No matter how old you are–you’ve probably seen or heard of the amazing Astro Boy in some form or another. Armed with finger lasers and handy-dandy red rocket boots, the lovable child robot will be flying onto the silver screen later this summer. High Voltage Software, the developer of The Conduit, is working on the video game adaption of the movie, so you can take to the skies and play as the young boy who has far too much firepower for his age. At the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, we were able to meet with Cameron Rains, the producer of the game, to talk about Astro Boy and see how this action hero performs on the Nintendo Wii.

Astro Boy has been around since 1951, but in the upcoming movie/video game, the story will focus on how he came to be and finding acceptance. But in between all the drama, he’ll use his full arsenal of weapons (including butt machine guns) to try to save Metro City from the wicked President Stone and his robot army. One thing we noticed immediately was that Astro Boy was fully clothed in the game, whereas he’s usually parading around in superhero briefs and rocket boots.

Cameron talked about wanting to create a fun action platformer for fans and gamers alike, referring to developer Treasure and Astro Boy: Omega Factor as an example. Astro Boy for the Wii is in 2.5D, with 3D character models and environments but 2D-style gameplay. You’ll be side-scrolling like you would in a traditional platformer and will shoot enemies from the sky in the flying sections, which will be roughly 40 percent of the time. What’s great about the game is that there is drop-in, drop-out co-op play, so you can vanquish robotic minions with a buddy. It can get chaotic onscreen, especially during the flying segments, but it’s always more fun to go on an adventure to save the world with a friend.

The controls are easy to pick up because you’re basically moving around and firing. In typical HVS fashion, you can customize the controls to your style of play. There are motion controls as well, if you want them, but Cameron emphasized that the goal is for players to play with whatever feels the most comfortable to them and not be stuck with a default control scheme.

The story mode will take you on a six- to eight-hour adventure, but because Astro Boy can be upgraded with items that you find, chances are you won’t be able to fully deck him out by the end of your first run-through. There’s an arena mode, which was described to us as a round-based survival game in which you try to beat your high score, whether you’re playing solo or cooperatively.

Astro Boy retains his charm and appeal on the Wii, but that’s not hard to do considering how talented this android is. (Did we already mention butt machine guns?) He can fly, he can drill, he has arm cannons, and he can shoot lasers from his fingertips. See Astro Boy in action when he swoops onto the Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS (by Art Co. Ltd.) on October 20.

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Sonic is trading in his trademark speedy feet for a sweet convertible in the upcoming Sonic’s Sega All-Star Racing. Coming in early 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS, the game is an arcade racer that stars more than 15 of Sega’s popular characters from the publisher’s long history. We had a chance to check out the game on the show floor of Comic-Con 2009.

The demo at the show featured two courses and four playable characters–the titular Sonic, Aiai from Super Monkey Ball, Amy Rose from the Sonic series, and Amigo from the Samba de Amigo games. The characters will have their own special vehicles, such as Sonic’s blue hot rod or Tails’ airplane. In addition, the characters will have their own special powers that will be activated at random during races. For instance, Sonic will temporarily transform into Super Sonic; Amy will have mallets she can use to bash her opponents with; Aiai will let loose with a torrent of monkey balls; and Amigo will form impromptu conga lines that any racer will be powerless to resist joining.

The special powers will give you a power advantage on the tracks, but they won’t be the only way of getting an upper hand. There will also be on-track pick-ups, such as homing missiles, land mines, Sonic shoes (for an extra boost of speed), and shields that will protect you from harm. Of course, you’ll have your own skill on the sticks to rely on, as well as the game’s simple controls–R2 (on the PS3 controller) to accelerate; L2 to brake and drift around corners (when combined with the gas button). Pulling off drifts and midair tricks (the latter executed with the R1 and L1 buttons) will earn you turbo boost as well.

All-Star racing will have more than 15 tracks available and feature locales inspired by Sega’s many games. The courses shown off in the demo were impressively large, featuring brilliant bright colors and a good amount of variety in layout–including massive spiraling corkscrew sections and huge jumps. Sega fans might get a kick out of the more nuanced nods to Sega classics, such as the bumpers that line certain parts of the track that are straight out of classic Sega games.

Clearly aimed at both the kart-racing crowd and nostalgic Sega fans, Sonic’s Sega All-Star Racing seems like it will be a good match for kids and parents alike. Look for more on the game in the coming months ahead of its release in February 2010.

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Pokemon is a hell of a drug. This may sound silly, but if you boil anything down to its simplest form so that it amounts to little more than advanced rock-scissors-paper, a thinly veiled plot, and the collection and training of mythical creatures, you’d have the very addictive Pokemon, which has carved a very profitable niche for itself. It’s no surprise, then, that while the formula has been tweaked and perfected over the years, other would-be contenders want to cash in on the success and get a share of the dollars. Enter Monster Racers.

I choose you winged lion!

While developer Koei is probably best known for its action-orientated Dynasty Warriors series, the upcoming game, Monster Racers, uses many of the mechanics found in collection and training role-playing games. The game is split into a couple of distinctive parts, and when you’re not hunting or putting your monsters through their paces doing star jumps, you’ll pit them against each other in a supersimple 2D side-scrolling racer.

As is explained in the game’s text-driven introduction, you’re interested in becoming the world’s best monster racer. Naturally, it’s no easy feat, and you’ll need to first qualify for your monster license. It’s here we meet the archetypal sidekicks; the scared first-timer; the cocky young upstart; and the professional monster wrangler, Santos, the Silver Seven Racer team member who everyone admires and is roadblocking your rise to glory. Even without taking on Santos, we can hazard a guess at how it pans out, and you’ll soon be off and racing.

Luckily for us, the monsters we’re going to death race are willing participants with little desire other than to be trained, leveled up, and put into competition against each other. Like other similar games, the monsters you’ll find and catch are based on several real-world element types, each with its own distinct advantage on certain course surfaces and against other foes. Your job is to find the right beast for the job and use it accordingly.

While we had a quick run with the RPG, the meat and potatoes of Monster Racers is in, funnily enough, racing. Controls are about as basic as they come, ditching the DS’s touch screen in favor of using the D pad to control your directional movement, while the face buttons toggle your jump, turbo boost, and special attack. These special attacks work by picking up power-up objects scattered around tracks. Platforms can be scaled with a jump to avoid attacks from behind or gain a tactical advantage. Higher platforms appeared to contain better items like offensive bonuses, such as fireballs, invincibility stars, and larger amounts of turbo boost, though you’ll risk forfeiting your lead by chasing them. Turbo boosts freeze the action on your screen briefly, surrounding your character in a glowing outline while moving at a significantly faster clip for a few seconds. Turbo is a great way to catch up to faster monsters and can be used in midair to avoid hazards, such as pits and walls. During our play, we saw sandy deserts, green grassy rainforest environments, and a snowy zone that caused our pace to slow as we collected frost.

Multiplayer racing is available and supports up to four players locally, while online play through Nintendo’s Wi-Fi connection service will also be present when the game launches sometime this year.

If your idea of a good time is capturing native wildlife and jumping through hoops, but you’re craving a little more side-scrolling action in your RPGs, Monster Racers might be right up your alley.

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In Ubisoft’s upcoming third-person action game, C.O.P The Recruit, you play as a Dan Miles, a former street racer turned crime fighter in the Criminal Overturn Program, or C.O.P. for short. That might be the worst code-name for a fictional law enforcement division in the history of the world, but C.O.P. The Recruit has plenty to be excited about, including a big city to explore, some interesting controls, and some of the best 3D graphics we’ve seen on the handheld to date. We recently had a chance to play a limited demo of the game, which is due for release late this year.

Shoot first, ask questions later in Ubisoft’s upcoming third-person action game, C.O.P. The Recruit for DS.

The two-mission demo started off with an introductory cutscene showing a bit of Dan’s illegal street racing past and his recruitment into the C.O.P. After that, the gameplay kicked in as we first guided Dan around the world with the D pad and had him enter his squad car with a press of the X button. The car controls were easy enough to get a handle on, with the B button used to accelerate, the A button for brakes, and the Y button for the hand brake.

After a bit of driving–and taking in some of the huge city and busy traffic that’s rendered with impressive detail in the game–we got our first mission. Our informant, Crimp, tipped us off to the presence of a known criminal named Willis hanging out at a local illegal casino uptown. After making our way up to the spot–the spot was marked on the minimap showed in the DS’s lower screen–we snuck in the back door of the building and immediately found ourselves in a firefight.

The shooting controls differ considerably from the standard movement, but they are easy to learn. To ready your weapon, you simply tap on the weapon icon located in the upper-right corner of the touch screen. This shifts the perspective slightly to an over-the-shoulder view and brings up a targeting icon onscreen. You still use the D pad to walk forward or backward and strafe left or right. To aim your weapon, you can move the stylus around the touch screen, which also turns out to be a handy way to steer Dan as he maneuvers his way around the level. Finally, to fire your weapon, you can either double-tap the screen or pull the left or right trigger. Reloading is handled automatically, and you can switch among the nine weapons available to you (provided you have ammo of course) by simply bringing up a menu and tapping on the weapon you wish to use.

After clearing out the first room with the help of some always-handy exploding barrels, we made our way to the security room and used the casino’s security cameras to spot Willis hanging out in the casino. We then guided Dan into the casino and had him approach Willis. We’d like to tell you that Willis came to his senses, turned his life around at that moment, and lived on the straight and narrow for the rest of his natural-born days. But, you know that didn’t happen. Instead, Willis decided to turn the casino into a war zone, and, as a result, Willis had to die.

After dispatching Willis and his cronies, Dan made his way out of the casino and got another tip to check out Willis’ safe house to find a clue to some sort of puzzle (presumably this mystery will be better explained in the full version of the game). The only problem was this: Someone has set the safe house on fire and Dan had minutes before the whole place and the (all-important) clue was burnt to a crisp. After zipping uptown and entering the building, Dan used a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze, only to find the portion of the clue he was looking for: some sort of schematic drawing.

With those missions complete, the demo of C.O.P. The Recruit was done, so we’re still left with more questions than answers regarding the game’s plot. What we can say is that the controls are fun, the city is huge, and the game is a graphical treat so far. Here’s hoping C.O.P. lives up to this promising start when it’s released later this year; expect more from us on the game in the coming months.

Check out the source at GameSpot

The minifigs are busy at E3 this year. Lego Rock Band is bringing the iconic figures to the music scene, but that isn’t their only new game. Lego Battles is a Nintendo DS-exclusive real-time strategy game, and though it’s geared toward younger players who may not have grown up on Dune II and Command and Conquer, it has the same insatiable charm that makes the Lego-themed games so consistently fun.

Three of the most popular Lego themes are present in Lego Battles, and there are separate campaigns associated with each one. The three themes are castle, pirate, and space, and each has its own unique characters and buildings to make it distinct. For instance, the castle theme has a king, and you can build farms to feed your troops. There are also cutscenes that have the same silent-joke style from the Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones games. It’s a nice atmosphere and easily recognizable for anyone who grew up with the building blocks.

The gameplay is very similar to other games in the genre. You can select your troops on the touch screen, either individually or in a group if you draw a box around them, and you can point them to various places on the map. Each minifig has its own specialty. A builder erects new buildings, whereas a soldier will use his sword to settle problems. The maps are initially covered in a fog of war, but as you walk into each new area, it opens up, so you can find abandoned buildings or waiting ambushes as you spread your reach.

The combat is very simple. Just point at the enemy you want to target and watch your troops swarm around it. Each theme has its own hero class, which gives you unique abilities to play around with. The king is the hero of the castle theme, and he can give his troops more speed or health, among other things, to make battles more interesting. In addition to pure conquest, there is mild exploration. Blue Lego blocks are hidden across the battlefield, and you can use your collected goodies to unlock more characters and building types. There is also a multiplayer mode so you can test your real-time strategizing against a friend.

The intuitive controls and funny cutscenes give Lego Battles a lot of potential. We were told about naval and sea battles as well, but they were not available in the demo. But the idea of taking to the skies atop a dragon is hard to resist. Lego Battles is scheduled for release later this year, so we’ll have to stay tuned to see how it shapes up.

Check out the source at GameSpot