Bags Hooper

Stories By Bags Hooper

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Bags Hooper

  Tomb Raider Minimates debut at Toy Fair

  At Toy Fair, Diamond Select Toys showed off six new Tomb Raider Minimate figures, based on the upcoming reboot. The Minimates, which look like Lego figures with more points of articulation, are slated to hit shelves this summer, as two-packs sold in comic and specialty stores. The six figures shown include: a basic Lara Croft, a Lara Croft with battle damage, Captain Conrad Roth (Lara's mentor), two enemy scavengers and a figure who appeared to look like a priest. Diamond Select wasn't at liberty to share the names of the characters but suggested that the figure with the hood was a type of priest. The Art Asylum-designed figures excellent details, right down to Captain Conrad's chiseled eyebrows and five o'clock shadow. Each figure comes with accessories. The basic Lara Croft has a more generic hatchet, while the battle damaged, mud soaked Lara Croft has the stylized hatchet we've seen from Tomb Raider concept art. The Molotov cocktail scavenger comes with just that – a Molotov cocktail. The second scavenger had a shield and an iron mask. The designs are still pending licensor approval.

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  Entertainment

  Entertainment By Bags Hooper

  Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions on keeping annual Skylanders 'magic' alive

  Since first launching in 2011, Activision has turned its toy-powered gaming franchise Skylanders into an annual release. The third game in the series, Skylanders: Swap Force, is set to arrive this fall and will allow players to mix-and-match parts of 16 new toys for over 250 in game character combinations. Despite the franchise's success, solidifying it as an annual title in Activision's portfolio, it may not be immune to its new schedule. Activision has walked this road before, with the once-popular Guitar Hero franchise buckling under its own weight of too many releases in too short a time period. But Paul Reiche, Studio President at Toys for Bob [above, left], believes that innovation is the key to growing the franchise; innovation that will keep the "magic" alive for children. "The way that we're going to succeed is by ensuring that every year we have a meaningful innovation both in the toys and in the software as well," Reiche told Joystiq. Though Toys for Bob first developed Skylanders and launched its successor, Skylanders Giants, in 2012, developer Vicarious Visions has taken over to help the third entry in the series – a studio that developed ports and iOS games in the Skylanders universe and, at one time, helped Activision port the Guitar Hero franchise to mobile and Nintendo platforms.

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Bags Hooper

  Balancing horror and action in Dead Space 3

  The Dead Space franchise was founded on the core tenet of isolation – a single-player survival adventure against horrific necromorphs. In Dead Space 2, the franchise shifted its focus toward the growing blend of action and horror, a direction the Resident Evil franchise has been firmly set on in its last few releases.With Dead Space 3 Visceral looks to offer more of a balance between action and horror. Though the series is still planted within the action-horror sub-genre, Dead Space 3 will attempt to match the level of scares seen in previous entries while ramping up the action as the story progresses."We don't want to ever just be only action," Chuck Beaver, Dead Space 3 story producer, told Joystiq. "I think survival horror is morphing into something else."%Gallery-170513%

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Bags Hooper

  Shredding Spanish architecture in Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel

  The Army of Two franchise has always been a mixed bag of brotastic co-op shooting. The first game poorly chose to take a lighthearted approach to the war in Iraq and in the eyes of series stars Salem and Rios, everyone was a terrorist. The 40th Day made things infinitely more interesting, sending Salem and Rios over to Shanghai where the pair had to keep a watchful eye out for civilians in danger throughout their exploits.In the franchise's third outing, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, the co-op development teams of EA Montreal and Visceral Games have chosen to take the series down another new path. Now Army of Two's third entry, built on DICE's Frostbite 2 engine, ejects the brotacular humor in favor of a more serious narrative."We're trying to add a more serious tone to the characters," Visceral Games producer Greg Rizzer told Joystiq at a preview event, explaining the new game is "trying to take some of the frat boy stuff out of there."%Gallery-169924%

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Bags Hooper

  Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and the hunting party

  Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, an upgraded version of Monster Hunter Tri coming to the Wii U and 3DS, made its American debut at New York Comic-Con.In my first twenty-minute experience with the Wii U version of the action-RPG, I was able to step into the mind of a true hunter, both through my own travails against the giant Zinogre, and through the crowd of Monster Hunter devotees that surrounded the booth.%Gallery-168141%

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  Entertainment

  Entertainment By Bags Hooper

  Aliens: Colonial Marines' Xenomorphic perspective and Wii U potential

  In developing the canonical sequel to James Cameron's Aliens, Gearbox Software feels the naturally extended duration of a video game allows for a deeper narrative than what is found in films."We get ten-plus hours to tell our story. We can go way more in depth and in more directions on really delivering the next chapter in the Aliens saga," Gearbox Software design director John Mulkey told Joystiq during a demo of the studio's upcoming shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines at New York Comic-Con.Continuing from Aliens also allows Gearbox to build from the foundation of Cameron's classic action movie, fleshing out the backstory and mythos that is later continued in David Fincher's Alien 3. According to Mulkey, Colonial Marines will make Alien 3 "a cooler movie."%Gallery-165291%

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  PlayStation

  PlayStation By Bags Hooper

  Japan Studio's Puppeteer isn't just for kids

  Don't let the whimsical art style fool you. Puppeteer from Sony's Japan Studio isn't a game designed solely for children. The 2D game balances platforming with other unique problem solving challenges, both of which are just as addicting for adults. You may find yourself using a hamburger as a trampoline or trying to keep your puppet, Kutaro, out of a sizzling frying pan."It's not necessarily for kids," Tsubasa Inaba, Producer at SCEA, told Joystiq at a Sony showcase in New York. "The minute you design a game that appears to be for kids, the kids are turned off by it."%Gallery-169582%

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Bags Hooper

  Gearbox boss on an industry inching toward the 'holodeck'

  Despite striking gold, once again, with the Borderlands series, Gearbox isn't sitting back to watch accolades and sales numbers pile up. Having recently released Borderlands 2, the Texas-based team now turns to focus on supporting that game with additional content, and on completing the team's next high-profile project, Aliens: Colonial Marines.During the 2012 New York Comic Con, Gearbox Software President Randy Pitchford was on hand to help promote the narrative sequel to the classic mid-80s film; a game that has finally settled on a firm February 2013 release date for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (with a Wii U version planned later).In keeping with Gearbox's forward-looking plans, Joystiq asked Pitchford what his team wants the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation to include. What hardware does Gearbox need?"Imagine the spectrum of what's possible in the computing world," Pitchford dared us, asking to then pick a sweet spot between price point and computational power. Unlike the response we got from the Frostbite engine crafters at DICE, Pitchford stepped away from naming exact specifications; however, he suggested the next generation would come about from smarter, strategic partnerships across the development community.

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  Entertainment

  Entertainment By Bags Hooper

  Injustice: Gods Among Us online mode built on Mortal Kombat foundation

  Green Arrow, one of the newest heroes attached to NetherRealm Entertainment's Injustice: Gods Among Us, was on display during the 2012 New York Comic Con where Joystiq donned his emerald hood.Green Arrow's core powers appear to be modeled after Mortal Kombat mainstay Sub-Zero. Players can fire an arrow to freeze their opponent or generate an electric shock, stopping adversaries dead in their tracks. Arrow's special ability is as brutal as any meter special you've come to expect in a fighting game from the team behind Mortal Kombat. Attaching opponents to a wire, Green Arrow grabs his opponent and brings them crashing back to the ground for a devastating attack.NetherRealm producer Hector Sanchez says to bring Injustice: Gods Among Us to the same competitive level of the company's previous release, the team will build upon the strong foundation of Mortal Kombat's online system and add features along the way."Imagine the online availability that we had in Mortal Kombat just on steroids," he says.%Gallery-168042%

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  Nintendo

  Nintendo By Bags Hooper

  In search of hidden objects in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

  Sidekicks, with their one-dimensional character traits to help round out leading characters, are always fun to have around. In Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario's lanky brother steps out of his sibling's shadow and into the haunted locales of his latest starring role, fleshing the character out as even more of a scaredy cat than we've come to know.Luigi's second romp through a haunted mansion offers something different for 3DS fans, following much of the same from Mario's previous adventure.Focusing less on combating the franchise's famously shy ghosts, the demo for Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon found its niche in quirky humor and puzzles.%Gallery-157215%

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Bags Hooper

  Insomniac wants Fuse players to 'take the universe seriously'

  Insomniac's Fuse began as Overstrike, a colorful co-op spy game with a humorous flair. Fuse continues the co-op direction of the game, but has shifted its look to a style that tilts more toward realism than fantasy.Some internet reaction has labeled the new style powering Fuse as just another 'standard military shooter,' but Insomniac says it's not totally shunning the game's fantastical elements."We have our underwater bases. We've got missiles and volcanoes. We have a lot of exotic situations but at the same time we want people to take the universe seriously," Insomniac Creative Director Brian Allgeier told Joystiq at the 2012 New York Comic Con.But over-the-top elements still exist in the more mature-looking multiplatform game, as evidenced by the game's weapons and abilities.%Gallery-168274%

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  Nintendo

  Nintendo By Bags Hooper

  Approaching Wii U's GamePad like a 'toy' in Madden NFL 13

  Madden NFL 13 on Wii U may lack the Infinity Engine, which brought stronger collisions and dynamic animations into the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, but the console's gamepad fills that void with a tablet-drive, play calling system. The only problem, EA tells Joystiq, was getting players to want to use the new control system."A challenging thing at the beginning was getting people to actually want to touch the screen," says Yuri Bialoskursky, lead designer on Madden 13 for Wii U. "They would just stare at it blankly and not interact with it. We had to come up with a way to make it like a toy, essentially – make you want to mess around with it."The Wii U GamePad lets players navigate their playbook through the gamepad's touch screen, allowing them to tap and drag to the right play. More importantly, players can draw offensive and defensive hot routes right on the screen. Offensive and defensive linemen are represented by yellow circles, while the hot routes you draw are represented by a red line. You can also play in "detached mode" and play Madden entirely on the WiiPad, freeing your television for any other piece of entertainment, like watching real life football.%Gallery-168180%

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