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http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Sun, 20 Oct 2013 23:09:48 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pax-aus-2014-details-announced/1100-6415671/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/280/2802776/2348985-paxaus_gold.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2348985" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/280/2802776/2348985-paxaus_gold.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2348985"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/280/2802776/2348985-paxaus_gold.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> The Penny Arcade Expo will be returning to Melbourne for its second inaugural PAX Aus from October 31 to November 2 next year.</p><p style="">The announcement was made by Louise Asher, the Victorian minister for innovation, services, and small business. The Victorian Coalition government is a major sponsor of PAX Aus, and played an "important role" in ensuring the event was hosted in the state of Victoria.</p><p style="">PAX Aus 2014 will be hosted at a new venue, the Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre, which will increase the event's capacity.</p><p style="">President of Penny Arcade Robert Khoo confirmed the continued partnership with the Victorian Coalition government.</p><p style="">"Not only have they helped us secure a much-needed larger venue for the show, but they've paved the way for talented local creators to be showcased on the global stage. The games community here is incredible, and PAX Australia is here to stay," Khoo said.</p><p style="">Tickets for this year's event were completely sold out in the months leading up to the show, which was hosted at <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pax-australia-confirmed-for-melbourne/1100-6398556/">Melbourne Showgrounds</a>. The event marked the first time the expo has gone international.</p><p style="">According to organisers, PAX Aus combines an international program with local content and community events, including international guests, speakers, musicians, developers, and Australian industry representatives.</p><p style="">At present, PAX events are also held on both coasts of the United States: PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington, and PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6411828" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6411828/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Sun, 20 Oct 2013 17:32:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pax-aus-2014-details-announced/1100-6415671/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/new-releases-batman-arkham-origins-deus-ex-directo/2300-6415665/ This week in New Releases: Batman Arkham Origins, Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Path of Exile! Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/new-releases-batman-arkham-origins-deus-ex-directo/2300-6415665/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/ <p style="">Grand Theft Auto V deserves accolades for its innovative triumvirate of antiheroes, its many and varied missions, and the sprawling depiction of Los Santos and the hillbilly outbacks. But to rip off what an erudite author once said about Oakland, there is no "there" there. I can't imagine any scenario in which a literary icon like Gertrude Stein would be critiquing a video game, but that legendary putdown can also apply to the Greater Los Santos Area. There is something missing in GTAV that makes the game less engaging than the sociopathic sandboxes of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, the two GTA games that will perpetually be my measuring sticks for the franchise.</p><p style="">What is missing most of all is a solid sense of place. Both Vice City and San Andreas reveled in nostalgia. Vice City reeked of the '80s, from the pitch-perfect radio stations to the Crockett and Tubbs lookalikes that showed up in their Testarossas--er, Cheetahs--when you cranked your wanted level to three stars. San Andreas evoked the early 1990s in a similar way. San Andreas' theme was not as developed as Vice City's, but the game still depicted a recognizable time and place in its grim cartoon look at Los Angeles--with sidelong glances at LA County, San Francisco, and Las Vegas--during the explosion of rap and the racial tension that saw a good chunk of SoCal go up in flames after the Rodney King verdict.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6414795" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6414795/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style="">Both San Andreas and Vice City seemed like real places. Rockstar's biggest achievement in these games was in creating places that you wanted to visit. Vice City was most successful at this. I practically moved to Vice City; I knew the streets by name and could find my way around there better than in the real world. This devotion speaks to Vice City's power to invade my waking thoughts. Long after the game's release, I would go for long drives around town, listening to the radio and indulging my inner hooligan in a rampage or three. The same is true of San Andreas, although the allure of the '80s theme usually won out before I got the San Andreas disc into the system. Rockstar hasn't forgotten how to do this sort of thing. I liked visiting the faux West of Red Dead Redemption just as much as I did Vice City, and still load up the game to ride around the lonely prairie.</p><p style="">GTAV, much like its immediate predecessor, GTAIV, is too almost-modern for its own good. While the setting is ostensibly today, the plot goes back to the 2008-2009 depths of the Great Recession. The story feels dated, and not in the good way of Vice City and San Andreas, which were intentionally retro. Instead of thinking, "Cool! That Exploder: Evacuator Part II movie commercial perfectly sums up how dumb action movies really were in 1986!" you're thinking, "Man, the developers started writing this stuff a long time ago."</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">Look beyond the jokey stuff, and you discover an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity.</p></blockquote><p style="">Not that the economy is really a whole lot better today, of course. But worries about the housing crisis, the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US--all things that clearly motivated a lot of the storyline in GTAV--are not exactly current. We've moved on to new economic meltdowns, like the stateside debt ceiling crisis. It's critique of mainstream media is equally archaic; taking shots at reality television for being crass also isn't cutting-edge comedy. Grand Theft Auto V was a clearly expensive game to make and obviously took a long time to develop, but a story that is only contemporary when work begins in earnest on a project of this magnitude ultimately looks dated. It suffers from the curse of trying to be too current.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+"></a><figcaption>The triumvirate of protagonists represents the before, after, and way after of humanity.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Los Santos, at least, is brilliantly realized, particularly as a technical achievement. The city and the surrounding meth-producing rural environs form the most realistic depiction of a metropolitan area to ever grace a game. The whole burg lives and breathes, offering colorful slices of life whether you're creeping through backyards in the dead of night or just wandering down the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. I don't think I ever encountered any window dressing; all of the people seemed to be present in their own moments, not just there to serve as my personal backdrop. But it's so damn big. I long for the simpler layouts of Vice City and even the more sprawling San Andreas. You could get to know them in a reasonable amount of time, which added to that easy sense of familiarity that turned them into real places in short order.</p><p style="">This is the most personable GTA game, with a strong emphasis on the three lead characters that delves into their psyches (and even into your own psyche by the end of the storyline). That isn't always a good thing, especially when it comes to Trevor, who's probably the most reprehensible dirtbag protagonist in the history of gaming, if not everything. Still, I couldn't look away. Trevor's most malevolent lines were also some of the most hilarious in the game. He forms a vital part of the triumvirate of playable characters, which are a commentary on life in 2008-era America. Trevor represents bottoming out, while burned-out Michael is the guy who's got it all and is still up to his neck in ennui (he's sort of Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later), and up-and-coming Franklin is the man on the rise who's eager to do anything to make the money needed to be regarded as a success in Los Santos. The three are a before, after, and way after.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Scripted missions are the best part of GTAV, especially the multipart heists.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The script is brilliant, from the start with Franklin and his idiotic buddy Lamar, through Michael's spoiled-brat family life, through Trevor's meth-lab murders, through the multiple-choice endings. GTAV gets back to the psychopathic comic strip best represented in the craziness of Tommy Vercetti in Vice City, but with more plot points and tighter characterizations to hold the story together. This game hates everyone and everything, expressing an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity, with even the few rays of sunlight bookended by atrocity. Trevor shows mercy on occasion, though the biggest act of charity he offers in the entire game comes right after introducing a guy to creative uses for a car battery and a monkey wrench.</p><blockquote data-align="left"><p style="">The appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished.</p></blockquote><p style="">If you have a dark sense of humor, there are more laugh-out-loud moments here than in all of the previous GTA games combined. Being able to switch between the members of this trio at will is a great mechanic that accentuates the humor. Flipping over to see what Trevor is doing almost always results in tuning in to pure insanity. My favorite such event was dropping in on him just as he was looming over a bikini-clad girl on Vespucci Beach, while wearing nothing but a filthy muscle shirt and tighty whities, saying something about her licking his white bits. Such moments are likely scripted, given how this Walter White moment led directly into a mission opening where Trevor dropped his undies in front of hapless Floyd, but it all seems organic when you're playing.</p><p style="">Missions have also been laid out almost perfectly, with loads of options as to how you play them, especially when it comes to the big multipart heists that see you planning and executing jobs with the help of hired operatives. Events get overly surreal at times, with the trio working together to form something of a James Bond team adept at everything from flying planes to scuba diving. Still, it's all incredibly captivating, and the game does everything at least reasonably well. Flying and landing planes, for instance, still aren't fully enjoyable tasks, but they've come a long way since San Andreas.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Women have few roles to play in GTA V. Here's the most common.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Unfortunately, the appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished. Attempts at free-form chaos inevitably had me switching back to the scripted stories and missions, which yielded far more entertainment. The only thing I enjoyed about exploring was stumbling upon random occurrences, such as robberies, an apparent bus hijacking, and police shootouts with other criminals. Yet even these great little touches paled in comparison with the scripted missions, and core components of the game design have been tweaked to raise the profile of scripted story at the cost of the open-world concept that has powered previous GTAs. You can still go gonzo in style, but it's not nearly as easy to explode in a random manner when the mood strikes you.</p><p style="">One reason the zaniness feels so limited is that the police are extraordinarily good at what they do and extremely aggressive. They arrive on the scene of even one- and two-star wanted level incidents almost immediately, and a police chopper is quick to show up the moment you hit three stars. Police boats roar up quickly if you try to take to the waves, and cops shoot extremely well, to the point where they can tag you with bullets from a good block away. Basic patrol cars accelerate almost as well as the average Pegassi Infernus, and their drivers are expert at cutting you off and blocking you in. If you want to go on a satisfying tear, you need to armor up, make sure you have loads of the best hardware that Ammu-Nation carries, and have a zippy car nearby. Walking out of a hospital in a bad mood and going berserk with cathartic anger generally gets you wasted again in very short order.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p></blockquote><p style="">You can still go on rampages and evade the police, of course, but you have to do it more realistically by switching cars, hiding in bushes, ducking into somebody's backyard, hanging out in a parking garage, and so forth. This is a more lifelike way of ditching the boys in blue, but it's not very entertaining, especially if you like the intensity of one-man-stand firefights. The best way to eliminate a wanted level now is to hide. I had the most success by driving off-road where the cops couldn't follow me very well. Then I just stuck the car in a gully and sat back until my wanted level vanished completely.</p><p style="">Long gone are the days when you could clock six stars (the game now tops out at five stars), get the army after you, and still escape justice simply by scraping into a Pay 'n' Spray a second ahead of the long arm of the law. Pay 'n' Spray shops have actually been pulled out of GTAV entirely in favor of Los Santos Customs, which is more of a car modification garage than a ready way to escape the cops, since it's useless unless you've already lost your pursuers. Magic car paint in Vice City and San Andreas may have been pretty ridiculous, but it was also a great game mechanism that emphasized the catch-me-if-you-can excitement that made sandbox rampages so integral a part of the GTA experience. It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg"></a><figcaption>World-weary Michael is a memorable character who seems like a Behind the Music look at Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later.</figcaption></figure><p style="">This is a considerably different style of game than either San Andreas or Vice City, with more structure and less of that eyes-wide-open world where the most fun was surveying the landscape and seeing what kind of trouble you could get into. This is a new GTA, one that is a great game on its own terms, but also one that fails to capture the magic of the freestyle adventures that set the tone for the series. I can't see myself coming back to GTAV very often now that I've wrapped the main storyline, save to check out the expansions that Rockstar is undoubtedly prepping for 2014, or to get into the multiplayer, if and when it lives up to its potential. Here, because the game's structure is so tight, done is done. That's typical of how I play games. But it isn't typical of how I play GTA games.</p> Fri, 18 Oct 2013 15:29:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Sun, 20 Oct 2013 23:09:48 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pax-aus-2014-details-announced/1100-6415671/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/280/2802776/2348985-paxaus_gold.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2348985" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/280/2802776/2348985-paxaus_gold.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2348985"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/280/2802776/2348985-paxaus_gold.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> The Penny Arcade Expo will be returning to Melbourne for its second inaugural PAX Aus from October 31 to November 2 next year.</p><p style="">The announcement was made by Louise Asher, the Victorian minister for innovation, services, and small business. The Victorian Coalition government is a major sponsor of PAX Aus, and played an "important role" in ensuring the event was hosted in the state of Victoria.</p><p style="">PAX Aus 2014 will be hosted at a new venue, the Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre, which will increase the event's capacity.</p><p style="">President of Penny Arcade Robert Khoo confirmed the continued partnership with the Victorian Coalition government.</p><p style="">"Not only have they helped us secure a much-needed larger venue for the show, but they've paved the way for talented local creators to be showcased on the global stage. The games community here is incredible, and PAX Australia is here to stay," Khoo said.</p><p style="">Tickets for this year's event were completely sold out in the months leading up to the show, which was hosted at <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pax-australia-confirmed-for-melbourne/1100-6398556/">Melbourne Showgrounds</a>. The event marked the first time the expo has gone international.</p><p style="">According to organisers, PAX Aus combines an international program with local content and community events, including international guests, speakers, musicians, developers, and Australian industry representatives.</p><p style="">At present, PAX events are also held on both coasts of the United States: PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington, and PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6411828" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6411828/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Sun, 20 Oct 2013 17:32:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/pax-aus-2014-details-announced/1100-6415671/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/new-releases-batman-arkham-origins-deus-ex-directo/2300-6415665/ This week in New Releases: Batman Arkham Origins, Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Path of Exile! Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/new-releases-batman-arkham-origins-deus-ex-directo/2300-6415665/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/ <p style="">Grand Theft Auto V deserves accolades for its innovative triumvirate of antiheroes, its many and varied missions, and the sprawling depiction of Los Santos and the hillbilly outbacks. But to rip off what an erudite author once said about Oakland, there is no "there" there. I can't imagine any scenario in which a literary icon like Gertrude Stein would be critiquing a video game, but that legendary putdown can also apply to the Greater Los Santos Area. There is something missing in GTAV that makes the game less engaging than the sociopathic sandboxes of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, the two GTA games that will perpetually be my measuring sticks for the franchise.</p><p style="">What is missing most of all is a solid sense of place. Both Vice City and San Andreas reveled in nostalgia. Vice City reeked of the '80s, from the pitch-perfect radio stations to the Crockett and Tubbs lookalikes that showed up in their Testarossas--er, Cheetahs--when you cranked your wanted level to three stars. San Andreas evoked the early 1990s in a similar way. San Andreas' theme was not as developed as Vice City's, but the game still depicted a recognizable time and place in its grim cartoon look at Los Angeles--with sidelong glances at LA County, San Francisco, and Las Vegas--during the explosion of rap and the racial tension that saw a good chunk of SoCal go up in flames after the Rodney King verdict.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6414795" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6414795/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style="">Both San Andreas and Vice City seemed like real places. Rockstar's biggest achievement in these games was in creating places that you wanted to visit. Vice City was most successful at this. I practically moved to Vice City; I knew the streets by name and could find my way around there better than in the real world. This devotion speaks to Vice City's power to invade my waking thoughts. Long after the game's release, I would go for long drives around town, listening to the radio and indulging my inner hooligan in a rampage or three. The same is true of San Andreas, although the allure of the '80s theme usually won out before I got the San Andreas disc into the system. Rockstar hasn't forgotten how to do this sort of thing. I liked visiting the faux West of Red Dead Redemption just as much as I did Vice City, and still load up the game to ride around the lonely prairie.</p><p style="">GTAV, much like its immediate predecessor, GTAIV, is too almost-modern for its own good. While the setting is ostensibly today, the plot goes back to the 2008-2009 depths of the Great Recession. The story feels dated, and not in the good way of Vice City and San Andreas, which were intentionally retro. Instead of thinking, "Cool! That Exploder: Evacuator Part II movie commercial perfectly sums up how dumb action movies really were in 1986!" you're thinking, "Man, the developers started writing this stuff a long time ago."</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">Look beyond the jokey stuff, and you discover an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity.</p></blockquote><p style="">Not that the economy is really a whole lot better today, of course. But worries about the housing crisis, the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US--all things that clearly motivated a lot of the storyline in GTAV--are not exactly current. We've moved on to new economic meltdowns, like the stateside debt ceiling crisis. It's critique of mainstream media is equally archaic; taking shots at reality television for being crass also isn't cutting-edge comedy. Grand Theft Auto V was a clearly expensive game to make and obviously took a long time to develop, but a story that is only contemporary when work begins in earnest on a project of this magnitude ultimately looks dated. It suffers from the curse of trying to be too current.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+"></a><figcaption>The triumvirate of protagonists represents the before, after, and way after of humanity.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Los Santos, at least, is brilliantly realized, particularly as a technical achievement. The city and the surrounding meth-producing rural environs form the most realistic depiction of a metropolitan area to ever grace a game. The whole burg lives and breathes, offering colorful slices of life whether you're creeping through backyards in the dead of night or just wandering down the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. I don't think I ever encountered any window dressing; all of the people seemed to be present in their own moments, not just there to serve as my personal backdrop. But it's so damn big. I long for the simpler layouts of Vice City and even the more sprawling San Andreas. You could get to know them in a reasonable amount of time, which added to that easy sense of familiarity that turned them into real places in short order.</p><p style="">This is the most personable GTA game, with a strong emphasis on the three lead characters that delves into their psyches (and even into your own psyche by the end of the storyline). That isn't always a good thing, especially when it comes to Trevor, who's probably the most reprehensible dirtbag protagonist in the history of gaming, if not everything. Still, I couldn't look away. Trevor's most malevolent lines were also some of the most hilarious in the game. He forms a vital part of the triumvirate of playable characters, which are a commentary on life in 2008-era America. Trevor represents bottoming out, while burned-out Michael is the guy who's got it all and is still up to his neck in ennui (he's sort of Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later), and up-and-coming Franklin is the man on the rise who's eager to do anything to make the money needed to be regarded as a success in Los Santos. The three are a before, after, and way after.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Scripted missions are the best part of GTAV, especially the multipart heists.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The script is brilliant, from the start with Franklin and his idiotic buddy Lamar, through Michael's spoiled-brat family life, through Trevor's meth-lab murders, through the multiple-choice endings. GTAV gets back to the psychopathic comic strip best represented in the craziness of Tommy Vercetti in Vice City, but with more plot points and tighter characterizations to hold the story together. This game hates everyone and everything, expressing an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity, with even the few rays of sunlight bookended by atrocity. Trevor shows mercy on occasion, though the biggest act of charity he offers in the entire game comes right after introducing a guy to creative uses for a car battery and a monkey wrench.</p><blockquote data-align="left"><p style="">The appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished.</p></blockquote><p style="">If you have a dark sense of humor, there are more laugh-out-loud moments here than in all of the previous GTA games combined. Being able to switch between the members of this trio at will is a great mechanic that accentuates the humor. Flipping over to see what Trevor is doing almost always results in tuning in to pure insanity. My favorite such event was dropping in on him just as he was looming over a bikini-clad girl on Vespucci Beach, while wearing nothing but a filthy muscle shirt and tighty whities, saying something about her licking his white bits. Such moments are likely scripted, given how this Walter White moment led directly into a mission opening where Trevor dropped his undies in front of hapless Floyd, but it all seems organic when you're playing.</p><p style="">Missions have also been laid out almost perfectly, with loads of options as to how you play them, especially when it comes to the big multipart heists that see you planning and executing jobs with the help of hired operatives. Events get overly surreal at times, with the trio working together to form something of a James Bond team adept at everything from flying planes to scuba diving. Still, it's all incredibly captivating, and the game does everything at least reasonably well. Flying and landing planes, for instance, still aren't fully enjoyable tasks, but they've come a long way since San Andreas.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Women have few roles to play in GTA V. Here's the most common.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Unfortunately, the appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished. Attempts at free-form chaos inevitably had me switching back to the scripted stories and missions, which yielded far more entertainment. The only thing I enjoyed about exploring was stumbling upon random occurrences, such as robberies, an apparent bus hijacking, and police shootouts with other criminals. Yet even these great little touches paled in comparison with the scripted missions, and core components of the game design have been tweaked to raise the profile of scripted story at the cost of the open-world concept that has powered previous GTAs. You can still go gonzo in style, but it's not nearly as easy to explode in a random manner when the mood strikes you.</p><p style="">One reason the zaniness feels so limited is that the police are extraordinarily good at what they do and extremely aggressive. They arrive on the scene of even one- and two-star wanted level incidents almost immediately, and a police chopper is quick to show up the moment you hit three stars. Police boats roar up quickly if you try to take to the waves, and cops shoot extremely well, to the point where they can tag you with bullets from a good block away. Basic patrol cars accelerate almost as well as the average Pegassi Infernus, and their drivers are expert at cutting you off and blocking you in. If you want to go on a satisfying tear, you need to armor up, make sure you have loads of the best hardware that Ammu-Nation carries, and have a zippy car nearby. Walking out of a hospital in a bad mood and going berserk with cathartic anger generally gets you wasted again in very short order.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p></blockquote><p style="">You can still go on rampages and evade the police, of course, but you have to do it more realistically by switching cars, hiding in bushes, ducking into somebody's backyard, hanging out in a parking garage, and so forth. This is a more lifelike way of ditching the boys in blue, but it's not very entertaining, especially if you like the intensity of one-man-stand firefights. The best way to eliminate a wanted level now is to hide. I had the most success by driving off-road where the cops couldn't follow me very well. Then I just stuck the car in a gully and sat back until my wanted level vanished completely.</p><p style="">Long gone are the days when you could clock six stars (the game now tops out at five stars), get the army after you, and still escape justice simply by scraping into a Pay 'n' Spray a second ahead of the long arm of the law. Pay 'n' Spray shops have actually been pulled out of GTAV entirely in favor of Los Santos Customs, which is more of a car modification garage than a ready way to escape the cops, since it's useless unless you've already lost your pursuers. Magic car paint in Vice City and San Andreas may have been pretty ridiculous, but it was also a great game mechanism that emphasized the catch-me-if-you-can excitement that made sandbox rampages so integral a part of the GTA experience. It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg"></a><figcaption>World-weary Michael is a memorable character who seems like a Behind the Music look at Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later.</figcaption></figure><p style="">This is a considerably different style of game than either San Andreas or Vice City, with more structure and less of that eyes-wide-open world where the most fun was surveying the landscape and seeing what kind of trouble you could get into. This is a new GTA, one that is a great game on its own terms, but also one that fails to capture the magic of the freestyle adventures that set the tone for the series. I can't see myself coming back to GTAV very often now that I've wrapped the main storyline, save to check out the expansions that Rockstar is undoubtedly prepping for 2014, or to get into the multiplayer, if and when it lives up to its potential. Here, because the game's structure is so tight, done is done. That's typical of how I play games. But it isn't typical of how I play GTA games.</p> Fri, 18 Oct 2013 15:29:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/

13.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Grand Theft Auto V Review - Southland Sprawl

Grand Theft Auto V deserves accolades for its innovative triumvirate of antiheroes, its many and varied missions, and the sprawling depiction of Los Santos and the hillbilly outbacks. But to rip off what an erudite author once said about Oakland, there is no "there" there. I can't imagine any scenario in which a literary icon like Gertrude Stein would be critiquing a video game, but that legendary putdown can also apply to the Greater Los Santos Area. There is something missing in GTAV that makes the game less engaging than the sociopathic sandboxes of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, the two GTA games that will perpetually be my measuring sticks for the franchise.

What is missing most of all is a solid sense of place. Both Vice City and San Andreas reveled in nostalgia. Vice City reeked of the '80s, from the pitch-perfect radio stations to the Crockett and Tubbs lookalikes that showed up in their Testarossas--er, Cheetahs--when you cranked your wanted level to three stars. San Andreas evoked the early 1990s in a similar way. San Andreas' theme was not as developed as Vice City's, but the game still depicted a recognizable time and place in its grim cartoon look at Los Angeles--with sidelong glances at LA County, San Francisco, and Las Vegas--during the explosion of rap and the racial tension that saw a good chunk of SoCal go up in flames after the Rodney King verdict.

Both San Andreas and Vice City seemed like real places. Rockstar's biggest achievement in these games was in creating places that you wanted to visit. Vice City was most successful at this. I practically moved to Vice City; I knew the streets by name and could find my way around there better than in the real world. This devotion speaks to Vice City's power to invade my waking thoughts. Long after the game's release, I would go for long drives around town, listening to the radio and indulging my inner hooligan in a rampage or three. The same is true of San Andreas, although the allure of the '80s theme usually won out before I got the San Andreas disc into the system. Rockstar hasn't forgotten how to do this sort of thing. I liked visiting the faux West of Red Dead Redemption just as much as I did Vice City, and still load up the game to ride around the lonely prairie.

GTAV, much like its immediate predecessor, GTAIV, is too almost-modern for its own good. While the setting is ostensibly today, the plot goes back to the 2008-2009 depths of the Great Recession. The story feels dated, and not in the good way of Vice City and San Andreas, which were intentionally retro. Instead of thinking, "Cool! That Exploder: Evacuator Part II movie commercial perfectly sums up how dumb action movies really were in 1986!" you're thinking, "Man, the developers started writing this stuff a long time ago."

Look beyond the jokey stuff, and you discover an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity.

Not that the economy is really a whole lot better today, of course. But worries about the housing crisis, the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US--all things that clearly motivated a lot of the storyline in GTAV--are not exactly current. We've moved on to new economic meltdowns, like the stateside debt ceiling crisis. It's critique of mainstream media is equally archaic; taking shots at reality television for being crass also isn't cutting-edge comedy. Grand Theft Auto V was a clearly expensive game to make and obviously took a long time to develop, but a story that is only contemporary when work begins in earnest on a project of this magnitude ultimately looks dated. It suffers from the curse of trying to be too current.

The triumvirate of protagonists represents the before, after, and way after of humanity.

Los Santos, at least, is brilliantly realized, particularly as a technical achievement. The city and the surrounding meth-producing rural environs form the most realistic depiction of a metropolitan area to ever grace a game. The whole burg lives and breathes, offering colorful slices of life whether you're creeping through backyards in the dead of night or just wandering down the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. I don't think I ever encountered any window dressing; all of the people seemed to be present in their own moments, not just there to serve as my personal backdrop. But it's so damn big. I long for the simpler layouts of Vice City and even the more sprawling San Andreas. You could get to know them in a reasonable amount of time, which added to that easy sense of familiarity that turned them into real places in short order.

This is the most personable GTA game, with a strong emphasis on the three lead characters that delves into their psyches (and even into your own psyche by the end of the storyline). That isn't always a good thing, especially when it comes to Trevor, who's probably the most reprehensible dirtbag protagonist in the history of gaming, if not everything. Still, I couldn't look away. Trevor's most malevolent lines were also some of the most hilarious in the game. He forms a vital part of the triumvirate of playable characters, which are a commentary on life in 2008-era America. Trevor represents bottoming out, while burned-out Michael is the guy who's got it all and is still up to his neck in ennui (he's sort of Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later), and up-and-coming Franklin is the man on the rise who's eager to do anything to make the money needed to be regarded as a success in Los Santos. The three are a before, after, and way after.

Scripted missions are the best part of GTAV, especially the multipart heists.

The script is brilliant, from the start with Franklin and his idiotic buddy Lamar, through Michael's spoiled-brat family life, through Trevor's meth-lab murders, through the multiple-choice endings. GTAV gets back to the psychopathic comic strip best represented in the craziness of Tommy Vercetti in Vice City, but with more plot points and tighter characterizations to hold the story together. This game hates everyone and everything, expressing an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity, with even the few rays of sunlight bookended by atrocity. Trevor shows mercy on occasion, though the biggest act of charity he offers in the entire game comes right after introducing a guy to creative uses for a car battery and a monkey wrench.

The appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished.

If you have a dark sense of humor, there are more laugh-out-loud moments here than in all of the previous GTA games combined. Being able to switch between the members of this trio at will is a great mechanic that accentuates the humor. Flipping over to see what Trevor is doing almost always results in tuning in to pure insanity. My favorite such event was dropping in on him just as he was looming over a bikini-clad girl on Vespucci Beach, while wearing nothing but a filthy muscle shirt and tighty whities, saying something about her licking his white bits. Such moments are likely scripted, given how this Walter White moment led directly into a mission opening where Trevor dropped his undies in front of hapless Floyd, but it all seems organic when you're playing.

Missions have also been laid out almost perfectly, with loads of options as to how you play them, especially when it comes to the big multipart heists that see you planning and executing jobs with the help of hired operatives. Events get overly surreal at times, with the trio working together to form something of a James Bond team adept at everything from flying planes to scuba diving. Still, it's all incredibly captivating, and the game does everything at least reasonably well. Flying and landing planes, for instance, still aren't fully enjoyable tasks, but they've come a long way since San Andreas.

Women have few roles to play in GTA V. Here's the most common.

Unfortunately, the appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished. Attempts at free-form chaos inevitably had me switching back to the scripted stories and missions, which yielded far more entertainment. The only thing I enjoyed about exploring was stumbling upon random occurrences, such as robberies, an apparent bus hijacking, and police shootouts with other criminals. Yet even these great little touches paled in comparison with the scripted missions, and core components of the game design have been tweaked to raise the profile of scripted story at the cost of the open-world concept that has powered previous GTAs. You can still go gonzo in style, but it's not nearly as easy to explode in a random manner when the mood strikes you.

One reason the zaniness feels so limited is that the police are extraordinarily good at what they do and extremely aggressive. They arrive on the scene of even one- and two-star wanted level incidents almost immediately, and a police chopper is quick to show up the moment you hit three stars. Police boats roar up quickly if you try to take to the waves, and cops shoot extremely well, to the point where they can tag you with bullets from a good block away. Basic patrol cars accelerate almost as well as the average Pegassi Infernus, and their drivers are expert at cutting you off and blocking you in. If you want to go on a satisfying tear, you need to armor up, make sure you have loads of the best hardware that Ammu-Nation carries, and have a zippy car nearby. Walking out of a hospital in a bad mood and going berserk with cathartic anger generally gets you wasted again in very short order.

It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.

You can still go on rampages and evade the police, of course, but you have to do it more realistically by switching cars, hiding in bushes, ducking into somebody's backyard, hanging out in a parking garage, and so forth. This is a more lifelike way of ditching the boys in blue, but it's not very entertaining, especially if you like the intensity of one-man-stand firefights. The best way to eliminate a wanted level now is to hide. I had the most success by driving off-road where the cops couldn't follow me very well. Then I just stuck the car in a gully and sat back until my wanted level vanished completely.

Long gone are the days when you could clock six stars (the game now tops out at five stars), get the army after you, and still escape justice simply by scraping into a Pay 'n' Spray a second ahead of the long arm of the law. Pay 'n' Spray shops have actually been pulled out of GTAV entirely in favor of Los Santos Customs, which is more of a car modification garage than a ready way to escape the cops, since it's useless unless you've already lost your pursuers. Magic car paint in Vice City and San Andreas may have been pretty ridiculous, but it was also a great game mechanism that emphasized the catch-me-if-you-can excitement that made sandbox rampages so integral a part of the GTA experience. It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.

World-weary Michael is a memorable character who seems like a Behind the Music look at Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later.

This is a considerably different style of game than either San Andreas or Vice City, with more structure and less of that eyes-wide-open world where the most fun was surveying the landscape and seeing what kind of trouble you could get into. This is a new GTA, one that is a great game on its own terms, but also one that fails to capture the magic of the freestyle adventures that set the tone for the series. I can't see myself coming back to GTAV very often now that I've wrapped the main storyline, save to check out the expansions that Rockstar is undoubtedly prepping for 2014, or to get into the multiplayer, if and when it lives up to its potential. Here, because the game's structure is so tight, done is done. That's typical of how I play games. But it isn't typical of how I play GTA games.

13.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Community News Update: Friday 10/18

The new site has been on its legs for a little over a week and so far things have been fairly smooth sailing. Of course, there have been a few hiccups along the way but for the most part everything seems to be getting back to normal. Remember, if you find yourself experiencing any technical difficulties, bugs, or just a feature that you miss having around; be sure to share on our Bug Report and Feedback forum.

GameSpot Popular Pick

This week, Sony detailed the cost of the PS4 in Brazil, shockingly enough the next-gen console will be going for $3,999 Brazilian Real due to import fees and taxes. Additionally, games will cost around $179 Brazilian Real. Full Story.

Skylanders: Swap Force is a solid action adventure game complete with a wide variety of lush, colorful environments, an extensive array of enemies to slay, and fun characters to interact with. This is a ridiculous, Saturday-morning-cartoon world, with goblins, trolls, frost giants, mechanical golems, bats, goo-based monsters, and startled sheep being hurled at you as you fight through the single-player campaign. Full Review.

Community Feature: Facebook Fan Sahara

This week's community spotlight shines on our Facebook fan Sahara A. from Brooklyn, NY. She was one of our winners from the Injustice: Gods Among Us contest that we ran. She took the time to share with us this nifty little video of her unboxing her giant box of goodies that we sent (we gave her some extra perks for it being her birthday).

World of WarCraft Trivial Pursuit Winners

On Monday, we posted a giveaway of World of Warcraft Trivial Pursuit Editions on our Facebook page. Here are the winners:

Atish C., Bryan S., Carolina D, and. Teh C.

A Wild Contest Appears!

We are having another Groupees giveaway! Keep an eye on our twitter feed this weekend for a chance to win of 20 codes. More info about Groupees.

Also, we posted a random giveaway today on Twitter. These will be happening at different times, so keep an lookout. Follow us on Twitter to make sure you don't miss our awesome random giveaways!

Community Final Thought

This week, Ohaifrancy will be taking it easy for the most part but rumor has it that she's busten' out her dancing shoes to give a second look at Just Dance 2014. While DigitalDame is back to her spell slinging and will likely be taking part in yet another Pro-Tour Qualifier. And as always; make sure that you're following us on Twitter, that you Like us on Facebook, and that you've subscribed to us on Youtube.

Have a good weekend, Community OUT!

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Top 5 Skyrim Mods of the Week - Avengers of Skyrim!

Posted by Sarah Lynch | Oct. 19, 2013 12:00pm

Join Cam and Seb as they team up with The Avengers to find the mighty Staff of Chickenball, do battle with Loki, and travel along the Moonpath to Elsweyr.

13.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Grand Theft Auto V Review - Southland Sprawl

Grand Theft Auto V deserves accolades for its innovative triumvirate of antiheroes, its many and varied missions, and the sprawling depiction of Los Santos and the hillbilly outbacks. But to rip off what an erudite author once said about Oakland, there is no "there" there. I can't imagine any scenario in which a literary icon like Gertrude Stein would be critiquing a video game, but that legendary putdown can also apply to the Greater Los Santos Area. There is something missing in GTAV that makes the game less engaging than the sociopathic sandboxes of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, the two GTA games that will perpetually be my measuring sticks for the franchise.

What is missing most of all is a solid sense of place. Both Vice City and San Andreas reveled in nostalgia. Vice City reeked of the '80s, from the pitch-perfect radio stations to the Crockett and Tubbs lookalikes that showed up in their Testarossas--er, Cheetahs--when you cranked your wanted level to three stars. San Andreas evoked the early 1990s in a similar way. San Andreas' theme was not as developed as Vice City's, but the game still depicted a recognizable time and place in its grim cartoon look at Los Angeles--with sidelong glances at LA County, San Francisco, and Las Vegas--during the explosion of rap and the racial tension that saw a good chunk of SoCal go up in flames after the Rodney King verdict.

Both San Andreas and Vice City seemed like real places. Rockstar's biggest achievement in these games was in creating places that you wanted to visit. Vice City was most successful at this. I practically moved to Vice City; I knew the streets by name and could find my way around there better than in the real world. This devotion speaks to Vice City's power to invade my waking thoughts. Long after the game's release, I would go for long drives around town, listening to the radio and indulging my inner hooligan in a rampage or three. The same is true of San Andreas, although the allure of the '80s theme usually won out before I got the San Andreas disc into the system. Rockstar hasn't forgotten how to do this sort of thing. I liked visiting the faux West of Red Dead Redemption just as much as I did Vice City, and still load up the game to ride around the lonely prairie.

GTAV, much like its immediate predecessor, GTAIV, is too almost-modern for its own good. While the setting is ostensibly today, the plot goes back to the 2008-2009 depths of the Great Recession. The story feels dated, and not in the good way of Vice City and San Andreas, which were intentionally retro. Instead of thinking, "Cool! That Exploder: Evacuator Part II movie commercial perfectly sums up how dumb action movies really were in 1986!" you're thinking, "Man, the developers started writing this stuff a long time ago."

Look beyond the jokey stuff, and you discover an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity.

Not that the economy is really a whole lot better today, of course. But worries about the housing crisis, the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US--all things that clearly motivated a lot of the storyline in GTAV--are not exactly current. We've moved on to new economic meltdowns, like the stateside debt ceiling crisis. It's critique of mainstream media is equally archaic; taking shots at reality television for being crass also isn't cutting-edge comedy. Grand Theft Auto V was a clearly expensive game to make and obviously took a long time to develop, but a story that is only contemporary when work begins in earnest on a project of this magnitude ultimately looks dated. It suffers from the curse of trying to be too current.

The triumvirate of protagonists represents the before, after, and way after of humanity.

Los Santos, at least, is brilliantly realized, particularly as a technical achievement. The city and the surrounding meth-producing rural environs form the most realistic depiction of a metropolitan area to ever grace a game. The whole burg lives and breathes, offering colorful slices of life whether you're creeping through backyards in the dead of night or just wandering down the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. I don't think I ever encountered any window dressing; all of the people seemed to be present in their own moments, not just there to serve as my personal backdrop. But it's so damn big. I long for the simpler layouts of Vice City and even the more sprawling San Andreas. You could get to know them in a reasonable amount of time, which added to that easy sense of familiarity that turned them into real places in short order.

This is the most personable GTA game, with a strong emphasis on the three lead characters that delves into their psyches (and even into your own psyche by the end of the storyline). That isn't always a good thing, especially when it comes to Trevor, who's probably the most reprehensible dirtbag protagonist in the history of gaming, if not everything. Still, I couldn't look away. Trevor's most malevolent lines were also some of the most hilarious in the game. He forms a vital part of the triumvirate of playable characters, which are a commentary on life in 2008-era America. Trevor represents bottoming out, while burned-out Michael is the guy who's got it all and is still up to his neck in ennui (he's sort of Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later), and up-and-coming Franklin is the man on the rise who's eager to do anything to make the money needed to be regarded as a success in Los Santos. The three are a before, after, and way after.

Scripted missions are the best part of GTAV, especially the multipart heists.

The script is brilliant, from the start with Franklin and his idiotic buddy Lamar, through Michael's spoiled-brat family life, through Trevor's meth-lab murders, through the multiple-choice endings. GTAV gets back to the psychopathic comic strip best represented in the craziness of Tommy Vercetti in Vice City, but with more plot points and tighter characterizations to hold the story together. This game hates everyone and everything, expressing an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity, with even the few rays of sunlight bookended by atrocity. Trevor shows mercy on occasion, though the biggest act of charity he offers in the entire game comes right after introducing a guy to creative uses for a car battery and a monkey wrench.

The appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished.

If you have a dark sense of humor, there are more laugh-out-loud moments here than in all of the previous GTA games combined. Being able to switch between the members of this trio at will is a great mechanic that accentuates the humor. Flipping over to see what Trevor is doing almost always results in tuning in to pure insanity. My favorite such event was dropping in on him just as he was looming over a bikini-clad girl on Vespucci Beach, while wearing nothing but a filthy muscle shirt and tighty whities, saying something about her licking his white bits. Such moments are likely scripted, given how this Walter White moment led directly into a mission opening where Trevor dropped his undies in front of hapless Floyd, but it all seems organic when you're playing.

Missions have also been laid out almost perfectly, with loads of options as to how you play them, especially when it comes to the big multipart heists that see you planning and executing jobs with the help of hired operatives. Events get overly surreal at times, with the trio working together to form something of a James Bond team adept at everything from flying planes to scuba diving. Still, it's all incredibly captivating, and the game does everything at least reasonably well. Flying and landing planes, for instance, still aren't fully enjoyable tasks, but they've come a long way since San Andreas.

Women have few roles to play in GTA V. Here's the most common.

Unfortunately, the appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished. Attempts at free-form chaos inevitably had me switching back to the scripted stories and missions, which yielded far more entertainment. The only thing I enjoyed about exploring was stumbling upon random occurrences, such as robberies, an apparent bus hijacking, and police shootouts with other criminals. Yet even these great little touches paled in comparison with the scripted missions, and core components of the game design have been tweaked to raise the profile of scripted story at the cost of the open-world concept that has powered previous GTAs. You can still go gonzo in style, but it's not nearly as easy to explode in a random manner when the mood strikes you.

One reason the zaniness feels so limited is that the police are extraordinarily good at what they do and extremely aggressive. They arrive on the scene of even one- and two-star wanted level incidents almost immediately, and a police chopper is quick to show up the moment you hit three stars. Police boats roar up quickly if you try to take to the waves, and cops shoot extremely well, to the point where they can tag you with bullets from a good block away. Basic patrol cars accelerate almost as well as the average Pegassi Infernus, and their drivers are expert at cutting you off and blocking you in. If you want to go on a satisfying tear, you need to armor up, make sure you have loads of the best hardware that Ammu-Nation carries, and have a zippy car nearby. Walking out of a hospital in a bad mood and going berserk with cathartic anger generally gets you wasted again in very short order.

It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.

You can still go on rampages and evade the police, of course, but you have to do it more realistically by switching cars, hiding in bushes, ducking into somebody's backyard, hanging out in a parking garage, and so forth. This is a more lifelike way of ditching the boys in blue, but it's not very entertaining, especially if you like the intensity of one-man-stand firefights. The best way to eliminate a wanted level now is to hide. I had the most success by driving off-road where the cops couldn't follow me very well. Then I just stuck the car in a gully and sat back until my wanted level vanished completely.

Long gone are the days when you could clock six stars (the game now tops out at five stars), get the army after you, and still escape justice simply by scraping into a Pay 'n' Spray a second ahead of the long arm of the law. Pay 'n' Spray shops have actually been pulled out of GTAV entirely in favor of Los Santos Customs, which is more of a car modification garage than a ready way to escape the cops, since it's useless unless you've already lost your pursuers. Magic car paint in Vice City and San Andreas may have been pretty ridiculous, but it was also a great game mechanism that emphasized the catch-me-if-you-can excitement that made sandbox rampages so integral a part of the GTA experience. It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.

World-weary Michael is a memorable character who seems like a Behind the Music look at Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later.

This is a considerably different style of game than either San Andreas or Vice City, with more structure and less of that eyes-wide-open world where the most fun was surveying the landscape and seeing what kind of trouble you could get into. This is a new GTA, one that is a great game on its own terms, but also one that fails to capture the magic of the freestyle adventures that set the tone for the series. I can't see myself coming back to GTAV very often now that I've wrapped the main storyline, save to check out the expansions that Rockstar is undoubtedly prepping for 2014, or to get into the multiplayer, if and when it lives up to its potential. Here, because the game's structure is so tight, done is done. That's typical of how I play games. But it isn't typical of how I play GTA games.

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Community News Update: Friday 10/18

The new site has been on its legs for a little over a week and so far things have been fairly smooth sailing. Of course, there have been a few hiccups along the way but for the most part everything seems to be getting back to normal. Remember, if you find yourself experiencing any technical difficulties, bugs, or just a feature that you miss having around; be sure to share on our Bug Report and Feedback forum.

GameSpot Popular Pick

This week, Sony detailed the cost of the PS4 in Brazil, shockingly enough the next-gen console will be going for $3,999 Brazilian Real due to import fees and taxes. Additionally, games will cost around $179 Brazilian Real. Full Story.

Skylanders: Swap Force is a solid action adventure game complete with a wide variety of lush, colorful environments, an extensive array of enemies to slay, and fun characters to interact with. This is a ridiculous, Saturday-morning-cartoon world, with goblins, trolls, frost giants, mechanical golems, bats, goo-based monsters, and startled sheep being hurled at you as you fight through the single-player campaign. Full Review.

Community Feature: Facebook Fan Sahara

This week's community spotlight shines on our Facebook fan Sahara A. from Brooklyn, NY. She was one of our winners from the Injustice: Gods Among Us contest that we ran. She took the time to share with us this nifty little video of her unboxing her giant box of goodies that we sent (we gave her some extra perks for it being her birthday).

World of WarCraft Trivial Pursuit Winners

On Monday, we posted a giveaway of World of Warcraft Trivial Pursuit Editions on our Facebook page. Here are the winners:

Atish C., Bryan S., Carolina D, and. Teh C.

A Wild Contest Appears!

We are having another Groupees giveaway! Keep an eye on our twitter feed this weekend for a chance to win of 20 codes. More info about Groupees.

Also, we posted a random giveaway today on Twitter. These will be happening at different times, so keep an lookout. Follow us on Twitter to make sure you don't miss our awesome random giveaways!

Community Final Thought

This week, Ohaifrancy will be taking it easy for the most part but rumor has it that she's busten' out her dancing shoes to give a second look at Just Dance 2014. While DigitalDame is back to her spell slinging and will likely be taking part in yet another Pro-Tour Qualifier. And as always; make sure that you're following us on Twitter, that you Like us on Facebook, and that you've subscribed to us on Youtube.

Have a good weekend, Community OUT!

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Torture Chamber - Super Hexagon

Not sure if it's your skillful editing or I'm just easier to amuse at this hour but rewatching the highlight video always cracks me up even more than the livestream already did.

Arguing with the game is always brilliant 

"TRIANGLE??!" :P

Thanks for the entertainment.

Till next time.

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Skylanders Swap Force Review

You've been hankering to send a team of elite heroes to fight the forces of evil. Luckily, Skylanders Swap Force, the third game in this charming series, has arrived to sate the needs of returning collectors and newcomers alike. Like its predecessors, Swap Force places you in the role of a portal master, commanding the Skylander warriors to defend the Cloudbreak islands and prevent raving villain Kaos from plunging the Skylands into darkness. To summon your warrior, you place a Skylander figurine on the game's Portal of Power accessory; the game detects the figure and swaps it into play within a matter of seconds.

Swap Force is a solid action adventure game complete with a wide variety of lush, colorful environments, an extensive array of enemies to slay, and fun characters to interact with. This is a ridiculous, Saturday-morning-cartoon world, with goblins, trolls, frost giants, mechanical golems, bats, goo-based monsters, and startled sheep being hurled at you as you fight through the single-player campaign. The game's outstanding voice acting, complete with over-the-top performances from Invader Zim's Richard Steven Horvitz and Seinfeld's Patrick Warburton, adds warm humor and characterization that make the cutscenes a joy to watch. Horvitz provides a nigh-on-maniacal vocal energy in his role as Kaos, while Warburton slathers on intentional cheesiness as the pilot character Flynn. Little touches, such as a hot-swappable difficulty setting through the options menu, make it simple to adjust the difficulty to an easier setting if you are having trouble completing a level. Additional content, such as unlockable Time Attack and Score modes, offers new challenges and replay value to boot.

Swap Force has a good underlying structure that makes it easy to enjoy. The game's responsive controls make things feel snappy as you blast away at enemies from afar or venture in close to stun or bash those around you. Swap Force pushes the enemies to swarm you as you jump and dodge out of the way, fighting back all the while. As the levels progress, you learn to manage the battle around you, stunning or taking out weaker or ranged-attack enemies first before going after stronger enemies. In the more frenzied moments, I found myself using melee attacks to buy distance to move in, ranged attacks to take out clusters of enemies in relative safety, and a special attack to telepathically hurl either a kitchen sink or a nearby opponent at nearby enemies to clear space.

Although each enemy type tends to be limited to two or three basic attacks, Swap Force remains diverse by throwing a wide variety of foes at you. Each level features its own distinct units and works to a fevered pitch in which you simultaneously fight simple melee combatants, ranged attackers, and tougher, higher-end enemies. Role-playing elements deepen this simple but exciting foundation, allowing you to upgrade your character, equip items that improve your stats, gain new abilities, and become more formidable. One of the game's joys is that it doesn't spend too much time on any one thing. It's not just a straight shooter in which you slay hundreds of enemies in a given stage, or just a platformer in which you leap from one moving surface to the next. Instead, the game evenly blends melee fisticuffs, ranged battles, and environmental puzzles into a satisfying mix that draws you in and holds your attention.

Swap Force taps into the sheer joy of experimenting with new character combinations.

With Swap Force, you can physically split the magnetically attached top and bottom sections of your Skylanders figurines, joining them into new combinations and then warping them into your game. Once they're warped in, you can purchase new attacks and abilities for the top and bottom sections of your new characters on the fly via power-up stations found throughout the game and create cool new combinations, such as the half-robot, half-eagle warrior that I wound up using as my main character. Using these combinations don't substantially change the gameplay, but there's considerable joy in trying new combinations. In the case of my own character, I was able to blend my Skylander into a new unit complete with both strong ranged and melee attacks to create a character that could handle most combat situations it encountered. It's this kind of mixing, matching, and customizing that makes the game enjoyable to play, especially once you begin to experiment with new combinations.

There's a definite sense of accomplishment in reaching your character's next level, though the game doesn't tell you which attributes, if any, have been upgraded upon reaching the next level. Instead, you see more defined changes to your characters through purchasing new abilities, attacks, and wearable inventory items, which might increase your health, boost your standard attack, and so on.

In addition to a solid single-player campaign and unlockable Time Attack and Score modes, Swap Force features a Battle Arena mode where you can fight in Solo Survival, Team Survival, Rival Survival, and Ring Out modes, fighting with or against a human teammate. Arena battles work well enough, but don't evolve beyond basic button mashing, and feel like a side dish instead of a main course. Worse, Team Survival mode is punitive; players who die early in the game have to wait until their teammate beats the round or dies, because Swap Force fails to offer additional lives or a means of resurrecting friends. This flies in the face of the rest of the game's philosophy, which goes out of its way to be friendly and accessible; it's boring to wait around a few minutes before getting a chance to play some more.

No matter how old you are, you might get annoyed with Swap Force's static camera, which doesn't always provide the best possible angle and will have you longing for more control of your view. A greater annoyance is also a returning one: you can't unlock certain sections without purchasing specific Skylanders figurines or collections of them, which can come at a steep price. True, the game arrives with either three or five Skylanders figures, but it also frequently subjects you to advertisements for new toys, which can make the whole experience feel like a crass marketing campaign. The game's mechanics also encourage you to run to the nearest toy store. In certain circumstances, the game states that your character has run out of energy, and needs to rest so that another Skylanders figurine can be swapped onto the Portal of Power and pick up where your other character left off.

Despite its push to have you run out and buy additional figures, Skylanders Swap Force remains fun and charming for kids and adults alike. The new character combinations enhance the gameplay, expanding on what can be created and adding an interesting mechanic to the game. You may wind up shopping for new figures to unlock new content, which isn't a cheap habit to build, but Swap Force taps into the sheer joy of experimenting with new character combinations and building them from there.

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Happy Wars hits 6 million players on Xbox Live

Rockstar to give GTA Online players $500,000 after technical hiccups

Grand Theft Auto Online players who log-on in October will receive two in-game cash injections of $250,000.

Choosing names for Pokémon X/Y was "incredibly difficult" says director

Game director Junichi Masuda says team dedicated to assigning names "practically in tears" during the process.

Apple's October 22 event confirmed

New iPads and Macs expected at San Francisco event next week.

Grand Theft Auto V coming to PC in early 2014 - Report

Multiple sources say a PC version of GTAV will be released in the first quarter of 2014.

Watch Dogs delayed to spring 2014

[UPDATE] "From the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality," Ubisoft says; Amazon and GameStop release statements on bundle orders.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 coming to Xbox One, PS4

Beenox developing sequel for Xbox One and PS4, as well as PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, 3DS, and PC.

UK retailer expecting Xbox One to outsell PS4

Head technology buyer for John Lewis chain of department stores gives advantage to Microsoft's console due to its launch lineup and online platform.

Lightning Returns: You Can Go Home Again

Kevin VanOrd plays Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII to see how well its returning heroine has been holding up.

Feedbackula - Beyond: Two Souls Scoring Scandal!

The review scores for Beyond: Two Souls have been varied to say the least. With opinion divided over David Cage's latest, Johnny steps in to sort things out. Warning: contains emotions.

Grand Theft Auto V: Online - Video Review

Carolyn Petit rounds up some criminal cohorts to conquer the streets of Los Santos in this video review for GTA Online.

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The Stanley Parable - Now Playing

It's 99% the same game it was as a Half Life 2 mod. There's nothing really new, it's boring, and no one talks abot it. And this 2 nerds make it even more boring. I'm very disapointed, I was expecting something new after the fantastic demo. I don't think most of the GameSpot staff knows much about PC games, really.

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