Nominees for Game of the Year are Assassin’s Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Uncharted 2.
In an odd twist, however, one of the contenders for PC Game of the Year is Popcap’s Plants vs. Zombies. This is the first casual game to ever make it into this category. PvZ will be going up against heavyweights Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, and The Sims 3.
It’s a sign of trends in the industry. We’ve long been saying that casual gaming is mainstream, and the numbers prove it; still, enthusiasts and those who consider themselves “hardcore” gamers, generally shun casuals as being colorful pap for their aunts, their young cousins, and the bored office worker. Plants vs. Zombies, and Peggle before it, made huge strides in shattering that image, however. A quick look at even hardcore Steam groups will generally reveal several people playing a quick round of Plants vs. Zombies.
As with any medium, eventually there is one piece of work with great crossover appeal. The fact that a casual game from a casual game company made it into the running for PC Game of the Year proves that, for this year at least, Popcap has provided that crossover hit.
Sony has announced that they will soon be bringing 3D gaming to the Playstation 3.
The company wants to offer the technology for all versions of the PS3 currently on the market, and is also planning on releasing a stable of 3D titles to accompany the change.
Three-dimensional gaming on the PS3 has been considered before, with Sony demonstrating 3D versions of Gran Turismo Prologue and Motorstorm at the 2009 CES in January, but this is the first official announcement for the console as a whole.
Sony hasn’t yet released a firm date for the 3D capability, but says that it will come at some point in 2010.
It isn’t often that nostalgia and ingenuity come in the same package in the gaming world, but today we’ve seen something with a big helping of both and a full side of fun. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the latest Mario title from industry powerhouse Nintendo.
NSMBW at its heart, is both a very simple and complex game, the kind that anyone can pick up with ease and enjoy—but few will master. Nintendo reinforces this by using a very simple two button control scheme favored in classic Mario titles, with the addition of the Wiimote motion functionality for a myriad of tasks. The integration of the Wiimote motion functionality is seamless during gameplay, and serves to further enhance the experience by allowing the players to adjust the angle of platforms, light beams, cannons, and vehicle speed—while still allowing them normal movement and interaction with surrounding objects and enemies.
The patented triple jump has been added to the 2D moveset—with wall jump and ground pound also carried over (though they were first introduced into the 2D Mario scene in New Super Mario Bros. for the DS). The spin jump has also been carried over from prior games (first seen in Super Mario World).
The character lineup in NSMBW includes Mario and Luigi, of course, but also Blue Toad and Yellow Toad from Super Mario Sunshine (though Luigi, Blue Toad, and Yellow Toad can only be played by players 2, 3, or 4 through one of the multiplayer modes). Each player’s character can be seen following Mario on the world map during co-operative play, moving as a team through the world stages. Continue reading »
Plan B Entertainment, Reliance BIG Entertainment and Capcom have come to terms on film rights relating to “Dark Void”, a new property from Capcom. The theatrical version of Dark Void is being developed as a sci-fi action franchise with a potential starring role for Brad Pitt.
Capcom will release Dark Void on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in January. Capcom describes the new game as, “an adrenaline-fueled blend of aerial and ground-pounding combat which centers on Will, a pilot who crash lands in the Bermuda Triangle following a routine mission.”
“Will wakes up to find himself in ‘The Void,’ an alternate world resembling a primitive earth where aliens with superior technology are planning to take over civilization. Together with a faction of humans who have disappeared into the Void, Will takes on the alien race using their own advanced technology including a high-powered jet pack to defeat them and keep order in the civilized world,” Capcom says of the game’s setting.
Plan B Entertainment is actor/producer Brad Pitt’s production company. It has produced films such as the The Departed, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A Mighty Heart, and this summer’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.
We’ve been waiting over two decades for a truly co-operative Mario Bros. platformer, and it’s finally here. New Super Mario Bros. Wii drops this week, and we were at the release party in New York. The gameplay for this title is very similar to New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, with the only notable addition to the basic experience being Yoshi, Mario’s loyal dinosaur friend. Otherwise, the big deal is the addition of up to three of your friends in co-op mode. Work together with your friends as you leap from platform to platform, solving jumping puzzles and stomping Goombas. Play as Mario, Luigi, or one of two Toads. Players can work together or compete for coins through the completion of the levels.
Left 4 Dead 2
For the PC and Xbox 360 this week, we’ll receive Left 4 Dead 2. Try to escape the zombie apocalypse with a small team of civilians in this sequel to the much loved Left 4 Dead. This time players will need to traverse the southern United States from Savannah to New Orleans. If the first game is any indication, the frantic, never-the-same multiplayer tactical combat will be enough to keep the most expert FPS players on their toes. New zombie types are being introduced, along with a few new weapons, with a particular focus on giving the player lots of options for melee combat
Assassin's Creed II
The major cross-platform release this week is Assassin’s Creed II. The first game left off with a cliffhanger. Altaïr’s story in the middle ages was complete, but Desmond’s story in the near future seems to have only just begun. This game picks up the story right where it left off for Desmond and Lucy, but the flashback portion of the story shifts forward to The Renaissance, where another of Desmond’s ancestors has joined the order of assassins. This game will feature hundreds of missions, with twice as many mission types, several new weapons, improved parkour, and a more advanced health and healing system. This last one is an interesting change that also effects the context of the plot. In Assassin’s Creed, it seemed that Altaïr in actuality completed every mission without being injured, and that it was only Desmond’s weak connection to him that made it seem as if he was missing steps, and getting hurt—meaning that all he had to do to “heal” was take a moment to resynchronize. In this sequel, it seems that our new assassin character wasn’t perfect, even when he completed the tasks the first time back in the past, because the player will need to guide him to a hospital to get patched up if he hurts himself too badly. Overall, the game looks like more of what people liked about the first one, so anyone who enjoyed that game should check into this one.
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
For horror survival fans, the newest game in the Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, drops for the Wii this week. This newest entry to the Resident Evil franchise brings with it customizable weapons, lots of collectible items, the ability to play classic RE levels—like Raccoon City—and 2 player co-op, which seems to have been put into place as a solid part of the franchise going forward.
Gyromancer
Our spotlight release this week is the PC and Xbox 360 release Gyromancer. This game is the product of collaboration between the best RPG developers and the best casual games developers. Square-Enix and Popcap have teamed up to create a title that capitalizes on the still new RPG puzzle genre, made popular by Puzzle Quest. Players will take on the role of a monster summoner who must trek through a magic forest, pitting his own monsters against those of the wilderness, fighting by way of a grid-of-gems puzzle board. Throughout the game the player can learn new spells, and gain the ability to cast as many as fifty different monsters. From the descriptions and screens, it actually seems a little simplified compared to Puzzle Quest. Perhaps that’s Popcap’s influence showing, but the graphics are super-slick, and with Square-Enix on board, you can expect the plot, and the role-playing elements to be unique and fun.
Torchlight was designed and developed partly by the team who brought us the original Diablo and Fate games—and that heritage is strong and easily found within the experience. Just as in Diablo, players choose from three base characters who each have their own skill tree, and proceed through a series of increasingly more difficult random environments. However, not all of the game’s similarities with its ancestry are due to the development team. Many of these features are now standard in the genre, which was defined by Diablo. These aspects would need to be present in any dungeon crawl, no matter who made it. Breaking the mold that these very folks made nearly 15 years ago would be almost unthinkable.
That’s not a critique of the game. I—and many like me—have been waiting for a new Diablo game for many years, playing Diablo II over and over again. It’s a good thing for us that it’s one of the most replayable video games ever made. Diablo III not only appears to still be very far away, but seems less and less like the Diablo I’ve loved each time I read something new about it. Continue reading »
Pandemic Studios, begun in 1998 as an offshoot of Activision by Josh Resnick and Andrew Goldman to develop sequels to Dark Reign and Battlezone, has been shuttered by current owner EA. The studio will remain open until the launch of their upcoming title The Saboteur, and then will be disbanded, with key players being absorbed by EA LA.
Let’s be frank: “Key players” means a skeleton crew who can support The Saboteur after launch, and until the DLC and patches hit. Expect two, possibly three DLC packs for The Saboteur and probably two patches. If The Saboteur does well (read: it becomes EA’s Assassin’s Creed), there will be a sequel, and core Sab team members will work on it along with a new support staff from EALA. If The Saboteur does not do well, it will have been Pandemic’s eulogy piece.
As a site that has been intimately involved with Pandemic Studios, this hits home kind of hard today; and it makes us realize that it was the people we worked with, and not the company behind them, that really made Pandemic a great studio. Sitting in the queue of articles on the whiteboard here in the Icrontic offices is a draft entitled “Corporate Culture at Pandemic Studios”, a story that will now never get written. Continue reading »
Left 4 Dead 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the award winning Left 4 Dead from Valve Corporation, has just arrived. Lets take a closer look at the exposed innards of this co-operative horror FPS title and see just how far the infection has spread since the franchise’s first installment.
The additions in this title are numerous, but the basics still remain: A team of four Survivors must seek refuge from an infected world that is literally dying to add them to the mix. At the start of each level, the Survivors are provided a health pack, a pistol, and a primary firearm. Each chapter of a campaign begins and ends with a safe room, while the final chapter ends with some form of escape.
Survivors that take to too much damage in their escape must rely only on their pistol and their friends until they can be revived from their incapacitation. Survivors that are repeatedly incapacitated will quickly exhaust their second chances, resulting in their inevitable death.
Retro game series making the transition to 3D on modern systems is hardly something new—Zelda, Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Contra, Bubsy (I kid, I kid)—all had a dance in the 3D limelight. Some were successful, and some utterly failed (can we PLEASE keep Sonic 2D already?). No matter the outcome, they all tried to bring a modern look with them as they moved to 3D. One must wonder though—what would have happened if those games made the transition to 3D, yet the visuals remained the same as their 2D retro sprite-based counterparts? Atlus grabs that question by the pixels with 3D DOT GAME HEROES.
A tip of the hat to a simpler time
3D DOT GAME HEROES (3DDGH) is essentially a love letter to retro games. It plays just like a classic adventure game with simple map layouts, colorful, repeating graphic elements, and squares everywhere. The game takes this classic style and moves it to 3D, like so many have done before, but developer From Software was hardly satisfied with the standards of modernizing such a game. In a completely clever and unique twist, 3DDGH maintains the look of a classic retro game while being presented in 3D space. Characters are made of small blocks. Trees are box-shaped and full of sharp edges. Environments are clearly made up of simple tiled objects. 3DDGH then puts the icing on the cake by splashing modern technologies into this classic look. There is a real-time lighting model with dynamic shadows, depth of field and camera effects, and even fancy bloom shading on highlights. It’s a paradox of visual styles.
Atlus announced recently that 3DDGH will be released on May 11th 2010 for the price of $39.99. The title is to be a PS3 exclusive. Preorders are now open, and purchasing information can be found on the 3D DOT GAME HEROES website.
3DDGH looks to be a wonderful game full of nostalgia. It will be a great way to revisit the game style of old—remaining completely fresh and unique while breaking every status quo that would come with a title like this. If you own a PS3 and miss the days of dark lords overtaking a kingdom and one hero rising to the challenge of stopping them, then 3D DOT GAME HEROES looks to be a must-play. Just be sure to enjoy the pretty shadows while you’re at it.
Who needs Left 4 Dead 2 when you can play the original game on the NES? Forget HD resolutions and graphics—you can have it all at 256 x 240 resolution with 16 colors and a 4 channel audio.
Taking the concept of modding a Valve game to a completely new, 8-bit extreme, indie game designer Eric Ruth is re-making the original Left 4 Dead into an NES title as part of his series of games dubbed ‘The PixelForce NES de-makes’.
Left 4 Dead is being reborn in that classic top-down style that we all know and love from an age when gaming was still in its infancy. All four characters from the original game will be playable, all five of the special infected are present, and all four campaigns will be re-imagined from the NES perspective.
Eric stated on his YouTube page that Left 4 Dead is the flagship NES de-make title, which can only lead us to speculate what games are next to recieve the 8-bit treatment. Splinter Cell? Beyond Good and Evil? Deus Ex (BRB reinstalling…)? After seeing Left 4 Dead, and earlier in the year the NES ROM release of D-Pad Hero, no game could be outside the realm of possibility.
Currently, the game is slated for release on January 4th, 2010. It will be free to download and play, and offers single player and two-player modes.
This past Saturday, we got a chance to head to the Nintendo World Store in Manhattan and check out the premiere event for the New Super Mario Bros Wii.
The line was down the block, despite the drizzling rain. Eager fans, some in costume, anxiously awaited the opening of the doors to the store.
In addition to having enough copies of the game on hand, Nintendo pulled out all the stops to celebrate the iconic star Mario and his cohorts, as they embark upon their latest adventure. There was a Mario Museum filled with memorabilia going back to the early 1980s, a Mushroom Kingdom-themed DJ booth, a retro room with systems set up for guests to play old Mario adventures (including the original SMB trilogy on NES and Super Mario World on SNES), and a life-sized Warp Pipe to walk through. In addition to being among the first people to be able to buy the game itself, guests got a free t-shirt with their purchase. There was also a gameplay competition, with fans lined up to see who could get the highest score. Continue reading »
The latest addition to The Beatles Rock Band, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band DLC, will hit the Xbox360 and Wii on November 17th, and PS3 on November 19th. Rounding off the complete album with tracks such as “When I’m Sixty Four” and “She’s Leaving Home,” fans of The Beatles will now be able to play the entire album within the game.
Price is set at 200 Wii points per track ($2.) Xbox 360 owners have the option of buying each track individually for 160 MS Points ($1.99) or the “Complete the Album” pack for 1080 MS Points ($13.49)
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Voting has begun for Spike TV’s Video Game Awards for 2009.
Brian Ambrozy
Nov 20 in News
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