Archive for February 9th, 2008
February 9, 2008
The phrase “you had to be there” is an appropriate remark when talking about the good old days of arcade gaming. Big-haired teens would crowd around game cabinets and plunk quarter after quarter into them, spending hours reaching for those elusive high scores and the chance to plaster their initials at the top of the screen. If you’re looking to relive the past–or simply wondering what all the fuss was about–Atari Classics Evolved isn’t the best time-traveling portal at your disposal. In some cases, classic gameplay has been hampered by mediocre controls, while few of the visually updated “evolved” versions are worth the space they take up on the disc.
You might be taken in by the box’s promise to let you unlock more than 50 Atari 2600 games in addition to the 11 arcade ports included, which makes this $19 collection sound like a fantastic deal. However, unless you’re a power gamer who intends to master every graphically enhanced game in the collection, you will be sorely disappointed. Each game comes with four different awards to unlock, such as gaining a bonus life without losing a life in Battlezone, or winning a game of Pong without allowing your opponent to score. You have to unlock every single one of these awards to gain access to the Atari 2600 extras. Considering the inherent difficulty in achieving them (Asteroids Deluxe, we’re looking squarely at you)–and the fact that you have to suffer through the usually inferior version to do so–most casual players will never gain access to many of these landmark titles. It’s too bad Atari didn’t take the less punishing and more logical approach of letting players gradually unlock these extras; after all, shouldn’t everyone play Yar’s Revenge at least once in their lifetime?
Too. Many. Particles!
Assuming you are interested only in the arcade emulations on the disc, you will probably get some nostalgic fun out of Atari Classics Evolved. Many of these titles are still appealing in their original form. Centipede and Millipede are still enjoyable to play, as are Asteroids (and its sequel, Asteroids Deluxe), Warlords, and Lunar Lander. Others, like the simple Pong and the ploddingly paced Battlezone, are nice to see from a historical perspective but aren’t a lot of fun by today’s standards. Tempest, Super Breakout, and Missile Command round out the package, and they’re fine on their own, but sadly, even the better games are hampered by control difficulties. Some of these games originally used trackballs, while others used paddles or dials. The analog nub on the PSP can’t approximate the quick movement of those controls, so activities like flipping your ship around the Tempest board and moving the Pong and Warlords paddles feel too unresponsive. And in the case of Missile Command, the poor analog controls make the game practically unplayable.
The emulations are generally good, though you should be aware that some of the games require you to flip the PSP vertically to play them. It feels a little odd, but it’s a compromise that makes better sense than trying to squeeze the tiny insects of Centipede into an even smaller viewing area. Sadly, the evolved versions of some of these titles are travesties. In fact, you may have already played some of them (Tempest, Missile Command, and Centipede) on Xbox Live Arcade. In many cases, extreme particle effects and overwrought geometrics make it almost impossible to see what’s going on (with particular shame on the designers of Tempest, Asteroids Deluxe, and Millipede), and the annoying background music in most of them is incredibly grating. The best evolved versions are those made specifically for the PSP, such as the nice Warlords update and the three Pong variations.
Some of the evolved versions also let two players with two discs duke it out in ad hoc play, though why Atari didn’t think to let four players compete in Warlords is anyone’s guess. But it’s just another example of what makes this package so uneven, and as with the other version of some of these games, Atari continues to punish gamers by offering rewards only to those who play through the mostly inferior “improved” versions. With more content available off the bat, this disc may almost have been worth the price, but with so much chaff to dig through, only the hardcore are likely to find this compilation worthwhile. “You had to be there,” indeed.
February 9, 2008
TechWeb - Microsoft’s price cut suggests the company is unlikely to ever introduce a version of the Xbox with an integrated HD DVD player.
February 9, 2008
AP - Three critically acclaimed first-person shooters won top honors at the video game industry’s most prestigious awards show.
February 9, 2008
AP - Some call it “Wiihabilitation.” Nintendo’s Wii video game system, whose popularity already extends beyond the teen gaming set, is fast becoming a craze in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries.
February 9, 2008
Unfortunately, the Wii version of SEGA Superstars Tennis is set to miss out on online play for the Wii. While this was probably by expected by most, it becomes a bit disheartening to know that Xbox 360 and PSN owners are promised an identical online play mode.
February 9, 2008
EA today released some news screens of their upcoming casual game Ninja Reflex, as you will see from the following collection of screenshots, the DS version doesn\’t look all that much different to the Wii version.
February 9, 2008
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has honored Nintendo with two Interactive Achievement Awards, including Handheld Game of the Year for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS and Adventure Game of the Year for Super Mario Galaxy for Wii.
February 9, 2008
Sega Sammy Holdings (holding company for Sega corp) has warned that it expects to lose $242 million USD this year as business slows down amid poor sales of Pachinko machines. The problems have sparked 400 job cuts at its game software division and the Wii\’s popularity is reportedly cited as one of the reasons as it brings the arcade market to the home user.
February 9, 2008
Eidos Interactive, one of the world’s leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, is pleased to announce a brand new title developed exclusively for the Nintendo DS: Dr. Reiner Knizia’s Brainbenders. Travel to iconic global cities and help solve the various conundrums that you will encounter; all designed by the fiendish genius Dr. Reiner Knizia himself.
February 9, 2008
According to reports, riders on the Shinkansen bullet train between Hiroshina and Tokyo will be able to rent a Nintendo DS for free as Nintendo has made an exception for JR East Japan. The campaign will last from February 14th until March 28th and only 20 systems a day will be made available for rental.
February 9, 2008
ELSPA has said that it is \”evaluating the R4 game copying device, as it allows for the downloading and play of illegal Nintendo DS software available via the internet.\” They say that they are working closely with Nintendo and considering their next steps in the UK.
February 9, 2008
15 All
Familiar Sega faces fill the court in Superstars Tennis.
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Nobody has dared to step up and release a tennis game yet on the Wii, given the unchecked popularity of Wii Sports’ inaugural tennis game. But finally Sega and Virtua Tennis 3 developer Sumo Digital will break the tennis seal on the Wii in March with Sega Superstars Tennis, a brightly colored and whimsical tennis game with a slew of familiar Sega characters thrown in. The game isn’t just for the Wii–unsurprisingly, it’s also coming out on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo DS–and we got to try close-to-final versions of the game on the 360 and Wii at Sega’s San Francisco headquarters.
You’ve seen this formula before: Take a popular, simple sport such as tennis, mix it with a game company rich in recognizable, beloved properties and characters, and you’ve got an accessible action game that will appeal to a relatively wide audience. It’s worked for Nintendo for years, and Superstars Tennis follows the same basic outline. At the outset, you’ve got eight classic Sega characters to choose from–Sonic, AiAi, Ulala, Beat, Nights, and Dr. Eggman among them–and each character has a specific prowess (speed, control, spin, or power) and unique special move you can bust out during a match. You’ll be able to unlock eight more characters as you play, including a couple of “really old Sega friends,” though of course Sega wouldn’t tell us who they are. (Michael Jackson, unfortunately, is not one of them.)
There are plenty of new characters, courts, and songs to unlock here.
The gameplay here is about as straightforward as you’d expect. You have a regular power swing and a slice, and you can mix the two up for other kinds of shots. Your special-attack gauge is represented by a star underneath your character that will slowly fill up as you successfully keep up a volley with your opponent. Most of the special attacks we saw involve confusing your opponent or cluttering up his or her side of the court. Sonic morphs into Super Sonic, at which point his shots will take random angular turns after he makes them. AiAi flings a bunch of banana peels onto the other side of the court with every shot. Eggman similarly throws a few electrified, spiky balls over the net. These special abilities last for only a few shots, and you lose them after someone scores a point, so they aren’t exactly match-winners in their own right. However, they can still give you an advantage at times.
Superstars Tennis has the standard single-match and tournament modes you’d expect out of a sports game, but we were most intrigued by the superstars mode, which gives you a number of themed missions to complete that will subsequently unlock new content (such as the aforementioned characters, new courts, and new music tracks). In the House of the Dead challenges we tried, we had to hit balls across the court at an endless wave of zombies that were shambling toward us. In a follow-up mission, we had to score a specific number of aptly named “zombie combos” by taking down two or more zombies with one shot. Another Jet Set Radio-themed mission had us skating around the court with Beat to pick up spray-paint cans being tossed in front of us, and in the second version of this challenge, we had to use these color-coded spray-paint cans to fill in a design on the opposite side of the court in a sort of paint-by-numbers fashion.
The PS3 and 360 games will feature online play, whereas the Wii will give you a variety of control schemes.
The game is certainly oozing with Sega-themed presentation elements. You’ll recognize most of the music from the games represented here, and each game has at least one court styled after it. For instance, the Space Channel 5 court is decorated with lots of kitschy neon lights and shiny surfaces, and is surrounded by dancing Morolian spectators. And you know it’s always going to be a party on the Latin-themed Samba de Amigo court. Unfortunately, the various courts don’t have any bearing on the gameplay, but at least you get numerous changes of scenery as you play through the game.
The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Superstars Tennis will support full online play, and we had no problems playing a smooth match on the 360 against a member of the Sumo Digital team in London. The Wii game will unfortunately lack online play, but on the other hand you’ve at least got three distinct control schemes. One lets you point and click with the Wii Remote to control your player; one has you turning the remote on its side and using it as a traditional gamepad; and what will likely be the most popular one will have you control your character with the Nunchuk analog stick and perform your swings with the remote, Wii Sports-style.
-If Its Games
February 9, 2008
Over at Rockstargames.com/rss it is quite simply stated that Grand Theft Auto IV\’s official website will be launching tomorrow, so we\’d all better watch that space!
February 9, 2008
Members of the European Playstation forums are reporting that a Call Of Duty 4 patch (V1.10) is now available.
February 9, 2008
The world\’s most realistic driving sim is almost here and here\’s a preview to help celebrate!