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Prince of Persia, Brothers in Arms, Skate 2 join Games on Demand
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a lot of new Games on Demand. We've got three new ones this week and a price drop. As for the new titles, we've got a platformer, military shooter and hardcore skating simulation in Prince of Persia, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway and Skate 2, respectively. Prince of Persia and Skate 2 each run $19.99 in the US, while Brothers in Arms will set you back $29.99. Meanwhile, Rockstar's Table Tennis has seen a 10 dollar price drop to $19.99. As always, pricing and availability vary by region. Xbox.com: Add Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway to your Xbox 360 download queue ($29.99) Xbox.com: Add Prince of Persia to your Xbox 360 download queue ($19.99) Xbox.com: Add Skate 2 to your Xbox 360 download queue ($19.99) Xbox.com: Add Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis to your Xbox 360 download queue ($19.99)
Rockstar Table Tennis backhands over to Wii
The nightmare of living in a Wii Play world of ping pong is almost to an end as Rockstar has announced that their Xbox 360 darling, Table Tennis, will be making its way over to Nintendo's world of waggle. As light on information as it gets, Rockstar's release is but a simple announcement and assurance that this will take -- say it along with us now -- full advantage of the Wii remote and its unique features. Okay, Rockstar founder Sam Houser really said, "a new audience can now experience a game that is beautifully designed and impossible to put down," but we know what he meant. With a release planned for this Fall, we can only hope that we have enough time to make our way over to Japan and learn those secret paddle positions we've heard so much about.
Rockstar's Soft Serve tour in Philly tonight [update 1]
Rockstar's "art, music, video & clothing installation" is going down in the City of Brotherly Love today at Jinxed Clothing, on 4th St. just south of South St. Not sure what to expect? Check out pictures from the Miami, Orlando, and Tampa stops. Not helping? Check out the featured artists who'll be, uh, arting at the event. Still not sure? There's going to be Table Tennis tournaments. Yup, the show isn't just about the uber-hip art world, but it's also about the uber-nerdy video game world and, try as Rockstar may to meld the two, we're like oil and vinegar, baby! We'll come together for little events like this, then be on our separate ways, back to our artist's communes/parent's basements respectively. As soon as I can figure out what time things are supposed to go down, I'll update the post and let y'all know. Philly Weekly has a writeup of the event listing 7pm as the start time and $0 as the cost. Anyone planning on attending? Want to meet there and beat my ass at Table Tennis? [Update: added event details.]
Colorblind gaming or: Table Tennis is impossibly hard!
Around one in ten males and one in two hundred females are unable to discern the difference between some or all colors that other people can distinguish. Like most other people with the disability, I've been colorblind (or, to use the politically correct term, have had color sight deficiency) since birth. I find it hard, and sometimes impossible, to tell the difference between shades of red, green and brown, blue and purple and oranges and yellows. As my optician told me when I was young, this disability means that I can't work in a paint factory or be a pilot. What he didn't tell me was that I'd have trouble playing friggin' computer games! As you probably know, the Xbox 360 features several colored buttons. Usually I can tell the difference between these buttons (the problem isn't so bad that I can't tell the difference between the equivalent of red and green at traffic lights). However, there's one game that has caused a problem: Rockstar's Table Tennis. A fundamental part of the gameplay is being able to respond to the opposing player's spin on the ball. This is represented by one of the colors which are also found on the gamepad. Blue for left spin, red for right spin, green for forward spin and yellow for back spin. Unfortunately, I can barely tell the difference between the red, green and yellow on a standard definition display. On a high definition screen the green and yellow are still nearly identical to my eyes. This isn't usually much of a problem during normal play (besides, I can always just press the green button), but on the training levels where you are taught how to spin the ball, I found the task physically impossible. I literally had to guess which spin the computer was giving the ball! Table Tennis has the hardest training level of any game, at least for me. Since completing the training levels is an Xbox 360 achievement, it's also possibly the hardest achievement there is. It took me around 3-4 hours and dozens of reattempts to get the 5 points given to you after you complete training.
Table Tennis demo now available on Live Marketplace [Update 1]
If your eyebrow is still in a raised position with regards to Rockstar's foray into the explosive, prostitute-less world of Table Tennis, be sure to grab the newly served demo from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Coming in at 526MB, the curtailed code should give you fine opportunity to beat innocent balls senseless and engage in more back-and-forth whacking than a Sopranos episode. Feel free to gawk at the shiny graphics and the ball physics, but don't make the crucial mistake of forgetting to press the green button. You can be sure that Conrad's sister will capitalize and promptly crush your ego in the palm of her adorable hand. Update: Major Nelson made this addition to his blog: "Hey, I forgot to post that this is a limited time demo. (sorry about that) That means that you can only download it and play it until the end of August. After that...the title will not work, even if you have already downloaded it! So get it and play it while it lasts!" Looks like someone's worried the demo might be a little too good.
GTAIV will share the Table Tennis engine
There's a rumor floating around these here internets suggesting that the next iteration of Rockstar's money-printing machine known as Grand Theft Auto will be using their own in-house RAGE engine (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine engine), recently seen in Table Tennis. Gamespot's Rumor Control traces the rumor to a TotalVideoGames.com post which mentioned, but neglected to link to, an MTV News report from over a month ago. That report stated, "The Rockstar reps explained that the game was running on RAGE, the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine. This is the graphics technology gamers are to expect from future Rockstar games, including the next GTA." I contacted MTV News' Stephen Totilo to see just how definite this was, and he returned, "I met with Rockstar publicists and producers for Table Tennis twice prior to the game's release. Both times they volunteered that RAGE would serve as the engine for all next-gen Rockstar games. 'Including GTA?' I asked both times. Including GTA they said both times." So there you have it folks. Following EA's acquisition of GTA's old-engine, Renderware, Rockstar has went and made their own. Sure, Table Tennis looks great but really, anything's better than the dated engine they're using now.
"Just press the green button", I said
"Just press the green button" Oh, those fateful little words. How naive I was to think that they wouldn't affect the ability that my sister was soon to display in a casual game of Rockstar's Table Tennis.
Metareview - Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (Xbox 360)
When Rockstar announced their top secret new game, gamers were floored that the San Diego branch of the house that GTA built had traded in their baseball bats for ping pong paddles with Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis. Big question is, how did they do with this smaller-scale, (relatively) budget-priced title? According to the reviews that are beginning to appear, pretty darned well. The complaints focus on the title's sparse feature set while the praise focuses on the Xbox Live integration and the tight, elegant gameplay. Seriously, read through the reviews if you have a particular affinity for the words "subtle" and "nuanced." According to the reviews, Table Tennis provides a streamlined sports sim that's short on features but full of subtle gameplay, reflected in the (next-gen) budget price of $39.99. IGN (78/100) - "If you want a table tennis game that's strictly focused on great mechanics and addictive gameplay, but that lacks a reasonable single-player mode and is shockingly sparse, Rockstar Presents Table Tennis is your game." GamePro (85/100) - "The best thing about the gameplay is that it's all about reflex and intuition -- accessible to all, but hard to master online competitive play. Setting up power shots, killer topspin, and hitting the corners of the table becomes easy in short amount of time. This game is an instant classic and is guaranteed to please the masses." Eurogamer (90/100) - "It's the sign of a great sports game when you can't think of anything you'd want to change in the next version. It doesn't need another version."
Rockstar's Table Tennis is no joke
Rockstar's second-floor party pad sits at the top of a long flight of stairs just off of Bowery in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood. As I climbed those stairs on my way to an invitational afternoon of beer, food and Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis this Saturday, I half expected the door to burst open and a bunch of clowns to yell "April Fools!" It just didn't make much sense that famously reticent, infamously too-cool-for-the-media Rockstar had actually invited members of the press to see their latest game, nevermind a lowly blogger. But for once, they're probably happy to be talking about something other than whichever version of their marquee Grand Theft Auto series has been released, been hacked, been banned, been recalled, been reissued, been whatevered. Instead, when the door to the flat opened I was greeted by a bevvy of Rockstar marketers, three huge HD displays, and three Xbox 360s spinning a pre-release version of Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis. Turns out the game is no joke and that Rockstar's serious about seeing that the game sees the exposure they believe it deserves.
