God of War: Chains of Olympus is apparently disappointing some gamers even though it has high scores on metacritic. The game can be completed in around 5 hours and is apparently lacking memorable moments.
BT & Sony announced today that they have launched Go!Messenger, the new wireless communication package for PSP. Go!Messenger will allow gamers to Video, Voice and Instant Message (IM) each other from anywhere in the world all from their PSPs. The press release states its FREE, but as you may have seen in an earlier report its only free for now and may not be in the future. They plan for now is to get you all using it and then figure out how to charge you for it. Update: it apparently won\’t be available until Friday.
The Pentagon\’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has nearly finished its 7 ton crusher robot that has a top speed of about 25 mph. The six-wheeler rolls through ditches, walls, streams, other vehicles and almost anything else that gets in its way. It can do this all on its own but is being tested with a standard Xbox 360 controller, which will also be used to raise the mast antenna, rotate the cameras and fire the weapons. Soldiers \”could finally put those \’Halo\’ skills to good use,\” joked a director behind the project.
Xbox Live marketing manager for the UK Robin Burrowes has been talking about plans for the service saying “In the future, we’ll see a more connected, less individual audience
THQ announced today that Frontlines: Fuel of War which launches across Europe on the Xbox 360 this Friday will become the only first person shooter to offer online multiplayer for over 50 players on the console. THQ and Kaos Studios have set up over 90 dedicated Xbox 360 multiplayer servers across Europe and the USA live on launch day.
Microsoft has announced that it has fixed a technical glitch that affected logging into Xbox Live, Hotmail, Windows Live and Windows Messenger. MS haven\’t said what the glitch was but said that it worked aggressively to resolve this unique problem as quickly as possible.
GTA IV has been rated by the German ESRB and has given the game an 18+ rating. So if you are over 18 and live in Germany you will be able to purchase a full uncut version of GTA IV.
For those who gotta catch ‘em all, there are now two more games in the Pok
Treasure’s original Bangai-O on the Dreamcast was known for two things: an absurdly nonsensical English translation and screen-choking volleys of missiles and lasers. Although the hectic 2D shooter never emerged from its obscure niche, D3Publisher of America is giving the US another look at the franchise.
The publisher has announced that it is bringing Bangai-O Spirits, the DS revamp of the original game, to US shores in the second quarter of the year. More than a straight port, Bangai-O Spirits adds cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes for up to four people locally, as well as a level editor, and a novel way to share created stages with other gamers.
D3 is touting the game’s “Sound Load” feature, which will let the DS output data as a sound file. Other DS systems can then receive the file by using their built-in microphones, allowing players to not only trade levels locally, but also get new levels from the Internet by downloading and playing back other users’ Sound Load recordings. High scores and gameplay footage will also be transferable as sound files.
Bangai-O Spirits is being developed by Treasure, a Japanese studio notorious for its niche 2D action and shoot-’em-up games. Previous Treasure games include Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, and Gunstar Heroes.
The Ace Attorney games have always been exclusive to the Nintendo DS in North America, but they were essentially ports of the Japanese games, which were originally released on the GameBoy Advance. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney marks the first time a game in the Ace Attorney series has been built from the ground up for the Nintendo DS, and it includes many features (several of which were first introduced in the bonus case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) that take advantage of the handheld’s touch-screen capabilities. It also has a new protagonist: Apollo Justice. These changes, along with an excellent final case, freshen things up enough to make Apollo Justice worth investigating for diehard fans of the series, but if you found your interest waning in any of the previous games, you’ll want to temper your expectations when it comes to how much has changed.
You can inspect every nook and cranny of these panties thanks to the 3D evidence feature.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney focuses surprisingly enough on…Apollo Justice, an attorney with more than a passing resemblance to the series’ previous star, Phoenix Wright. Apollo is young, has spiked hair, lacks confidence in court, and even has a young, quirky girl for a sidekick. In addition to Apollo, there are many new characters, some who are interesting, but few of whom are as endearing as the characters from the Phoenix Wright games. The good news for anyone suffering from nostalgia is that quite a few familiar faces make appearances throughout the game. The judge, Winston Payne, and a few other more notable people make their presence felt here. Returning characters are a blessing and a curse. On one hand, they’re a nice way of tying the two story arcs together, but on the other hand, they serve to show how the new cast isn’t quite as endearing as the old one.
There are four turnabouts (cases), all of which find you defending a client accused of murder. The first three cases are solid but aren’t anything special. It’s the last case that steals the show. It’s interesting, it has a number of genuinely intriguing twists and turns, and it weaves a number of past cases together into one really compelling finale. The writing is as witty as ever (if not a bit more long-winded), and you’ll notice various pop-culture references to U2, Harry Potter, Bon Jovi, and more. For the most part it’s business as usual with regard to gameplay. You’ll spend your time out of court investigating crime scenes, collecting evidence, and interviewing witnesses. The in-court proceedings are almost completely unchanged. You’ll cross-examine witnesses and present evidence and profiles to support your position in hopes of getting the judge to hand down a “not guilty” verdict.
There’s less ambiguity in Apollo Justice when it comes to presenting evidence, because the game automatically narrows down whether you need to show a character profile or a physical piece of evidence, but many of the series’ flaws are still present. Witnesses repeatedly lie on the stand without any sort of punishment; the proceedings are strictly linear so there’s no room for creative thinking; you’ll still find yourself occasionally stuck while in the investigation portion of the game because you didn’t show someone a particular object or look in some out-of-the-way corner; and the story moves along at a snail’s pace, often forcing you to watch a flashback for an event that occurred just minutes before.
It’s not all bad news, though. The developer has finally added some new forensic investigation mechanics that take advantage of the touch screen. Many of these were found in the last case of the first game, which was created specifically for the DS, but they’ve been MIA ever since. The new features will let you inspect and rotate items in 3D, dust for fingerprints, spray evidence to find traces of certain liquids, make plaster casts out of footprints, and even isolate music tracks with a mixing board. Many of the new mechanics are really neat, and they do help break up the monotony of investigating, but they’re used too infrequently to have much of an impact. Like Phoenix, Apollo has the power to sense when someone’s lying, though his ability is used only in court. Thanks to Apollo’s magic bracelet, you can perceive when a witness is hiding something by zooming in on the witness and looking for a twitch or other slight movement. Unfortunately, perceiving when someone’s lying involves some guesswork and a lot of tedious trial and error when you’re hearing the same testimony over and over looking for a tiny, almost imperceptible movement.
Another benefit of having the game designed specifically for the DS is the improved presentation. There are a few nice-looking full-motion video sequences, character sprites are larger and more detailed, and the courtroom, lobby, and detention center have finally been redrawn. None of these improvements drastically enhance the way the game plays, but when you’re genuinely excited that there’s a new piece of artwork in the defendant’s lobby, you know it was time for a change. Apollo Justice’s music isn’t quite as catchy as the music in previous games (admittedly the bar has been set pretty high), but it’s still enjoyable and fits each character well.
It wouldn’t be an Ace Attorney game without a few music references.
If you’ve played and loved all of the previous Ace Attorney games, you’ll be able to once again look past the series’ inherent flaws and will love what Apollo Justice has to offer. If you’re someone who feels that the franchise is in need of an overhaul, you’ll likely be disappointed at how little things have changed. Problems and all, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is a good game that’s worth playing.
A week ago, Nintendo dated Wii Fit for Europe, saying the exercise game would arrive April 25. Today Nintendo added a price tag to the game as well. Wii Fit will sell for £69.99 in the UK and €89.99 in the rest of Europe. The game will come bundled with the Wii Balance Board, which acts as a controller for the game and also calculates a person’s body mass index.
Wii Fit features four different exercise types: aerobics, muscle conditioning, yoga, and balance activities. Minigames, which include holding still in a yoga pose for a certain amount of time, ski jumping, and walking across a tightrope, are included.
In Japan, Wii Fit was released on December 7, and comes bundled with the Wii Balance Board for ¥8,800. Wii Games generally retail in Japan for around ¥2,000 less; for example, Super Smash Bros. Brawl costs ¥6,800.
Wii Fit will be released slightly later in the US on May 19, and has yet to be priced in the region. However, retailers are accepting preorders at a price of $69.99.
Namco Bandai’s Tales series of anime-inspired role-playing games has been going strong since the early 1990s. Now, the enduring franchise is set to debut on two of the 21st century’s newest consoles. Today, Namco announced it will release Tales of Vesperia exclusively on the Xbox 360 and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World on the Nintendo Wii in North America by year’s end.
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Vesperia’s new graphics engine at work.
Developed by Namco’s Tales Studio, Tales of Vesperia marks the first outing in the series to make its way to Microsoft’s platform. Characterized as a “standard-setting RPG,” Vesperia follows the travails of errant knight Yuri, who seeks to uncover the mystery surrounding a mystical and mystifying ancient technology that powers his civilization.
Namco Bandai promises Vesperia will deliver a new interpretation on the antiquated series, with a new graphics engine that features high-definition character models and environs that recall traditional cel-shaded anime. Vesperia will also include an update to the game’s distinctive real-time combat system, with larger battlefields, new special attacks, and unique weapons all slated to appear.
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Dawn of the New World should look familiar.
Also in development at the Namco Tales Studio, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is a continuation of the well-received GameCube game that takes place two years later. Though it primarily follows two new protagonists–Emil Castagnier and Marta Lualdi–it will also feature cameos from the GC game’s cast, including Lloyd, Colette, and Ratatosk.
Dawn of the New World will include a number of updates for its Wii appearance, including a new monster recruitment tool that will allow players to collect, train, and evolve more than 200 enemies. The series’ battle system will also be revisited in the Wii game, with Namco Bandai promising free-roaming on battlefields as well as new special attacks and weapons.
Zack will move up the SOLDIER ranks in Crisis Core.
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While diehard fans keep waiting for Square Enix to unleash the license-to-print-money otherwise known as the long-rumored Final Fantasy VII remake, they can at least tide themselves over with the upcoming PSP spin-off prequel, Crisis Core. Square has been milking FFVII nostalgia for years with lighter fare like Japan-only mobile games, but based on our time with an early version of Crisis Core, we can confidently say this is the most complex and lavishly produced of all the games based on the bafflingly popular PlayStation original that we’ve seen yet.
That’s not to say it’s necessarily very similar to its predecessor, at least in gameplay terms. Crisis Core drops you in the role of Zack Fair, the elite SOLDIER operative who was only glimpsed in flashback in the original Final Fantasy VII. Like all members of SOLDIER, Zack is a special agent who cleans up after the nefarious Shin-Ra corporation, the organization that owns FFVII’s central city of Midgar, and the one which is quietly sucking dry the life force of the planet. A few hours into the storyline, we haven’t quite figured out where things are going yet. So far, we’ve been chasing after a rogue SOLDIER named Genesis alongside our mentor, a hard but noble agent named Angeal who’s showing plucky young Zack the ropes. Based on what we know about Shin-Ra from Final Fantasy VII, we can’t really blame Genesis for going against the grain, but we’ll see where the story goes from here.
Crisis Core wastes no time pulling at your nostalgic heartstrings. Familiar characters like effete goth heartthrob Sephiroth, spunky little ninja-in-training Yuffie, and austere Tseng of the Turks have gotten plenty of play so far, and we expect a lot more to show up throughout the game. The game’s CG-animated intro movie is highly reminiscent of the original game’s opening sequence (and is also of startlingly high quality, as is all of the CG we’ve seen so far). Even the sound effects that accompany menu selections and such are spot-on recreations of those in FFVII. Fans will be pleased, surely.
Spiky hair, big swords, baffling plot–yep, it’s a Final Fantasy game.
The game follows a linear mission structure that has you hanging out at Shin-Ra HQ, receiving orders, then heading out into the field to carry out those orders, and ending up back home awaiting your next assignment again. There’s no overworld that we’ve seen yet, but you can at least venture out into Midgar’s underbelly between missions, though we haven’t found much to do there yet, since it’s sparsely populated. We’ve already seen one location, Wutai, that we remember from the original game, as well as a couple of new towns that have seemingly been created just for this game.
So far, the combat system has been the most surprising aspect of Crisis Core to us, since it blends action and more traditional role-playing-style turn-based combat into a fast-paced whole. You’ll control Zack manually, running around and dodging enemy attacks, But you’ll issue standard attack, magic, and item commands from a command bar at the bottom that you cycle through with the shoulder buttons. So if you want to hit an enemy with your sword, you’ll have to target them (the game automatically targets the enemy in Zack’s line of sight) and select the attack command while you’re running around.
There’s also a bizarre slot machine of sorts called the DMW that works during battles, though even in this English build, we haven’t quite made sense of it yet. The DMW will kick in seemingly at random during battles, at which point it will take over the screen and scroll three columns of characters’ faces. Depending on the face matches and the numbers attached, you could become briefly invulnerable or be able to use magic without expending MP, or you may be able to use a flashy animated special attack that sees Zack flying all over the screen and slashing everything to ribbons. As you meet new characters and summoned monsters, their faces will be added to the DMW, giving you more special attacks that may be randomly selected.
You’ve also got a constrained version of FFVII’s materia system here, which lets you equip new materia in slots that will add new physical attack abilities, magic spells, and summons to your arsenal. However, the RPG-style character customization is more limited than you’d expect. In addition to four materia slots, you’ve only got two accessory slots into which you can equip arm bands and the like, which will give specific bonuses like an extra 10 percent to your hit points. But there’s no new armor or weapons to collect that we’ve seen so far, which certainly detracts from the gear-lust factor that drives many RPG players.
The quick-moving combat system blends action-oriented controls with a turn-based command structure.
Crisis Core is very possibly the best-looking game we’ve seen on the PSP so far, not just due to its beautiful CG movies. The in-game cutscenes are surprisingly well animated–better than we’ve seen in a lot of console games–and the character models here exhibit a nice level of detail (though the backgrounds are pretty sparse). We’ve been generally pleased with the voice acting too, though Zack’s such an extreme dude we keep waiting for him to slam a Dew before leaping into his next mission.
The game is less than a month away from US release now, so Final Fantasy VII fans can go ahead and start acting all giddy like they’re so wont to do. If you’re unfamiliar with that seminal 3D RPG, you may find a much higher barrier to entry–but wait for our full review around the time of release for a full summation of Crisis Core’s quality.
-If Its Games
Thanks to its many media appearances around the globe, LittleBigPlanet has gone from quirky indie darling to a flagship title for Sony’s PlayStation 3. We named it our game of the show at E3 2007, and since then it’s gone on to wow the crowds at events in Leipzig, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. But during all of Media Molecule’s globe-trotting antics, the Cambridge-based developer has never shown the game off in its home country. Thankfully, they decided to address the oversight by inviting us to a central London location for a hands-on with a brand-new build of the game.
LittleBigPlanet has its fair share of bugs at this stage, but it’s clear that the developer has all the basic elements in place. The game is officially in a pre-alpha stage, although a highly limited beta test has also begun to test the online code. Nonetheless, the version that we played was apparently completely new and stable enough for us to play in four-player mode. Working alongside three other games journalists was an absolute joy, and we witnessed much of the game’s early potential transforming into a sublime multiplayer experience right before our eyes. LittleBigPlanet is a game that’s impossible for you to play without grinning like a child, and we had an immense amount of fun customising our character and playing cooperatively in the world.
Collecting these orbs gives you access to new pieces to build your world.
The first part of our hands-on was spent customising our character, Sackboy. Sackboy is an immensely charismatic lead, seemingly modeled on the sort of gangly teddy that your grandma might have knit for you as a child. In the full game, you’ll have to play through to unlock the full wardrobe of accessories for Sackboy, but our demo had everything available to us from the start. Using the “poppet” menu system, we could turn Sackboy into a raggedy old doll, a lizardlike creature, or even a Hellgast from Killzone. Sony stressed to us that the latter might not make it into the final game, but we had a lot of fun mixing up our appearance from the odd accessory to a complete physical makeover.
LittleBigPlanet has a simple set of controls for its platforming elements. Your character can jump only a relatively small way into the air, but he can hold on to certain objects if you press and hold the Sixaxis’ R1 button. You can use this to pull or push objects along the ground, or to grab hold of things in midair before using your momentum to swing around. It’s unbearably cute to see Sackboy running his legs through the air as he holds on to a swinging object, and this, if nothing else, will encourage everyone to play around with the physics in the world. One section that we played featured a set of seesaws that needed traversing in order to progress, but the shift of balance required all four players to work together in order to progress–and many problems will have multiple solutions.
Although the game only requires a few buttons to play, there’s much more that you can do with the PlayStation 3 pad to interact with the world. If you shake the pad itself, Sackboy will move his body around at the hips, almost as if he’s trying to replicate that famous Elvis dance move. You can also use the L2 and R2 buttons to wave individual arms around, using the right analog stick to control the speed and direction of his hands; move the stick from one direction into another at speed and you can smack another player right in the face. You can also use your character to emote how you’re feeling. Press up on the D pad between one and three times and your Sackboy will display a different level of happiness, and pressing down will show sadness. You can also use the right analog stick or the motion sensor to add your own dance moves to whatever emotion you’re displaying.
When the full game is released, up to four people will be able to play locally or online in any combination of the two. While the game does require teamwork, the idea is to collect as many orbs as you can to unlock more content. The catch? The development team has placed orbs in some hard-to-reach places, and teamwork is required to collect many of them. One memorable puzzle featured a huge, bowl-shaped container full of orbs suspended in the air. To get the orbs out, players had to grab the edge and surface of the bowl, and use forward momentum to spin it round to then allow the orbs to tumble floorward. This results in a hilarious situation where we all tried to help free the orbs while also trying to drop to the ground to claim them all. You can keep track of your collection by using the size guide at the top left of the screen–the bigger your character, the more you’ve claimed.
As well as giving us a playable demo, the Sony producers ran us through some of the game’s creation tools. The clear intention is for players to create levels and then share them on the PlayStation Network, with player ratings and popularity tracking helping to sort the wheat from the chaff. The game will ship with enough levels for what the developer calls a “full-length single-player game,” but there’s the potential for practically unlimited new levels for those who can head online. While trawling through the tools and building a level looks like it may still be a time-consuming process, the physics system allows you to follow through on fun ideas in a matter of minutes, something that they were able to demonstrate during our demo.
Half the fun of LittleBigPlanet comes from playing around with the world and its realistic physics system.
The first example that we saw was a tank, although as it doesn’t fire any projectiles, it could just as easily have been a car. You can build whatever vehicle you like using standard blocks–what makes it move is the way that you place the wheels and the axles along the bottom of the vehicle. Place the axle off-centre and the tank will shake up and down, but keep it central and the passengers are in for a smoother ride. In LittleBigPlanet, you can build anything you want and try it out moments later.
A piston example was even more interesting. Again, creating a chamber was a simple act of cutting a hole in the centre of an oblong-shaped piece of wood, after which a specific piston-shaped piece was slotted into the centre. The whole thing was then tilted to a 45-degree angle, while steps were built leading up to the chamber so that Sackboy could jump into the chamber. From here, the developers suggested creating a target to fire Sackboy into, at which point someone else suggested creating a fiery pit as an obstacle underneath. None of this proved to be a problem for the developers to show off, and they soon had their fiery death trap ready to play around with in-game.
While you have to wade through quite a lot of parts in order to build something in LittleBigPlanet, we can already see the potential for people to create things that the designers probably haven’t even thought of. Solid shapes can be constructed and then eroded as you like, and everything is subjected to the same set of physical rules. There’s undoubtedly a huge amount of physics work going on behind the scenes, as everything in the gameworld behaves in a manner that tallies with real-life experience. For example, if you place a spongy substance on the ground and then drop wooden blocks from a great height, you will see the blocks bounce realistically and leave a temporary imprint on the sponge.
Media Molecule’s intention for all this isn’t just to let you play with physics, though; it is for players to create challenges that can be shared online. You can set time limits for completing individual sections in each of your creations and offer rewards to people who pass the test. For example, you could set a time limit of one minute to complete a run and offer some sort of accessory as a prize. The only thing you have to do is create a start and end gate for your challenge, and then leave a message to instruct people on what they have to do. These instructions come in the form of a mouthpiece that can be found in your inventory–all you have to do is write some commands that will be seen in speech-bubble form.
The music in the game has mostly been created in-house, although there are some tracks from commercial artists such as The Go! Team. The soundtrack reacts dynamically to what you’re doing in the game, layering itself with new instruments as you progress. Like Sackboy himself, the soundtrack is rather cutesy, but there are some nice touches if you listen closely. Ghetto blasters dotted around levels act as cues for new instruments in the soundtrack, and by the end of each level you’ll be playing with full musical accompaniment.
LittleBigPlanet is looking as promising as ever, and we’ve no doubt its take on user-generated content will be the beginning of a new trend in the games industry. Along with Spore, it’s pioneering the way in which players are interacting with gameworlds. Sony is aiming to release a beta test to journalists in the coming months, and even hopes to include some of their creations on the final Blu-ray disc of the game. Expect to hear more about the game in the run-up to its planned September release date.
-If Its Games
NIS America is preparing a Prinny Barrage for the PlayStation 3. The domestic branch of Japanese publisher Nippon Ichi Software today announced that it will be bringing the latest installment of the Disgaea strategy-role-playing game series to North America later this year.
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Blunt trauma: What else are friends for?
Originally released last month in Japan, Disgaea 3 introduces a new main character and supporting cast, much like the series’ first sequel. However, staples like the Netherworld setting and the abundance of knife-wielding penguin helpers known as Prinnies will return, ensuring that the game retains some aspects that are distinctly Disgaea in nature. As in previous games, Disgaea 3 will feature 2D characters and 3D backgrounds.
Gameplay mechanics from previous Disgaea games will also be returning, as the third installment in the franchise will once again see players level up their equipment as well as their characters in Item Worlds. The Geo Panel system, by which certain colored squares in each level confer bonuses or penalties for the characters who occupy them, will also return. However, Nippon Ichi is throwing in some new wrinkles to the gameplay, including a Geo Block system that allows players to change a level’s landscape and access hard-to-reach areas.
Disgaea 3 has been rated T for Teen and is scheduled for an August release.
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