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#IDARB enters Xbox One in Feb., free in Games with Gold
You know what was missing in the new Star Wars trailer? Bacon. The fine folks at Other Ocean Interactive have remedied this oversight in the new trailer for #IDARB, an eight-player competitive game coming to Xbox One for free via the Games with Gold program in February 2015. See #IDARB's Star Wars parody trailer below. #IDARB is a 2D, side-scrolling, basketball-inspired, pixelated eSports romp exclusive to Xbox One through the ID@Xbox program. It's also a an experiment in crowd-sourcing, meaning Other Ocean regularly seeks player input for additions, tweaks and features to throw into the game. We gave it a go at E3 this year, and found it to be thoroughly fresh and enjoyable. "#IDARB has a simple design at its core, but the number of hilarious additions bolted onto the experience made it one of the most memorable games I played at E3 last week," Joystiq Contributor Danny Cowan wrote.
Sports-platformer #IDARB takes Twitch chat trolling to a new level
The last thing I expected to see during my playthrough of Other Ocean's #IDARB at E3 last week was an airbrushed Rick Astley strolling across the screen, but that's exactly what happened, ruining a likely goal for my chicken-and-duck team. Shortly afterward, the background swirled and all players on the field turned into clowns -- accompanied, as if by contractual requirement, by Entry of the Gladiators. Other Ocean's competing sportsman Frank Cifaldi triggered these concentration-rattling effects by typing commands into a Twitch chat window during the match, altering the game's momentum in his favor. #IDARB's retro-styled, side-scrolling approach to the sports genre is at once simple and ambitious, and inventive features like Twitch chat integration make it one of the most intriguing games to earn the support of the ID@Xbox program.
Amazing Spider-Man's DS game spun by Dark Void Zero dev
Activision's Amazing Spider-Man game came in PS3, Xbox, Wii, 3DS, and DS flavors. Activision hasn't shown or talked about much outside of the HD version, to the point that this is likely to be your first look at the DS version – which has been out since June.Developer Other Ocean Interactive – known for Dark Void Zero, among other things – got in touch with Joystiq to let us know it was responsible for the DS Spidey game – which, like previous DS Spidey tie-ins by developers like Griptonite, eschews the big-screen games' 3D action for hand-drawn, side-scrolling 2D.It's a different take on the Amazing Spider-Man franchise, just like the movie was a different take on the origin story for some reason.%Gallery-160113%
South Park: Tenorman's Revenge drops on XBLA March 30
Comedy Central has announced the next downloadable title in the series, South Park: Tenorman's Revenge, will launch exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade on March 30.South Park: Tenorman's Revenge is a side-scroller with drop-in co-op, both locally and online. Tenorman's Revenge pits Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny against Scott Tenorman and his army of Ginger robots as the boys pursue their stolen Xbox 360 hard drive.%Gallery-151481%
The War of the Worlds review: House of 1,000 corpses
If developer Other Ocean understood one thing about adapting H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds to video game form, it was the feeling of humanity's powerlessness that the original book created. Set in '50s London as it's being attacked by Martians, War of the Worlds: The Game sees protagonist Arthur Clark making his way past the invading army to find his family -- though that's a lot easier said than done. We are talking about Martians here. Unfortunately, that adherence to the book's sense of near-constant defeat is the most frustrating thing about The War of the Worlds: Arthur is such a vulnerable little meat bag that just about everything kills him. %Gallery-137267%
War of the Worlds gets underway on XBLA October 26
The video game adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells novel has been pegged for an October 26 launch on Xbox Live Arcade, developer Other Ocean has announced via its Facebook page. The side-scrolling platformer War of the Worlds loosely follows Wells' book, but also introduces new characters and events. And if you're wondering why Other Ocean sounds familiar to you, then you may have enjoyed some of the studio's most recent works: Dark Void Zero, Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection or the PSN port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
'South Park: Tenorman's Revenge' is the second South Park XBLA exclusive, arriving spring 2012
Cartman's long-standing feud with half-brother Scott Tenorman is about to come to a platforming-based turning point, as South Park: Tenorman's Revenge launches next spring exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade. This marks the second and final game under Microsoft's exclusivity agreement with South Park Digital Studios, as we revealed earlier this year. South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play!, the first game in the deal, debuted at NY Comic Con two years ago (nearly to the day!). For Tenorman's Revenge, South Park Digital Studios and Comedy Central are teaming up with quirky developer Other Ocean Interactive to put together a downloadable platformer where players will control Cartman, Stan, Kenny and Kyle against a red-hued army of "gingers," controlled by none other than Scott Tenorman. Beyond the main campaign of (presumably) hopping over gingers and avoiding their evil tricks, the game also features a multiplayer co-op mode (online and off), though it's unclear if that's a separate mode or a co-op version of the campaign. We'll know more very soon, though, as Tenorman's Revenge will be making a more thorough debut at this weekend's New York Comic Con, where developers and South Park producers alike will present the game and take questions from the crowd. That debut takes place tomorrow at 6:15PM ET. So, uh, if you're not in New York yet, it's probably a good idea to start planning. Head past the break for an exclusive look at the first image, featuring everyone's favorite three animal combo (besides the turducken, of course), ManBearPig.
Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection hits XBLA, PSN on August 31 [update: PSN August 30]
Fight! Wait, hang on. Do that next week, when the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection lands on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The game, which bundles the arcade versions of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, will be released on August 31 for $10. In honor of the collection's release, we have dubbed August 31 "Mortal Wednesday." Update: Warner Bros has issued an update, noting that Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection will be "available on exclusively on PlayStation Network in the North America only starting August 30, 2011." The global PSN launch, as well as the XBLA release, will happen the following day, August 31.
War of the Worlds screens class up the joint
We were pretty eager to take a look at War of the Worlds, this fall's XBLA and PSN release from Paramount based on H.G. Wells' classic novel. For starters, we love Other Ocean's DSiWare action platformer Dark Void Zero, but there's also our affection for rotoscoping and Patrick Stewart narration to consider. What we ended up seeing at E3 was frankly a little underwhelming. The presentation, moody and bleak, was top-flight but it seemed shallow from a gameplay perspective. The thrust of the 2D game is almost exclusively evasion, with the hero -- a British survivor of the Martian attack -- running from spotlights and lasers, ducking into ravines and tunnels to avoid detection. We saw this basic beat repeated some four or five times in a 20-minute demo, which left the game feeling droningly one-note. Other Ocean hinted that the hero we saw would eventually find a way to "turn the tables" on the Martians, so we're hopeful that'll help flesh things out a bit. What there's no debate about is the sartorial acumen of the game's protagonist. A turtleneck and a blazer? As if Duke Nukem needed yet another reason to be embarrassed, now the poor guy has to be self-conscious about his tank top. %Gallery-126292%
Other Ocean bringing War of the Worlds to XBLA, PSN
Other Ocean Interactive has announced a new project for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network based on the H. G. Wells novel, War of the Worlds. The game will follow the events of the 1953 film (not the Tom Cruise one) but will also include "a new story arc, characters, locations, and sub-plots." War of the Worlds will feature rotoscoped graphics and gameplay in the vein of "classic cinematic platformers such as Flashback, Out of This World and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee." The game is expected to launch this summer and will be shown at E3 next week. The name Other Ocean may not be instantly familiar to some readers, though there's a good chance you've played one of their games. Over the last few years, the studio has created the Bulletstorm promotional parody title Duty Calls, Dark Void Zero and the XBLA version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Other Ocean is also developing the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection for Warner Bros.
How Jimmy Fallon got into Dark Void Zero
[Capcom-Unity] As weird as an 8-bit style promotional DSiWare game made for a high-end next-gen game is, the weirdest thing about Dark Void Zero is definitely the Jimmy Fallon connection. According to the fake history Capcom and Other Ocean concocted for the DSiWare game, a young Fallon won a contest in the '80s and won both placement in the fictional game and the only known copy of the title, which Capcom "tracked down" to port to DSiWare (and now iPhone and PC, as well). We assumed it was just a desperate celebrity endorsement on the part of Capcom, but the truth is actually even weirder. Other Ocean's Mike Mika thought up the "contest winner" angle to make the game seem more authentic, but decided that having someone well-known win the prize would make it even more identifiable. Speaking to GameSetWatch, Mika said "So, in this case, we worked on a game a while ago with Jimmy Fallon back with a company I was working for before Other Ocean. He's an incredibly smart guy who knows a lot about games. He knows a lot about computer engineering. And he had this game that he wanted to get made that was actually fantastic." The plans for Fallon's game with the other company never panned out, but Mika and Fallon kept in touch. "And I know he was a big NES fan, so when this opportunity came up, I was trying to find a way to legitimize the game a bit. I just emailed him and just said, "Hey. Do you want to be in an NES game?" I told him kind of what I wanted to do with it, and he totally went with it." Elsewhere in the interview, MIka discusses the challenges of propagating an alternate-reality history, as well as the real origins of Dark Void Zero. %Gallery-80772%
Dark Void Zero not DSiware exclusive; blasting onto iPhone and PC 'soon'
Capcom's aggressive digital distribution strategy has led to major releases on everything from WiiWare to Xbox Live Arcade to PlayStation Network to Windows to iPhone, but there's been one notable absence: DSiware. Nintendo's underpromoted service hasn't had the support of a major release, so its easy to understand why Capcom targeted the platform with Dark Void Zero, the "8-bit" tie-in game due for release later this month. But while Capcom has found great success on the console platforms – including its 8-bit Mega Man 9 – they don't have any plans to release Zero there. However, they do have plans for some other platforms. "We are actually going to be releasing on iPhone and PC, can't say exactly when but I'll say 'soon,'" a Capcom producer told Joystiq. "Xbox Live, PSN, I don't know yet. I would love to do it on those consoles." And there you have it: If you want to try and play a "very hard" game (her words) on your iPhone, with no physical buttons, you're welcome to do that "soon." We'll stick to the DSiware and PC releases, we think.
