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Belight Software takes a chance on gaming with Rails at Macworld 2013
Belight Software was showing off one of the few games on the floor of Macworld 2013 last week. The company usually makes utility apps, but just recently released its first game, called Rails, available on the iPad right now. The game is kind of a personal project for the devs -- they were big fans of an old DOS game called Short Line Express, and decided to make a game like that for the iPad. I found the game relatively similar to Matt Rix's game Trainyard, though it doesn't have that title's abstract feel. Instead, it's a little more straightforward -- you have a series of guidelines around each stage that you can draw tracks on, and then trains come out of different colored stations, and need to be delivered to stations of the same color. Trainyard's complexity came in its tracks, but Rails' complexity comes with its trains: Each one has a different ability that has to be either used or dealt with in a certain way as you guide them home. The game starts out simply, with the player just hitting switches and drawing tracks as needed. But things get very complicated. All trains will crash if they hit each other (except for bumper trains, which have the special ability of just reversing when they hit another train), but there are also trains like Kamikaze trains, which will do their best to drive towards other trains, or longer snake trains which are tougher to maneuver around, or trains that need to be kept on the track for as long as possible, or cleared through the station quickly. With all of these various elements, the game can get quite frantic, asking the player to switch trains and cars quickly after a while. Rails is a "project of interest" for Belight -- the company generally sticks with (and is happy with) utility apps, but the team obviously has a drive to make this one. It's done alright so far, according to the company's rep, and there's a Mac version coming to the Mac App Store as well. In the future, Belight is planning to add some features into this one, including the oft-requested ability to delete tracks. The rep also told us at Macworld that they may put some related games together for it as well, or the team may choose to create some other games. It's an interesting strategy -- the team is simply chasing their passions with this game, and it definitely shows.
Indian Railways launches RailRadar, lets you track trains via Google Maps
Indian Railways has just made it a little easier for rail travelers with a new web app called RailRadar, which uses Google Maps to track trains on a real-time basis. This is certainly welcome on one of the largest rail networks in the world -- it operates more than 10,000 trains everyday -- though the service is only available on 6,500 trains for now. To find out where your train is, simply search for its name or number and RailRadar will spot it for you. You can also find trains by entering the name of the station. Blue highlights indicate trains that are on time while red means it's behind schedule. If you click on a train, it'll show its entire route from start to finish. The logical next step would be for this to be on smartphones like how it is in Japan, though we're not sure if that's in the cards just yet. [Thanks, dil]
Otherland dev video talks design and going off the rails
What's happening in the world of Otherland? How about a new making-of video, for starters. RealU and gamigo, the developer and publisher responsible for bringing Tad Williams' sci-fi novels into the MMORPG realm, are offering up a new five-minute clip that takes fans behind the scenes for a brief look at the development process inside the game's Singapore studio. The clip is full of quick glimpses of devs at work as well as a few talking head soundbytes. In terms of how the game plays, the most revealing quote comes from lead designer Nic Cusworth. "What we've been trying to do is bring those skills from a console game background into an MMO and give players something that's a little bit more immediate, more fast-paced to play. But at the same time, it has the scope and range of an MMO," he says. How will that scope and range manifest itself in the finished game? That's still speculation at this point, but the devs seem united in their desire to highlight Otherland's openness and its willingness to deviate from MMO norms. "We all like online games, but I find it quite frustrating how people's conceptions and ideas are so railed," says art director Holger Liebnitz. Check out the full clip after the cut.
New Time Crisis 4 screenshots, Guncon 3 pics
A fistful of new images have just been released from Time Crisis 4, Namco's arcade rail-shooter making its way to the PS3 later this year (hopefully). Time Crisis will be a faithful port of the arcade game with an added mission mode starring Captain William Rush as the main character. Namco's more accurate Guncon 3 will be used in the new Time Crisis game as well, and a few images of the upgraded light gun have also been released.%Gallery-4206%
Wii Warm Up: On rails
With all this talk of a possible remake (can we get a sequel?) of Killer 7, we find ourselves once again dealing with the idea of games on rails. It seems to be one of those things gamers either love or hate -- never something that's just okay. But we've got to ask: where do you stand? Do you feel differently about, say, Sonic and the Secret Rings being on rails than you do about games that are essentially on-rails shooters?
Metareview: Touch the Dead
The reviews were slow to come in on Touch the Dead -- which usually indicates a dud. From the scores, it looks like that cliché may really be a fair assessment of the title's merits. With a current metascore of 58%, Touch the Dead is less OMG-zombie scary and more scary like Grandma's lingerie. Game Informer: 66% (average of two reviews) - "What you imagine to be headshot city is, in reality, the most challenging zombie game to come along in quite some time. As the zombies struggle to walk, their heads jerk about violently, making it an incredible test of skill ... this is a game that every zombie fanatic could love, but only the hardest of hardcore gamers can excel at." (Issue 170, p117)Game Almighty: 45% - "The first thing you notice when the game starts is the awful graphics. Touch the Dead reinvents what it means to have jaggies. Everything is pixilated and bland and the closer the zombies come, the worse it gets. Ironic, because the bad graphics actually inspire you to kill the creatures when they're as far away as possible, lest you think your DS has a broken graphics chip."GameSpot: 55% - "Every time you empty a clip, you have to manually reload by dragging the stylus from the ammo icon on the lower right-hand part of the screen to the clip icon on the lower left-hand part of the screen. While it certainly injects a little tension into the game, you quickly get to the point where you have to reload your clip after every zombie you take down, so you actually end up spending more time reloading your weapon than you do shooting zombies. It feels unnatural and can be difficult to consistently reload fast enough when you have a swarm of zombies bearing down on you."
Wii Warm Up: So, about the Umbrella Chronicles ....
So we're all excited about Resident Evil 4 redux, because it's such an awesome game, but what about Umbrella Chronicles? Some people don't seem to be too thrilled about the fact that it's an on-rails shooter. We're all about shooting zombies around here, so we're okay with the idea, though we'd like to get our hands on it before we deliver a final verdict. At this juncture, it's best to say we're tentatively excited, pending more details, video, and images. How about you?
Sonic and the Secret Rings details
In absolute defiance of the game's title, the Sonic Team has come forward to reveal some details about these so-called "rings". It seems as though Sonic is the one and only playable character, speeding through an Arabian setting in at least 70 separate missions. Despite the plethora of levels, however, the game is estimated to take only around ten hours for the average gamer to complete. Medals and unlockables will extend the playtime for those perfectionists out there, however, and no less than 30 minigames are planned to be included as well. Also discussed is the evolution of the game. Originally, the Sonic team wanted to make the gameplay far more active than it currently is, in the traditional 3-D style utilizing the nunchuk attachment. However, the team noted that the gameplay was too "strenuous", which most likely signifies that the controls were tiring players out before long. So, the decision was made to switch to the current, on-rails version. Sonic and the Secret Rings is currently scheduled for a March 2007 release.
