e307
Latest
E3 survey hints at possible format changes
One of the biggest complaints we heard from people while talking at the E3 summit was the new format. Though the smaller size was beneficial to playing the games and talking to developers, the hotel suites (and particularly Barker Hanger) were too spread out and we lost hours of productivity each day taking shuttles from one locale to the next.Today we received an attendee survey asking for our thoughts on how E3 was handled this year. A few questions in particular caught our eye: Of the following options, in what city would you most like to see the next Summit held? (Options include Santa Monica, San Diego, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles) Do you prefer to see the Summit held in a multiple hotel setting like it was this year, or in a convention-center type/larger facility setting? Of the following options, in which month would you most like to see the next Summit take place? (Options include May through August) If you didn't visit Barker Hangar (or Fairmont Hotel), why not? The previously-mentioned Barker Hanger and Fairmont Hotel were the farthest away from the cluster of close by hotels where events were taken place; it should also be noted that Fairmont was the only place with a press center and reliable WiFi. While this writer may be in the minority for wanting the conference to return to his hometown in Atlanta, Georgia, we're pretty sure most would agree that whatever option will reduce travel time would be optimal.
Pachter: Nintendo wins another E3
The analyst from Wedbush Morgan seems to think Nintendo walked out of the recently concluded E3 as the victor, for the second year in a row, commenting to gaming mag GamePro. He also commented that Sony would've walked away the victor, given news of their recent price drop for the PS3, but Nintendo still presented " new hardware and decent software introductions."Of course, you already have our general impressions of the keynote immediately following it, but looking at the variety of content available for Wii owners now that the show has concluded, we're happy about the future of the Wii. And the experiences it'll provide.[Via Codename Revolution]
Hands-on: High Velocity Bowling
We can't say we're too excited for High Velocity Bowling, an upcoming downloadable title for the PlayStation Network. While holding the Sixaxis controller like a bowling ball is a novel idea, it doesn't translate the sport very well, unlike Wii Sports. The game's biggest flaw comes in the way it approaches spin: instead of analyzing the actual motion of a player's swing, the shoulder buttons must be pressed while launching the ball. In doing so, the game neither provides the full motion freedom of Wii Sports, nor does it provide arcade-styled precision of traditional button-based bowling games.While we're glad Sony is trying a wide variety of games for its downloadable service, we can't help but feel that High Velocity Bowling hurts the platform more than anything else: it encourages active comparison to Wii Sports, and doesn't offer a compelling control mechanism. Instead of paying for High Velocity Bowling, might we recommend Home, which includes its own bowling game, instead?%Gallery-4969%
Gamecock's E3 funeral mourns an old friend
While we were preparing for the Joystiq Reader Meetup, friend of the site – and games business journalist – N. Evan Van Zelfden made his way to the death of E3 funeral and wake and filed this report: On the last day of E3, after Barker Hanger had closed, and the Fairmont had rolled up their sidewalk, people began to gather for what was to be the one moment of cohesion during a week of complete decentralization. Walking into the courtyard of the Hotel California – where publisher Gamecock held their relaxed demos parallel to E3 – there was a scene like that of another lost institution of the videogame industry: the lobby of the Fairmont in San Jose. This courtyard was filled with some five-to-ten percent of the Business and Media Summit's total attendees – and these were the people most worth talking to. As a hundred conversations flowed, and beers were handed out, a man on stilts walked by. Later followed by a woman, also on stilts. That didn't seem to bother the crowd, which included the director of the Game Developers Conference, top print and broadcast journalists, dozens of bloggers, plenty of PR people, game journalists, and game makers both elite and rank-and-file. A booth babe, barely dressed in black, and wearing zombie make-up, made her way through the crowd. A number of the attendees are holding black umbrellas with the Gamecock logo on it. Others have black handkerchiefs embroidered with a red logo.%Gallery-4931%
X3F impressions: Mass Effect
For many people, the wait for BioWare's Mass Effect has been a terribly arduous one. We've been treated to a few snippets of gameplay action, some very pretty screens, and even a novel, but the game itself is still four months away. We got a chance to take an extended look at the game at E3 this year, and honestly, it looks like it's going to be worth the wait.First thing's first: the game is visually stunning. The level of detail in the character models is pretty much a textbook example of what the current generation of video games should look like. Even since its showing at GDC in March, the facial features have improved by leaps and bounds. The eyes have depth and the lip syncing is about as spot on as you're likely to see in a video game. Of course, the real graphical treats are the various alien races, which benefit from not having to tread the edge of the Uncanny Valley. As such, the alien characters seem to have a bit more life and verve to them than even the excellently detailed human offerings. The environments, too, are topnotch.
Joystiq impressions: High Velocity Bowling (PSN)
We can't say we're too excited for High Velocity Bowling, an upcoming downloadable title for the PlayStation Network. While holding the Sixaxis controller like a bowling ball is a novel idea, it doesn't translate the sport very well, unlike Wii Sports. The game's biggest flaw comes in the way it approaches spin: instead of analyzing the actual motion of a player's swing, the shoulder buttons must be pressed while launching the ball. In doing so, the game neither provides the full motion freedom of Wii Sports, nor does it provide arcade-styled precision of traditional button-based bowling games.While we're glad Sony is trying a wide variety of games for its downloadable service, we can't help but feel that High Velocity Bowling hurts the platform more than anything else: it encourages active comparison to Wii Sports, and doesn't offer a compelling control mechanism. Instead of paying for High Velocity Bowling, might we recommend Home, which includes its own bowling game, instead?%Gallery-4930%
LocoRoco fans may fall in love with Patapon
Patapon looks very early from the above video, but what's already there is certainly smile worthy. The visuals look like an animation that you'd see at an indie festival. It's obvious that music will play a big role in the title as well, even though it has yet to be scored. From the video it's very unclear how the game plays, but even with the little we do know about Patapon, we already want to play it.[Thanks Krelian!]
Peter Moore: Sony is 'failing' in Japan
The funniest part of the GameDaily.biz interview with Peter Moore is that he knows the Xbox is biting the big one in Japan, but he points out that Sony "crumbling" in Japan against the Wii is just more delicious. Moore says he planned for an uphill battle in Japan -- actually it's more like a flat-faced vertical mountain battle, having only sold 122, 565 Xbox 360s this year -- but he believes Sony never expected to fail in Japan like they have.Moore points out that Sony keeps talking about this 10-year plan without ever explaining what that means. He says, "I'm not sure what their 10-year plan is ... It's like they just said, 'We have a 10-year plan' [and that's it]." Moore isn't talking 10-year plans but he expects the Xbox to live longer than the original's four years. He says Sony can have all the plans they like, but the key is getting to the "mass market with price points [that matter]," which Moore says Microsoft is a lot closer to being able to do. Yes, that certainly sounds like allusion to an incoming price drop.
Joystiq impressions: Legendary: The Box
Legendary: The Box is quite possibly the worst name given to a game with a massive amount of potential. They could have called it Pandora and used one perfect word to describe this first-person shooter in a nutshell -- but they didn't. Thankfully, developer Spark has till Spring of 2008 to change the name. Pandora Legendary: The Box starts with a thief being hired to break into a museum to steal a box. Oops, turns out it's Pandora's box which the thief accidentally activates and all hell breaks loose -- literally. In an incredibly intense scene reminiscent of a Call of Duty or Medal of Honor sequence (coincidentally that's what the developers from Spark worked on previously), the world just plunges into chaos. You'll watch the whole thing happen in real time. From the moment the box is opened you'll attempt to escape the crumbling museum, avoid the griffins, try your best to soak in the insanity that ensues around you, and run away from a golem created from cars and building parts. If your character stops, he'll die.A later piece of the game takes place in an English cathedral infested with werewolves. Yes, the developers are quite aware the issue there and are looking to tweak it. The controls are your standard FPS stuff and the weapons we saw are based on modern weaponry. You get ammo off the fallen soldiers belonging to the private army of the man who hired you to "steal" the box. Also, the box infuses you with the power to suck life force from fallen beasts to recover health. The game uses the Unreal Engine 3 and considering we're still a little under a year from seeing the final product, the game is already looking fantastic. The developers say where they invested time was in enemy recognition of objects and surroundings so that the experience is never the same twice. The werewolves don't take the same path to a target every time and they'll crawl walls, drop from the ceiling, jump over boxes and the only way they'll stay dead is by shooting off their heads.The developers also said that multiplayer will be different, utilizing the creatures into various multiplayer types. Humans vs. creatures already sounds like a good and obvious multiplayer experience. We're excited to see more of this game as it comes along. It's still way too early to tell if the game will be any type of good, but a game that utilizes Call of Duty intensity with a modern tale of Pandora's box sounds very cool. Now somebody please change the name of this game to accurately convey how great this title could be when it releases.%Gallery-4924%
Joystiq impressions: Mushroom Men
Mushroom Men is still many moons away from being done and what we saw was mostly still concept art. There was some in-game footage to show the game is real, but it was a video and not a demo. The thing is that developers Red Fly are on a path at the moment, but where that path leads is anyone's guess. Mushroom Men will release as a 3D platformer on the Wii in the fall of 2008 and as a 2D platformer on DS in spring of 2008 (there were no images of the DS version). The concept of Mushroom Men is that a comet has passed over the planet and the dust left behind has given consciousness to the fungus. The Mushroom Men evolved and are now at war with other fungus, all of this isn't noticed by the humans.One of the interesting concepts that we couldn't see implemented is the "Scav" system, short for scavenger. You'll collect trash and put it together to form weaponry. For the Wii version they're still working on eight different control schemes and attempting at all costs to have players do battle without feeling like they are doing battle through "waggle." There is a chance for an Xbox and/or PS3 version of the game if it does well on the Wii. The high-res models they showed of the characters in their video clearly can not be done on the Wii and will need to be scaled back. In an interesting aside, the reason the game is being designed for Wii and DS is due to the install base and the fact that it costs half as much as if they were developing it for the more powerful systems. This reasoning may rear its head by many independent developers who just can't afford the $20 million price tags surrounding full featured Xbox and PS3 games.There's really not much we can say about Mushroom Men. Conceptually it sounds fine, beyond that there wasn't much to show of the game. From the artist concept drawings though we hope the game does do well so we can see the beauty of this title come through on the Xbox 360 and PS3. We also look forward to seeing how the game comes across on the Nintendo DS soon, especially considering spring is only 9 months away -- start incubating those spores now!%Gallery-3542%
E307: Joystiq checks out Sonic & Mario at the Olympics
One of our alumni here, blogger Ludwig Kietzmann, got his hands on the upcoming joint venture between Nintendo and Sega in Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. As one might expect, the collection of minigames present in this overall game are some that fail to elicit any kind of enthusiasm or excitement in said blogger, as it is remarked this is the equivalent of "gaming chewing gum," as "beyond the initial burst of flavor upon discovering the Wii motions needed to complete an event, it's likely to degenerate into a bout of repetitive motion" for most gamers.To call us disappointed is an understatement, however due to the fact that we pretty much knew this would be the case, at least we were prepared for it.%Gallery-4697%
Joystiq hands-on: My Word Coach (Wii, DS)
Will Ubisoft's My Word Coach, a more linguistically-oriented Brain Age, find an audience? We hope so; as edugaming titles go, this was certainly one of the more enjoyable entries.The differences between the DS and Wii versions are minimal: the DS has two extra "recreational" games, whereas five of Wii's minigames support multiplayer (the DS only has two). There are six "core" (i.e. education-centric) games of three difficulty levels apiece. The recreational games are also beneficial, as exposure to words helps retention, according to senior designer Peter Yang.%Gallery-4922%
Joystiq hands-on: Commanders: Attack!
The first thing to came to our minds when we saw Commanders: Attack! is Nintendo's turn-based strategy series Advance Wars. It's not a bad comparison, but it does give you an accurate description of how the game is played: two sides taking turns, moving troops, capturing buildings and entering attack / counter-attack combat with other troops. Where it differs from the game, most obviously, is the high-definition visuals. Also, while each Commanding Officer has special stat bonuses and abilities, troops cannot enjoy the bonus unless they are within the officer's sphere of influence. The art style of the troops is inspired by what people in the 1930s thought the future might look like.A fog of war is set for all maps. All in all, there are 15 campaign missions and six maps for the four-player multiplayer modes. Alongside the currently-available Band of Bugs, it's good to see quality strategy titles invade the Xbox Live Arcade. Commanders: Attack! is due out by the end of this year for both the XBLA and the PC.%Gallery-4934%
Joystiq hands-on: Switchball
It's the age-old story of a ball trying to find its home, retold in high-definition visuals for the Xbox 360 and PC. Our two-level demo for Switchball had us traversing over wooden planks, building bridges out of crates, and plowing into metal boxes with our metalball upgrade. It's a simple "get from point A to point B" title with simple controls but still a fun, casual game.What impressed us most is the physics of the game, particularly in one area where we had to roll on a hanging piece of cloth. There are six levels spanning five worlds, for a total of 30. We were told there will be multiplayer options for up to 8 players, both co-op and competitive modes. Switchball is already out on PC and due out in August for Xbox Live Arcade.%Gallery-4933%
Joystiq hands-on: Battlestar Galactica
Don't expect deep gameplay with this title based on the popular science fiction series. Battlestar Galactica, for Xbox Live Arcade and PC, is 3D space shooter played on a 2D plane. The controls are quick to grasp -- turning, shooting, activating shields and locking on for missiles -- although we had a bit of trouble initially with chasing enemies.We only had a chance to try out a couple of levels. There are four ships to choose from each side, humans and Cylons, each with various offensive, defensive and speed ratings. Death triggers a respawn, and the only penalty is lost time (beating levels is generally dependent upon time). There are 10 single-player missions based on battles from the show. Multiplayer has its own set of ten maps and two gameplay types: deathmatch and domination, where you capture turrets that destroy the opponent's base ship.According to producer Connie Brammeier, the game is intended for mass appeal. We get the feeling that hardcore Battlestar Galactica fans are going to be disappointed by the lack of depth in the title. The game is expected out in the third quarter of this year.%Gallery-4928%
Warhawk making split-screen sexy again
Modern multiplayer games have nearly killed something we loved from the Nintendo 64 era: split-screen multiplayer. Now that our televisions have more pixels and are larger, shouldn't we herald the return of split-screen multiplayer? Warhawk is proud to boast four players on one screen, and if you're running on an HDTV, each section of the screen will still have more resolution than full-screen games from the PS1/N64 era. We hope that other games will follow Warhawk's path and make split-screen gaming sexy again. Do you agree?Check out new screenshots in our gallery below:%Gallery-3210%
Joystiq impressions: Everyday Shooter (PSN)
Ever since Geometry Wars, the dual-analog shooter has seen a renaissance. On PS3 alone, there are more than a few shooters available to choose from: Blast Factor, Super Stardust HD, and Nucleus. So why should we get so excited about Everyday Shooter? It's because the game is engrossing -- famed designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi would be jealous by the incredible fusion of music, graphics and gameplay found in this effort from indie developer Jon Mak. Each level in Everyday Shooter has its own look, sound and feel. The abstract graphics of each level look nothing short of stunning on the PS3. Every enemy that gets destroyed adds a little guitar riff to the background, allowing players to create their own aural masterpieces. The gameplay is easy to understand: simply use the two analog sticks to move the ship and fire an endless supply of bullets. The key to successful play comes in managing bombs: aim for them on the screen, and when hit, they'll send massive shockwaves that are crucial in creating combos. The musical journeys found in Everyday Shooter are varied, and some will end in boss battles that require even further thought. Along the way, players will be able to collect points, which can be used towards the incredible variety of unlockables. Players can buy extra credits, or buy new filters that will drastically alter the way the game looks. One filter will make everything look like paint, while another will bestow the game with a dynamically sketched look. Like fl0w before it, Everyday Shooter creates a holistic experience that must be seen and played to be understood. %Gallery-4927%
Good news from The Ward
Can there ever be good news from the insane asylum? Only if it's coupled with news of a worthwhile gaming experience, and it looks like that just might be the case with Renegade Kid's Dementium: The Ward. Our evil masters at Joystiq got a little facetime with the shooter at E3, and they only had good things to say on the subject. The controls are smooth, says Alexander Silwinski, and certainly reminiscent of Metroid Prime Hunters, but since Dementium's pacing is a little slower, the game is easier to handle. Item selection is apparently a breeze, with the exception of a shortcut to the oft-needed flashlight, and puzzles make sense. The only downside is that the game apparently only takes about seven hours to complete, but maybe the story -- on which we have very few details at this time -- will make up for it.%Gallery-4929%
Joystiq impressions: World in Conflict
Think of a real-time strategy game session as a bell curve. At the lower end is the beginning, when there's a lot of resource-gathering and scouting. In the middle and the higher portion, there's lots of action. As the battle winds down, so does the action. Massive Entertainment's World in Conflict was described to us as a strategy game with the lower ends of the bell curve cut off, and from what we saw at the Sierra suite, it's a pretty accurate description. The story of World in Conflict is based in an alternate future where the Berlin wall didn't fall and the Cold War went hot. At the beginning of the battle, the player is given 6,000 in currency that can be used to purchase and deploy troops. Once a troop is destroyed, its value is returned to the player for purchasing more troops, keeping the intensity up. %Gallery-4917%
Joystiq impressions: Uncharted (PS3)
What happens when you mix one part Gears of War, one part Tomb Raider, and one part Prince of Persia? You get one potentially awesome game. We really want to like Naughty Dog's upcoming PS3 exclusive, Uncharted, but technical issues seriously hindered our enjoyment of the title. If there's one thing everyone has been talking about with Uncharted, it's the complex animation system. Thousands of animations are blended together in real-time to create a visually complex world that feels alive. Drake responds to his surroundings: you'll see him look at points of interest, struggling to keep his footing, and more. In one heated gunfight, we had him take cover fire and could see the worried look on his face as he breathed heavily The animation system helps make Drake not only a more believable character, but one we can relate to. Drake is supposed to be a normal guy in an extraordinary situation, and the platforming sequences deliver upon the feeling of overcoming overwhelming obstacles. Drake will have to climb along rocky ledges, or jump from a shaky pillar to the next. Seeing what Drake can interact with the environment is intuitive due to Drake's focus on where he must go next. By observing what Drake wants to do, players will be able to navigate tricky areas with relative ease. Swinging from a rope and jumping to a ledge feels intuitive and empowering. We love the feeling we get when exploring the environment. %Gallery-3173%
