Square Enix brings back the Crystal Tools engine tools to create a seemingly open-world, Final Fantasy take on Nintendo's Majora's Mask formula.

Square Enix has yet to give us video proof of Final Fantasy Versus XIII's ongoing development, but it did show the media and invited guests something else concerning the story of Final Fantasy XIII during its 25th anniversary showcase today in Tokyo, Japan. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the official name for the final chapter in the FF XIII trilogy, seems to mix a lot of the old with the new.

The key mechanics game designer Yuji Abe presented during the showcase were "constant-moving world" and "customization". For the former, he explained that time does not stop for Lightning; she has to find ways to increase time to complete quests and forward the story since the world comes to its demise in thirteen days. One highlighted way is to defeat enemies and monsters. She can also perform certain miracles that could either shake up the in-game elements or the world itself, but at the cost of time. Yes, this concept may not be new as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask pulled it off back in the Nintendo 64 days, but it's nice to see a time-rewinding mechanic of sort implemented in today's games.

The game world of Novus Partus is using a day/night cycle; NPCs and monsters appear and act in accordance to this. There will be bigger and more dangerous encounters at nighttime when compared to the daytime. There are four islands for players to explore, and so far the one talked about in detail is the city of Luxerion. The main metropolis of Novus Partus seems to have both a mechanical and fantasy vibe to it, complete with gothic architecture, a monorail system for players to get around, and a black-and-grey color motif to the resident's everyday attire.

For the latter concept, Abe stated that players can customize Lightning's getup any way they want. This isn't purely cosmetic; different clothes and armor sets will affect her stats in combat, as well as give her extra abilities. For now, the armor and weapons count is "more than 10 or 20" according to him. We do hope that she gets more choices apart from swords and shields, but the promise of quick equipment-swapping mid-combat may hint that she can start multi-tasking with spears, claws and even assault rifles and other long-ranged armaments.

The actual gameplay we were shown that isn't available for the public was still using the Crystal Tools engine used for the past two Final Fantasy XIII games, albeit with some minor graphical tweaks here and there. Instead of a party of three, you now control Lightning only. Producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama showed off a bit of the game's story scenario where Lightning had to find the culprits behind an unsanctioned public hanging in front of a clock tower in the city of Luxerion. As she talks to different NPCs and explores the city area, the time gauge at the bottom started to count down. While details weren't given if the timer reached zero, we would assume that a story point would be closed out and that the ending to the game would be affected if the world-driven concept was of any indication.

After much mucking around and finding for clues, the producer and director jumped straight into the game's battle system where our heroine squares off against a behemoth (a trademark FF beast). While similar to the Paradigm Shift system viewpoint at first glance, players can now move Lightning around the battlefield using the left analog stick. Her abilities are mapped on each face button so that she can use them when her action time battle gauge is filled; so far she has her old repertoire from past games like her Thundaga spells, protective buffs and combo slashes.

While the game has a more action-like feel to it, the combat will still retain its semi turn-based roots. At the very least, controlling just one powerful character seems like a slight breath of fresh air if only because of the many potential battle scenarios the designers can put players in. The developers did say that Lightning is considered a powerhouse in this game compared to the past titles, so we hope that they include more fights with bigger villains within elaborate set pieces ala God of War to raise the stakes.

From the looks of things, there seems to be shades of an open world mechanic, or at least an illusion of one like in previous Final Fantasy titles. We also felt that the world-shaping elements could play out like a lighter version of action game-world-building hybrid Actraiser. Plus, there's hope that the combat will be more involved now that players have reigns over a pseudo customizable demigoddess. While this may not be the big news Final Fantasy fans are waiting for (that honor goes to Final Fantasy Versus XIII), at least gamers will know that the Final Fantasy XIII chapter will draw to a close soon in 2013 on both PS3 and Xbox 360.

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How Turn 10 and Playground Games are looking to blend two genres that don't always go well together.

There's a short list of open-world racing games that you can classify truly great, and an even shorter list of those that veer towards realism. It's generally a result of the fact that people enjoy a good driving sim for the exact opposite reason they enjoy a good sandbox. What it comes down to is familiarity: a great racing sim is one that makes it a joy to learn every last nuance of a circuit so that you can speed through it with maximum efficiency, while a great sandbox constantly surprises you with unexpected delights. It's the known versus the unknown.

Dan Greenawalt realizes this. That's why Turn 10's creative director wants us to know that the upcoming Forza Horizon (developed by Playground Games in the UK) isn't simply Forza Motorsport in an open-world setting. "In Forza Motorsport, your motivation is very much about shaving ten-tenths of a second off your time at Nurburgring," says Greenawalt. "In Horizon, your motivation is in pick-up-and-play fun. It's in exploration."

While Horizon's driving model can still get awfully demanding when you disable the various driving assists (it's the same engine as Motorsport, but made a tad more forgiving by default) the focus here is very much on the setting. Horizon's world is one continuous swath of Colorado countryside, complete with sweeping highways, sun-baked deserts, and towering Rockies. The anchor is a fictional automotive festival attracting gearheads from around the world. That story conceit--the Horizon Festival--brings with it some light narrative and a noticeable tonal shift. There are shaky-cam cutscenes. There are neon lights and dance music. There is a man named "Krash."

None of that focus on hyper-stylish festival culture feels very invasive, though. It's a big part of the game, sure, but it's goofy rather than cynical. If anything, it serves as a good springboard to get out on the road and look for a good time.

If looking is what you want to do. Because you can just as easily wander with nowhere to go and find plenty of challenges to take on. Driving up behind another festival-goer and hitting the X button lets you challenge him or her to a point-to-point sprint. Randomly placed speed trap cameras record how fast you're going at a specific location and add it to a leaderboard. You can even discover challenges that simply ask you to find a scenic viewpoint and snap a snazzy photo of your car.

Half the fun, though, is simply driving around looking at the scenery. Imagine an entire world made up of vistas like the Bernese Alps circuit and foliage like Maple Valley Raceway. That's the Colorado of Forza Horizon. There's a full day-night cycle to go along with it, as well. But be warned: driving 130mph at night feels, well, like driving 130mph at night. It's slightly terrifying.

Where Forza Horizon looks most promising is in the way it marries this sense of freewheeling exploration with the more traditional elements of Forza Motorsport. "We don't want cars to be disposable," says Greenawalt. "With a lot of [arcade racers] the car is a weapon. You might start off in a Ford Focus, and the moment a Ford Mustang is available, the Focus is useless. It can't compete. Eventually it leads to a one-way street where the game is ultimately disposable because there's no depth."

In other words, Forza Horizon may not be about developing an intimate relationship with real-world raceways, but it's still very much about developing intimate relationships with your fleet of cars. Once again, you can get in touch with your inner auto mechanic by upgrading various parts of your car to keep it competitive over longer stretches of time, as well as decorate it with vinyl decals that you can then sell on the community storefront. And, yes, you can port over your custom vinyls from Forza 4.

The game will throw some curveballs your way to force you out of your comfort zone, though. With new racing surfaces like dirt and gravel, you'll sometimes find yourself in a rally-oriented event that's more Dirt than Forza. In these situations, you'll need to switch from the Volkswagen Corrado you begin the game with to a more off-road-friendly vehicle like the Subaru WRX or, if you really want to embrace the Colorado setting, a Ford F-150 pickup (SVT Raptor edition).

At other times, you might not even be racing cars, as one event early in your career will have you going head-to-head against an airplane--one that makes it feel like the world is ending when it buzzes over you. Initially, it feels a little odd to take part in this sort of over-the-top race with a driving model that feels more or less like Forza Motorsport (it's perhaps a tad more forgiving, but you can still scale the difficulty level by toggling numerous assists), but in our hands-on time we quickly learned to throw our expectations out the window and embrace the silliness.

And that's kind of Forza Horizon in a nutshell. It's a game that borrows from Forza Motorsport where it makes sense, and then fills in the gaps with its own oddities and eccentricities. Bottom line, though, it feels good. All that business with the festival atmosphere and stylish storytelling won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it doesn't seem like it'll get in the way of what appears to be a very promising spin-off of the Forza franchise. Hopefully that list of great open-world racers will have one more added to it come October.

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Konami and Kojima Productions gives audiences a taste of things to come during the Metal Gear Solid 25th Anniversary shindig.

The recent Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event at the Tokyo Midtown building did not only chronicle the history of the series in dramatic fashion and showed off new bits of Metal Gear Rising, but also introduced the next installment of the Metal Gear Solid series, complete with new workings of the new Fox Engine done up by Kojima Productions. While we can't actually show you the footage of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes that was shown since we were told not to do direct filming, at least we can tell you about what we saw during the 20 minute demo.

The scene starts in a remote military base with heavy rain. The camera is following a shadowy figure in a business suit and hat accompanied by a number of well-armed soldiers and guard dogs as he converses with a little boy in a cage. He throws a portable music player after some dialogue and the boy proceeded to use it. The rest of the scene was playing "Here's To You" from the film "Sacco e Vanzetti" (also on Metal Gear Solid 4) as the man in a coat rides off to an airfield before taking off on a helicopter to an undisclosed location. Before erasing the "XOF" emblem off of the helicopter, he took out his hat and speaks about what transpired in very vague words. His face and head was all burned-up and scarred with no hair; at this point in time, we have no idea who he is. He proceeded to toss away all a stash of mini "XOF" emblems as he flew off with the rest of the soldiers.

Yeah, that's all we can show off at the moment.

After that, out comes a spy climbing from a cliffside near the base followed by the subtitles "From FOX, two phantoms were born". As he flips up his visors, we saw the trademark eyepatch and gruff face with the facial hair: Solid Snake seems to be back at a glance. He's referred to as Snake; no, not Solid Snake, Old Snake or Naked Snake, just Snake at the moment, so there's a chance that he could be some clone or someone posing as Solid Snake. Whatever the case, he definitely looks much younger than Old Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4. Old-school fans yearning for the days of a nimbler stealth action hero can sigh with relief at this revelation.

Series creator Hideo Kojima then took centrestage and showed off the title's gameplay for a few minutes. We see Snake do what he does best: go in a prone state and sneak around (no Octocam this time; just old-fashioned crawling and hiding), as well as going into aiming mode in third person shooting a nearby guard at a security post. We should also mention that the demo gave out a sandbox open-world vibe; the military base itself felt expansive and huge, and Snake can summon a helicopter to bring him around as well as drive a jeep to go from point A to B. Kojima did state that he wishes to add a new spin to the stealth genre; even when you're discovered, you can use all the means and tools to escape rather than see a "game over" screen.

We would love to see how future demos of this would unfold; adding a sandbox element to the story-heavy Metal Gear series and having everything open-ended seems like a daunting task.We have to also state that the Fox engine looked really, really good.Everything about the demo was completely real-time. The demo itself was running on a PC and was played using an Xbox 360 controller. Nothing was spared in terms of detailing and fidelity, from the lighting and shadows during Snake's sneaking bits to the vehicles and character models in motion during the heavy rain. So far the game and its engine was designed with the PS3 and Xbox 360 in mind, but Kojima stated that the engine itself will cater itself for next gen consoles.

No release date has been announced for this upcoming entry in the Metal Gear series. We don't even know if Kojima may even pull a protagonist switcheroo (as seen in Metal Gear Solid 2), or if the open-world concept will gel well with the already vague and cryptic narrative. We don't even know which era this is all taking place in, although we gathered that it was set in a modern period, what with the jeeps and helicopters. What we can say is that Snake is back in the game and fans can look forward to more current gen tactical espionage action.

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We get in tune with Acquire's mash-up of real-time strategy and music rhythm.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if back in 1995, the developers behind Command & Conquer were to integrate Frank Keplacki's industrial funk soundtrack in its actual gameplay mechanic? Developer Acquire ran with that possibly strange train of thought, with the result being an oddity of a game called Orgarhythm.

In all seriousness, it's not that hard to explain Orgarhythm's gameplay, despite its unique look and genre fusion. You just have to assign commands to your tribal foot soldiers to protect your always-grooving God of Light avatar from harm via touch-screen buttons. After picking the commands, you then drag them on to the screen to position your units to attack oncoming monsters.

The action takes place from a top-down perspective, like a real-time strategy game. However, there's not much in the way of extreme micromanaging, like in Starcraft or the aforementioned Command & Conquer games. You just have to use your elemental-themed minions against enemies with the opposite element so that they don't get hurt bad (blue against red, red against yellow, and yellow against blue).

Party rock(s) are in the house tonight.

You can also choose different types of units to deploy. The standard melee troops will rush and attack enemies up close, depending on where you send them, while the archers will hit enemies hiding behind barricades and high-rise platforms. The catapult units take a while to volley rocks, but they deal huge damage.

Your God of Light can also cast spells if there's some meter in his support gauge; it increases for each friendly and enemy unit that dies. His repertoire includes buffing the defence and attack strength of his followers, a healing spell, and a slow spell to render enemies in a temporary molasses-like state. If the gauge is maxed out, you can cast down a light-of-judgment spell that heals allies and kills enemies with bright lightning.

While this sounds like your God is well armed, the real challenge is to take into account all of the action onscreen, while tapping commands in accordance to the beat of the background music. If you follow the rhythm, you'll buff up your units, and they can take and dish out more than usual. One visual cue to help you out is a rhythm wave that pulses on the centre of the screen and gets bigger if you time your taps just right.

Furthermore, tapping the commands consecutively in a row (tap-tap-tap), instead of pausing after each input (tap-pause-tap-pause-tap), will get you a bigger unit and buff bonus. Fail to follow the beat, and your army gets miniscule and weak.

In practice, this takes some time to get used to. While the first two stages on the single-player mode were easy for us to get into the groove of, we had a bit of trouble on the fourth stage, since its background music had a much faster tempo than usual. Luckily, the game's AI makes sure that enemies don't bum-rush you as quickly as other units in other real-time strategy games, giving you enough time to get into the rhythm, before issuing commands. Still, players can get overwhelmed with bad guys if they're not paying attention.

Your followers; they be shuffling, shuffling.

Each of the four levels we played had their own end-of-level bosses. Using our quick rhythm skills and unit deployment, we bested a giant stone monolith that spits out rocks, a ziggurat with three different-coloured dragon heads corresponding to an element, and a stone horse demon-thing that's quick on its feet and charges at you during intervals.

At this point, Orgarhythm is a weird creature of a title that warrants play--the closest comparison would be the Patapon series on the PSP. It's hard to say whether it surpasses the aforementioned series on the gameplay front, but it's got enough of a unique aesthetic tribal flavour. Plus, it's got ad hoc co-op and competitive play if you can get a buddy along for the beat-inducing ride.

Orgarhythm is out right now in Japan and in Asia regions; the latter version is in English.

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Though Nuclear Union is clearly inspired by hits like Fallout, its story and mechanics set it apart from the rest of the post-apocalyptic pack.

We've seen plenty of postapocalyptic nuclear-strike games in the past, but 1C's upcoming role-playing game, Nuclear Union, takes a slightly different approach than most. The story begins during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, with the majority of the narrative and gameplay taking place in an alternate, modern-day Soviet Union.

Rather than pit the player against warring factions and tribes, Nuclear Union is rooted in a world where the Soviet government and the underlying infrastructure have survived an attack from the United States and have reemerged from their underground bunkers. Their primary goals are to rebuild and survive in the harsh landscape of their new capital, Pobedograd.

1C hails from Moscow, the approximate real-world location of the fictional Pobedograd. That, in addition to their plans to incorporate prototype Soviet weaponry, should bolster their approach to a pseudo-authentic alternate history. Weapon upgrades are in the works, but unfortunately, Nuclear Union is in such an early state that there wasn't any combat on display during 1C's Gamescom demo, let alone weapon customization.

The main character, a nameless Soviet officer, may be accompanied by up to two party members. You'll have the power to decide whom to dismiss or accept into your ranks, according to the FAQ on the Nuclear Union website. There's also mention of moral choices and branching paths, though it's noted that the protagonist shall forever remain on the side of "good." When we asked 1C about the identity of the antagonist, they were quick to play the "we can't reveal further details" card. Interestingly, based on prior comments relating to the unknown status of the US government or its citizens, it's safe to assume the forces of "evil" will have origins within the surviving members of the U.S.S.R.

The most interesting element during the demo was the appearance of physical anomalies, Nuclear Union's version of environmental puzzles. The impact of a nuclear attack doesn't just destroy life and mangle buildings; such a profound expulsion of energy also disturbs the forces of nature, creating pockets in space with their own gravitational fields. They don't pose a direct threat to the player, and are completely optional, but resolving anomalies rewards you with items and special abilities. By manipulating objects orbiting the core of an anomaly, you can neutralize its gravitational field and gain access to the prize within. Just make sure you watch your back while doing so, lest you risk attack from the hordes of mutants roaming the land.

Most of the enemies in Nuclear Union are hulking, bipedal beasts, but there's no shortage of freakishly sized spiders and other real-world creatures lurking about. The story will lend itself to face-offs against other Soviet survivors, but 1C was unable to elaborate on this at the show.

With so many details and features still in the dark, it's too early to accurately delve into Nuclear Union's combat and story, arguably the two most important elements of any RPG. The footage and info provided by 1C recall elements from the Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, but the survival of the Soviet Union is an unconventional and welcome twist in a subgenre rife with cliches. 1C's current plan is to ship Nuclear Union for PCs sometime in 2013, with the possibility of console releases down the road.

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This action RPG tells the story of unlikely friends...and also werewolves.

For a game featuring vampires and werewolves, Blood Knights is about as close as you can get to a buddy cop movie. This action role-playing game from German developer Deck 13 tells the story of a vampire hunter who experiences a bit of bad luck and turns into a vampire himself. Now his only hope for regaining his humanity is to work alongside the vampiress that he had previously coerced into helping him hunt down her fellow bloodsuckers. And by "coerced" we mean "used dark magic." Awkward!

It is, in other words, a game about unlikely allies. They don't ride around in a cop car cracking jokes about each other's wives while spilling donut powder all over their shirts, but there is a bit of buddy-cop-style reluctant teamwork happening here.

Much of that boils down to how the game's co-op mechanics work. Blood Knights is an action-oriented, almost arcade-like take on the Western RPG. There's plenty of loot, unique weapons, and leveling, but most of the co-op action is a twitch-oriented affair. So the two players will constantly be keeping an eye on one another to see if they need to lend a hand.

Here's one example. Because the two main characters are vampires, their health is measured in blood. As one character gets beat up, the other can dip into their blood pool and quite literally spray a fountain of their own blood clear across the screen in order to refill the other player's health bar. It's basically a nightmare scenario for any normal person hoping to receive a blood transfusion, but for these guys it's an effective way of trading health.

Then there's the way environmental traversal works. The male character is a melee-focused type who has the power to lift up enemies and pull them toward him for a finishing move. The vampire lady, on the other hand, is just the opposite: she lifts up enemies and hurls them back to better use her ranged weaponry. But occasionally, the game will ask the two players to use their powers on each other to make it across wide gaps or reach hidden enemies. Whether you want to grief your teammate by holding them above a bottomless chasm and threatening to drop them is purely up to you.

Of course, the whole game can also be played by yourself with some of these co-op sections smoothed over in order to make the solo experience work. But Blood Knights seems like it's at its most interesting as a co-op adventure where these two unlikely heroes have to work together to survive. You know, kind of like two cops from different departments forced to work together who also happen to be vampires.

Blood Knights is available to download this Halloween for $15. It will be released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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The supersecret Dance Central Intelligence gives us a peek into the upcoming Dance Central 3. Do The Hustle!

If you're a youngster, hearing "The Hustle" may bring to mind wedding receptions and oldies radio stations. For the more seasoned, however, it brings to mind bell-bottom jeans, wide lapels, and spinning glitterballs. Harmonix knows how the power of music and dance can return you to another era. Dance isn't just an action you perform--it's a pop culture touchstone that recalls years, and perhaps entire decades.

Enter Dance Central 3, Harmonix's portal to the past. It's a celebration of past eras of dance, packaged in a cheesy tongue-in-cheek story involving the top-secret Dance Central Intelligence (better known as the DCI, of course). The evil Dr. Tan has returned as your nemesis, his hate of artistic expression far surpassing that of such staunch dance-despisers as Footloose's Reverend Moore and Dirty Dancing's Dr. Houseman. But how to defeat such a madman? Well, by learning dance crazes, of course!

So Dance Central 3 is clearly going down the nutty path, but based on what we saw when the team dropped by to show off the upcoming Kinect game, that can only be a good thing. The time-hopping story winks at the audience, the over-the-top cutscenes skewering every cliche in the book. It was hard not to giggle, and that's before the dancing even started. Harmonix's self-professed goal was to "bump up the ridiculous," and the cinematics we saw indicated that the statement was more than just lip service. The story begins with you receiving a mysterious invitation to a dance party, where you show off your moves to the tune of "Bass Down Low." Before you know it, the DCI is sending you into the past to defend against dance crimes (oh, what a terrible world in which criminals must use dance for the powers of evil).

I got the moves like Jagger.

The story might be crazy, but its goal is noble: to provide cultural context for your gyrations. When you return to the 1970s, you're not just dancing along with "Burn Baby Burn" or "I Will Survive"--you're doing it in an aesthetically appropriate roller rink. The layout then changes based on your performance, so roller rink becomes discotheque should you dance impressively enough. But your smooth moves do more than just immerse you in the time period--they also allow you to unlock crazes. These are iconic dances (think the Macarena, for instance, or The Hustle) that allow you to return to the present if you perform them well enough. Before you craze the night away, however, you need to do a little sequencing minigame to unlock it.

Even the 2010s have a craze, as it turns out: one created specifically for Dance Central 3 by Usher, who surprised Harmonix with his elaborate moves and considerable talent. In fact, should you feel that the previous Dance Central games just weren't hard enough, you'll be pumped to hear that Usher pushed the bar, and you'll encounter some truly hard routines. If that sounds intimidating, you can relax: the game has novices covered with beginner mode, which is really easy, but it lacks craze moves and so isn't available in the game's guffaw-inducing story.

Is it actually all that much fun to stay at the YMCA?

That's OK, though, considering there are so many ways to play, and you're always gaining experience that lets you unlock new outfits and other nifty goodies. Make Your Move lets you butt heads with your friends in a game of Harmonix-style H.O.R.S.E., in which you create a move, and your buddy must duplicate it. Ultimately, these individual moves are combined into full dances, and hilarity inevitably ensues as each dancer tries to link their steps and lunges into a single fluid routine. Crew Throwdowns allow for even more self-expression, pitting teams of up to two players each against each other in full-on battle in which you build combos while trying to break those of your opponent. It's worth noting how easy the interface made it to get started in an instant: all we had to do was walk in front of the Kinect sensor, and it accommodated us--no fuss, no muss. Getting started? As simple as high-fiving your buddy. How appropriate for a friendly bit of competitive dancing.

If all this sounds exhausting and you'd rather strike a pose, you can do that too, though as it turns out, Madonna lied in the lyrics of "Vogue": there is, indeed, something to it. Players can compete by mimicking poses--some fairly simple, others more elaborate. A single stance sounds easy enough, but if you're not particularly in control of every awkward muscle in your entirely too clumsy body (not that this author would admit to such a thing), this requires more coordination than you'd expect. And of course, if you just want to have a good time (girls just wanna have fun, after all), then Start the Party mode gets the music going and the muscles moving. Just walk on and shimmy, shaking your booty to the tune of Shannon's "Let the Music Play" or TLC's "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." Want to have an '80s party? Then use the dynamic playlist feature to make it happen, and throw in songs from the previous Dance Central Games: they're all compatible with Dance Central 3.

It's always good to warm up the body before heading off to save the rec center.

But what's a party without laughter? That might be the magic touch here, depending on how well Harmonix pulls off its hysterically insane tale of time-traveling secret agents out to defeat a mad genius with the power of self-expression. The whole thing had us giggling, but this isn't a case where you're laughing at the game, but rather laughing with it. Expect to bust a gut, along with some moves, on October 16.

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After spending some hands-on time with God of War: Ascension, here's what we think of a few immediately noticeable changes.

Here at Gamescom 2012, Sony is letting folks get some quality hands-on time with a God of War: Ascension single-player demo that was previously only for looking back at E3. So what has changed in Kratos' latest outing? What are the things you really pick up on once you sit down and play the game for (and by) yourself? Well, read on to find out…

Found weaponry is a nice change of pace

Throughout Kratos' journey in God of War: Ascension, he'll frequently make his way through scenes of war and destruction, and as you'd probably expect, not everyone will survive. Luckily for you, this allows you to pick up the various weapons from these fallen victims. Things like swords, spears, and other more esoteric pieces of weaponry can be used by Kratos for a bit of time to mix up his fighting style. There's something oddly appealing about Kratos picking up the spear thrust through a dead innocent only to turn right back and use it on the enemies responsible for that person's death. Plus, it feels a bit like a guitar virtuoso entertaining himself with a ukulele just for laughs.

Channeling your rage into a single target is disgusting fun

In early God of War games, you'd build up a rage meter by doing well in combat, then cash it in to turn super-powerful for a temporary stretch of time. It was a fun system for going to town on your enemies without having to worry about them hurting you, but seeing the rage meter slowly deplete was a bit like hearing the air wheeze its way out of a balloon.

In God of War: Ascension, however, you can cash in the entirety of your Rage meter for one very explosive, very climactic moment of destruction. Click in both analog sticks when you've got the meter built up, and if you've got fireball magic, you can turn a given enemy into a walking suicide bomber. Cashing in the meter instantly nets you a bunch of health and orbs, and after that you'll see your poor enemy burst apart and take out any buddies unfortunate enough to be standing near him. It's grim, but deeply satisfying.

Buttonless minigames are cool, but need some refinement

God of War: Ascension will make use of what Sony's calling "buttonless" minigames, which are essentially fight scenes where the situation is highly scripted but you're given far more control than a quick-time event button prompt. So, for example, when we approached the end of the elephant-headed boss, we became entangled in his trunk, needing to dodge his swinging attacks while stabbing at his head when it was safe to do so.

Stabbing at him was a simple, delightful matter of jamming on the face buttons when we weren't under threat from his mighty swings. But as we tried to dodge him, we weren't moving for some reason and kept taking damage. Only a moment later did we realize we were trying to dodge using the right analog stick as you do in free combat, but for some reason this little minigame decided dodging should be mapped to the left analog stick. So while we liked the action and the context of these little scripted fight scenes, it's clear that there are some usability issues left to be ironed out.

The visual style is still God of War, but with some interesting touches

If it weren't for all the blood, killer goat men, blood, killer elephant men, and blood, you'd think the setting from this demo were some sort of Mediterranean vacation paradise. Kratos is venturing through ancient ruins out at sea, with tree-dotted islands off in the distant sunset. It's quite a picturesque backdrop compared to the gloomy locales of earlier games. And on top of that, there's a noticeably pronounced depth of field effect compared to God of War III, so not only does the background look more vibrant, but it also looks more cinematic. This probably isn't something that most God of War fans will notice, but it certainly grabbed our attention.

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Daniel Craig boards a time machine and ventures back to five classic Bond stories, plus Skyfall.

Activision and Eurocom are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise with 007 Legends, a new first-person shooter based on not one, not two, not even five, but six Bond films. That wide-reaching collection of source material is something of a theme for this game, as there seems to be a consistent mantra of "Oh, hell, let's just do it all!" running through the whole thing. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you. This is one shooter that certainly isn't lacking for variety.

As you would expect from a Bond shooter, you're given the tools to approach missions in a couple of ways. You can run in like a crazed gunman taking out anyone and everyone with your small armory of weapons, or you can use your fancy gadgetry to take a more measured, stealthy approach. Gadgets on offer include a watch radar that fills you in on the position of guards and a pen dart for firing various nonlethal rounds. The high-action stuff looks more or less like Call of Duty, right on down to the quick reloads and instant-kill knife swipes at close quarters, while the stealth-oriented gameplay seems a bit more interesting. Thief this is not, but the first-person perspective seems like it presents an interesting challenge for playing the game this way.

Outside of basic combat, it seems 007 Legends won't shy away from throwing crazy set pieces your way to mix up the action. In one scene we saw during today's Gamescom demo, Bond was engaged in fisticuffs with Gustav Graves, the lightning-spewing villain from Die Another Day. This scene basically played out like a game of Fight Night, a first-person brawl where the player has to dodge incoming attacks from both fists and lightning.

Another scene from the game's Die Another Day chapter involved Bond engaged in a chase scene--in a noticeably branded Aston Martin, naturally--out on the frozen ice. He's chasing a bad guy dropping bombs, while Bond is fighting back with missiles fired from his Aston. Watching this scene, all we could think of was Mario Kart, where the enemy's bombs were banana peels and the missiles were red shells. Bond did not, however, spin his car off the track and get dropped back into place by Lakitu. Unfortunately.

Then you've got the geographical variety, a byproduct of each Bond movie being a globetrotting story that's then amplified to an exponential degree thanks to 007 Legends' use of six of them. You'll be running all over the place, from Gustav Graves' BioDome-like ice palace from Die Another Day, to a drug lord's tropical cocaine refinery from A License to Kill.

Now the one unifying element among all this variety is that this is a Daniel Craig adventure all the way through. There's no Sean Connery, no Timothy Dalton, no Pierce Brosnan. Craig's likeness (but sadly not his actual voice) has been retrofitted into those older stories, with the tone and general level of campiness shifted to be a bit more in line with Craig's modern portrayal of Bond. How will it all play out? We'll find out when 007 Legends is released this October.

Note: For those wondering, the Bond films featured in the game will be Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, Die Another Day, Skyfall, and a sixth that has yet to be announced.

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We play through the early sections of Falcom's new action-RPG.

Anyone who thinks that the PSP should be put to pasture may want to reconsider, as the system is still a-ticking over sales-wise in Japan. Ys creators Falcom are still sticking to the system before their official "move" to the Vita with Ys: Celceta Tree, and it goes to show with their latest action game Nayuta no Kiseki.

And before you start comparing notes and seeing the lineage between this and past "no Kiseki" games like Zero no Kiseki and Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, don't bother, because there aren't any story ties between this and past Legend of Heroes games. This is a good thing, as no prior knowledge of past Kiseki games is needed to enjoy the narrative.

This is the majority of Nayuta no Kiseki, and it's really fun.

Players control a boy named Nayuta, whose fishing village lifestyle was disrupted when a giant meteor crashed from the sky and created a giant tower nearby. After much exploration, Nayuta ends up having to solve the mystery of the new continent known as Lost Heaven together with his friend Signa and the fairy Noi while figuring out who the mysterious girl in the coffin of the Star Garden is. Along the way, they come across different continents filled with all manners of monsters and platforming action.

Our tag team duo of Nayuta and Noi aren't defenseless, thankfully. Nayuta brandishes a sword to cut foes apart while Noi can cast spells ranging from giant red spinning blades to whirling tornadoes that damages enemies over time for a short period. There's no such thing as mana management here; attacking enemies with melee force will charge up Noi's magic stock fast so that you can continuously pile enemies with magic without much repercussion.

Chaining as many hits together will yield a temporary stat boosts for our hero until he either gets hurt or until the combo counter meter on the bottom left side of the screen goes to zero. Suffice to say, combat is really fun as Nayuta controls like a breeze and the enemies provide ample challenge.

In addition, our hero has access to special gear moves that are bolstered by his fairy compatriot. After acquiring one of these powerups early in the game, players can press and hold the circle button after an attack to unleash a short-ranged gear-powered slash that breaks down tough barriers and walls. Later on, you can hold onto green bulbs using a gear hold maneuver that lets you traverse to hard-to-reach spots.

Changing seasons will open up new paths for Nayuta and Noi to explore.

The catch is that you'll expend a bit of blue energy; deplete it and Noi gets stunned momentarily. While doing the charged gear slash was helpful in dealing big damage, we had to take some time getting used to the gear hold maneuver. The controls were easy enough, but calculating your jumps from one bulb to another required a bit of guesswork.

Rather than having each area interconnecting with each other seamlessly like a typical RPG, Nayuta no Kiseki divides each area into stages you can revisit over and over (like Super Mario). Players can replay them after their first playthrough just to boost up their rankings and collect anything they missed out on. Thanks to the game's weather-changing system, the game encourages you to as certain parts of a stage won't open up unless you change the game's weather.

For instance, certain parts on the second continent aren't accessible unless you change its climate to winter; paths that were bodies of water can now be traversed to reach new areas offering new spells for Nayuta and Noi to use. Changing the weather of another continent from spring to summer will make trees within the area shrink, therefore leading to previously inaccessible pathways to treasure and new spells for Noi.

There aren't any standard potions to use here; you'll need to prep in advance by getting your sister Eartha to make your lunch. Depending on what ingredients you find during your time in Lost Heaven, you can create all sorts of foodstuff that bolsters health and experience as long as you have lunch boxes ready.

Racking up a high combo can buff up Nayuta temporarily, even allowing one-hit kills if you tweak his skills right.

We can't complete our analysis of Nayuta no Kiseki without bringing up the spectacular boss fights. One fight at the start had us going at it with a giant scarecrow wood statue. As it does ground pound attacks with its fists, the platform we were standing on elevated close to its head, meaning that it was our cue to attack its head. What surprised us was that there was another statue that proceeded to attack us in tandem with its partner.

Another boss battle had usu fighting a giant mechanical fish that shoots out lightning; halfway through, we ended up fighting it on a platform heading downstream while it was chasing after us. When it lunged its head towards to bite us, we had to use our gear strike to knock its teeth out, and then attack two of its inner mouth tentacles to expose its core. Yes, demonic fishes have inner mouth tentacles presumably for flossing out dead seamen.

The mechanical crab fight on the third chapter warrants mentioning. It attacks first with laser beams and projectiles; you need to climb up to its position and hit its exposed red spot by using the green orbs using your gear hold maneuver. The crab then assaults you with a spinning attack and its crab spawns for its second phase, while it forms a giant whip made out of other mini-crabs for its third and final phase. Killing the crustacean was a matter of learning how to use the gear hold effectively to reach its weak point while also grinding a bit to make sure you're dishing out enough damage.

Our intrepid hero, grave-robbing in an ancient tomb.

As icing on the action RPG cake, there really isn't any huge language barrier for this action RPG within ten hours of playing through Nayuta no Kiseki. So far, it's been incredibly fun thanks to responsive controls, great boss fights beyond the first, and well-paced action with a few platforming and puzzle bits in-between the killing of fantasy creatures. Furthermore, finishing the game nets you the Infinity mode where enemies level up alongside your character just for that extra push of difficulty.

Nayuta no Kiseki is out now for the PSP via parallel importing and download through the Japanese PSN store. There is currently no word on a North American version at this point in time.

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