Archive for March 13th, 2008
March 13, 2008
It might be hard to believe, but Wacky Races first aired in 1968. The initial 17-episode airing featured 11 cars competing in a variety of challenges with the aim of becoming “The World’s Wackiest Racer.”
The series featured characters including the villains Dick Dastardly and his dog Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, and The Gruesome Twosome, all battling for the title. Dick Dastardly would always concoct an elaborate plan to win, which would inevitably backfire.
Now all fans of the original series–or one of the repeat showings over the years–will be able to play the game on the Wii and DS this June. Titled Wacky Races: Crash & Dash, the action racing game will feature all the original characters and cars. Gamers will race across a variety of cross-country courses filled with pitfalls and power-ups.
For more information on Wacky Races: Crash & Dash, check out If Its Games’s hands-on preview.
March 13, 2008
After Rockstar Games announced it was unleashing the retail behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on April 29, most publishers have abandoned the surrounding week outright. Nintendo, however, is known for doing things a little bit differently. Today, the Wii maker revealed plans to take on Rockstar’s goliath head-on with its own diminutive champion: Mario. The publisher will release the far more family-friendly Mario Kart Wii on Sunday, April 27, two days before GTAIV pulls out of the garage.
Unveiled during the 2007 E3 Media and Business Summit, Mario Kart Wii will build upon some of the more well-received features of 2005’s Mario Kart DS. Twelve-player online racing takes top priority for most, and Mario Kart for the Wii will also let two players from the same console battle it out online together. The game will feature 32 courses total, with 16 being specially created for the Wii version and the remainder being updated courses seen in previous installments in the series.
Karters will be able to take to the track as more than a dozen Mushroom Kingdom denizens, as well as digital representations of themselves–or Oprah–via the game’s Mii integration. As with other installments in the series, the game will include a variety of modes not devoted to competitive racing, including 10 different battle arenas. Mario Kart Wii will also be receiving its very own channel on the Wii Menu, which will allow gamers quick access to tournaments, worldwide leaderboards, and ghost data.
As previously noted, Nintendo will be offering a range of control schemes with Mario Kart Wii, and will also be packing in the Wii Remote encasement dubbed the Wii Wheel with the game. For more on the game, check out If Its Games’s previous coverage.
March 13, 2008
Wolf it Down
Take a look at this trailer for Commando 3.
Watch | Download
Although some video game companies seem to hide from their past, Capcom has chosen to embrace theirs. Never has this been more apparent than at the company’s recent Digital Day event, where the company showed off new or updated versions of many of its popular arcade franchises. One such game was Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, a downloadable game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
For those of you too young to remember, the Commando series featured run-and-gun action viewed from a near top-down perspective. You and a friend would plow your way through battlefield after battlefield, with your finger on the trigger at all times, while trying to dodge enemy fire coming at you from all angles. Why is this history lesson important? Because Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 features the same gameplay as its predecessors.
Commando 3 places you in the role of one of three soldiers charged with preventing the evil General Ratiev from seeing his dastardly plans through to completion. The three soldiers are: Wolf, a former Marine with an itchy trigger finger; Fox, a female spy with quick feet; and Coyote, a cranky veteran who just loves to blow things up. Each character is rated in speed, health, and grenades, and of course they have unique looks reminiscent of the cartoon style of Team Fortress.
What better way to see the city than in a tank with two friends?
For our hands-on we selected Wolf and, figuring we dumped enough quarters into the original games that we wouldn’t stink, chose “routine exercise,” the second of the game’s four difficulties. Thankfully, we wouldn’t be taking on our mission alone–three players can play at once, on the same system or online.
The game started with our squad being dropped off on a string of small islands that quickly revealed themselves as being under enemy control. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves under fire from all directions. The game’s simple controls made fighting back a breeze. The right analog stick was used to fire our guns, while pulling the right trigger would toss a grenade. The longer you hold the trigger, the further your grenade will go. This made it much easier to take out soldiers hiding behind sandbags as well as to destroy vehicles. When the going got really tough, one of us would hit the left trigger to unleash an m-crash–an attack that, after a quick animated scene with the soldier who activated it, cleared all the enemies right off the screen.
The action was just as fast paced here as in the early Commando games, but this version looks much, much better. While the graphics are reminiscent of the original, all of the artwork is brand new and designed to take full advantage of the HD capabilities of the PS3 and Xbox 360. The visuals looked sharp and it was easy to be hypnotized by the explosions and weapons fire lighting up the screen. Commando 3 will also feature an original soundtrack courtesy of Norihiko Hibino of Metal Gear fame, so you know it’s going to sound good.
Because it’s so easy for things to get hectic, it’s a good thing that your soldiers can take more than one shot before keeling over–they’ve got a health bar now. You’ve got a few more things to help keep you in the battle, too, like upgradable weapons that include rocket launchers, flamethrowers, grenades, and shotguns. There are even vehicles that can hold all three players. We had a blast riding along in the back of a jeep spraying fire from the mounted gun while our squadmate did the driving and our other squadmate…well, we’re not quite sure what his contribution was.
When the going gets tough, the tough get a spread gun.
As we steamrolled our way through the level, we had to fend off enemy soldiers who were peppering us with fire as we made our way down river on a raft. Once we made it off the river we encountered the boss of the first level, a giant tank covered in turrets. Thankfully, we had a few grenades and some m-crashes left and made short work of the tank. After that, we watched a brief cutscene that showed our squad in prison. The game then jumped ahead five years, and we found ourselves sprung from the joint. It seemed that breaking out was easy; getting away would be the tough part. We made our way through town and rescued some hostages along the way. But one by one our squadmates fell, and we quickly ended up fighting alone…and then ended up dead.
As if finally getting a new Commando game wasn’t enough, Capcom recently announced that anyone who purchases the Xbox 360 version of the game will receive a code to participate in a Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix beta that will begin shortly after Commando 3’s launch. That date is just around the corner, too. Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 is scheduled to be released for both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade for $10, or 800 Microsoft points, this spring.
-If Its Games
March 13, 2008
At last year’s Tokyo Game Show, Sony announced that it would be folding Evolution Studios, along with its subsidiary Bigbig Studios, into its stable of internal development houses for a sum later reported to be $33 million. Most notably, Evolution is responsible for former Sony chief of Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison’s favorite game, the PlayStation 3-exclusive MotorStorm, while Bigbig’s largest project to date is the PlayStation Portable action title Pursuit Force and its sequel, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice.
At the time of its acquisition, Sony noted that Evolution was already at work on a sequel to MotorStorm and was expecting the game to land on the PS3 in 2008. Today, Sony hiked the curtain back a bit farther on MotorStorm 2, saying on its official PlayStation Blog that the game would queue up on the starting line this fall.
In its brief statement, Sony also offered up an early look at some of the features gamers can expect from the next installment in the popular off-road racer. Whereas the original MotorStorm circuit ran through rugged mountainous terrain, the sequel has been transported to a tropical Pacific island, “replete with thick swamps, dense jungle, towering peaks and steaming volcanoes.” All of the vehicle types from the first game will return for MotorStorm 2, and Evolution will be adding monster trucks to the mix.
Sony also listed a few of the game’s more prominent features, saying there will be 16 new tracks, 16-player online battling, and four-player split-screen play.
March 13, 2008
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is a perfect example of how a great concept doesn’t always make for a great game. In this case, the concept is Turning Point’s intriguing premise: Without the voice of Winston Churchill to rally Allied forces, Hitler’s Nazi regime spreads like wildfire across Europe and Africa, eventually staging an all-out assault on the United States. It doesn’t take long to realize that Turning Point makes almost no use of this potential. The result is a shooter that fluctuates between mediocre and disastrously buggy.
For a game that relies so heavily on the backdrop, it’s remarkable how little it does with the actual story. Turning Point begins with your character working on the girders of an unfinished skyscraper in New York City as the Luftwaffe comes swarming into view. The fact that your character works construction is one of exactly two things you learn about him through the course of the game (the other being his name, Carson). That’s as much character progression as you’ll find. The plot itself can hardly be considered robust, either. We know the Nazis have exerted their control over the presidency and that some level of resistance is fighting through the invasion, but that’s more or less it. There are no real examples of life under Nazi power and no memorable characters to share in the struggle.
Powerful set pieces like this one are a rare treat.
While the story fails to do much with the game’s premise, the setting of this alternate history has a few breakthrough moments. A handful of set pieces do a good job of stirring your emotions. The first few minutes of the game are fairly nerve-wracking as you race down the aforementioned skyscraper while German airships litter the sky. There’s also one scene where you’re stationed on a turret gun fighting back several waves of soldiers as the top of the Chrysler Building lies in ruins before you. However, these powerful moments are the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time, you’re running through nondescript buildings or underground corridors. It’s much too easy to forget you’re fighting Nazis on American soil (and in London, toward the end of the game). For the most part, it feels like Turning Point could be any old World War II shooter, albeit with weapons that never made it into production.
The combat fails to pick up the slack, because it’s simply a poor imitation of the Call of Duty series. You can switch between two weapons and grenades as you run through linear levels, with most of the action dependent on using the iron sights to take out a room full of enemies. A major problem is that the targeting isn’t very reliable, because the gun takes up so much of the screen. This often leaves you guessing where an enemy is before shooting. Even if you do guess correctly, you’re usually punished by a wildly inconsistent hit-detection system that can’t tell the difference between a headshot and a bullet to the leg.
There’s a melee system that’s almost entirely useless throughout most of the game, but occasionally you’ll happen upon an unlucky enemy that can be taken out with an environmental-based melee attack. Some are predictable, like throwing an enemy from a ledge, but some will have you laughing out loud, like forcing a soldier’s head down a toilet after finding them using the bathroom. .
A variety of odd design choices and technical problems further mar the game’s combat. Enemies aren’t the least bit intimidating due to their predictable AI and cartoonlike running animations. When the game tries to compensate by ballooning the number of Nazis in your path, the frame rate takes a very severe nosedive–something that also happens in nearly every scripted destruction sequence, like walls collapsing. There are a variety of other problems that range from the comical (enemy corpses fall through walls, but their guns become stuck halfway through) to the infuriating (squadmates stand in your way in narrow corridors and refuse to move). All of this is compounded by a stingy checkpoint system that forces you to experience these flaws several times over.
Turning Point’s presentation offers one notable high point. The sound effects are good, but the music is fantastic. It’s a grand, orchestral score that expertly recalls 1940s-era Hollywood. The music does its best to add a little extra excitement to the action-packed moments while also lending tension to the slower, more subdued sections of the game. Unfortunately, much of that is canceled out by the game’s poor visuals. You’ll often see a blurry surface texture and assume it’ll snap into clarity once it’s loaded, but as you approach it you’ll come to realize that it’s not getting any better. The PS3 version looks slightly better than the Xbox 360 game, but it’s still far from impressive. Visuals aside there really isn’t much to differentiate the two console versions of Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, though the Xbox 360 game benefits from some genuinely amusing achievements.
They might not be original, but environmental kills are often good for a laugh.
After finishing the brief and uninspiring campaign, there’s little temptation to try the multiplayer mode. If you choose to avoid it, you won’t be missing much. The same gameplay woes that plague the campaign are here in the deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, which support a meager eight players. Multiplayer doesn’t add a lot to the overall experience, in the same way that the campaign doesn’t build upon the overall premise. This theme of missed opportunity is a consistent one throughout Turning Point. What could have been a refreshing twist on the World War II genre instead is a lesson on how not to implement an interesting concept.
March 13, 2008
Viacom-owned Harmonix Music Systems on Monday filed a lawsuit at the California Superior Court in Los Angeles claiming that Activision owes it some $14.5 million, reports Variety. In a very quick turnaround, by Tuesday, it had withdrawn the suit and decided to discuss it all in a civilized manner outside of court instead.
The suit alleges that Activision has paid Harmonix the wrong royalty rate for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The first rate, which is half of the higher rate, should be paid if a Guitar Hero game is made from scratch and the higher rate if a game “incorporates, uses, or is derived from Harmonix property.”
Harmonix created the original Guitar Hero game for RedOctane, which was bought out by Activision in 2006. Harmonix was acquired by Viacom’s MTV Networks in 2006 and has recently released Rock Band, which features drums and vocals, as well as guitars.
In February, Activision touted the Guitar Hero franchise as having sold more than 14 million copies in North America alone, with Guitar Hero III alone accruing more than 5 million songs downloaded. Harmonix’s maiden effort with the Rock Band franchise has been no slouch itself, going platinum in January and claiming 2.5 million songs downloaded.
However, Harmonix reckons it’s owed some $14.5 million in extra royalties for Guitar Hero III and also points out that it hasn’t seen any royalties from song downloads, in-game advertising, or any “ancillary products.”
Activision’s lawyer, general counsel George Rose countered by saying, “Activision believes it has made sufficient payments to Harmonix and the claims otherwise do not have merit.”
March 13, 2008
Last year, Activision discovered that its $100 million purchase of RedOctane in 2006 had paid off in spades, with the publisher touting the fact that the Guitar Hero franchise had shifted 14 million-plus units in North America alone and aggregated revenue of more than $1 billion in the process. A mountain of cash that high doesn’t go without notice, however, and the publisher has been fending off lawsuits concerning the franchise seemingly around every corner.
In the second suit concerning Guitar Hero to surface for the week, longtime RedOctane partner Gibson Guitar Inc. has filed suit against Activision claiming patent infringement, reports Reuters. In a letter sent to Activision in January, Gibson claims Guitar Hero infringes on one of its patents granted in 1999 for “technology for simulating a musical performance.” The patent, a copy of which was included in Gibson’s court filing, details a method for using instruments to simulate a live performance, and provides for a 3D headset with stereo speakers and a prerecorded concert.
Gibson has licensed the use of its guitars as controllers and in-game items for Guitar Hero since the first installment in the franchise debuted in 2005. Most recently, Activision licensed nine different Gibson guitars to appear in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, as well as modeled its controller after the company’s popular Les Paul. According to the letter sent to Activision, Reuters reports that Gibson is requesting that the publisher “obtain a license under Gibson’s…patent or halt sales of any version of the ‘Guitar Hero’ game software.”
Unsurprisingly, Reuters reports that Activision has asked the US District Court of Central California to invalidate Gibson’s patent and prevent the guitar maker from seeking damages. In a statement issued to If Its Games, Activision general counsel George Rose said, “Gibson is a good partner, and we have a great deal of respect for them. We disagree with the applicability of their patent and would like a legal determination on this.” Reuters also noted that even were the patent upheld, Gibson’s three-year dalliance has granted Activision an implied license for the use of the technology.
Gibson had not responded to If Its Games’s requests for comment as of press time.
March 13, 2008
Last year was exceptionally strong for first-person shooters. Yet despite being one of the latest genre releases in the year, Call of Duty 4 towered over its competition. There are so many shooters released these days that it’s hard to stick with an online community for more than a few weeks, but even months later, we’re still obsessively playing COD4’s addictive online mode with no end in sight. So we counted ourselves among the incredibly fortunate when we headed down to developer Infinity Ward’s Southern California offices recently to check out the game’s first downloadable map pack, which is coming later this spring.
Broadcast is taken from and expanded upon the Iraqi TV station mission in COD4’s single-player campaign.
We got a chance to chat with IW community relations manager Robert Bowling–better known to COD4 diehards by his online handle, “fourzerotwo”–about the pending downloadable maps. The first thing he told us was the first thing we wanted to hear about this pack: The Middle Eastern and Russian environments will no longer comprise the entirety of the retail game’s lineup. Now that the team has moved on from the single-player campaign (and has time to work up some new art assets), we can expect to see new Call of Duty 4 maps set in entirely new locations separate from the original game.
Well, except one of the maps in this pack. It’s called Broadcast and is lifted from the Iraqi campaign “Charlie Don’t Surf,” in which you assault a television station where the enemy is holed up. Don’t think the team just copied and pasted the campaign map into this multiplayer pack, though. It does contain the iconic, cavernous main room with its dozens of computer monitors and TV screens, as well as a big map of the world on the wall. We can tell you from experience that that’s a great place for multiplayer firefights, with all those cubicles to duck down behind and all that equipment just waiting to get shot up by you or your opponents. A large-scale multiplayer match concentrated in that room is going to be serious calamity.
But Broadcast has been expanded significantly throughout its incarnation in the campaign. There are multiple routes into and out of that main room. Some routes lead up to the building’s second floor, replete with smaller rooms and hallways. The map is mostly indoors, so air strikes and helicopters will be largely ineffectual–except up on the roof, which you can access from the second floor, as well as in the expanded parking lot area outside the main building. On the other side of that parking lot is another new, smaller building that you can hide out in as well.
The second map we played is entirely new, and it’s named Creek. But there’s a lot more to it than a simple babbling brook. This is a very large-scale outdoor map with a small cluster of houses on one side of it. In the middle, there’s a huge ravine circling the perimeter with multiple levels of pathways up its side. Down below, the trail leads along the eponymous creek bed to a waterfall. Elsewhere along the base of the ravine, there’s a lengthy and winding cave that cuts underneath the hill then out to the other side. As big as it is, there are a lot of places to go on this map; from prone sniping atop the cliff face to hiding out behind a rock in the tunnel, you never know where an opponent will be attacking you.
Creek is a massive original map with a high ravine, cliffside pathways, and a tunnel through the base of the hill.
Broadcast naturally looks exactly like COD4’s campaign, but Infinity Ward’s artists have done a nice pass on Creek to give it a distinctive look, with rocky terrain and various sorts of foliage that are more verdant than what you’ve seen in the previous Russian maps. It all feels a little sunnier and more pleasant than the game’s other forested maps, too–at least until you catch a slug between your teeth. Because there’s so much underbrush and shrubbery on top of the cliffs here, Bowling pointed out that it’s a great map for you to use the sniper’s ghillie suit for blending in while going for some sneaky kills.
There will actually be four maps in the final pack, though we can only really tell you about these two. The other two will be Chinatown, which is pretty self-explanatory, and Killhouse, which is a “bonus” map that we didn’t get any hard details on (though we were told to think of the single-player campaign’s initial training level as a reference). The map pack will be available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the coming months for an unspecified price. But interestingly, Infinity Ward hasn’t decided how the maps will be distributed on the PC, where players are much more expectant of postrelease bonus content being released for free. Realistically, Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer is so absurdly good that would have gladly handed over cash for whatever maps the designers could have phoned in–so we’re especially glad to see them putting so much time and care into this first release.
-If Its Games
March 13, 2008
Because so many turn-based strategy games deal with high fantasy, it’s initially refreshing to get to play with the aliens and starships of Spaceforce: Captains. Unfortunately, the sci-fi setting is all that this low-budget DreaMatrix Games effort has going for it. Although this space-opera wannabe aspires to take traditional turn-based fantasy to the final frontier, it pulls the genre down to earth, courtesy of sloppy design and third-world production values.
The background is taken from 2006’s space sim Spaceforce: Rogue Universe, which in this turn-based form resembles the Star Trek-styled setting of strategic epics going all the way back to Star Control. There are three solo campaigns depicting a stereotypical galactic war told from the points of view of the three main Spaceforce races: the human EMD, the orclike Ord, and the vaguely reptilian Alreani. But it’s not as if the setting is developed enough for these factions to make much of a difference to the game itself. DreaMatrix seems more concerned with moving Heroes of Might and Magic to space than with creating a unique identity. Gameplay is a straight-up rip-off of the Heroes formula, with the stereotypical studly knights, pointy-eared elves, and gallant steeds. These are in turn swapped out for studly star-faring rogues, bug-eyed aliens, and warp-driving spaceships.
Line them up and then shoot them down.
Most of your time is spent on an isometric 3D star map (on a 2D plane) where you direct fleets as you would parties of adventurers in fantasy-oriented turn-based games. Instead of picking hero knights and mages to lead parties, you hire human and alien captains. These captains represent classes, such as explorer, pirate, scientist, and doctor. And, instead of exploring a medieval land to plunder caches of goodies guarded by monsters, you explore star systems to plunder goodies guarded by ET spaceships. Space stations are developed instead of cities, with you constructing fighter bays, gun turrets, and research labs rather than fantasy barracks, ballistae, and mage schools. Sci-fi techs replace magic weapons and spells, with lasers, cloaking devices, or teleporters doing the same jobs as old-fashioned +1 swords or lightning bolts. Such futuristic resources as credits and nano-bots also stand in for gold pieces and mana.
If copying such an old formula were pulled off successfully, Spaceforce: Captains would be an interesting take on a traditionally fantasy-centric genre. But just about everything here is broken. Level design is an absolute mess. Maps are dark and convoluted, and feature mazes wouldn’t look out of place in Pac-Man. Alien ships are positioned at junctions leading to the best goodies, so you’re presented with a strictly A-to-B path through each level. Space rubble, asteroids, and other objects blend in so perfectly with the star-system backdrops that it’s hard to tell if you can move in certain directions or not. The minimap is of no help here, either, because it is so black and devoid of features to be all but totally useless.
Empire management is even more annoying. Enemy fleets are so huge that you have to spend a great deal of time building your space station and creating huge fleets. This isn’t particularly difficult because your floating HQs make big money automatically with a couple of basic upgrades, and ship-building resources can generally be readily found just floating around in space. But, man, is the empire-building process ever tedious. You start levels off making a space station from scratch, which involves doing nothing but hammering on the end-turn button for five or 10 minutes to accumulate enough credits for construction jobs. Then you repeat this same mindless process to earn the cash required to crank out the hundreds upon hundreds of ships needed to defeat the massive enemy fleets lurking in the mazes of the maps. Sheer numbers are key, so forget about tactics. It’s more like you’re working on an assembly line than playing a game.
Actual combat is just as dreary. All the shooting takes place on chessboard-style maps where you move ships around by turns and simply blast away. There isn’t any strategy here, though, because the ships all rely on basic beam weapons and missiles. Tactics are about as evolved as infantry combat in the 18th century–meaning that you just line everybody up and start shooting until one side or the other goes boom. Yet the game doesn’t even get this romper-room stuff right. There isn’t any graphical representation of firing ranges, so you’re left guessing how far you can shoot. Chessboard squares are often unresponsive to move orders, making every maneuver a frustrating multiclick affair where you repeatedly zoom in and out looking for the magic spot where the game will recognize your command.
Cash on demand makes it awfully easy to build the space station of your dreams. Awfully boring, too.
The no-frills presentation also casts its shadow on the oppressive mood. There are just a handful of ship classes for each of the main races and some of the alien species you encounter. All of these vessels are hideous too, with jagged lines and few details. Research options liven matters up a little bit with some interesting weapons and gadgets. Still, as with the station and ship building, all you have to do is click “end turn” repeatedly to automatically earn the big bucks needed to buy all the tech on offer. Audio is excruciating because of lame order acknowledgements that don’t make any sense (”law and order” is a favorite) and the shred-happy canned-rock soundtrack. And multiplayer might as well not even be present because there are never any servers available that are actually hosting the game.
Spaceforce: Captains belongs in the brig, not on your hard drive. A sci-fi take on Heroes of Might and Magic is a great idea, but you’re better off sticking with warriors and elves until somebody greatly refines this concept.
March 13, 2008
Calling all Call of Duty 4 teams!
Are you ready for war, soldier? Sign up now to compete in the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tournament, Conflict Zone Chaos. You could win a $500 gift card for Best Buy.
Plus, just for participating you'll get a unique Call of Duty 4 emblem in your profile.
Registration for Conflict Zone Chaos begins March 13, 2008 at 4 p.m. PT and ends on March 18 at 11 a.m. PT.
In Conflict Zone Chaos, sixty-four six-player teams have the chance to show off their skill in team-based military combat.
As always, we'll broadcast the finals live on If Its Games Tournament TV. You'll get to see your favorite If Its Games editors provide analysis and commentary on the competition, as well as interviews with some of the top players. Be sure to tune in!
PRIZES
Grand Prize - Each member of the winning team will receive a $500 gift card to Best Buy.
2nd Place - Each member of the second place team will receive a $200 gift card to Best Buy.
In order to participate, you must be a U.S. resident, at least 18 years old. Please see Official Rules.
Want to join the action? Become a If Its Games subscriber today.
