As a long-time Mac user this news blows my mind in ways I couldn’t even fathom, but Valve have finally seen the white, brushed-steel light and decided that in April, us glorious users of OS X will legitimately get to play Source-enabled games, including the full roster of first-party Valve titles (half life, counter-strike, team fortress et al) and a number of the 1,000 plus third-party titles on the Steam platform.

This opens steam up to a new roster of fans, as well as allowing current fans to carry over their Windows-purchased titles to Mac at no extra cost and continue to interact with their friends via Steam’s excellent social networking features.

In a press release Valve said, “Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac,” said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. “Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.”

Portal 2 will be the first title to get a simultaneous release on both platforms. Fitting, given Portal is set in a serenely efficient white world environment.

The game returns with an upgraded destruct-everything-around-you Frostbyte engine that made Bad Company such a compelling game. So compelling, even PC gamers wanted it.

The story revolves around Sarges “last” tour with the military. And what an end to his career it ends up. Moving from the snow to the sun and sand of Bolivia makes for a lush environment to shoot in. Not to say we don’t see snow in this game – it does show up. Add amazing graphics, sound design and the ability to tear down tree’s, towers and buildings and you have a series of epic battles. Each single player level is as open ended as you could possible make a single player campaign. Not ultra linear, but not so open that you get lost and confused.

Your AI team-mates are mostly good, though it would be nice to have the option of playing co-operatively. Having said that, the exchanges between your AI buddies is funny enough to keep you entertained with them alone. The engine is also so well designed that they never seem to get confused themselves, or manage to hurt your gameplay – like Modern Warfare 2 or Killzone 2 did on occasion.

This game is great on it’s own, but it really comes alive in the multiplayer arena. Vehicles, guns and obliterated buildings are the name of the game, all without compromising the amazing graphics or even more amazing sound design. As per usual for BF titles, this is a team-based warfare title based in a series of sandbox areas.

Some new weapons are introduced, but veterans get a chance to import the M1 Garrand and machine gun from Battlefield: 1943. A novel new idea is to include a controllable UAV, which is available on maps as a little control-point you stand at, before taking control of a remote controlled helicopter which can call in air strikes on targets. Incredibly effective… until you’re seen and shot out of the sky.

The usual array of upgrades and special abilities are available here, as is the ability to pick up the kit of fallen team-mates, allowing the play style to change from round-to-round.

If all of this sounds like an exciting array of online action that has been done before, keep in mind this game does what Bad Company 1 didn’t do, and any other console shooter hasn’t achieved yet. PC levels of skill. This game rewards you for being good. DICE themselves said they were surprised at the level of skill console players had on the first iteration of this game, and so upped the “hardcore” for the sequel to craft a game that not only rivals, but beats the hell out of Call of Duty or similar titles in the online warfare stakes.

You see, what this game has that no other game manages to achieve is what has been known since my first introduction to the series, as “Battlefield moments”. Moments that make you laugh, cry and wince all at the same time. Moments created only by a hugely open environment within an engine that actually works properly.

Exhibit A: A squad enters a room in a fairly destroyed building to plant charges on the objective. The timer counts down to the charges exploding, and thus winning the round for the team. Everyone clears the area and stands away from the building, allowing the enemies to enter. However, the four corners of the building are rigged with more C4 then American troops can shake a WMD at. As soon as the enemy troops, 9 of them, enter the room the C4 is triggered, killing most of them in the blast, but taking out the rest (and the objective) by collapsing the building in on itself.

Exhibit B (from singleplayer – not a spoiler but you may not want to watch it yet):

Yes, that was a dig at Modern Warfare 2.

Exhibit C (warning, foul language):

Even friendly fire is funny…

Exhibit D (from single player, slight spoiler):

The greatest thing he’s ever seen…

And a final, BF Moment:

So as you can see, this game is epic. Very epic. Far more depth lies here then in its closest rivals, and it’s not afraid to have a dig at the rivals, either. Which is refreshing. A fun, excellent experience every single time you boot it up. Undoubtedly, this title will suck the life out of you and tear you from loved ones. For MW2 to keep up pace with this, it’ll require a new piece of DLC every single week. Which just won’t happen. By comparison, MW2 feels pedestrian, MAG feels buggy and Killzone/Halo lack the epic feeling.

Buy this game. And buy it new. Second hand purchases miss out on a “VIP” code which entitles you to extra goodies, free.

W!Games represents a new lease of life in Dutch software development. The largest piece of entertainment produced in the country was Guerilla’s €43million monolith, Killzone 2. Perhaps with smaller ambitions, W!Games releases it’s second title, a rather more interesting affair then it’s first release; My Horse & Me.

Set in a rich environment and world which will be revisited in future W!Games titles, Greed Corp is a new endeavor for the company. A risky one at that. Using interesting set-pieces, characters and weaponry, they have set about creating a downloadable turn-based strategy title in an era where big shooters and explosions are king.

The environment is important, as it’s set in a world called “Mistbound”, which will play host to more then one title in the future. A rich, detailed environment and world story has been created to be a set piece for several games in the future from the company. Details as far down as a brand of tea available in the game have been carefully constructed by the Amsterdam-based developer.

The story revolves around four factions fighting for the remnants of the worlds’ land which is, rather inconveniently, falling into oblivion. Thus, resources are very important. The pieces of hexagonal land you own will reap financial rewards, letting the player buy more harvesters, walkers, turrets and so on.

The rich environment is laden with graphical and audio brilliance

Playing the game can get frustrating. The game is often based on luck rather then strategy, which for some will add a much fancied element of surprise to the gameplay, but for others will add a huge amount of frustration. Quite often winning or losing comes down to a single piece of land after destroying all the other pieces – which doesn’t necessarily slot in nicely to the story arc which W!Games plans on continuing with further titles.

Harvesters are a double-whammy. They do not attack anyone but do earn you money, but will destroy the land around it. So, the exchange is cash for land – and the ultimate goal is to hold onto land, and steal land by building armories that produce walkers… and using turrets and so on you can attack enemies and steal their hexagonal land pieces. It can be a fine balance of land versus firepower and money.

You start with a tutorial level, which is, for the most part, a bit useless. You’ll learn very little until you actually dive in and play against factions. Once this happens it becomes quite good, if not sometimes frustrating, fun. You begin fighting on a small piece of land against one other faction, and slowly build up to larger portions of land fighting against the three other factions.

Graphics are quite lush for a downloadable title. €10/800MSP gets you a fair whack of game, but I would almost buy it on the premise of revisiting the world over and over again, as the character design and landscape is rather interesting.

With online and offline modes available this game is worth a few bob. It’s a definite winner for any strategy game fans, or even board game fans. It has a relaxed vibe with great colours, characters and sounds. Even more, it’s worth becoming acquainted with a deep, rich world that W!Games have built up to begin exploiting with future titles – like a harvester exploits a bit of land in Greed Corp.

The Valor Massive, init

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of the review, let me say why I waited until a week or two after release to post my thoughts. The main one is the structure of the game. At first, you begin your game with default kits and what-not, and go into a still-rather-epic 64 man series of matches. This gives you the chance to learn the often awkward layout of controls – even for hardened FPS veterans on the console. Once you rank up a bit (ranking is handled much in the same way it is in most online shooters, giving you XP points with which to grade your character and level up to unlock new weapon upgrades etc.) the game will open up to the Acquisition mode, giving you a chance to play with 128 players. Then finally, at level 8, you reach the plateau of 256 man online warfare. With this leveling system in mind, I decided it was worth playing through the title with the community before reviewing it. 256 people is the key sales pitch, and there’s no point in me dissecting a title where I cannot experience this first hand.

The game is set in the year 2025, a world where full-scale armed forces have been scaled back to provide national security alone, rather then going to war. To protect the world and give it peace, no army is allowed to leave its own borders. World peace ensues, but if Hideo Kojima has taught us anything, it’s that PMC’s (Private Military Corporations) will rise from the ashes of peace. The PMCs compete for contracts, always trying to undercut each other, thus leading to a global war. This began the “Shadow War” as they tried to run each other out of business by straining supplies and raising budgets. MAG revolves around three powerful PMC factions – Raven, SVER and Valor which all fight for supremecy of the war economy.

Your first move as a new recruit into MAG is to join a side. Much like an MMO like Eve or WoW, this faction will be yours for the remainder of your gametime. This gives you an affinity with the team and ideally helps you gain lifelong comrades with which to fight alongside. The three factions are evenly split, with cosmetics being the only real difference. Raven is a high-tech European based PMC, while SVER is the obligatory (for this type of game) Russian-type faction and Valor is the Americanised band of ex-mercenary types.

Most people have been joining the factions their friends are in, but the lack of ability to run two or more accounts in the game means you never really get to experience “the other side”. This means there’s a potential that you could join a faction and then find your friends are in another one, and as such can never join together in a party to play on the same team. On top of this, Zipper Interactive have said countless times over that each faction would be fairly balanced. Thanks to our American cousins getting Gamestop pre-order goodies at launch, a vicious spiral of dominance has come from SVER as most of the players who had pre-ordered for free SVER unlocks were far better then anyone else at the start of the game. Then their quick progression through the ranking system meant they have consistently kept the game out of balance. Two weeks on, this issue has not been addressed. It’s hard to see Zipper being able to fix this without over-balancing the other factions, or under-balancing SVER to counter-act their dominance. One can only assume they’re hoping time will iron this out.

Seeing this in motion is something to behold in a game

Kills, assists, healing and repairing in a match all gain you XP. With XP comes skill points, which can be “spent” in the game to improve your skills and equipment. For example, I have bought such items as a red-dot scope on my machine gun and the ability to run for longer periods of time. Unlocks come in “tiers” which are only available when you spend a certain amount of skill points in the previous tier. Thus ensuring no one player is far out-skilled compared to his team or enemies. Which is exactly what happened with the Gamestop unlocks for SVER.

The game is split into a few game types. Suppression is introductory deathmatch-style game type. Here, PMCs fight amongst themselves instead of each other to challenge new players. After some ranking up, you can play in Sabotage, which asks factions to capture or defend two control points. When the attackers control two points, a third objective opens up, which the attackers must destroy. Acquisition seems to be the fan favourite, however. Here the attacking faction must capture enemy prototype vehicles and take them to transport choppers. Each of these modes are simple tit-for-tat modes with a defending and attacking team. Most of which helps gamers learn what to do with MAG in the ever-increasing player count maps.

The main mode, however, is Domination. These matches are crucial to the game’s “Shadow War,” and each match will contribute to the success of each PMC on a persistant world map. 256 players are split into various platoons and squads, and each one will have its own attack or defense objective. Victory is obtained as determined by the amount of damage given/sustained, depending on the map. With so many players in the game at any given time, it seems to break down into individual battles as squads and platoons battle each other in pockets of the map.

Commanders control various options in the game which help the troops on the ground. Spawn locations can be mobile, with players capable of spawning within moving APCs, strategically placed helicopters and most impressively, you can spawn in an AC-130 and parachute into the map. Seeing a platoon jump out of a plane and land on the map is amazing. And when defending against them, shooting wildly into the air you really have to catch a breath and realise just how massive the scale of this game is.

As epic and wild as this game is, it is certainly not the prettiest example of a shooter. A lot of migrating fans frustrated by Modern Warfare 2′s online modes or Killzone 2 fans looking for something new and dependable will feel at home with the controls, but perhaps may feel a little cheated by the lack of graphical flare. It’s doable, but by no means pretty.

The maps are biblically huge in scale

Success and failure often hinges on how well a team is communicating. A chain of command allows a clear communication path all the way from the top down to the grunts on the ground, allowing a strategic plan to unfold. Often this doesn’t work out when players ignore commands and run off to do their own thing. At the same time, without listening and paying acute attention to what’s going on, it’s incredibly easy to get confused. Not least because the HUD (heads up display) is utterly confusing and unhelpful at the best of times. For example, nearby action is shown on the HUD with a white flash hinting at the direction of the firefight. Often your screen gets filled with these white flashes as the action is consistent and almost everywhere around you. A yellow flash indicates someone is shooting directly at you, with red letting you know that indeed, you’ve been shot. The HUD-map itself is useful for spotting enemy clusters and figuring out where your squad is, but can be useless when dictating what objectives are required. Often it seems too much is required of you, and thus the squad system falls apart as squads are not focusing on simple, localised tasks in the game. Having said that, when communication does flow and a team works together well, this game is fantastic.

One of the biggest shames, however, is that you cannot opt to stay in a game party with people once a round has ended. This is unless they are your friends on PSN and you’ve buddied up in a party system, with one player becoming the leader and loading everyone into a game mode and server. This works well, but it would still be nice for servers to go into a map rotation with the same player list, thus avoiding dumping every player out into their own menu systems only to re-join a randomly selected player list on a random map. This becomes tedious and annoying, not least because you often find yourself playing on the same map over and over again with no option to choose a different map, or even veto the one the server has selected.

Glitches exist in the game, too. This is to be expected but can be rather annoying after the lengthy BETA period this game had. One such glitch is occasionally falling out of a plane without a parachute. You then get a suicide point deduction which is pointless and if you’re having a bad game could disparage you from continuing to play, or just send you back to MW2 or Killzone. Sometimes, too, you can end up waiting a while for a list of players to populate the three faction required to make up the 256 man game. This can be frustrating, and if the game is taking time to populate lists now, I can only wonder what it’ll be like in a few months after the dust has settled on the marketing and rival games like Battlefield have hit the retail shelves.

Overall this is a good game, and the Shadow War aspect could lead to an interesting future for this title. It’s absolutely worth having a look at, even if it’s just for the sheer spectacle of having 256 people run around without having a big performance hit on the system. I’ve had a lot of fun playing through this game and unlocking new items and ranking up has given me even more incentive to continue playing. Thus making it, essentially, Playstation’s first proper foray into the murky world of MMO game types. Whether the community stays is really a question of how much upkeep this title will get. No doubt further DLC is due, but with that they cannot alienate the gamers who do not choose to purchase it. Some tweaking to the community and party system is needed to make this a real rival to Killzone, Battlefield or MW2 online, but this is certainly a good start for the Shadow Wars.

A Tesla Black

At E3 when Sony blew the lid off a lot of new software titles, one that immediately stuck out was the LittleBigPlanet community-inspired kart racer, Modnation Racers. Based on the same premise as LittleBigPlanet, it’s as much a racing title as it is an engine to create things with, going with the motto “Race Create Share”. Lucky us, we got to have a go of the full game before it gets released to the masses.

Loading this title up is satisfying, as it has a very nice, bouncy way of explaining what the game is and what it does. With funky background music, a charming English gentlemans voice and graphics to match the nice vibes of this title, your introduction to what you do next couldn’t be better explained. Well, maybe if it had Stephen Fry to do a monologue.

Then the game places you in a courtyard, with some round-abouts and buildings in which to explore. This is a networked area, just like your pod in LittleBigPlanet, where other racers are zipping around, wasting time rather then actually racing. In here, there are some interesting tid-bits. First, there are display area’s showing the weeks top character creations (the Helghast, Ratchet and Mario look-a-likes have yet to be toppled from the podium) and the top three karts of that period of time. All of which are free to download and use by anyone. If you make a great creation yourself, it can’t get to a public display like this without actually “sharing” it. More on that later. A giant screen on the other side of the colourful courtyard also displays the top tracks, again, also fully downloadable as well as a list of the top racers.

A side section to this area brings you to the racing pits. A few gates exist here with one big statue of the Modnation default character in the middle. Here you can choose to race multiplayer, single race (time trial) & split screen. In our version, only the multiplayer and time trial options were available. Time trial is self explanatory, pitting your time against other Modnation Racers around the world. Multiplayer is the main draw here. There are ranked XP races, where XP will give you currency with which to buy items in the virtual shop (which during our test was not available) as well as “casual” races to play against other people. You can also host races on your own selection of self-created or downloaded tracks.

Level creation is so easy it's childsplay

Whether hosting or joining a race, the game will set you up in a game room party system, where users can join in based on the difficulty level and type of race they selected at the menu screen. In the code we had, there was no sign of creating a party of PSN friends but this seems like such an obvious thing to do that it would be madness not to include it at launch. Depending on the host settings, you can have a different number of racers going at it. Most seem to use 8 cars, and if racers don’t populate the server the host can choose to fill the empty slots with an AI car. In the lobby area pre-race you can chat to your friends or foes through mic or a text-based chatroom. On top of this, you can browse other users in the room, looking at a virtual gamer card system that shows their stats and creations – all of which you can download if the user has selected to share them.

Racing itself is fun. It’s mario kart in HD, on crack. The variety of cars and characters as well as communication makes this a bit more fun, and a more personalised experience then any kart game before it. The same rules apply as any other racing game, and balloons are strategically placed around the track (depending on who built it, of course) which unlocks weapons like electro-shock and tornado’s, or bonus skills like boost, or double-boosting. Speaking of, boost plates a-la Wipeout are in the game too, to aide you as you try to zip around the track as fast as possible. It’s worth noting that despite the variety of cars, they all pretty much travel at the same speed. It all comes down to skill and luck, just like any other karting game online.

However fun racing is, this game really kicks it up to a whole other level when it comes to the customisation. Personally, I had a wealth of ideas for LittleBigPlanet, which never got realised because the more challenging aspects of level design in that title were more difficult and time consuming then I wanted to put into it. While those tools were incredibly powerful and effective, for a cute side-scrolling level creator, I just didn’t want to invest that kind of time. I would rather go and learn how to do level design on a PC games engine, a-la Source to build Team Fortress maps. Modnation does not suffer this fate at all.

Guess who?

First, it’s worth noting that a lot of the customisation options were locked down for this demo, but there was still a lot to do and see, and nearly infinite combinations of styles to commit to. Character creation is a lot of fun. Using a default shape, you can apply textures and stickers to it, creating a cartoonish face and skin, adding clothes and “stickers” to it afterwards. My creation came out with a suit, helmet and face mask, making him look cute but with sinister headgear. I was incredibly impressed with my creation until I saw the amazing work of other creators who had built, from scratch, Mario &0 a Helghast trooper among others. Whether or not characters like Mario will remain in the full release has yet to be seen. One of the banes of the LittleBigPlanet community was parodying other titles, like Mario or Sonic, which instantly had your maps and hard work removed from their servers for fear of legal issues with the original copyright owners.

Kart creation is much the same. My Kart is a Ferrari formula 1 car. Of course, it looks like a cart but has wings and pods just like the F1 car as well as a similar paint job, featuring sponsorship and all! A lot of the karts are silly, made of cardboard with engines run on hamster wheels, including the hamster. Each engine available makes a different sound, so the starting line up can sound very interesting indeed!

Where the engine really comes alive is the creation of tracks. The tools here were limited again but the creations already available are mind blowing. When a full community with all of the tools open get their hands on this stuff it will blow this game out of the water. Creating tracks really is easy. You can change everything from the track surface, weather conditions and even the height and pitch of the ground. Seamlessly, without any odd loading times or hitches from the Playstation, and all in real time. It’s spooky how well it works. Once your track is complete you can auto-populate it with tree’s and houses surrounding the track as well as placing power-ups and boost pads…. or you can add all of that stuff yourself! Anyone with access to the beta that is currently running can find any of my tracks because I’ve tagged them with [ shoryuken.ie ]. It’s worth seeing my loop-dee-loop track that goes skywards before giving you a huge hill to drive down on… very fast.

Guess again...

Overall my experience with this title was fantastic. I was excited when I saw the developers at E3 show off their creation, but this will blow peoples minds when they see it. Once a community gets their hands on these tools it’ll be fantastic. Imagine creating a series based on the F1 tracks and drivers with friends, each week contributing to creating the next circuit? The possibilities are almost endless. Modnation Racers is definitely going to be a hit, and will definitely carry the “X Create Share” mantra into 2010.

There is no confirmed date for release, but the rumours indicate a June release for this one. We’ll keep you posted as we get news!

Nathan Drake forgot his beauty treatment last night

Uncharted 2 has been a big success. But it’s not the only success on the PS3, nor is it the only exclusive success to the console. So how, do you remedy this? Well, you release a free DLC pack with the skins from other titles.

Killzone, Resistance, and Infamous will be hitting the online experience in Uncharted. At 150MB it’s a large pack, suggesting these aren’t just “skins” but also entire new models for the game, too!

I've seen this before....

However new information has been revealed by former Microsoft exec Sam Furukawa with regard to former SEGA Chairman Isao Okawa. “Before Mr. Okawa passed away he visited Gates several times, to see if it would be possible to add Dreamcast compatibility into the Xbox.” According to Furukawa, Okawa was offering the SEGA assets to Xbox, which would allow Dreamcast owners to buy into Microsofts first games console.

Negotiations fell apart when Microsoft said it didn’t want to allow online compatibility with Dreamcast titles, which was an integral part of most major Dreamcast games at the time.

Interesting to see how the Dreamcast could have lived on, maybe even to this day with it’s soul being kept alive by the body of the Xbox.

Finally, after months of waiting, Europeans will get a chance at playing Braid on PS3 for a mere €9.99.

One of the most unique, original and brilliant XBL & PSN titles in a long time, Braid will bend your mind with new side-scrolling puzzle twists at every turn. Each time you figure this game out, it throws something new at you. Absolutely worth the price of admission.

So, if you don’t already own it via Xbox Live or a sneaky American PSN account, do check this out tomorrow. UK visitors (we know you’re out there!) note that it’ll set you guys back £7.99…

Instead, it’s fun viral web-game time!

Yes, I want challenges!! I also am a cool looking black & white man!

Basically, it’s described as an open-ended, online challenge that’s set to get everyone talking about PS3. The idea is simple: two Teams, thousands of players, endless entertainment. Players prove their skill and knowledge through a series of challenges made up of ready-made mini-games and quizzes, and then create challenges of their own to pass on to others. More people join, more challenges are set, more mini-games are played, more points are earned, more rivalry sets in, and more people join in… The Game just gets bigger and bigger.

In a rather unfitting move, the full game must be accessed via PC, but you can also keep track of what’s going via your PlayStation 3 browser. Enter your email, choose a log-in name and choose your Team. You’re either Team A or Team B. It doesn’t matter which; it only matters that when The Game ends your Team has more points. You can also use The Game’s functionality to recruit social networking friends to your team and get them playing. There’s a wealth of quiz questions and mini-games – pool simulators, target games, and tests of speed and skill – to sample and enjoy before packaging some together to create your own challenges. Send them to your friends via email and wait and see how well they do. The endless possibilities for combining games and quiz questions mean that no two challenges need be the same – with players taking control of the experience and sharing their creations with others.

Lasting for a whole year, The Game is split up into four themed stages that reflect different aspects of the PS3 experience.

“Like PS3, which inspired it, The Game is easy to understand, to play and to share with friends,” says Mark Bowles, European Product Manager for PS3 at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. “It’s giving people a taste of the world of PS3 – an ever-changing world that’s open to everybody – a world shaped by players’ passions and where the game is just the start.”

The Game is open to everyone from dedicated PS3 fans to complete novices, wherever they are. Check it out at ps3-thegame.com…

Strange timing given the Killzone 2 double XP weekender, but who are we to complain? At least all the multiplayer glory is heading to the PS3 for once…