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Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon review: Shoot, shoot, shoot, end
It's not that it's a failure. I can see what Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon wants to be: A mindless, explosive shooting gallery. I can also see that it does a pretty good job of meeting that goal. It's mindless, stuff explodes, there's shooting. Top marks all around. But no matter how I tried to see the brighter side of this basically good-hearted game, I couldn't shake an inescapable truth: This is dumb, and you deserve better.%Gallery-126306%
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon trailer suggests destructible environments
Judging by a few quick shots in this trailer, we believe Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon might have destructible environments. Watch the video and see if you can spot any buildings taking damage.
D3 imports Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon trailer
Okay, let's see if we can get this straight. Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is the first game in the series to be developed outside of Japan. As part of its promotion for the Western release of this game, D3 Publisher sent Western press (like us) the following Japanese trailer, which is about how the game was not made in Japan. It's also about shooting giant spiders, and luckily there are no language or cultural barriers there. EDF comes out in North America July 5, and, as the trailer says, July 7 in Japan.
EDF Insect Armageddon preview: Bug spray
It's natural to worry about the new Earth Defense Force game, Insect Armageddon. D3 has taken the series away from developer Sandlot and handed it to a Western team, its own Vicious Cycle, best known for the Matt Hazard series. However -- and this works out in the new game's favor -- the EDF games were never technically good to start with. So if Vicious Cycle designed it too well, it would feel inauthentic. So far, it seems that the team has been good to the source material, making worthwhile changes and keeping what works, all in an engine that can actually keep up.%Gallery-118492%
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon trailer attacks Earth
We're already getting tired of the voice clips in this Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon footage. That's kind of a bad sign. We're taking the preponderance of jetpack-based action in the trailer, however, as a good sign. You can mute a game, but TV remotes don't have "add jetpack" buttons. %Gallery-104220%
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon video crawls out
D3 Publisher's least embarrassing budget game series, Earth Defense Force, is returning this spring on Xbox 360 and PS3 in Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon. The tiny amount of media released by D3 so far, including a teaser trailer after the break, suggests that this new game has a lot in common with its predecessors: specifically, big insectoid monsters destroying a city, and a team of futuristic soldiers shooting them. However, we know it's not exactly like previous EDF games, in one important and troubling way. All the previous EDFs have been developed by Sandlot, but this one is in the hands of Eat Lead developer Vicious Cycle Software -- which adds an element of "waiting and seeing" to our anticipation for this sequel.%Gallery-102610%
D3Publisher announces Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
Who would have thought that Earth Defense Force 2017, one of our guiltiest current-gen pleasures, would ever get a proper sequel treatment? Certainly not us -- which explains why we were (kind of) surprised when D3Publisher announced Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon for 360 and PS3 earlier today. The description from the game's announcement sounds like we'll be reprising the giant bug-shooting action of 2017, but with support for a three-player online co-op Campaign, as well as a six-player co-op Survival mode. The Insect Armageddon is still a ways off, with a tentative spring launch window -- fortunately, D3Publisher sent over a handful of images from the game to tide us over until then. Entomophobics need not apply!%Gallery-102610%
Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond receives postmortem
Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond was in the unfortunate position of being a not-so-bad follow-up to a pretty darn bad game. As if we needed to feel even worse for it, Gamasutra has released one of its all-too-humanizing postmortems centered on the PSN and XBLA release. Developer Vicious Cycle's revelations about underestimating the work a downloadable game would take are interesting, but we're kind of disappointed that the "What went wrong" section isn't just "The first Matt Hazard game" in big letters.
X3F TV -- XBLA in Brief: Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond
This week on XBLA, we've got Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond. Like its retail predecessor, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, Blood Bath and Beyond is an action game that parodies other video games. Thankfully, the gameplay seems to hold up its end of the bargain this time, offering a decent hardcore shooter experience, though the 1200 ($15) seems a bit steep. Check out the latest XBLA in Brief and see if Blood Bath and Beyond is for you. Shortcut: Download the trial version of Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond [via Xbox.com] [iTunes] Subscribe to X3F TV directly in iTunes. [Zune] Subscribe to the X3F TV directly. [RSS] Add the X3F TV feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [M4V] Download the M4V directly.
This Wednesday: Matt Hazard brings 'Blood Bath & Beyond' to XBLA, PSN on Thursday
Faux video game legend Matt Hazard returns (this time, for real) in Blood Bath & Beyond, blasting his way onto XBLA and PSN this Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. The 2D side-scroller has the protagonist battling through his "classic" gaming past, fighting "pirates to penguins; lighthouses to laser-wielding astronauts; Mounties to mechanical rhinos" for $15 (1200). The idea behind Matt Hazard sounds so perfect on paper: take thirty years of video game cliches and mock them. Sadly, as evidenced by Matt Hazard's first outing, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, instead of creating humor from the conventions, it ironically relied on them for the core gameplay -- thus, creating a game that invariably could mock itself and was its own punchline. Hopefully, this time around Hazard will make the jokes instead of being one. %Gallery-74470% Source -- This week on Arcade: Matt Hazard [Major Nelson] Source -- Parody Alert!!! Matt Hazard [PS Blog]
Vicious Engine offered to PSP Minis developers
We've seen a few titles which will soon be offered as bite-sized PSP Minis, but a recent Vicious Cycle Software press release makes us think we're about to see a whole lot more. The company recently partnered up with Sony to grant access to its Vicious Engine to PSP Minis developers in order to "create quality downloadable titles both quickly and cost-effectively." Though you may not be familiar with the technology, you've probably played a title or two built upon the Vicious Engine -- Puzzle Quest, Dead Head Fred and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard all used the engine as their building blocks. Sounds like fairly versatile programming -- it even caters to the increasingly popular "hotel training sim" genre.
Hilton uses Vicious Engine for 'salt' training game
Click to Hilton-size Vicious Cycle Software has announced that Virtual Heroes used the Vicious Engine to craft a Hilton hotel employee training game, which we first reported in January. The press release notes that the PSP game, titled Hilton Garden Inn Ultimate Team Play -- catchy -- was deployed to all Hilton Garden Inn hotels in February. Don't bother yourself with puzzling questions as to why a company would retroactively announce that the "game" uses its engine. Just forget about that. You want to know about the gameplay ... and we've got you covered.There's some drivel in the press release about it, but why bother reading that when you've got screenshots? Judging from the image above, the game involves luring customers with piles of toast -- while menacingly keeping the patrons in your crosshairs -- and managing your hotel's supplies of precious salt.%Gallery-50095%
Moar Graffix! Vicious Engine 2 announced
The somewhat popular Vicious Engine (primarily a PSP and Wii development tool set) will be giving up its spotlight soon, with the announcement of the much newer and powerful Vicious Engine 2. Vicious Cycle Software revealed the Vicious Engine 2 will make its debut at this month's Game Developer Conference and is targeting next-gen consoles. Vicious promises their updated engine will allow for development on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously, which not only speeds up the dev cycle, but also makes the entire process cheaper. (That deserves a manly Tim Taylor grunt.) Will this new Vicious Engine make developers forget about the omnipresent Unreal Engine 3 or the crazy-powerful Crytek Engine? Highly doubtful, but who knows. We could be surprised at GDC with a hefty helping of graphical beauty and devs turned into true believers. [Via Big Download]
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard launch trailer
There is one overriding fear present as we watch the Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard launch trailer. It's clear that the developers are attempting to create a parody of some of gaming's most tired stereotypes. That's a neat concept, and one we can get behind. The fear is that if the game doesn't have decent gameplay -- a likely possibility at this point -- all the humor in the world doesn't matter. Without fun gameplay, you see, all you're left with is a title full of gaming's most tired stereotypes. At least the trailers are funny, though.
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard announced
D3Publisher has announced a shooter known as Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. The game will parody various video game genres and the industry, as well as pop culture. The title stars Matt Hazard (his fictitious history can be found at this official "unofficial" website), who returns to prove he can still take his old foes from the game publisher Marathon Megasoft. The game seems to be aiming to offer an entertaining third-person shooter experience (complete with a cover system) without taking itself too seriously. Take a look at the screenshots below and look for Eat Lead when it is released Q1 of 2009.[Via Joystiq]%Gallery-33560%
Joystiq interview: Games and storytelling according to Vicious Cycle's Dave Ellis
Writing in games has come a long way since players were asked if they were bad enough dudes to rescue the president from ninjas. It's a growing area of game development that Vicious Cycle senior game designer Dave Ellis has certainly taken to heart, having won the 2008 Writers Guild award for writing for his work on the PSP action horror title, Dead Head Fred. Now Ellis plans to impart some of his wisdom on other aspiring game writers as the keynote speaker for the Writers Guild Foundation's workshop on video game writing, which is set to take place in Los Angeles on October 18. In the run up to the event, however, we had the opportunity to pick his brain on a number of game writing-related topics, including the state of writing in the industry, storytelling's role in game design, and the potential for games like Heavy Rain to push the industry forward. We also took a second to touch on Ellis' passion for collecting classic arcade cabs, all of which you can check out after the break.
Frozen Codebase, Vicious Engine liplock over Elements of Destruction
The bottle no longer spinning, its narrow mouth points squarely at Vicious Cycle as the company's middleware solution is taken in hand by developer Frozen Codebase to the closet for a little lovin'. The Green Bay, Wisconsin-based studio selected Vicious Cycle's increasingly popular (not to mention educational) Vicious Engine to power its upcoming XBLA title Elements of Destruction. As the title suggests, Elements of Destruction will focus heavily on blowin' stuff up using "spectacularly destructive powers of nature." The game follows last year's Screwjumper and marks the second XBLA release from the studio, which was founded by industry veteran Ben Geisler and is staffed by vets from such companies as Raven Software, Radical Entertainment, and GarageGames. As with Screwjumper, Elements of Destruction will be released by THQ -- as soon as they can get that closet door open.
Vicious Engine made available to Indiana University students
Developers Vicious Cycle Software have offered up the studio's cross-platform Vicious Engine middleware to students attending the Indiana University School of Education, giving those aspiring to a life of game development some helpful hands-on time with real-world tools. But don't go expecting the university to churn out the next Puzzle Quest or Dead Head Fred, as according to the school, students will be using the engine to make so-called 'serious games." Students' games will be "designed to teach various subjects of their choosing," and will be part of a larger university study on "how people learn through games." Even so, we imagine the experience will likely prove invaluable for those students wanting to eventually grease the wheels of game development with their sweat and blood.
Joystiq Interview: Puzzle Quest, Vicious Cycle's Eric Peterson's 'Holy Grail'
On paper, the genre-bending Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords reads like a madman's manifesto, meshing together elements of classic puzzlers like Bejewelled with those more commonly associated with traditional RPGs for an experience that is anything but traditional. Nonetheless, the game proved to be one of 2007's surprise hits, as it tapped into both the casual and hardcore gaming communities like few games before it. It also helps that in the span of just a few months Puzzle Quest has managed to be ported to nearly every platform under the sun, including the game's most recent incarnation for the Wii. In the wake of this release, we got some face time with Eric Peterson, CEO and president at Vicious Cycle Software -- one of Puzzle Quest's two development partners, about this latest release, the series, and which version, to him at least, represents the definitive Puzzle Quest experience (Hint: It's not the Wii version). More on these topics and more after the jump.
Wii Warm Up: The questing continues some more
As if responding to the concerns we raised yesterday, D3Publisher announced what changes and additions gamers can expect with the Wii port of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Shouldn't we have heard about these details at an earlier date, preferably before the game was shipped out?Anyway, this new Wii version of the puzzle/RPG hybrid has rebalanced elements, a replay option for capturing monsters, and a two-player multiplayer mode. As we predicted, there are no online features, unlike the Xbox Live Arcade and PC releases. Developer Vicious Cycle Software did, however, make sure to integrate "waggle control options with the Wii Remote."Were any of you actually hoping for motion-based controls? Or were you wishing, like we were, that the developer would focus its efforts on implementing the primary feature fans of the handheld versions were asking for? We'll probably pick up Puzzle Quest anyway; we just wish we could play against some of you online.
