Lost Odyssey stars Kaim, an immortal who has lived for over 1000 years, and in true RPG fashion, can't remember any of it. As the game progresses, he'll recall more and more of his past exploits while dreaming. These repressed memories are presented in the form of short stories penned by Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and once unlocked are available to read at any time under the "A Thousand Years of Dreams" menu option.

I played a good portion of the game's first episode, Turnabout Memories, which enlists players as a young Mia Fey, Phoenix Wright's mentor from the other titles. In a stunning portrayal of turnaboutery, it appears the young Wright has committed murder over a squabble involving his girlfriend's ex. Despite being one of the most text-heavy series on any console, Trials and Tribulations flaunts its writers' finesse by maintaining fervent interest throughout the court proceedings.

I had the most fun with what an Ubisoft rep described as the Rabbids' interpretation of American football. It was essentially what young children innocently refer to as "smear the queer," with one football-toting Rabbid trying to keep the ball from the others. The Nunchuk's analog stick controlled a Rabbid's running, and shaking the Wii remote made the characters dive viciously at the ball-bearing bunny.

I played the level both with the Zapper and without, and came away with mixed feelings. Using it certainly added the feeling of rocking an arcade shooter, but aiming wasn't as accurate as with the Wii-mote alone. I did get better by the end of the level, but it still felt like I was more of a marksman playing sans Zapper.

What is much more exciting about Super Mario Galaxy, and the aspect of the game I expect to fulfill the promise of the next worthy game in the core Mario series, is its promise of a return to actual platforming. While 2D platformers have had something of a renaissance lately, largely due to the Nintendo DS and PSP, their 3D cousins have been in a sad decline over the last generation or so. They seem to be devolving mainly into third-person action games with jumping thrown in, rather than actual platformers in which engaging physical traversal of the world itself is the crux of the gameplay.

Most notable is the new map, which can be pulled down from the top screen to the bottom screen with the press of a button, and which can actually be drawn upon with the stylus--hallelujah! This is the kind of so-obvious-in-hindsight design decision that feels like it should be implemented in every exploration-based adventure or platformer on the system.

Even this case had a Capcom cameo--Street Fighter 2's red-blooded all-American, Guile. Birdman demonstrates what he believes to be a fake lighter by setting Guile's hair ablaze. Ever the badass, Guile, with a fawning female in tow, allows his hair to burn. No time for pain when you've got M. Bison to deal with.

As a dark and stormy sky came into view, I once again fell prey to my gut instinct, buzzing in and choosing Twister. This was the wrong answer. Immediately afterwards, a distinctive clock tower and a familiar white-haired scientists appeared, indicating the proper choice was, of course, Back to the Future.

The ideals and quirks of Halo permeate every aspect of the game, from the rotating circular objects in the blue-heavy menus to the familiar sounds of the distinctive Halo weaponry and alien battle cries. In the opening cinematic of the demonstration, which showcased an impressively detailed ship hovering near over a lush horizon, even the camera angles and movements were reminiscent of those in Bungie's work.

All in all, Mass Effect is a gorgeous game, with clearly a great deal of effort expended on both its locales and its characters. The level of detail extends far and wide: during a trip to a planet from which a static-obscured distress call had been sent, the team dropped a six-wheeled transport vehicle into shallow water on the surface, and after zooming in it was possible to see droplets of water cascading off the vehicle's armor.

Making use of a drug called Nectar, Mantel soldiers have several abilities to afford them advantages against unlucky uprisers, in addition to mentally blocking the horrors of war. An ability called Nectar Perception highlights enemy bodies among the dense forest for easy targeting, and Nectar Focus takes this one step further by offering headshot-enabling superaim. Nectar Foresight creates a nice looking ripple effect to warn of incoming danger like grenades, and Melee Blast powers soldiers up for close range rebel-ramming smashes.

One of the first things Dodge did was hand me the new Xbox 360 wireless guitar, which has been modeled after the Gibson Les Paul. I'd been looking to get my hands on the wireless guitar ever since that earlier event, when Neversoft president and co-founder Joel Jewett had ruthlessly smashed one of the wired Xbox 360 guitars into the ground until it was nothing but a shamble of broken wires, plastic and circuitry. "One thing though that fucks me off, is the fucking cord," he said at the time.

While the lead character in Darksiders--one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War--certainly looks different in a superficial comic book sense, the gameplay doesn't differ much from the wild combo-stringing attacks of God of War's Kratos. Using a giant sword as his weapon of choice, War trots through the standard post-apocalyptic landscape, cutting down the standard monsters and demons on his mission of standard revenge. Continue reading...

As is often the case with certain games, none of the screenshots have accurately captured what Aion looks like in motion. One civilization's capital city hovered in the air like an uprooted potato, whisps of cloud encircling its exposed roots and furling around the edges of the rocky mass. There wasn't much bloom at work, and yet every tree and mountainside popped with an aural permeance, leaving a room of jaded journalists looking pleasantly surprised. Read more...

We've already reported on all the crazy blend shaders, facial mapping and procedural animation layering--needless to say, this game looks damned good. Sam Thompson, line producer at SCEA, demoed a new build of the game for me at E3, slipping in details like the target of 7,000 animations for the game's hero, up from the 3,000 of the build shown.
Keep on reading...