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I was in a curious quandary when I found this game at the Square Enix booth. I quickly surmised that Dead Island was not developed by Square Enix which makes Square Enix the publisher for this game. Techland is the company that is developing this wonky multiplayer zombie game.

So the idea behind this game is the stark contrast between hell and heaven. The setting of Dead Island takes place at a luxurious resort. All is fine and well, until a zombie infestation breaks out. Yeah, don’t you just hate it when you’re trying to enjoy yourself and suddenly zombies come from nowhere? Yeah, it’s pretty inconvenient.

Since sex sells, you get all these lurid images of zombies in bikini’s, thus creating a new sort of perverted necrophilia. The idea of a zombie breakout occurring in and island resort is a very interesting one. It’s too bad I can’t say the same thing of the gameplay.

My expectations consisted of fighting through hordes of zombies in glorious, over-the-top fashion. What I got quickly stymied my alacrity. The game plays like an MMO… Which is very, very lame. Supposedly, this game has an actual story but the narrative suffers an ignominious beat down with quests such as “Kill these many zombies” and “Go to this point and find this NPC.” Sure, you get to pick up various weapons and chuck them at zombies, but at its core, it’s an action MMO that features zombies.

There are different characters to choose from (you only get one character in the demo) which represents a class. Some characters are good at throwing weapons, some are good at tanking damage, etc… Each character has a talent tree in which you can learn/upgrade abilities.

Instead of a frenetic fracas of zombies, this game will offer you agonizing grinding that you would do in any MMO. Each zombie you fight has a level so think of it sort of like Borderlands; you obviously will get owned if you fight mobs much higher level than you.

Another odd aspect of the demo is that it stops abruptly after five minutes have elapsed. This is one of those games where I have this sort of reaction: If I wanted to play an MMO, I would buy and play an MMO. If you want to play a true multiplayer zombie game, you’re better off trying out Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. There are different classes in Operation Raccoon City, but there’s no insipid grinding and fetch quests involved.

But if zombie games with MMO elements are your sort of thing, then you can begin your long grind sometime in 2011. Dead Island will be available for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

Here’s yet another game on the Square Enix floor; but it’s being developed by Eidos. Deus Ex: Human Revolution focuses on the morality of artificial augmentation and its tactical gameplay. Let me say, this game is very tactical. Just because you’re Adam Jensen and have the option to augment your body so that you can do all these amazing things doesn’t mean that the game is easy. If you think you can go in and run ‘n gun like you do in most shooters, you will die a horrible, horrible death.

So the name of the game is player choice. Right at the beginning of the demo, you can decide if you want to go into the mission with a preference of lethal/non-lethal and close range/long range. Depending on your choice, you’ll get a specific weapon. I went with long range and non lethal, so I started off with a tranquilizer rifle. When you talk to NPC’s, you get a wide array of conversation choices.

Human Revolution possesses a high learning curve. These controls prove surly to the non-FPS fan. Even on normal, this game is difficult. I mistakenly thought it’d be as hard as Metal Gear Solid, but the game is hard as those old Syphon Filter games.

From the get-go, you can choose to upgrade some of your augmentations. The list of augments you can upgrade is inundating. You can spend an inordinate time just going through the options.

The melee take downs are short cinematics that dispatch an enemy instantly if you manage to sneak behind them. You have these battery bars which is like the “mana” of this game for your abilities. Doing a takedown takes one battery bars; you have two in the demo. The battery bar slowly refills if you do nothing. If you have a veritable amount of patience, you can take down all enemies just through this method.

Human Revolution awards exploration. You can take out all the enemies right in front of you and enter into the facility or you can take the more surreptitious route and sneak into the facility via vents. It would behoove to be aware of your surroundings while playing. Just by looking around, you can view possible crates or boxes you can jump on which may then lead to other areas.

If you do get caught by enemies, you can run away and hide. If you stay hidden long enough, the enemies will eventually stop chasing you. Although Human Revolution is in 1st person, you enter into 3rd person mode when you take cover. This gives you the advantage of seeing enemies behind your cover, but it also is a bit disorienting. It makes me wish that the entire game was in 3rd person.

Overall, the truculent learning curve will force a veritable plethora of players to get acclimated to its control. Human Revolution truly shines in terms of player choice. You can defeat the demo without killing a single person. I surmise that all the missions in this game can be completed in many different ways.

Deus Ex Human Revolution tests your morality on August 23, 2011, for PS3, 360, and PC.

I must admit… I have not played any of the Dungeon Siege games. I was told that you need not play the previous Dungeon Siege games in order to understand the story of Dungeon Siege III.

Here’s a little background on the story: Dungeon Siege III takes place 150 years after the second game. The Kingdom of Ehb is where all the action will take place. It has been protected by the 10th Legion for many years now. Thirty years before the game begins, Ehb’s king was murdered and the Legion became the scapegoat of blame for this incident. Jeyne Kassynder rose to power, gathered an army, and nearly annihilated the 10th Legion. Odo is one of the remaining few of the 10th Legion. He decided to gather all the descendants of the Legion in an attempt to rebuild the Legion.

The demo starts out with Odo’s secret mansion being attacked by egregious mercenaries. I decided to play as Lucas who is a direct descendant of the 10th Legion and is the game’s melee character. There will be a total of four characters to choose from in the actual game.

My very first reaction of this game is that the voice acting is really good. During conversations, you have the option of selecting several replies that will give you more details about an event, character, or setting. So in a sense, it’s sort of like Mass Effect/Dragon Age in terms of details; you can learn as much or as little as you want before continuing your quest.

The game is pretty much a hack and slash sort of game. Special abilities are assigned to the X, Y, and B buttons. Holding LT and pressing X will activate your defensive ability; which is regen for this demo. You can also dodge roll with LT which comes very handy because you’re invincible for the duration of the roll… Because that’s how dungeon siegers roll, dawg.

In any case, most of the descendants of the 10th Legion have been killed. And you’ll have to make your way out of the mansion and try and locate Odo. As you progress through the demo, you learn a new stance which is the two handed style. Thus, Lucas can switch between sword & shield and two handed style. The former style is better at fighting enemies one on one while the two handed style is more suited to fighting groups of enemies.

After much hacking and slashing, I gained a level. Through the level-up screen, you can choose how to increase your abilities. If you’ve ever played an MMO with a talent tree, you should have an idea of how leveling works in Dungeon Siege III. You assign points to learn and improve skills from specific weapon styles.

As interesting as this game is, I feel like it’d be much more enjoyable when played with other people. Thus, it’s a good thing that this game supports local two player co-op and four player online co-op.

You can begin sieging dungeons this June 21, 2011 for 360, PS3, or PC.

Heroes of Ruin is an action RPG developed by Square Enix for the Nintendo 3DS. The demo featured a melee character and a gunner class. I decided to use the melee character. The final game will have four classes with male and female options.

First off, the 3D effect disoriented me and I’m starting to wonder if any 3DS game will have the awesome popping-out effect that I was so fond of as a child.

In any case, the game plays like Diablo, a crappier version of it. I picked up some quests and I spent the next few minutes killing spiders and then dying and then respawning and then killing spiders again. I feel like this game would not be fun unless you played with other people.

Some neat features of this game is being able to use the StreetPass function to trade items and weapons. You can use the microphone to talk team members. Other than that, the game is pretty lame if you play it by yourself.

Heroes of Ruin will be ruining your vision sometime in 2012.

Here’s the official Final Fantasy XIII-2 E3 2011 Trailer

So here’s a little background on the story: Set a few years after Lightning and the others saved Cocoon, some survivors have decided to start over by rebuilding on Gran Pulse. Lightning, however, is nowhere to be found and thought dead by many, but Serah believes otherwise. When her town is suddenly overrun by monsters, a mysterious man named Noel appears to save her. Together, the two set off to find Lightning…