South Peak games has given us all a new video to wet out appetite until Two Worlds II comes out. This video however is a bit different. It shows zero gameplay and not a single cut scene. Instead we are given a musical treat about one of the game’s characters and his struggle with wanting to be his own boss. It’s good for a chuckle so check it out!
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All posts for the month November, 2010
Each day that passes, the iPhone proves to us that it will always be more than a phone. More and more games keep popping up to give the device more and more room to be considered a handheld gaming machine. Bulkypix has given us a trailer of their newest game for the iPhone which is Artillery Brigade, a World War Two defense game where you fend off wave after wave of enemies. Check out this video and tell us what you think about the app.
If you are a racing fan who might be looking for something that’s insanely fast, crazy dangerous, and filled with over the top action; then perhaps nail’d is what you are looking for. South Peak Games has given us a beautiful trailer to watch showing us some intense off road adrenaline filled action. ATV’s and Dirt bikes are a plenty as well as the excitement.
A glimpse of Evil Controller's Evil D-Pad and Evil Sticks. Photo courtesy of Evil Controllers
Renown console controller modification company, Evil Controllers, is bringing in the Christmas cheer a month early this weekend with a massive sale across the spectrum of their controllers and accessories. The sale will run from midnight Friday Nov. 26 until 11:59 P.M. Sunday Nov. 28.
During the sale period, all controller add-ons will be marked down by 50%, with premium modded controllers selling for as low as $54.00. Pay close attention to the discounts over the weekend, those with a fine attention to detail will find savings of up to 70%.
Known for their Evil Sticks (Xbox 360 & PS3 custom thumbsticks) along with their professionally tuned Auto Burst, Rapid Fire, and Fast Reload modifications; Evil Controllers offer Xbox 360 gamers a slew of controllers perfectly fit for first-person shooters with undetectable performance enhancing modifications.
Evil Controllers also recently released a D-Pad modification for the Xbox 360 controller. By removing the clumsy axis D-Pad on the Xbox 360 controller, Evil Controllers opened up the Xbox community to their first point-to-point single-button single-direction D-Pad. With the intended purpose of separating the D-Pad buttons for precision, the Evil D-Pad modification was designed to give gamers more control by negating the possibility of your thumb accidentally slipping to the wrong direction.
Don’t miss out on this wicked deal, visit Evil Controllers here.
Graphic courtesy of SEGA of America
SEGA of America has released the final box art for the much anticipated sequel to the game that started off the Total War series, Total War: Shogun 2. Though Shogun 2 won’t hit stores until March 15, 2011; the score of trailers, screenshots, and box art are enough to get Total War gamers salivating over their keyboards for the next few months.
Total War: Shogun 2 will feature a revamped AI system based upon the scriptures that influenced medieval Japanese warfare, game-changing multiplayer modes, new campaign map options, and enhanced full 3D battle scenes on land and sea.
Total War: Shogun 2's box art. Photo courtesy of SEGA of America
Shogun 2 was developed by The Creative Assembly for SEGA of America. It will be available on PC March 15, 2011.
For more information on Total War: Shogun 2 click here.
South Peak has released a new trailer for the upcoming Two Worlds II. From watching it, you definitely get a sense of an action filled fantasy world just waiting for you to dive in and smite evil. Give the trailer a look and tell us what you think.
Beginning yesterday, November 22nd, Nintendo began making demo versions of select WiiWare games available to users who have a broadband internet connection. Initially, only four titles are available: And Yet It Moves, ThruSpace, Jett Rocket, and Bit.Trip FATE. Nintendo plans on adding more demos each Monday, with each one being available for only a limited time.
Downloading these demos is very easy. Simply navigate to the WiiShop channel, and browse titles by genre. You will see there is a new “Demos” genre. From there you simply select the title you wish to download and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the process. All of the demos that are presently available downloaded with ease and worked flawlessly.
As mentioned before, one of the demos available is for Gaijin’s Bit.Trip FATE. If you play any of these four demos, this is the one to play. The full version of this game is the fifth entry in the Bit.Trip series, which as if by magic gets better and more difficult with each title. In this one, users guide CommanderVideo along a rail through each level, blasting enemies and obstacles out of his way with various types of 8-bit artillery. This series that blends rhythm and retro arcade game elements seamlessly, so audio expectations are set high. Rest assured that the music in FATE is just as good, if not more subtle that the music in the older games. The action in the game starts off very slowly, but by the time you reach the first boss you’ll surely be sitting on the edge of your couch screaming obscenities and clutching your Nunchuck and Wii Remote in a death grip. What’s most surprising about this game is that it can break into a genre that is so heavily saturated as shooters and offer up something that seems fresh, new, and innovative.
The "Giga" phase of Bit.Trip is the highest score multiplyer you can get. You also get the most powerful weapon. It's also nearly impossible to achieve this.
Some of the most innovative and interesting games for Wii are available on the WiiWare platform. These free demos will allow a broad range of gamers to explore games that aren’t afraid to take chances and break away from the normal formula we’ve come to expect from games. Finally, something positive about Mondays!
This is footage of a perfect playthrough of Bit.Trip FATE. It is clearly played by a robot programmed to perform such a feat.
Fanboys are an interesting species. There are good ones and bad ones. Typically the bad ones have many varied ways of putting down your favorite games. They always want to show you up, make you feel inferior, prove in some crazy way that what they like is better than anything you could ever like, thus they, as a person, are much better than you could ever even dream of being. One shining example is how they tend to over simplify the games you like in order to make you feel silly for liking something so shallow and beneath them. This is clearly a ridiculous tactic, but I am relatively sure everyone has experienced this and recognize that it is by far one the most annoying.
I figured that today I would take some games that many people enjoy, myself included, and over simplify them and let you guess which games I am talking about. Then you too can see just how scathing this fanboy tactic is.
All you do in this game is jump on stuff and break blocks with your head or fist.
This one should be super easy, as it pretty much sums up most Super Mario games.
In this game, all you do is go into a dungeon, find some new piece of equipment that allows you beat said dungeon, then go into another dungeon to do the same thing several times.
Did you guess Legend of Zelda? You’d be right!
Watch a cutscene, sneak sneak sneak sneak, watch another cutscene involving some crazy conspiracy theory, sneak sneak sneak, the president is a robot! sneak sneak sneak SNAAAAAAAKE!
Ok, I kind of gave that game away, but its Metal Gear Solid.
Click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click.
You could pick various games on PC, but I’d like to think this simplification goes especially well with the Diablo games.
Watch a cutscene, fight some monsters, watch a cutscene, fight some monsters, watch a cutscene.
This could probably go for several different RPGs.
Go into a room and shoot a bunch of stuff. Go into another room and do the same thing.
This could go for pretty much every FPS. Mix in some “hide behind stuff and shoot from cover” and you get Gears of War or the several other games that take that formula.
Kill giant monsters to make weapons and armor out of their bones, then kill more monsters to do the same.
Obviously this details the Monster Hunter experience. Maybe add pick flowers just to make it sound cutesie.
Down to forward punch.
Street Fighter at its most basic.
Run around on rooftops, assassinate someone, then run on rooftops some more.
Assassin’s Creed for sure.
Ride around on a horse killing gigantic creatures one at a time.
Cult favorite, Shadow of the Colossus.
Right click, 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3. Loot monster. Replace loot in four levels. Keep doing the same thing. Get yelled at in pick up groups for no reason. Miss out on social life.
Pretty much any MMO, but more specifically World of Warcraft.
All you do in this game is look for sailors and collect toys from capsule machines.
Aww yes, the beloved Shenmue.
All you do in this game is talk to animals and collect furniture.
Animal Crossing of course!
Rolling stuff in a ball is you do, EVER!
Katamari Damacy!
Steal cars, run over hookers, and kill cops.
This one is far too easy, Cooking Mama. KIDDING! Just seeing if you are paying attention. Grand Theft Auto, obviously.
In this game you run around half naked ripping people apart and using on the screen button commands to kill bosses.
God of War, easily.
All you do in this game is catch cute animals and make them fight each other.
Pokemon!
Akbar's favorite pokemon?
In this game you move various blocks around trying to form rows.
Tetris… Ok that game is already pretty simple, but you get my point.
Now, imagine that I am a huge douche and I am not saying these things in jest. I mean, a good 95% of these games I am a big fan of, but you know somewhere some douche-bag is thumbing someone in the chest and telling them that their favorite game sucks because “all you do is shoot people”. This fanboy obviously believes his logic is true and he is the bee’s knees when it comes to video games. People like and dislike various games across the gaming spectrum, and that’s to be expected. Everyone is different, so why take a holier-than-thou approach to criticizing what others enjoy? If you’re going to bash a game, come up with something educated or more creative. Maybe the camera angles suck or you don’t like the story. That’s fine with me. Just don’t over simplify a game to make us feel silly. I am sure there is some game out there you love that when judged in its simplest form looks just as silly.
When Nintendo unveiled Kirby’s Epic Yarn at E3 this year, there were several cases of Cuteness Overload reported at hospitals nationwide. Symptoms ranged from enormous, glazed over eyes, to people trying to knit a model of Patch World only to inadvertently impale themselves on their knitting needles. Now, several months later, everyone has received treatments and the appropriate vaccines and the game has hit store shelves. Unfortunately, it is entirely likely that players of this game, which is Kirby’s first console platformer outing in over a decade, will still suffer some recurring symptoms due to the overwhelmingly adorable pink menace. A whole set of new gameplay mechanics and a visual style that’s never been seen before on the Wii (and it’s so cute you’ll want to spell it K-E-W-T) will ensure that Kirby seems fresh and new, despite being around for nearly 20 years. Pull up a bedpan, and ask the nurse to plug in an insulin IV, because you’re blood sugar is about to spike as we sample this incredibly sweet platformer from the development teams at HAL Laboratory and Good-Feel.
The amount of detail placed into the visuals of Kirby’s Epic Yarn is shocking. All of the environments are built out of pieces of fabric adorned with buttons and gems from your sister’s Bedazzler. Felt looks slightly fuzzy, flannel actually looks like flannel on the screen, and there’s gingham that looks like it was taken right off of a hillbilly’s homecoming gown. Not only that, but these textiles are soft and have give to them. You can often see the ground sagging beneath Kirby as he walks on it, and fabric platforms will only hold Kirby for a limited amount of time before they fold and drop him. The cloth environments may be two dimensional, but they are also layered. If you come across a door in a level, Kirby can use it to go under the top layer of fabric to access previously unreachable areas. You can’t see him anymore, but you can see the bulge he creates as he moves behind the background. Some areas of the levels are even zipped together, forcing you to unzip it in order to reveal a path or beads. The cloth background occasionally can even be cinched together when Kirby pulls on a button. This interesting mechanic allows Kirby to do things like move platforms closer to him, and it works flawlessly. The biggest mistake anyone could make would be to ignore this game because of its “kiddie” presentation; Kirby’s Epic Yarn is clearly using the Wii to its fullest potential. Along with this visual goodness, players are also treated to sweet, simple, and mostly piano-based music which is themed appropriately for the environment, and goes nicely with this arts-and-crafts look. Graphics and sound come together to create a gentle gaming environment that is actually relaxing — which is a huge deviation from the skull-splitting stress fest that dominates so many games these days.
The first boss in Kirby's Epic Yarn
Aside from the fact that this is another fantastic 2D platformer featuring Kirby, you should try to forget most of what you know about how a Kirby game should play. Kirby no longer sucks up his enemies, but rather uses a yarn whip to either unravel them or to wind them up into a deadly yarn projectile he can throw at other enemies or destructible elements of the environment. This new attack method works well once you figure out how close you need to be to an enemy for the whip to work properly. Instead of the trusty Copy Abilities from previous Kirby platformers, Kirby now has the ability to transform into four different forms on the fly. For example, a double-tap left or right on the keypad transforms Kirby into a car (or a sled if you’re on ice) that can cover terrain more quickly. Kirby can also become a submarine, a parachute, or a heavy weight depending on what the situation demands. These transformations are mostly seamless, but there were times when Kirby would unexpectedly turn into a car or wouldn’t perform the change no matter how quickly the double tap on the d-pad was executed. These issues didn’t really seem like a big deal though, because a majority of the time the controls worked perfectly. In addition to these transformations, there are specific spots in some levels where Kirby can transform into other things, like a giant Kirby-shaped tank, or a fire engine that can shoot ropes of water at fires to extinguish them. These “deluxe” transformations provide a fun break from the standard gameplay by mixing up the style completely for a large portion of the level.
FIRE TRUCK KIRBY!!!!!!!!!!!
Kirby puts this new arsenal of moves and transformation to use when he is traversing the game’s 50 levels. There are the levels we’ve all come to expect — an ice world, fire world, forest world – along with a few new themes that are very fun. In every level you earn a patch which can be used to morph and change the map to allow Kirby access to a new level. Players would be well advised to have the phone nearby and the hospital on speed dial, because even on the maps there is no shortage of adorableness that can easily send you into a relapse of Cuteness Overload. In each level players will have two main objectives: collect all the beads you can manage and keep them by not taking any damage, and find the three hidden treasures, one of which is a CD you can use to play the level’s theme in the Quilty Square area. The beads you collect act as currency to buy fabric and furniture for Kirby’s apartment. Also, having certain amounts of beads at the end of the level will award Kirby a bronze, silver, or gold medal. These medals do little except boost the players ego, and since most players will probably find decorating Kirby’s pad to be a little boring, these beads will eventually seem to have little value. That is, until you get to a boss battle. Not only do you earn medals for retaining your beads, but boss fights will also give you a patch that is used to unlock some bonus levels in a world if you can manage to keep the bead meter full enough. Getting the three hidden treasures can have a benefit outside of decorating — you can use them to help Kirby’s landlord decorate three vacant apartments, so a new tenant will want to move in. Each of the three tenants offers a new mini-game challenge for Kirby, like playing hide-and-seek with some floating anthropomorphic pieces of yarn. These mini-games will provide a solid amount of extra playtime outside of the game’s main storyline.
If you’ve experienced the madness and calamity that can ensue from a multiplayer game of New Super Mario Bros. on Wii, you have a good idea of how multiplayer works with Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Player one controls Kirby, while player two takes control of Prince Fluff (basically a blue Kirby with a crown) to assist in clearing the level. Players can pick each other up and use them as projectiles, and if one player gets stuck they can simply press the A button to be carried to their partner’s location. There is a lot of fun to be had in this mode of play, but if you are on a particularly difficult level, it may be wiser to go solo. Both players share the same bank of beads, so if one gets hurt both suffer.
Some footage of a multiplayer game in Kirby’s Epic Yarn
If you can stop prancing around your living room, trying to duplicate the dance Kirby and Prince Fluff do at the end of each level long enough to actually complete this game, that is a sure sign that you aren’t suffering from Cuteness Overload. That’s very lucky for you, because Kirby’s Epic Yarn will give you a handful of hours to play a game that is probably the most laid-back, easy going and funnest title you’ve experienced in years. Nintendo’s beloved walking pink marshmallow has a whole new bag of tricks too, and is adventuring in a world that is so finely detailed that when you see flannel in the background, you’ll be searching for some granola and Birkenstocks to go with it. Add a solid co-op multiplayer experience and some mini-games to this, and you’ve got a great game that anyone in the household can enjoy.
[review title=”Kirby’s Epic Yarn” pros=”Fantastic graphics and art style that keeps the eye busy and happy, collectible items, mini-games, and branching level paths will keep more mature players entertained, a completely stress free and fun game” cons=”Lack of any real penalties and low difficulty curve may make this seem like a game for kids, a couple of very minor control glitches” verdict=”This game is a must-have for any Wii owner, unless you hate fun.” score=95]
Starting November 22nd and running through December 19th, Nintendo announced via press release that it will be launching the, Nintendo Holiday Mall Experience, a series of big events at 23 malls throughout the country in an effort to showcase the publisher’s upcoming winter titles, and a few that have been around for a while (More Dragon Quest IX events? Yes, please.). Over twenty games on both the Wii and DS systems will be on display in playable demo stations, including anticipated titles such as Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. According to Marc Franklin, director of Public Relations for Nintendo of America, “there’s no better way to highlight the nonstop fun and extraordinary value offered by Nintendo systems than simply letting consumers enjoy them firsthand.”
Nintendo has also launched a website for the occasion, happyholidays.nintendo.com. On this site you’ll find a full list of stores participating in the event, as well as an extensive holiday gift guide for both systems which include links to videos and official websites for each game on display.
