Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale
Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale is a dungeon crawling adventure in the world of Forgotten Realms. It comes with its own adventures, but it seems mostly intended to be a platform for additional and modular adventures. The base game is being released pretty cheap, so that everyone who wants in has a low cost of entry, but there isn’t much game in it. further adventures will be released later, which the players can choose to download and add to Daggerdale. All missions are solo or co-op, and the engine is intended to replicate 4th edition rules. Hardly seems like a grand Successor to Neverwinter Nights. I think I’ll stick with DDO.
Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game
Unsurprisingly, there is a tie in for the new Kung Fu Panda film, Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game. Interestingly, it’s a completely different game on each system. The story is the same: It takes place after the end of the filn, and the panda has to save Kung Fu itself by beating up a bunch of other animals. On the PS3, it’s a button masher. On the DS, the stylus is used to chain together attacks. On the Wii, players control the action with flicks of the uDraw pen, similar to the DS stylus control, and can draw items which affect the game’s levels. On the Xbox, however, players with a Kinect stand before the television and get some Kung Fu training before using it to defeat the various animals. This version also uses voice controls to give orders to the panda’s friends.
DiRT 3
DiRT 3 is a lot like DiRT 2 with a few changes. First, the Collin McRae name seems to have been completely removed now from all releases (DiRT 2 still had the name on them for the non-US releases). Second, there are several new features. Players can still use flashback assists, but a new hardcore mode forces players to play from a first-person view (inside the cabin of the car) and to use no assists at all. A career mode will allow players to build an in-game reputations based on performance and reliance on assistance. Finally, due to the apparent popularity of DiRT replay videos on YouTube, players may now tie their YouTube account directly to the game, and upload race replays with a simple in-game click.
Dead or Alive: Dimensions
Dead or Alive: Dimensions takes a blatant jump for the gimmick of the third dimension. It’s not too complicated: It’s Dead or Alive on the 3DS. It does have a couple of new features, however. The big thing people are talking about is the stylus controls, which include the ability to simply tap on the move you want to perform, and have it done. If you rely on memorization of button combos to win this game (and who doesn’t?) this may seem cheap or unfair. For the perv in you, there is the poseable figures ‘game mode’ in which players can pose the 3D fighters against various backgrounds, then share the inevitable lesbian sex scenes with their friends.
Emily the Strange: Strangerous
The Icrontic Spotlight this week fails to illuminate the inherent darkness of Emily the Strange: Strangerous. This one is interesting mostly because of its background: Emily began as simply a brief illustration used to promote t-shirts with goth-y rock designs. Like the rest of the company’s products, she was crafted from large areas of solid primary colors, mostly black, white, and red. She was popular enough that the company gave her a name and developed a whole line of clothing with Emily the Strange illustrations—purses, shoes, jackets, pants, and so on, all covered in Emily and her angular kitties. For a short time, she was the star of her own dreary comic book—which was very popular in Germany and France, for some reason—and this year, she’s getting a DS game. Emily’s kitties—Miles, Sabbath, Mystery, and Nee Chee—have been kittynapped, and she has to make her way through town, solving puzzles to get them back. If not interactively interesting—I’m imagining a less-well-thought-out version of Professor Layton—it’s an interesting work visually. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game so starkly and boldly colored as the style demanded by Emily the Strange. Also, it’ll go perfect with your black and red DS, which you keep in your Emily the Strange DS case in the bottom of your Emily the Strange purse.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Aion 2.5: Empyrean Calling
- DiRT 3
- Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale
- Faxion Online
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
Wii
- Crazy Machines
- Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game
- NASCAR 2011: The Game
DS
- 3D Twist & Match
- 99Bullets
- Cake Mania: Main Street
- Duke Nukem: Critical Mass
- Emily the Strange: Strangerous
- Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game
- Murder in Venice
- Paws & Claws: Pampered Pets 2
3DS
- Dead or Alive: Dimensions
Xbox 360
- DiRT 3
- Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale
- Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game
PS3
- DiRT 3
- Kung Fu Panda 2: The Video Game
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