The bad news only gets worse for the USG Ishimura in the upcoming Wii-exclusive Dead Space Extraction from EA’s Visceral Games development studio. This platform-exclusive survival horror game functions as both a prequel and side story to the acclaimed Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 original. We’ve seen the game a number of times so far (most recently, at GamesCom 2009), and yesterday, EA dropped by with an updated build of the game to show off a new level and give GameSpot an exclusive peek at the first boss in the game.

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The sixth chapter in the game takes place in the sewers of the USG Ishimura, where you’ll play as Nathan McNeil, a security officer who will be responsible for escorting fellow survivors to safety. The chapter opens up with the quartet falling into the water system and being swept through a section of tunnels courtesy of some nasty-looking sewer water. Eventually, the four end up in a pool of standing water; they’re chilly, on edge, and aware of the fact that things are about to get much worse.

Thus begins your tour of the Ishimura’s sewer system, which involves a long snaking exploration full of alien Necromorphs to dismember and includes an encounter with a previously unseen Necromorph type known as the “water creep.” Picture a long-stemmed flower rising out of the sewer mulch–only the stem of this rose is made out of thick, rotted Necromorph flesh and its bloom is a bloody mess of fangs and gore–and you’ll have a decent idea of what a water creep looks like. They’re slender and whip around quickly in the air, so they can be tough to hit with your weapon. An effective tactic is to use your stasis beam to temporarily freeze them, giving you enough time to take them out with a well-placed blast to the head.

Extraction is a rail shooter, which means you won’t have much control over which way your character goes. That said, there are periodic points in each chapter where you can take a quick look around (ideal for picking up collectibles like audio and text logs or refilling your health and ammo supplies with pickups). In addition, you’ll find the occasional branching path that will let you choose one direction or another. From what we saw, it looks like these branching paths end up in the same spot in the long run, though producers did say that you might miss out on an upgrade or collectible by taking one path over another (which just gives you an excuse to play a level over again). There are also sections where you’ll run up against stiff defense from multiple waves of Necromorphs–some of which fire explosives at you. An effective way to take them down is to catch the explosive in midair using your telekinesis powers and fire it back at the bad guys.

About midway through the level, the group is separated when Lexine Murdoch–a surveyor from the Aegis VII colony–is attacked by number of swarm Necormorphs and falls into a vat of water. You dive in after her, but she’s gone and presumed dead–and you’ll discover her fate in the next chapter of the game. Incidentally, this chapter also introduces Dr. Karen Howell, Chief Botanist of the Ishimura, a character the player will control in the next chapter in the game.

Eventually, the group–now reduced to a trio with Murdoch’s disappearance–makes its way through the sewer tunnels, encountering a strange hazy Necromorph mist that causes dementia along the way until the trio finally happens upon a huge open room. It doesn’t take much experience with survival horror games to tell you that “big open room” equals “big ugly boss to fight” in short order. And sure enough, after a brief encounter with another of th Ishimura’s crew, the big baddy appears–a four-tentacled monstrosity with a huge reach and bad intentions.

The law requires me to inform you, gigantic four-tentacled sewer beast, that I am armed with a pistol.

You’ll need precise aim and a little creativity to take down this grotesque boss–you’ll fire your weapon at a sensitive spot at the end of each of its tentacles to temporarily stun it. On either side of the room, you’ll find huge industrial fans that will turn out to be effective for battling the boss. Using your stasis beam, you can temporarily freeze the fan blades and climb in behind the fans. With a little luck, the monster will send in a tentacle after you, and once the stasis wears off and the fans return to full speed, it will hack that tentacle to bits. You’ll repeat that process for one more tentacle, then return to the water and use your telekinetic powers to toss barrels at the monster, blasting off its remaining pair of arms. As for its final evolution, if you’ve got the arc-welder handy (one of several new weapons in the game), you’ll find it very effective–what with the whole electricity and water thing happening.

At the end of a chapter, you’ll get a wrap-up of how you performed during the level, which will track such things as damage taken, med packs used, and puzzle failures, as well as number of shots fired, enemies killed, dismemberments, and more. If you’ve played a level cooperatively, a bar will also appear, showing which player contributed more to the level’s success.

We’ve seen a lot of Extraction so far, and the game’s grim atmosphere and impressive visuals continues to impress. The rail-shooter gameplay seems like a necessary evil considering the Wii’s technical limitations, and that lack of player control might actually work in the game’s favor by giving the developers a chance to better script payoff moments that might be missed in a more open game. We’ll find out if Visceral manages to match the sustained tension of the brilliant original game when Extraction is released on the Nintendo Wii on September 29.

Check out the source at GameSpot

Gazing around your local games store, you’ll notice that there’s certainly no shortage of rhythm or karaoke games. SingStar, Lips, Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band, and Karaoke Revolution seem to have karaoke gameplay pretty well covered, but developers 4mm Games is banking on the power of hip-hop, a partnership with Def Jam Recordings, and some unique features to swing the balance in its favour. We took a closer look at this infectious title at GamesCom 2009, in Cologne, Germany.

What’s New: While the set list is still a work-in-progress, we got a good idea of what to expect with tracks that included Gold Digger by Kanye West, Always on Time by Ja Rule, Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang, They Reminisce Over You by Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Live Your Life by T.I., Molotov 4 by Sefyu, Mein Block by Sido, Put On by Young Jeezy, Right Round by Flo Rida, Stand Up by Ludacris, and around 30 more tracks from the likes of Run DMC. Regionalised artists will also appear in the game, such as Dizzee Rascal for the UK release. One cool idea King mentioned is that every performance uploaded to servers can be geotagged, allowing you to see if you’re the best at a particular track in your suburb, city, or even your country.

According to King, regular DLC updates will allow 4mm Games to publish songs that fall into subgenres or niches. He also confirmed that while all of the songs are radio edits, there won’t be any changed words, and the uncensored lyrics may skew the game to an older audience. Given the material they’re dealing with, this seems like a sensible approach. King also told us that some songs are particularly suited to duets, and while female artists will make an appearance, there will be plenty of songs “for the fellas.”

What’s Different: We pulled up our socks, tightened our belt, and challenged 4mm Games president and rapper extraordinaire Jamie King at Kanye West’s Golddigger. Unfortunately, we lost, unlike Chris Watters, but had plenty of fun letting our inner rap star out of its cage. Even if you’re not into listening to hip-hop, there’s something infectious and energetic about it as a genre, and it’s hard not to want to bust out some dope lyrics in the process.

What’s The Same: When you’re singing, the graphics appear very similar to those in SingStar or Lips, with a bar displaying your pitch and timing, a multiplier bar, and the words appearing above or below. If you have a camera plugged in, you can use it to record your performance, and at the end of the song you can add a range of graphical effects and then upload a 30-second clip to the Def Jam Rapstar Web site. You also get scored on various indicators, including text (saying the right words), “takt” (timing), and “tonlage” (pitch), as well as your multiplier. King says the game will support all existing microphone peripherals, as well as the Xbox Live Vision and PlayStation Eye cameras, and there are plans to launch peripheral bundles with the game at launch.

What Impression The Game Made This Time: Def Jam Rapstar is still in development, and all the graphics we saw were merely placeholders. However, the game shows a lot of potential. The included songs seem destined to create countless living-room battles, and the community aspect sounds like it might set it apart from its existing competitors. Def Jam is currently scheduled for a fourth-quarter 2009 release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii.

Check out the source at GameSpot

Sonic’s back again, but this time, he’s switched his red running shoes for a shiny racing car. Sega All-Stars Racing is coming out early next year on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS and is being developed by Sumo Digital (GTI Club Plus, OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, Virtua Tennis 2009). We checked out the PS3 version at GamesCom 2009 in Cologne, Germany.

What’s New: There were a few new tracks on show at GamesCom, including the fun casino park roulette raceway level. This track harks back to Sonic the Hedgehog 2′s Casino Night levels, and you get to race around roulette boards, pool tables, and other casino-themed games. All-Stars Racing’s appeal will no doubt be its competitive multiplayer, and the game will support up to eight players on consoles (including four-player split-screen) and four players on the DS.

What’s Different: We saw a few new characters this time around, including Sega stalwart Alex Kidd, Beat from Jet Set Radio Future, and Billy Hatcher. Alex’s vehicle is a motorcycle, Beat has a souped-up racer complete with neon lights, and Billy gets an egg pod racer. Yes, that’s right, an egg-shaped vehicle. Each vehicle matches the owner’s style and will offer a different experience thanks to unique power moves. When the power move is executed, Alex Kidd’s vehicle turns into his trademarked helicopter, and you can shoot at other competitors. Beat’s move, on the other hand, lets you ride his skateboard and tag other enemies with spray paint. Billy’s move is probably the most hilarious, though, and he rides atop a giant egg, crushing all opponents that get in his way.

What’s the Same: The game’s existing lineup looks like it’ll be fun to play, and each character has his or her own individual vehicle, such as Amy’s pink jalopy, Amigo’s turbocharged maracamobile, Aiai’s banana dune buggy, and Knuckle’s ATV. It looks like there will be some interesting variety when it comes to the level themes too.

What Impression the Game Made This Time: The first thing we noticed about All-Stars Racing is how crisp the environments are, and things looked so smooth that we were surprised to discover it wasn’t running at 60 frames per second. Both the characters and levels feature a bright colour palette, making the whole game look bright and cheery. The game looks like it will be a lot of fun, and we’re glad to see some of Sega’s less prominent characters making an appearance (note to Sega: please include Wonder Boy). Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is coming out in early 2010, and we hope to get hands-on with the racer at some stage before then.

Check out the source at GameSpot

After the enormous success of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games–(Mario & Sonic win 5M Olympic medals) 5 million copies and counting–creating a sequel based on the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Winter Games seems like a no-brainer. So far, we’ve seen a number of fun events for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, including bobsleighing, speed skating, and downhill skiing, as well as numerous characters with which fans of Mario or Sonic games will be familiar. We recently got a chance to meet some more characters and events at GamesCom 2009 in Cologne, Germany.

What’s New: Sega unveiled several new events at GamesCom, including snowboard halfpipe and two dream events (non-sanctioned events that are definitely not going to be included in the Olympics anytime soon): dream snowboard cross and dream snow fight.

The snowboard halfpipe event was demonstrated by a Sega employee using a Wii Balance Board. After choosing Amy as a character, he leaned to one side on the balance board to drop into the halfpipe, and by pivoting and leaning in various directions at the right time, he was able to pull off an impressive number of tricks. These included a backside 360, frontside twist, backflip, double backflip, and more. Next up was dream snowboard cross, which featured a complex, twisting track called radical highway, and we watched two players use Mario and Sonic in the race. The track features incredible speed thanks to steep runs, a loop-de-loop, and a huge suspension bridge (you can ride on its cables). Finally, there are a few different paths you can take throughout the course thanks to ramps and Sonic’s springboards.

Dream snow fight was a four-on-four event that took place in a small arena with a few brick walls to hide behind. You use the Wii Remote’s D pad to move and flick so you can throw snowballs, and when you run out of snowballs, you can make more with the A button. There’s also a trade-off when choosing your character because smaller ones will be faster; however, the slower, bigger characters will be able to carry more snowballs. Lastly, we saw the skeleton event, which can be played by sitting or leaning face forward on the balance board. To do this, you place your chest on the balance board and use your hands to grip the side of the board. It looks like this method could be a bit uncomfortable, but judging from the demo, it might actually give you greater control over the board. We’ll have to investigate this control option the next time we get hands-on with the game.

What’s Different: Winter Games includes all of the characters from the original, and we’ve already seen some of the characters in action, including Peach, Knuckles, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Metal Sonic. This time around, we were introduced to two new characters for Winter Games: Bowser Jr. and Silver. Silver was shown during the snowboarding event and looked just as impressive in action as the rest of the lineup, and Bowser Jr. competed in the skeleton event.

What’s the Same: We’ve seen balance board support previously, but it’s great to see Sega trying to incorporate this into as many modes as possible, as well as in creative ways, such as using your chest on the balance board. Thankfully, there’s always alternative control schemes should that method sound a bit too involved.

What Impression the Game Made This Time: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games has plenty of fun games to participate in, and the idea of using your balance board in the skeleton event sounds like it could be fun. We’d like to try it out for ourselves and will hopefully get that chance before the game is released this October.

Check out the source at GameSpot

With its heavy focus on first-person swordfighting, the original Red Steel was met with disappointment from those expecting the Wii Remote to deliver precise replications of their every gesture when the system first launched. The time between then and now has proved that the remote was never really suited for those high hopes, but now that the Wii MotionPlus attachment has been released, there’s a new opportunity for developers looking to deliver on those early ambitions. Naturally, Ubisoft is looking to do this with Red Steel 2. We just checked out a quick demo at GamesCom 2009 after first seeing the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this past June.

What’s New: We had the opportunity to see 10 or so minutes from a new level in the game. Red Steel 2 features an entirely new story and setting, going to a sort of samurai-themed version of the Wild West. The new level takes place in a mining town built into the steep walls of a large canyon. You need to extend a bridge in order to cross the canyon and get to a point of interest on the other side. To do that, you’ll need to venture deep into enemy territory to activate a switch. Along the way are typical grunt enemies that can be done away with by using simple swordplay, but new to this level were the more advanced ninja enemies that require much more patience in the way you fight them.

The ninjas are adept at blocking your attacks, which means it’s not enough to just swipe at them all willy-nilly. But they do have a weakness, which is in the way they block you–it’ll change around depending on your last attack, so you can sort of plan your next one accordingly. Get them to block their head with a high slash, then go with a low stabbing motion to stab their torso. The Wii MotionPlus makes a significant difference in the way you can pull off these gestures and feels much more accurate than any Wii swordfighting game to date.

What’s Different: Nothing seems to have been changed since the last time we saw Red Steel 2.

What’s The Same: One thing we saw a hint of last time that bears repeating are the energy wave attacks you can use after upgrading your abilities over the course of the game. Basically, you hold A and B to charge an energy ball at the end of your sword, then make a horizontal swiping motion to fling it like a Frisbee. This will stun strong enemies like the ninjas and let you dash at them for a few quick flurries. If you want extra style points, you can go with an upward swipe when releasing the energy blast to fling the enemy into the air and then jump up and slice him up in the air.

What Impression The Game Made This Time: We were surprised by how well the controls worked in Red Steel 2. It’ll be a good litmus test for how well this new peripheral works in fast-paced action games. Nintendo has already proved it can work well enough in sports minigames with Wii Sports Resort, so now we’ll have to see how Ubisoft does with it.

Check out the source at GameSpot