Today at Gamescom we got our first taste of Crysis 2's multiplayer component. Developer Crytek is going for a complete multiplayer experience that feels like its own game in addition to the single-player campaign. There are supposedly around 80 hours of multiplayer gameplay with plenty of stuff to unlock. A few of us IGN Editors played a couple rounds and had a good time. We played Crysis 2 on Xbox 360.

One of the unique aspects of Crysis that sets it apart from other shooters is the nanosuit you wear that grants you powerful abilities. In multiplayer you can activate two abilities at any time: Armor or Stealth. These modes let you play the game stealthily or in a guns blazing Rambo style. You can also select a variety of modules that will further modify your abilities.

Crysis 2 takes place in a bombed-out New York City. Being surround by crumbling tall buildings provides many opportunities for vertical exploration. Your nanosuit also makes you more agile that your average first-person shooter hero, allowing players to be more mobile than most games of this sort. A Crytek representative described it to us as "parkour with guns."

There will be six multiplayer modes in all, but today we were shown just two: Team Instant Action and Alien Crash Site. In each mode, your dealing with two warring factions: Marines vs. Cell.

Team Instant Action is a standard team deathmatch where you try to rack up more kills than the opposing team before time runs out. You've got a radar in the bottom left of your screen that will point out enemy units as red dots. We played Team Instant Action on a map called Impact. In the wake of the disaster that his NYC two buildings have crashed into one another. Impact sets you loose on the mixed guts of these two skyscrapers. One building is much older than the other, so you'll see much contrasted interior decorating styles as you move about. It's a great idea for a multiplayer map.

After our game of Team Instant Action (which my team lost) we played a game of Alien Crash Site (which my team won!). Here, alien dropships fly by and eject some sort of pod that essentially becomes a capture the flag location. Your team will want to make its way to the pod first and hold it as long as you can before the other guys show up. You'll earn points as long as you control the site.

We played Alien Crash Site on a map called Rooftop Garden, which should be pretty self-explanatory. The rooftop setting provides a nice opportunity to glance around the skyline and take in the view of a detonated NYC.

During a match, if you pull off a skillful kill (a headshot, for instance) the enemy will drop a dog tag. You can pick these up for Support Bonuses like increased radar range or the ability to see bullet trails from enemy fire, cluing you in to their location.

There are preset classes like Assault, Sniper, and Ranger (around five or six in all) that have individual weapon loadouts and you will unlock custom classes that you can tweak to your liking. During a multiplayer game you can switch classes whenever you respawn if you desire. There are 80 ranks to achieve, over 20 suit upgrades, over 20 weapons, and over 250 dogtags, all earned by racking up experience points during matches. At the end of a game you'll be given XP based on your style of play. For example, players who use their nanosuit's Stealth function a lot will earn more stealth points than those that prefer Assault.

Crysis 2 is being developed by Crytek UK, which consists of former members of Free Radical, the team responsible for the excellent Time Splitters games. Crysis has always been about technology over style, and we do think it's a fairly generic looking shooter. It felt good to play, though, and has a nice sense of speed. We were definitely enjoying ourselves, particularly during the interesting Alien Crash Site game.

Settling in at a demo station in EA's booth at Gamescom 2010, I had my first opportunity to play as a lightsaber-wielding class in BioWare's upcoming MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. I was lucky enough to play a Sith character, an Inquisitor to be exact, which was preferable because, as we all know to be true, "Good is dumb." He wasn't a full-fledged Sith yet, unfortunately, just a trainee of sorts. Though his face was most definitely evil, filled with spikes and ferocious markings, he only had a training sword instead of the iconic electric death blade.

This was just following a presentation where BioWare explained to a crowd all the features of its big budget online game. It's a fully voiced MMO, which means when you talk to NPCs to accept quests, they actually talk to you through cut scenes with what seems to be quality voice acting. Your character will even talk back when given a choice in the conversation, establishing more of a sense of motive and personality, unlike in some other MMOs where you collect quests like you're stealing pies from windowsills.

Later on in a character class' life cycle a specialization can be chosen to open up more varied modes of play. For example, with the Inquisitor you can choose to go the path of the assassin and use double-bladed sabers while taking a more stealthy approach to combat and walloping enemies with high burst damage, or can go sorcerer to more effectively singe targets with lighting from a distance.



BioWare also made mention of the space combat in the game, which sounds like it won't exactly be free-roaming, but will allow you to do things like soar through asteroid fields, blast enemy fighters, and flee from capital ships. Since every player can acquire and customize a ship, this should hopefully be a nice diversion to the more traditional on-foot gameplay, and it's tough to say more without getting some hands-on time with the ships.

Back to my Inquisitor character, he was initially tasked with proving his worth by finding a certain NPC located nearby the starting area on Korriban. By roaming outside I found myself in a red rock valley along the sides of which were carved huge, ominous figures. I trotted around and checked out the skill bar. It wasn't very full yet, the character was very low level, but could still pull off a few useful attacks. Saber strike could be triggered at close range for a boost in melee damage played out across a flurry of strikes. Shock functioned as a simple ranged electrical attack, and lighting drain was a channeled ability that damaged, restored force, and slowed targets. If a fight proved to be especially tough, there's also the option to meditate to quickly restore health and force over time. With a cooldown of one minute, it seems like this ability is meant to be used pretty often, keeping downtime between battles to a minimum.

Out in the valley with a large pyramidal temple off in the distance, there was plenty to fight. A number of insect-like creatures were roaming the orange-red terrain, and it wasn't long before I cut a number of them down, inadvertently fulfilling a bonus objective on my original quest to prove I'm worthy of being a Sith. Then into the underground I went, where more of the creatures roamed. An NPC was standing down there too who wanted more of the creatures killed, and through a fully-voice series of cut-scenes gave me the task of blasting apart a room filled with the eggs of the creatures. Further in to the cavern network, a datapad sitting on the ground had additional instructions for wiping out bands of looters and robbers down in the tunnels, which I did and was awarded with a few bits of fancier armor. Finally I discovered the NPC that I was originally tasked to find, and he instructed me to kill or be killed in a fight against his minions to show that I'm properly prepared. How very Sith-like.

That's where the demo ended, and it'll be interesting to see how a higher level character with a wider range of skills might play out, especially in a group. If you haven't already, you should probably head over to our video page and watch the space combat trailer, and then join the rest of us in hoping this game might be ready for launch sometime soon.

Massively multiplayer games already have a reputation for eating the lives of the millions of players who play them. They're immersive, addictive and time consuming by design. Often, when you're not playing them, you're thinking about playing them. That's why ArenaNet may be the most evil company in the world after announcing what they call their "Extended Experience."

The Guild Wars 2 Extended Experience is basically one or more mobile apps (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android etc...) that allow you to stay connected to Guild Wars 2 while you're out buying mountain dew. We spoke to the team working on it, and while they were reticent to reveal any details, we do know a few things.

This isn't the first time mobile apps have been developed for an MMO, of course. World of Warcraft has a couple very popular ones. This is more than just a standard Armory or Auction House app, though. Players will be able to communicate both within and outside the game with the app. "Initially we're targeting communications features because that's what MMOs are all about - being social," the developers told us. "As for how easy communication is; when you are in-game, your friend will appear 'online,' which doesn't mean they are necessarily playing, it just means they can be reached. For example, if you send them a whisper to a friend, you won't have to worry about how they are connected; your whisper will reach them. Currently we're investigating custom chat clients, texting and how we can support various instant messenger clients."


There's more to it than that, though. The Guild Wars 2 map, within the game, is interactive -- you can click and drag it, look at important locations and set markers. The Extended Experience will move this to your phone too, letting you look around the game's map in real time. This isn't all that impressive until you realize that the game's map tracks the locations of NPCs, who move in accordance with the game's dynamic event system.

Likewise, you can watch (to some extent, anyway) as the dynamic events themselves unfold, and even alert your friends to the latest via a message, and ping the map to show them the location. It has the potential to allow guild leaders to still be active even when they're not near their PC.

Of course, this is both awesome and horrible. From a technological and conceptual standpoint, this lowers the boundaries between the game world and your everyday life, which is cool. On the other hand, it lowers the boundaries between the game world and your everyday life. Like we needed another way for MMOs to permeate deeper into our daily habits. Luckily, the team insists that if you don't want to be pestered at work by guildmates, you won't be. It will be very easy to control how and when people from within the game can contact you.

This whole Extended Experience thing may trigger hopes inside of you of one day being able to play a game like Guild Wars 2 -- in its entirety -- from your phone, and it seems like that's the direction the team eventually wants to head in. " Ultimately, our plan is to provide as much of the PC experience as we can on mobile devices," they told us. "While it won't be the same experience until (and if) mobile platforms reach hardware parity with gaming PCs, there are many compelling games on mobile devices today. There's no reason why there shouldn't be a compelling Guild Wars 2 experience also."

Despite my brain telling me that this is what will ultimately be my downfall, I'm actually very excited to try this out, and to see how mobile platforms can be used as a tool to enhance the social-side of the MMO experience.

What are your thoughts on the Guild Wars 2 Extended Experience? Let us know in our comments section below.

It's no secret that BioWare has made some drastic, and in my opinion positive, changes to Dragon Age 2 – faster attack animations, a distinctive art style, an adapted version of the Mass Effect conversation wheel plus a fully voiced main character. The updated combat is my by far favorite, as I found the formerly sloth-like animations to be downright dull.

I've seen the revamped warrior and mage classes in action but haven't seen much of the rogue despite its presence at community events like PAX. Luckily, I received some dedicated hands-on time with the final character class and got a peek at a pants-less party member. Here's a breakdown:

Strike Swiftly And True
Not designed for a tank role like the warrior or damage and support class like the mage, the rogue is more of a one-on-one fighter. Great for tackling bosses, the rogue is armed with the speed and nimbleness of a jumping spider. Aggressive, but stealthy, a rogue aptly navigates crowded battle zones with stun bombs and can backflip away from danger or can teleport directly behind an enemy, depending on their skill set.


Practice Makes Perfect
The rogue, like other classes, can be built out to enhance certain traits. Assassin, Shadow and Duelist are all specializations available to the rogue, and each offers a unique way to slay enemies.

Assassins are trained in the Antivan traditions, so they are able to mark their foes and call out a target's weaknesses to their allies, which helps increase the party's damage against enemies.

The stealthiest of all the rogues, Shadows are able to slip away at any moment in battle, lay low in the dark and then wait for the perfect time to strike.

The Duelist, though not as stealthy as the Shadow or as accurate as the Assassin, is extremely difficult to hit, so you can feel free to taunt your enemies while you hack away at them.

Getting A Face Lift
The first area BioWare showed off to the press and fans was the Blightlands, and it sure wasn't pretty. A brown color palate topped with burned tree stumps and rocks, the new "art style" didn't seem promising.

This time, I got to see a bit of Kirkwall. The entire city, though structurally impressive, has a rough populace. My party was exploring a portion called High Town, which is a nicer area but still seedy. Despite Kirkwall's less than stellar reputation, it proved that Dragon Age 2 will be a much better looking game than Origins. The buildings all shared a similar clean architecture, but there was a foreboding feel that lingered.

But the streets were nothing compared to the Chantry, adorned with giant solid gold statues and blood red candles, it reeked of religious worship.

Practice Makes Perfect
The rogue, like other classes, can be built out to enhance certain traits. Assassin, Shadow and Duelist are all specializations available to the rogue, and each offers a unique way to slay enemies.

Assassins are trained in the Antivan traditions, so they are able to mark their foes and call out a target's weaknesses to their allies, which helps increase the party's damage against enemies.

The stealthiest of all the rogues, Shadows are able to slip away at any moment in battle, lay low in the dark and then wait for the perfect time to strike.

The Duelist, though not as stealthy as the Shadow or as accurate as the Assassin, is extremely difficult to hit, so you can feel free to taunt your enemies while you hack away at them.

Getting A Face Lift
The first area BioWare showed off to the press and fans was the Blightlands, and it sure wasn't pretty. A brown color palate topped with burned tree stumps and rocks, the new "art style" didn't seem promising.

This time, I got to see a bit of Kirkwall. The entire city, though structurally impressive, has a rough populace. My party was exploring a portion called High Town, which is a nicer area but still seedy. Despite Kirkwall's less than stellar reputation, it proved that Dragon Age 2 will be a much better looking game than Origins. The buildings all shared a similar clean architecture, but there was a foreboding feel that lingered.

But the streets were nothing compared to the Chantry, adorned with giant solid gold statues and blood red candles, it reeked of religious worship.



Rogues are also blessed with the talent of archery, and they can equip either a bow and arrow or dual daggers. Not too shabby.

A couple of months back IGN's own Daemon Hatfield got the initial look at Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's campaign. In his preview he detailed several new elements such as the ability to use your own group of assassin's to do your bidding, or how a major component of the game is taking out towers in Rome, but through it all we could only guess how much fun it would be to play. That all changed recently, though, when I went hands-on with the first couple hours of Brotherhood's campaign, putting Ezio through is paces in a gorgeously rendered Rome.


Yes, the game is as pretty as ever.If you haven't been following it, here's what you need to know about Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. It's the third entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise, and it once again places you in the shoes Desmond Miles, who is going through his genetic memories to relive the lives of his assassin ancestors. While the game will include parts where you'll directly control Desmond, the bulk of the game has you playing AC2's hero (and Desmond's long-deceased ancestor), Ezio Auditore. And while AC2 ended with Ezio in a position of power, Brotherhood turns this around quickly, forcing him to fight for his very life and build up a new society of assassins in the city of Rome.

The bulk of the gameplay is very similar to AC2. Players still use Ezio to lithely jump around the environment, scaling any and every surface around them in order to get the drop on enemies. All the stealth mechanics also return, with players using crowds, benches, and the bustling nature of the city (read: hiring prostitutes) to disguise themselves. AC2 fans will feel instantly comfortable, as Brotherhood recycles enough of the last game to feel like it's more AC2.5 than AC3. That might sound disappointing to some people, I know, but I can't imagine anyone that played 2 is going to be sad to play a new story with largely familiar mechanics.

Not that everything you'll experience in Brotherhood is old though, with the biggest change coming in the form of your brotherhood. Through some twists of fate I won't spoil, Ezio ends up in Rome. Here his influence is limited, but he's out to hurt the reigning Borgia family any way he can. To this end Ezio assaults Borgia towers, killing the commander of the tower and then burning the structure to the ground. As you do this you'll slowly gain influence over the city, opening up new quests in liberated areas, and often giving you access to new assassins. Once you complete a quest to get the new assassin -- which can be as easy as saving them from some guards -- you recruit them into your brotherhood.

OK, so Ezio saves some guys and recruits them into his assassin's guild -- now what? Now is when you get the chance to use them to kick some serious ass. Recruits can periodically be used directly in the game for assistance in combat, and they can also be used to do missions around the world. Using pigeon coops around the city, Ezio doles out tasks to his underlings that make them temporarily unavailable for his direct use, but will give them valuable experience, as well as gold for the brotherhood.

Once recruits gain enough experience they'll level up, giving them access to better equipment, and making them even more valuable when you need to call them to your side. Experienced assassins are invaluable: at several points in the latter portion of the campaign I played they saved my life, providing either the distraction I needed to escape a high-profile assassination, or even helping me fight off a seemingly insurmountable group of attackers.

The downside of having assassins that you get to build up into on-call killing machines? They can die. It's strangely tragic to watch a character you've built up fall to an enemy, and the game takes this into account by giving you the chance to hear your recruit's final words. Granted, it's not something you have to listen to if you don't want, but it helps to build your investment in the characters and world you're playing in.

Another significant addition Brotherhood brings to the single player game is a whole lot more time with Desmond. While the other games let you wander around a couple of environments as the assassin's descendant, Brotherhood is the first that will let you see what he's learned from his ancestor's memories. I don't want to get too far into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say Desmond's got some moves, which you'll get to see a little here and there when you're not getting all stabby with Ezio.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is shaping up well considering how soon it's releasing -- just one year after AC2. Not all the changes in Brotherhood will be as dramatic as creating your own guild of assassins(players can expect to do a ton of the same type of side-quests), but it'll no doubt be more than enough to satiate fans who've been dying to know what became of Ezio and, more importantly, his descendant.

The three-dimensional craze isn't going to stop any time soon as Activision announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops will be 3D compatible on every system (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC with the proper NVIDIA chipset) when it launches on November 9.

I got the chance to swing by the W Hotel in San Francisco last week to check out Black Ops in 3D. While I'm not a huge fan of having to wear glasses to get the 3D effect, there's no denying that Call of Duty uses the technology as well as any other game I've seen.

An Activision representative showed me two campaign levels in full 3D glory: WMD (a level that we've been seeing since E3) and Numbers (something brand new). If you haven't seen WMD, then you probably haven't seen much from Black Ops at all. It features the SR-71 spy plane and a bit of recon elements as you direct troops from above, but the benefits of 3D didn't make themselves known until later in the level when the player-controlled character landed on the ground. There were two instances that really wowed me when it came to showcasing 3D. The first was when the scoped crossbow made its first appearance. The effect of the scope was so awesomely pronounced that I felt like I could actually look see inside of it when the gun was in the standard "fire from the hip" position. The glass was noticeably recessed from the metal encasing of the scope and the depth was a cool showcase.


The other instance occurred during explosions. Particle effects really do jump off the screen given the right situation. Sparks and bits of shrapnel looked great in my time with the game and given how many explosions there are throughout any Call of Duty game, I'd say that's a pretty important effect to get right. Thankfully Treyarch seems to have done exactly that.

Now, I could go into a lot of detail about the new level called Numbers, but I won't. I don't want to spoil any of the story for you diehard fans out there. So instead what I'll do is give you a teaser of the tone that Black Ops is trying to set. The beginning of Numbers opens with an interrogation. More accurately, it begins with a player-controlled interrogation. As you beat on your prisoner trying to pry information out of him, your character notices a glass window to his left. An on-screen prompt appears so you can interact with the panes, which I immediately assumed would allow your character to smash the prisoner's head through the glass. Not so. Instead, pressing the left trigger allows your character to punch the glass himself and remove a single shard. "Maybe he's going to cut the captured soldier ever-so-slowly", I thought. No, instead he inserts the shard into the poor bastard's mouth and proceeds to bludgeon either side of his face as the razor sharp object slices the inside of his mouth causing him to shriek in pain. It was gruesomely awesome and set the stage nicely for the rest of Black Ops' intensity.

Finally, I was shown a mode called Combat Training. Essentially it allows you to build your multiplayer experience points without heading to the rigors of true online play. Combat Training employs bots rather than real people as your competition and allows you to tweak the AI of the opposition. Having trouble prestiging for the third time? Hop into Combat Training, set the AI to easy and go on as many killing sprees as possible. Oh, and in case you're wondering, Combat Training (along with every other mode in Black Ops) runs just fine in three dimensions.

The few detractors I found with the 3D visuals had to with the overall quality of the images on-screen. Since images need to be rendered twice when you have 3D turned on (you can turn it on or off at any time during gameplay) the developers at Treyarch had to scale the visuals back a bit in terms of overall quality. Thankfully the framerate was always sturdy despite the almost constant frenetic action. The other downside to the 3D capability was that some background images seem to distort to looking like the screen sans glasses (despite them being firmly affixed to my face), but that will hopefully be remedied by the time Call of Duty: Black Ops hits shelves.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was my first experience playing a AAA title using the 3D capabilities of an Xbox 360. I saw no qualitative differences in comparison to the PlayStation 3's 3D abilities, but neither a PS3 nor a properly-equipped PC were available for my demo. Call of Duty: Black Ops launches on November 9 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Stay tuned to IGN for move coverage leading up to launch.