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Vicious Engine 2 adds Wii, PS2 and PSP
[smilingsquid] Vicious Cycle today announced that the second iteration of its Vicious Engine is getting set to ... viciously tear apart the innards of the Wii, PlayStation 2 and PSP. Wait, that doesn't sound very nice at all! What we mean to say is that the engine that brought you Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond for XBLA is heading to ... okay, that's not helping too much either. Anyway, for the past year, Vicious Engine 2 has been available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but today's news announces the game creation tools' ubiquity across pretty much everything else. Vicious Cycle will be next showing off the engine for the aforementioned consoles at GDC next month, where game industry folks and journalists will get a chance to see it in action. With any luck, they won't be deterred by the "Vicious Cycle" signs surrounding the booth.
Wii pair getting Vicious, Engine that is
Smack Down Productions is doing its part to fill bargain bins with punny titles like Build-A-Bear: A Friend Fur All Seasons and Koh Lanta, a party game based on the French flavor of Survivor. Now the French developer is working on a pair of unspecified titles for the Wii, each based on "high-profile licenses" and built using Vicious Cycle's self-titled Vicious Engine. High-profile or not, middleware doesn't make the game. No other details on either project are known, though with titles like disturbingly-named Fatal Furries to the developer's credit we can hardly wait to see what Smack Down has in store. Hardly.
Dead Head Fred writers give some insight into writing for games
When people start talking about the voices in their head, that's normally the time when we scour the room for the nearest exit, but David Ellis is the exception to the rule as he gives some delicious insight into writing for Dead Head Fred. The game was nominated for, and won, the first Writer's Guild of America award for Video Game writing. Those of you who have played the game will know how much it deserved the award - Dead Head Fred is hilarious.For some intriguing behind-the-scenes talk about Dead Head Fred's script, check out Gamezone's interview with David Ellis and Adam Cogan, where they discuss, among other things, their roles within the game. There's also some talk about how the development studio, Vicious Cycle, came about as a result of the truly tragic cancellation of X-Com: Genesis. There are still nights when we cry ourselves to sleep over that game's fate.
Dead Head Fred displays God of War-esque brutality
The more we see of Dead Head Fred, the more we want it. The recently purchased Vicious Cycle has been hard at work to make this a stellar PSP exclusive, and new videos from GameTrailers certainly show potential. By wearing different heads, Fred is able to perform a variety of moves. The video embedded above shows some brutal God of War-esque finishing moves, performed by active button presses. It worked for Sony's franchise, why not this one?Be warned that the video has strong language. Also, feel free to check another video after the cut.
D3 continues PSP support through purchase of Vicious Cycle
D3 Publisher is one of our favorite companies to work with at PSP Fanboy. Their support of the PSP with niche titles has been fantastic, with games like PQ2 and Puzzle Quest under their belt. It looks like their support of PSP will continue even further due to their recent acquisition of Vicious Cycle, developers of the upcoming Dead Head Fred. The combination of Vicious Cycle's technical expertise on the system and D3's focus on the PSP platform is certainly a win for gamers."The addition of Vicious Cycle to D3PA marks our first acquisition of an internal developer and further strengthens our capabilities in delivering top quality games to the North American market," said D3PA COO Yoji Takenaka.
Dead Head Fred tries to please fans with violence
Don't you love it when a developer listens to the masses? The developers of the upcoming Dead Head Fred held some focus tests on their game, and found that gamers wanted more violence. And indeed, the developers have provided, as seen in the trailer above. In an interview with IGN, Vicious Cycle president Eric Peterson, revealed some of the violent additions to this head-swapping brawler. "So we gave the people what they wanted and amped up Fred's combo list. We created more kill moves, more decapitations, more melee attacks, more counters and more abilities in general ... You can string combos together to pound on an enemy until they are weak and vulnerable for a kill move or decapitation. You can use head powers in combination with environmental items to create new attacks. For example, you can fill the corpse head with gasoline and then find an ignition point in the environment to create a flame thrower attack." Sounds good to us. We can't wait to get our hands on the game, and try out some moves ourselves. The team shows a lot of enthusiasm for PSP, and making the game solely for PSP -- let's hope they succeed with their ambitions.
Dead Head Fred interview
Dead Head Fred was one of the games I said "you should keep your eyes on." And for good reason: it's an original action game, made exclusively with the PSP in mind. QJ had some time to sit down with Eric Peterson, president of Vicious Cycle Software to get some info on the game. Here are some of the more interesting comments: "Dead Head Fred is a very ambitious game and we plan to deliver on all fronts. We want people to buy a PSP just to play Dead Head Fred." "Currently our load times are extremely fast and we are pleased with the results... the E3 demo that we showed, allowed for 30 min of straight gameplay without the player ever experiencing a load time." "The last thing we want people having to do is fight then camera when they should be fighting the enemies in the game." You acquire new powers by attaching new heads to yourself. Here's a few examples of heads you'll find in the game:"The Mutant head helps you survive radiation fields. The Scarecrow head lets you float on the water. The Stone Idol head makes you sink underwater. The Shrunken Head lets you get into tight spaces and glide along high wires. The Corpse head allows you to inflate with air and hover over obstacles; you can also fill it with water or gasoline to generate different effects and attacks. The Dummy head allows you to interact with citizens without scaring them out of their minds. " The full interview has details on the graphics engine, combat, mini-games, and more. The developers would love to do a downloadable demo for the game, so hopefully we'll see one down the line. The game has still a lot of development time left: it comes out next year.
Does depression lead to cellphone addiction, or vice versa?
In another classic "chicken-or-the-egg" type of conundrum, a newly released study is claiming that instead of a so-called "cellphone addiction" causing people depression and lower self-esteem, as we'd previously heard, the supposed addiction may actually be triggered by those very same negative feelings. In a study of school-aged South Korean children, Dr. Jee Hyan Ha found that those students who used their phones the most (90 or more times a day, including SMS) also tended to score higher on a psychological test intended to measure a person's level of depression. Although none of the students' scores reached the level of clinical depression, the heaviest users were observed to have significantly more self-identity issues than average, suggesting to researchers that communicating via cellphone made the "addicts" feel popular. So which is it: does heavy cellphone use lead to depression, or does depression lead to heavy cellphone use -- or is it just a vicious cycle with no end and no beginning?[Via textually]
