Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is an update to Counter Strike, the extremely popular multi-player objective-based squad combat game. Most elements from the original have been retained, but unlike Counter Strike: Source, it is more than just an engine upgrade. The game has been rebalanced and updated with modern weaponry and new game modes. The core gameplay has not been altered, however. In the primary modes, players still choose between terrorist and counter-terrorist teams, and compete to either achieve a particular objective on the map or eliminate the other team. Players earn cash via kills, and use that cash to buy new weapons between rounds, and players are out of the round when killed, being forced to wait until a new round begins to reenter the game. The game will ship with the two popular game modes from the first game, ‘Bomb Defusal’ and ‘Hostage Rescue’, and will be introducing two new game modes at launch: ‘Arms Race’ and ‘Demolition’. These modes are based on previous mods for the earlier iterations, so they may be familiar to veteran players. Both new modes are free-for all deathmatch, and involve the cycling of weapons. In Arms Race, each kill changes a player’s weapon to a new type in a set rotation. The first player to get one kill with each weapon wins. Demolition mode challenges the players by starting everyone off with a nice weapon, and making the player take a weaker weapon after each kill. The last player alive wins. Of course, even with three new versions of Counter Strike since the first one, that original game still has its hardcore adherents, so don’t expect everyone who plays Counter Strike to suddenly switch over to Global Offensive.
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron isn’t much differnt from previous Transformers games in this franchise. It’s an over-the shoulder team-based deathmatch shooter with the Transformers characters. This edition has some new graphics, a couple new weapons and maps and so forth, but the most interesting addition is a new character. The Autobots are getting Grimlock on their roster. He’s a ‘melee’ transformer (unlike the other Transformers, even the other dinos being introduced in this title, he has no ranged weapon at all) His robot form has only a sword and shield to fight with. In addition, his transformation is not at will—another unique trait. Instead, he builds up a ‘rage’ meter, and changes into dino form only when he is most angry, and only for a short time. This counts as his ‘special ability’, of which each Transformer will now have one. The special abilities are unique things that only that character can do. Most are not replicated across team-lines either, making team choice more than just taste in this iteration—it’s a tactical decision as well.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 is the new 3D Mario adventure. It’s a side-scrolling platformer, just like New Super Mario Bros., but it utilizes the 3D features of the 3DS to texture the game. Mostly, it looks a lot like its predecessor, but this time the focus seems to be on the coins. It’s all about collecting coins, and many features are centered around that activity, including several new suits and abilities which enable coin collection or generation—like the gold suit, which causes all the enemies to leave a trail of coins as they move—and a system which records the location of every coin gathered and challenges players to collect all of the hard-to-reach coins. The only other major new feature is Wi-fi co-op mode for 2 players, which opens every level to the possibility of teamwork.
This week’s Icrontic spotlight gleams from the taught strings of Retro/Grade. This one is mostly interesting for a unique story and visuals to go along with what is otherwise just another rhythm game. Retro/Grade is played with the guitar, and requires the player to strike certain ‘notes’ at certain moments, just like any guitar game, but the player is not playing along with a song. Instead, they are un-firing the gun of a space ship. The universe was ended in a great and terrible war, and most of the destruction was instigated by a single ship. The player is attempting to reverse the fate of the universe by undoing it, but they must do it accurately, or space-time will be too damaged to repair. The player needs to strike the correct color when they see the friendly fire reach the ship, so it can be un-fired. Simultaneously, they have to maneuver around enemy fire which is coming from behind the ship to be un-fired by the hostile ships. On the surface it seems like just another guitar game, but keeping everything straight could get pretty mind-bending.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
DS
- Abyss
3DS
- New Super Mario Bros. 2
- VectorRacing
Xbox 360
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
PS3
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Legasista
- Retro/Grade
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
- Way of the Samurai 4
Articles RSS