All is well for Kirby and friends, at least up until a spaceship crashes and interrupts their lovely picnic. In Kirby: Return to Dreamland, our rosy friend returns to his roots and is ready to suck up some new abilities. Kirby took a break from inhaling enemies in Kirby's Epic Yarn, but his suction abilities are a force to be reckoned with in his latest outing. During our last demo at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, we spent some time as the loveable pink fluff, and our three companions had the option to play as King Dedede, Meta Knight, or Waddle Dee. We learned in our most recent demo that anyone can play as Kirby, so when you make that return to Dreamland, you can choose to tag along as a different-colored clone.

Everyone can be Kirby!

There are benefits to playing as the other characters, though, because they are always armed with a weapon. Kirby's skills rely primarily on the unique abilities that he can steal from enemies, which are represented by way of a fun hat. But if you somehow happen to lose it, you may need to rely on your friends to get you through obstacles instead of chasing down another enemy to get your powers back. Working together always makes things more interesting, but it's not like New Super Mario Bros. Wii where it gets harder with more players. In Kirby: Return to Dreamland, the camera is always focused on the first player, and if others happen to get left behind, they'll get warped back onscreen instead of getting pushed off. There should be no unfortunate accidents this time around, and your lives are shared. Players can drop in and out with the push of a button.

The goal of the game is to help the alien Magolor find all the missing pieces of his wrecked ship. As you go through the levels, you'll find energy gears that will unlock more content within Magalor's spaceship. We hopped around different areas to play with various power-ups and were encouraged to inhale as much as we could. In secret areas, a moving wall forces you to keep pressing forward, but you can push it back a little by spitting things at it. By shaking the Wii Remote while Kirby is sucking, Kirby can perform a power suction that grabs almost everything onscreen. Spitting out blocks, your friends, wayward enemies, and other indigestible items at the moving wall will push it back even further, giving you more time. Sucking up your friends is always an option--or something that just happens because they're in the way. They won't receive any damage, and if anything, they become useful projectiles. Your lives are shared, but you each have to keep an eye on your individual health bars. Whenever someone picks up a healing item, you can hug your friends immediately to share the boost in health.

Some of the copy abilities that we played with included the leaf power, where we slapped and punched foes with a fist full of vines and leaves. Another elemental ability let us harness the power of water, which let us surf the waves when we dashed, and there was a cute move where we hovered in the air by spitting out a never-ending stream of water. There are also enemies that don't have any useful powers to steal, but if you copy a sleeping enemy, you'll also gain the ability to take a nap. When you're not cloning others for your super skills, you can gain special powers for a limited time via power-ups. One monster flame power-up had us summoning a giant flaming dragon that would swoop in and mow down trees. Another power gave us temporary control of a giant orb that basically took out anything it touched. Many of these power-ups are carefully placed, so you know that there's some secret area within the vicinity. Our favorite, though, had to be the spiked shoe, which was similar to Kuribo's shoe in Super Mario 3, but instead of being light and bouncy, it was heavy and stiff. You have to time your jumps carefully to get enough air, but it's always entertaining to hop around in a massive boot.

The flaming dragon.

What often makes Kirby games so endearing are the little details. Though he may not morph into a graceful dolphin this time when he hits the water, he does put on a pair of swimming goggles and attack foes with air bubbles. However, when he's up on the surface, he trades his goggles in for a circular floatie and practices his flutter kick. It's these little touches that make Kirby special, and you can share that experience with friends when the game is released in October.

About a month ago, we had the opportunity to talk to EA Canada regarding the upcoming Nintendo Wii release of FIFA 12. The big new inclusion for this year's release is FIFA City, a level-based system that rewards you for playing the other modes in the game. It sounded quite interesting when we were told about it over the phone, but we finally got to see its inclusion firsthand.

The city of GameSpot is nowhere near as populated as this…yet!

For those unfamiliar with FIFA City, it acts as the main menu for FIFA 12. Upon starting the game for the first time, you're asked to name your city and your club. Once that's completed, you are greeted by a fairly bare-looking city with various near-empty sections, each corresponding to the different modes available to play with. The modes will be instantly familiar to fans of last year's release and include Street to Stadium, Be a Manager, and Tournament, to name a few. To improve each section of your city, you have to play those modes and unlock in-game achievements. These vary from easy-to-complete tasks, such as win a game on any difficulty, score your first goal as a created player, or win by four-plus goals, to long-term requests like becoming a 90-plus rated player, playing in every stadium, or scoring 50 goals in Street Soccer. The achievements work in two ways. For starters, for every accomplishment, your population increases, and you obtain items that make your city look more populated. These items include homes, better fields, and even larger stadiums. But as your city increases in size, you can take part in the game's Intercity Cup mode.

FIFA City has a level system that lets you obtain the rights, each time you level up, to select a player who will become a member of your city's football club. Once you have a team in place, you can play against other fictional created cities as part of the Intercity Cup. Defeating cities will unlock more to play against and will increase your rating as the best city in this fictional nation. Early on, only Street Soccer tournaments against rivals will be available. As you level up your city and earn additional players, you'll unlock the ability to field a proper, 11-player squad and take part in full-field matches.

I believe these two Clubs will face-off against each other a dozen times this season

During our few hours with FIFA 12 and FIFA City, the new feature really caught our attention. Trying to find ways to complete the easy objectives had us playing games in a number of different ways, either by adjusting the difficulty or by increasing the length of halves. Of course, there are objectives that will take a significant amount of time to obtain, but purists willing to take the time to do so should feel quite proud as they reach the level 52 cap. Be sure to find out more and see our final verdict of the game when it hits stores at the end of September.

It's been awhile since we've seen this limbless character in a proper game of his own. Sure, he's made a few appearances alongside the crazy rabbids, but it's about time that Ubisoft's mascot took center stage again. We talked to creative director, Michael Ancel, about the development and features of the game. So read on, check out the trailer, and share your thoughts in the comments section below.

GameSpot: How has development been going?

Michel Ancel: This is the first development done with the UbiArt Engine. This tool was made to create a good creative process between ideas and results, and we now know that it works! In fact, we can't wait to make another game with this tool.   GS: Has anything been changed in the game based on feedback since its debut?

MA: The difficulty curve has been tweaked in order to avoid frustrations from gamers of all types--beginners and hardcore. So we added more optional challenges rewarded with hardcore unlockable levels. The big design challenge came from the multiplayer. If you look at it quickly you could think that it looks like other multiplayer platformer, but there are a lot of details that make the experience totally different. That's one of the things we are the most proud of.   GS: What inspired this kind of game with this kind of story?

MA: When you start playing this game, we recommend you to leave the intellectual part of your brain outside and just play with the crazy side. Crazy characters, crazy story, and crazy gameplay situations. This comes from the best memories of gameplay from Bomberman or the old four-player tennis games… Chaotic and funny! At the same time there are things that can reveal a deeper story, but honestly, that aspect is for people who pay attention to all the tiny details.  

GS: How close is the game now to what you originally envisioned?

MA: To make your own idea you can compare the very first trailer shown in 2010 to the one shown in 2011. The main vision is still there with more players and more content.   GS: Do you find it easier or harder to develop 2D games? Which do you prefer?

MA: In 2D, it's easier to create content, characters, and levels but also harder because you can't hide poor game design behind Hollywood-style sequences. 2D shows every collision mistake and control error. It is this required precision game that forces us to manage a lot of details.  

GS: The demos we've seen so far offer slices of gameplay from various levels. Can you let us know how they all fit together? Is it a linear structure? Is there a hub? Are there hidden levels or sublevels to discover?

MA: Yep, there is a hub, a home, a world map, and level maps with all the details of what you have completed. It's fast and easy to move from a world to another. The game starts a bit linearly, but after a while, like in any adventure game, things open up completely, and you can decide where you want to go first and what kind of boss you want to defeat first. I really like this kind of surprising macro game structure.   GS: In terms of gameplay, we've seen a mix of platforming and side-scrolling shooting. Can you give us an idea of how much variety we're going to see in the gameplay?

MA: You can also play underwater with a totally new control or fly with your "hairlicopter" in a more antigravity type of platforming. I really enjoy this kind of mix of controls, especially when you jump from one to another in a seamless way.  

GS: Are there going to be unique features for the different console versions?

MA: The 360 and PS3 are full HD. The Wii is pushing that console to its graphical limits with a good 480p 60fps mode fully antialiased. The handheld versions are pretty much the same game, same levels, but are adapted a bit for each console by using some of the specific features they offer.   GS: How are you handling the Vita version? Is it a straight port or will it have unique content?

MA: We have the same approach with all of the games. We're really trying to offer a great 2D platforming experience on all consoles. We love the Vita because we can keep the HD graphics, and it is looking really impressive. We are also taking advantage of the multi-touch feature so players can zoom in on the graphics and backgrounds. We also have a cool ghost mode where you can race against your and your friends' best times to complete a level.  

GS: Once this game is done, have you given any thought to what you might be working on next? Might it have the words beyond, good, evil, and possibly a two in the title? Is there anything you can tell people eagerly anticipating the game?

MA: Right now we're thinking about some vacation and rest. We'd love to make a sequel to that evil good beyond two kind of game you're talking about, but that's another story!

GS: Thank you for your time!