Fight Night Round 4's facial capture/replay upload tech
EA's facial capture tech and replay upload service has made it possible not only for you to see what it would look like to have your ugly mug destroyed by Mike Tyson in Fight Night Round 4, but also to show the world exactly how bad your beating was. (It also works for the Tiger Woods series and several other titles, but that's not nearly as humiliating.) Here's how it works.
1. Start by taking two pictures of yourself with any digital camera, cell phone, etc., and dropping them onto your computer. You'll need a straight-on shot and a profile.
2. Go to EASportsworld, sign in or create an account, and then choose to create a Photo Game Face. The site will walk you through the upload and setup process, which is very simple and takes about 5 minutes.
3. Once you've reached that last screen, you're ready to turn on your game system and log onto, in my case, Xbox Live. In Fight Night Round 4, the Create A Boxer menu gives you the option to "Download a photo". Selecting that will let you access the photo you just uploaded to EA's site. The recognition system isn't flawless, but you can help a lot by moving some indicators around during the boxer creation process to point out where, for instance, your eye or jawline are in the photo.
Your photo will be turned into an animated game character, which you can then tweak as much or as little as you like.
Fight Night also allows you to edit and upload replays from any fight and use them as embedded videos online, which means you can then show the world exactly what it looks like when something like this happens:
As any parent or fan of the books probably knows, the latest Harry Potter game launches this week. The game series, under EA's leadership, has been a solid but unexceptional line of adventure games; though it has improved through the years, and the Order of the Phoenix's emphasis on free-roaming exploration of the Hogwarts grounds, sidequests, and unlockable video features of the cast and film was a promising step forward.
Other highlights of a packed release list for this week include the sequel to the entertaining western shooter Call of Juarez, multiplatform film tie-in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, a Punisher game for PS3, and a downloadable Worms sequel for Xbox Live.
1. Prototype (Xbox 360) - for the third week in a row 2. Red Faction: Guerrilla (Xbox 360) 3. Ghostbusters (Xbox 360) 4. Infamous (PS3) 5. Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360)
Among this week's new releases is Fight Night Round 4, which boasts a real-life roster and physics unlike any boxing title before it. It will be shocking if this one isn't the definitive game for the genre. We're talking even better than the top-down Atari 2600 boxing game. Bold words, I know.
If you have Xbox Live and a kid who is interested in the movie, this is a great opportunity to have some parent-child gaming time. Up the game is a simple to learn but smartly made platforming adventure in the style of Crash Bandicoot, but with an emphasis on co-op, with - fittingly - one player as the kid and one as the elderly man from the film.
The free demo gives you a taste for the feel of the game and its pacing, and unless your child is very young (mine is 5), he or she shouldn't have much trouble with the gameplay with your help. The demo is only about 10 minutes long, but your child will probably want to play through it several times - and then plead for you to rent or by the game. Which is what I'm planning to do today.
The recent announcement that Mass Effect 2 will allow you to reuse the custom character you created in the first game has me replaying the original, sprawling, epic sci-fi RPG. And sure it has some niggling annoyances, like the long elevator rides that conceal level load times, but the sheer size, depth, and cinematic production quality is just overwhelming. After some time away from the game, it's easy to forget just what an experience it is. But that makes it even more nice to rediscover a year later.
The variety to be found in combat from character to character also adds to the replay value. Each time you create a new "Commander Shepherd" - male or female, combat or tech focused, "biotic" power-infused or a jack-of-all-trades - it feels like you have an entirely new game ahead of you. The combat mechanics play out in real time from a third-person shooter POV but allow you to pause and set strategies at your own pace, which is unfailingly satisfying.
The level of production quality and immersion really create a feel of "role playing" via dialogue choices and how you form (or destroy) relationships. And people. I almost want to create every possible character type and take each one through the game so that I'll have them all on hand, with their own look, background, personality and story, for the sequel. And because this game is just so deep and so involving, I feel like it would be just as fun on the 10th play-through as it was on the second or third.
The definite highlight of the release schedule this week is Atari's "Ghostbusters" (Multiplatform) which stars and was written by the cast of the films. Busting slimers with Venkman? Yeah, that holds some appeal. I predict a surge in Ray Parker Jr. downloads.
Other big releases this week include Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (Multiplatform), which is essentially a series track compilation that's compatible with the newly added instruments, and the latest in the well-received America's Army shooter series (PC).
Maybe I'm just getting old - OK, I'm definitely getting old - but this is the first time I can remember thinking "Wow this is a great game, aside from all of these buttons and dials and switches I have to hit to play it."
Sure the graphics are so realistic-looking that they can fool people who are walking by into thinking it's an actual broadcast, and knocking people out never gets old. But there are just so many situations - standing, on the ground, different positions - and the controls change for each.
I'm pretty sure to block a knee strike in a standing clinch you have to hold down the left bumper, the right trigger, make a gentle 75-degree sweeping motion with the right stick, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around. And when you have dozens of contextual blocks and counters like that to learn for each situation, and have to execute each with split-second timing, that quickly becomes, er, what it's all about. Which kind of ruins the experience for someone like me who's not a hardcore fan of the sport or the genre.
It also means that if you ever find yourself in this position, just sit the controller down and walk away because the fight's already over:
As seen through the eyes of an action, RPG, and sports game-centric Xbox 360 owner.
10.Wet(PS3/Xbox360) A gun ballet from Bethesda (Oblivion, etc.) starring Eliza Dushku. There is no part of that I don't love.
9.Halo: ODST(Xbox360) It looks and feels like Halo, both in terms of gameplay and storytelling, and the idea of playing as someone who is a bit less of a super-soldier has its own kind of appeal.
8.Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2(Multiplatform) I loved the original, a hack-and-slash cooperative RPG featuring almost all of the big Marvel heroes and villains; and this looks dramatically improved in every way, but most dramatically in terms of visuals.
7.Alan Wake(Xbox360) Presented as episodes of a TV show: A novelist comes to a small town, his wife disappears, and the events of his supernatural horror book start coming true.
6.Check and update Facebook and Twitter from your Xbox I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I'm reading and posting to every social networking site from my Xbox. The new Xbox Live upgrade also includes streaming HD movies and TV shows with no wait and no downloading, plus LastFM integration.
5.Brutal Legend(Multiplatform) Jack Black and Ozzy Osborne star in this heavy-metal-album-cover-come-to-life action RPG/comedy. Use a guitar to literally melt faces. Looks like a tongue-in-cheek version of Fable, and anything from Tim Schafer (Grim Fandango, Psychonauts) deserves a look.
4.Star Wars: The Old Republic(PC) World of Warcraft-style MMO from the creators of Knights of the Old Republic. Sure, all we saw was a (amazing-looking) prerendered movie, but the game itself was apparently shown behind closed doors.
3.Mass Effect 2(Xbox360, PC) The first Mass Effect was probably the most immersive, epic RPG I've ever played, and if I could only pick one Xbox game to play in the next year, this one would be it. Plans are for a trilogy in this space opera universe.
2.Heavy Rain(PS3) Easily the coolest looking game I saw on any system at E3. The way in which the story is told is extremely clever.
1.Natal(Xbox360) The Xbox's new image, motion, and voice recognition software. I haven't decided if this is cool, frightening, or both. But it's the first time I've thought about interactive games in the sense of futuristic, Blade Runner-style interactivity and moral dilemmas.
Just missing the cut:
Borderlands(Multiplatform) A post-apocalyptic role-playing shooter with a really cool art style.
Final Fantasy XIII(Multiplatform) As pretty as the presentation looks, everything else about the series just looks so antiquated when compared to something like Mass Effect.
Split/Second(Multiplatform) You're a contestant on a racing reality show. Absolutely gorgeous, and you can trigger explosions that make the track and structures collapse as you race around them.
Fight Night Round 4(Multiplatform) Only misses the cut here because I had seen it before. The physics looks truly groundbreaking.
Dragon Age Origins(Multiplatform) Sure, it looks great and it's from Bioware (The Old Republic, Mass Effect), but aside from that I just can't tell how it's better than the 17,000 other fantasy hack and slashers released every year.
Splinter Cell Conviction(Xbox360, PC) Looks like a massive upgrade for the series, with some terrific storytelling incorporated into the game in very clever ways.
