There are many more Stealth Kill options this time around in Tenchu Z, which really helps to make the user feel more like a silent assassin with a slick repertoire of smooth skills. For instance there are times when bloodshed is actually detrimental to advancing in Tenchu Z, thus non-lethal combat is stressed. A noisy innocent bystander can still ruin the parade, so they can be silenced with a non-lethal choke hold. Of course those that want blood can draw it in many new ways with the revamped Stealth Kill system, including fancy unsheathed sword take-downs and flamboyant yet graceful slashes that off enemies with cinematic flair. Combo Stealth Kills are now possible if the conditions are right, and it’s even possible to maim through rice paper, from around a corner, or directly off of the ceiling of a room. Sweet.

Tenchu Z is primarily a one player mission-style game. It’s quasi-progressive, but the weak story elements and editing make it feel more like a Dynasty Warriors style affair of unrelated tasks. The ability to change the PC’s appearance in a create-a-ninja area is a nice touch, but the options are somewhat weak and the graphics fail to help it seem cooler to customize than it really is. It’s also possible to choose a partner-in-crime (male or female), but this again is hampered by too basic of a system of modification being employed. Sure, things get better as gold is acquired and new customization options become available, but we could have easily done without this feature and still enjoyed the core Tenchu Z gameplay. We do, however, dig the four player co-op System Link and Xbox Live action, as they help to Tenchu Z feel less like its predecessors’ standard, loner-style romps on the rooftops.

The gameplay of Tenchu Z is enjoyable for those that love the pace of a stealth game, but odds are you’ll have to work to look past some things in order to thoroughly enjoy the entire experience. One of these hurdles happens to be the graphics. Although there are a few decent instances of texturing and general artistry, Tenchu Z is not up to the normal Xbox 360 graphical standard. Clipping is a common occurrence, character animations are entirely too stiff (and still no sign of the circular body rotation leaving us) and background modeling far too basic. Even cut-scene visuals do little to make one of the most interesting periods in history seem enthralling.

When not fighting the graphics, you’ll be battling a chunky control scheme that won’t make many gamers feel swift or deadly. The aiming system for weapons is still hard to use and sword fights usually turn into games of trying to trick the A.I. into a loop rather than games of blade skill. You’ll also find this A.I. is easy to trick, and normally isn’t as reactive to Ki meter warnings as the H.U.D. suggests.

Surprisingly, Tenchu Z comes off “chunky” in general; the antithesis of what a ninja game should feel like- sleek and efficient. The concept is still golden, but the actual gameplay mechanics haven’t changed enough to really take advantage of such great material. There’s still a fair amount of entertainment value here, however, but be prepared to sift through some previous-gen-feeling moments to find those nuggets o’ ninja gold.

Not exactly video games but it was interesting to show as it’s a Badtz Arcade like game machine, some technology implemented there.

This was taken from an article I saw at Gamesindustry for everyones domestic benefit…Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot discusses new markets, price cuts and why size doesn’t matter.

GamesIndustry.biz: In your speech

opening Ubidays last night, you said that this is Ubisoft’s E3 - that E3 is really for the US now…

Yves Guillemot: Yes, E3 has changed into a different show. It’s a totally different approach, moving from mid-May to July to present the games to the retailers and press.

E3 is not very much for Europeans any more, so we thought it would be better to create something that’s at the same time as E3 [was], for everybody.

What about other events like Leipzig, for example - will you be present there?

We will also be presenting at Leipzig. What we know is we have to have enough space to present the games, and Ubidays is good for that. So we’re going to have our event, and we’re also go to places where not everybody is going, but we can again see people that didn’t come here or want to know more about our products.

Ubisoft is making a big move into casual gaming at the moment. Is that because of the success of your strategy for the Wii? You offered seven titles for launch day, more than any other third-party publisher. Did that strategy pay off?

Yes, it paid off very well. We had 29 per cent market share in Europe on the Wii for the first four months after the machine launched, so it worked well. We realised there are lots of new customers very interested in completely different games.

We are fulfilling that demand. We have customers that want different games, and within the company lots of creators who have been asking us to do different games.

Isn’t there a danger that as more companies like Ubisoft move into casual gaming, the market will become more crowded? How will you compete?

I think as with all markets, what’s important is to have many creative people taking care of it, and working to produce innovative, quality products. You can never have too many high quality games.

The more we grow, the better the quality of these games will be, and we’ll respond to the demand from consumers.

Do you think some other publishers are trying to catch up with Ubisoft now? For example, some critics have said that Electronic Arts didn’t have enough faith in the Wii and should have committed more to it at the beginning. Do you think that’s damaged them?

No. When we saw the Wii and spoke with our teams about it, the reaction was very strong because most of our creators have been Nintendo fans since they were very young. When they saw the Wii, they saw they could create something different.

Now the machine is successful, so all the publishers are going to create for it. I don’t think being late is a problem - what’s important is to produce the best games for the machine.

Seeing as the Wii has performed so well, as has the DS, are you going to focus on those two platforms?

No. We will continue to focus a lot also on the other machines, but we now consider PS3, 360 and PC as one kind of machine, Wii as another one, and DS and PSP also as another one.

We differentiate the machines because we know the consumers are a little bit different. We can come with different brands and different experiences.

PlayStation 3 seems to be lagging behind in terms of sales figures - how concerned are you about that?

I think you’d have to ask them what is their plan for this year. I think they had a great launch, and we all know that after the launch it’s always slower because all the people that love the machine came and bought it on day one. Now it’s really Christmas that will tell us what the machine will do.

You hit the headlines recently for calling on Sony to cut the price of PS3…

I was just saying that in the last generation, we had machines that were at a lower price and they were selling more. It’s just something to consider for all the manufacturers, that the price of the machine has a huge impact on the number of machines sold.

Everybody has to remember that volumes are very dependent on price. I know the platform holders all know that, so now we have to wait for them to see when they want to achieve those numbers.

Do you think cutting the price before Christmas would be a good idea?

It depends on the volumes they want to achieve this year, on their policy. For publishers, we want as many machines sold as possible, so for us the lower the price the better.

[Sony has] sold a machine that is actually expensive to build at the right price for consumers. It’s just that if we want more consumers, we’ll have to have a price that will make more people come in.

How would you describe Ubisoft’s standing amongst third-party publishers now?

I would say publishers are really dependent on the quality of the games they launch. I’m looking at the industry in terms of segments of the market, and how publishers are performing in those segments. We are all more dependent on the quality of the games we do than the size of the company.

If you are strong segment more than another… If gamers like first-person shooter games, they buy the best ones. So it’s not the size of the company that counts, but how good that company is at creating games.

Is it a good time to be a third-party publisher?

Yes, because of all the innovations - the 360, Live Arcade, the Wii, the DS, PlayStation Home… I think all of these will expand the market a lot and as publishers, we’ll be very happy to share in that success

On popular request, here’s a version that has less profanity, thanks for pointing it out admin?

Incredibly funny recording of a commentary of someone playing a Level MOD which is ridiculously hard…and also incredibly funny to listen too….

And now for something completely different….

The Landlord

http://weewar.com/ is a round based strategy game featuring real action on real maps. Up to 6 players command their colorful pixel armies against each other on the many maps available.

And since it is all happening in the browser Weewar can be played from anywhere - including the office.

Weewar joins a plethora of new web based games designed to disrupt the office environment….it looks interesting enough to give it a bit of a spin…