No, it’s not some random guy doing the Beavis & Butthead dance on ice skates…It’s the Vancouver Canuck’s forward Ryan Kesler in a mo-cap session with 2K Games. NHL 2K11 is slated to be a Wii exclusive.

Sony announces the latest Playstation Home update, plus new Home content for Final Fantasy XIII, Indiana Jones, and Sodium One.

PlayStation Home 1.35, a new service update available tomorrow, will decrease load times, enabling users to access PlayStation Home faster than ever before. In addition, PlayStation Home 1.35 replaces the PlayStation Home World Map with a new intuitive navigation system. This streamlined interface features multiple categories to enable users to quickly navigate through PlayStation Home, locate friends, and go to their preferred spaces in just a few clicks.

Categories will include:

• Favorites: Personalize your own section to make locating and going to your favorite places quick and simple.

• Personal Spaces: Your clubhouses and personal spaces are now right at your fingertips. The personal spaces you own and the clubhouses you belong to will be viewable in one convenient location.

• Friends: Finding your friends that are signed into PlayStation Home has never been simpler. View the current location of your friends in PlayStation Home, and then navigate there to enjoy the action together.

• Explore: Browse all the spaces PlayStation Home offers. Finding spaces that suite your taste and mood is now even easier.

• Recommended: Keep up with what is “hot” in PlayStation Home. This regularly updated category will feature the newest and most exciting spaces and additions to PlayStation Home.

The new PlayStation Home 1.35 update also enhances the login process. Once users have launched PlayStation Home from the XMB™ (XrossMediaBar), they will be transported directly to the navigator to begin exploring – making logging in and enjoying PlayStation Home even simpler.

PlayStation Home today features more than 12 million registered users around the globe. Averaging 60 minutes per session, PlayStation Home users visit the ground-breaking service to play games, attend special events, watch videos, listen to music, meet new friends, and launch into multiplayer PS3 games. Over 350 community events have been held in PlayStation Home in the U.S. since its launch, with many more organized by the PS3 community themselves. With new users, games, entertaining new spaces and virtual items added weekly, PlayStation Home continues to dramatically evolve to offer new challenges and experiences with every visit.

Check out the Playstation Blog for more info on the new content coming this week.

After hearing murmurings that Bizarre Creations’ upcoming Blur is like Mario Kart for grown ups, I jumped at the chance to get into the Multiplayer Beta. 1.44 gigabytes later, I was soaking in the presentation that IS Blur…

The menus are bold and simple [read BIG!], and I easily found myself in my first race. The transition from lobby to track is a bit of cinematic genius. Each track has a thumbnail image that displays as you wait. Once the track is loaded, this thumbnail expands almost seamlessly into the track flyby introduction.

With a dramatic rolling start (A brief moment of silence, please, for any Daytona USA fans in the room…), you know that this isn’t Project Gotham Racing in sheep’s clothing. Bizarre has stripped away sim aspects, such as the starting grid and manual transmissions, leveling the playing field and making Blur instantly accessible.

While Blur does feature vehicular combat akin to Mario Kart, the cars handle with realistic physics. No unrealistic power-slide boosts here, although there are nitro pickups to be found, along with various electrical weapons. Overall the game feels more like Kart of Duty: Modern Carfare. This is due to the publisher Activision’s influence.  Project Gotham’s Kudos system has been scrapped in favor of an experience point system, similar to the last three Call of Duty titles.

The XP unit in Blur is the fan. The more style you race with, and the higher your position, the more fans you earn per race. As you level up your fan-base, you unlock better vehicles to race with, and new customizable perks. Just like Call of Duty, there are three different perk categories, each with their own pool of benefits to choose from.

The Blur Beta gives you a taste of four of the game’s multiplayer tracks, in four different modes (there are several other game modes, currently locked in the beta). We gave out some codes late last week, keep your eyes peeled here in case we get any more. If you’ve already tried the beta (public beta started today, March 8th, 2010) let us know what you think!

Activision provided a Beta access code, upon which my impressions are based.

Gameplay: Scrap Metal consists of you, a rookie in a sense, traveling to 8 tracks competing against the top racers in that area. Each track has a total of 8 races to complete, making a total of at least 60 races. Each race consists of you literally battling your way to the finish line by any means necessary. You will compete in action packed races, demolition derbies, elimination races, and boss battles to name a few. Most races let you use your weapon, but some such as the elimination races disable them. At the end of each race, you will receive a gold, silver, or bronze star depending on your performance. Each will grant you upgrade points for your vehicle. You start with a basic buggy with a machine gun, and as you progress through the tracks, you earn new vehicles. Each vehicle has a different weapon attached to the front. Weapons can be machine guns, flamethrowers, rams, chain saws, shotguns, grenade launchers, lasers, a scoop, and rocket launchers. Each weapon, however, is linked to the vehicle and cannot be swapped between vehicles. As you earn a new vehicle, it immediately goes to your junkyard. From here, you can select up to four stock vehicles to be placed in your garage. Each of these four cars can be customized and upgraded. Customization options are limited; there are preset paint colours, decals, and accessories to be added to your vehicle. Upgrades are also limited by the vehicle and class. You can upgrade the speed, grip, armor, and firepower. Each upgrade is limited to a minimum of 2-3 upgrade stars. This requires you to frequently switch vehicles from the junkyard and you can never use just one vehicle from start to finish. The vehicles that you can unlock range from small buggies and muscle cars, to pickup trucks, semi trucks, monster trucks, and bulldozers. Learning the controls can be one of the trickiest parts. Eventually you will get used to it, but until you do, keep at it, don’t get frustrated. Driving the vehicle with the default controls somewhat resembles that of a dual stick shooter, except only using the left stick; you just point in the direction you want to go. Advance controls are available and require you to hold the right trigger to drive, while the steering is relevant to the perspective of the car, similar to other driving games. Weapons can be used by pressing the A button, or the right stick. The overall objective is to race and use your weapons to get ahead of your opponents, similar to other racing games like Full Auto or Vigilante 8.

Graphics: Graphics are consistent with today’s XBLA games. Beautifully lit and rendered tracks. Occasionally there are some night and rain tracks that may affect how you play the race. From the top down perspective, you won’t notice the detail each car has, but when you visit the garage, vehicles have quite a bit of detail. Destruction of vehicles is well done; when shot, pieces of the vehicle slowly fall off. Vehicles catch fire, and eventually explode in a rewarding fashion, well, aside from your own vehicle exploding.

Multiplayer: Multiplayer consists of up to four players locally, system link, or xbox live battling it out against other computer or player controlled vehicles. As you’d expect, gameplay from single player carries over. However, custom vehicles from single player do not. Depending on the game type and track, certain stock vehicles are available. As far as customizations on the vehicles go, you may choose a different paint colour from the preset options. There are numerous game types available such as race, derby, king of the hill, elimination, gasoline, airboat, tank battle, and grand prix. Most of them rely on points. For instance, in a race, your position only gives you bonus points. Keep destroying other vehicles and you win. Along the track, in both single player and multiplayer, random power-ups will appear. Shooting or driving through a power up will give you an advantage. These power-ups include nitro boost, shield, extreme firepower, and extra speed. Eliminating a target usually grants you special weapons as well – mines, oil, thumper, and missiles.

Overall: I had a lot of fun with the single player. I only enjoyed a few of the game types in multiplayer. Races, derbies, and tank battles were fun. The overall feel of the game and races is reminiscent of old school games like the NES and Sega games R.C. Pro-AM, Super Off-Road, or Rock N’ Roll Racing. I had a sense excitement while racing similar to the Burnout or Full Auto games. The controls do take some time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be drifting around corners with ease. Although occasionally, the game will think you are going in a different direction resulting in spinning out, or driving into walls. I also found I was constantly checking the leaderboards to see my ranking among others. I noticed it also features a somewhat hidden 3D mode available in the options menu. I didn’t get to try it, but seems like it could be a crazy experience. I look forward to any downloadable content in the future such as extra tracks in singleplayer.

Pros: -Plenty of races on 8 unique tracks totaling 60+ races

         -Some fun game types

         -Weapons on vehicles and elimination of opponents is rewarding

         -Avatar Awards

         – There are no loadng screens, instant start when selecting a race.

 Cons: -Game sometimes gets confused on the direction you want to go. Will end up having to stop the vehicle and re-adjust the direction resulting in destruction of your vehicle or loss of race.

           -Compared to the amount of levels in N+, Scrap Metal falls short. You can only have so many variations of a track though.

Score: 7.5/10

A copy of this game was provided to the reviewer from the publisher.

Written By Ben Lehman

There’s a big hubub today about Microsoft opening up to allowing sexual orientation info in profiles and Gamertags. Checking out the new Code of Conduct, there isn’t much for anyone affected to get excited about. The terms that may be used are severely limited (you won’t be noob-tubing “Lesbot69″ or “Trannyman187″ in Call of Duty anytime soon).

What you can do:

* You may use the following terms to express your relationship orientation in your profile or Gamertag:
o Lesbian
o Gay
o Bi
o Transgender
o Straight
Other terms regarding relationship orientation are not allowed. In addition you may not use these terms or any other terms regarding relationship orientation to insult, harass, or any other pejorative use against other users.

See the full Xbox LIVE Code of Conduct here

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a calculated move by Microsoft, designed to generate a nice revenue boost before the end of Q1. Up till now, MS has suspended accounts and forced people to change their Gamertags and profile content if they contained any information relating to sexual orientation.

Is Microsoft temporarily waving the $10 fee to change your Gamertag? I’m betting not. Are they at least allowing people previously forced to change their GT to change back for free? Let us know about your experience in the comments!

 

Intro – Kicking off the XBLA Block Party is Toy Soldiers. Toy Soldiers at its core is a tower defence game, but doesn’t play like a game you’d expect from the genre. With so many tower defence games on the market, wouldn’t another one just be the same? Most of them provide the same gameplay experience, but Toy Soldiers is much different. In Toy Soldiers, you can actually take control of any unit on the battlefield.

Story – In Toy Soldiers, you take control of a toy battlefield set during WWI. The battlefield is essentially a miniature world set up in a box. Just like something from Toy Story, the soldiers leap into action in an epic miniature war. In campaign, you play British and German units in 24 intense, WWI inspired campaign levels.

Gameplay – The essential gameplay for Toy Soldiers is quite simple, but takes time to master. In each level, the goal is to protect your toy box (base) from enemy waves. If the score reaches zero, you lose and must restart. Each level is different as it depicts various battles from WWI. In front of the toy box are platforms where you can set up units. This is quite different from a typical tower defense game because in most, you can line up as many towers as you can fit on the map. In Toy Soldiers, however, you are quite limited. Starting each level, you are given some money to build a basic defensive line of units. Like any tower defense game, it’ll take some time to figure out a strategy and where you should place units on each map. Killing enemies will net you more money. At any point in the battle, you can take control of a unit. Doing so will give you a bonus for killing enemies and start a multiplier for even more money. Taking control is crucial to success in this game. The AI does a good job of playing on its own, but they only shoot when the enemy is close range. With you in control, you can see what’s ahead and start shooting before the enemy reaches your line of defense. Much like the grenade cam in COD, by holding the fire button you enter the shell cam which allows you to follow mortar rounds. This allows you to control the direction and speed of these mortar round. Between controlling these units, watching the battlefield, and created new units, it gets quite hectic watching everything at once. The units you can use are machine guns, mortars, chemical guns, howitzers anti air turrets, airplanes, tanks, and my personal favourite, a sniper tower. All the aiming and control is done with the left stick. For instance, when flying an airplane, you use the left stick to steer, and right stick to control the speed. In a machine gun, you use the left stick to rotate the turret. As a sniper, you use the left stick to look around the battlefield. This control scheme could take some time to get used to if you are quite familiar with using the right stick to aim in an FPS. Flying the plane can be a little difficult, but with time, it’s playable. Something quite useful is the tactical overhead view. I found myself using it a lot to see all my units at once, and quickly move around the map. At the end of each level, you unlock upgrades for your units. These upgrades of course allow your unit to do more damage, and shoot farther. Also, during each level, you will be given bonus objectives to complete such as destroy 5 enemy planes while flying the bi-plane.

Multiplayer – Of course, to make the game even better is multiplayer. Battle head to head with a friend in five multiplayer maps locally and on Xbox Live. Not sure how they get this number, but you can command 42 unique units. In terms of the units available, each side is equal. It basically comes down to who has the best tactical defense strategy.

Sound/Graphics – The battlefield is beautifully rendered to depict the WWI battles. Along the edges, there are cardboard cut outs to indicate boundaries. The Toy soldiers, units, and environment look great. In the far off distance, past the boundaries of the world, you will see objects from a desk such as a desk lamp. Full environment destruction such as sandbags, barbed wire fences, buildings. Soldiers and units blow up like you’d expect from toys; they break into many pieces. The lighting effects are amazing as well. The overall presentation of the game fits the WWI style nicely. There are old film effects and war posters throughout. Occasionally you will hear music. It fits the 1900’s war style perfectly. It makes me want to go and buy a soundtrack if there ever was one.

Overall – In the end, Toy Soldiers offers a unique tower defence experience for the XBLA. With 3 difficulty settings and a fourth, “Elite” being unlockable, there are plenty of options for the new, and experienced tower defense player. When you complete the main campaign, you will unlock an award for your avatar, as well as a new survival mode that is playable on some maps. In this mode, you fight off endless waves of enemy units until your limit is reached. The game does include boss battles and in my opinion they are tough; Intense, but tough. Eventually you will figure out a strategy, but just make sure to redirect the stronger units towards it if they aren’t already. Also, upgrades really help if you have the money. Before the games release, there was and still is available, an official Facebook game called Match Defense: Toy Soldiers. The gameplay is essentially a match three puzzle game. There is supposed to be some sort of connectivity between the two, but so far all I’ve seen is the ability to view the map, and scores on the xbox 360. For 1200 points, you might not think there is enough content included, but after playing it, you’d be a fool not to buy it.

Pros -intense WWI battles

        -1v1 multiplayer; xbox live and splitscreen

        -Plenty of units and upgrades

        -Unlockable survival mode for endless gameplay

        -Great art style and music

        -Avatar awards

        -Facebook Match Defense game connectivity

 Cons -controls are sensitive and take some time to get used to, mostly the airplanes

        -not so much a bad thing, but boss battles and the occasional level alone can be really tough

        -loading screens can be a little lengthy

        -limited placement of units

 Overall Rating: 8/10

A copy of Toy Soldiers was provided to us for Review purposes.

Written by Ben Lehman

Story – B Company, aptly nicknamed Bad Company is comprised of Sargeant Redford, a ready to retire army man,who is told that he can when he finishes one last mission, Haggart, the redneck demolitions expert. Sweetwater, the Communications expert, and you, Preston Marlowe, the new guy. You are forced into the same unit due to past incidents as punishment. Coming off invading a neutral country by accident (Haggard run into it screaming like a madman), they run into trouble and rather than listen to their superiors they decide to finish the mission. As they finish it they are alerted to one of the people of their army trapped behind enemy lines and are told that it is imperative to extract him. The first mission that made the withdrawal necessary was to stop a nuclear warhead to be detonated, and after they got there, they found out that it was a fake, a decoy.

Gameplay – The game is a FPS. You are allowed to collect as many weapons as possible, giving you more to work with and a couple achievements. You also collect satellite uplinks that you destroy. The levels are quite linear and have basically no room to get lost because of the quest arrows pointing where you go. How you get there is up to you. The vehicles of the game sort of got tweaked from the previous one. Before, your Sticks would be the gas and brake. This time around you use the Triggers. Other changes to the game include: knife button is the RB (used to be R3, or right stick click), grenade uses LB (used to be RB), added auto aim so if you tap the left trigger it will lock onto a target, and a couple changes in multiplayer. The Campaign mode is quite longer then the first game. It has about 12 missions to the 6 from the last one.

Sounds/Graphics – All of the voice actors from the first game reprise their roles. Much like the rest of the genre’s other titles, this game is no different in the fact that there are a lot of explosions, gun fire, screaming, etc that you would expect in a warzone. All of it seems to be clear with nothing to complain about. The graphics are amazing. The terrain of the game ranges from the jungles of south America to the ocean to a snowy mountain. There even is a level with below freezing temperatures, as you stay out in the open in the level your screen seems to ice over, when you go into a building it will return to normal colors.

Multiplayer – The problem with this aspect of games is that they have to go against the juggernauts such as Call Of Duty and MAG. Does this games multiplayer rank as one of the best? To me I really don’t think so. There are 2 different modes, rush and conquest. Each was in the first game though conquest was DLC. Rush was named gold rush, and was shortened to just rush. In each mode you are given waypoints and are told to capture the flag (conquest) or blow up a box or stop the enemy from doing so. (rush) Each match has 16 players on each side and a total of 4 squads of 4 people. In the first game, there was a bar on screen telling you how many respawns your team has left, they eliminated that this time. The ranking system is similar to COD. When you play as a certain class your points will only go towards ranking that class, gaining new weapons. You can invite up to 3? Friends to join the battle and party chat is now available to use Problems have come from the servers but rest assured DICE and EA plan to fix them. There are times where you won’t find a match even though the game is running, or you get booted to the dashboard.

Overall – If you want a game loaded with humor and want some challenging multiplayer, either of the Bad Compay games is worth a look.

Pros
• funny game
• multiplayer can be enjoyable

Cons
• story is a bit lacking
• sometimes hard to find a match

8.5/10

This Review is based upon a copy of the game puchased by the Reviewer

Every amateur dreams of getting called up to the big leagues, and this past Thursday, I got the call. A conference call that is, with some of the guys from Visual Concepts and 2K Sports. I got to sit in as a bench warmer in a Q&A session with Producer Ben Bishop and Gameplay Designers Jonathan Rivera and Sean Baily.

Questions were meted out by Chase from Access Communications. The following is a synopsis of the conference call. These are not direct quotations, but a summary in my own words. I will use [ ] to signify my own thoughts within the summary.

Ben Bishop (Producer):

Major League Baseball 2K9 is not the game 2K Sports and Visual Concepts wanted it to be…Visual Concepts was brought in late and didn’t have a full cycle to square up to the task. That is all changing with MLB 2K10.

This year’s MLB game has a new feel, building on feedback taken from every level (internal, pro players, reviews, forums and surveys, etc.), including Evan Longoria, this year’s cover athlete. Longoria is a big gamer, and worked with the team as they made adjustments throughout development.

Part of the new feel also owes to the plethora of new features and game modes. New for 2K10 is the “My Player” mode, which brings the missing career mode to the 2K Baseball series. “My Player” lets you create your own player and play your way through the minor league ranks, earning skill points and filling your “MLB ETA” meter as you play. These skill points let you level up your player’s stats, from power to Batter’s Eye.

Once you get the call to the Big Leagues, you’ll be playing your way toward the Hall of Fame! There are some out-of-game aspects that affect your career, but nothing as involved as more casual/flashy baseball games like The Bigs and The Show. One of the “My Player” features [I'm excited about] is the “Short Form” mode, which sims everything in the game, except for your player’s parts. This accelerated game mode lets you play a whole game in 5-10 minutes!

MLB 2K10 is also getting a revised version of the Dynamic Commentary system first used in the NBA 2K series. Dynamic Commentary works differently based on the game mode you are playing (D.C. is not used in online multiplayer).

In the Franchise mode and My Player modes, Dynamic Commentary will be based on the stats from your virtual seasons. Meanwhile you will get commentary based on up-to-date real world pre-game stats (and results for your current game in progress) in the new MLB Today mode.

MLB Today mode is like a game du jour…pick the team you want to play as, and MLB 2K10 sets up the game to match the real-world game conditions. Dynamic Commentary in MLB Today mode will let you brush up on your team’s real-life status, like how the Dodgers are one game away from sweeping the Giants in this 3 game series, player stats etc. [I wonder if anyone will be using MLB Today to choose bets,spreads, etc. by simulating the games? I'll have to try it out on a few match ups, see how accurately MLB Today predicts game outcomes]

Sean Baily (Gameplay Designer):

On the tech side, pretty much everything in the game has been re-written from scratch (AI, physics, animations, and the pitching and hitting systems). The framerate was a priority, and has been improved and stabilized.

For pitchers, you now pre-select your pitch type using the controller buttons, no street fighter moves just to choose what type of pitch you are throwing [that comes later]. How well you execute the corresponding street fighter style move for that pitch type determines the speed, and how accurately your pitch is delivered.

Visual Concepts has tried to create a pick up and play control scheme, while also delivering a realistic challenge that has some depth to it. Pitching is about making your motions accurately and batting is about timing, no more zone hitting… Both sides of the match-up have their own analyzer that helps you see mistakes in your inputs/timing [I don't find the Swing Analyzer all that helpful].

MLB 2K10 will be seeing some real battles at the plate. Hitters have some tools to extend at-bats, when they get in trouble. Defensive swings will help you stay alive, and contact swings will put the ball in play [if you are in the right neighbor with your timing]. The Batter’s Eye will clue you in to the incoming pitch. How often you get the Batter’s Eye depends on each player’s rating.

Jonathan Rivera (Gameplay Designer):

2K Sports wants MLB 2K10 to be the best baseball game out there, no matter what platform [and it's being published on pretty much all of them!]. A lot of work went into fine tuning the different aspects of the game, and improving acrobatics animations.

AI players are more casual and realistic in no/low pressure situations, and improvements were made in the Fielding AI. You are less likely to get two players trying to catch the same ball, for example. The new pre-loading system combines fielding & throwing into a smoother, more efficient motion.

Franchise mode has received some welcome upgrades, including a full 40 man roster and mid-year drafting. Trading of course is there, along with new compensatory draft picks. Another feature is “Super Sim” which lets you run entire games in simulation, in any game mode. If you don’t like how things are going, jump back in the game and take over. One downside to Super Sim is that you may not earn as many skill points (My Player mode), compared to playing out the whole game yourself.

The player ratings are built upon stats going back three years, with most weight being placed on the most recent season. Usually the system works pretty well, but sometimes pro players will give feedback and complaints if they feel they are being underestimated.

There are a few playable classic teams in the game, however there are no throwback stadiums. [It will be interesting to see what classic teams are available, and how they play in modern stadiums.]

Misc:

The $1M Perfect Game Contest: 2K Sports expects a winner on this contest. They are hoping the contest will drive people to experience and perfect the new pitching mechanic. Pitch count is going to be vital to finishing out a perfect game, as fatigue will really begin to affect your speed, accuracy, and composure.

People who like making custom players will be happy to know that MLB 2K10 doesn’t have a cap on the number of custom players you can create [available storage capacity will obviously be a limiting factor].

The Trading Card system is built on 2K9, with some minor adjustments for this years game.

This year’s game has a great soundtrack, lots of good songs

Every stadium’s Homerun Celebration has been recreated in-game, with the exclusion of the Milwaukee Brewers [betting this is due to ESRB rating restrictions]

Final Thoughts

MLB 2K10 releases tomorrow, on Tuesday March 2nd, 2010 [why is it that baseball games are the only sport games that are honest about their "year"?] Have you tried the demo yet? What do you think so far? Will you be picking up MLB 2K10 tomorrow, or in the near future?

Look for a full review in the coming weeks, and enjoy spring training! In the meantime, check out this trailer comparing MLB 2K10 to last year’s game (choose 720p resolution to get the best comparison quality):

Heavy Rain is one of the most anticipated ps3 exclusive games of 2010, behind MAG. Does the game live up to the hype? Is rain really that heavy? Does it keep you at the edge of your seat, making you want to not put down the controller?

Story
The game is centered around the lives of 5 different characters. Ethan Mars, a architect who lost one of his children in a tragic accident to start the game. Scott Shelby, a Private Detective hired to solve the case. Lauren Bowles, a prostitute and single mother who had one of her children stolen by the Killer. Norman Jayden, a drug addicted FBI Officer, specializing in Virtual Reality, in charge of solving the case. Finally, Madison Paige , a seemingly innocent bystander, who meets up with Ethan along the way. There have been 8 kidnappings within the past 5 years, each turning up dead, drowned by rainwater. When Ethan’s other child disappears, it is up to the 5 to find out where he is. Ethan soon finds clues to play a dangerous game to find out where his son is. The story really is a good story though it does skip around not really focusing on one character’s storyline. It is like a drama movie, in a video game.

Gameplay
Imagine C.S.I meets a third-person adventure game. When you play as Jayden, some of the scenes allow you to use his Virtual Reality tool and investigate the crime scene for clues etc. R1 allows you to enhance the area around you. If there is something to be found within maybe a few feet, it will pop up as an orange bubble. The game utilizes the quick-time actions, where you need to press a button that is on the screen. Every fight sequel is one of these mini-games. R2 is used as a walk button, if you press the LS in a direction you will walk faster, whereas the R2 is used to walk in a straight line. The levels are broken down so that in case you want to redo the level, you can, being able to do the level without saving, or saving so you can do it again and again. There are at least 15 different endings for the game, each depending on what you chose to do during it. Most levels allow you to gain trophies by doing one or the other choice, for example you could kill someone or you could save them. Most trophies are easy to get, except of course the multiple ending one and a car chase scene.

Sound/Graphics
At times the sounds are a bit choppy and tend to not go with the subtitles of the game, whether it be too fast for the words on-screen or too slow. They also cut out. Voice acting really didn’t bring any big named celebs. Graphics wise, the studio did a pretty good job trying to incorporate the rain into the world. Some of the problems I had noticed were the freezing of the game, and scenes not loading, I could press the PS button and/or start, and they would pop up, but the level wouldn’t load.

Overall
If you like solving mysteries and want to try something new, this is a good game to get. why? because there are not that many games like this one, and its one of the most hyped games of this year

Pros

* AWESOME storyline
* hours of fun
* keeps you on the edge of your seat

Cons

* sketchy graphics/sounds
* gets somewhat difficult

Overall: 8/10

This Review is based upon a copy of the game that was purchased by the reviewer.