FABLE 3

PLATFORMS: PC AND X360

GENRE: ACTION RPG

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Intel Processor-Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6 GHz

AMD Processor- Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB

Radeon HD 3800 series

RAM-4GB, Hard Disks space-10GB,

Direct X- 9

Microsoft chose CES to unveil the PC edition of Fable III, the successful third entry in Lionhead's Xbox adventure trilogy. There were no specific announcements about Fable III for CES beyond having it in their booth. Microsoft just wanted to reveal the game and reassure PC gamers that Microsoft remains very active with Games for Windows.

Thought you can customize your controls to your liking, the default settings used today were workable. The potions and spells once attached to the Xbox controller's d-pad have been mapped to the first four function buttons. To select between the three available weapons to heroes -- melee, ranged, magic attack -- you scroll the mouse wheel. Whether or not you launch a light or heavy attack depends on which mouse button to press: left or right. I really enjoyed this simple system as it dovetailed nicely with the streamlined combat, which is something I rather liked about Fable III on the 360. 

 What did throw me off, though, was movement. The combination of the mouse for "looking" and traditional WASD just felt clunky. During the first battle in Bowerstone, one of the earlier pivotal moments in Fable III that launches the second act, staging off against the king's thugs was a tug-of-war. I had no problems launching area effect lightning magic and finishing off villains with a sword flourish, but aiming? Erg. However, you can always plug in an Xbox 360 controller to play Fable III on the PC.

 Fable III for the PC -- and the Xbox 360 -- will also hook up to the newly announced Fable III: Coin Golf, a Windows Mobile game (exclusive to Windows Mobile handsets). In the penny-pushing mobile game, gold earned is transferred to your hero's coffers. If you've played Fable III on the 360, you know how this could be a big help in the final act.

DJ HERO 2

PLATFORMS: PS3, X360 AND Wii.

GENRE: MUSIC

DJ Hero took music games back to their roots, eliminating all the world tours and story modes to focus on just the music, much like the original Guitar Hero. The sequel's single-player progression is called Empire Mode, which is supposed to follow your DJ from low-level spinner to international sensation. I never felt like I was furthering my career, though, or even that I had my own DJ. You pick from a few pre-determined characters at the beginning, and at times your DJ is replaced by pros like DeadMau5 and the RZA. It's fun working through Empire Mode's increasingly difficult tiers of songs and unlocking them for Quickplay, but anyone looking for a real career mode in DJ Hero will have to keep waiting. 

     New Freestyle sections of songs let you crossfade,  scratch, and trigger samples how you like. Crossfading is the best of the three, allowing you to isolate records A and B at will. But Freestyle scratching and trigger sampling comes with some lag that makes it difficult to perform in tempo. Plus, you can only produce the most rudimentary scratches, and the pre-recorded professional scratches in the game sound much better than anything you can pull off with the plastic controller. 

 Now, a vocalist can participate in the performance and be rated on his or her pitch and rhythm just like in Guitar Hero or Rock Band. However, because these are unique mixes with chopped-up and scratched lyrics, they're really hard to sing along with. Plus, your favorite song will be mixed with another track you may or may not know. Newcomers picking up the microphone to sing with DJ Hero 2 at a party will be very confused. 

 DJ Hero 2 doesn't mess anything up that made the first game great. I personally prefer the tracklist of the original DJ Hero, but it will come down to how much you like Top 40 radio hits from the likes of Lady Gaga and Pitbull. This is still the best soundtrack of any music game, though, and the mash-ups remain impressive as hell. There are great new additions like Battle Mode and Freestyle crossfading, but also a couple missteps like vocals and Freestyle scratching. If you liked DJ Hero, I'm confident you'll like the sequel and I recommend it to anyone even casually interested in DJ or dance culture.

DANCE CENTRAL

PLATFORMS: XBOX 360 KINECT ONLY

GENRE: MUSIC

It takes a special kind of bravery to get up in front of a group of friends and dance around like a crazy person. In Dance Central, the first Kinect-friendly party game from the talented folks at Harmonix, players will need a fair helping of that bravery. This is the first "real" dance gamethat demands actual full-body dancing from the player (and not just the fancy footwork required in the DDR franchise). This means you need a gung-ho attitude to play, but it also means that you have one fantastic party game for people that love to dance. Although Dance Central isn't a perfect experience, the good times that come with it are well worth the investment. 

Dance Central uses the Kinect technology to read the player's body as he or she follows a series of on-screen prompts that depict a dance routine. These "flash cards" each represent one move, and that move can range from a simple shuffle step to an advanced series of upper body motions. There are more than 30 songs in the game (ranging from new hits like "Evacuate the Dance Floor" by Cascada to classics like "Jungle Boogie" by Kool and the Gang) and each track has three different difficulties to play on, which must be unlocked in order.

     

   There are a few helpful modes in Dance Central for new dancers (those that lack "the funk"). Break It Down is the only way to learn some of these routines, as it cycles through each move one at a time and gives players the option to slow down the move until the player is comfortable with the steps. This mode is complemented by a helpful announcer that actually shouts out the dance queues during the move, like "right, step, back, step" in time with the beat. 

   Overall, Dance Central is lots of fun, especially with a big group of people that are willing to get a little goofy and give it their all. It's also a fantastic workout if you put effort into your moves, but the experience is far from perfect. Menu navigation, which is handled by waving your hands, takes some getting used to, and I noticed that there were some technical bugs with the lip-synching of the on-screen characters.

FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS

PLATFORMS: PS3, PC AND XBOX360

GENRE: RPG

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Steamworks digital platform (Games for Windows is the certification)

Operating System: XP, Vista, Windows 7

Processor: Dual Core 2Ghz (enhanced for multi-core)

Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 6 Series or similar (ATI 1300 minimum)

Memory: 2GB

Hard Disc Space: 10GB

When Bethesda released Fallout 3 in the fall of 2008, it was lauded as one of the greatest open-world role-playing games of the time. Now, two years later the juggernaut of a franchise has another addition to its repertoire with Fallout: New Vegas. It appears that Obsidian didn't feel the need to change much about the successful formula, as the similarities to its predecessor are so significant I often want to call it Fallout 3: New Vegas. Since the first game was so widely loved, that's certainly not a bad thing, but New Vegas does feel like a giant, awesome expansion. 

You're a courier in these troubled times with no defined background. Just a seemingly regular guy or gal, you're tasked with delivering a package to the New Vegas strip, but let's just say complications arise. Though the story provides pops of color and a few necessary minor twists to keep things interesting, it's predictable just the same. There are three possible endings to the main quest, and similar to Fallout 3 at launch, once you complete it you won't be able to continue your journey through the wastelands unless you re-load an old save. This is a bummer, especially since that was a major complaint with Fallout 3 and Bethesda later fixed it with downloadable content. 

If you've played Fallout 3, you won't miss a step when transitioning over to New Vegas since it's largely the same in terms of gameplay. Wandering the desert, you'll meet friendly people and kill aggressive monsters and thugs. Or maybe you'll kill friendly people and become friends with the thugs, though you should still kill the monsters. New animal foes are present in the West, including but not limited to pesky Cazadores (giant flying insects that will poison you), Giant Praying Mantises (er, they are what they sound like) and Nightstalkers (a scary crossbreed of rattlesnake and coyote). All these creatures sport colorful designs, making them pretty to look at while you shoot them. There's something intensely satisfying about lighting an enemy on fire with a flamethrower, then capping them in the head with a .357 Magnum and finishing them off with a Plasma Rifle. Killing is never a chore, and always an adventure. 

In New Vegas, the fun Fallout 3 formula is intact, with more polished combat, high-quality side missions, and the exciting setting of the Vegas strip. Unfortunately, the bugs also tagged along for the ride. If Obsidian and Bethesda had polished up the game by fixing the AI, improving the animations or even gotten it to run smoothly, perhaps it would feel less like a giant expansion of Fallout 3 and more like its own game. Be that as it may, Fallout 3 was a great game, so as similar as it is, Fallout: New Vegas is still a fun ride that offers more for fans of the series to enjoy. If you can look past its shortcomings, this is definitely a wasteland worth exploring.

NEED FOR SPEED : HOT PURSUIT (2010)

PLATFORMS: PS3, XBOX360, PC, Wii, iPHONE, AND iPAD

GENRE: RACING

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Operating system: Windows XP (SP3) / Windows Vista / Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 ® 2.6 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 + or better
Memory: 1.5 GB Windows ® XP / 2 GB Windows Vista ® - Windows ® 7
Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 GT or ATI Radeon HD 4700 (or better)
Hard Disk: 8.0 GB

Like all the best video game locations, Seacrest County is a completely ridiculous place. The roads are universally pristine and peppered with awesome shortcuts. The national parks are gloriously free of gigantic RVs. And when people decide to break traffic laws, they do it at 200mph in exotic supercars. If that sounds like a slice of heaven pie to you, then you're going to want to check out Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, a reboot of Electronic Arts' cops-and-speeders driving series from veteran developer Criterion Games. 

 The concept of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit could have been dreamed up at a middle-school boy's sleepover party. What if there was a place where both cops and the illegal street racers drove Lamborghinis, Mercedes, Bentleys, Porches and other drool-worthy marques around a gigantic network of roads at supremely high rates of speed? Oh, and wouldn't it be sweet if they could crash into each other and drop spike strips and call in helicopters and run each other off the road? And when you crash into someone, it should drop into ultra-slow motion and give you a ton of points! 

You can play as a cop or a racer, and you increase your rank or wanted level as you run people off the road, drift around corners, drive into oncoming traffic (as a racer), and generally behave like a motoring maniac. Along the way, you'll earn Bounty to unlock new cars, expand your arsenal of weapons/gadgets and open new sections of the Seacrest County map. The more you drive, crash, smash and win, the more cool stuff you get. It's simple, and it works. 

    Criterion has created a racing landscape that feels alive. Traffic (all licensed vehicles) comes and goes, aircraft fly by as you're driving, weather effects are realistic and dramatic, and the buildings along the roads just seem, well, real. Hop into Freedrive mode, and you can hop into any car you've unlocked and just tool around the entirety of Seacrest County. As you motor along, weather will come and go, the sun will rise and set, and the world will just sort of roll along. 

     Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is pure over-the-top driving entertainment. The cars and environments are gorgeous, the crashes are spectacular, and the new Autolog feature breathes new life into the time-honored tradition of video game competition among friends. The single-player races can become somewhat repetitive and there are some presentation issues, but overall, Hot Pursuit is a blast. If you’re looking for a high-octane racer that grabs on tight but doesn’t take itself too seriously, give this one a shot.

BATTLEFIELD : BAD COMPANY 2 - VIETNAM

PLATFORMS: PS3, XBOX 360 AND PC

GENRE: FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Processor: Quadcore
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260
Graphics memory: 512MB
OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
Free HDD space: 15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2)

DICE released what I consider the best multiplayer shooter of 2010 with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Somehow, while pumping out a steady stream of free content updates to Bad Company 2 proper, developing a co-operative add-on for the game, and creating the multiplayer component for Medal of Honor from scratch for EA studio mates Danger Close, DICE has found the time to deliver Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Vietnam, and with it, what might be their best multiplayer experience for the year 2010.

    Rather than adding a few new maps and shoving it out the door, DICE has created a complementary but separate experience to Bad Company 2. Bad Company 2 - Vietnam is set apart from Bad Company 2's original multiplayer mode in the menu - it even has its own separate title screen. The expansion winds back the clock and places players in the midst of the Vietnam conflict amidst recognizable battles and period specific music. Black Ops this isn't; Bad Company 2 - Vietnam feels like it takes place more than 40 years before the main game, and there aren't any weird anachronistic pieces of future tech around to break the illusion. 

   The underlying mechanics are the same as Bad Company 2 - the squad based dynamics, the vehicles - but some seemingly minor changes result in an experience that feels distinctive. DICE has taken thematic elements of the Vietnam War in popular fiction - trenches, tunnels, bush hiding spots, rice paddies, and the like - and used them to make Bad Company 2 feel and play differently. 

Anyone who played much Bad Company 2 was likely made quite familiar with the sniper-like accuracy of medics with long-range scopes attached to their machine guns, and I'll admit to being aggressive from across the map as an engineer with the aid of a red dot sight. In the absence of these weapon tweaks, the combat dynamic has changed considerably from Bad Company 2. Fights are closer and more vicious more often, which is assisted by environments and level design that break up most long lines of sight and which provide a ton of hiding places. 

   Whether you're new to Bad Company 2 or have been repairing, healing, and blowing up other players since March of this year, Bad Company 2 -Vietnam is among the best multiplayer experiences this year. The ability to contribute and succeed and unlock additional levels in ways that don't have to include shooting other players and the reliance on strategy over twitch gameplay clicks just as well in Bad Company 2 - Vietnam. Meanwhile, the re-balancing of character classes and level variety might actually trump Bad Company 2 proper. Battlefield fans will probably argue over whether to play Bad Company 2 or its expansion in the months to come. But when it comes to choosing between arguably the best multiplayer game of the year and its excellent expansion, that seems like a good problem to have.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT : CATACLYSM

PLATFORMS: PC AND MAC

GENRE: PERSISTENT ONLINE RPG.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Windows XP 32bit (SP3), Windows XP 64bit (SP2), Windows Vista 32bit (SP1), Windows Vista 64bit (SP1) Windows 7:
Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
2 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)
3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 256 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 or ATI Radeon 2600 or better
DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability
Broadband Internet connection
Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended

A couple months ago some weird stuff started happening in Azeroth. Sinister characters began to infiltrate the main cities, and as time progressed, giant, angry elementals began to wage war on the forces of the Horde and the Alliance. This was all the lead up to the release of the third expansion for Blizzard Entertainment's massively successful MMO: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Blizzard uses this opportunity to take a broader look at their six year old game and figure out what needed to be updated to keep World of Warcraft relevant. They used the emergence of a main lore character, the massive evil dragon Deathwing, from his place of slumber to terrorize the mortals as the catalyst for the changes. Apparently, Blizzard figured a lot needed updating, because almost all of the old game has been completely redone. 

From the very start, the experience for players who pick up World of Warcraft now will be vastly different from the experience players had when the game launched in 2004. Quests, once splintered and sending players aimlessly across the map, are focused and quick to complete. Tales of having to kill fifty boars for three boar hides are done away with, and storylines -- actual storylines! -- populate the game world. It's a newer, friendlier Azeroth, and these changes span the entire original game.
Buying Cataclysm also unlocks the Worgen race for the Alliance and Goblins for the Horde. The Goblins begin on the technocratic isle of Kezan, led by the seemingly malevolent Trade Prince.The Goblin race showcases World of Warcraft's more lighthearted side. The opening quests are all centered around greed and mafia-style beatings, all done very tongue-in-cheek.The Worgen seem frankly a little less powerful. They've got an increased critical chance and a sprint ability on a cooldown, as well as nature and shadow resistances.

Finally there's Archaeology, the new secondary profession. It's really just an extra thing to do to kill time and won't really give you any real benefits. It does a good job of sending you to parts of the world you may not have ordinarily visited, and as you complete ancient relics (which you do by collecting relic shards scattered across the map), you get neat little insights into Azeroth's history.

 If you include the vast changes to the core game, Cataclysm is far and away the most impressive expansion to an MMO ever made, but if you just isolate what Cataclysm itself gets you, it's ultimately less content than Wrath of the Lich King. It's also better content than Wrath, with engaging storylines, inventive quests, and some very striking visuals. Even without the core Azeroth changes, Cataclysm is an excellent expansion in its own right, and worthy of your attention whether you're a veteran of Northrend or a grunt just getting your toes wet for the first time.