Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Become Adam Jensen Trailer

Deus Ex: Human Revolution IGN Hands-on Preview

I walk into a room and suck into cover to avoid being shot. Armed guards patrol the floor of the research facility beyond, protecting the entrances leading to a loft of hostages. I remain hidden and consider my options. The gun in my hand could take out a few, but alternatives exist. I activate a personal stealth system and sneak around a corner of the room. A large crate blocks my way and I take advantage of my augmented strength upgrade to shove it aside. Moving the crate reveals a vent, which I crawl into and discover a snaking sequence of ducts that loop around the facility's walls and lead right into the back of the hostage room. Though observation, exploration and knowledge of how to take advantage of my upgrades, I arrive at a secondary objective without firing a shot.

I'm playing as Adam Jensen, the protagonist of Eidos Montreal's Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's an exciting moment for me as a Deus Ex fan because it's been more than seven years since Invisible War and more than a decade since the original. When this game was first announced, I was immediately concerned. It was a prequel, did not feature a Denton as a main character, and it was being made by a new developer. It sounded like it might be an awkward reboot of a franchise that trimmed out a lot of what made the original so great. Having played the game, I know those concerns were unfounded: Human Revolution feels like a Deus Ex game.

That means a few things to me. It means the action is set against a backdrop of conspiracy in an age of morally questionable technological advancement. The world of Deus Ex is not a humorous one. It's a swirling, neon-lit landscape filled with very serious people talking about very serious things. It comments on topics of transhumanism and the ethics of artificial replacements for organic material while weaving a tale of international intrigue and revolution. In the original Deus Ex, nanotechnology was the driving force behind your superpowers and the story as a whole. In Human Revolution, set years before the original, this kind of technology isn't yet prevalent. Instead of augmenting abilities with swarms of tiny robots, the characters in Human Revolution swap flesh for metal.

This includes Jensen, who's severely injured at the outset and repaired with artificial parts. He's an ex-SWAT security agent working for a Detroit-based company called Sarif Industries. Their business is creating mechanical limbs and augmentations for those looking to enhance their bodies. Not everyone is happy about Sarif's work, which creates an ideological divide between augmented and non-augmented citizens. The resistance turns violent when Jensen returns to duty as a Sarif plant is taken over by anti-augmentation purists.

The second important part of Deus Ex that Human Revolution appears to get right is the element of choice. It seems like Eidos Montreal has paid a lot of attention to this aspect in Human Revolution, both in terms of completing missions and developing Jensen. Making kills and discovering hidden pathways offers experience, eventually freeing up Praxis points. These points can then be dropped into a wide range of augmentation categories. Some augmentations go well together, like the ability to see through walls and then punch through to dismantle targets. Sadly this wall punching ability was not in the demo I played, so I concentrated on stealth for silent takedowns and hacking.

For whatever reason, I always like testing out hacking mini-games. I'm the same way with lockpicking in fantasy games. The hacking process in Human Revolution is surprisingly involved. It's a timed process that requires a bit of skill to complete, and if done well can yield rewards like money or experience. There's a small learning curve before it starts to make sense and once it does, it's a really cool system that proves the mini-game isn't just an afterthought.

Of course hacking has its usefulness too, since like in Deus Ex games past it can be used to snatch control of turrets and security bots. If you're the type of person who thinks virtual hacking systems are stupid and the idea of stealthing, performing silent takedowns and dragging bodies out of sight is lame, then, in addition to being able to use augmented strength to toss around vending machines, you'll probably appreciate the firefights. Human Revolution plays a lot like a first-person shooter if you want it to. You can suck to cover like in Gears of War, flip cover-to-cover to get into a safer position and then pop up over barriers to aim down the sights and deliver a few bursts from a machine pistol. Even though I know I'm going to be a stealthy hacking type when I eventually play the final game, it's important to me that other ways to tackle situations exist. It makes me feel like I never made the correct choice, merely a choice, which in turn makes Human Revolution feel more realistic.

Choice bleeds into the character interactions too. Jensen will talk to characters using a multiple response dialogue system and decide how key points will play out. I don't want to spoil specifics, but in situations like hostage negotiations the outcome can be quite different depending on the level of compassion shown. I also noticed that once I cleared the Sarif facility, I was able to backtrack through, kill all the friendly guards and steal their weapons. I asked if this was a bug and a representative for Eidos Montreal told me no. He said my actions would cause something else to happen further down the line. That's pretty cool.

Another thing a Deus Ex game needs is a cohesive game world. Only a select few portions of the game have so far been shown off, but even those are strikingly detailed. The halls of a peaceful Sarif headquarters are packed with idle NPCs going about their business. I can take an elevator between floors and look out at a sprawling central lobby populated by towering columns which display futuristic advertisements. The people are dressed in strange, presumably fashionable futuristic clothing and their offices are decorated with graph paper and notes pasted on corkboard and varieties of curved tubes of light. Decals for fictional corporations are stamped on products to add an extra layer of believability. Packets of artificial eyeballs are strewn across a few desks. Perhaps best of all is the soundtrack. It's a mix of percolating synths that broods in the background, swelling and receding in sublime observance of the onscreen action.

My only major concern at the moment is the artificial intelligence governing enemy behavior. In the demo they would stream toward me in some instances like cattle when I tripped an alarm, making them easy to take out with a pistol. The game's still in development, on track for a ship date sometime later this year, so I have hope this kind of thing can be addressed.

AI concerns aside, with an old-school grid-based menu system, high quality voice acting, and a wealth of interesting augmentations I didn't get a chance to see, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the most promising games of 2011. So far it seems to have all the elements of what made Deus Ex great, wrapped around a modern gameplay style.

Source.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Joystiq Hands-on Preview

When Deus Ex: Human Revolution launches, two things are going to happen: 1) People are going to inevitably compare it to Mass Effect 2 and 2) Fans of the original game are going to find a prequel that carefully and methodically takes its cues from Warren Spector's masterpiece. I know it's not actually out and I didn't get to toy around with the final product, but my near three hours playing through the beginning of the game and its first major mission were incredibly telling of what Eidos Montreal is trying to accomplish here. This is going to be a special game.

More to that first point, the most exciting times I had playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution were when I was engaged in conversation, tasked with making decisions -- just like in Mass Effect 2. Late in the demo, when I was dealing with a radical terrorist who had taken a woman hostage, I would carefully weigh every response in the conversation. I didn't want this poor secretary to die, nor did I want to treat this terrorist like some kind of sub-human piece of filth. I didn't know what he was going through. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The game opens up with a bunch of corporate fat cats speaking about a scientist who was to appear before Congress the following day with a medical breakthrough. The exact nature of the breakthrough was alluded to be some type of nervous system discovery, though the exact details of which were unknown. These shadowy types (represented by silhouetted images on a monitor who had their voices masked) were after Dr. Reed, the scientist in question, and as text displayed on a monitor detailing how she had finally been located, the cutscene ended.

Next thing I know, I'm watching Adam Jensen, the game's protagonist, and this Dr. Reed sit in an office, discussing tomorrow's planned trip to Washington. Jensen is the security manager for Sariff Industries, one of the biggest bio-technical and augmentation firms of this futuristic version of the United States, and was soon summoned up to the offices of David Sariff, the owner of this big mega-corporation. This was all rendered in-game and, soon enough, I was given control.

But that was only for a brief moment, as I snuck onto Dr. Reed's computer (she doesn't believe in passwords, apparently) and began to read her email. She quickly told me to cut it out and for the sake of not being a complete jerk, I obliged. I followed her out of the office, which then initialized a walk-and-talk cutscene where I could look around, but my character was on a guided path.

As we walked (and talked), the bigger picture began to become more clear. Reed was hiding something and when she tried to bring it up (multiple times), something would get in the way. First it was a scientist asking her to check some figures he'd found, then, later, it was when another coworker interrupted Jensen and Reed in an elevator. There was an ominous feeling to everything and as I made my way into Sariff's office, the alarms went off. Somebody had broken into the complex.

A man decked out in augmentations and expensive prosthetic limbs, along with a team of armed soldiers, were the cause of the distress. My first look at this more-machine-than-man, uh, man occurred when I rushed into a burning corridor only to watch him murder a scientist behind some bulletproof safety glass. I struggled to move debris from a blocked doorway and get around in time, but had no such luck: this scripted sequence could not be stopped. After making my way around to where the scientist perished, I was given my first taste of combat.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution's combat is, at its heart, a cover-based shooter. Hitting the L1 button would place Jensen up against the wall or box and zoom the camera out into a third-person view. From here, it was only a matter of popping up by pushing the left analog stick upward and shooting anyone in my line of sight with the R1 trigger. Combat felt good, but later on, in more confined spaces, the camera would freak out and zoom in on Jensen when taking cover, keeping me from seeing the action around.

After a few encounters (this whole area was a tutorial section and a vehicle for setting up the game's story), I made my way to the man in question, who had Reed in his mitts. Here, another cutscene would play out, with Jensen attempting to take on this burly bionic bastard in a round of fisticuffs. Jensen (obviously) got taken to the tool shed and initially appeared to be dead, with the invaders making off with Reed. The opening credits rolled, during which Jensen underwent the painful process of augmentation.

Jump to six months later and Jensen's back at Sariff HQ, ready to resume his role as security manager. From here on out, I was promised complete control by the game's art director, Jonathan Jacques-Belletéte -- and he wasn't lying. I was supposed to go see Sariff for my first mission, but my optical implants were freaking out, causing my HUD elements to flicker. As I strolled around the lobby willy-nilly, trying to find my way (and eavesdropping on people who were talking about my seemingly sudden return to duty), I engaged in my first round of conversation.

Two individuals were talking, one questioning why Jensen would be back only a mere six months following the break-in and his life-saving augmentation. Here, I was given the option to be confrontational or empathetic -- I took offense to this individual trying to tell me how to live my life. It's just a pet peeve, so I got in his face and told him if he had any snide remarks, he could bring them right to me instead of gossiping in the lobby. He apologized and ran off in fear, I chuckled to myself but, more importantly, I got some experience points from it. There wasn't any kind of indication on how the experience points would play into the game -- I didn't level up, strictly speaking, throughout my time in the demo.

Before moving on to Sariff's office, I made a detour to Pritchard's, this future world's equivalent to the IT guy -- snarky and utterly condescending. Jensen's optic implant was on the fritz, causing the HUD to flicker. I imagine I could've went on through the game without getting it looked at but for the sake of visible HUD elements, I erred on the side of caution and addressed the problem. After my requisite dose of jerkery following treatment (it's how IT guys trade goods and/or services in the future, I imagine), I made my way out to the helipad to meet Sariff and undertake my first mission.

A group of anti-augmentation radicals (those with implants are affectionately referred to as "can openers" by these individuals) have taken over Sariff's Milwaukee labs and Jensen's gotta go in and take care of the situation. Prior to landing in Milwaukee, Sariff asks Jensen how he wants to take care of the situation. Lethal or non-lethal? What kind of weapon load-out? Take out enemies from a distance or up close and personal? Playing my Jensen as a sympathetic, yet terse man with a new-found value for human life, I went with the non-lethal and close-up options. This equipped me with a tazer gun that could zap enemies unconscious.

Once I was on the ground and ready to sneak into the complex, I was first directed to the heart of the augmentation menu, which is accessible through the Select button. It uses its own specialty points system, either rewarded at certain parts of the game or acquired from PDA-like tablets found throughout environments and allows Jensen to upgrade different parts of his new body. For the sake of the demo, I had six points available -- much more than the final game will give users at this point, Jacques-Belletéte promised. By spending points, you can either unlock brand-new abilities (with their own tech trees) or upgrade passive stuff, like the suit's internal batteries or threat-assessing algorithms.

So right away, I decided to tackle the plant-under-seizure by going the stealth route. I purchased an ability that allowed me to cloak, along with a Metal Gear Solid-like ability that allows me to see enemy cones of vision on the mini-map. With my last remaining point, I boosted my internal batteries -- a good choice, given that the stealth ability gobbled up batteries at an alarming rate.

Armed with my new abilities, I began my infiltration into the Milwaukee plant. My goal was to avoid detection, so I began systematically taking out patrolling guards by sneaking up behind them and hitting the circle button for a takedown maneuver. These were pretty agressive (so many broken arms!), but oddly enough, required quite a bit of battery power, so it really slowed my progress throughout the mission and caused me to avoid more guards and instead hide in some dark corner given the scenario.

And now that I was free to move about wherever I wanted, I took the cue as an opportunity to play around with the enemy AI. In some ways, they were incredibly smart -- a guard patrolling near a bathroom came in to investigate when I had flushed a toilet and hid in an adjourning stall, who I then snuck up behind him and knocked out cold. On the other hand, later when I had found a guard rummaging around in a store room, opening the door directly in his line of sight merely caused him to go "Huh?" and cautiously proceed forward, as if any door in the history of doors has ever opened itself. The AI, overall, was a mixed bag.

There were two goals for the Milwaukee mission: retrieve a prototype the company was working on, with a secondary objective to free some hostages in a storeroom. The hostages were housed in an upper-level room overlooking a lab, guarded by a bomb that I had to defuse. This gave me my first major sample of the hacking mini-game, where nodes need to be captured and converted before a timer runs out, locking me out of the device in question. Thankfully I got it the first time, which yielded me some serious experience points and allowed the hostages to be saved by SWAT after everything was all said and done.

Next up was the prototype, which I found in a server room in the bowels of the plant. There wasn't much resistance and after I acquired the device, I made my way up to the plant manager's office, to find the head honcho who had taken a secretary hostage. Remember him from the beginning of this preview piece?

He hates anyone with augmentations, as well as anybody who works for a company dealing in such tech. Granted that, he wasn't immediately willing to listen to what I had to say. Being empathetic to his situation and talking about how he values the purity of human life, yet is willing to murder an innocent woman, I eventually talked him down and he made off through the back door of the office. Oddly enough, that same back door would lead me to a helipad swarmed by SWAT; regardless, it was a tense situation and talking this terrorist down was an exhilarating experience.

Now that I had saved the woman (who thanked me for doing so), it got me some brownie points with other in-game characters. The first was her husband, a janitor at the same Milwaukee plant who had somehow managed to escape during the initial skirmish resulting in the takeover. I'll just let that sink in for a second.

Approaching the helipad, the pilot also thanked me for my compassion and ability to resolve the situation in a way pleasing to all parties. I managed to avoid shedding blood and saved all of the hostages, which made the company look good, and I also retrieved the prototype. At the risk of sounding biased, let me say it was quite the performance.

After my session, I immediately wanted to boot the demo back up again and play it a different way. While I was unable to see how the weight of my decisions would play out later on in the game -- not killing the terrorist; the promise made by the husband; retrieving the prototype -- the combination of all these genres and how competently they are injected into the game, along with my desire to jump right back in after finishing the demo, speaks volumes to the quality of Human Revolution.

Source.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Kotaku Hands-on Preview

When we last left Adam Jensen, the star of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, during our earlier preview of Eidos Montreal's game, he was beaten, bloody and on the verge of no longer being just a human.

That's how the first 30 minutes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution wraps up, with a gorgeously animated opening credits sequence that shows security expert Adam Jensen being outfitted with cybernetic implants, or "augs" as the game calls them. That's when the game opens up, evolving from straightforward first-person shooter to something more complex, more tactical and far more challenging.

After our mostly on-rails introduction to the Deus Ex universe and its major players and Jensen's cyber-surgery, the game kicks in again, six months later. Adam's fully recovered, we learn and back at his employer, biocorp Sarif Industries.

We're given the freedom to explore Sarif's complex. We speak with office workers, janitors, tech slimeball Pritchard, and our helicopter pilot, Faridah Malik. Some of these conversations offer response choices from Jensen: be confrontational, persuasive, or sympathetic. It's a soft introduction to a mechanic that has serious impact during later conversations.

After poking around in Sarif Industries computers and datapads, we got on track, meeting up with David Sarif and hopping on that helicopter. Our destination was a factory owned by Sarif that was under attack from a human purist group. Not everyone approves those nifty cybernetic implants that Jensen and other augmented humans in Deux Ex: Human Revolution.

Sarif's factory, we learned, was under the control of armed purists. There were hostages—Sarif Industries employees—but they were our secondary concern. Mr. Sarif only wanted to ensure the safety of the Typhoon prototype, a powerful aug.

(We were warned before playing the demo that if we spent too long goofing around at Sarif Industries HQ, looking at datapads, engaging in conversation, there would be consequences. If we'd idled long enough, even after repeated warnings from Sarif, the hostages would already be dead on arrival.)

En route to the factory, David Sarif gives us a choice: how we want to deal with the purist situation. We're going in, but what are the rules of engagement? Lethal or non-lethal? Attack from a distance or up close? I chose non-lethal and long range, thinking I'd play it stealthily. I was given a tranquilizer rifle for my answers. Choosing differently would give the player a stun gun or a revolver.

We learned a bit about one of the suspects, Zeke Sanders, an augmented war veteran. Well, formerly augmented, as Sanders once sported a cybernetic eye, but had it removed, thinking it was controlling his thoughts.

As we touched down at the factory, the game paused a moment to tell us about two things: inventory and augmentations.

Inventory was something that Human Revolution art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete seemed particularly proud of. He compared it to a Resident Evil 4-style inventory grid, one on which you carefully managed your equipment and supplies, sometimes playing a little "inventory Tetris" to make it all fit. There's also a quick inventory access option, a button press that pop-up a radial menu. Handy.

Our look at Deus Ex's augmentation tree will be different from how we'll play it in the final game. In our hands-on demo, we'd been given six Praxis Points to spend on upgrades. The cost is two for a new aug ability, one to upgrade that new ability further, unlocking new skills. There's a deep tree here, extending to Jensen's cybernetically enhanced eyes, ears, arms and legs.

Since I was trying to play it stealthy, I bought into the Stealth Enhancer upgrade path. It gives Jensen the ability to see enemies' cones of vision, lets the player visualize the range of their own sound of movement, and pinpoints your last known location, after being spotted by an enemy. I also upgraded Smart Vision, which lets you see the outline of enemies through walls and invested in a Cloaking System, which renders Adam invisible for a painfully brief three seconds.

Augmented up, I went in for my first encounter. A trio of guards stood between me and the factory. The first, I took out by sneaking up behind him, then knocking him out cold with Adam's cyber fists. I moved his limp body into a store room, should any patrols come by. The next two (after a few attempts), went down with long range tranquilizer darts. I managed to botch this a few times after one guard noticed the other was sleeping on the job. After waking up the tranqed guard, the two teamed up to root me out and take me down.

I entered an airy warehouse, full of places to hide and places to be discovered. At least four guards here, so I decided that a stun grenade might make it easier. I blinded myself with a bad lob. I fired wildly, turned invisible to escape the fray. I cold-cocked guards and unloaded reclaimed pistol rounds into them—I was constantly starved for ammunition. It wasn't pretty, because I didn't play with smart stealth tactics, but it got the job done.

Why did I flail, even with Adam's superpowered cyber-gifts? An aspect of the augs I wasn't taking into consideration was their battery-powered nature. Cloaking for a few seconds drains one completely. Cyber-punching bad guys in the face drains one. Seeing through walls slowly eats their charge. Adam can reclaim a single battery cell by letting it slowly recharge, but filling the other cells can only be done by eating energy bars.

The next section I crept through more cautiously, peering through walls with my Smart Vision, luring guards to a locker room one-by-one to take them out slowly.

Eventually, I found those hostages by veering off the path that made sense and into an air vent. The room was filled with Sarif Industries scientists, but I foolishly walked through a trip wire, killing them all. Trying that again, I disarmed the bomb, saving lives on my second attempt and being rewarded with experience points.

As I moved through Sarif's factory, I flirted with Deus Ex: Human Revolution's hacking system. Some were simple door hacks, a mini-game that involves taking chances with infiltrating nodes on a network, while a security system tries to block your progress. Later, that hacking mechanic became head-swimmingly complex, introducing expendable items like a nuke and virus, with optional bridges and hackable ports on a multi-nodal network.

During one attempt, I played my hacking safe, doing the bare minimum to access security cameras, but failing to hack into an automated turret and security robot that blocked my path. I used brute force and crates as cover to bypass that obstacle instead.

After plugging through more firefights and digging through more Sarif Industries PC terminals—its employees love to leave their passwords lying around on datapads—I found my way to my target, Zeke Sanders. He was armed and with a hostage. What to do?

I had the option to fight of negotiate. I chose negotiate, because I didn't think I'd be able to put a bullet in Zeke before he put one in the middle-aged woman he was using as a shield. I reasoned with him. Then I empathized with him. Then I humbled him, just a bit, all through choosing verbal responses with varying tones. Eventually, I had convinced Zeke that he'd been set up. He was a patsy. No reason to die for a cause that's played him for the fool, especially since I was here for Typhoon, not for him.

It ended in a way that Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, who'd been watching me play the entire time, said he'd never seen. There are numerous outcomes to that situation, Jacques-Belletete says, and my personal experience was new to him.

By the end of it, I wasn't thinking of Deus Ex: Human Revolution as a simple shooter anymore. I was only thinking of different tactical considerations to employ next time, the ways in which I'd prefer to evolve Adam Jensen, given a second chance, and how I might want to try shooting Zeke in his eye patch when we meet again.

We'll see how that works out when Deus Ex: Human Revolution comes to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC later this year.

Source.

Mass Effect 2: 'Arrival' DLC incoming, revealed in PS3 patch

The PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 has been patched and, in the process, has revealed details on an upcoming DLC pack called "Arrival." The Bioware forums have been abuzz with theories on what the expansion, which features three new Trophies, will entail.

One of the Trophies, "Covert Action," refers to a Dr. Amanda Kenson, who was previously mentioned in a recent Cerberus Network update:

Historians and astronomers alike are abuzz tonight over a new paper published by Dr. Amanda Kenson of the University of Arcturus ... "Only a small fraction of the mass effect relays date back 50,000 years," she writes, "The majority are far older, indicating they were created by a species predating even the Protheans." ... What civilization could have spanned the galaxy for not thousands, but millions of years? If this were the case, we should have found mountains of evidence of their passing. Where is this species now?"

The 3 trophies are as follows:

The Ultimate Sacrifice
Complete the Arrival DLC

Last Stand
Survive all five waves in the battle for Object Rho

Covert Action
Rescuee Dr. Amanda Kenson without attracting hostile attention.

Hopefully "Arrival" will refer to the arrival of the Reapers, setting up events for the upcoming Mass Effect 3...

Source.

BAFTA: Video Games Awards Nominees in 2011

Mass Effect 2 racks up 5 nominations, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood leads the way with 7:

Action

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE

BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Steve Caterson
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Artistic Achievement

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Ken Feldman, Cecil Kim
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Best Game

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Family

Dance Central
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix

Kinect Adventures
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Good Science Studio

Kinect Sports
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Rare

Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games

Toy Story 3
John Blackburn, Jonathan Warner, Jeff Bunker
Disney Interactive Studios/Avalanche Software

Gameplay

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Adam Puhl
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Handheld

Cut the Rope
Development Team
Chillingo/Zeptolab

God of War: Ghost of Sparta
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Ready at Dawn & SCE Santa Monica Studio

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games

Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Akihiro Hino
Nintendo/Level 5 Games

Sonic Colours
Development Team
SEGA/Sonic Team

Super Scribblenauts
Joseph M Tringali, Marius Fahlbusch, Jeremiah Slaczka
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/5th Cell

Multiplayer

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Development Team
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Original Music

Alan Wake
Petri Alanko
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

Fable III
Russell Shaw
Microsoft Games Studios/Lionhead Studios

Heavy Rain
Normand Corbeil
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

James Bond 007: Bloodstone
Richard Jacques
Activision Blizzard UK/ Bizarre Creations

Mass Effect 2
Jack Wall
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koji Kondo
Nintendo/Nintendo

Social Network Game

Bejeweled Blitz
Jon David, Heather Hazen, Jason Kapalka
Popcap Games/Popcap Games

Farmerama
Tobias Reisberger, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier, Marten Schröder
Bigpoint/Bigpoint

FIFA Superstars
Development Team
EA Sports/Playfish

My Empire
Development Team
Playfish/Playfish

Zoo Mumba
Tobias Reisberger, Eduard Röhrich, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier
Bigpoint GMBH/Bigpoint GMBH

Zuma Blitz
Isaac Aubrey, Jon David, Jason Kapalka
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Sports

F1 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Codemasters Birmingham

FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Football Manager 2011
Development Team
SEGA/Sports Interactive

Gran Turismo 5
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Polyphony Digital Inc

International Cricket 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Trickstar Games

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Shingo Takatsuka, Naoya Hatsumi, Jon Murphy
Konami/Winning Eleven Productions

Story

Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Fallout: New Vegas
John Gonzalez, Eric Fenstermaker, Travis Stout
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Strategy

Civilization V
Jon Shafer, Dorian Newcomb, Brian Wade
2K Games/Firaxis

Fallout: New Vegas
Josh Sawyer, Frank Kowalkowski, Justin Reynard
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment

FIFA Manager 11
Development Team
EA Sports/Bright Future

Napoleon Total War
Development Team
SEGA/Creative Assembly

Plants vs. Zombies XBLA
George Fan, Matt Lee Johnston, Ty Roberts
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Technical Innovation

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Use of Audio

Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy/14.05.10

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal/19.11.10

Battlefield: Bad Company: 2
Stefan Strandberg
Electronic Arts/DICE/05.03.10

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch/ 09.11.10

DJ Hero 2
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK LTD/Freestylegames/22.10.10

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games/21.07.10

BAFTA Ones To Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital

Mush
Henry Hoffman, Ahmed Zaman, Matthew Dennis, Katherine Killick, Greg O’Brien
(Angry Mango)

Sculpty
Druhin Mukherjee, Fabien Roussot, James Long, Fraser Littlejohn, Ronan Suess
(Team Tickle)

Twang!
Jocce Marklund, Annette Nielsen, Linus Nordgren, Marcus Heder, Thomas Finlay
(That Game Studio)

GAME Award of 2010

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Dance Central
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix

FIFA 11
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Halo Reach
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Heavy Rain
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Limbo
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Nintendo/Nintendo

Source.

Mass Effect 2 wins GOTY, RPG, storytelling awards at DICE 2011

Tonight's 14th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (i.e., the DICE awards) saw Mass Effect 2 cruise off with honors for Game of the Year, RPG of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Story.

Full list of recipients:

Game of the Year
Mass Effect 2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
Creative Director: Casey Hudson

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
Red Dead Redemption
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Lead Designer: Christian Cantamessa

Casual Game of the Year
Angry Birds HD
Publisher: Chillingo
Developer: Rovio
Executive Producers: Niklas Hed, Mikael Hed
Producer: Harro Grönberg
Lead Designers: Jaakko Iisalo, Markus Tuppurainen

Portable Game of the Year
God of War: Ghost of Sparta
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Ready at Dawn/SCE Santa Monica Studio
Producer: Marc Turndorf
Creative Director: Ru Weerasuriya
Game Director: Dana Jan

Fighting Game of the Year
Super Street Fighter IV
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom/Dimps
Producer: Yoshinori Ono
Creative Director: Daisuke Aoki
Game Director: Takashi Tsukamoto

Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year
Mass Effect 2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
Creative Director: Casey Hudson

Sports Game of the Year
FIFA Soccer 11
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Canada
Producer: David Rutter
Creative Director: Gary Peterson

Racing Game of the Year
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Criterion
Executive Producer: Fiona Sperry
Creative Director: Craig Sullivan

Adventure Game of the Year
LIMBO
Publisher: Playdead
Developer: Playdead
Producers: Dino Patti, Mads Wibroe
Creative Director: Arnt Jensen
Game Director: Arnt Jensen

Social Networking Game of the Year
CityVille
Publisher: Zynga
Developer: Zynga
Producers: David Gray, Alex Le
Creative Director: Sean Kelly
Game Director: Mark Skaggs

Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Production Director: Chris Sigaty
Senior Art Director: Sam Didier
Game Director: Dustin Browder

Action Game of the Year
Red Dead Redemption
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Producers: Steve Martin, David Kunkler
Lead Designer: Christian Cantamessa

Family Game of the Year
Dance Central
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios/MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix Music Systems
Producer: Naoko Takamoto
Game Director: Kasson Crooker

Outstanding Innovation in Gaming
Heavy Rain
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Quantic Dream
Producer: Guillaume de Fondaumiere
Creative Director: David Cage
Game Director: David Cage

Outstanding Achievement in Animation
God of War III
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: SCE Santa Monica Studio
Lead Animator: Bruno Velazquez

Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering
Heavy Rain
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Quantic Dream
Technology Director: Damien Castelltort

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Red Dead Redemption
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Art Director: Daren Bader

Outstanding Achievement in Story
Mass Effect 2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
Writers: Mac Walters, Drew Karpyshyn

Outstanding Character Performance
Red Dead Redemption – John Marston
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Writers: Christian Cantamessa, Dan Houser, Michael Unsworth
Voice Actor: Rob Wiethoff

Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack
Rock Band 3
Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix Music Systems
Music Supervisor: Eric Brosius

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design
LIMBO
Publisher: Playdead
Developer: Playdead
Sound Design/Audio Lead: Martin Stig Andersen


Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Executive VP Game Design: Rob Pardo
Project Director Battle.net: Greg Canessa
Battle.net Designer: Alex Sun
Technical Director Battle.net: Matthew Versluys

Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition
Heavy Rain
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Quantic Dream
Composer: Norman Corbeil

Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering
Red Dead Redemption
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Lead Designer: Christian Cantamessa

Source.

Film Composer Clint Mansell to Score Mass Effect 3

Clint Mansell, composer of such classic motion picture scores as 'The Fountain' and 'Requiem For a Dream' dropped the news that he is writing the musical score for the last chapter in BioWare's epic Mass Effect trilogy in an interview with The Quietus about his latest film, 'Black Swan'.

The website Badass Digest picked up on the news of Mansell's involvement in Mass Effect 3, which saw the composer asked about whether he does much work for other outlets like computer games. Mansell responded by saying: "I'm doing a video game this year actually. Mass Effect 3".

When describing what it's like to score a video game, Mansell said: "As I was saying about Public Enemy and re-working old hip-hop tunes for Requiem, and kind of re-working old ballet tunes for Black Swan, with something like Mass Effect you're more like a DJ, with all these elements. You've got the holding pattern, then the big explosion where you need the score to kick in. Then you need to take it off on a tangent. You've got all these different elements that change depending on what the player does. You have to figure out an overall symphony, but be able to break it down into component parts. You can bring the pain when required".

This is incredible news as Mansell is regarded by many as one of the most gifted composers working in the film industry today. His music is famous for being as epic as it is haunting. His involvement in Mass Effect 3 gives us good reason to believe we might be in for the most emotionally devastating game in BioWare's space opera franchise yet.

Source.

Blur Studios Animation Reel 2010

Thanks to Neal Asher for the heads-up! Hopefully they'll get the go-ahead for a Mass Effect 3 trailer, sooner or later...

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - who is Adam Jensen Video & Preview

I've learned to walk in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, seeing its first-person shooter side, getting my feet wet in its sci-fi drama and corporate espionage, before diving into its cyberpunk depths.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a massive, open-ended action role-playing game set against a vast conspiracy. In this cyberpunk fiction, humanity is at a turning point. This near-future world, set 20 years prior to the events of the first Deus Ex game designed by Warren Spector and Harvey Smith, is one on the brink, just before disease, natural disaster and widespread cybernetic human augmentation radically alter humanity's course.

"It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here," says Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, likening Deus Ex: Human Revolution to a futuristic Renaissance, with new discoveries poised to alter history. That analogy has been threaded through the Deus Ex storyline, character and costume design and the architecture of this world.

In Human Revolution, you play as Adam Jensen, security specialist at bio-corp Sarif Industries. During the first 20 minutes, Jensen's still fully human. And at that stage, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is largely a first-person shooter that only hints at the game's potential.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution opens with a conspiratorial tone, rivals of Sarif Industries plotting sabotage against the company. Cinematics hint at the reluctance of humanity to accept human-designed evolution through the process of cybernetic augmentation, or "augs."

We meet Adam Jensen and Dr. Megan Reed, each distressed by an impending meeting in Washington, each in the employ David Sarif, head of Sarif Industries. Sarif seems to be a likable guy, down to earth, father figure-like with just a hint of asshole. Jensen and Reed depart to meet with Sarif, kicking off an on-rails segment—a Deus Ex take on the Half-Life tram ride intro, maybe—that situates the player into this world. Along the way, it's implied that Jensen's understanding of Sarif and its research is well above his paygrade—and to some degree, his interest.

A sample conversation...

"We're still getting biochemical fluctuations across the artificial flow samples," a nervous researcher says to Reed as Jensen tags along.

"But the increased neuropeptides from the pidot cluster could be throwing off your calculations," she responds. Adam Jensen simply listens or injects light cynicism during these moments.

As the guided intro sequence nears its end, Jensen also meets imminently unlikable know-it-all computer geek Pritchard. Pritchard speaks down to Jensen, Jensen responds in kind, gruffly, setting up their tense relationship.

During Jensen's meeting with David Sarif, something goes wrong. There's a break-in at Sarif industries labs and we run off the rails and into standard first-person shooter mode. It's a peek at one of the four key mechanics Human Revolution is built on, combat. (Stealth, hacking and social components are the other pillars, according to Jacques-Belletete, some of which we see hints of during later segments of our play-through.)

Deus Ex is largely a cover-based first-person shooter at this introductory stage. Jensen can take cover behind walls, crates and machinery popping in and out to take shots at enemies. He can move agilely from cover to cover with taps and holds of the X button (playing on a PlayStation 3, as we did). Players must hold the L1 button to stay in cover, moving the left analog stick to emerge from that cover, a control implementation I initially found awkward.

Despite that initial control discomfort, the rest of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, when Adam Jensen is still just a mere human, is familiar stuff. Pick up objects to throw at enemies or to establish cover, make careful shot choices, all relatively straightforward first-person shooter mechanics. Pop-up video tutorials explain the basics: how to crouch, how to sprint, how to take cover against walls and avoid fire. We weren't being stealthy or tactical here, just shooting, getting our feet wet with Human Revolution's behavior.

There are stealth considerations to be made, even at this early stage. Deus Ex is not about walking into a room with guns blazing. I moved Jensen from cover to cover, peeking around walls and over deks, switching from first-person to third-person shooting, hugging walls to stay alive. Even playing on "casual" difficulty, as recommended, and with a regenerative health system, the lowest difficulty setting never felt overly easy.

Time playing here was short lived, but enough to get a feel for Human Revolution's first-person shooter style. Adam was soon captured, beaten to a bloody mess by an augmented human to the point where he becomes less than human, where Sarif Industries makes him an unwilling cyborg and Deus Ex: Human Revolution's opening credits scroll.

This first taste of Deus Ex: Human Revolution was just a peek into its much bigger world. We'll have more to say about Deus Ex: Human Revolution in the coming weeks, when we explore Adam Jensen's cybernetically augmented side and the true depth of this huge RPG.

Source.

Mass effect 2: Appearance pack #2

The Alternate Appearance Pack features new outfits for your favorite squad members, including Tali, Miranda, and Grunt.

Price:
Xbox 360: 160 MS Points
PC: 160 BioWare Points

Source.

Finally another DLC appearance pack and it looks like Bioware caved to the moaning juveniles on the forums (few in number but loud and persistent - as with all minorities) and gave the squad generic armour and some horrible face-pieces to go with it. *sigh* and we could have had something completely different, like proper "alt" outfits - a la shepard's suit from Kasumi's DLC or something...

Mass Effect: Evolution #2 IGN Exclusive Preview

Dark Horse Comics is continuing their exploration of Mass Effect's most mysterious and intriguing character: The Illusive Man. Mass Effect 2 lead writer Mac Walters and acclaimed writer John Jackson Miller explore humanity's first foray into the Milky Way, which has sparked a war and somehow ties into the Illusive Man's history.

How does the Illusive Man fit into these events? And how did he become the man we know and love in the acclaimed video game series? The pieces are unraveled in Mass Effect: Evolution #2, and we've got an exclusive sneak peek at the issue below.

Mass Effect: Evolution #2 is on sale February 16, 2011.

Source.