Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: The Familiarity of Powersliding

The mascot kart racer has seen a major resurgence in recent times, with the next few months packed with adorably familiar faces zooming around on outlandish tracks. From the caricatured visages on show in F1 Race Stars to the comforting plushness of LittleBigPlanet Karting, it’s a pretty packed marketplace. As Mario Kart established long ago, this is a genre that lives or dies based on its multiplayer; it was with a sense of trepidation that we sat down to try out Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. It comes down to this.

The game’s multiplayer is divided between online, in which up to 10 players can compete, and offline splitscreen which supports four players on most consoles, with an extra player being supported on Wii U thanks to the GamePad’s screen. Additionally, while the online mode only supports competitive mode, if you’re playing offline with some mates you can work co-operatively to try and beat the computer.

The first thing to note about the game is just how familiar it all feels; if you’ve ever touched a kart racer, then its combination of boosts, jumps and drifts will feel like second nature. With regards to multiplayer, this means anyone with even the slightest level of competency in the genre won’t have any problem leaving the AI racers in the dust on anything but the hardest difficulty setting.

“

If you’ve ever touched a kart racer, then its combination of boosts, jumps and drifts will feel like second nature.

Partly, this is down to the balanced range of weaponry on offer; while each of the characters has a unique ‘All-Star’ move, there are no blue shells here. Granted, if you’re in last then the odds of you getting one of the more powerful weapons is increased, but as it should be, individual skill is the only real guarantee of moving you up in the rankings.

While on the topic of individual skill, one of the best features on offer in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is that experience gained in multiplayer transfers over into your single player campaign, and vice versa. It’s a nice touch that really encourages inviting mates round for a game; after all, four lots of experience means that when they all head home an even wider arrange of powered-up characters will be available for you to use in the World Tour campaign.

The way it works is that each character earns experience points when racing in order to level, up to a maximum cap of five. Doing so unlocks mods for that racer, which are fixed bonuses that can be switched between pre-race in order to customise the character to suit your playstyle. So if you’re a fan of Knuckles but find his handling somewhat lacking, you’ll be able to pimp it out after reaching a suitable level in order to excel with the red echidna.

The nature of the levels, with most featuring some combination of land, sea and air racing, means that they feel suitably varied but inevitably you’re going to have some tracks that you perform better on. When we tried it out, racing on land usually saw us fly into the lead but the second we took to the air and had to deal with navigating vertically as well as horizontally, in order to pursue boosts and dodge weapons, things got slightly messier.

It’s this part of the multiplayer experience where Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed stands out. While much of the gameplay is reminiscent of other games in the genre, the fact that you’re likely to be better than your mates in certain vehicles than others means level selection becomes that much more important, and you’ll want to try them all. Throw in the well-balanced weapons and ability to mod characters to suit your playstyle and you’ve got a multiplayer experience with a focus on skill as much as fun.

Sumo Digital is creating a game that’s shaping up to be a refinement on a familiar formula that tries to be different from most other offerings out there; just don’t expect it to transform the kart racing genre, despite the title.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant and is not a car, boat or plane. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: The Familiarity of Powersliding

The mascot kart racer has seen a major resurgence in recent times, with the next few months packed with adorably familiar faces zooming around on outlandish tracks. From the caricatured visages on show in F1 Race Stars to the comforting plushness of LittleBigPlanet Karting, it’s a pretty packed marketplace. As Mario Kart established long ago, this is a genre that lives or dies based on its multiplayer; it was with a sense of trepidation that we sat down to try out Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. It comes down to this.

The game’s multiplayer is divided between online, in which up to 10 players can compete, and offline splitscreen which supports four players on most consoles, with an extra player being supported on Wii U thanks to the GamePad’s screen. Additionally, while the online mode only supports competitive mode, if you’re playing offline with some mates you can work co-operatively to try and beat the computer.

The first thing to note about the game is just how familiar it all feels; if you’ve ever touched a kart racer, then its combination of boosts, jumps and drifts will feel like second nature. With regards to multiplayer, this means anyone with even the slightest level of competency in the genre won’t have any problem leaving the AI racers in the dust on anything but the hardest difficulty setting.

“

If you’ve ever touched a kart racer, then its combination of boosts, jumps and drifts will feel like second nature.

Partly, this is down to the balanced range of weaponry on offer; while each of the characters has a unique ‘All-Star’ move, there are no blue shells here. Granted, if you’re in last then the odds of you getting one of the more powerful weapons is increased, but as it should be, individual skill is the only real guarantee of moving you up in the rankings.

While on the topic of individual skill, one of the best features on offer in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is that experience gained in multiplayer transfers over into your single player campaign, and vice versa. It’s a nice touch that really encourages inviting mates round for a game; after all, four lots of experience means that when they all head home an even wider arrange of powered-up characters will be available for you to use in the World Tour campaign.

The way it works is that each character earns experience points when racing in order to level, up to a maximum cap of five. Doing so unlocks mods for that racer, which are fixed bonuses that can be switched between pre-race in order to customise the character to suit your playstyle. So if you’re a fan of Knuckles but find his handling somewhat lacking, you’ll be able to pimp it out after reaching a suitable level in order to excel with the red echidna.

The nature of the levels, with most featuring some combination of land, sea and air racing, means that they feel suitably varied but inevitably you’re going to have some tracks that you perform better on. When we tried it out, racing on land usually saw us fly into the lead but the second we took to the air and had to deal with navigating vertically as well as horizontally, in order to pursue boosts and dodge weapons, things got slightly messier.

It’s this part of the multiplayer experience where Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed stands out. While much of the gameplay is reminiscent of other games in the genre, the fact that you’re likely to be better than your mates in certain vehicles than others means level selection becomes that much more important, and you’ll want to try them all. Throw in the well-balanced weapons and ability to mod characters to suit your playstyle and you’ve got a multiplayer experience with a focus on skill as much as fun.

Sumo Digital is creating a game that’s shaping up to be a refinement on a familiar formula that tries to be different from most other offerings out there; just don’t expect it to transform the kart racing genre, despite the title.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant and is not a car, boat or plane. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: The Familiarity of Powersliding

The mascot kart racer has seen a major resurgence in recent times, with the next few months packed with adorably familiar faces zooming around on outlandish tracks. From the caricatured visages on show in F1 Race Stars to the comforting plushness of LittleBigPlanet Karting, it’s a pretty packed marketplace. As Mario Kart established long ago, this is a genre that lives or dies based on its multiplayer; it was with a sense of trepidation that we sat down to try out Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. It comes down to this.

The game’s multiplayer is divided between online, in which up to 10 players can compete, and offline splitscreen which supports four players on most consoles, with an extra player being supported on Wii U thanks to the GamePad’s screen. Additionally, while the online mode only supports competitive mode, if you’re playing offline with some mates you can work co-operatively to try and beat the computer.

The first thing to note about the game is just how familiar it all feels; if you’ve ever touched a kart racer, then its combination of boosts, jumps and drifts will feel like second nature. With regards to multiplayer, this means anyone with even the slightest level of competency in the genre won’t have any problem leaving the AI racers in the dust on anything but the hardest difficulty setting.

“

If you’ve ever touched a kart racer, then its combination of boosts, jumps and drifts will feel like second nature.

Partly, this is down to the balanced range of weaponry on offer; while each of the characters has a unique ‘All-Star’ move, there are no blue shells here. Granted, if you’re in last then the odds of you getting one of the more powerful weapons is increased, but as it should be, individual skill is the only real guarantee of moving you up in the rankings.

While on the topic of individual skill, one of the best features on offer in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is that experience gained in multiplayer transfers over into your single player campaign, and vice versa. It’s a nice touch that really encourages inviting mates round for a game; after all, four lots of experience means that when they all head home an even wider arrange of powered-up characters will be available for you to use in the World Tour campaign.

The way it works is that each character earns experience points when racing in order to level, up to a maximum cap of five. Doing so unlocks mods for that racer, which are fixed bonuses that can be switched between pre-race in order to customise the character to suit your playstyle. So if you’re a fan of Knuckles but find his handling somewhat lacking, you’ll be able to pimp it out after reaching a suitable level in order to excel with the red echidna.

The nature of the levels, with most featuring some combination of land, sea and air racing, means that they feel suitably varied but inevitably you’re going to have some tracks that you perform better on. When we tried it out, racing on land usually saw us fly into the lead but the second we took to the air and had to deal with navigating vertically as well as horizontally, in order to pursue boosts and dodge weapons, things got slightly messier.

It’s this part of the multiplayer experience where Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed stands out. While much of the gameplay is reminiscent of other games in the genre, the fact that you’re likely to be better than your mates in certain vehicles than others means level selection becomes that much more important, and you’ll want to try them all. Throw in the well-balanced weapons and ability to mod characters to suit your playstyle and you’ve got a multiplayer experience with a focus on skill as much as fun.

Sumo Digital is creating a game that’s shaping up to be a refinement on a familiar formula that tries to be different from most other offerings out there; just don’t expect it to transform the kart racing genre, despite the title.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant and is not a car, boat or plane. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com

Resident Evil: Retribution 3D Review

Be advised of some minor SPOILERS ahead. Milla Jovovich’s zombie slayer Alice is back, along with several familiar faces, in Resident Evil: Retribution 3D, the fifth installment in the most successful video game movie franchise ever. This sequel, once again directed by Jovovich’s husband Paul W.S. Anderson, picks up at the end of the previous film, Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Alice is a captive inside a massive, subterranean Umbrella Corporation compound. Umbrella mind-controls Alice’s friend Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), turning this former ally into her archenemy here. Umbrella itself is now fully controlled by the Red Queen program, which is determined to bring Alice back into the fold and destroy what’s left of humanity. The story follows Alice’s attempt to escape from the Umbrella compound with assistance from fresh faces Ada Wong (Li Bingbing), Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb), and Barry Burton (a cigar-chomping, underutilized Kevin Durand), who are also joined by Afterlife’s Luther West (Boris Kodjoe).

Their escape from sees the team move through different levels used for training purposes that recreate New York, Tokyo and Moscow. Along the way, Alice encounters a deaf orphan named Becky (Aryana Engineer), and also learns more about her own past before the T-virus outbreak. She also sees the return of colleagues she’d thought long dead -- Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez), Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), and James “One” Shade (Colin Salmon) – all of whom are sent after her by Umbrella.

While it’s pretty much business as usual in this latest Resident Evil film, Retribution at least feels more like a video game than the last few sequels have. There are different levels the characters have to fight their way through, with different boss battles along the way. Fans who have long wanted to see characters such as Ada Wong or Leon S. Kennedy finally appear in the film series will be momentarily happy to see them; momentarily, because Barry and Leon don’t have much to do except shoot at things. Even Ada is a cipher, but haven’t we come to expect thin characterizations from this franchise by now?

Alice is the only character given anything close to resembling an emotional journey. Jovovich plays the character far more human and vulnerable than we’re used to seeing; being stripped of her powers and meeting a young girl awakens not only Alice’s emotional side, but her maternal one as well. Alice’s “origin” allows Jovovich to play a version of Alice who is ordinary, fearful and unaccustomed to violence. Everyone else is just along for the ride, although the Red Queen makes for a much better baddie this time than Wesker (whose agenda here contradicts much of what he did in the past).

Of the resurrected characters, only Rain really has much to do (Carlos’ best stuff is as Alice’s husband in the “origin” sequence, while One just glares and shoots). Rodriguez seems to be having fun playing against type as one version of Rain who hates guns, drives a hybrid and is a girly girl in high heels. Newcomer Aryana Engineer (who, like her character, is partially deaf) acquits herself fine in a small, but important role as the orphan Alice looks after, but, alas, they’re no Ripley and Newt.

You don’t actually need to see the first four films in order to watch and understand Resident Evil: Retribution. There’s a lengthy recap of the events of the past films in the prologue that allows newbies to just dive in. The opening is a bit tiresome in its replay of the ending of the previous film, but all you really need to know to follow this story is summed up in the prologue.

Resident Evil: Retribution, of course, has its fair share of action, from some rather pedestrian shootouts to some brutal hand-to-hand combat between Alice and Jill Valentine (including some blows that really should have left one of them crippled, or at the very least with broken bones). The highlight set-piece is a car chase in Moscow’s Red Square (Russian military zombies look pretty cool on motorcycles and tanks). While there are still some silly “crap coming at you” shots, overall the 3D in this film is used more for environmental effect than it was in Afterlife.

Even with all of its dopey dialogue, wooden characters and “been there, done that” elements, Resident Evil: Retribution is pretty decent as far as entries in this series go. It’s certainly feels more like a video game and has a bit more emotion to it than some of the past Resident Evil sequels, but if you don’t like this series then there’s not much here to make you suddenly warm up to it. And if you do like the Resident Evil films, then you’ll likely leave the cinema content with how you’ve spent your time.

Source : ign[dot]com

Charlie Sheen Almost Played Spider-Man

We may know Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as the faces of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but apparently there was once a time when Charlie Sheen nearly joined that roster.

"I had an office at Orion at the time, and I brought them Spider-Man," Sheen told Jay Mohr on the latest episode of his podcast Mohr Stories. "I said, 'Look, in a couple of years, I'll be too old to play Peter Parker.' And they said, 'Yeah, we're just thinking that cartoons are not the future, comic books are not the future.' And I said, 'But it's Spider-Man, I'm perfect.' And they were like, 'Nah, we're gonna wait.'"

But did Sheen really have the rights to the character? According to him, it didn't matter. "I had a guy in my pocket who was going to get them for me," he said. As for Orion, the actor added, "They didn't know s***."

Of course, it wasn't Charlie, but his father Martin Sheen, who would finally make it into the franchise as Uncle Ben in this year's reboot.

Via The Hollywood Reporter

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com