The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red has been vocal about its distaste for digital rights management (DRM). Now the studio is taking another populist gamer stance, saying that rumored plans for the Next Xbox to block the playing of used games “can be a bad thing.”

CD Projekt Red wants players to buy their games new to support the developers.

Speaking with Eurogamer, CD Projekt Red managing director Adam Badowski said the studio loses money not due to piracy or used game sales, but simply because people decide not to buy its games.

“We should invest more power to upgrade and polish our products and convince players to keep our products, to be with us, to understand our needs,” Badowski said. “Because we are an independent developer, we have to prevent lay-offs, we need to grow up and have the power to create new games.”

As with the DRM issue, CD Projekt Red’s attitude toward used game sales may not be widely shared. The design director of Saints Row studio Volition came under fire from numerous gamers earlier this month for saying that a Next Xbox locking out used games would be “fantastic,” and cautioning that the industry could “fall apart” if used sales aren’t somehow curbed.

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The comic book style violence of The Darkness II doesn’t merely shock, but delivers a sense of empowerment. Series protagonist Jackie Estacado rampages through his enemies, ripping them limb from limb in a bloody dance. The way he bounds through environments, tossing parking meters, car doors and more this way and that, utilizing it to flaunt his destructive abilities is almost artful.

The combat in The Darkness II is vastly superior to that of its predecessor, but the story takes time to warm up. As an origin story, the original game was immediately interesting, as we got to know Jackie as he was introduced to the titular Darkness. In the new game, though, Jackie controls the Darkness, much as he controls his mob family. He’s managed to keep his powers in check for some time following the events of the first game, but an attack on his organization by unknown forces brings out the monster inside. Now Jackie must confront not only the creature he’s become, but also the painful memories of losing Jenny, the love of his life.

The story feels a bit lazy at times, especially since it copies plot devices straight from the original game, but comes into its own by the end. Jackie’s struggle to deal with Jenny’s death is touching, reminding us that even “evil” people like him feel love and loss. He was irrevocably harmed by Jenny’s death, and the scenes between them in the second game are touching, making The Darkness II feel like a more personal story, especially compared to most other shooters. The story of Jackie’s battle with evil forces remains important, but it always comes back to Jenny and his inner conflict, something that’s easy to identify and empathize with.

Slower, more story-focused scenes help The Darkness II’s pacing, giving it some comparatively less intense moments before ramping it back up with the next epic fight. With Jackie’s demon powers he has four arms at his disposal: two human two demonic. His extra limbs allow him to dual wield guns with his human limbs, while simultaneously using his beastly extremities to maim opponents with slashes and toss around pieces of the environment. Because of Jackie’s extra limbs and the options they afford every encounter becomes more exciting, a time when you aren’t necessarily worried about how you’re going to survive, but more about how you’re going to have the most fun dismembering all who stand against you.

Finding new ways to kill people is entertaining enough, but you’re also enticed into experimenting thanks to The Darkness II’s experience system. Kill a guy with bullets and you’ll gain 10 experience, but if you manage to wing him and then rip him into pieces with your demon arms you’ll get three times as much. Experience matters, too, as it grants Jackie access to more powers, which help reinvigorate combat as the enemies get more challenging. You’ll always have staple moves that you come back to time and again throughout the campaign, but the array of powers Jackie has make fighting feel as fun and inspiring as being a kid digging through a toy box..

Despite its strengths, polish issues mar the campaign. On top of potential game ending bugs, broken animations, enemies falling through the floor and other minor issues occur frequently. More noticeably, enemies are often clones of one another, which breaks the experience a bit and makes some would-be nerve-racking moments feel silly. Also a bit frustrating are the occasional frame-rate issues in multiplayer during the more intense firefights. None of the issues made it feel unplayable, but did make The Darkness II feel unfinished.

The Darkness II’s multiplayer extends the narrative and the life of the game well after the relatively short campaign. The multiplayer isn’t like the original’s — a forced-in and boring competitive multiplayer — but instead ties directly into the story. You play as one of four Darkness-powered assassins in Jackie’s employ, taking on missions that his normal henchmen can’t accomplish. The missions generally tie into parts of the story, like kidnapping a guy that Jackie asks for during the campaign, giving them a narrative component that makes them more significant. Even the missions that don’t link to the campaign’s story are worthwhile, as they give you and your buddies more fights to test your skills on. Most importantly, though, they’re fun. They may not be the types of things that grow into an addiction, but the multiplayer modes provide hours of extra gameplay, and give you a good reason to play with friends.

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As work winds down on Sega’s London 2012 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games, the Brisbane-based studio behind it–SEGA Studios Australia–has decided to restructure its business and shed 37 of its staff members.

The 37 redundancies come in the wake of a decision to take the studio in a different direction, aimed more at digital marketplaces. SEGA Studios Australia has already signed a multi-product deal focusing on digital platforms, but has remained tight lipped as to what sort of projects it has in the works.

London 2012 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games will be the last game for 37 people at Sega.

In a statement to GameSpot AU SEGA Studios Australia said that: “As part of this focus on digital avenues, there is a requirement to re-structure the studio resources accordingly and regrettably, we are announcing the loss of 37 staff. The decision to downsize was not taken lightly but this strategic re-structure will ensure we have a more effective and agile team that will enable us to quickly adapt to consumer needs and deliver strong content across multiple digital platforms. We thank those team members affected for their contributions and wish them well in their future endeavours. We are very confident that their efforts on London 2012™ will help us deliver the highest quality official Olympic video game to date.”

London 2012 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games is currently slated for release in June, and is set to contain around 30 different events for players to compete in. Before moving onto the Olympics project, SEGA Studios Australia worked on the poorly reviewed Stormrise.

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Around half the staff at Brisbane-based SEGA Studios Australia have been made redundant as work on its Olympic Games title London 2012 wraps up.

Gareth Gower, Director of Studio Marketing at SEGA Studios Australia, provided us with a statement that explained the reason for the staff cuts.

“The rise of digital gaming provides an opportunity to align the studio with a rapidly growing market at a time when the games industry is undergoing a significant transition,” reads the studio statement. “To this end, we can confirm that SSA has signed a multi-product deal focussing across the digital marketplace. We have commenced development on these titles and will announce more details in the near future.

“As part of this focus on digital avenues, there is a requirement to re-structure the studio resources accordingly and regrettably, we are announcing the loss of 37 staff. The decision to downsize was not taken lightly but this strategic re-structure will ensure we have a more effective and agile team that will enable us to quickly adapt to consumer needs and deliver strong content across multiple digital platforms. We thank those team members affected for their contributions and wish them well in their future endeavours.”

These redundancies are the latest in a recent spate of sackings and studio closures in Australia.

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Nintendo’s Rhythm series made its debut outside of Japan three years ago with Rhythm Heaven for the Nintendo DS. This fun, quirky title proved surprisingly addictive, and instantly became a fan favorite – its outlandish style and simple yet challenging gameplay even appealing to those not usually into the rhythm genre. Now, for the first time, this same idea is being applied to a full console release with Rhythm Heaven Fever. If you loved the original games, prepare for more zaniness where that came from. However, a handful of glaring problems hold the whole thing back.

The basic idea is almost entirely unchanged from prior releases. Fever comes with 50 all new mini-games, 10 of which are remix challenges that mash up the gameplay from the prior four levels. Each game has its own set of rules, its own style and its own music. Beat each game with a passing score to unlock the next. The main difference is that instead of tapping and flicking the stylus, the Wii version has you pressing the A and/or B button to the beat. It’s simple, to be sure, but the difficulty comes in the timing and execution of each rhythm exercise, and the further you play the happier you’ll be that the controls aren’t unnecessarily complex.

Like the DS version, one of Fever’s greatest strengths is its off-the-wall presentation. Every inch of the game – from the music to the characters to the art style to the gameplay concepts – is simply brimming with personality. Just like Rhythm Heaven, Fever is quirky, clever and unfathomably adorable. The gameplay, while beyond simple (you literally only use the A and B buttons), is actually quite addictive, the absolute epitome of “easy to learn, difficult to master.” Before long you’ll find yourself bobbing your head and tapping your foot to try to sink into the rhythm, and may come uncomfortably close to rage quitting if you go for all the medals.

While the gameplay itself is limited to only two buttons, the variety of mini-games still manages to make you feel like you’re always doing something new. One moment you’ll be a wrestler answering questions and striking a pose, the next you’ll be memorizing a monkey’s tambourine motions, and the next you’ll be slicing monsters with a samurai sword while a narrative overtakes the screen. The game keeps things interesting the whole way through, and even the beats will have you humming along long after you’ve turned off your system, especially with rousing tracks like the rock epic of See-Saw (which you can check out in the video above).

All of this is par for the course for anyone who played the handheld versions. The real question is how this portable experience was translated over to a home console. While the game boasts all of the successes of prior versions, it’s a bit surprising that the concept wasn’t really expanded in any way for the Wii release. The Rhythm series’ trademark gameplay didn’t really need an overhaul, but it did need something new to push it over the edge and make it feel like at least a minor evolution for the franchise. Fever’s addition of a multiplayer mode seemed like just the ticket… in theory.

Unfortunately, Fever’s implementation of multiplayer is one of the game’s biggest failures. This mode, which has absolutely zero online support, only allows two players to play at a time. There are also only 10 games to choose from, all of which are repeats from the single player selection with minor adjustments. It’s fun enough to try to best your friend at the included rhythm games, but the lack of unique challenges is a huge oversight, as is limiting play to only two players.

The second major failure of Fever comes in the form of a flaw that carries over from the prior versions – the broken grading system. Simple in theory, a passable run of a mini-game gets you an “Okay” rating, and a great one gets you a “Superb” rating and a medal. Collecting medals unlocks extras like the cafe (where you can listen to the game’s music tracks), endless play (a handful of games where you try to go as long as you can without messing up), music toys and two-player mode.

That part is fine. The hitch is sometimes you’ll play a game and execute it perfectly, save a single misstep, and you’ll still wind up with an Okay rating. Check out the video above for an example of this. The weird thing is, the next time you try you might miss several cues and get Superb. Inconsistencies like that make the grading system feel random, making your frustrating trials a little more frustrating and your accomplishments meaningless. For a series that is now on its third run, and making the move to home consoles, this lingering flaw is simply unacceptable – especially given how fantastically fun the games themselves are. One of the main draws of any rhythm game is earning and besting your rank. The fact that you can’t rely on Fever’s grading system for an accurate tell of how you did lowers what is otherwise a great experience.

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I was going to intro this article with the whole sarcastic “Holy cow, guys, this is a novel concept” shtick, but the “2″ on the end of Indie Gala 2 makes that rather silly. So yes, Indie Gala 2 is the latest in an ever-expanding line of lesser-known games glued together by strange, arcane pay-what-you-want magics. But there’s also a twist: all tiers of this bundle were not created equal.

First up, there’s the rather disparaging $1.00 Carebear Bundle. It comes with Critical Mass, Fortix 2, Bunch of Heroes, a couple albums, and a heaping dose of mockery.

Now, if you jump up to $5.59 or more, you enter Big Saver Bundle territory, which grants you RoboBlitz and Greed Corp on top of all your Carebear paraphernalia. That’s quite a lot of bang for your practically no money, huh? I bet you’d be pretty happy with that purchase.

You know, in a parallel (and probably mustachioed) dimension where the Epic Gala Bundle didn’t exist. $9.78 or more adds inMomentum, Zombie Shooters 1 and 2, Hacker Evolution: Duality, Hacker Evolution: Untold, and All Your Doodles Are Bugged to your teetering, on-the-brink-of-collapse game stack. So, for those sadly bereft of fingers or an abacus, that’s 11 games total.

A word of warning, though: As of writing, there are only 36,363 bundles left. Buy now, or live the rest of your life wistfully gazing out train windows and wondering about the indie bundle that got away.

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The Mass Effect universe is one filled with a balance of subtle nuance and epic grandeur. Over the past two games, the team at BioWare has crafted a universe filled with rich cultures and some fantastic storytelling to drive forward the narrative. Each of the various races presented in Mass Effect bring with them a rich backstory, and has their own role to play in the upcoming fight to save the galaxy from the mutual threat of the Reapers. Here are a few we think could be big players in race relations in Mass Effect 3. Bear in mind, this isn’t a complete rundown of all of the races and their role in the upcoming end to the trilogy, but simply a look at some of the big players in the fight to come.

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers!

You don’t have to play the game long to see that humans rest on the low end of the totem pole compared to other races in the game’s universe. Compared to the galaxy’s “older” aliens, humans are barbarians who somehow lucked into finding the Mass Relay. Through Shepard’s actions in the first two games, humanity has come a long way towards gaining the respect of the galactic community and the council. Shepard’s initial role as a Spectre in the first Mass Effect and Anderson’s brief role as a member of the Council (the first human to do so) have shown the strides that Shepard’s fights against Sovereign and the Collectors are earning humanity its rightful place in the galactic community. However, this could be compromised at the beginning of Mass Effect 3, as we find Shepard facing a court martial for the death of thousands of batarian citizens that occurred in Mass Effect 2′s Arrival DLC.

Coupled with the overall belief of Council that the Reaper threat ended with Sovereign, Shepard’s actions and his reasoning behind them will be a hot point in the game. Humanity will no doubt find itself center stage during Shepard’s trial, and much more could be at stake than the Commander’s freedom.

Human/batarian relations have been strained for as long as anyone can remember. Mass Effect 2′s Arrival DLC ends on a cliffhanger where Shepard made a very difficult choice that condemned many batarians to death. In turn, this prevented a greater assault from the Reapers that would’ve been even more catastrophic. We are left wondering Shepard’s ultimate fate; whether or not he will face charges for his actions and what the batarians have up their sleeves by way of revenge. One thing is clear, however; this will be a major plot point in Mass Effect 3.

The asari people are among the most influential in the galaxy, having been the first to develop space travel and find the mass relays created by the protheans, effectively paving the way for the interspecies community as we see it in the franchise. They are a powerful and influential voice on the Council and a well-established presence in the galaxy.

However, the biggest role they’d have to play in the upcoming fight against the Reapers comes by way of a familiar face to Shepard and the Normandy, Liara T’Soni. Liara’s recent appointment as the Shadow Broker gives her control over the entire criminal underworld. With her enormous influence and deep connections, she’ll be a powerful ally in and of herself against the Reapers.

Strong, stoic, and generally disagreeable, Shepard has found a powerful ally in the krogan race, and vice versa. Assuming either or both survived the events of the first and second games, Wrex and Grunt will appear in some capacity in Mass Effect 3. Wrex was last seen as an influential clan leader on Tuchanka, while Grunt was a member of Shepard’s Collector-fighting crew. As Wrex sees Shepard as a close friend of his people, there’s potential he could rally the entire krogan race to fight against the Reapers. Additionally, the controversial krogan genophage, a sterility infection developed by salarians to keep the entire krogan population in check, will be addressed once and for all. Undoubtedly, Shepard will play a large role in what happens with the genophage; will he be the savior of the krogan race, or doom it to extinction?

Enigmatic and nomadic, the quarian are a mystery to all but themselves. The inner workings of their culture are unknown, but there are a few details others know about them. They are known for their intense secrecy, technological proficiency, and for having infamously created the geth. This has caused many to be distrustful of quarians, who themselves feel a great amount of guilt for the destruction they’ve subsequently caused. However, our understanding of the geth changed drastically at the end of Mass Effect 2, so perhaps the quarian could see their own redemption in the upcoming final chapter.

After serving as a huge plot point in the first Mass Effect and being conspicuously absent from Mass Effect 2, the rachni should have a big role to play in Mass Effect 3. The series has always been about the choices you make and the ramifications that they would have down the line. As your choice to either destroy the rachni or allow them to live was an important part of developing Shepard in the original game, this decision can’t simply be dropped; there must be some fallout (or benefit) for Shepard’s choice.

While the robotic geth play a huge villainous role in the Mass Effect, they were painted in a more sympathetic light with the character Legion, who joined Shepard’s crew late in Mass Effect 2. Legion explained that the geth’s position in the war against the Reapers isn’t as cut and dry as it might have looked. The geth have been caught in a civil war all their own between the proper geth and “Heretics,” who have aligned themselves with the Reapers in their hostile conquest of the galaxy. As Legion has shown, the non-Heretic geth could prove to be an important ally to Shepard and the Normandy crew as the battle against the Reapers.

Steven Hopper is the Executive Editor for IGN’s Xbox channels. Check him out on MyIGN and Twitter.

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The used game business is a contentious issue. For companies like GameStop, sales of used games are big business, but those who actually develop games don’t see a dime when people purchase their titles secondhand. One developer recently vocalized his take on the used game market, and it paints a less than lovely image of the business.

Durall is far from pleased with the used game business.

In a recent entry on game developer blog AltDevBlog titled “I Feel Used,” Volition design director Jameson Durall lambasted the used game market and noted that change is needed or the industry will crumble.

“In the end, I fully believe that we have to do something about these issues or our industry is going to fall apart,” he said. “People often don’t understand the cost that goes into creating these huge experiences that we put on the shelves for only $60. They also don’t seem to realize how much they are hurting us when they buy a used game and how pirating a copy is just plain stealing.”

Durall, who is currently working on a secret project at Volition, laid out a plan for combating used game sales. He said supporting games with downloadable content will encourage users to hold on to their games longer. However, Durall warned that this tactic only will work if the DLC in question is “compelling and a good enough value” for consumers.

Durall also pledged his support to the online pass schemes being used by publishers like Electronic Arts, THQ, Sony, and others, whereby parts of a game are available only to those with a new copy of a game.

“Some consumers complain about this method because the precedent has always been that it’s included in the price and should come with it,” he said. “It did for the person who actually bought it first…so was saving that $5 at GameStop worth it for you?”

Looking ahead, Durall said he also embraced Sony’s plan to offer digital copies of PlayStation Vita titles–which cannot become used units–at a discounted rate. He said he expects gamers to be enticed to buy digital copies because of their lower price rate and this will in turn lead to fewer used copies in the wild.

Durall also talked about the rumor that the Next Xbox would prevent gamers from playing used titles. Durall said this kind of mechanism would be “a fantastic change for our business,” while admitting gamers would not be excited about it at first.

That said, Durall said he believes gamers will “grow to understand why and that it won’t kill him.”

As for how Microsoft might go about preventing gamers from playing used titles, Durall said the company already has a system in place. He suggests that Microsoft would need to only use a code to tie a copy of a title to an Xbox Live account and make the game playable only on that account.

Durall admits that a system like this would hurt the game rental business and that there are several “faults that would have to be ironed out,” but nevertheless, he contends that it is certainly possible.

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As far as shooting dudes goes, there’s nothing I saw in the
hour-and-a-half of Spec Ops: The Line shown at last week’s demo event
(on Xbox 360) that I haven’t seen a dozen times before. As a
third-person perspective modern military shooter, it’s definitely
competent, but not distinguished. You and two AI teammates barge into
cover-based firefight after cover-based firefight against waves of
soldiers using the usual array of weaponry, kicking down doors and
tossing grenades until the bad guys stop moving. What’s unusual and
remarkable about Spec Ops is that, during the lulls between gunplay, it
has the balls to depict war as nasty, bloody, and emotionally traumatic
business, rather than a consequence-free action adventure.

Dubai Debacle

After a prologue scene of shooting down helicopters from a machine gun
turret for no specified reason, the main character, Captain Martin
Walker, and his two squaddies arrive in the deserted middle-eastern
city of Dubai, which has been rendered uninhabitable by intense
sandstorms. Their mission: find John Connor Konrad, a heroic US Army
Colonel who’d gone missing along with his entire unit after refusing an
order to evacuate the city.

Chasing a distress signal from Konrad, the squad discovers a trail of
dead American soldiers, and it’s not long before there’s a run-in with
restless natives who appear to be working with a CIA operative and
against Konrad’s men. There’s a lot of confusion — is the CIA evil?
Who’s the bad guy?

In one kind of hilarious moment in the tutorial battle, Walker kicks
down a door and sends the insurgent behind it sprawling. The screen
flashes a prompt to push a button to execute him, and Walker snaps his
neck like a twig. He stands up, grimaces angstily, and says “I thought
we were supposed to be helping people.” Er… you
didn’t have to kill that guy just now. Just
sayin.’

But I digress. The battles are fought over a ton of different terrain,
from deserted streets full of abandoned cars and buildings to an
opulently decorated hotel to an underground mall-turned-bunker, and
briefly fighting in a fierce sandstorm where visibility is reduced to
nearly zero.

Nodding to the Apocalypse

Heads up: mild spoilers follow. It’s revealed that Konrad and his men
have gone rogue, Heart of Darkness-style, and Walker and his men start
working with the CIA operatives to bring him down, even though that
means reluctantly fighting American soldiers. The battles that ensue
are punctuated by some pretty gruesome stuff: Stepping over hundreds of
bodies rotting in the streets, swarming with flies.
Graphic torture and executions. Grisly depictions of massacred
civilians. Scenes of the horrific effects of white phosphorus-based weaponry,
which is effectively napalm 2.0. Walker and his men react in a very
human way, balking at doing what they have to do and eventually
starting to break under the pressure (though they’ll still fight as
effectively as ever when the bullets start flying).

White Hot

The final scene in the demo shows Walker’s team deciding (with no
player input) to use the enemy’s white phosphorus against them,
creating another stomach-turning scene of hellish chaos — only to
imply another major story twist that maybe Konrad’s men aren’t as evil
as we’ve been led to believe. With all its twists and turns, this will
certainly end up being a more interesting and reality-grounded tale
than the typical “Shoot everything that moves who cares why hey look
now I’m riding a snowmobile to outer space!” nonsense.

It’s a little surprising that there won’t be co-op available, given the
squad-based setup, though that decision does make sense considering how
story-driven Spec Ops is. But 2K confirms that there will be some sort
of competitive multiplayer mode. We can expect to hear more about that
before Spec Ops: The Line makes its debut later this year.

Spy Guy says: The decision
is obvious: always rescue the spy! We’re much more important than
boring, non-stealthy civilians. I’m not sure about a shooter that makes
me feel guilty about pulling the trigger — do you want your action
games to make you question your actions, or pat you on the back for
mowing down enemies on sight?

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