Xbox 360

Frodo, meet Commander Shepard

HIGH Superb characterizations, story, and role-playing.

LOW The combat system is a mess.

WTF Screwing up a quest by missing one line of dialogue 20 hours beforehand.

As first-person shooter campaigns go, it's definitely in the 95th percentile of enjoyable shooting galleries. But it's also a campaign that worries me. While playing through the brief solo mode (roughly five hours), I couldn't help but be reminded of the stereotypical Bay film: Things blow up, uber-macho soldiers shout, the player performs wild stunts (like jumping into a helicopter for the umpteenth time), and loud orchestral music plays. It doesn't seem to matter that the plot is poorly paced, makes very little sense, and no characters are developed. If I'm a typical M-rated gamer, all I'm supposed to care about is that I shot people and stuff blew up real purty.

Always one to support smaller development houses and those exploring the downloadable space, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to have a brief exchange with Max Wagner, one of the co-founders of brand-spanking (sort-of) new Signal Studios. The studio's first game, Toy Soldiers, was just revealed at the most recent Tokyo Game Show and will be leading the assault on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service in the very near future.

Super Heroes? More Like Pretty-okay Heroes...

HIGH Going multi with Luke Cage and Iron Fist, together again.

LOW Generally poor selection of heroes from Marvel's vast universe.

WTF What happened to the QA process?

In my review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, I disagree with my peers that the game is not a compelling example for games as art, rather it's perfect for a sports argument. Take 36-year-old David Dague of Chicago. When interviewed by The Associated Press, he said the game's launch is like the start of football season for a sports fan, and the comparison couldn't be more fitting. But there's another, more obvious landmark the game reaches in the form of its controversial level, "No Russian."

First up, news from Electronic Arts (courtesy of Kotaku) concerning the release date for the game's official demo. PS3 and XBox 360 owners will be able to try out the first level of the title sometime next month. EA hasn't been more specific than that but you can at least sleep easy tonight knowing that you'll be guiding Dante through Hades sooner rather than later.

If that wasn't enough to satiate your need for all things Inferno, here's another developer diary on the game. This newest segment covers level six, better known as "Heresy". This new level finds Dante going deeper into Hell–and it's the first area in the game that really portrays a fire-and-brimstone Hell that many of us recognize from the Bible. One of the producers mentions that by this stage, we're "in Satan's backyard".

Dante's Inferno continues to impress me with each new diary they reveal (which means EA's marketing plan is working). We'll all get a chance to experience the finished product when it hits retailers everywhere on February 9th of next year.