TNT Racers ‘tracks & tricks’ subtitle seems a bit misleading once you play the game. I came in expecting a kart game mixed in with some race tracks and tricks to pull off in these tracks. All I got were race tracks with the occasional ramp to do a small jump off of. I don’t mean to start off in such a negative light, but I just thought that was worth noting to anyone considering to 2 friends I brought over to play it thought it was going to be a Joe Danger-ish kart racer when they saw it. TNT Racers is actually a pretty solid (albeit simple and content lacking) kart racer that hits most things you’d expect in the genre in the right ways.

When you start up the game you’ll be given a tournament mode (regular campaign mode), a time trial mode, and a custom race that lets you tweak a few options to customize a race to your preference. The tournament mode has around a dozen races separated into normal, fast, and turbo difficulties. I did like how each race tries to change up the variety, but most of them are just ‘get the most amount of points in the time limit/lap limit’. You’ll encounter your basic time trial challenges where you need to complete a certain amount of laps before time runs out, a variety of score challenges, knock-out mode, and special unique races. The score challenges task you with reaching the point requirement before your opponents and this is done by collecting coins scattered around the track, doing jumps, hitting a turbo when the race starts, or blowing up your opposition. In knock-outs you have to reach a kill quota by either blowing up the other racers or if they fall behind. I don’t particularly like how all the racers have to stick together and if you fall behind you’re instantly killed. I suppose it works for this game, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. The unique challenges throw in objectives like smashing 60 cacti or completing a certain amount of laps in a track full of landmines. They’re nothing amazing, but they do keep things a bit fresh.

A neat thing about the races is that if you’re killed and the other racers are still around you become a ‘shadow’ racer. You can’t be hurt (unless you fall off the track) or targeted by the opponent and you get a special set of power-ups available only to shadow racers. Your job is to fuck with the remaining racers as much as possible and mess with them before they can score anymore points. This way everyone can continue to participate in the race which keeps the pace up. It’s a pretty cool feature that I hope future kart racers take note of.

As any kart racer, you’ll find a slew of wacky weapons to use as you fight for first place. There are whirlwinds that send racers flying into the air, giant hammers, missiles, shields, smoke machines to blind the screen, oil to spill, an over sized gun, anvils you can attach with a plunger to slow down other cars, and a few others. These all work fairly well and it’s nice how you can drop a weapon if you don’t want it. You’ll find close to a dozen different cars you can use and change the color of. The ones you have to work for to unlock are pretty neat like the UFO kart, but there’s nothing much else to mention about them since they all handle the same. There are also 9 tracks that are also reversible, so 18 total tracks. They come in your basic desert, forest, arctic, and mountainous stages with each environment getting 2 or 3 areas. They’re nothing special but the tracks that take place in the same environment are different enough to excuse using the same setting. The game sports local and online multiplayer, but I’ve been checking multiple times each day since release and haven’t been able to get into an online match with more than a single person. This doesn’t really bode well for the long-term online ‘community’ if I can only find a single person to play with in the first week of release.

The graphics (as you can see) aren’t exactly top notch, but the game has an endearing style that fits together well enough. The music has a nice ‘pop’ to it that adds to TNT Racer’s lighthearted tone. I will mention that the over-the-top view of the action is a bit disorienting since it’s a bit too close to the cars. This makes it hard to drive on a track that you’re not used to and you’ll have to rely on where the AI seems to be turning or the camera turning to realize which way you’re supposed to turn. It really would’ve helped if they put in a camera that’s maybe a bit higher up or angled in a way so you could see what was coming in front of you.

The Final Word
TNT Racers really feels like Keen Games are reaching into your pocket and snatching $5 more than it should be worth. Only a few days after release and there is NOBODY online which makes me think barely anyone cared enough to either buy the game or waste their time playing online. It’s really a shame since the game is solid. It’s got your basic kart racing mechanics in it, there are a half dozen decent stages, the weapons are fun to use, and it controls well enough. The issue here is that I can’t really recommend buying this at $10 since the content the game offers doesn’t reach something you’d expect to spend $10 on. I could definitely see this game doing much better at a lower ($5) price range. If you dig kart racing games (there’s a demo by the way) and don’t mind dropping the extra dosh go for it, but if you don’t then I’d turn the other way from this title.

- MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average

Well the football season has started once again and that can mean only one thing; there’s a new FIFA game out for the masses to pretend they’re actually the best players in the world. I kid, I love football games but this is actually the first FIFA game I’ve owned since World Cup 98 came out on the N64 so I really am coming at this as a new comer. Should probably mention at this point that as a proud citizen of her majesty’s British Isles, I will always call football; football and never call it soccer. Just to make sure there’s no confusion. EA have been proudly making sports games for 20 years now, a fact they boast about constantly in FIFA 12, and they’ve been making the FIFA series itself since FIFA International Soccer graced the stores back in 1993. Obviously the series has come a long way since then, but old football games were fun and uncomplicated so has the realism brush been used too heavily?

FIFA is broken down into the usual modes of; Exhibition match, Pro matches, Career Mode, Online Matches and training in the arena. Exhibition matches let you pick any two teams from any of 30 different leagues from around the world as well as national teams. The Pro matches let you play as just your created player and have no control on the rest of the team, these can be tricky because of the over reliance on the computer to control the rest of your team. The Career mode is spilt into three types, you can choose to be a player, a manager or a player/manager but the experience differs very little. As a player you have no say in transfers or the team setup but are almost guaranteed to play so no worries there. As a manager the whole thing is much slower due to the fact that you most deal with the press, transfers and team selection meaning that you have to ‘play’ most days instead of letting the game skip to the next match. obviously choosing the player/manger option is all of the above. Furthermore you are given the option to control the whole team on the pitch or just your created player, which kind of really turns the whole thing into a bit of a mess because it makes all three types into pretty much the same experience.

The online gaming element is probably the key focus of the whole game in truth, you can choose to play as any team available or work with friends to create a ‘pro club’ which is your created players combined with randomly generated computer controlled players. There is an option for one person to control the whole computer controlled element of the team whilst everyone else controls their own players and this is an option that I strongly advise using because the computer’s ability to defend is even worse than mine. The online elements are not restricted to just playing matches against small children that beat you all the time, the EA Sports Football Club is a new feature from EA that allows you to support the club you support in real life and your daily xp is added to all the other fans of your club and the team is ranked against all of the other teams in all the leagues of that country and the champions and relegated clubs are picked every week. The total xp is the average earned by the fans in order to make the whole thing fairer for supporters of lower league clubs. This system also allows you keep track of a leaderboard with your friends and complete challenges which take the form of recreating famous matches. The major online focus of FIFA 12 could be some people off in truth, in fact I know those that aren’t buying it because of this very reason.

One of the key features of personalization is the creation of your own virtual pro, basically your own player. Your player starts with pretty poor stats but as you use them you unlock accomplishments and improve. You can place them in any position in any team in order to unlock specific accomplishments, and in no time at all your player will amongst the best in the world. Of course there will always be people who are, shall we say; more dedicated, than others at this particular activity so don’t be surprised if you come across someone with a level 99 player. In order to customise your virtual pro you can use EA’s new 3D facemapping system on their website to create a player that looks just like you. To be honest it works pretty well, my player looks like a hideous freak of nature so it’s reasonably realistic.

The newest feature that EA have implemented is the improved defence system, a system that in simple terms makes the job of defending roughly a billion times more difficult than in previous games. Saying that, the options that it provides you with in order to defend tactically are very good and varied, it’s certainly more realistic than just sliding in a breaking an attacker’s leg. The new system forces you to try to keep your defenders on their feet and to try to shepherd players out of dangerous areas instead of the simple method of using slide tackles all the time. You can also actively call across other players to assist in the task at hand. Most of the people who I know that play FIFA 12 have taken the option of reverting the settings to those of FIFA 11, although you can only do this for offline gaming.

EA have been very good in FIFA 12 when it comes to showing off the little details. It’s just small things such as having stadium announcers from the country that the stadium is based, it’s not a game seller or anything but it shows that they care that little bit more about their product than their rivals. The addition of two sets of in-game commentators is another nice touch because it means you don’t hear the same lines of dialogue too often. The soundtrack of the game is another positive touch in this regard, because it’s not the longest but for once in a football game it is enjoyable to listen to.

One problem that I found with the game is the difficulty settings. There are the standard settings ranging from Amateur to Legendary but there are also more advanced settings which aren’t as obvious to find. These advanced settings allow you to choose the ability of the CPU controlled players, meaning that you can put on the game on Legendary but set all the variables to their lowest settings and end up playing a team that can’t run or kick a ball. Seems weird that they’ve put both sets of settings in the same game, especially when you unlock the best improvements to your created player and achievements on Legendary but using the advanced settings this becomes trivial.

The major area of compliant that I have for FIFA 12 is aimed directly at the in-game officials, because in real life human error makes football what it is but with an ‘infallible’ computerised system every decision made is correct. That may sound a very weird compliant but if one of your players is a single centimetre offside then it’s given and that’s incredibly unrealistic. The fouling programming is woeful as well, this has always been a problem with FIFA games. An example is that you can completely piledrive a player off the ball and have nothing given but then the slightest nudge on another player will bring about a booking. No consistency at all.

The Final Word

To sum up then, FIFA 12 is in all practical terms the same as FIFA 11 and maybe even FIFA 10 so if you liked those games chances are you’ll like this one. EA start with a solid base everytime they begin designing a new FIFA game and this means that the improvements are clear to see and they do keep getting better and better. FIFA 12 is certainly not a game you sit down and play all day, but it’s a fantastic thing to have when you get frustrated by bland repetitive first person shooters. Basically what I’m saying is get FIFA 12 if you haven’t already because it’s a good addition to any collection of games.

Konami and tri-Ace also briefly touched on Beyond the Labyrinth, a 3DS dungeon crawling RPG, revealing a trailer and announced that Tokyo Game Show attendees will find out more by playing the demo on the show floor. Screenshots and trailers for both games found below.

Beyond the Labyrinth (Nintendo 3DS)

Frontier Gate (PSP)

Shoji Meguro completely redid the soundtrack master, taking advantage of the superior audio technology available on the portable handheld. Fans have the option of toggling, via in-game option, to switch between the original soundtrack and the new version. The soundtrack CD tracks are separated into multiple categories: songs remixed for the new version, tracks from the original Playstation game, tracks specifically arranged for the bonus soundtrack, and songs that do not appear in-game.

The soundtrack CD is bundled with the game inside a collectible outer box however fans should pre-order soon as supplies are limited (that sounded like a TV advertisement). SMT: Persona 2: Innocent Sin is set to release this Fall.

Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom is serving up a bunch of hot men as their unofficial, official marketing slogan. Fans of the otome genre will love how players take the role of a female protagonist and have the option of going after androgynous looking men in a graphic novel, dating-sim type setting. Aksys possibly looked at the success of their hit game, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors as inspiration to bring over more narrative, text-based games like Hakuoki.

Fate/Extra, another PSP title from Aksys, players will either start as a male or female protagonist in a dungeon crawl like game. Servants accompany the character on their journey, similar to the anime, featuring Saber, Archer, and Caster classes and offer opportunities to level them up through experience and the like.

Aksys has revealed that both Hakouki and Fate/Extra will receive premium packages available at retail launch but no further details were given.

Both Metal Gear Solid HD Collection and Zone of the Enders HD Collection will be heading to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection include Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The MGS HD collection is slated for release this November.

Available only on the Playstation 3, the MGS and ZoE HD collections will support the ‘Transferring’ feature announced by Hideo Kojima at the Pre-E3 event. The feature will give gamers the ability to transfer their Peace Walker saves from the PSP to the PS3 via the collection. Transfarring allows for seamless cross-platform play as users can transfer their saves through a USB cable.

Details on how the ‘Transfarring’ feature will work with Zone of the Enders HD collection were not revealed but there will likely be an ability to transfer PS2 saves from a memory card or a backwards compatible system. Finally, the Silent Hill HD collection will include Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 in HD form however no platforms were announced at this time.

In Persona 2, a group of citizens must harness a hidden power dormant within each of them in order to stop a dangerous phenomenon from getting out of control.

Over 12 years in the making, the official localization of Innocent Sin provides patient fans with the other side of the Persona 2 arc, a dark adventure about high school students who find their reality being twisted by rumors, and who must draw on their inner strengths, their Personas, to bring back order. Taking advantage of PSP system’s 16:9 aspect ratio, higher resolution display, superior audio, and increased horsepower, this remastered version of one of the pinnacles of ATLUS’ flagship Shin Megami Tensei franchise delivers the game in style with a sleek new interface, new sidequests in the Climax Theater, and the player’s choice of the fully remixed or original soundtrack.

While the original Persona still exhibited many foundational ties to the core SMT series, Persona 2: Innocent Sin marked the point at which the beloved RPG series found its identity. While retaining core series mechanics like demon negotiation and party-building, Innocent Sin was ultimately defined by its far greater emphasis on character and story over surviving long dungeons, eschewing the tradition of first-person dungeon crawling in favor of a third-person view of the ever-escalating insanity. The story unfolds through lovingly crafted sprite animations and dialogue portraits, which were current series artist Shigenori Soejima’s first contribution to the Persona games, but it’s the characters who shine most, from the memorable villains to the fully fleshed-out main cast to the vast array of people they meet along the way.

New features will include better gameplay and control over teamplay, allowing players to excute better thought out tactics.

Improvements and new features include:

•The team behind Pro Evo has made an overhaul on their A.I engine to ensure for a more realistic team play experience.
•Attacking Play, which has been a major part of the Pro Evo experience, is a bringing a more open approach to the new title. Players will be able to dictate the pace of their team’s movement with the help of the improved A.I engine. Teams will move as a more cohesive unit, allowing players to force opponents to make mistakes, thus capitalizing on open situations.
•A new cursor switching system, controlled by the right analogue stick to switch to any player on the field, allows users to pick a team mate anywhere on the pitch. Players will be able to better execute set pieces, goal kicks, corners, free kicks and throw-ins, and switch to different players to send them on runs or lure defenders out of position.
•The jostling system has been improved, making defenders rely on their strength and stature to force a player from the ball. Collisions are more realistic as players’ crash into each other for control over the ball.
•Other improvements include: heavily tweaked animation, more detailed lighting techniques, a wider variety of player styles, improved dead-ball situations, expanded tactics and a new customizable pass feature.

“For me, the ultimate aim in the ongoing PES series is to match what people see when they go to a match or watch a big game on TV with what they experience on their console,” explains Shingo ‘Seabass’ Takatsuka, the Creative Producer of the Pro Evolution Soccer series.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012: Real Football Simulation is slated for an Autum 2011 release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, PS2, PSP.

Hunted releases May 31, 2011 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC in North America and June 3, 2011 in Europe.