NHL 2K8, 2K Sports’ newest hockey game, is coming out in two weeks and we were lucky enough to talk to some of the people involved with the develoment of the game about some of the sweeping changes headed for the NHL 2K series.

The problem that plagues many current sports game is that many of them update nothing but rosters while the gameplay is rehashed. Our time with 2K revealed huge changes in 2K8 that will push the limits of future hockey games.

New features that will be debuted in 2K8 include the ProStick, brand new SuperStar moves, and a totally redesigned Face Off system. The ProStick is a new way to control your player’s stick on offense and defense and promises to deliver an amazingly real hockey experience. The 12 SuperStar moves are unique moves that can only be used if your player meets certain requirements. Two of them are Forsberg’s one-handed reach and Nolan’s shot call from the NHL All-Star Game.

When 2K Sports set out to revamp the face-off, they brought in professional hockey player Joe Thornton, a 6’4A

There’s something to be said for sticking with tradition. For all the talk of innovation in video games, sometimes it’s the tried and true formulas that have been around for ages that offer the most entertaining experiences. At least that is what Game Republic (Genji series) and Sony Computer Entertainment Studios Japan hope you’ll feel with their latest title, a decidedly old school RPG called Brave Story: New Traveller for the PSP.

While the DS is certainly not lacking for immersive gaming experiences, pickings have always been somewhat more scarce for the PSP. It for this reason that most times when I prepare for a trip, it is Nintendo’s touchable handheld that finds its place among my belongings rather than Sony’s sleek portable.

That said, after spending several hours with the English localized version of Brave Story over the last few days, the PSP has earned a place in my jacket pocket as I prepare to make the trek to Santa Monica next week for E3. In fact, this is the first PSP game in ages that I recall emptying my battery multiple times in succession. Attention span is not something I’m generally known for, but Brave Story, an adaptation of the recently released anime film, has me hooked.

Unfamiliar with the anime source material? Not a problem, as Brave Story: New Traveller stands on its own as an impressive technical achievement of the PSP, offering whimsical dialogue and charm partnered with one of the most immersive battle systems yet seen for the handheld.

Essentially a PS2 quality turn-based RPG, similar to what you might expect from the Suikoden or Wild ARMs franchises, Brave Story puts you in the adventuring boots of a young boy in our world, who through a series of events finds himself in another, questing for mysterious gems that will somehow help awaken his friend in the real world, who has succumbed to a mysterious illness.

And while collecting gems serves as the boy’s primary driver, he also can take time out to collect some of the local birds, which are used in the world’s popular cock-fighting sport. A boy certainly needs his hobbies.

While much of the dungeon and overworld adventuring has thus far been rather nondescript during my time with the game, with bland textures and colors doing little to make one area stand out from the next, it is Brave Story‘s combat system that really sells the title. With an impressive assortment of combination attacks and special maneuvers, as well as the tendency for characters to punctuate their attacks with another follow up strike, combat is seldom if ever dull.

Fights are also generally fast paced, and even the more taxing boss fights I’ve encountered so far have been challenging without being arduous. Also interesting is that characters will many times level up mid-fight, giving them a much needed boost to their stats just in time to deliver the killing blow. Piss off an opponent, however, and you could be in for a rude awakening, as enemies can go into ‘crazed’ mode, essentially making them bigger and hit harder… not always a bad thing since some monsters only drop certain items when crazed.

And while combat is played out as expected through random encounters, these battles seem to crop up at an acceptable interval, keeping frustration at a minimum. There’s nothing worse in a RPG than feeling like you are having to cut a path through monster ever few steps, and so far Brave Story has not invoked that annoyance yet.

Currently scheduled to ship at the end of July in North America, Brave Story: New Traveller should be one that all RPG fans who own a PSP should keep on their map. It far outshines the game’s import PS2 equivalent, Brave Story: Wataru no Bouken. Look for our review when we get back from E3.

With THQ’s long delayed survival horror FPS hybrid S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl finally shipped to retail, it seemed prudent to offer some impressions on the game given that we’ve been passing the game around Snackbar for the last few weeks. We’ll also have an interview with GSC Game World on the game this week as well, just in case you cannot get enough of radioactivity in your gaming diet.

Truth be told, the good people at THQ had me going for several months with the constant stream of impressive screenshots taken from the game, though some unfortunate setbacks with developer GSC Game World (Cossacks franchise) and a technology leak in 2006 left many wondering if the game would be resigned to linger in ‘development hell’ forever. Thankfully that has proven to not be the case, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl has risen to become on of this year’s most hotly anticipated new releases for the PC.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s story revolves around the tragic real life disaster that occurred in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, during which a massive explosion at the facility led to radioactive fallout and the contamination of the surrounding area. Some years later in 2012, several unexplained explosions have incited the military to setup an exclusion zone is set up preventing access to the area. Following this, stories of huge anomalous energy disturbances and sightings of strange creatures within the zone are widespread, and here players step into the role of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a mercenary paid by scientists and other undisclosed groups to extract valued artifacts and find hidden secrets within Chernobyl.

Both GSC and THQ have made it clear from the onset that S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s focus is on the single player experience, and while that seems to certainly be the case, we opted to focus on the game’s latest multiplayer build for this preview, if for no other reason than immerse ourselves in the fun of hunting down friends and family in vast radioactive wastes. Here players choose between playing as a mercenary or a S.T.A.L.K.E.R, with each offering an unique skin and an assortment of armor, weapons, ammo, and supplies.

The build we had on hand afforded us to try out two different types of gameplay, artifact hunt and plain and simple deathmatch. The former of course consisted of finding a special artifact that is placed in random areas on the map as two teams go head to head to capture the most artifacts before the round ends. This particular mode fits well for people who have a preference for teamwork, with an arsenal that is dependent on the amount of money earned throughout each round of play.

Now this is the part where I have most of my beef with the game. Much like, if not exactly like, Counter-Strike, S.T.A.L.K.E.R operates with the purchase system. With each spawn in the purchase area, you assemble your arsenal of equipment by choosing from handguns, automatic weapons, sniper rifles, armor, ammo, and supplies such as medical kits and flashlights. This slows down the game significantly. I give the makers the benefit of the doubt for creating this option in artifact hunt, but it takes more from the experience than it gives back.

Geared towards teamwork, it’s a good option to outfit a section of your team with certain weapons instead of others, and the option definitely encourages you to go out and find the artifact or get some kills in order to earn the necessary money to purchase needed items.

Some other aspects of the purchase system include an emphasis on ranking. Surviving for longer periods of time in the battlefield and amassing greater numbers of kills increases your ranking, which in turn translates into the availability of better weapons, goodies, and upgrades. How you manage your supplies is evocative of a traditional RPG management system. Drag and drop, plain and simple. However this again slows down some of the gameplay, especially if you’re taken out within seconds of your deployment.

Besides this mode, the deathmatch arena is of course your basic all out kill fest. Go out and make the other team pay. Enough said.

Both modes offer maps that are spacious and provide several hidden areas perfect for ambushes and sniping. Within the maps also lie some anomalies that can harm you and cause a bit of a nuance. An impressive feature is the evolving environments within the map from day to night and from showers to partly cloudy. In fact, the whole game features an unique weather system that has been highly touted by the developers and comes across as impressive.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s soundscape is equally impressive, with immersive sounds that can be heard as you round each corner, and eerie effects that linger within the anomalies. Unfortunately the environments are not destructive, which really disappoints considering the amount of time spent making the game.

However, it needs to be said that the FPS style game play in S.T.A.L.K.E.R does not lend itself well to the prey and spray method. Take aim and use your iron sights or your scope and take out the enemy. Unloading a round might work at point blank from time to time, but it surely won’t help move you up in rank. In addition, I really enjoyed being able to strafe and aim as well as peek around corners during tense moments.

Overall, the multiplayer aspects of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl failed to impress me as much as I might have liked. A game like this is made and to live or die by its single player offering. It remains to be seen, however, if there is simply enough here to let this long delayed game stand out on retail shelves from the crowd.