Phone Detective

Who was there: With PAX Prime playing home to Halo's 10th anniversary party, 343 Industries trotted out some of its franchise leads to part the curtain on Halo 4, calling it the first game in The Reclaimer Trilogy. Moderated by content producer David Ellis, the panel featured franchise director Frank O'Connor, marketing director Kenneh Scott, executive producer Kiki Wolfkill, creative director Josh Holmes, and audio director Sotaro Tojima.

What they talked about: Ellis started out the panel by responding O 'Connor on the history of 343 industries, with the franchise head, the studio that started three years ago, technically. 343 was charged with the publication Halo 3: ODST at first, but they knew they needed a team to continue the Halo franchise.

Holmes was asked why Halo 4 has been announced as the first in a trilogy. He said it was important for 343 to signal to fans that the studio is committed to the franchise. When she started, a little more than two years, they knew the story, she wanted to tell. A lot of what is at the center of this trilogy is to explore the character of Master Chief, he said. "It 'sa little about the approach to the characters than we have in past games," he said.

Wolf Kill was then asked about the structure of the team from scratch. She said there were two goals: to build a team to create Halo 4, and build a studio with the right culture for the movement of the game. It was difficult because she had to find talent with the level of technical and creative know-how for execution. And then there was the challenge that people with the maturity to accept this long-term challenge.

"From a studio and culture perspective, how do we find that deep talent that has a collaborative spirit and a craftsman approach, so that we could build a studio for the long term?" she said. She also emphasized the amount of passion that's necessary to be in this game for the long haul.

Holmes was then asked how Halo 4 would play. "Well, it plays like Halo," he quipped. However, he said it's important to take risks and evolve the feel of gameplay. He said it's all about the question of balance and maintaining the core feel of Halo while also adding in new weapons and abilities. The team also wants to provide new experiences that players haven't had before. He said that it's important to give players options to solve problems in a variety of ways.

The question of Cortana's role in Halo 4 was then brought up, and Holmes said that Master Chief's personal artifical intelligence definitely has an important role in the game. Though the game is largely about Master Chief and his story, Cortana plays an important role in the character's development. Wolfkill followed that by saying the two have a unique relationship that hasn't been addressed in other games, so continuing that and fleshing it out further is important to the team.

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, which debuted at #22 a couple weeks back, but is now close to punching into the top ten at #13.

, The tie-in turns ownership of the summer blockbusters, the additional burden to a 10 percent increase in sales, placing it at number three. Autobots can roll out past the break for the British Top Ten.

Read more Zumba fitness tops British charts for the fourth consecutive week

Zumba fitness tops British charts for the fourth consecutive week originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, July 11, 2011 09:25:00 EST. Please read our terms for use of feeds.

Wii, Ubisoft, cert 3 +, available now

Remember the Smurfs? Those little blue creatures adorned, comics and television sets back way into the 80s? Well, now they 're making a comeback on our cinema screens, hence the need for the ubiquitous licensed tie-in - The Smurfs Dance Party . Ubisoft has the mega-successful formula over Just Dance and reskinned it - blue-skinned, if you will - with familiar characters like Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Clumsy Smurf and Gargamel. Now you can bop to do a choreographed in your living room, a mix of popular songs like "Walk This Way" and "One of the Boys 'and then throw in such classics as" Who Let the Smurfs Out? "," Mr. Smurftastic "and my personal favorite," We want to smurf ".

To this jaded reviewer, the game was like drinking a bottle of vodka, while spinning in a tumble dryer. Total smurfing bedlam, in other words. But dear children, aged three and up, it will absolutely, and that 's the only thing that counts here. You can create a Blue Man Group's very own, and all you have to do, is the door, put some earplugs and go back to doing the crossword puzzle.

, it has Lollipop Chainsaw

Sine Mora is a game over time. Each level should be completed before a timer counts down to zero, otherwise you lose. It 's no health meter or one-hit kills, either. Damages under sections precious seconds off the clock, while destroying enemies, it adds. The balance of time is what Sine Mora is all about.

Despite this quirk in order to 'be a lot of tradition found in the game Sat. The scrolling action and focus on throwing lots and lots of balls to reveal the players

Without looking, we 'd like to tell us where you and all your various other Resident Evil Games are now removed. Your copy of Resident Evil 4 is out of the box, with the face upwards on the entertainment center?

The bundle, which will be available in Japan through e-Capcom this September, contains the three PSOne Revival SelectionRE4.

To find out, the game 's publisher Square Enix commissioned Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence, to explore the current state of physical augmentation and augmented reality displays. Spence lost an eye in a shooting accident as a teenager and has since built a wireless video camera in his eye socket, which he all that he sees record.

During this fascinating 10 minutes film, he meets several people from cutting augmentation technologies, as well as firefighters the testing of a new AR-suit, they have benefited with information about their surroundings, including the presence of dangerous chemicals during fire fighting.

Anyway, it 'sa little more interesting than the usual promotional trailer - although if you' re squeamish, watch out, there are brief scenes of medical operations.

Ubisoft isn't messing around at PAX Prime this year, evidenced by the fact that the company is bringing just about every game it's currently working on to the show -- and even some that are already out. Here's the full list:

• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online

Revelations

Attendees can also check out the

Gearbox seems to do the James Cameron film very substantial justice

The Aliens Colonial Marines at Gamescom demo shown last week got great feedback from journalists - and now you can see why. Sega has just released this short, but very interesting demo of the upcoming shooter. FPS developed by specialist gear and set early next year on PC, PS3 and Xbox, it 's after the events of Aliens, with the USCM Shipping another Group of hapless grunts navy - and a few nuclear warheads - to clarify, LV 426 once and for all . Yep, the plan is completely foolproof.

The trailer can Gearbox has definitely mastered the memorable audio and visual style of James Cameron 's film. The eerie digital pulse of the motion is brilliantly replicated, as well as the dramatic opening bars of the score. The distorted sound of the Pulse Rifle is also present and correct, and a shotgun for Hicks fans.

And I think it \ believe's a brief moment of human vs. alien melee for good measure ...

I 've watched it five times now.

Actor eyes up directing and starring role in proposed action flick modelled on 'shoot-em-up' video game, reports say

While parts of the film version of the game Doom was the first person perspective, Line of Sight 's borrowing from that ouvre would be unusual, especially when visibility is maintained throughout the film shot. The 1947 film noir Lady in the Lake, an adaptation of Raymond Chandler 's Philip Marlowe detective story, try the book \ re' s story through the use of point-of-view about the film, but it was not a critical or commercial success for director and star Robert Montgomery. More recently, Julian Schnabel 's Diving Bell and the Butterfly extensive use of POV shots to the world of French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was able to show after a stroke, only communicate through an eyelid.

Meanwhile, Affleck began filming Iran hostage crisis Argo drama this week about a CIA team disguised as a sci-fi film crew to operate in 1979, to Tehran. It 's on the true story of U.S. agents used with the help of Hollywood, a fake movie project to six U.S. diplomats from the Iranian capital on smuggling during the crisis. Argo was the name of the wrong movie. Affleck stars as CIA team leader Tony Mendez, with Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston and John Goodman.

You'll want a melee weapon -- baseball bat, crowbar or frying pan -- for the slow walk down a deserted hallway at the 20-second mark of "Surrounded by Zombies," and a well-stocked crossbow for the panicked rhythms in "Zombie Rising." The "Main Theme" will play when you awake from a coma, exit the shower or begin walking to work to find the world overrun with the undead. Because that's how this stuff works, even on islands.

PC Download (traumagame.com), Krystian Majewski, OUT NOW

More experimental than a piece of interactive storytelling game Trauma involves a young woman who awakens in the hospital survived a car accident that killed both parents. The player assumes the role of a psychologist, set up to explore four separate dreams from real-world photos with strange, hallucinatory images easily mixed.

By clicking on certain areas of each photo, the perspective changes, learned you draw symbols from collectibles Polaroids allows players to explore or manipulate. The imagery is often striking: a building collapses and bends, as if the thin rubber, a wall is sucked into an imaginary outlet, a blurry figure suddenly breaks into small fragments.

The few puzzles are easy, yes, is the biggest mystery to figure out what it all means. The central theme of sadness is everywhere, but it 's difficult to connect emotionally, if they' s so inclined, especially given the flat performances of the two leads and the brevity of the experience presented. Yet Trauma

A special edition of Assassin 's Creed: Revelations found at the GameStop in Ireland either contains more material than is evident in the American "Signature Edition" or additional information about what will keep this issue. Of course the whole situation is a lot easier if you '\ re Irish, as the list only tells you What is in this version you can buy .

Assassin's Creed Embers

It 's hard to imagine there are still people out there, cramming bread in engagement rings, in the hope that future Mrs. Boring it may be open for dinner and commit to a life of monotony carefully planned. There are people out there doing that right at this moment.

But see, there are people out there raising the bar in the most fantastic ways. Such an individual is Hudston Gary, who proposed his now fiancée Stephanie by commissioning a series of custom Portal 2 Levels. Moreover, he even Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS in to pitch in some custom. Verily, he worked hard on that "betrothed" unlock success.

We just wanted to, we could 've seen it all on Stephanie respond, even if just to see what made so much effort and love - not that it' s such a big deal for us. We 're a pretty cool blog with many perspectives. In fact, just the other day someone suggested we have a custom Doom 3 Level! Yes, you 're totally jealous, aren' t you?

LA Noire guilty of being UK sales winner for third week in a row originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

entertaining darts game. You simply adopt a dart-throwing stance and the Kinect camera picks up on the position of your hand, showing a cursor on the board. When you get the target over the sector you want, bring your arm back in a throwing gesture - this freezes the cursor in position (a vital touch) then you launch forward and the arrow flies into the triple 20. Sometimes. It's impressively precise (cleverly, if you move position to the left or right, the camera tracks you and angles the board slightly to compensate) and really social. The tennis is quite good too, and there is also American football, golf, skiing and baseball. It's out in October.

New Xbox dashboard

I. know

Xbox occurs in the cloud

Yes, that is cloud storage coming soon to Xbox 360 In the near future, you 'll be able to upload to your profile, gamer score and scores on the net, so you can retrieve them whenever you' re playing at a friend 's house. You have won 't able to store photos or music, however. Yes.

DS, Nintendo, cert 6, immediately

Japanese role-plays have often been guilty of esoteric design and storytelling that Western audiences can be cold. As expected, Solatorobo: Red the Hunter certainly flirts with this tradition. Welcome then, to the floating islands of the Shepherd's Republic, where to take the player plays the role of the eponymous Red, a mercenary dog ??who speaks French, his fights doing in a massive robotic arms, and can transform into a human, when the situation demands .

The gameplay is mostly standard RPG - players move strictly linear buildings and roads, to find a simple puzzle or evil to beat - but leveling and skill trees are removed down to the bone and all the more appealing to them. Breakneck racing mini-games and a variety of entertaining subplot to make missions a welcome distraction from predictable "save the world 'history and dull main characters.

Aesthetically, Solatorobo doing what they can, and the animated cut-scenes are a joy. But the in-game screens look outdated in comparison with their peers 3DS. Of course, as a JRPG, this will remain an acquired taste for many, but newcomers of the genre could do much worse than from a well-rounded as well, if somewhat unoriginal titles.

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Set in 2027,

The range of variations of these features is handled well, and switching between them is easy, thanks to a series of temporary augmentation upgrades like invisibility or super strength, which can be purchased or bought and then improved. Customizable weapons is also an opportunity, individually, with fatal and non-lethal variants of the sniper rifle and pistol by an impressive arsenal of sleek, supported in the near future devices.

Certainly worthy of the hype, then, with the only quibbles being a frustrating mini-game that too often breaks up the main action and a difficulty curve that, even on easy, can be unforgiving. While it's unlikely that Human Evolution - Or maybe a game - the effect of the original Deus Ex This remains an excellent title and a sure contender for game of the year.

"You can't beat all these creatures," smiles publisher producer, Kei Hirono, "you must run". And run we do, up a staircase, and toward a ladder - but the snake-heads, which also seem terrified of the blue octo-monsters are legging it up the ladder themselves; and they kill you if you get close. You'll need to start again, but this time ascend faster to escape. But at the top is a vast iron door, which is of course, locked. The key, you sickeningly realise, is probably down on the ground floor. We attempt to leap across to another platform, but the knight falls to his death. At least we're at the bottom now.

Kinect darts and rampaging resentment on the upcoming Xbox port revolution, let's look at Microsoft 's booty

Kinect was definitely the focus of Microsoft 's E3 this year. A number of game announcements, including Star Wars and Fable: The Journey, plus many additional support from hardcore titles like Mass Effect third If the company selling the same story in Cologne?

Well, partly. But we have some really compelling little goodies found in the cave Kinect on the Microsoft booth. Plus, we have seen on the new dashboard. Here are the highlights.

Airband kinect Fun Labs

Developed by Relentless Software, the creator of the hit PlayStation quiz series Buzz, this is one of Microsoft 's new Kinect Fun Labs Title: Experimental, downloadable mini-treats designed to showcase the capabilities of the peripheral. Here the participants have just stood in front of the camera Kinect and mimic a guitar, keyboard and percussion playing. A stylized neon playing the right instrument will appear \ in the participant's hand on the screen as the music plays in the background.

entertaining darts game. You simply adopt a dart-throwing stance and the Kinect camera picks up on the position of your hand, showing a cursor on the board. When you get the target over the sector you want, bring your arm back in a throwing gesture - this freezes the cursor in position (a vital touch) then you launch forward and the arrow flies into the triple 20. Sometimes. It's impressively precise (cleverly, if you move position to the left or right, the camera tracks you and angles the board slightly to compensate) and really social. The tennis is quite good too, and there is also American football, golf, skiing and baseball. It's out in October.

. know

Xbox joins the cloud

Yes, that is cloud storage coming soon to Xbox 360 In the near future, you 'll be able to upload to your profile, gamer score and scores on the net, so you can retrieve them whenever you' re playing at a friend 's house. You have won 't able to store photos or music, however. Yes.

Shadows of the Damned, a game whose Akira Yamaoka-infused soundtrack has been playing almost non-stop since we got our grubby little hands on it. The title track's eerie, Dream Theater-esque vibes made us nostalgic for Yamaoka's earlier work on various Silent Hillspooky jam? "

As it turns out, is his earliest solo exhibition from 1996 Credit Racer PSX Speed ??Kings , Set in Snatcher

Anyway, you can see how this all adds up to some webcomics! Check out our seven favorites from last week below, and vote for your favorite after the jump.