e3-2009
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Interview: Assassin's Creed 2 creative director, Patrice Désilets
Assassin's Creed 2 is Patrice Désilets' first sequel. If there's any anxiety or fatigue squirming inside of him, it's well hidden by an infectious enthusiasm and candor. Speaking with us during E3 2009 in Ubisoft's den (and thus, din), the creative director frankly discussed several issues with us, including one which you may have heard about, over and over again: Joystiq: Do you mind if I go back to Assassin's Creed 1 for just a bit? Patrice Désilets: Yeah, yeah, no problem. So, that game comes out. You're reading the reviews and people are complaining about repetition. Yeah. What do you feel at this point? Do you agree with them? Repetition for me is a point of view, really. Like, what is repetitive or not? You know, sometimes you go and play the same game over and over again and you are all right with the repetitiveness of it. And in AC1 some people just couldn't bear it. We listened to them while we were making the second one, but, I wasn't nervous or mad. What I was a little disappointed with was some reviewers, how they treated us. They have the right to their opinions and everything, but I felt like they maybe went too fast. But you know what? I also received [opinions that were] the other way around. People being really happy about the game. Doing it two, three, four, five times. Sure. And we sold some eight million copies of it, you know. Eight million people can't be wrong?
LGJ: Is the NDA still viable?
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: It was about E3 time last year when I gave an overview of our old friend (or enemy) the non-disclosure agreement. After all, it's those NDAs that are responsible for keeping the surprises as surprises. This year's E3, however, was a solid demonstration of the failure of the surprises mentioned last year, with Sony bearing the brunt of the leaked information. While I don't think this is necessarily an indication of the health of the NDA concept, it is a good opportunity to showcase some of the weaknesses of the NDA.I'm willing to assume that most people have heard the term "iron-clad contract." In that regard, I have some unfortunate news: there's really no such thing. Even a perfectly drafted contract that addresses every possible contingency still requires that the parties hold up their ends of the bargain. Otherwise, you're going to have to go down an enforcement route like litigation. The idea is to make the penalties for violation of the agreement something people want to avoid to encourage compliance with the agreement, and in the game industry context, as well as much of the tech sector, certain kinds of disclosures are simply difficult to deal with.
Split/Second developer Black Rock disses Jerry Bruckheimer
When we spoke with Split/Second developer Black Rock Studio (a fully-owned subsidiary of Disney Interactive) at E3, we asked if they felt like they'd stolen Jerry Bruckheimer's thunder, because the game looks like something we'd expect out of Jerry Bruckheimer game. Which is ironic, since Jerry Bruckheimer recently confirmed (after only a year and a half wait) that he's forming Jerry Bruckheimer Games at MTV, not Disney.Paul Glancey at Black Rock told us, "Well, we used to say our inspirations were Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer movies ... now we just say Michael Bay movies. Good luck to him, whatever he does. Hopefully he'll be using us as inspiration." Ba-ZING! Take that, Bruckheimer! We're sure you'll feel that sting as you swim around Scrooge McDuck-style in your giant pool full of gold coins.
Impressions: Afrika
Pokémon Snap fans, beware! Afrika is the Pokémon game you know and love, just all grown up ... and, ya know, without all those Pocket Monsters. Instead, you're chasing around lions and tigers and, erm, zebras with fancy Sony brand cameras, trying your best to capture shots and not get trampled. Oh, wait, that's right! There is no "trample." In fact, there's no interaction with the animals of any kind. You don't even get the satisfaction of oddly petting them like in Endless Ocean. With Afrika, you get an African safari simulator and little else. Which really makes it hard for us to even classify Afrika as a "game" as opposed to edutainment. Sure, there are assignments and "challenges," should you so choose to engage them, but there is little (if any) real progression through the experience.Better cameras do unlock as you complete assignments and a whole mess of National Geographic footage/stills/information also serve to reward various complete objectives, but none of this makes the "game" any more game-ey. Those of you looking for an interactive African safari simulation, Afrika is for you. For those of you whose first interest is seeing if you can run down a rhino, look elsewhere -- this "game" ain't for you.%Gallery-64358%
Impressions: Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii)
After over a year of waiting, XSEED has graciously picked up tri-Crescendo's meditative Wii action adventure Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon for North American publication. In a brief walkthrough of an early segment of the game, XSEED introduced us to the protagonist, Seto, who is believed to be the only human left in the world after some unspecified calamity has reduced everything to rubble and left the sky permanently darkened.%Gallery-26285%
Hands-on: DC Universe Online
MMOs on current-gen consoles? We've yet to see it really happen. However, DC Universe Online for PlayStation 3 and PC sure looks (and plays) like a game on its way to completion. When we last sat down with the game in February and talked to its producer, DCUO already had a ton of polish and -- even to our console-addled brains -- felt like an MMO we could get on board with. The controls on PS3 felt quick and intuitive then, and not much has changed (other than graphical fidelity, character animation, and bug squashes) since we last saw it. We muscled our way around S.T.A.R. Labs, turning zombified security guards back into their old selves and then employing the security guards to take down our foes. While the squad mechanics felt woefully underdone (as in, they don't exist -- you roll with a gang and they take down fools as the gang sees fit), we appreciated the ability to pick up a crew mid-mission to assist us.%Gallery-43826%
Hands-on: Lego Rock Band
It's tempting to just take a review of Rock Band 2 and stick it under here and label it Lego Rock Band, because that's pretty much what it is, albeit with a few family-friendly tweaks. They're mostly aesthetic, and Harmonix is working with Lego, who has approval over all of the songs in the game, to make sure it's an experience that little kids can enjoy with adults. It might be a bit jarring to see Suzie, age 6, gyrating along to "Sex Bomb," for instance.The biggest difference is that instead of just hitting notes, you're also collecting Lego studs each time you play correctly. Just like in all the other Lego games, the studs have a purpose, and in Lego Rock Band you can use them to upgrade your avatars by purchasing outfits and other accessories for them. They've even changed the in-game notes to look like the flat, round, single Lego studs. Besides that, the game is Rock Band as you've all come to know and love it. Mostly. What more could there be? Read on to find out.%Gallery-50718%
Hands-on: Cop: The Recruit (DS)
As a service to our busy readers, here's an extremely brief description of Ubisoft's C.O.P.: The Recruit: It's Grand Theft Auto, on the DS. Even more than the actual Grand Theft Auto game on the DS, Recruit recreates the 3D GTAs to a surprising degree of accuracy. It looks like one of the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games -- scaled down, of course, but not as much as we would think. Like in GTA games, you can steal any car, go anywhere in the city, and take part in both narrative and side missions of various kinds. In fact, you can do pretty much anything you can do in GTA (aside from the pointlessly extreme stuff), despite the fact that you're not actually a criminal, but a police officer ... who used to be a criminal.%Gallery-65282%
Nyko: Project Natal not a threat, but a 'challenge'
When Microsoft unveiled its controller-free camera technology dubbed Project Natal during E3 last week, you'd think that gaming peripheral makers might start asking President Obama for a bailout. But not so. At least not for Nyko. The manufacturer of third-party accessories, whose core business is unlicensed Wii products, doesn't see physical controllers going away anytime soon. In fact, Chris Arbogast, Nyko's director of marketing, has a hard time seeing casual gamers letting go of the Wii remote. "People in the casual market like feeling something physical to keep your hands aligned," he said. "When you grab the Wiimote and swing it, it feels like you're swinging a baseball bat, versus pantomining swinging a bat. I think that if you take all [the controllers] away and you're just pantomiming everything, there may be some disconnect with realism there." Obviously, working for Nyko, Arbogast has to stay positive. However, if Project Natal does take off, we wondered if the company has a Plan B. Arbogast said it might force Nyko to "think outside the box." "We'll have to think of other ways we can accessorize and augment the players' experience," he said. "Not with a controller anymore, but with other things to add to that camera functionality. It could be a whole new avenue of business that opens up for us because we'll be forced to challenge ourselves." Luckily for Nyko, Project Natal is probably a long ways off, with analysts saying it won't trump the Wii just yet. Until then, you can enjoy another innovation in camera technology: the Nyko DSi Zoom Case.
Interview: Alexey Pajitnov, creator of Tetris
Alexey Pajitnov (right) with Dutch games publisher Henk Rogers, who helped place the game on every Game Boy. With Project Natal, Uncharted 2, Metroid: Other M, Scribblenauts, and everything else going on at E3, the 25th anniversary of Tetris almost went unnoticed this past week, which is a real shame. We met up with Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of the game, and sat down with him to mark the occasion. Tetris may very well be the "remember when?" dividing line among video game generations, and it was quite an honor to meet the man behind the game that's become one of the cornerstones of the industry. You can listen to the full audio of the interview below, and head beyond the break for probably the world's shortest documentary, entitled "The Tetris Effect." Seriously, it's only three minutes long. How you can sum up the impact of a game that's still fun to play and appears on every major and minor platform around is beyond us. Maybe one of you readers will feel inspired to do an in-depth Ken Burns style documentary on it someday. He's one of the sweetest people we've met in the industry, and despite having invented one of the most prolific games in the world, he's very humble and down to earth. Give it a listen and try to imagine a world without Tetris. %Gallery-65424%
Warriors: Legends of Troy is Dynasty Warriors for people who hate Dynasty Warriors
Koei has a reputation for being a Dynasty Warriors factory and, considering people in the West don't get the series, the company's offerings largely go unnoticed. Eager to change that, Koei discussed with us their plans to release a new game, Warriors: Legends of Troy, which will be a part of the Warriors series developed for PS3 and 360 by western developers with a western audience in mind.The project is being handled by Koei Canada, a relatively new developer which started out life as a CG only studio, before becoming a software house in 2005. The company developed Fatal Inertia and ported Warriors Orochi over to the PSP, but Legends of Troy is their real coming out party. Targeting a release around Spring of 2010, Warriors: Legends of Troy shifts the setting from the classic tale Romance of the Three Kingdoms -- which is far more well known in the East -- to the Trojan War. Koei Canada is hoping that this change in setting will make people in the West a lot more interested in the title. But that's not the only thing that makes it different from a Dynasty Warriors title.%Gallery-65565%
Hands-on: Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time
I've always admired Ratchet & Clank from a distance. While none of the games have clicked with me, I do recognize -- and would recommend -- the series as a reputable, go-to option for anyone interested in family-friendly, action titles. (Having spent more time playing Insomniac's Resistance games than its Ratchet & Clanks, I'd still cite the latter as the studio's best work.) My initial impression of Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time is that the fifth sequel is on par with its predecessors, if not outdoing them through technical and visual improvements.%Gallery-65017%
Interview: Tim Schafer and the art of selling out
My name is Tim ... S-C-H-A-F-E-R. [points to my notepad] That's correct. Do people get that wrong a lot? They never get it right. Does it annoy you? No, I just like to fight for my particular spelling. For no reason it's completely arbitrary but for some reason it's enjoyable to fight for the specific spelling that I randomly have. You're trying to keep your Google ranking up. Exactly. You don't want people messing with it. And people who spell their names A-E-F-F-E-R. Hate those guys. They're jerks.
Hands-on: Red Steel 2
After the awkward and misguided mess that was Ubisoft's Red Steel, it must sound like damning praise to say, "Well, the sequel's much better." After all, Nintendo's newfangled MotionPlus attachment has come to save the day, introducing one-to-one movement and finally delivering the sword fighting extravaganza that all those energetic Wii players have been enjoying in the commercials. Unfortunately, MotionPlus' binding to Red Steel 2 doesn't feel particularly effective in combating the original game's flaws. It's a miss, like sticking a band-aid on someone's knee after they've been poisoned. If the MotionPlus makes a fundamental difference to the gameplay, it's not immediately apparent within the framework of a pretty insipid combat system.%Gallery-51378%
Star Wars: The Old Republic has hundreds of voice actors
Giant Bomb has been pumping out some great videos from E3 2009, but we of course took immediate notice of this interview with two Star Wars: The Old Republic developers from BioWare. Most of the conversation revolves around information we already know, until one of the devs reveals, "we have literally thousands of roles which are voiced in our game, which are done by many, many hundreds of voice actors." We knew there was going to be a lot of people, but, okay we didn't expect that many!Hundreds.Much of the Massively crew agreed that Star Wars: The Old Republic's classes would be limited to four or five on each side, due to the fully-voiced announcement. Now we're thinking differently with thousands of roles filled by many hundreds of voice actors. Suddenly, six or seven per side doesn't seem like a far away fever dream.If you'd like to see how it ends when you ask a BioWare dev about SWTOR's release date, check out the full video after the break.
Impressions: ModNation Racers
What game doesn't get better with a bit of customization? Gamers love infusing a little bit of their own personality into their games; whether it's changing your character's appearance in Mass Effect, making your own adventures in Neverwinter Nights or just editing all the names in the latest Final Fantasy to swear words. LittleBigPlanet's entire business model is based on selling customizable costumes which don't affect gameplay -- and it works. ModNation Racers -- Sony's newest entry to their Play, Create, Share genre -- looks to take the idea even further.In ModNation Racers every part of the gameplay experience is customizable to the Nth degree and the DIY features seem really quite powerful, from what we were shown during the extended demonstration. While LittleBigPlanet allows you to dress up your Sackboy with new costume parts and facial features, ModNation Racers allows you to move, rotate and scale these individually, as well as changing the color scheme of individual items, or the entire costume, in order to keep everything color co-ordinated with the click of a button.The style of the game, and the characters in particular, is based off a modern art movement called Urban Vinyl Toys. Artists start with a basic character shape, as you will in ModNation Racers, and then layer details on top. In doing so, countless artists can create hugely varying designs, despite starting from the same basic idea. The same principle is present in ModNation Racers, as you're given countless features to add to your character, some of which have 3D elements and some of which are more like 2D stickers.%Gallery-64898%
Interview: Sucker Punch's Nate Fox on inFamous and inSpiration
If you've been spending a lot of time enjoying the electro-shockery featured in inFamous, you've got the guy pictured above -- and the other 50-odd members of Sucker Punch Productions -- to thank. His name is Nate Fox, game director for inFamous and a writer/designer who has a decade of tenure with the studio. We had a chance to sit down with Nate at E3 to get a post-mortem look at the high voltage superhero sim, and to finally inquire what lies within protagonist Cole's mysterious backpack. So, Nate Fox, how long have you been at Sucker Punch? Nate Fox: I've been at Sucker Punch for over 10 years. When I started, I had a full head of hair. That is not a lie.
Gran Turismo 5 trailer reveals damage system, amongst other features
While perusing through the Joystiq Pile o' E3 Trailers™, we realized we had forgotten to post this gorgeous direct-feed footage of Gran Turismo 5. It flashed by too quickly during the Sony press conference for us to truly understand all the new features hidden in the trailer. Here's what we noticed: Damage!We captured this still frame from the trailer, showing off what appears to be a new damage model for vehicles. Look at the bent hood, the crack on the car's side. Are those scratches in the car's paint? We think so. FIA World Rally ChampionshipThe off-road challenges in Gran Turismo 5 look absolutely gorgeous, showcasing the engine's impressive ability to render particles. NASCARThis is a huge license for GT5 to feature as NASCAR fans are as hardcore as they come. With EA Sports slowly pulling away from the franchise, hardcore racing enthusiasts will turn to GT for their fix. The vehicle liveries look accurate -- important for the NASCAR fan. New cockpit viewFinally, we were treated to a second of footage from what appears to be a new cockpit view. The camera seems to be pulled farther back, revealing more of the drivers inside. It doesn't seem practical for races, but it is very dramatic. What else can you pinpoint in the trailer? Check it out after the break.
Capcom promises 'totally different' gameplay for Resident Evil Portable
Details on Capcom "Mystery Title #2" are slim at this moment. Quickly mentioned during Sony's E3 press conference, Resident Evil for PSP is shrouded in mystery. Will it be a port of the original PS1 game? A port of the Wii port of the Gamecube remake of the original game?Well, looks like PSP owners are in for a "totally different" experience with the upcoming game. Capcom's Chris Kramer notes in his blog that the upcoming iteration will be an "all-new title created specifically for the PSP platform, with the PSP Go in mind." If it's designed for the go system, then we're probably looking at a PSN-exclusive game. Episodic, bite-sized Resident Evil, perhaps?[Via Destructoid]
Interview: EJ Moreland, lead designer of APB
APB was probably one of the most impressive games we didn't actually see played at E3 -- while Realtime Worlds didn't have any actual gameplay to show off, they did have a nice demo session (in a booth guarded by these two tattooed ladies -- don't worry, EJ's wife, we asked him to pose for this one) where they talked about how their persistent MMO shooter will combine emergent cops-and-robbers gameplay with an extremely impressive level of customization.After the demo session, lead designer EJ Moreland sat down with us, and cleared up most of the wanted bounties we still had on the game: what's advancement like? How is the game using Last.fm? And just how will they balance out the ad-hoc gameplay of criminals committing crimes and enforcers catching them with the usual MMO process of character advancement? Read on for more.%Gallery-65497%
