EA and Visceral Games have made quite a splash with Dante's Inferno, with both the game itself and the outlandish marketing campaign. During my time at GameX 2009 in Oaks, PA (just outside Philadelphia), I had the opportunity to get my hands on the demo for the Xbox 360 version of the game, as well as getting to speak with Dennis Yu of Electronic Arts about the ideas behind the title. You will find the video interview here.

WARNING: The following preview is about a mature game. As such, it will talk about many of the elements that make the game mature. Anyone that isn't usually privy to mature content should not continue. You have been warned...

Dante's Inferno is a new game, but it should feel very familiar to fans of God of War, Devil May Cry, and Onimusha. You will be surrounded by enemies, and you will mash buttons to create combos and eliminate these enemies. What sets Dante's Inferno apart from the others lies in the presentation. This game will creep you out, more so than possibly any other game before it.

The demo I played was the Lust level from this year's Tokyo Game Show. The stage obviously bears imagery referring to its name, but it does so in such a way that it makes you sick to your stomach. The very first thing I saw in this demo was a sultry demoness who rose from flames in the ground, moaning and groaning as if she were "in the act," then revealed her "private area," which happened to be a giant spiked tentacle. I then took control and started battling. There is a lot of button-mashing, the X button for normal swipes with my giant bone scythe and the B button for projectile attacks with my crucifix. It's almost mindless to a fault, as I was just hoping that my attacks would clear the path and I could continue on.

What disturbs me the most about this world is that everything is sexual in nature. The posts around the elevator leading to the boss battle are all phallic. I had to break a snake's fangs in order to raise its head and reveal a platform, but once the platform was exposed, the area behind it looked exactly like the female genitalia. This attention to visual detail set the mood perfectly, as this was a world where I was surrounded by sexual imagery... and was not even remotely enjoying it. It was creepy, it was gross, and in regards to what they were trying to achieve, it was perfect.

The grossness factor only got worse. The boss fight of the demo was against a giant, demonic portrayal of a topless Cleopatra. Her main attack was summoning little demon babies with sickles for hands to attack you. Fighting them was one thing, witnessing their summoning was another thing entirely. They emerged from Cleopatra's breasts through the nipple and crawled to her shoulder, where she scooped them up and placed them against me. I was caught so off-guard by this that I lost half my health before I realized the fight was still on. It was one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen, gaming or otherwise, and it's not something I'm likely to forget about by the time the game releases.

Though it was nightmarish in presentation, the game ran like a dream. As I played, the game never hiccuped or stuttered, easily maintaining  60 frames per second no matter how crazy the on-screen action. The controls were comfortbale, though monotonous, with a button layout that felt natural to me. 

Dante's Inferno will be a unique game when it hits the Xbox 360 and PS3 on February 9th, maybe not for its gameplay, but for creating an environment of pure discomfort and disgust that will keep the player engaged, no matter how uncomfortable they are.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker places you in the familiar combat boots of Naked Snake, a.k.a Big Boss. Taking place after Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Naked Snake is now command of Militaires Sans Frontieres (Soldiers Without Borders) in Costa Rica. A mysterious military force equipped with cutting edge weapons is amassing in the country, and without an army of its own, is being quickly overrun. Snake is called in to protect the country, an event which leads to a bigger haven being formed.

Story sequences are told through the familiar comic book panel format from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, featuring the art style from the Metal Gear Solid graphic novel. Adding to the sequences though, is the ability to interact with the cutscenes, much like in previous MGS games. One such event has the character Paz on screen and pushing the analog stick in any direction brings you under her red dress, showing scars and wounds on her body.

After the story setup and gaining control of Snake, I could feel the MGS4 influence in the game's controls and stealth. Movement is handled with the analog stick, while character actions are mapped to the D-pad. Pushing down puts Snake in a crouching position, in which you can then move around a la MGS4. Pressing the left and right directions switch your weapons and items respectively, while holding the directions allows you to open the inventory. The face buttons act like a second analog stick, controlling camera movement and aiming. You push the L trigger to enter your aim mode, which is done in the standard over-the-shoulder camera view, and use the R trigger to shoot, or perform advanced CQC actions when not in aim mode. If you aren't a precise player when it comes to third-person aiming, you can switch on auto aim, which snaps your aim to the nearest enemy. The controls take a bit to get used to and some key MGS actions are missing, such as crawling, but once you get the hang of them, they prove to be fluid and feel just right.

The game's missions are split up into multiple small areas, making them manageable and perfect for short bursts of gameplay, a smart choice for a handheld title. The first mission I got to play was a training mission to get used to the controls and gameplay. Snake starts on a beach, which showcased the amazing visuals right off the bat. The game is a graphical leap from Portable Ops, and is not confined to the small corridors and small building stages of the previous title. Lavishly detailed jungles, beaches, and military complexes take center stage here, showing off what the PSP can really do.

While the main campaign is set to offer fans of the MGS series something to devour, its not all that Kojima is offering. The game's other big feature is the CO-OPS missions. Standing for Cooperative Operations, CO-OPS has you and another friend playing the regular missions and up to four friends playing boss missions. Here, four different Snakes are offered, each specializing in one field. Armored Snake carries heavy weaponry but is slow and noisy, while Naked Snake has small arms and no armor, allowing him to sneak more efficently and quietly. These roles can be filled by your friends as you undertake numerous CO-OPS missions together, performing co-op actions to gain the upper hand. You can push the Up directional button to hold on to your partner and let them lead the way, revive them, or even spot for them while they snipe.

The mission I got to play in CO-OPS mode had me and a partner trying to take over an enemy base. We stealthily crept through the jungle, taking out enemy guards or creating distractions for one another to get past heavily patrolled areas. There's even the option to hide under a cardboard box together. These missions bring all the fun of co-op gaming, while providing an intense and exciting stealth experience to enjoy with friends. It'll be interesting to see what other missions are added, or even what the boss missions will entail. A raid style encounter where you take on Metal Gear with three of your friends at your side sounds awesome.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is shaping up to be an amazing addition to the MGS series, and the best in the franchise's PSP lineup. Instead of the card-based gameplay of the Ac!d series, or the neutered gameplay of Portable Ops, MGS: Peace Walker looks to bring the full MGS experience to the handheld format. This is the game that PSP owners will want to keep an eye on for their stealth action fix in 2010.

The game is set in a world where demons have descended to claim the souls of the living, preceded by a thick and ominous fog covering much of the land. It is up to players to vanquish these demons and clear the world of their influence. To do so, they will fight across a number of different locales both while alive and in a quasi-corporeal soul form, which they enter upon death.

Gameplay takes place in a number of rich and immense 3D environments, and players have great control over the character they play. To begin, these characters are fully customizable, letting players choose from four geographic backgrounds (north, south, east, west) and 10 character classes that range from uncivilized barbarians to magic users and royalty. Each class starts the game with its own combination of equipment and attributes, but over the course of the game can be molded to fit players' preferences and play style.

Gameplay is different from games of this kind. Combat is intricate, and every fight feels like something substantial. Players lock on and cycle between targets using the right analog stick, then press R1 and R2 for normal and heavy attacks. If a catalyst (wand) is equipped and a spell memorized, magic attacks work the same way. The circle button dodges and rolls, L1 raises a shield or weapon to block, and L2 parries attacks, leaving the enemy open for a deadly riposte, a quick victory, and a finishing animation. Players are also given the option of dual-wielding, or using a single weapon with two hands -- sometimes a necessity to reap its full benefits, due to strength requirements.

From what I've sampled, I can see that survival isn't exactly easy in Demon's Souls. Enemies hit hard, and any sizable group has the potential to quickly become overwhelming. Quickly swapping between primary and secondary equipment with the d-pad (left for shield/off-hand, right for main weapon), or using quick-access healing items with the square button will undoubtedly be indispensable strategies on those occasions. On all occasions, it looks like players will be taking it slowly if they want to live.

On top of the massive single-player experience (expected to clock in at around 80-100 hours), the game features a number of unique online components. Throughout the adventure, players can leave messages for other online-enabled players to find in their own games. These may warn of danger ahead or point out secrets, and are limited to a selection of key phrases to avoid the standard vulgarity of online gaming communities. Phantom versions of other characters also make short, intermittent appearances as players traverse the same areas at the same times, and bloodstains on the ground allow you to see visual playbacks of how others have met their demise in those particular locations.

On top of that, players have the option of teaming up in parties of two or three in order to complete levels and defeat major demons. Or they may invade other players' worlds to fight against them, either to win souls or to be resurrected from soul form in their own game.

Demon's Souls looks incredibly promising. The concepts of intertwined worlds, the Nexus, and soul form have great potential, especially in an online gaming landscape, and the gameplay itself is a refreshing and competent reinvention of an established genre. I can't wait to play more.

Wet plays much like Total Overdose or Stranglehold, or however one might expect anything directed by John Woo or even Quentin Tarantino to translate to the videogame medium. Gameplay appears to mostly consist of gunning down steady streams of enemies while slow-motion jumping, diving, sliding, swinging, and wall-running in various combination. These combinations are tallied, earning points and multipliers for the player, and even accelerated health regeneration during special arena sections.

While the gunplay was a bit loose, wild, and something like riding a mechanical bull in Tijuana, the acrobatics, automatic fire, and unlimited ammo made it forgiving and enjoyable. An especially nice touch is the split-targetting feature, which locks one of main character Rubi's pistolas onto a nearby enemy as the player aims the other with an on-screen reticle. Being able to easily direct fire at a single or multiple enemies while gliding through streets and buildings definitely helps drive home the let-you-do-a-lot-without-really-trying gameplay philosophy A2M seems to have followed with Wet.

Rubi also carries a katana -- a very useful tool for cutting down foes within melee range. This blade is equally, if not more deadly than Rubi's guns, but will be used less often than the twins. Aside from combat, however, Rubi tends to whip out the sword to use it as a pry bar, zipline handle, and whatever else seems to make sense at the moment. The katana seems more fitting to Rubi's moments of blood rage, though -- instances where she gets a crimson bath from her slain enemies and the game's entire visual style transforms into a less detailed noir style in bold black, white, and red. During this time Rubi has double health, stronger, faster attacks, and somehow, her pistols get automatic, uzi-like capabilities.

The most impressive aspect of gameplay, however, should be the high-adrenaline action sequences infused with quick time events and over-the-top, Rubi-does-awesome-things moves. I was only able to play out one car chase, but if it's any indicator, these segments will be the apex of Wet's gameplay experience. Throughout the scene, players fire at moving cars from moving cars using the same slo-motion effect and split-targetting as before, but will also have to watch for button prompts that send Rubi leaping over and across vehicles, maintaining the core shooting mechanics throughout every move. It's very intense and visually dramatic.

The entire game appears to be very polished in the graphics department. The game has a gritty, striking look, incorporating film grain effects and a stiking color palatte, with character design to match. Menus are all highly stylized and very slick, as well. Rubi is voiced by a potty-mouthed Eliza Dushku, which may or may not e a good thing, and the music tracks are very fitting to the style and energy of the game.

Wet certainly looks promising, with fun, over-the-top action and a this-game-is-cool atmosphere. I don't expect it to be in the realm of the most elite titles this fall, but it is definitely worth looking forward to.

Wet is scheduled for release on September 15th on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The Marvel Universe is being torn apart. Civil War has erupted amongst the superheroes and public sentiment has turned against them. The US government wants all superheroes to register their secret identities and become licensed agents, and players must decide which side to follow -- the Pro-Registration Side lead by Iron Man, or the Anti-Registration side lead by Captain America.

And thus is the synopsis to Vicarious Vision's sequel to the 2006 action-RPG, which is shaping up quite well. As mentioned earlier, the game's plot revolves around the Civil War comic book storyline and gives fans the choice to select from over 24 playable heroes and villains, including Deadpool, Venom, Juggernaut, and other classic characters like Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, Wolverine, Hulk and Daredevil.

You can play in a team of four by yourself, or with up to three friends in online or offline co-op modes. Each superhero uses their specialized powers from the Marvel Universe and can combine their powers with other superheroes for devastating effects. These combinations are called Fusions, and there are over 250 unique Fusions within Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

An example of one of these Fusions is when Human Torch combines with Thor for a lightning tornado fused with flames. Players can then tap a button to make the tornado bigger and stronger, and move the joystick around to steer it, maximizing its destructiveness.

The game's environments will also be somewhat destructible and interactive. Players can use the superheroes' powers to grab pieces of the environment around them, such as cars, lampposts and machinery as weapons to fight opponents. Boosts and powerups scatter the area too, making the fights even more destructive and fun. Players will earn experience points for their actions as well, and will be able to upgrade their skills as the game progresses.

Fans of the house that Stan Lee built can look forward to MUA 2 arriving in September 2009.

Rogue Warrior is a character-driven first-person shooter that puts the player in the role of Dick Marcinko, a real-life Navy SEAL and American badass who is on a one-man mission to nail him some commies. Voiced by Mickey Rourke, players will take Marcinko on eight missions through the bowels of Soviet Russia and North Korea during the 80s when the world was still gripped in fear from the Cold War.

While a majority of the game will play out in first person, Rogue Warrior's unnerving brutality comes out when the game snaps into a third-person view for violent and vicious one-hit kills. With more than 25 unique kill moves that depend on the angle of approach to the enemy, players likely won't get tired of getting up close and personal. Rogue Warrior will also pull back for a full view of Marcinko when players enter cover behind an object, similar to Rainbow Six: Vegas or Quantum of Solace. From here they can blind-fire or simply aim and take out their targets from a safe location.

Marcinko himself provided feedback and input on the animations and takedowns, as well as the tactics, weapons and dialog used in the game to help achieve the gruesome realism that developer Rebellion wishes to provide and to distinguish their game from others on the market.

The game will feature an advanced AI system that allows enemies to react and fight realistically. So whether or not players decide to go into a mission stealthily or balls-out shooting everything, there won't be any scripted enemy interactions -- they should react dynamically and realistically by investigating things they hear and see, and fight as a team to stop you. That's why it's a good thing that there are a variety of real weapons at your disposal to kill with, including light machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, silenced and un-silenced sub machine guns and pistols, and of course, a trusty knife.

Players can take the fight online too, and perform one-hit takedowns with other people in up to 16-player matches that span six maps. Standard multiplayer modes like deathmatch and team deathmatch will make an appearance, but no info yet on what, if any, other modes will be included.

Look for Rogue Warrior to be released sometime this fall.

Assassin's Creed was an excellent game, but it did have its problems... have its problems... have its problems... you get the idea. The lack of variety in the game's missions was the number one complaint from gamers and critics alike when it was released in late 2007. Ubisoft was on hand at E3 with a brand new in-game demo of the sequel, and I had a chance to sit down for a closer look at Altair's successor. From what I saw, Assassin's Creed II seems to fix everything that was wrong with the first game and make a more complete and enjoyable experience for gamers in 2009.

The game picks up right where AC left off. Desmond, a descendant of the Assassin clan, is being held against his will by a "doctor" who is trying to use a machine to access the memories of Desmond's ancestors that persist in his DNA via a machine called the animus. It's a little far-fetched, of course, but we suspend disbelief. This time, players dive into the life of Ezio, a Venetian who lived during the time of the Italian renaissance.

Little about the story was revealed, aside from the fact that Ezio is not a trained assassin from the beginning, but learns his "craft" as the game progresses. This will be a revenge story, to give it a more personal feeling, but revenge on whom and for what has not yet been divulged.

Both fans and critics of the first game will be glad to find that the developers have been paying close attention to criticism, and will be improving the sequel's mission structure. Assassin's Creed II will feature a number of new mission types, and many of them will span multiple locations -- from city to city and through the two distinct countryside areas. These areas will no longer act as hubs from which to access isolated cities where the action takes place exclusively, but will be a cohesive world with smaller sections housed within it.

Ezio will also have a number of new moves at his disposal, such as dual-bladed assassinations that take out two guards at once, leaping strikes from high above his targets, mid-climb attacks, and even the ability to drag guards into hiding places for the kill. He'll also have new toys to play with, like Leonardo Da Vinci's famous Flying Machine. Da Vinci himself lends the invention to Ezio, and he's not the only real-life personality to show up in the story.

With all this help for the player, the enemies in ACII needed a boost, too. In this game, guards will specialize in order to counter the assassin's skills. The three "archetype" enemies are the brute, who is adept at close-quarters combat, the agile, who can run Ezio down regardless of his monkey-like free-running and climbing, and the seeker, who can detect Ezio in the formerly impervious hiding spots that dot the cities.

Ubisoft Montreal has also improved upon the better aspects of the original game, and have once again produced a stunning visual feast, with sprawling cities, country vistas, and lifelike character models. They've also added over 30 new weapons to Ezio's arsenal, each with its own set of beautifully choreographed animations. These will mostly be acquired by stripping them from enemies and immediately putting them to use, after which Ezio can choose to drop them or take them along for the next fight. Additionally, tools like smoke bombs will help Ezio to make clean escapes, and can be purchased with the newly introduced monetary system.

Assassin's Creed II was one of the most impressive games on display at this year's E3, and we can't wait to get our hands on a final build here at GamerNode. The game is scheduled to hit store shelves on November 17th of this year for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Creativity and innovation are growing themes in today's videogames industry. Gearbox Software and 2K Games' Borderlands is yet another genre-bending gaming experience that looks to offer plenty of both. Dubbed an RPS, or role-playing shooter, Borderlands draws just as much, if not more influence from massively multiplayer RPGs than from team-based shooters.

Players choose from four classes -- the tank, the hunter (a sniper class), the siren (a magical class), and the standard, well-rounded soldier -- before jumping into a large, open environment to accept, complete, and report on missions from various non-player characters throughout the game world. Operating alone or in a group of up to four cooperative players (split-screen, local area network, or online), players will gain experience points and level up, improving skills via a three-track tree that is different for each class.

The primary quest track will take roughly 20 hours to finish, while completionists will be able to spend over 100 hours completing side missions, fighting procedurally generated enemies, and collecting massive amounts of loot and weaponry. The game will also feature a dueling system and arena battles for more competitive players.

One of the most interesting aspects of Borderlands is the way it dynamically builds all of the players' enemies and each of the game's "millions" of guns out of the smaller parts that make them up. For example, a certain family of enemies may consist of many individuals, each modified with specific player-killing physical characteristics -- blades, guns, acid spit, flame breath, etc. -- as well as elite, supercharged versions know as "bad asses." Weaponry is composed in much the same way, out of the component parts of each gun. In this case, though, attributes such as firepower, accuracy, capacity, range, and others are also assigned at the time of weapon generation. For grenades alone, there are over 100 possible types. Because of the vast range of possible weapon configurations, a color-coded rarity system quickly alerts players to the relative value and efficiency of each one.

Also quite evident when first looking at Borderlands is its visual style, colorful animated art reminiscent of the comic-influenced XIII or the more recent Prince of Persia. Heavy, inked outlines and bright, caricatured models give the game a striking look, and the real-time day/night cycle displays the world in a wide range of light conditions during play.

Borderlands is scheduled for release this October on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. GamerNode will have more coverage as that time approaches.

Singularity is an upcoming first-person shooter from Activision and Raven Software, featuring an original sci-fi storyline and interesting, atypical time-manipulating gameplay mechanics. From what I could see in the E3 demonstration, Singularity is somewhat reminiscent of another great fps, BioShock. That's never a bad thing.

Singularity centers around a small island off the Russian coastline called Katorga-12. During the Stalin era, this island was a place of arms experimentation and the site of a massive elemental catastrophe. It was quarantined for more than half a century, and forgotten. In 2010, however, the U.S. military has discovered the long-hidden island and has sent in a unit on a reconnaissance mission.

The player is a member of that unit, and must explore this temporally unstable place that hangs in constant flux between 1950 and 2010. What begins as a simple observation quickly turns into a quest to unshroud the island's history and an attempt to right the wrongs of the past.

Players will be able to toy with time in a number of ways. The time manipulation device, or TMD, is able to shift objects (even entire buildings!) and enemies back and forth between their conditions in 1950 and 2010, which is useful in puzzle-solving as well as combat (zapping a 1950s guard and watching him turn to bone looks very satisfying). Echo events set the mood and advance the plot by occasionally presenting the player with scenes from before the meltdown, played in constant loops via holographic imagery in the present day, and time waves periodically sweep the island, placing everything in an in-between existence called the null-zone. Elements from both time periods coexist and interact in this space, and upgrades to the TMD allow players to reach through from 2010 to grab null-zone objects.

Like BioShock, the game appears to focus heavily on storytelling, and puts players in a situation where they must uncover the secrets of a bygone era in a mysterious setting that doesn't obey the laws of reality as they know it. Combining first-person shooting with the almost magical TMD in the protagonist's off-hand will potentially provide a gameplay balance similar to those in games such as BioShock and Half-Life 2, and the various time mechanics promise a unique experience overall.

Singularity will arrive late in 2009 on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. GamerNode will have more coverage of the game in the future, and I'll spare you the corny time-related closer.

Like Diablo and Mythos, Torchlight is an action-RPG, heavily relying upon fast-paced combat and lots (and I mean lots) of hacking and slashing. The game is due to launch the single-player version later in 2009, and after that sometime (possibly) in 2010, we'll be seeing a separate MMO version of the game, a la Mythos.

So what makes Torchlight so promising? Aside from the people behind it, the game itself has quite a bit for the hack-n-slash action RPG crowd. Runic is combining a lot of elements from the games they've worked on -- from Fate to Mythos -- in Torchlight. For example, like Fate, players will begin with a pet. This pet will level with you, and grow bigger. It can morph and transform into various creatures as well, and all you need to do is go fishing in town, and feed it specific fish. Feeding it a mackerel, for instance, turned it into some sort of demon-thing.

The combat in the game is standard action RPG fare. You move and attack with the mouse keys, and you'll have a couple of skills to utilize at any given time. Unlike most games, players can only actively use three skills at any given time; a tough choice to make when each of the classes has between 10 and 12 unique abilities.

Progressing through the dungeons, players will fight many foes, including boss mobs, and obtain loot they drop. Simple, classic hack-n-slash stuff. One difference will be that players can use any base items, such as weapons. So if you want to use a gun and a wand, and you're a melee guy, you can. You won't be as good as someone more skilled with certain types, but the option is there.

Perhaps the most impressive feature of Torchlight, though, is the modding tool. Seeing it in action, even someone like me whose extent of coding knowledge ended with HTML in the year 2000 could understand what everything does. It's a very visual tool, similar to the one used in Fallout 3, but even simpler.

Players will snap together pieces of the environment (like LEGOs!) building their desired landscape. There's also no real limit to height, so if you had the time and skill, you could theoretically make a gigantic 100 story tower.

Not only is it easy to build the world, but you can also import pieces very, very simply, as the modding tool utilizes Ogre, giving it a huge range of already-established support. Will you be able to use your own animations? Not sure yet. But want to toss in a new texture you made, or some cool item you want in the world? You can do that.

There's also a logic editor window that uses a very visual representation. All you need to do to set up logic, AI, and cause-and-effect actions is drag the items you want involved into the window, an image representing them shows up, and then you connect the lines, and set how they interact. For example, you can drag a quest you just wrote into it, and a drawbridge, and make it so that when the quest is accepted, the drawbridge lowers. Very easy, and very intuitive.

Not only will players be able to design the level and events on it, but they can also alter values, such as monster damage, experience caps, etc. So if you wanted to make monsters have a ton of HP and do little damage, or vice versa, you can just crank the damage of the highest level monsters to a lower level, and pump level 1 monsters up to the max. That way, you'll have guys doing as much damage as possible, but easily killed in one or two shots -- as well as guys who barely damage you, but may be a nuisance for a few minutes until they're dispatched.

Runic's hope for the modding tool is that they can inspire at least a few clever folks to utilize it, and create spectacular additions to the game. Even dated games like Fate which have subpar editors in text-only are still getting mods, so why not a game like Torchlight, is basically what they're asking. And, if players can make some really, really cool stuff... Don't be surprised if some of it shows up in the MMO version of Torchlight coming out in the future.

If you're interested in that and want to know what will be different between the MMO and single-player versions, you can read all about those differences here, at the Torchlight MMORPG preview at MMO Hub.