e3-2011
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Super Mario preview: 3D plus 2.5D plus Super Mario Bros. 3
The new Super Mario for 3DS is an interesting new take on 3D Mario gameplay ... in that it largely restricts the level design to 2D. Or, at least, 2.5D. There are plenty of sections where you move in and out of the screen, sure, but for the most part, you're following corridor-style paths from left to right. Where previous 3D Mario games were about exploring spaces, Super Mario is in general about navigating to the end of the level. It's a mix of the styles of classic and 3D Mario. It also makes more of an effort to integrate the 3D effect into gameplay. But the parts that don't really deal with that are a lot more effective than the ones that do.%Gallery-125677%
E3 2011: Perfect World shows off three killer new titles
We recently learned that Perfect World Entertainment bought Cryptic Studios, the maker of Champions Online and Star Trek Online. While it was a surprise, it shouldn't have been. PWE has been successfully growing and publishing games for a long time. I caught up with PWE at E3 to take a look at three brand-new titles that will be coming out later this year. I approached the decked-out booth cautiously just in case the company had plans to buy me as well! I was ushered into a dark cave-like structure built just for showing off three new titles. I shook hands, made introductions, placed faces with names that I normally knew only through email or social media, and sat down in front of a screen with a glowing image of a man in a bear suit -- a bear suit with giant claws. It reminded me of Frank from Donnie Darko. The PR team started to give me the details of the new titles I was about to play, and then I turned around and logged in. Join me past the cut to hear what I thought!
3DS release schedule outs new eShop games, upcoming dates
We were just casually browsing Nintendo's E3 press site, like you do, when we happened upon upcoming schedules for 3DS, DS, and Wii. And there's a bunch of stuff on here that we, and probably you, hadn't heard about yet! Like, in case you missed it, the September 11 release date for Star Fox 64 3D., and an August 23 date for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked. According to this schedule, Ubisoft's got James Noir on the way August 30, Imagine Babyz 3D (imagine babies! In 3D!) October 25, a 3DS version of Michael Jackson: The Experience and a 3DS NCIS game the same day, and ... a 3DS version of Rayman: Origins on March 13, 2012!? The eShop section of the schedule names some upcoming Game Gear Virtual Console titles from Sega, all scheduled for "Summer." The games include Columns, Dragon Crystal, Shinobi, Sonic Drift 2, and Sonic Triple Trouble. Check the list out after the break. Keep in mind that some of these listings will undoubtedly change in the future, or might be inaccurate now, as they were reported by Nintendo and not these games' actual publishers.
Global Chat: Surprisingly not all about E3 edition
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! Sure, we spent a lot of time on E3 last week, and it certainly dominated the news scene. Our readers found time to ponder non-E3 general gaming talk in addition to E3 talk, so follow along after the jump to see some of what they had to say this week.
Lord of the Rings: War in the North preview: Death from above
We last saw Lord of the Rings: War in the North back in March, and the mechanics haven't changed much in the version seen on the floor of E3 earlier this week. It's still a three-player co-op game, featuring an elf caster, a human rogue and a dwarf fighter beating down some of the familiar baddies from the Lord of the Rings franchise with a nice layer of RPG on top. The game's not incredible, but it's a more than serviceable action title, made better with a few good friends to play with. This latest preview focused on a slightly different objective than last time -- in the short part of the demo I played, my cohorts and I had to defend a set of elven brothers that were casting some magic to break open a fortress door, with a few waves of enemies rolling in after us. Fortunately, we weren't alone -- while my companions depended on their weapons, and my axe, we had one other secret weapon up our sleeves: A giant eagle.
League of Legends shows off new champions, spectator mode at E3
Riot Games' League of Legends is one of the biggest free-to-play titles around -- it started off as a spiritual successor to the old Defense of the Ancients mod, but has since grown, strictly by word of mouth and organic growth, up into its own industry. Riot hasn't actually announced player numbers for the title yet, but this is a huge game online, consistently landing in the top spots on Xfire and other services' most-played lists. If you've never played (and why not? It's free!), the basic structure of the game has you controlling a champion on a real-time strategy-style battleground, and Riot has been releasing one of these new champions every few weeks for quite a while now. In the game's booth at E3 last week, we got to hear about three of the upcoming new champions, as well as brand new feature to the game designed to get even more players involved: A spectator mode.
Round up Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 in August
Nintendo's E3 roster was so cavernous, and so quietly announced, that we still have at least one more new game to mention: Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2. Almost completely imperceptible in Nintendo's booth except for the piped-in Dragon Quest theme, the DS role-playing spinoff will draw near to North American stores on August 28. Joker 2 has players taming wild Dragon Quest beasts and training them in turn-based battles. It has over 300 of the series' signature critters, and can even obtain monsters via Tag Mode with Dragon Quest VI and IX! Speaking of other Dragon Quest games, Nintendo is really serious about this Dragon Quest thing, huh? It published Dragon Quest IX last year, then VI early this year -- and Dragon Quest characters are in both Mario Sports Mix and Fortune Street (also announced at this E3). We never expected to see any Western publisher care this much about Dragon Quest, much less Nintendo.%Gallery-125884%
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword preview: Swinging for the skies
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is the Zelda game I wanted on Wii five years ago, when the console launched. I don't mean that to say it's not good, because I sure had a great time playing it. I mean that to say that the "Wiimote as a sword" gameplay in Twilight Princess was gesture-based and awful, whereas Skyward Sword features excellent, near one-to-one control thanks to the required Wii MotionPlus. I lift the Wiimote, and Link lifts his sword. I slash diagonally, and he slashes with me, imperfections and all. In fact, aside from some seriously rough graphical edges -- literally! jaggies ahoy! -- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is exactly the right Zelda game for Nintendo's soon-to-be-succeeded Wii console and it's oft-misused controller.%Gallery-125901%
SSX preview: Peaked interest
SSX is a series that inspires fond memories in a lot of gamers, but those memories might be older than you think. The last entry in the series, a Wii exclusive called SSX Blur, came out five years ago, and SSX 3, the one-mountain classic, hit stores just two years shy of a decade ago. So EA's new version, with the back-to-basics title SSX, has the task of not only updating the series for the current generation of consoles, but also reminding gamers just what they enjoyed so much about SSX in the first place. Based on my hands-on demo session at E3, it seems like things are progressing well. There are still quite a few questions about how the game will turn out -- EA showed off just one example of each of the game's three play types, and what we saw was far from a final version. But there's a solid plan for the game, and some interesting choices are already evident.
WRUP: Remember when Nintendo sold consoles that just played neat games edition
The Super Nintendo is a system I remember fondly. I didn't like it because it had motion sensitivity; I liked it because it had games like Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VI and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Finding out that the next generation of Nintendo hardware essentially asks a player to strap an iPad to a controller and lug it around through various motion games is perplexing on some levels. Maybe I've reached critical gadget overload. I don't know. Of course, it's rather apropos to be talking about E3 revelations in this week's WRUP, as we're talking about what we liked the most from E3 in addition to our usual discussion of weekend activities. Click on past the break to find out what the Massively staff will be up to over the next couple days, and let us know what you're going to be doing in the comments!
Rhythm Heaven preview: For your ears only
The Wii Rhythm Heaven game was, without a doubt, one of the most delightful experiences I've had in the last week, in exactly the ways I knew it would be as soon as I saw the first screenshots. It turns out there is a formula for Rhythm Heaven games, and as long as the Rhythm Heaven team makes a Rhythm Heaven game using that Rhythm Heaven formula, the result will be something wonderful. Rhythm Heaven.%Gallery-125900%
Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team preview: Dakka dakka dakka
Despite Warhammer 40K: Kill Team's dubious lot in life to be a digitally distributed tie-in for the upcoming Warhammer 40K: Space Marine release, the game actually stands on its own as a competent twin-stick shooter. It feels like a game that could be much more if THQ wanted it to be. My hands-on E3 demo of the game began by selecting my space marine and clan. The options included ranged fighters like the Sternguard Veteran and Techmarine, while the melee classes included the Vanguard Veteran and Librarian. You'll be able to swap out weapons and equip your soldier with classic 40K items of death like the chainsword and power sword -- speaking of which, to obtain the power sword in Space Marine, the game needs to see you've completed one level of Kill Team. %Gallery-125171%
PDP's E3 lineup of peripherals exposed
PDP came packing lots of plastic here at E3 and after taking a quick tour of the company's offerings -- some of which are available, some of which are coming down the line -- I was handed some media; lots of images for you to pore over. Hit the jump to check out the hardware.
Robot Entertainment planning to set a trap for Orcs Must Die! in July [Update: Actually, it's late August, early September]
While checking out Orcs Must Die! at E3 this week, we spoke with lead designer Ian Fischer and inquired about the game's planned launch window. The current plan is to launch on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade initially sometime this summer. "It'll be launching on XBLA and Steam initially, then other platforms after that," he explained. "We haven't talked about price point yet, but we're looking to launch it sometime this summer -- July, at least, is what we're looking at right now." Keep it locked for our preview, which should be live on the site here soon. Update: Orcs Must Die!'s community coordinator, Duncan Stanley, emailed me to say that Ian was mistaken when he gave me the initial July window. The game will likely launch in late August or early September, he says.
Deadliest Warrior: Legends preview: Risk-y business
Deadiest Warrior has a long history of surprising me at trade shows by being much, much better than any licensed downloadable game has a right to be. That trend wasn't bucked at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo, where the newly rebranded publisher 345 Games -- not to be confused with 343 Industries or 505 Games, mind you -- showed off Pipeworks' second stab at the combatative franchise, Deadliest Warrior: Legends. The title appears to bring a number of intriguing, necessary additions to the core one-on-one combat system, possibly bringing it into parity with deeper entries in the genre. However, the aspect which provided me with my annual jolt of surprise didn't involve dismembered, anachronistic soldiers: It involved the game's new strategic game mode, "Generals."
Tomm Hulett on Silent Hill Collection, Downpour, Book of Memories and Korn
I managed to snatch a few minutes with Silent Hill series producer Tomm Hulett at E3 this year. The convention played host to an uncharacteristically large amount of Silent Hill news. Between Silent Hill: Downpour, Silent Hill Collection and Silent Hill: Book of Memories, series fans are in for an embarrassment of riches. As a responsible journalist however, there was only one choice for my first question: Why Korn? %Gallery-126003%
Orcs Must Die! preview: Pleasure in panic
It's hard to define Orcs Must Die!. On paper, it's a marriage of the Tower Defense and the action-RPG genres -- but the influence of one doesn't trump the other; it doesn't feel dominated by either one of those two genres. Robot Entertainment has expertly blended the two genres together to create something new: a panic-infused experience where the player is constantly under duress. %Gallery-126147%
Lead artist Shawn Robertson talks the aesthetic evolution of BioShock Infinite
It doesn't take long looking at screens or video from BioShock Infinite for you to realize it looks like nothing else on the market. We talked with lead artist Shawn Robertson about how the game's unique aesthetic evolved. When you were building the world, what were some of your aesthetic influences? For me, I kept flashing back to Main Street at Disney World, you know, when you first walk in? Good call, that's the period, that Gilded Age of America, the early 1900s when everybody's so full of hope and optimism. We didn't start there, it's definitely a journey. When we started, when we had the idea of a city in the sky, we were looking a lot at Art Nouveau, and Art Nouveau is kind of a dark, goth movement of the time, swirlies, very organic. The first few maps we built might as well have been Rapture. We brought the clouds in, it was dark and stormy, the clouds had a greenish tinge to them, it was very claustrophobic. Then we started pushing the clouds out. %Gallery-126035%
Nintendo's 'goal' for Mario Kart 3D: eight-player online
Mario Kart 3D has more improvements in store than just hanggliders bolted to the backs of all the cars. It currently features eight-player local wireless racing, and, if everything goes as planned, it'll feature eight-player online as well. Joystiq asked Mario Kart 3D producer Hideki Konno if the kart racer would feature online play, and he responded "Of course!" Though the current online configuration isn't quite set, "our goal right now is to have the same number of players for both local wireless and multiplayer over wi-fi." The bottleneck at the moment is making sure the game can handle smooth 60FPS frame rate with eight players in both online and offline, 2D and 3D.
Reminder: LA reader meetup is now! Come for games, free hugs
E3 2011 is doner than done ... it's donerer. We've got a reader meetup going on now in downtown Los Angeles, and it'd be awesome if you could join us. We've also got developer folks here with games. Be part of the first members of the public to play Dance Central 2 and check out the magic of Retro City Rampage, along with others. Again, it's for the 21+ crowd (sorry! we know it's wrong!), so come drop by, we'll be here until 9:00PM. Head past the break for the entire list of games and details of the event location. Looking forward to meeting you. XOXO, Joystiq.
