gauntlet
Latest
Blog embarks on quest, finds fresh Gauntlet screens
Our usual Monday morning trek to our friendly local press site unearthed something that should ensure a pleasant start to the week for many of you: plentiful supplies of food, potions, and a dozen screens of Eidos' modern remake of Gauntlet, which was revealed over the weekend and will support a host of multiplayer modes, playable locally or over the intertubes (with voice chat, yaaaay).A few of these screens already appeared at IGN, but most are new, and contain a reassuring number of ghoulies, treasure, and suspiciously well-prepared food. Have a mooch around our gallery to take them all in.%Gallery-19972%[Via press release]
Eidos shoots the food, confirms Gauntlet for DS
Eidos and developer Backbone are bringing Gauntlet's food-shooting, poison-eating, death-avoiding action to the Nintendo DS later this year. Eidos describes the upcoming title as a "modern reworking" of the arcade classic, thankfully returning the series to its overhead roots rather than the forgettable 3D entries of recent years. Gauntlet for the DS will once again reunite the series' iconic Elf, Warrior, Wizard, and Valkyrie, and include 40 maps across three different areas. What's more, as Gauntlet has always been been strongest when played in groups, this latest version will boast ranked 4-player co-op and competitive multiplayer modes, playable both wirelessly and over Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection. Just remember, shots do NOT hurt other players ... yet.[Via Nintendo DS Fanboy]%Gallery-19968%
DS needs hack and slash badly
... and it's going to get it! February's speculation after Gauntlet appeared on the ESRB's website has become fact: Eidos and Backbone Entertainment are bringing the classic to the DS. But let's get the best news out of the way up front -- Gauntlet has always been known for awesome multiplayer action, and the DS will continue that tradition. Not only will you be able to throw down with your friends using local wireless, Gauntlet will also support multiplayer over WiFi. They've even thrown in voice chat to make adventuring easier (and potentially more fun). Of course, there's also a single player mode, for those times when you just can't wait for everyone to get together. Gauntlet will come into rotation for Game Night be released in late June. Start hoarding funds (and food) now.
ESRB throws the Gauntlet (rating) down
A mysterious rating has shown up on the ESRB's search page for a DS game called Gauntlet. Our first assumption is that this would be a continuation of the modern Gauntlet series from Midway, but the game is listed as being published by Eidos. Furthermore, the specifics of the rating (Alcohol Reference, and Fantasy Violence as opposed to the Cartoon, Animated, or just plain Violence described in the others) suggest that this is an original game.Is it a remake of the arcade game, maybe? Whatever it is, as long as there's top-down arcade (fantasy) violence and the pressing need for food, we're interested. We just hope it's not some kind of Road Rules game.[Via Siliconera]
Beating the Zul'Aman gauntlet
So far we're hearing that most guilds are slowly working their way through Zul'Aman-- while some guilds waltzed in and took over the place, others have had a few bumps in the road, but if you've taken down Karazhan, progression seems to follow about as easily as Blizzard expected.The toughest part so far seems to come right before what most guilds traditionally take on as the second boss-- Akil'zon, the Eagle god. We ran through boss strategy the other day in our Zul'Aman guide, but the problems people are having are coming from the trash mobs before the encounter-- there's a Suppression Room/Gauntlet type of run that some players are having a hard time with.So far, the strategy seems to be, first of all, to keep moving. Just like in the other gaunlet areas (the aforementioned Suppression Room, the Lyceum, and the Shattered Halls gaunlet), slowing down will get you mobbed to death. Two tanks seems to work well (one to take elites, the others to take Warriors), and a Paladin tank will not only keep mobs off of clothies, but help out with AoE as well. Keep the group together, get those eagles down first and then focus on the other targets together, and it should be a piece of cake.Have any other good suggestions for people trying to make it through the gauntlet in Zul'Aman?
Study: MMO players play more... and get more
Apparently playing MMOs are worse for your health than regular games, but they're also more fun, too. That's the conclusion of a Syracuse University study that sent groups of students out to play four types of games-- arcade games, a Gaunlet PS2 game, Diablo II, and Dark Age of Camelot. Apparently the DAoC folks reported that their game had a more adverse effect on their health, and that their social and student lives were more affected by their playtime.But they also had more fun-- the students who played DAoC reported that they enjoyed their playtime more, and had even made more friends ingame than any of the other games. The professor who commissioned the study wisely strayed away from the word "addiction," and says that addiction is completely different than what happens to gamers. Instead, he says, more attention should be paid not to violence in games, but to the "enthrallment" factor. Some games are easy to pick up and put down, and other games, while more rewarding, are more likely to involve you as a player. Online games, says Raph Koster, are "more intense."So I can't exactly tell what the study solves, but most of the reasoning sounds all right. My only worry is just how old the games are-- seriously, Gauntlet? Dark Age? It would be interesting to see if a more recent MMO (like LotRO or WoW) was able to balance the enthrallment/timesink factor a little better without losing the payoff.[ via DungeonRun.com ]
Cyberball, Fatal Fury on XBLA next week, limited price drops this weekend
Eager to ditch the office for the last rays of summer sun, Microsoft has let loose word of next week's Xbox Live Arcade update a bit early. Ready for this...? A pair of Silver Age arcade ports: Cyberball 2072 (400 points): X3F calls it "football for nerds" where today's deficiencies are replaced with robots and the pigskin explodes. 2072 is the 1989 update to the original Atari game and is better known as Tournament Cyberball, which still captivates competitive circles of, um, nerds. Fatal Fury Special (400 points): Fatal Fury 2 with bells and whistles, namely some old fighters and playable bosses. As Garou Densetsu Special, the game became a huge hit in Japan for successfully transplanting Ryo Sakazaki (from sister franchise Art of Fighting) as a hidden character, laying the seed for SNK's The King of Fighters series. Nearly 15 years later, perhaps the innovation is lost on us. And for those in search of an alternative to the weekend's poolside barbecue, Microsoft has also announced a Labor Day XBLA sale, dropping Zuma and Small Arms from to 800 to 400 Microsoft Points, and Dig Dug and Gauntlet from 400 to 200 points. The sale begins at 5:00 PM PT on Saturday, Sept. 1st, and ends at 4:59 PM PT on Monday, Sept. 3rd. Nothing like half-priced underperformers, eh?
European PSN releases for June 29th
We've had two weeks of good PSN updates so far. Can Sony make it a hat-trick with a third? In short, yes. Check the full release list below. Super Stardust HD (£4.99) Championship Sprint (£1.99) Gauntlet 2 (£1.99) Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo (free) Superman Returns BD trailer (free) Full Metal Jacket BD trailer (free) That's right. Sony were good to their word and have released Super Stardust HD worldwide within 24 hours. This is an excellent game and we will have a review up before too long to tell you exactly why. The other two available games (ah, it feels good to be able to say that ... ) are midway remakes, so have a think about it before you buy. Having said that, we've heard that Gauntlet 2 was pretty good online. The Ninja Gaiden demo is a must get, if you haven't already nabbed if from the US store. Hopefully it will be compatible with the full title's in-game rewards for completing the demo, as the US version will be. Keep these killer updates coming, Sony.
Gauntlet II comes to PSN for sure Thursday
Looks like Gauntlet II is going through the PSN gauntlet alone this Thursday. Sure, Calling All Cars said that they'd be buddies and come out together on May 3, but looks like CAC is a fair-weather friend. Gauntlet II will be offered at the very-easy-on-the-wallet price of $4.99.There really isn't too much to say about Gauntlet II, it's a better version of Gauntlet, and the game will include full online play, online leaderboards and one hundred levels. Sure, Gauntlet II is nothing new like Calling All Cars, but given the reviews for David Jaffe's latest title, at least Gauntlet II should be a reliable title. We do hope CAC comes out better after getting the nip and tuck that Jaffe thinks it needs. We can be patient ... for a couple weeks at least.
SOE to bring six Midway classics to Playstation Network
In an effort to ensure that Joust will grace just about every console known to humankind, Sony Online Entertainment announced today that Mortal Kombat II, Gauntlet II, Rampart, Rampage World Tour, Championship Spirit and yes, Joust, will all be making their way to the Playstation Network.These six titles, chosen based upon their specific multiplayer strengths, will be playable online and developed by SOE themselves as opposed to a third-party company along the lines of Digital Eclipse who handled the Xbox Live Arcade ports for Midway. Dates and prices have yet to be announced beyond "early 2007," so we should have but a short wait ahead of us before we find out if someone out there listened to our own Vlad's whacky ideas concerning these classic quarter gobblers.
Quarter gobblers are broken on XBLA [update 2]
Joystiq reader "epobirs" disagreed with our comment earlier today that Xbox Live Arcade title Gauntlet is broken. We'd like to dig into the issue a little more, because we feel that developers are missing a major opportunity to resurrect the true arcade experience. Games like Gauntlet were designed for an era in which expensive game cabinets were purchased by small businessmen who hoped that the large up-front purchase would be paid for (and them some) by teens plunking quarter after quarter into the machines in order to keep playing. Game designers therefore had to make sure (1) that the average player would die frequently; (2) that the game was fun enough to convince the average player to drop another quarter in the slot. Gauntlet, released in 1985 (at the height of the arcade craze) was a masterpiece of the form. It greedily gobbled quarters from addicted gamers who were enthralled by the game's tight design. What made the game so fun was the fact that your money was always at stake. A mistake meant that you had to reach into your pocket and insert more money. There was a constant tension between performance and pocketbook, and this tension made the game. Every non coin-operated release of Gauntlet since then has missed the point. The Xbox Live Arcade version, for instance, allows players to hit a button on the Xbox 360 controller in order to simulate putting a quarter in the machine. Of course, a button press costs nothing, and so the essential tension is lost. The game loses a fundamental game play mechanism by replacing quarter insertion with button pressing. What we'd love to see is a release of Gauntlet for Xbox Live Arcade (or for a competing service) that's free (or very cheap) to "purchase" but that costs $.25 per health increase (equivalent to 20 MS Points). The developer that brings back this core game play mechanism will claim the title of "most authentic arcade experience." We're certain that are some great arcade titles slated for release in 2007. They'd be better if they stayed true to the arcade experience.
Sinistar: I hunger! Seriously, help me out
Click on the box above (warning: it makes sounds) to check out this bad dude disregarding the plight of his fellow 'cade vets. All Sinistar wants is some food, the Elf needs some food badly, and Q*bert ... hell, does Q*bert even eat?Check out Lore Sjöberg's Bad Gods for a couple more of these bite-sized diversions. Not sure what the posting frequency is, but I've added it to my feeds.[Thanks, TheMatt]
