascot, Sackboy. This endearingly cute rag doll acts as a blank slate for your creativity, and as you collect new materials and clothing in the story mode, you can constantly try out new looks. You can dress him up in costumes, add accessories such as hats and glasses, and even change his covering from that familiar brown to a particularly gaudy pink. Sackboy is also highly expressive, and you can use the controller's triggers and analog stick to move his arms and even smack unruly players. The D pad controls his facial expressions: up for happy, down for sad, left for scared, and right for angry, and repeatedly tapping in that direction further emphasises these emotions. You can also use the motion sensor to move Sackboy's head and hips, nodding knowingly if you win a level, at least until someone inevitably smacks you in the face for being so smug. With so much control over your character, you often end up spending a good deal of time just changing clothes, pulling faces, and maybe even sticking a "LOLZ" sticker on your buddy's forehead.

Although the character customisation may be in-depth, the platforming itself is not. There are only two action buttons: X to jump, and R1 to grab hold of swings and move objects. Sackboy doesn't use any special powers, and he doesn't become any faster or stronger throughout the course of the game. This is platforming in its purest form: jumping from platform to platform, dodging obstacles such as fire and electricity, and collecting blue orbs to score points along the way. What makes Little Big Planet unique is that it frequently goes way beyond platforming into something else entirely, seemingly for no other reason than to satisfy the designer's rampant imagination. With scenarios such as hot-air balloon riding, animal prison breaks, and ninja henchmen battles, every level of Little Big Planet demonstrates incredible imagination.

The main story mode follows a sequential progression, so you open up new levels by completing them in order. However, even when you've finished a level, you'll want to return to collect the hidden items, keys, and point bubbles that you likely missed the first time around. Collecting items allows you more creative freedom in the form of stickers and costumes, whereas music and materials can be used in the creation mode afterward. You can also collect loot drops by putting stickers down in certain places, and there are puzzles that you can only solve by playing in the two- to four-player mode. These include gates that can only be opened remotely, objects that require multiple characters to pull, and in one brilliant scene, a car driven by one character while another dangles on a trapeze underneath.

Little Big Planet poses a bit of a dilemma; it's miles more fun in multiplayer, but also more flawed. Figuring out the puzzles and experiencing the set pieces for the first time with others is one of the most memorable experiences we've had this year, and chances are that you'll find yourself recounting the best moments with your friends afterwards. Unfortunately, there's a downside to playing in multiplayer, and it's something that often afflicts platforming games: the camera. It frequently struggles to frame the action, and considering many precision jumps are required, certain sections become nigh-on impossible. The generous spacing of respawn points lets you retry most of the tricky sections, but if you fail after using up your lives, you have to restart the entire level. There were many occasions in multiplayer in which we intentionally killed ourselves, just so that one player could try a section without the camera jerking around all of the time.

Sadly, with no scalable difficulty level and relatively few truly testing challenges, stalwarts of the genre will be able to reach the last boss in less than six hours. This isn't counting the time it takes to go back and collect everything, but the fact remains, you can see all the main levels in one prolonged sitting. Clearly, if the community jumps on the creation tools then this longevity will be extended, but it will take time and great skill from home designers to match the creativity and professionalism of Media Molecule's work.

Once you've finished the story and built up a stock of items, stickers, and other creation tools, you'll want to head to the My Moon that orbits Little Big Planet to start building your own levels. The creation tools are comprehensive, which is why you have to go through plenty of tutorials to learn the basics. You begin by moving items around, but things become a lot trickier when you start creating characters and moving objects. For example, enemies and allies have to be given an AI routine so they know whether to follow or run away from a player when they're approached. The physics system is easy to understand, so making things is common sense, but it can still be very time-consuming to construct even the most simple moving objects. You can create structures and glue everything together with ease, but it takes a lot more work to use motors, pistons and springs. These help to set traps, make puzzles and add vehicles, which makes for more interesting levels, but creating and testing everything is a lot of work for the creator. Given the work required to build even simple systems, it's a pretty momentous task to re-create something on the scale of the levels made by the developers.

Thankfully, the task has been made easier by the inclusion of premade objects and level templates from the main game. This makes it a lot easier to start dropping in characters, structures, and vehicles, although you'll still want to adapt them to create your own look. The other problem for budding designers is that the game has three separate planes to work on, which lets players move between fore, middle, and background when playing. This means that unless you think on all three levels when making obstacles, players can simply pop into the foreground and avoid them completely. Once you have all of your main content in place, you can add finishing touches such as respawn points, dynamic music that changes according to player proximity, and characters that offer instructions on what to do. You can also throw in point bubbles and prizes to encourage players to play your level, and of course it's a good idea to play through repeatedly to make sure that others won't get stuck.

With all of this in mind, it's no small feat to create a Little Big Planet level that people will actually want to play. The reality, at least according to what we've seen happen in the game thus far, is that home designers will use the tools to make much smaller-scale creations than the levels in story mode. We've seen some great creations based on a nightclub and even TV show The Crystal Maze, in addition to video game homages such as Space Invaders and Breakout. They're simple ideas that incorporate systems already built by the developers, and they're probably a good indication of where the community is going to go with the game.

Going online with Little Big Planet is a breeze as you can see which of your friends are online and jump straight into their pod. The multiplayer online mode works well, even if it's not as smooth as the local multiplayer. You also can’t play the create mode online, though a future update will purportedly enable this feature. Sharing is also well implemented, and you can choose to move levels from your My Moon to the online Little Big Planet. When people play a level here, they can choose from preset tags to help describe the level for other players. This helps Little Big Planet to group similar levels together, so if you like what you're playing, you can search for creations that players have awarded similar tags. You can also add a heart to your favourite designers and search through all of their levels, and the system streams content live from the network so you don't have to save anything. There's even an option to play 'Cool Levels' from the main menu if you want something at random. If you really like a level or fancy adapting what you've seen, you can take levels submitted by other people and copy them to your own moon for later. All in all, it's a system that looks like it can cope with the content that's set to come out after the game's release.

This is a beautifully assembled game, with a patchwork visual style that covers the technical achievements underneath. There are smaller details such as reflections in the collectable balls to look out for, as well as some really nice fire, smoke, and electricity effects. It may be cruel to watch Sackboy die, but he can be electrocuted, burned, and disintegrated in a variety of ways, each resulting in highly detailed effects. Special mention should go to the physics system, which is pitched just a fraction beyond realistic to allow for some amazing stunts, jumps, and races. Then there's the soundtrack, a mix of genres from indie artists such as The Go Team and Jim Noir that all suit the game to a tee. Finally, a nod has to go to the pitch-perfect narration from British comedian Stephen Fry, and apart from his insistence that you don't post anything rude online, his voice is just as charming as the rest of the game.

Little Big Planet is a startlingly imaginative take on the platforming genre, and its story mode, while short, is truly outstanding. It's down to the community to elongate the life of the game, and while only the most ardent fans will be up to the task of making compelling content, the tools here certainly have some potential. If you've not got a creative bent then you might feel like you're getting half a game, but that doesn't stop Little Big Planet being a star that burns twice as bright, half as long.

Dark Sector (PS3)

It was almost four years ago that Digital Extremes announced it was working on Dark Sector, a third-person action game now available for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Better action games have come and gone since then, regardless of which console you own, but the good news is that those same games have left their mark on Dark Sector, which borrows liberally from Gears of War and is at times reminscent of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Dark Sector's story isn't nearly as interesting or told nearly as well as that of either of the aforementioned games, but if you step into the boots of elite black-ops agent Hayden Tenno solely for satisfying combat, then you won't be disappointed.

The single-player game starts off promisingly with a moody black-and-white prologue mission set some 20 years before the events of the other nine levels. Getting comfortable with the controls used for gunplay and for getting in and out of cover should take you no time at all as you battle your way through it, and it won't take you long to realize that the enemies you're facing are smart enough to employ a lot of the same tactics that you do in the interest of self-preservation. The story gets underway with a bang as well--a few bangs, actually--but as you progress through the game, the story rarely feels like it's moving along with you. Characters come and go without giving you any reason to care about them, you travel between locations killing everything that moves without really knowing why, and new abilities are frequently added to your formidable arsenal without explanation. Dark Sector's lack of good storytelling shouldn't hamper your enjoyment of the game too much because cutscenes are infrequent and brief. Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that a protagonist as fun to play as Hayden doesn't have a great narrative to back him up.

To simply refer to Hayden as a killing machine would be to downplay just how overpowered you can feel at times while playing as him. The skills with conventional firearms that you learn in the prologue mission stay with you for the entire game, but even as increasingly powerful weapons become available to you, you'll find that you spend far less time using them. That's because throwing the glaive that grows from his right hand early on is a more elegant, powerful, and satisfying way to dispatch foes than any gun. Initially, the glaive is used simply as a projectile weapon that comes back to you like a boomerang after every throw, making enemy decapitations and severed limbs a rare treat. However, when you gain the ability to add aftertouch to your throws, it becomes an even deadlier projectile that you can steer around corners and over obstacles to butcher enemies in glorious slow motion. The PS3 game supports an option to steer the glaive by moving the motion-sensitive Sixaxis controller, but the right analog stick does a better job. Applying aftertouch not only makes slicing up enemies easier, but also affords you a front-row seat for the kill because you get to see everything from the glaive's perspective. Decapitating enemies this way never gets old, though some of the glaive's other uses definitely do.

The glaive isn't just an awesomely powerful weapon; it's a veritable Swiss Army knife that can be used to unlock doors, open ammo crates, and pick up items that would otherwise be out of reach. The uses for Dark Sector's answer to Link's boomerang don't end there, though, because with a little help from the elements your glaive can be used to light torches, create columns of ice, and even put out fires. By hitting specific items scattered throughout the world, it's possible to imbue your glaive with electricity, ice, or fire for a short time, at which point using it to kill enemies becomes more satisfying than ever. Nevertheless, that's rarely the reason why you're afforded access to an element; more often than not, the elements are needed to overcome environmental obstacles or to solve simplistic (though occasionally challenging, timed) puzzles. For example, sheets of black goop stretched across doorways have to be burned before you can progress, and mechanically sealed doors can be opened only with an electric charge. Puzzles like these crop up a little too frequently in Dark Sector and, given that you don't even have to think about them after the first occurrence, it doesn't take long for them to feel like chores that you have to complete before you're allowed to progress and have fun playing with enemies again.

Dark Sector's impressive combat sequences are also broken up with exploration, which becomes a necessary evil as you realize that searching every nook and cranny of an area before progressing to the next is the only way to find ammo, currency, and weapon upgrades. Money can be used to buy new weapons on the black market, which is conveniently located under every manhole you come across. It's important to buy and upgrade both a pistol (which you wield simultaneously with the glaive) and either a rifle or shotgun at some point, because weapons that you pick up from slain enemies function only for a short time before they're automatically disabled. There's a reason they do that, but going into it here would risk spoiling one of the story's very few twists for you. Weapons on the black market are extremely expensive, so despite the range of options to choose from, you shouldn't expect to own even half of them by the time you reach the boss at the end of your first play-through.

There are several boss battles in Dark Sector, and all of them are very different. Variety comes courtesy not only of bosses that differ wildly in shape and size, but also of the weapons and abilities that you'll need to defeat them. None of the bosses are overly challenging if you take your time with them because, with only a few exceptions, their attacks just aren't powerful enough to kill you with a single blow. They'll hurt you, and the borders of the screen will flash red to let you know that you're injured, but Hayden regains health so quickly that getting into cover briefly or even simply performing a few evasive rolls is generally all you need to do to get back to full strength. That's not to say that all of the boss battles are easy, though, because they're not. It's just that often the tricky part is figuring out how to beat them rather than actually doing it.

Although playing through Dark Sector's single-player mode doesn't reward you with a great story, it's definitely a great way to prepare for the game's online multiplayer offerings. There are only two multiplayer modes, but both of them will afford you the opportunity to play as Hayden at some point, complete with all of the skills that he has at the end of the single-player game. Both of the online games, titled Epidemic and Infection, are designed for 10 players and can be played on any of five specially designed maps. Epidemic pits two teams of five, each led by a Hayden, against one another in a battle to see which team can kill the other's leader first. Infection tasks one player, as Hayden, with killing as many of the other nine players as possible before they manage to bring him down. When you're not playing as Hayden, you assume the role of a garden-variety soldier armed only with a firearm, explosives, and the ability to move in and out of cover. One Hayden versus nine might not sound like a fair fight, but when used in conjunction with shield and stealth abilities, Hayden's glaive-and-firearm combo gives him a significant edge over the competition. Ultimately, our experiences with the lag-free multiplayer modes thus far suggest that the balance is about right.

Neither the game types nor the maps really lend themselves to groups of less than 10 players, so bots can be used to make the numbers up until more players decide to join. Like the enemies in the single-player game, the bots generally exhibit intelligent behavior but occasionally slip up. (On at least one of the multiplayer maps, they can regularly be seen standing around doing nothing.) Regardless, Dark Sector's multiplayer modes are a lot of fun even when you're playing as a soldier, and the biggest disappointment is simply that there aren't more modes or maps. A straight-up deathmatch option in which everyone has Hayden's abilities would probably be chaotic, but this seems like a missed opportunity regardless, as does the vehicle that you commandeer for a time in the single-player game but which is nowhere to be found in multiplayer.

Playing online is the only time you'll notice any significant differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Dark Sector. The Xbox 360 version lets you join unranked or ranked games automatically, whereas the PS3 version features a more conventional lobby system. Both systems perform their functions admirably. The Xbox 360 version benefits from some neat single-player and multiplayer achievements, but these are replicated on the PS3 as "entitlements," so those of you playing on Sony's console aren't really missing out unless you have a penchant for gamerscores that span multiple games.

Visually, Dark Sector rarely fails to impress, though you'll occasionally stumble upon low-resolution textures while searching with a flashlight in darkened corners for pickups. Furthermore, it's a little jarring in such a realistic-looking world that your glaive frequently travels through walls on its way back to you, but then this is a game that really tests your ability to suspend disbelief at every opportunity, given the nature of its puzzles and the lack of storyline. The game's audio is also worthy of note, thanks to an original score that does a great job of letting you know when danger is present or past. Likewise, some really satisfying sound effects make the weapons feel powerful, the environments feel creepy and abandoned, and some of the enemies far more intimidating than they deserve.

Dark Sector isn't the next Gears of War, and it isn't a game that you should go into looking for a compelling story. You could certainly do a lot worse if you're looking for 10 to 12 hours of single-player action and some multiplayer kicks, though.

warhawk (PS3)

Warhawk is a 32-player, multiplayer-only shooter from Sony. It has ties back to another Warhawk, an early game for the original PlayStation that focused on the warhawk itself, a fighter jet that can convert to hover mode and back again. You probably don't remember it, which hardly matters, because the multiplayer focus of the PlayStation 3 Warhawk game leaves it with no real story and no real sense of the war you're fighting. This game has a stripped-down feel, but the exciting gameplay certainly makes up for those feelings. This is blue versus red across multiple modes and maps, in the land or in the air. And it's excellent fun.

The real story of Warhawk isn't about the epic conflict between two opposing sides. It's about how this game has been made available. If you want it immediately, it's a downloadable purchase from the PlayStation Store for $39.99. If you're desperately in need of more things to put on shelves, or if you want a voice-chat device, you can buy the game in stores for the standard $59.99 in a package that comes with a wireless headset, some behind-the-scenes video, and a full manual. There's no functional difference between the two games, so it really comes down to personal preference. The downloadable version does not come with instructions at all, which is sort of messed up. Other games on the PlayStation 3 have had Web browser links built in to load up offsite manuals and things like that, but Warhawk has none. So the only way you'd know that you need to push the L3 button to talk or find out about the zones mode is to fumble around for yourself or go to Sony's site, where it has a downloadable manual available. But even that manual, which comes in the box with the retail version, doesn't explain everything, such as some of the terms used in the ranking screen.

It's a good thing, then, that most of Warhawk is incredibly straightforward. It's easy to jump right into a game using the game's server browser, and there seem to already be plenty of people playing at all hours. If you've ever played something like Battlefield 2 or Star Wars: Battlefront, you'll probably take to Warhawk's brand of team-based multiplayer shooting quickly, as it's a simplified take on that experience. The maps have bases strewn about that your team can capture. Capturing them gives you a place to spawn, or if you're playing in the zones mode, it'll help you earn points toward winning the game. You spawn on foot, with nothing but a lowly pistol and a couple of grenades. But at bases and spawn points, you can usually find a host of weapons. These include an assault rifle, flamethrower, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, and binoculars, some of which you can use to call in air strikes. You'll also find plenty of vehicles, such as jeeps, tanks, and the warhawk itself. And in some fortified areas, you'll find turrets that shoot flak or homing missiles, which are very, very effective against incoming aircraft. All of this balances out nicely because the ground troops can take out vehicles with the homing rockets from the rocket launcher, the turrets can defend base positions against air--but not as well against other vehicles--and the tanks are usually sitting ducks for warhawks to plink away at with swarm missiles or cluster bombs.

One of the major gameplay differences between Warhawk and other similar shooters is that you'll find a ton of aircraft on most of the maps. Sometimes you'll feel as if half of the game's 32-player limit is buzzing around, dogfighting overhead, or attempting to strafe ground targets. This gives it a unique feel, and it's a lot of fun. Warhawk controls well regardless of what you're piloting too. You can play around with controller sensitivity to get things just right, and, if you like, you can fly the warhawk using the tilt sensing of the Sixaxis controller. However, the tilt support never feels responsive enough to be useful in tense situations.

Warhawk comes with five different maps. Before you get all up in arms about how low that number looks, each map can be configured for different game sizes, so there are configurations for small, medium, and large-sized games. Each map also has a dogfight configuration, giving you more warhawks to use. The different configurations make the maps feel totally different, giving you different strategies to work with and so on. This means that playing in an eight-player game can be just as thrilling as a 32-player fracas. There are also multiple modes. Team deathmatch works as you would expect, with control-point captures giving you new places to spawn but no real points benefit. Capture the flag is a standard two-flag CTF mode that puts flags in each team's main base. Zones mode creates colored circles around each base, and the goal is to earn points faster than the other guys by holding more zones than the other team. The zones link together if you hold the right ones and level up your control over them to make the colored circles bigger, which brings in even more points. Lastly, there's a deathmatch mode, which can be fun for dogfights, but this is very much a team-based game, so playing with no team to back you up isn't as much fun. You can also play online with a split-screen, which allows multiple players to play online from the same machine. On top of playing on the Internet, the game has support for LAN games.

Outside of the game, you can chart your progress to look at your rank and medals. You'll earn ribbons for a variety of round-specific accomplishments, such as finishing first on the winning team, getting 10 antiair kills, not shooting your teammates, and so on. Badges and medals also take your global counts into consideration, giving you awards, such as a meritorious service medal. You'll get this award for capturing the flag 100 times, defending 100 zones, capturing 500 zones, and then getting two flag captures in the same game. That's sort of steep, but it certainly gives you something to shoot for as you play. As you rise in rank, you'll unlock additional head, shirt, and pants types for your soldiers, giving you a clear way on the battlefield to see if someone's totally raw or a honed online killing machine.

Warhawk will run in 480p, 720p, or 1080i, and the game looks really nice overall. Its greatest visual feature is that you have a very long draw distance, giving you a clear view of things that are really far away. For example, on one map, which is made up of a series of high islands, you can sit in your base and see turrets moving in bases far, far in the distance. Armed with a sniper rifle, you can practically reach across the entire map and knock fools out. The equipment looks good, and it also blasts apart really well. Exploding warhawks cause burning hunks of metal to fall out of the sky, and it looks great. The game sound is also effective, with good weapon noises and explosions. Warhawk, unlike most online PlayStation 3 games, has voice chat, which comes in handy.

Regardless of how you get it, Warhawk is a great multiplayer shooter and one of the first of its kind to land on the still-new PlayStation 3. It offers just enough content to justify its price tag, but more importantly, it plays well, with just the right mix of tactical considerations and finger-on-the-trigger action. With hooks in there for additional map downloads, it'll be interesting to see how this one develops from here.

Madden NFL 08 (Xbox360, PS3)

t's taken two and a half years and three releases, but Madden is finally back to form. In Madden NFL 08 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, EA Tiburon has put together the most complete version of Madden seen on either console to date. The gameplay is tight, practically every old feature that had been previously missing is back in some form or another, and new additions have been made that significantly change how you play the game--for the better. By no means is this year's Madden flawless; it's definitely got some quirks and underpolished aspects that will probably drive some people crazy. But taken as a whole, Madden 08 is easily the first great entry for the series on the 360 and PS3.

You'll notice the big difference in this year's title the second you hop into a game. Marquee players have been given icons to specifically represent what type of "weapon" they are on the field. There are a ton of these different designations, separating out multiple types of players at each position. Wide receivers, for instance, come in a wide variety of forms. There are quick receivers who are able to nimbly duck and dodge around defenders to get open; possession receivers are good at catching the ball in traffic; hands receivers can grab onto just about any ball thrown their way; and big play receivers will leap up to make those really spectacular catches. Every position has at least a couple of these different designations, though not every player is truly a weapon. In addition, each weapon type has an opposite, a player on the other side of the field who can, in a sense, cancel out their abilities. Big play receivers, for instance, are vulnerable to big hitters, finesse move defensive linemen have a tougher time getting by top pass blockers, and so on.

The system itself works beautifully within the context of the game. Sure, you'll certainly note the differences between QBs like Brett Favre and Vince Young, but that would have been the case in any Madden game of the last few years. Here, you'll notice the differences in just about every position. Power running backs and speedier running backs are more individually defined than ever before, as are the differences between run blockers and pass blockers. On the defensive side of the ball, you see more in the technical differences in play between a shutdown corner that guards against the deep threat, and the press coverage corners who prefer to jam up receivers at the line. And the big hitters? Yes, they hit big.

These new weapon designations even go beyond basic techniques--they can actually give you insight into what the other team is doing. Specifically, the "smart" QB and defender designations come with a meter that fills up as individual plays on the other side of the ball are called throughout a game. After a single play or coverage scheme has been called four times, a quarterback like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady can actually see exactly what the defense is going to do, whereas a smart defender can get a glimpse of where the offensive play is going to go. Obviously the counterattack to something like this is to vary up your playbook as much as possible, which is in itself a great thing, since that's what real offensive and defensive coordinators are forced to do in the real game.

The excellent new weapons feature isn't the only way the on-field action has changed. Madden's control scheme is more complex than ever before, with more presnap controls than you'll probably ever know what to do with. Once you get the hang of it, the controls become like second nature, but it's likely that players not extremely well versed in the ways of Madden will get a little confused at first as they fumble around with the controls, especially since practically every button on the controller does at least something presnap. This is especially true on defense. The defensive playmaker controls are back, letting you assign coverage changes to individual players before the ball is snapped. You can also now focus coverage on a specific receiver with a quick button press, though doing so will draw defensive resources away from other receivers. When laying in big hits via the right analog stick, you can hit a player high by pressing up, and low by pressing down. Doing this has different effects on different types of players. Hitting high might cause a less cautious ball carrier to cough up the rock, while going low on a power back is probably the best way to take him down as he pushes past the line. There's also a button that will make your controlled defender attempt to strip the ball from a carrier, provided you time the button press right.

Between that function and the big hits, you'll actually be seeing quite a few fumbles throughout Madden 08. We're not talking NCAA 08 numbers of turnovers here, nor is the number of fumbles per game outlandish or unrealistic, but fumbling is far more regular an occurrence now than it's ever been in a Madden game to date. It's definitely noticeable enough that it will probably frustrate some players. More than anything else, it simply pays to be extra careful with the ball.

Between the new weapons feature and all the various control adjustments to this year's game, Madden 08 provides an extremely deep and challenging experience on the field, possibly even a bit too challenging, depending on your tastes. One of the complaints about last year's game was that the defensive back artificial intelligence was too much of a pushover, allowing too many easy completions. That's definitely not the case this year. DBs are quite tough to get out of position, especially on the higher difficulty settings. It's maybe a little overblown in terms of challenge there, as DBs seem to just magnetize themselves to receivers and always find a way to get an arm up to swat a pass away, however unlikely the situation. Even linebackers are tough to get the ball by a lot of times. But that's really the worst thing you can say about the AI on any level. Otherwise, it plays a very realistic game of football across practically every position.

nother big complaint about the last couple of iterations of Madden was the distinct lack of features. Madden 06 had only a barren franchise mode and basic online play to its name, and while 07 cranked out a new version of superstar mode and a couple of minigames, franchise and online went basically untouched. In Madden 08, many of these modes have seen at least slight upgrades. The biggest and best differences are to be found in the franchise mode, which, while still not as rich with features as previous installments on older consoles, still has a fair amount to offer. During the season, you can now train individual players before each week's game to try to boost up their stats in certain categories. These stat boosts are tied into point totals you earn during drills. So, say you've got a receiver that's got a high, but not quite high enough rating in the "hands" category; what you'd then do is look at how many points you'd need in order to get him to the next level (points earned are determined by the difficulty level of the drill), and put him through his reps. These stat bonuses stay put, too, so you won't lose them the next week.

In terms of offseason features, the owner mode is back in a relatively new form. During the season, you can keep track of your finances via a series of menus that tell you everything from how your revenues and costs stack up against other teams in the league, to which players are currently in a contract year. You'll also hire a scouting agency at some point, and during the season you can task them with keeping tabs on up to 20 rookies from the upcoming draft class. The reports they give you aren't necessarily much more detailed than the ones you get by default on every player, but they tend to be more accurate in judging potential. Rookie potential is actually a new feature in and of itself, in that now, rookies with different expectation levels can become gems or busts over time. These icons don't pop up until a player has been in the league for a little while, but it's all about what a player's potential is. If a player turns out to be greater than his draft position would initially suggest, he'll get a gem icon and actually perform above his stats. Busts are, as you'd imagine, the polar opposite. Even a bust can still be a useful player if you find a way to get him to make plays, but it's far more challenging a prospect than with any other player.

Lastly, franchise owners can now maintain their team finances by buying upgrades for their stadiums, gaining sponsorship deals, and even opting to move the whole bloody thing to another town if so inclined. Of course, doing so is a tricky process. You have to find a city interested in a team, and on top of that, the costs of doing so are prohibitive. There's a neat system in place that shows how interested a city is in having you in relation to how much money they'll have to spend in order to do it. You basically have to find ways to cut the city's costs down if you want to move there, and if you submit an offer that isn't up to the city's liking, you lose your chance to move until the following year. Once you do move, you'll build a stadium, edit your squad as you please, and finally have that team in Winnipeg that we're sure you've always dreamed of.

The superstar mode is much as it was last year, but considering how good the mode was last year, that's not a bad thing. You still create your player, use your influence on the field to boost up your teammates, talk to your agent, sign contracts, and generally go through the motions to try to get yourself into the Hall of Fame. One neat addition is that you can actually choose players from this year's rookie pool, so if you want to live the life as Calvin Johnson or live in a fantasy world where Jamarcus Russell actually signs a contract with the Raiders and gets to start, you can do so. There has also been a slight alteration made to the camera system in this mode. The camera is now a bit more zoomed out, making it easier for you to actually see the field. Granted, the camera is still pretty tight on your player, so it's only a minor improvement.

Online play is functionally unchanged from the last couple of iterations of Madden. You can go head-to-head against only one other player in ranked and unranked matches. The online matches are certainly solid. Lag popped up here and there, and when it did, it had a palpably negative effect on gameplay--specifically, it made completing passes nearly impossible in the worst instances. But the bulk of the matches we played weren't very laggy at all. As always, your mileage online may vary. There are some online bells and whistles, like the ability to glance at ESPN-licensed news videos, audio clips, and stories, but nothing you couldn't easily get faster directly from the ESPN Web site. There's still no league play of any kind, which is extra-sad when you consider that EA's NHL franchise plans to debut this exact feature in just a few short weeks.

Other ancillary features include the same basic minigames from last year, such as the 40-yard dash and bench press, the same functional create-a-player mode, and, finally, a create-a-team mode, which had been missing. There's a decent amount of customization available for jerseys, stadiums, and whatnot, though you can't actually customize the roster of a created team with actual players unless you bring that team into franchise mode and do a fantasy draft. By default, the game populates the team with generic players that are rated depending on how you set your team up (run heavy, pass heavy, balanced, and the like). You also can't import a created team into franchise mode without replacing another team, though that's not exactly a new issue.

The core graphics engine hasn't evolved much from last year, with maybe a touch more detail in the various player models, and not much else. However, animation is decidedly more impressive than ever before. Essentially, a gaggle of new branching animations have been thrown into the mix. Receivers who catch the ball on the sidelines will drag their toe while falling out of bounds or carefully angle their steps to stay in bounds. Running backs look decidedly more fluid as they juke and spin past defenders. And on defense, gang tackles are finally on board and look fantastic. Watching as two big defenders wrap up a running back, or two defensive backs simultaneously go high and low on a ball carrier, effectively flipping that poor schmuck head over heels, is quite a sight to behold. There are a few slightly off-looking animations, like the way that every single player on a field goal defense or an onside kick return team will simultaneously stand up and then crouch down into proper position, and a few catches we saw looked a little buggy and off-kilter. But by and large, the animation in this year's Madden is the best it's ever been.

One of the big points of contention about this year's Madden has been the difference in performance between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. It was announced some time ago that the 360 version would run at 60 frames a second, versus 30 on the PS3. When you compare the two games side by side, yes, there is a noticeable difference. The PS3 version is certainly choppier and slightly more prone to hitching up in-game than the 360 one. However, simply taken on its own merits, the PS3 version isn't suddenly awful because of this one issue. The choppiness rarely ever distracts you from the gameplay, and for the most part, the 30 frames a second number holds pretty steady. If you have a choice between the two, certainly the 360 version is the preferable one from a visual standpoint, but the PS3 version isn't unplayable by any means.

Madden 08's audio is the one area that really feels like it lacks. The on-the-field sound effects are still great, and the soundtrack consists of the usual roster of modern rock and rap acts, combined with the NFL Films music. Commentary, however, is a sticking point. The EA Sports radio announcer who's been around since Madden 06 sounds like he's still spouting the same lines from two years ago, and he still can't seem to get the correct yardage numbers at the end of each play. John Madden still provides voice work for any plays where you choose to "Ask Madden" for a suggestion, but this dialogue is also largely recycled, and sometimes incorrect. There are times when he'll go off about running a screen play when the play being suggested is a four wide receiver set with nothing but deep routes, or a quick pass play when the suggestion is a run up the middle. Finally, Marshall Faulk tries to provide a bit of preshow and postgame commentary, talking about the matchup, key players, and the like. The problem is that he's terrible. The commentary is flat, monotone, and completely uninteresting, not to mention that he practically never uses a player's name.

Sadly enough, ESPN commentators Merril Hodge and Mark Schlereth pop up to do tutorials for some of the minigames, but that's it. You've got actual broadcasters in the game, and they're not even broadcasting. This speaks to a larger issue with Madden, which is that it still hasn't found a way to do broadcast presentation right. The EA Sports radio guy felt like a placeholder when he first debuted, and while he was good, isn't it time to get a real broadcast team? EA has the ESPN license, so there's not much excuse not to get the Monday Night Football crew for games. And why no ESPN integration into the franchise mode? No commentary or week-in-review from Schlereth, Hodge, or the multitude of other NFL experts floating around the network? Heck, even the Super Bowl feels low-rent. There's practically nothing in the game to separate it from any other game during the regular season. Considering it's the biggest sporting event out there, that just strikes as lazy.

It's issues like these that hold Madden NFL 08 back from being a truly stellar effort. Make no mistake, this is a great game of football through and through, especially on the field, where the new weapons feature has a fantastic effect on how you play the game. The new additions to the control scheme, the new animation system, and the franchise upgrades also can't be counted out. If anything, Madden 08 seems to represent a tipping point of sorts for the series. You feel like the game is right on the brink of getting back to where it was four or five years ago in terms of stature and innovation. Still, while it might not be quite there yet, Madden NFL 08 offers more than enough quality content to make it worth your while, and features the best football gameplay you'll find on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Stranglehold - Preview (PS3)

Our latest look at Midway's Stranglehold takes us to a marketplace that, by its inclusion of tutorial segments and the generally easy pace of the action, looks like it will probably end up being the first level in the game, though the unfinished Xbox 360 version we saw was only a section of the entire game, so even that isn't set in stone.

This third-person action shooter attempts to capture the nonstop, graceful gunplay and stuntlike acrobatics that are commonly associated with John Woo's work, and in those terms, it's feeling pretty satisfying. The left trigger in the Xbox 360 version is used to dive in any direction, though it's also a context-sensitive control. If you're standing near a glowing object or surface, like the handrail on a staircase, Inspector Tequila will hop onto the rail and let you run right up it. The level also has plenty of carts, and running at these and diving causes you to dive onto the cart, which starts rolling forward. You can steer it a bit while you shoot at enemies.

Stranglehold is clearly taking a lot of inspiration from the Max Payne series, and as such, the game also makes a big deal out of slow-motion "bullet time" effects. Here, it's called tequila time. You can enter it at will, but the game also defaults to automatic use of your slow-motion power. If you dive sideways or slide down a handrail while aiming at an enemy, the game slows automatically, making it easy to line up shots and take out enemies. It's a bit different than Max Payne, though, as it slows down only when you're actively trying to line up a shot or pointing at an enemy. This makes more economical use of your slow motion, which is governed by an onscreen meter. The meter appears to refill fairly quickly, though, so running out of slow-motion time was never much of a problem during our stint with the game.

The game looks pretty good, and you can tell that a lot of work has gone into making sure that Chow Yun Fat's character model looks like the real deal. The game has a cover mechanic that lets you hide behind pillars, corners, and so on, and during these sequences, you get a good, up-close look at Inspector Tequila himself. Just like the real thing, he always seems to be wincing as he endlessly fires dual pistols, shotguns, and other weapons at his foes.

You also get a good, up-close view of things during stand-offs. These sequences happen at specific moments in the game, where you end up getting surrounded by multiple gunmen. When this happens, everything gets slow and your movement control is limited to leaning left and right to avoid bullets. The right stick becomes a more focused aiming reticle, and you need to quickly take out each enemy while leaning to avoid their incoming bullets. It's an interesting canned sequence that handles this action-movie standby in a pretty cool way.

With Stranglehold due out in August, it won't be long now until we get to see how the whole game comes together. The action definitely feels just about right, so it's up to the story sequences and voice acting to see if it can form a cohesive, cool package.

NHL 2K8 - Preview (PS3)

Hockey games have been on the upswing ever since the introduction of the Xbox 360 a few years back. Thanks to crisper graphics and innovative controls, the sport has rarely been depicted as accurately as in the past few years. That isn't to say that there's no work to be done, however. As Kush Games, the developer for 2K Sports' upcoming hockey sequel NHL 2K8, will tell you, there's always room for improvement. We had a chance to check out the E3 build of the game to see where it's heading.

Along with a new-look menu system that looks a bit like a film reel, the game will feature improved player models and the new Reebok "Rbk Edge" uniforms, which were first seen in last season's All Star Game. They will also be worn by all NHL teams during the 2007-2008 season. The uniforms are slightly slimmer and feature swaths of mesh fabric near the arms, along with an almost feltlike material on for the player number, which was clear to see on the player models in the game. The uniforms won't be the only new aspect of NHL 2K8's look. The team has also gone to great lengths to vary the kind of equipment the players will use on the ice, which includes tape on the socks, skate-blade holders, or the nearly 50 different sticks that will appear in the game.

Beyond the new look to 2K8, a new control scheme means the game will feel slightly different. The developers at Kush, recognizing the increased popularity of tying controls to the right analog stick, have moved some--but not all--stick control to the right stick. With the puck in your possession, you can move your stick left or right and push forward or pull back, all by moving the right stick in any direction and, more importantly, shoot from any position. Different players will have differing stick handling skills--so that Joe Thornton is able to kick the puck to himself or quickly switch from side to side, while your third-line wingers might not be as skilled. On defense, you can also use the right stick to poke check your opponent to try to grab the puck from an opponent. You'll also use the right stick for face-offs and be able to swipe at the puck either forehand or backhand, depending on which way you move the stick.

However, unlike 2K8's major competitor, you won't be shooting with the right stick. Instead, shooting and passing will still be executed with buttons, the right button and left button, respectively. The new mechanics--coupled with some more observant referees--means you'll need to pay attention during face-offs more than before. If you go too early, you can get warned or even booted out of the face-off, bringing your winger in to take your place. Guys with strong face-off skills will have a larger "window" of time they can use to win the face-off. In addition, a higher skilled player will be more liable to win in case of a face-off tie-up.

Another new twist to the controls is separate speed burst and sprint buttons. Your standard speed burst will be controlled with the right trigger (the left trigger is still for skating backward). But if you're looking for that extra push over the top when chasing a dumped puck or making a last-second breakaway, you can hit the A button for a dramatic, if brief, charge. The upside is the burst of speed can give you some crucial clearance on the defenders; the downside is that, after a sprint, a player won't be able to handle the puck, their turning radius will greatly increase, and they'll be gassed at the end of a sprint and will be due for a line change more or less immediately.

It takes some time to get used to the new controls, especially the shooting and passing tweaks. But beyond the adjustment time, the game plays fine. The goalies are more aggressive than before; producers say the goalie artificial intelligence has been completely rewritten so that net-minders will challenge the offensive player more often and will be more apt to use the butterfly when defending against shots.

While last year's cinemotion presentation option, which replaced play-by-play commentary with sweeping orchestral music, will still be available, the new default presentation style will feature the team of Bob Cole and Harry Neale (of Hockey Night in Canada fame). They will be once again offering their play-by-play and color commentary on the games. However, the improved cinemotion camera style will be part of the action.

We caught glimpses of features in NHL 2K8 that neither 2K or Kush are ready to talk about yet. These include the team-select screen that showed some teams noted with a "super rank" tag (perhaps it has something to do with franchise mode?), as well as yet another control mechanic tied to the L3 button (clicking down the left analog stick), for which we're still awaiting details. But we do know that when the L3 button was clicked, we weren't able to shoot or pass the puck. 2K also hinted at some sort of mechanism that will allow your player to call his shot before he shoots on the goalie and, while they didn't go into any further detail, they did say it will bring an entirely new level of fun to the gameplay. Finally, the game will be running in 1080p resolution at 60fps when it's released later this year, a first for any 2K Sports game on Xbox 360. Stay tuned for more on the game in the coming weeks.

Rock Band - Preview (PS3)

Guitar Hero was just a jam session compared to Harmonix's next effort, Rock Band. We got to try an early version of the ambitious new rhythm game at an Electronic Arts press event in advance of E3. (EA is merely distributing the game to retail; Harmonix and new parent company MTV are handling the actual development and publishing duties.) As rhythm game fans are no doubt aware, Rock Band will flesh the core Guitar Hero concept out into a full band experience, featuring lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. In other words, Harmonix is basically blowing the doors off the original formula it helped create a couple of years ago. EA had prototype guitar and drum controllers, a microphone, eight demo songs, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon on hand at their event, and for some strange reason, we felt compelled to spend all our free time at the event glued to the Rock Band Demo kiosk. Let's just say it wasn't the free beer that kept us there.

Of course, you've been clamoring for Rock Band's set list as much as we have, so here's what Harmonix had to show at the demo: The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," David Bowie's "Suffragette City," The Hives' "Main Offender," Weezer's "Say it Ain't So," Nirvana's "In Bloom," Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper," Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," and Mountain's "Mississippi Queen." Even better? All but the last two of those songs will appear as original recordings by the artists themselves in Rock Band. Harmonix is leveraging MTV's enormous record-industry clout to ensure that as many original recordings as possible will appear in the game; purportedly, the only songs which will be covered in a studio are the older ones for which no master tapes have even survived.

On the gameplay side, Harmonix hasn't messed with what's already worked in multiple Guitar Hero products. Mechanically, the two guitar players in any given song will see the exact same fret-board-based five-note patterns they're familiar with. The drummer will see his patterns in the middle, between the two guitar tracks, and this track will show only four notes, to correspond to the four pads on the drum controller. A solid line will appear on the drum track indicating when you need to hit the bass drum pedal. Finally, the song lyrics will run along the top of the screen, using a style similar to those you've seen in numerous Karaoke Revolution and SingStar games before, and singers will get to hit the mic with their hands to approximate a tambourine or cowbell in some songs. If you were wondering how Harmonix was going to fit all this gameplay onto a single screen, you'll see in the screenshots that there's still plenty of room left over for denim jackets, mohawks, and flaming frets in between all the gameplay interface elements.

If Harmonix hasn't shaken up the gameplay model that made Guitar Hero great, it's certainly bolted some interesting new mechanics onto that model. Like in Guitar Hero, you'll build up a points multiplier as you play without missing a beat, and this time around the bass player can achieve a 6x modifier, compared to 4x on the other roles, because bass can get a little dry sometimes. Harmonix is specifically emphasizing Rock Band's multiplayer action with some of these new features. For instance, sometimes you'll hit a "unison phrase" section of a song that will require all players to perform perfectly for the duration of the phrase to nab a big score bonus. Luckily, all players can select their own difficulty levels before a song, but if one of your bandmates fails out of the song, you'll be able to bail them out by pulling off exceptional performance.

You'll actually get to go off the rails from time to time in Rock Band and freestyle a little. Singers will encounter sections where they can sing (or shout) whatever they want for big points (the louder the better, of course). Similarly, drummers can play their own fills during preset sections of the song. But the best of these features, from what we saw, was the wild full-band flourish that happens at the end of a particularly rollicking song. You know how a good band will draw out the end of a big song and improvise for a few bars before pulling off a huge simultaneous finish? Yeah, you get to that in the game. Everyone will flail on their instruments (or scream into the mic) as the points rack up and the song finishes with a big bang. Hey, we saw it work brilliantly in action--this is going to be a half-decent party game, we're pretty sure.

Harmonix is going all-out to extend the Rock Band experience beyond your own console. For starters, you'll be able to create your own rocker by choosing from tattoos, ripped jeans, piercings, and various ridiculous hairstyles. You can use that custom shredder in the game's four-player online mode, but even better, you can join up with some friends to create a persistent band that you'll all belong to, even on the Harmonix Web site. Our favorite part, though, is that the game will generate custom loading screens and band T-shirts based on the custom appearances (and presumably, on the silly name) that you've come up with for your characters and band.

So about those controllers. As we mentioned, the devices EA had on hand weren't finalized, but the new Fender Stratocaster-style guitar controller and the drum kit were looking quite solid. The drums are no-frills--you've got four pads and a pedal. But the guitar blew us away. Unlike the previous Gibson controllers used with Guitar Hero, Rock Band's guitar isn't immediately recognizable as a toy; it basically looks like a miniature Strat. The colors and styling are extremely consistent with the real thing, and there are some nice nods to detail, too. The five-way tone switch on the body actually works, letting you subtly adjust the sound of your guitar in-game. The fret buttons aren't colored on their face--you just get a small colored bar on the edge of the neck instead--which preserves the authentic Stratocaster look. Easily our favorite new feature, though, is the addition of a second set of fret buttons right up next to the bridge for wailing during the most enormous solos. Clearly there are people with a hand in this game who know how to rock with deadly efficiency.

Needless to say, we're extremely excited about the direction Harmonix and MTV are taking with Rock Band. It's not putting the rhythm genre on its ear the way Guitar Hero did, but it's evolving that initial concept to such an extent that it's practically a new experience anyway. Stay tuned for a whole lot more to come on the game next week at E3 and in the months leading up to the game's release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 later this year.

Transformers: The Game (PS3)

Transformers: The Game is very much the archetypal movie-licensed game. It's got all the hallmark problems of the genre, including short length, overly simplistic mechanics, a barely-there story, and a bit of a sloppy feel. It is simply an excuse for fans of the upcoming live action film (and maybe even some fans of the old cartoons who, admittedly, will take pretty much anything they can get at this point) to run around, awkwardly beating up Autobots or Decepticons in various semidestructible environments. If that's all you want out of the game, then Transformers might provide you a few mild hours of entertainment. If you were hoping for something more, Transformers will probably just disappoint you.

The basic premise of the game is the same as the film's. The classic Transformers battle between good robots and evil robots has spilled over to planet Earth as the two warring sides search frantically for an artifact known as the AllSpark. The AllSpark is essentially the life force for all Transformers, which explains why they'd want to get it back. Sam Witwicky (voiced with appropriate "gee whiz!"-ness by Shia LaBeouf) is an average teenager who happens to hold the key to finding the AllSpark. From there, it's a race for both sides to find Sam and get the AllSpark. There might be more to the movie's plot than what is presented here, and you should really hope there is, because otherwise, we're all in for one exceedingly boring film. With the exception of a few bouts of basic dialogue between Sam and the various Transformers (including veteran TV series voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron with about as much enthusiasm as you could hope for), there's almost no story to drive the game forward. In some respects that's not surprising, simply because with this method, almost none of the film is spoiled for you.

The one potentially interesting thing about Transformers is that it splits the game into two campaigns, with one for each faction. In the Autobots campaign, you'll play as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, and others as you hunt for the AllSpark and try to protect Sam, and the rest of humanity, for that matter. On the flipside, the Decepticons campaign has you playing as Megatron, Starscream, Barricade, and company to track down the AllSpark and destroy the Autobots. While the opportunity to play as both the good and evil sides sounds enticing, you'll actually find that there's very little difference between the two campaigns.

Regardless of which side you pick, you'll be forced to slog through a copious number of missions that have you fighting easy-to-kill grunt Transformers using the same three-hit combo again and again, or racing around one of the game's few, somewhat open-ended environments trying to chase down one Autobot or Decepticon to fight a few times while using the same three-hit combo, as well as an occasional throw attack. These missions might have been more tolerable if the combat were a little more involved, but as it stands, you just need to mash on the melee attack button to blow through most enemies, and the few that aren't so easy just require a random object from the environment thrown at them to soften them up. As you are Transformers, you can also transform and roll out as one of several different vehicle types. However, driving is decidedly less fun than running around as a robot, as the cars handle very loosely and tend to get hung up on random environmental objects--which is odd, since when you hit other cars, they just go flying like they're made out of cardboard.

The lone bright spot comes from the Decepticons campaign. In certain missions, you're tasked with simply laying waste to one environment or another. Be it a big city or a sprawling military installation, these environments are fun to destroy. Your weapons fire does a lot of damage to buildings, cars, trees, and any other solid objects nearby. In the Autobots campaign, you can do the same types of damage, but it's all incidental, since you're ultimately trying to protect humanity--not lay waste to it. On the Decepticons side, your goal is to cause as much chaos as you can, and that can be a good bit of fun. What's neat is the way the destruction and battles are presented--explosions are frequent and large, the damage to buildings looks appropriately massive, and the combat moves you can pull off actually do look cool. Seeing Optimus running around, double-fisting pistols, and Blackout using his helicopter blades as a sword is pretty awesome. Part of that comes from some solid animation, but it also helps that the Transformer models are so highly detailed. Say what you want about the new robot designs from the movie--they're represented very well within the game, though the one issue is that sometimes you'll actually forget which Transformer you're playing as, since many of them look the same in robot form. That's really more the fault of the film's designs than anything else, though.

Adding to the mass-destruction effect is the camera, which violently shakes during battles, and even jerks around a bit as your big, clunky robots run around. Unfortunately, that shaky-cam effect tends to get in the way more than it helps. At times there are so many explosions and so much gunfire going off that the added chaos of the camera makes the whole scene indecipherable for several seconds. This is also one of those games where you can easily get boxed in by multiple enemies or trapped in some chunk of the environment, unable to move because the camera won't steer around to a good vantage point. By the same token, Transformers relies too heavily on contrived "action zones," which are just chunks of the open-world environments that you can't exit while in battle. If you go out, you've got to run back in or you fail the mission. Of course, it doesn't help when you're getting blasted out of the zone and are continually forced out again and again by enemies who follow you out and keep knocking away at you. That isn't a constant problem, but a few missions are made far too frustrating by the fact that you have to constantly try to stay within these stupid action zones.

At least you won't have to put up with issues like this for very long. Each of the game's campaigns is only a few hours in length, putting the game's total length right around five to six hours. If you're really looking to extend out the experience, there are a bunch of side missions in each game area (most of which are just simple, slightly dull "kill a bunch of this enemy type" missions), some unlockable content to mess with, including film clips and photo sets, and some unlockable skins for the Transformers that give them their original, G1 skins from the show. Granted, you'll have to go do all the silly side missions to unlock a lot of those skins, and those just aren't fun enough to justify the effort.

There are some notable differences among the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii versions of Transformers. The Xbox 360 version has the usual smattering of achievements, many of which can be easily earned just playing through both campaigns, though several of the remaining ones require you to do all the various side missions. In terms of control, the 360 and PS3 versions are basically identical, though the PS3 version lets you use the Sixaxis tilt controls to steer Decepticons that can fly, like Megatron and Blackout. The Wii version obviously has its own array of motion controls, though unlike some other, recent movie-licensed titles, they aren't completely half-baked. Yes, you swipe the Wii Remote or the Nunchuk to attack, but these controls actually feel responsive enough that you don't feel like you're constantly struggling to hit something. The one downside is camera control, which is mapped to the remote. It's not unmanageable, but the camera will often move up or down too far if you just happen to hold the remote at a slight angle. In terms of graphics, the 360 and PS3 versions are both entirely comparable to each other, though the PS3 version is a bit lacking in the lighting department, looking overly dark in spots. The Wii version retains the basic look of the other versions, though it's obviously scaled down to fit with the system's hardware. The Transformers still look nicely detailed in the Wii version, but the environments have been scaled back significantly. The frame rate also tends to dip more often on the Wii version, but not to an unplayable degree.

Transformers: The Game ultimately delivers a passable, though entirely unremarkable tie-in to the upcoming film. The one thing it nails is the size and feel of these gigantic robots and their ability to cause massive destruction, but that isn't enough to carry the entire game, especially with the burden of the periodic glitches, camera problems, and overly simplistic combat to carry as well. If all you want is to see some nice-looking robots beat each other and the world silly, then throwing down a rental fee on this game isn't a bad way to go. But regardless of your affinity for the film, the franchise at large, or giant robots in general, Transformers: The Game doesn't have enough going for it to make it worth a purchase.

Super Stardust HD (PS3)

Here's something you never thought someone would be able to say in 2007: The dual-joystick shooter market is, perhaps, getting a little oversaturated. The arcade-style games, initially popularized in arcades by Robotron: 2084, saw a rebirth with the release of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on the Xbox 360. And we've been getting a mix of classic emulated releases, as well as new games, ever since. Housemarque's Super Stardust HD marks the third such game to hit the PlayStation 3, and it's also the best. But if you've been trying to keep up with this genre, there's a good chance that you might already be sort of tired of it.

Super Stardust HD puts you at the controls of a tiny spaceship that flutters around a grid, which protects a planet from asteroid attacks. Big space rocks are constantly slamming into that grid and sticking to it, so it's up to you to fly around the grid to blast the rocks apart. Think of it as Blast Factor in space, instead of in a petri dish, or perhaps Asteroids on a sphere with all-directional fire. The catch is that you have three different weapon types available at all times, and each one is somewhat more efficient at dealing with specific types of rocks. For example, your gold melter destroys gold rocks faster than your ice weapon. As you blow up rocks, you'll get down to their cores, which glow green and release power-ups when destroyed. You can power up each of your three weapons, as well as collect extra lives, a shield, and extra bombs. Bombs let you clear a radius around your ship when things get too hectic. You can also cut through rocks and other smaller enemies using a boost attack. The boost attack is probably the most dramatic change to what would otherwise be a very cookie-cutter game, though the multiple weapons at your disposal are also a nice touch.

There are multiple planets to unlock and defend, with each planet broken up into five phases of increasing difficulty that culminates in a boss fight. You can opt to play the game one planet at a time or play in an arcade mode that lets you progress from one planet to the next. There's also a co-operative mode for two players. Both players play on the same screen, and if one ship tries to fly too far away, the other gets dragged along as the planet scrolls. Also, sticking close to your partner gives both of you a weapons boost. Co-op play hasn't been a feature of too many of these new wave Robotron clones, so it's a cool addition in Super Stardust HD, even though you can't take that co-op online.

While the planets you're flying over aren't terribly interesting, the game's rocks and explosions are the visual highpoints. The rocks blast apart into interesting crooked shapes, and the explosions are fairly flashy. The game will do 1080p if you have a capable set, and the frame rate stays solid. The soundtrack has an appropriately sci-fi adventure tone to it as well, which helps set the mood a bit.

How likely you are to enjoy Super Stardust HD is directly proportional to how many other games like this you've played over the last year or so. If you're burned out on Blast Factor and want something new, Super Stardust HD's $7.99 price tag feels just about right.

The BIGS (PS3)

As good as baseball games have gotten, many people feel that they're too complex and yearn for the old days where you could play an entire game in 15 minutes but didn't have to have a college degree to figure out the controls. If you've ever felt this way, or you just like fast-paced, over-the-top baseball, The BIGS should be right up your alley.

The BIGS has a lot in common with Midway's Slugfest series; the games move along at a brisk pace and there are plenty of gargantuan home runs, as well as some absolutely filthy pitches. On the mound, each of your pitches is mapped to a face button on the controller. To throw a pitch, you simply press the corresponding button and hold it until you've gone past the mark on the meter. If you wait too long or release too early, your location will be off and you'll tip your pitch to the batter. Each pitch is rated according to the pitcher's ability to throw it. This ability decreases as the game goes on, but the change can be accelerated by giving up hits. The harder the pitch is hit, the less effective it will be, and eventually, you'll lose the ability to throw the pitch completely. This isn't a huge problem when playing a single game because you've got plenty of pitchers at your disposal, but it's an issue in rookie challenge because a pitcher's stamina level carries over from game to game.

For every strike you throw, you'll fill your turbo bar a little, and when you've filled one of your bars, you can press a button to activate turbo. This adds some extra zip to your fastball and adds some break to your breaking pitches, making them very difficult to hit. Above the turbo meter is the power-up meter. On defense, this can be filled by striking out hitters, making great plays, and robbing home runs. Once it's full, you can use it on either offense or defense for one at-bat. When it's used on defense, your pitches are all powered up and nearly (but not quite) unhittable. You'll also steal some of the points from the opposition's power-up meter depending on how many strikes you throw. Even when you're tossing regular pitches, it's a blast because the pitches are so darn nasty.

Hitting is just as simple and just as satisfying as pitching. You've got one button for a contact swing and one for a power swing. You don't have to worry about lining up cursors or using the analog stick to try to match the pitch location--it's all about timing. The left analog stick can be used to aim your shot, but there's no reason to be intimidated--it's easy to do and not all that necessary. You can earn turbo by taking balls, but the pitches move so fast and break so much that judging location is nearly impossible unless the pitcher tipped his pitch.

The turbo that you've accumulated on defense carries over to when you're on offense though, so you'll get plenty of chances to use it. If you activate it before a pitch, you'll add some power to your swing and force the pitcher to throw a strike. If you use it after you've hit the ball, you can run extra fast. While you might not be able to fill your turbo meter much on offense, you can increase your power-up meter fairly quickly by getting base hits, walking, or getting beaned. Activating your big hit power-up will guarantee a home run, provided you make contact. But this isn't just any old home run, it's a titanic blast that will spark as it hits the fair pole or explode when it hits the scoreboard. It would have been nice to have a bit more variety with regards to where the ball goes when it's hit because it seems to go to the same few spots over and over again. It also would have been nice to not get home runs taken away by the CPU several times in a game (even when you use turbo to hit), but for the most part, hitting is a lot of fun.

Where The BIGS stumbles a bit is in its fielding and base running. Once you've practiced (and when it works) mashing a button to run faster and using buttons to select the runner, moving the analog stick to direct them works OK, but too often the runners don't make the turn when you want them to or they stop in their tracks just shy of the base. The ability to run full-speed into the catcher like a freight train is totally awesome the first time you see it and makes up for some of the base running woes, but not all of them. The rest of the game is so simple you wonder why base running is so complicated. In the field, you can use boost to run faster or throw the ball faster, but the game plays so fast that you'll rarely have time to discern that you need turbo and press the button before it's too late. You can rob home runs by running up to the wall, pressing a button to jump, and then replicating a sequence of button presses shown onscreen. But unless you're playing another person, these opportunities are few and far between.

Once the ball is hit, you're given control over the player in the best position to make a play, but the ball is hit so hard that it's often already passed you by the time you figure out who you're controlling. This issue is exacerbated by a fielder's inability to change direction quickly; if you take one step in the wrong direction, you can forget about getting to the ball in time. Finally, the plays where the ball hits a fielder, knocking him down as it ricochets away are far too common and are all the more frustrating thanks to the lousy fielding controls. But even these issues don't prevent the game from being a ton of fun to play.

There's no traditional season mode in The BIGS. Instead there's the rookie challenge, where you create a player then try to lead him and his team to the World Series. There aren't a whole lot of customization options with which to create a player, though additional items unlocked throughout the mode let you add a little flair. Once you've picked your player's position and distributed some attributes, it's off to spring training. Here, you'll play a couple of games; based on your performance, you'll earn points that can be used to improve your players' running, hitting, and fielding abilities. You'll also participate in some fun minigames, such as batting practice and running an obstacle course. You earn big points for successfully completing these drills, which is good because the points you get from playing actual games don't amount to much.

After you've finished spring training, you must barnstorm your way around the league, taking on whatever games appear on the map. Sometimes you'll have to play a full (five inning) game, while other times, you are placed in a situation where the game has already started and you must perform a task with your created player, such as steal a base, drive in a run, or get a base hit. After you've beaten the first few challenges against a team, you'll get the opportunity to steal one of its players if you beat that team in yet another a full game. You can only steal 10 players, so you might want to hold off on snagging someone from the Devil Rays or you might not have room for someone on the really good teams that you'll encounter later in the rookie challenge. As you finish the available games and scenarios, new ones will open up. Then eventually, you'll take part in the All-Star game, and if you're good enough, the playoffs and World Series.

The rookie challenge is quite a bit of fun for a while, but you'll find that you've seen most everything it has to offer in just a few hours. Because this is an arcade-style game, it would be unreasonable to expect a whole host of general manager options and full stat tracking, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect at least some customization options or some basic statistics. Alas, there are none. As a result, you might find yourself rushing through games or even getting yourself out on purpose because there aren't any rewards (other than minimal points for your created player) for playing well and crushing the competition.

The BIGS is light on additional play modes, but what is here is good. Home run pinball drops you right in the middle of Times Square, and your objective is to do as much damage as possible by hitting balls into neon signs, taxi cabs, or huge televisions. It starts off easy enough, but it quickly gets tough when the pitcher adds a new pitch to his repertoire every minute or so. There's also a bit of strategy to employ because you can earn bonuses for hitting all of the letters in the "HOTEL" sign, and once powered up, you can smash the new year's eve ball. Once you've finished a round, your score is uploaded to an online leaderboard for all to see. If you prefer to hit in a stadium, you can take on another player in a split-screen home run derby where the objective is to be the first to hit 10 taters. Both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have basic online options that let you play a ranked or unranked match. Unfortunately, lag and frequent hiccups make the online games significantly less fun than offline contests.

Most likely, the first thing you'll notice upon starting a game is that the players are absolutely huge. Their faces are detailed and in most cases look like their real-life counterparts. But their bodies are larger than life, and their muscles are ripped. Even normally scrawny players like Ichiro look like superheroes, though there is still a little difference between him and someone like Albert Pujols. There's not such a dramatic difference between the stadiums in the game and real stadiums, but some artistic license has been taken with the proximity of local landmarks to the field, as well as the size of notable features inside the stadium. A few issues prevent the game from looking as good as it probably could have looked. For example, the lighting is poorly done. It's so intense that it frequently washes out colors and gives players an odd sheen that makes their uniforms look as if they're made of rubber. Some of the animations, such as when a player spins around after missing a pitch or how a second baseman floats in midair in slow motion as he turns two, look great, but there isn't enough variety. The transition from one animation to the next is also often awkward or nonexistent, particularly when fielding. The huge home runs look fantastic, and it's awesome to watch the scoreboard explode, but you'll probably find yourself wishing for more variety rather than player celebrations, or at the very least, more destruction from your homers.

Given the over-the-top nature of the game, it's probably a good idea that the outstanding but somewhat mild-mannered duo from MLB 2K7 Jon Miller and Joe Morgan aren't calling the action. Instead it's Damon Bruce, a radio host for KNBR out of San Francisco who calls the action. Outside of a few instances where he blurts out the wrong player's name, his basic play-by-play is on point and his energy level is high, though not to the point of being annoying. The crowd and the sound effects are also typical for a baseball game. The exceptions to this are the nicely fitting, almost cartoonlike sounds of the bat crushing the ball and the sound of a pitch whooshing past a hitter. Fans of grunge-era rock will enjoy the soundtrack, which features artists like Stone Temple Pilots and Screaming Trees.

With its simple, yet exciting gameplay, The BIGS has gotten off to a great start. It's a bit shallow, with some room for improvement in regards to how it plays in the field and on the base paths, but anyone looking for a fun, arcade-style baseball game would do well to give The BIGS a shot.

The Darkness (PS3)

The Darkness. You work best when you're in the shadows, it's a grisly and occasionally gruesome tale, and it also happens to be the name of the demon festering inside of you. Yes, for multiple reasons, The Darkness is a perfect name for this first-person shooter from 2K and Starbreeze, the developer responsible for The Chronicles of Riddick. Based on a comic book from Top Cow, The Darkness weaves an interesting and authentic tale of mobsters seeking revenge together with an otherworldly force with an insatiable appetite for human hearts.

The game opens with an amazing set piece that gets things moving right away. You play as Jackie Estacado, a New York-based mob hit man on his 21st birthday, and you've just woken up in the back of a speeding convertible. A money-collection deal has gone wrong, your two buddies are attempting to get away from crooked cops, and you apparently got knocked out somewhere along the way. As you're speeding along to a construction site to take out the foreman, you're tossed a shotgun to help defend the car from incoming fire. The car crashes, you end up on foot, and the story begins to unfold. Your Uncle Paulie, the leader of the crime family, has gone off the deep end, suspects you of foul play, and puts a hit out on you. So it's on you to tear apart his operation by taking out key moneymakers and money movers. As you do this, Paulie starts to hit back, sending thugs not only in your direction, but also in the direction of Jenny, Jackie's girlfriend and the only person that really matters to him. Luckily, you won't have to fight it out all by yourself.

Early in the game, Jackie is possessed by The Darkness, some sort of parasitic creature that speaks to you as a demonic voice in your head and manifests itself as two demonic snakelike appendages that shoot out of your shoulder blades and appear on the sides of the screen. They snap and growl when you whip them out, and over time you'll earn new abilities. For starters, revealing The Darkness gives you a shield against damage, better vision in low-light situations, and a move that lets you plant one of the snakelike creatures onto the ground and take control of it. From there, you can crawl into ventilation ducts, sneak around, and kill enemies with a bite attack. You'll also earn a demon arm attack, which causes a big, sharp appendage to thrust outward and through your enemies. Eventually you'll get guns that use The Darkness' energy as ammo and a black hole attack that lets you open up big vacuums that suck enemies in, killing them quite easily in the process. The catch is that The Darkness has a limited amount of power, and all of these attacks drain it. It's restored automatically when you're standing in shadows, making shooting out light sources wherever you go a pretty big part of the game.

You'll select your darkness powers much like you'll cycle through your conventional weapons, with a touch of the D pad. There aren't very many different types of guns in the game, and what's more, the dual pistols that you start with are also the most effective weapon from start to finish. You'll get a shotgun, assault rifles, and an auto-shotgun that isn't accurate enough to be of much use. The game's auto-targeting seems to make your aim naturally gravitate toward the heads of your foes, and one shot from a pistol is almost always enough to take care of them. Considering the artificial intelligence isn't always swift enough to duck and cover, the game usually isn't too much of a challenge on its medium difficulty setting.

Most of the game takes place in New York, and despite its world being reasonably open-ended, the story itself is strictly linear. You'll always know where to go next, and you'll have a good idea of how to get there. If you end up lost, an objectives menu will point you in the general direction, and a map will show you which sections you'll have to travel through. Along the way, particularly in the game's two active subway stations, you'll run into people in need of a little help. This gives you some side missions to play with, and most of these seem to involve going somewhere and shooting and/or talking to someone. They're usually not very difficult, and there isn't really much of a payoff, either. You'll usually get one of the 100 pieces of bonus content, which gives you a few issues of the comic books, as well as plenty of concept art. Unless you're a sucker for concept art or an Xbox 360 achievements fiend, most of the extra stuff can be safely skipped, though the world looks so nice that you might find yourself wanting to complete as much as possible just to spend more time with the game. The main storyline definitely has some length to it, though, so even if you ignore all of the extra little elements, you'll still feel like you got your money's worth out of the game. Thanks to a handful of especially mind-blowing sequences and well-crafted plot twists, you'll feel like you've covered a ton of ground by the time you reach the game's final confrontation.

Not every single aspect of the story is a winner, though. There are a few weird spots that stick out, given the high quality of the rest of the game. For example, enemies rarely even make mention of your unique curse, making you wonder if it's invisible to others for a good third of the game. How would you react if you saw some guy with glowing eyes and a bunch of demonic tentacles sticking out of him running right at you with pistols in either hand? Then, you run into a cutscene where a storyline character specifically references "that demon s***," making it apparent that it's totally visible to all. Shouldn't some guys be running away, screaming like banshees when you reveal yourself and eat the hearts of their friends? Even civilians don't freak out very much if they catch a glimpse of your power. This makes some parts of the game feel slightly disjointed, though all in all, the action and the story are both very satisfying. It's especially fun to eat the hearts of every enemy you take out, which occasionally causes the two demon heads to fight over the heart. Weirdly enough, the head on the right always wins, but it's cool moments like this that help give The Darkness a unique feel.

In addition to the single-player mode, there's an eight-player online mode that gives you the basic first-person shooter modes, like deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. You can do some configuring from there, such as turning on one-hit kills. You can also morph from human form to that of a skittering little demon called a darkling, which is weak and unarmed but has a powerful melee attack and can crawl on walls and ceilings. Modes like survivor play off of this; your goal here is to be the last human standing, and death from a darkling makes you join the darkling side. The online is mostly functional, though the game really falls apart when one player is lagging. Your movement becomes erratic and the game becomes basically unplayable. When it works, it's a decent diversion, though it does feel tacked-on. Being able to actually call upon The Darkness and use the powers you get in single-player might have been cool, though having eight players use a black hole at the same time might have been a little too crazy. Either way, it's immediately clear that the single-player is the star of the show.

Visually, The Darkness looks superb. It's got a very smooth frame rate and a large, nicely detailed world. It goes up to 1080p on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The texture clarity is such that there's a secret sequence of phone calls you can hear by reading phone numbers off of billboards and flyers put up around town and calling them from the nearest pay phone. It also has a great art style to it. New York looks appropriately grimy and urban, with a lot of graffiti. And the Otherworld, where you'll spend a bit of time, has a nicely hellish look that applies to both the environments and the enemies you face. Most of the animation is good, and you have to give it up for any game that features motion-captured break-dancing for no reason other than to provide a bit of flavor in one of the subway stations. About the only disappointing aspect of the game's look is that people's lips don't move very much when they speak, which makes some of the dialogue-heavy sequences look slightly off; but that's minor in the grand scheme of things.

The voice acting in The Darkness is universally awesome. You'll encounter plenty of raspy-voiced old-school mobsters who sound like they stepped right off of the set of Goodfellas. Jackie himself comes across perfectly as the tough-guy hit man that he's supposed to be, but he still shows flashes of vulnerability. And then, of course, there's the voice of The Darkness, which is supercreepy and perfect at giving you a case of the willies. Even the random people you run into on the street have believable voice performances. On top of that, the script is really something, so these great voices have solid dialogue to work with. The rest of the sound effects are appropriate, and as you take damage and near death, things slow down and start to sound as though you're underwater, which is a nice effect. The snapping and chomping of The Darkness' twin heads is pretty cool, too. Most of the music in the game is ambient background stuff that helps set the appropriate mood.

The Darkness is available on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and the differences between the two versions are pretty minimal. The PlayStation 3 version seems to have slightly better color than the 360 version, but the 360 version looks a bit sharper. Also, the Xbox 360 version has achievements, and the PlayStation 3 version gives you the same tasks, but calls them accomplishments. Regardless of what you call them, they're evenly spread, with a few that come from winning more multiplayer matches than you'll probably be willing to endure. Overall, both versions are equally recommendable.

The Darkness' appeal comes from its many different parts coming together in a really great way. The believability of the characters mixed with this hellacious demonic force fits together in a really interesting fashion; the gameplay is very satisfying, even if it isn't especially challenging; and the presentation is top-notch. If you're a sucker for M-rated action--and really, how can you pass on a game with a human-heart-eating mechanic?--you'll definitely want to play The Darkness.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3)

Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox was a true modern classic. It featured smooth, challenging gameplay and amazing production values. It was, in short, one of the finest games of its generation. In 2005, its gameplay was reworked and expanded for a second release, Ninja Gaiden Black. And incredibly enough, the third time's the charm. No, Ninja Gaiden Sigma isn't a true next-gen sequel, nor is it a simple port of the Xbox release. But it does add a good deal of new content, both subtle and obvious. If you're a Ninja Gaiden enthusiast, you'll want to see the new chapters, reworked levels, and slicker graphics. And if for some reason you missed it before, this is a must-play game. The action is intense, focused, and certainly not for the faint of heart. It's also among the most satisfying in all of gaming and remains as awe-inspiring as ever, three years after its original release.

So what's changed? The biggest addition is that Rachel the fiend hunter is a new playable character. She's a badass buxom babe who gets three chapters of her own, and a few levels in mission mode, too. She may be top-heavy, but she still manages a good number of terrific moves. Her minicampaign isn't as expansive as Ryu's: She's limited to using the warhammer and has only a single magic attack (called sorcery, rather than ninpo). The chapters are remarkably refreshing though, particularly because Rachel isn't as agile as Ryu--though a swing of her hammer does a huge amount of damage. Playing her requires you to adjust because her levels are interspersed among the others, so as the game's groove shifts, so must yours. Along with her chapters come new cutscenes, new bosses, and even a few feminine touches that humanize a story that was (and still is) more summer blockbuster than art house drama.

Her chapters aren't just disconnected additions, however. Ryu's chapters are shifted and reworked to give greater context to Rachel's. In fact, every level offers unexpected surprises, both big and small. In some cases, it's as simple as different items found in treasure chests. In others, the significance of the adjustments will catch you off guard, but pleasantly so. For example, one of the central chapters of the original Ninja Gaiden featured a straightforward puzzle to end the sequence. Now, a replica of an earlier boss returns, complete with a few new attacks to round out the surprise. Throughout the game, you'll find new enemies to uncover, such as glowing spirits and soldiers on motorcycles. You'll even get to play with a new set of weapons: Dual swords called Dragon's Claw and Tiger's Fang.

The changes are great, and they do more than throw in stuff for the sake of stuff. In some cases, they refine the pace and address frustrations of the original to make for an even tighter, more centered experience. One such change is the addition of a shop near the final save point before a major, difficult boss fight. It sounds insignificant, but it soothes a large frustration from the original and keeps the difficulty level steady without removing any real challenge from the boss encounter itself. Needless to say, there are countless additions, subtractions, and modifications, and they run the gamut from superficial to substantial. For the most part, all of them are for the better. The only questionable one is the ability to shake the Sixaxis controller to give more power to your ninpo skills. It feels needlessly tacked on, and shaking the controller doesn't really jibe with the general slickness of the other controls. Thankfully, it's the only element that stands out as unneeded among legions of improvements.

And if you haven't played Ninja Gaiden? Well, there's no better time than the present, and you won't need any previous experience with the series to understand what makes it excellent. Ninja extraordinaire Ryu Hyabusa is on a quest to recover the legendary Dark Dragon Blade and avenge the destruction of his peaceful village. Along the way, he meets Rachel, who is on a vision quest of her own. Their two stories mesh nicely in a single-player campaign that may take you 25 or more hours the first time through, depending on your skill level and prior experience with Ninja Gaiden Xbox.

The story never takes center stage, though it has the proper over-the-top sensibilities to frame what the game is really about: kick-ass action in the form of throws, slashes, wall-running, and acrobatic tumbling. If you think a ninja should be able to do it, you can do it in Ninja Gaiden Sigma. The controls for doing so are smooth and seamless, and aside from a few camera angle issues, at no point will you feel you have to struggle with the controller to pull any of these moves off. They result in astounding sequences of somersaulting, swordplay, offensive magic (called ninpo), and countermoves that are as gratifying as anything found in gaming. And as you progress through the game, you can upgrade your weapons, add new attacks, and earn other enhancements.

As you may have heard, Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox was a difficult game, and it's no different here. That isn't to say it's as tough as Ninja Gaiden Black, nor does it ever reach punishing levels. But it is no walk in the park, and newcomers may find it initially intimidating. If you've already cut your teeth on the series, you may be inclined to think that Sigma is a little easier, though that is due more to certain level design tweaks than it is to a reduction in challenge. In particular, Rachel's first chapter may strike fans as a little too easy thanks to a nice smattering of health potions, but the impression won't last once you reach her later appearances. As it is, you'll encounter armies of strong, agile opponents of all sorts, both human and, well, not so human--and you'll fight them in a variety of environments, from winding city streets to subterranean caverns.

Some of the most touted improvements in Ninja Gaiden Sigma over the original release are in the visual department. That isn't to say that it looks exactly next-gen, because there are signs of porting in the form of some bland textures and a few other blemishes. But it looks great, and a side-by-side comparison reveals a lot of nice enhancements in elements like shadows and color saturation. Animations are particularly spectacular, and Rachel's movements are as sleek as any of Ryu's. The sound effects and soundtrack remain the same as before. Still, as with the visuals, the audio additions are beautifully woven into the rest of the design, so nothing seems out of place or glued on.

And once you're done with the tour de force the first time around, you've got new difficulty levels to try out, stand-alone combat missions to play, and in-game leaderboards to peruse. There's simply a lot of game here, and the fact that this is a retooling of a three-year-old title for a new audience shouldn't dissuade you from playing it. Whether you're a series veteran or a newcomer, the in-your-face action of Ninja Gaiden Sigma is as exhilarating now as it ever was, and the new, slickly embedded content is surprisingly meaty. Play this game.