“Fundamentally it’s the same foundation of gameplay that is in all of the DiRT games,” said Iain Smith, associate producer for Codemasters. “But in terms of tone, atmosphere, play style type of experience you can get from it, it’s more related to the action sports element.”

DiRT Showdown will revolve around three main elements: speed, style, and destruction. Each element will intertwine with one another, but will also feature game modes tailored to the specific element. For example, players can expect to find all their races within the speed category. However, don’t expect any rally races in Showdown; the race tracks are circuit based and tighter in design to force players into a hectic race environment where destruction is inevitable.

My hands-on time with Showdown included a three lap race on “8-Ball”, a figure eight track emphasizing the tighter track design Codemasters is focusing on for the speed portion of Showdown. The track is designed to give everyone a fair opportunity at winning the race and ensure that a wreck happens after every turn. “There’s always a chance that maybe player eight in last position can take out player one,” said Smith. “It’s adding that sort of random element that sort of keeps people involved right into that last corner.”

The destruction category in Showdown features demolition derby type events. One such event, “Rampage”, is a straight up demolition derby with one alteration to keep fans interested. “Rampage” is set up like a deathmatch in a first person shooter; players will respawn after their vehicle is destroyed and a winner is determined by the amount of points he or she earns throughout the match. “We wanted to make sure the players are just getting straight back into the action,” said Smith. The action is fast paced and hectic with cars and car parts flying everywhere while competitors scurry to rake in the most points by the end of the timed match.

Showdown will feature three classes of cars to match the three categories. Fans will only find licensed cars in the “Gymkhana” events while other vehicles are designed more as homage to real world cars. Doing away with a roster full of licensed vehicles allowed Codemasters to utilize their physics engine to optimize the racing and destruction experience in Showdown. “It’s really another level of destruction compared to what we’ve been able to do before,” said Adrian Lawton, communications manager for Codemasters.

DiRT Showdown will come packed with game modes for fans to sink their teeth into. Some modes make a return from previous titles in the DiRT series like “Domination” and “Elimination” in the race category and “Gymkhana” events in the “Hoonigan” (style) category. All game modes are included in Showdown’s multiplayer, as well as party modes similar to those in DiRT 3’s multiplayer.

Codemasters was quick to point out that they’re not abandoning the rally and simulated racing tone seen in previous titles. DiRT 4 is currently under development and will continue the series commitment to simulated rally and off road racing. Showdown is simply a branching out of the series to satisfy those looking for a destructive environment in the DiRT realm.

DiRT Showdown will release in May 2012, on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was undertaken by the younger staff at Kojima Productions after the development of Metal Gear Solid 4. Kojima, at the time, pursued the role as producer and mainly a hands-off role in order to focus his attention on the FOX Engine and Peace Walker. The premise for Rising was ambitious. The overall direction was guided by one focus: cut everything and everything. This, of course, led to development troubles when the younger staff could not find a unified vision for the game design, instead focusing on their own personal assignments. Kojima cited the Rising in an identity crisis trying to merge stealth with action and it ultimately brought the game development down. Two years of development hell had passed and it was clear for Kojima that the team would be in that perpetual circle of finding that perfect balance that would not be possible.

Rising’s woes came to a head at E3 where Kojima realized that while the story and character elements were SOLID, the game design was not there, and the overall package was not a cohesive whole. Kojima quietly cancelled Rising at the end of 2010 and it looked like all was finished for the Rising project. However, the team at Kojima Productions felt adamantly about Rising’s continuation and Kojima looked at external developers to outsource the project to. However, for Kojima, the idea of creating a Metal Gear ninja action game had to come from the Japanese development culture itself, although western developers were considered. It was then, at a holiday party, that Kojima approached his long time friend Tatsuya Minami (president of PLATINUMGAMES) and proposed that PLATINUMGAMES work on Metal Gear Rising. At first, Minami took this as a joke, but when Kojima repeated in a serious tone, the collaboration had come to fruition.

The PLATINUMGAMES collaboration took the task of building Metal Gear Rising from the ground up and it was not an easy time as it had to manage its own internal projects while working on the new Rising project with the demanding Kojima Productions. Atsushi Inaba, Platinum Games producer, constantly reiterated in the QA session that Kojima has set tight deadlines and ambitious expectations for the project that has constantly kept the team on its toes. However, for PLATINUMGAMES, the fast and energetic studio culture has ultimately worked in favor for Kojima Productions and the collaboration has fostered in several ways. The work ethic of PLATINUMGAMES seems to be displayed in the trailer of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the heavy emphasis on action demonstrated through Platinum’s in-game engine (running at 60fps) and the crazy, over-the-top moments such as Raiden countering a huge Metal Gear Ray was in part due to PLATINUMGAMES involvement in the game. This even came as a shock to the Kojima Productions developers who were not used to the level of intensity that the studio brought for the action game.

This is not to leave out Kojima Productions fully as the studio has direct control over the story, characters, and the cut scenes. Of course, some elements were taken liberally under PLATINUMGAMES as Inaba noted that it has worked to spinoff Rising after the timeline of Metal Gear Solid 4 as a separate story, instead of between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4. Creatively, this has allowed Rising to have a definite beginning but more opportunities to leverage branching directions that would lend to future installments, if the project does succeed. Both Kojima and Inaba felt there is a lot on the line for the Rising project not solely for the studios involved but for the collective future of Japanese game development. Kojima, noted, the Spike Video Game Awards “world exclusive” premieres were 90% Western development and the showcase of Rising was a testament to the amount of pressure the video game world has for Japanese game developers. Kojima wants to bring back the reputation that Japan makes the best games in the world and Minami is fully in agreement.

There is still a lot to do for Rising to realize its completion as the reboot, subsequently its development, started early this year. However, Kojima and Inaba stressed that its relationship since then as held and there is a true collaboration found in Rising’s new direction, or Revengeance. While the story will focus on Raiden getting his revenge, for Kojima and PLATINUMGAMES, it’s also about avenging the failed development of Rising.

The dragon I encountered was the same one the 20 minute demo showcased, including the same field and watchtower. However, the fight was nowhere near easy than the one portrayed in the demo. The dragon’s scale greatly outnumbers your own, which gave me a sense of unease and panic as the dragon touched down on the surface. It was spectacular and frightening all at once, but I quickly jumped back in to my character’s shoes and tried different tactics to defeat this ferocious enemy.

My attempt at rushing the enemy proved useless, and for a lack of a better word, stupid. I quickly found myself engulfed in flames, or in the beasts mouth as he finished me off with one foul swoop. It was a lesson in trial and error as I hid away in a tower close to the action, and thought out several tactics in order to slay the beast. A combination of melee and ranged attacks worked well, but ultimately was not enough to win the battle.

I quickly realized that using the environment around me would be my only means of survival. Using the tower as cover while I fire arrows from my bow, mixed with a few rushing attacks with my sword, finally brought the Dragon down. Now of course grinding would have helped me in this situation, as in any RPG title you can think of, but what stuck out to me was the wide variety of tactics I came up with, and the trial and error that came with it.

The battle with the dragon never got old to me, and trust me, I fought the dragon for a while untill I was able to conquer it. It was not the intimidating scale, but the music and mood that Bethesda set for this encounter was the most astounding thing to me. Bethesda has packaged together a fantastic immersive experience that I am excited for all gamers to experience. To further explain my point, in my three-hour demo, my favorite thing to do was avoid conflict, and to just walk the country side and soak up the beautiful environments and amazing score. I don’t always find myself doing this in an action RPG title, but Bethesda has always manged to pull me into this nature appreciation mode, and Skyrim is no different.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases Nov, 11 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

MDK2 was released in 2000 and is the sequel (duh) to MDK which came out in 1997. From what I gathered in the preview some aliens invaded and it’s my job to show them my sweet parachuting skills and killing them all. In MDK2 you play as Kurt Hectic (has a sniper rifle and can glide), Max, a six legged dog, and Dr. Fluke Hawkins, a scientist, in the full game.

Kurt has access to a basic machine gun, grenades, and a sniper rifle. The rifle is where things get a little interesting since you have a couple different types of bullets such as mortar, homing, bouncing, and more. He also has pickups that give effects such as creating a decoy, black hole grenades, and cloak. Kurt’s levels balance a bit of platforming with combat with some areas mixing them both. His boss fight involved sniping orbs to slowly open up the armor of a giant ship that’s firing at you.

The next level puts you in the paws of Max the dog, who enters an enemy ship by flying a torpedo and crashing it right into the ship. That section is an actual controllable sorta mini-game which was a nice bit of variety from the previous platform heavy stage. Max is definitely my favorite character to play as since he has a jetpack for some quick platforming sections, but the neat thing is that he can equip 4 guns at once to rain fire on those aliens. You’ll find Uzis, magnums, shotguns, missiles, and Gatling guns. His stages are a bit more action heavy, but the action is fun so it works. Dr. Fluke Hawkins plays quite a bit differently from Kurt and Max since he can’t really fight as well as those guys. With Hawkins you’ll go around levels collecting items to fix doors, create new paths, and kill enemies with. One spot has you collect a leaf blower so you can blow enemies into a giant Venus flytrap. You’ll switch between characters every so often so the game really keeps things fresh by switching it up with the characters.

From what I’ve seen of the original MDK2 the graphics have gotten quite a nice update (unlike the barely noticeable RE4 ‘HD’ update Capcom). Everything has a nice shiny look to it and the effects from the weapons look pretty nice. Also loved the bullet casings falling out when you shot your gun and the little particles that bounced on the floor when you shot things, I’m just a sucker for that kind of shit.

Overall MDK2 HD looks to be worth a quick purchase to relive some nostalgia or just to try an old classic for the first time. Personally I don’t see the Beamdog service competing majorly with Steam or GoG who is also known for offering classic games for sale and I don’t really want to have 4 different services with different game libraries. MDK2 HD IS exclusive to Beamdog though, so if you want it you’ll have to shell out the dosh over there.

You can expect MDK2 HD to be released exclusively on Beamdog on October 12th.

Dragon Commander is set in the same world as the Divinity series, in actual fact it’s a prequel set in a time when Dragon Knights were more common. But instead of being an RPG. Dragon Commander is more of an RTS and RPG hybrid with a bigger emphasis on aerial combat.

In many ways it works closer to a turn based board game. You have the map of the world with the different territories, which display who rules them and their armies power. In each turn you can do a variety of things. You have your main base which acts as a hub where you can interact with NPC’s, buy and train units and create strategies. In this case we talked to the princess we married and have on board. Though it turns out she is undead and is one of many possible princesses you can pick as your story progresses. She had a task she wanted completed, a land she can call her own. But she wants a specific city, a gnome city. This is where you can choose to help her or not. Each outcome will have a different effect in terms of story and in gameplay. If you side with the princess she will give you an undead army you can use in battle, or if you leave the gnome city alone it can open up new potential upgrades. Each choice is represented as combat cards. These can be picked before a battle starts to help give you the upper hand. The more quests you do with the princess the better and rarer cards you will receive but you will have to make hard decisions such as the one above. There is even an option to throw that princess overboard and find another one.

Once a territory has been picked a battle will occur. The game then turns into real time combat where you control a dragon (Yep, you guessed it with a jetpack) You are able to hone in on enemies using a supersonic dash and you also have the ability to slow down time to evade attacks. There are also fireballs and nuke like fireballs which can take out whole ships and a dragons roar to take out small ships within a certain radius. Also during combat you can control your generals to attack targets. This is where the strategy side comes in, tell them to attack so you can flank or other strategies to help make the battle easier. The enemies can be small infantry planes, big battle cruisers which require more firepower to take out and contain turrets as a defensive measure, there may even be other dragon knights. Once the battle is over the turns and therefore the day will end.

There will also be multiplayer for up to 4 players, where each person will control a faction and battle it out like they will in single player, only on a much larger scale.

Despite the game being in a very early stage of development and with the developer having the luxury to experiment with new mechanics and ideas, I’m sure the game will be constantly changing. Though this doesn’t stop the fact Dragon Commander is looking like a very promising game. It’s combination of genres in an non-linear fashion is an intriguing one and I’m looking forward to seeing how it will progress. Also it’s dragon’s with jetpacks, what’s not to like?

At last year’s E3, I was left impressed but I had doubts if it’s action RPG nature will be enough to break the mould and stand out. Now things have expanded upon, adding some very interesting aspects which MMO fans will want to check out.

This time we ditched the lush grassy mountains for a gritty dungeon. Our mission was to make our way to the and I quote “Big-ass monster” Kaidun in the Necromancy Cell. I played as a slayer, the damage dealer wielding a two-handed sword. The other 4 players on my party included a Berserker who wield a giant axe and also deal high damage only they have more finesse to them. A Warrior who are fast and nimble, sorcerer with magic and the most important class a Priest, who is the healer. This level was quite a high level dungeon, so enemies took a lot of damage to take down, even with 5 people in a party. I would dread to think how it will be on your own. It’s obvious TERA is best to be played in a party, and just like any RPG you will need a healer.

One thing I noticed this time around is how frantic and chaotic combat is. TERA’s main hook in combat is completely in real time, you can attack, dodge or block at will, add in more players and you have yourself a high octane battle. It was no surprise that the healer had to be controlled by one of the developers. I see the healer being one of the harder classes to master, but if you have a competent healer then your party will feel invincible. One new feature in combat I noticed was the combo-ing of skills. After using an attack skill you are given the option to press space bar to add another attack to deal even more damage. It’s only a little addition but it was something I abused.

However, there are 2 other main hooks to TERA that may get MMO fans interested. The first is the political system. The world is split into provinces and players themselves will govern them. Guilds will need to fight their way to the top and the leader of that guild will govern that area. They will be able to spend guild policy points that will change the area, whenever it’s financial changes or even how NPC’s will change. This will theoretically means the world of TERA will be constantly changing and always moving. I can see many great stories coming out of it when a certain guild overrules the other. The other hook under TERA’s sleeve is Server v Server battles. At the moment they are being low of details but later down the road more will be revealed and how this will work out. But at this time that idea has me rather excited. The games frantic enough in a 5 player party, just imagine how things will turn out when servers are facing each other.

TERA has bumped up my list of MMO’s to look out for. In an age where MMO’s are as common as Starbucks in a city I believe TERA is doing enough to stand itself out from the ground, if it’s ambitious ideas deliver. It may not be the first Action MMO RPG but it is definitely the most robust and is a title to look out for if you are getting bored of WoW or the countless Free to Play MMO’s. TERA is set for release in Spring 2012 for PC.

I played RAGE for an hour on the PC. As I’ve mentioned in the past, PC gaming isn’t my strong point. I’ve only really had a computer/laptop capable of running for the past 6 months so my experience with using a mouse and keyboard is limited. Thankfully what I go to play seemed to be almost a full build and I started straight from the beginning so I had the chance to get the grips of the controls and as the hour went on I got more and more competent. Then again this is a shooter so the controls aren’t as complicated as your typical PC RPG. However, starting from the beginning brings in another problem. Since RAGE is an open world game, you can’t get a great impression of what to expect. Especially if the bulk of my time were tutorial missions. Within an hour I got up to the part were I gain the main buggy and a sniper rifle. I was told after the sniper mission I can leave that starter area ,and then the game will really open up to me and can pick my main profession. What I really needed was another hour or 2 to really get a feel, and apparently I’m not alone in that assumption. As I was told that other journalists expressed similar remarks.

Still, I was able to get a good feel for what to expect and some of the quirks of the game. You start coming out of a cryogenic pod with little to no knowledge of why you are there only that you came from a place called ‘The Ark’ an underground shelter. As soon as you leave you encounter bandits, you are saved by a man named Dan Hagar who sends you back to his safehouse. He helps you get started, but of course for a price. Run a few errants for him, clear bandits from this, collect that. Your usual mission types. I did a lot of backtracking, as there were only a handful of areas on this part of the map. So mission variety wasn’t at it’s best, but I hope this is something that improves as the game goes on. You get to areas/safehouses via vehicles and this is where a good bulk of the game will take place. But during this part of the game it’s mainly exploring areas by foot. Vehicle controls feels fine, if a bit floaty. If you hit an object at high speed or simply roll it over, your character will come flying out rag doll style. I must say that first time it came off was rather humorous slapstick but at the same time felt a bit off.

The weapons on offer were pretty basic, but since this was the beginning, I can forgive it at this stage. I got a pistol, shotgun and a sniper rifle. Along with a weapon called Wingsticks which work similar to boomerangs. I personally didn’t see many uses for them at this stage, but it’s still nice to see something different at this early point in the game. You also have a crafting system in which you can make bandages, a machine that unlocks doors, among other things. So far I only encountered 2 enemy types, mutant bandits who charge you with melee weapons and your typical bandit who bombard you with gunfire. From what I could tell AI seemed pretty decent and each time I reloaded the enemy acted differently depending on what I did. Speaking of reloading, if you die you can use a defibrillator to revive yourself and shocks enemies within a certain radius of you. However, this needs to be recharged, so you can see this more like a second chance perk. There is one small thing that annoyed me during combat. When using a pistol a headshot didn’t always instantly kill an enemy. Not a big deal but something that is a little game breaking.

I’m glad I played this on PC, because the game looks stunning. Backgrounds and places in the distant just like amazing. The art direction is great giving a very less cartoony Borderlands feel. For such a good looking open world game you are going to get some technical issues. I didn’t find any bugs or glitches but there was the occasional frame rate drop. Despite this, RAGE is easily one of the best looking games I’ve played so far.

RAGE took me a little bit to get into, at first I wasn’t really feeling it. The opening mainly consists of backtracking and generic fetch quests. But as the hour went on I was having more and more fun. I was sad when I was told to stop, I could have easily carried on playing for a few more hours. Like I mentioned before, it’s hard to get a real gauge on how the game will progress from only an hour and in this case the opening hour of an open world game. What I was shown can only be the more boring linear part that slowly helps you get the grips of the world of RAGE. But I still had fun with what I got with RAGE. If you are a fan of open world shooters, you should give RAGE a chance.

RAGE is coming out October 4th for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

The XBLA library of games is about to add an action RPG into the mix. Crimson Alliance, developed by Certain Affinity, is hitting XBLA next week on September 7. We recently got a chance to talk to Tim Fields, Director of Business Development at Certain Affinity, about some of the team’s inspirations for Crimson Alliance and more insight into this action RPG.

Check out the interview below (interview conducted by William Saw):

How long has Crimson Alliance been in development and what stage are you currently towards completion?

We’ve been working on the game for more than a year now, and the engine and tools are a good bit older than that. But I’m happy to announce that we’re FINISHED! The game launches on September 7th!

What inspirations or sources did the writers at Certain Affinity draw upon to create the mythos of Crimson Alliance?

We’re inspired by a lot of classic dark-fantasy fiction, from games, from books, from movies, and from artwork. We love the old Howard Conan universe for example, as such a morally grey world, so brutal. More recently, we’re enchanted by the fiction of George Martin and Patrick Rothfuss. We love the Frazetta artwork, especially the stuff on the walls at Conan’s Pizza, a great oldschool local pizzeria in Austin, where a bunch of us grew up. Max, our President and Creative Director is draws heavily on his love of traditional Chinese fiction, as well as kung-fu films. I could keep going, but you get the idea. We’re into this kinda stuff. 

I read that you are experimenting from various previews that you are implementing microtransactions in-game, how will that work? Why was the reasoning in enabling that particular option for players?

We’ve not announced anything about microtransactions so far – but there are a few interesting pricing models that we’re probably going to offer on XBLA. The full game costs 1200 MSFT points though.

How is the difficulty/learning curve for players new to dungeon crawl type of adventures?

We’ve got a few different difficulty settings, so even if you’ve never held a controller before, you can learn to play the game, especially if you’ve got a friend or three to play alongside you! But don’t worry, if you grew up on Gauntlet, and played more Diablo than you care to remember… we’ve got the Ridonkulous difficulty setting specifically for you. There’s a challenge for people at every level.

In supporting four-player co-op, with three different classes at your disposal, will there be options to create say an entire team composed of wizards? Will that create a new difficulty dynamic for those that choose to go this route?

Oh yeah! You can create parties with whatever combination of characters you and your friends want. And since you can customize your character, and make them specialize in different things, you can assemble parties that will be really diverse and powerful. For example, maybe you and I both bring a wizard, fine, but yours is a master of ice, and I’m a master of lightning, and we’ll compliment each other nicely. Of course, some enemies and areas will be a lot harder than others if you don’t have a balanced party; but other areas will be easier too, so it’ll work out either way.

Is there an option for drop-in, drop-out co-op gameplay?

People can drop out of gameplay, but to join a game in progress, you have to all start up at the beginning of the level.

Since it’s a fairly new IP are you exploring other mediums i.e. comic books, novelization, to flesh out the world of Crimson Alliance or are is it primarily focused around this downloadable action RPG experience?
Oh, we’d love to explore something like that. For the moment, we’re focused on getting the game out, the website and forums looking great, and all that. But we’d love to do more in the world of Crimson Alliance.

Will Crimson Alliance be playable on PCs in the near future?

It’s exclusive on Xbox Live Arcade right now!

You play as a supernatural assassin, in a retro/futuristic industrial style setting, who has recently got of prison after being framed for killing the Empress he was a bodyguard for and is now seeking vengeance. The mission shown was one where you have to assassinate a corrupt lawyer who is profiting from the recent plague hitting the area. One big perk to the game is that you can play in a style that bests suits you. Whenever it’s moving through buildings, being stealthy or trying your hands on an full on attack Dishonored has you covered. Another big hook is the combination of power to create new and interesting moves. Apparently during testing, combinations were made and used in ways that the developers haven’t even expected. At one point in the demo they combined the super jump with teleport to be able to teleport further for example. Oh, lets not forget the feature that is dynamic rats. While at first the name sounds ridiculous and seems almost pointless, the demo actually made good use of them and how they can be at your advantage or disadvantage. They will eat nearby dead bodies and will attack if you get near the body. They don’t like sunlight so they can be used to find dark places to hide and may even attack guards. You also have the ability to take control of rats which can be used to scout out the area, but if any nearby person discovers they rat they will try and stomp it.

The main tactic used by the player was by being stealthy through buildings. While you’re not able to go into all buildings, most will be a viable option adding to a good list of potential routes to take on a mission. By going through the houses you are able to avoid barriers that kills you once you go through, and maybe even find the power supply and it reverses the effect and only allows you to pass and will kill everyone else. A bulk of the mission was making full use of the houses and even sewers, this means moving vertically is a just as good technique as moving forward. Once inside the targets house we got a chance to see how patrol routes change randomly. At one point a guard decided to look at a nearby painting. Whenever or not this changes are just small diversions or will be expanded upon, but it gives players more reasons to be cautious and not always able to predict what the enemy will do. Once the target was taken out aggressively, alarms were sounded and he had to make an escape. As we left the area, the map was noticeably more guarded, even housing guards on giant stilts.

At this early stage Dishonored is looking like an interesting title with it’s main hook being how different a players experience will be depending on how you play. Which in theory means each person will have a different experience. While at this moment we can’t get a full gripe of how the game will turn out. But for now, fans of open world FPS should keep an eye out.

When White Knight Chronicles released a few years ago, it was met with mixed reviews that praised the game’s multiplayer, but criticized the rest of the game’s story and mundane gameplay. The game sold well ,however, and a sequel was released last year in Japan, and will release next month in North America. I recently got chance to check out the game a get look at some of the improvements that Level-5 has made to make sure White Knight Chronicles II is a better experience for gamers.

The story takes place year after the original game and introduces new characters that will play an important role in Leonard and his companion’s quest to save the world. Theme has changed in the story, from the original love theme to bigger themes such as Ancient History and War. The change in theme does not necessarily mean there will be no love story, but you can expect a much more epic tale that players will immerse in. All these new elements will hopefully bring a proper conclusion to the story of White Knight Chronicles.

Improvements have been made to the gameplay, something heavily criticized for being slow and boring. Level-5 improved response time in battles, which gives combat a faster pace and will hopefully make grinding a lot easier, or more tolerable depending on how much you enjoy grinding in an RPG. I definitely felt the improvements in my short time with the demo. Attacking enemies felt fluid, and queuing up attacks was quick and easy to do. Players will be able to lock onto different enemies which will help when facing multiple enemies.

Another thing I noticed in the demo is the AI controlled members seem to handle themselves pretty well. I never got the sense that the player would have to constantly hover over their party member’s back to make sure they would engage enemies. I can appreciate never having to worry if the AI is doing their job or not, and allowing you to focus on the task at hand. Players can switch between party members to play in combat situations, or to buy items and customize in towns.

Speaking of customization, players will finally have the ability to customize their Incorruptus, so all of you who wanted that customization in the first game, you can rest easy.

White Knight Chronicles II has a few more features that will keep players hooked long after the game releases. The Georama mode, which allowed players to create their own city, makes a return to multiplayer. Players can carry over their city from the first game if they have the saved file for it.

Aside from developing cities, players can jump into six co-op, and tackle new quests together, another feature carried over from the first game. The only thing changed to the co-op is now players can join in on six player co-op, versus the four player co-op from the original game.

The game also includes all DLC from the first game and the Japanese release of the game, which comes out to around 300 DLC items. With all this extra content, players will likely invest around 100 hours into the game.

In case all the features are not enough, a remastered version of White Knight Chronicles International Version is included on the disc. The remastered version has updated graphics that will make it look like a different game to those who played it before, and improved gameplay to match that of the sequel.

Hopefully all the improvements will pay off in the end. White Knight Chronicles II releases September 13, on the PlayStation 3.