Archive for April 3rd, 2008
April 3, 2008
It’s hard to believe that the Worms series began well over a decade ago, but its popularity has seen the games appear across most of the major gaming platforms since. Worms: A Space Oddity brings most of the fun of worm-battling to the Nintendo Wii, marrying Worms’ traditional 2D gameplay to a particularly clever control system.
Worms: A Space Oddity, like the vast majority of games in the franchise, involves turn-based fights between up to four teams of worms. You’re given an arsenal of weapons and tools, and the last team standing wins. To supplement your initial firepower, you must collect weapons and health crates all while discovering good offensive and defensive positions.
The weapon selection could best be described as limited.
The standard Versus modes of battle are there in beginner, intermediate, and pro difficulties. These modes present increasing levels of challenge by shortening turn times and increasing opponent skill. Also present are additional modes, such as Short Supply, where only one of each kind of weapon is available, making crate collection vital. You can also choose to play the last-man-standing Fort battles, which are as much about strategic defence as skilled attack.
The Wii Remote is all you need to play, and the turn-based nature of the game allows up to four players to share one controller if necessary. The motion-sensitive controls are used to good effect. The occasionally unreliable homing missile has been replaced with a new rocket that you steer to its target using the Wii Remote. It makes precision guiding eminently achievable with a steady hand, and there’s a true sense of satisfaction when the enemy is hit. Plunging down the controller to set off a carefully placed atom pack adds that extra bit of venom as a friend watches in local multiplayer as well. On the downside, controlling the camera can be frustrating because you have to hold the + button and move the Wii Remote to pan. The result is a camera that doesn’t move smoothly, which can be especially irritating in “Pro” games where turn times are fairly short.
One of the criticisms from Worms fans of many of the newer games in the series is that the weapon choice is underwhelming, and A Space Oddity is no exception. The entire arsenal comprises a mere 10 full-bore weapons and seven tools. While some of them are great fun (the drop ship will bring back happy memories of the concrete donkey to experienced players), as battles go on, it’s hard not to wish for the variety of attacking options available in previous Worms games. Worms World Party on the PC, for example, had more than 50 weapons available. Many of the weapons in A Space Oddity will be recognizable to fans of the series, regardless of the fact that they’ve been nicely reworked in keeping with the game’s sci-fi theme.
Playing through the story mode is a great way to hone your skills for multiplayer.
The single-player story mode adds an interesting dimension. The story thread takes you through a series of puzzle- and battle-based levels within each world as you struggle to rebuild your ship and get back to Earth. You might find yourself outnumbered in a battle, digging your way through a level strewn with atom packs or using the environment to take on an opponent with high health points, for example. The story mode levels are useful as practice for the main battles or as a puzzle-based diversion, but they are not compelling in the same way as battling other teams of worms.
Completing the five levels for each world in the story mode unlocks a sixth task, which then also becomes available as a stand-alone minigame. These are a nice add-on, but they are unlikely to draw too much attention away from the main game, unless you have a particular liking for whack-a-mole or Space Invaders.
The single-player tutorials are a useful place to start because they take you through each of the weapons and tools, as well as their particular controls. Some of tutorials are precursors to later levels within the single-player story mode. Given the limited time available in higher difficulty matches later on, familiarity with the weapons and their control methods is key to success. The tutorial times are saved, so as you get better at the game, you can choose to go back and beat them.
What is missing–and it’s a real shame–is online multiplayer. While the single-player game is fun and useful for enhancing skills, multiplayer is really what Worms is all about. The local multiplayer in Worms: A Space Oddity is as much fun as you’d expect it to be, despite the limited weapons, but the opportunity to play online battles would really add a compelling element to the game.
As in previous games, Worms: A Space Oddity provides the opportunity to set up your own teams (of three worms) and to create custom landscapes. Creating your own landscapes using the Wii Remote is simple and satisfying. You draw the outline of the landscape that you want and choose elements from all the different environments available. Up to 16 maps can be saved. You can choose from a range of options for team basics, such as colour, flag, and audio. We liked the Yoda-esque master personality (”The darkness, I sense in you”), but if you prefer the basic English/French/Spanish variants on insults and battle cries, they are all available. The taunts and phrases throughout the game are as quirky and amusing as ever, although a greater variety would have been welcome. You can also create your own battle type, specifying such options as the number of victories necessary for a win, the frequency of crates, and the timing of turns.
Killing enemy worms is always satisfying, especially when there’s an explosion involved.
Worms: A Space Oddity is unlikely to win any awards for art design, but that’s not to say the imagery doesn’t fit within the game. Bright, colourful environments reflect the worlds they represent–the alien plant life in Tenticlia is a particular highlight. One new twist is that the environments can have a bearing on the outcome of matches. Each world has its own hazards, which must be taken into account during competitive matches. When playing on Earth, for example, UFOs may swoop down and grab a worm, then relocate it elsewhere on the map. Given the lamentable lack of ninja ropes or a select worm option, this displacement can be crucial to the result of the match.
It’s good to see that the series’ first crack at Nintendo’s console is an all-new game, clearly created with the Wii and its controller in mind. The single-player game contains enough to teach a new player all about the game, and the multiplayer is almost as much fun as ever. It’s a shame that Team 17 didn’t include a more impressive weapon selection and that the game doesn’t include the online multiplayer that has made it a real hit on other platforms, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had with Worms: A Space Oddity.
April 3, 2008
Author Robert Ludlum’s last Jason Bourne novel, The Bourne Ultimatum, was published in 1990. The film of the same name, the third in a blockbuster trilogy, was released in 2007, with a possible sequel to come.
In the interim, Vivendi Games subsidiary Sierra Entertainment will release Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy, a new espionage-action game inspired by both the films and the original novels. First revealed last year, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game today was dated on both sides of the Atlantic, coming to the UK on June 27 and North America on June 3.
Developed by internal shop High Moon Studios (Darkwatch), The Bourne Conspiracy will feature a mix of shooting, hand-to-hand fighting, car chases, and “dramatic escapes.” Features include a playable re-enactment of a sequence from The Bourne Identity is trying to evade police cars in a Mini Cooper, and a combat system co-designed by Jeff Imada, the choreographer for the Bourne movies.
Elite secret agent Jason Bourne–played by Matt Damon in the films–will be the playable character in an original story which fleshes out his background and the conspiracy that surrounds him. Damon’s voice and likeness won’t be used in the game, which is being billed as a complement to the films and novels. However Tony Gilroy, the Oscar-nominated writer of all three Bourne films, is assisting in the game’s “story and character development.”
April 3, 2008
The debate over whether or not Sony’s Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is nothing but a glorified demo hasn’t stopped Aussie gamers from snapping it up. GT5 Prologue debuted in the overall top 10 games chart at number one, according to data trackers GfK Australia.
Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain? is certainly no stranger to the overall game chart, with the game coming in at number two for the week of March 24-30. The Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock double pack for the Wii continues to sell strongly, taking out the fourth spot, while the 360 version can be found further down the chart at number eight. Last week’s number one–Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for the Xbox 360–slipped five places into sixth place. Finishing off the week at number 10 is God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PlayStation Portable, which means Sony claimed both first and last positions in the overall chart last week.
Despite a strong first appearance on the PC charts at number one, Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath has failed to make it into the overall Australian games chart.
All sales stats, including console-by-console breakdowns, can be found below:
Top 10 Full-Priced Games
1. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, PS3
2. Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?, Nintendo DS
3. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Nintendo DS
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock double pack, Wii
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, PlayStation 3
6. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Xbox 360
7. Mario Party 8, Wii
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle, Xbox 360
9. Super Mario Galaxy, Wii
10. God of War: Chains of Olympus, PSP
Top 10 PS3 Games (over A$60)
1. Grand Turismo 5 Prologue
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
3. Assassin’s Creed
4. Army of Two
5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
6. MX vs. ATV Untamed
7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle
8. SingStar bundle
9. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
10. Burnout Paradise
Top 10 Xbox 360 Games (over A$50)
1. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
2. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle
3. Army of Two
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
5. Condemned 2: Bloodshot
6. Assassin’s Creed
7. Halo 3
8. MX vs. ATV Untamed
9. Bully: Scholarship Edition
10. Viking: Battle for Asgard
Top 10 Wii Games (over A$50)
1. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock double pack
2. Mario Party 8
3. Super Mario Galaxy
4. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle
6. No More Heroes
7. House of the Dead
8. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
9. Carnival Games
10. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Top 10 PC Games (over A$20)
1. Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath
2. The Sims 2: Free Time
3. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage
4. World of Warcraft
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
6. The Sims 2: Seasons
7. The Sims 2: Pets
8. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
9. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm
10. The Sims 2
Top 10 Nintendo DS Games (over A$40)
1. Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?
2. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
3. Animal Crossing: Wild World
4. Pokemon Ranger
5. Imagine Babyz
6. Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends
7. New Super Mario Bros.
8. Mario Kart DS
9. Pokemon Diamond
10. The Simpsons Game
Top 10 PS2 Games (over A$50)
1. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock bundle
2. SingStar ’80s
3. SingStar Legends
4. SingStar Pop Hits bundle
5. SingStar Pop
6. MX vs. ATV Untamed
7. SingStar Rocks!
8. SingStar ’90s
9. Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz bundle
10. Singstar R&B
Top 10 PSP games (over A$40)
1. God of War: Chains of Olympus
2. Need for Speed ProStreet
3. The Simpsons Game
4. MX vs. ATV Untamed
5. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008
6. Crash of the Titans
7. Patapon
8. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike
9. FIFA Soccer 08
10. NBA Live 08
All data supplied by GfK Australia.
April 3, 2008
Video Interview
Lead designer James Tsai talks to us about some of the co-op features in Saints Row 2.
Watch | Download
Earlier today, during a meeting with THQ and Volition, we had an opportunity to play Saints Row 2 for the first time. Joining us in the city of Stillwater was the game’s lead designer, James Tsai, who was kind enough to play through a stronghold mission and a helicopter activity with us in the two-player co-op mode before the session degenerated into an infinite-ammo-fueled rampage.
Saints Row 2 promises a user-friendly approach to cooperative gameplay that’ll let you jump in and out of co-op games at any time, regardless of how far into the campaign each player is. You’d have to be pretty dedicated to playing alongside a friend to completely avoid playing solo for fear of getting out of sync with each other, after all. You’ll be able to help other players out with missions that you’ve already beaten, of course, but what’s really neat is that when playing alongside someone who’s a lot further into the story than you you’ll have the option of playing through their missions as well. Said missions would almost certainly be unavailable to you in single-player mode at that time, but the game will remember that you’ve beaten them in co-op and, when you reach them in your own story, will give you the option to skip them accordingly.
Screenshots of the Sons of Samedi trailer park are in short supply, apparently, so here’s one of an unrelated locale.
The mission that we played through during today’s session tasked us with taking down the same Sons of Samedi stronghold that we were given a brief tour of the last time we saw Saints Row 2 in action. The stronghold is a trailer park where the Caribbean-influenced gang manufactures a designer drug known as Lower Dust. Our goal was to destroy five trailers being used as labs, and thanks to a cheat that afforded us infinite ammo for every weapon in our arsenal, we had no shortage of toys with which to accomplish it. Favorite weapons on this occasion included a shotgun, an assault rifle, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and satchel charges. The two guns were effective at close- and long-range, respectively; the RPG was useful because it locks on to targets pretty quickly if you position your crosshair over them; and the satchel charges are a lot of fun because they adhere to just about anything (or anyone) you throw them at and can then be detonated manually.
While playing through the stronghold mission we were free to work as closely with or as independently from the other player as we liked, though since you’ll have the ability to revive each other when you die it’s definitely a good idea to stay pretty close. Simply taking the shortest route through the mission and blowing up the five trailer labs wasn’t terribly difficult with two players, and even with numerous gang members attempting to stop us we rarely needed to worry about retreating into cover so that our health could replenish. Our first play-through of the mission was a little underwhelming, to be honest, but that’s only because it was a little too easy to beat with an overpowered arsenal that we hadn’t started to get creative with yet.
That all changed on our second play-through. Landing satchel charges on a stationary target as big as a trailer isn’t very challenging or particularly satisfying, but landing those same charges on cars as they drive by or even on unsuspecting pedestrians who then go into a panic is infinitely more enjoyable. By sticking a couple of charges onto a car and then driving it toward one of the trailers before bailing out and hitting the detonate button, Tsai also showed us how seemingly innocuous vehicles can effectively be turned into powerful missiles. The new cruise control feature that lets you keep your vehicle’s speed constant while freeing up your accelerator thumb for other things proved useful here, though its intended purpose is really just to make drive-bys easier. By adhering multiple charges to a pedestrian and then detonating them individually it’s even possible to “juggle” the target using explosions to keep them in the air, and when the day comes that we’re allowed to capture our own footage of Saints Row 2, you can bet that’ll be one of the first things we try.
Another fun feature of Saints Row 2 that we experimented with while playing through the stronghold mission is the ability to grab pedestrians and use them as human shields. Gang members and cops are somewhat reluctant to fire at their own people when you’re hiding behind them, and even innocent civilians that gang members will fire upon without a second thought do a good job of soaking up bullets for a time. When you no longer need your human shields, you have the option to execute them with a quick headshot (that doesn’t work with the RPG, we discovered; you just break their necks instead) or simply push them away–preferably toward a fire or fast-moving vehicle so that there’s no danger of them trying to exact revenge.
The helicopter activity that we played through next will, like other activities, be completely optional as you progress through the game. On this occasion we were tasked with providing air support for a friendly vehicle that was being used to complete a drug deal and coming under fire from rival gangs. In co-op mode, helicopter activities have one player jump into the pilot seat while the other uses a chaingun and laser-guided missile system to take out hostiles. The chaingun seemed a little underpowered on this occasion, while the missiles were perhaps just a little too quick and easy to fire and forget.
We completed the activity from the gunner’s seat with a minimum of fuss after shooting down a number of enemy helicopters and blowing up plenty of hostile vehicles on the streets below. We were eager to pilot a helicopter for ourselves, though, so we had Tsai show us to a location where we could jack one and just fly around without having to concern ourselves with objectives. Predictably, the controls for the chopper were a little more complex than those for cars and bikes, but they’re still quite easy to pick up. Your accelerator and brake buttons are the same as they are on the street, except that they can also be used to influence altitude, you still steer with the left analog stick and move the camera with the right, and you can use the shoulder buttons to rotate left and right.
And here’s a great screenshot of the helicopter that we used to explore Stillwater.
The work-in-progress demo version of Saints Row 2 that we were playing on this occasion afforded us the opportunity to explore only a portion of one of islands that make up the gameworld. From our vantage point inside a helicopter flying high above, though, we were still impressed by the scale of the environment and by the variety of the neighborhoods that we could see. As we flew from one end of the island to the other, we left the trailer park behind and headed toward a large, modern-looking city before ultimately ending up at a museum site that incorporated what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient temple. That’s where we ditched the chopper (OK, crashed it) and decided to have some more fun with satchel charges before bringing the session to an end. A few hundred explosions later we still weren’t bored of them, and we’d managed to attract the attention of several SWAT teams by the time we reluctantly put down the controller.
Saints Row 2 is currently scheduled to ship to stores later this year. No more-specific release date information has been announced at this time, though we’re assured that it will be soon. We’ll bring you more information on Saints Row 2 as soon as it becomes available.
-If Its Games
April 3, 2008
NewsFactor - What do the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and video-game giant Sega have in common? The answer is that both exposed sensitive data via their File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites. While the impact on Sega was only to force the company to release information on a new game earlier than it wanted to, in the former case it could have cost the lives of soldiers in Iraq.
April 3, 2008
Investor’s Business Daily - The word “computer” makes most people think of typing, photo sharing, Net surfing, video games.
April 3, 2008
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has said that Nintendo has a $40 million marketing budget to support the US Launch of Wii Fit on May 19. \”Wii Fit will sell 3 million to 4 million in the US if they market aggressively\” said Pachter. Analysts also expect Nintendo to get more of its Wii consoles into Target and Best Buy while reducing focus on specialized retailers like GameStop.
April 3, 2008
Team Twiizers, the same group responsible for the Twilight Hack have released a custom Wii channel. This allows homebrew to run from the SD card but from the Wii menu which is much more convenient. Currently, the beta only runs for ten minutes before expiring, so use your time wisely with this! Read more here.
April 3, 2008
Last week, Electronic Arts announced that the Madden NFL 09 season would commence on August 12. Surprising to some and grating to others, the publisher at that time also said that the Tony Dungy-covered NFL Head Coach 09 would be available only as a pack-in to the $89.99 collectors edition of the game. However, that wasn’t the only unusual tidbit nestled away in the release. As revealed by way of omission, the publisher also pulled the plug on the PC edition of its annual trip to the gridiron.
Today, EA Sports quarterback Peter Moore shed some light via his official blog on why the PC edition of the game had been benched. Echoing sentiments expressed by various other gaming execs, Moore said EA Sports would be scaling back its efforts on the PC on account of the platform’s troublesome economic climate.
“The PC presents some very serious business challenges to us in the sports category, particularly because so many of you all are playing your favorite sports games on the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii,” said Moore. “We are committed to shipping a limited number of our games on the PC this year, but we’ve also had to cut a few of our games from the platform.”
However, EA Sports hasn’t abandoned the most venerable of gaming platforms quite yet. “We do have ideas for how to revitalize the PC for sports games and the types of games that are best suited to the platform, and we’ll continue to explore those,” said Moore.
Developed by EA Tiburon, Madden NFL 09 is currently slated to arrive on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and Wii. The Madden NFL 09 Collector’s Edition will be available only for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
April 3, 2008
Leading Japanese magazine Famtisu has reviewed Mario Kart for the Wii and has scored it a pretty solid 37/40, which suggests that it falls just short of perfection. The UK NOM also reviewed the game and awarded it a score of 94 percent so it looks like this one is in the fast lane to the top as expected.
April 3, 2008
Webcomic Penny Arcade hasn’t been just a webcomic in years. What started as a thrice-weekly running commentary on gamer culture has become a nerdy cottage industry, spawning an international children’s charity, the largest consumer-gaming convention in North America, and its very own episodic adventure game (developed with Hothead Games).
Now that Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are already making their own games, the pair today announced the next natural progression in the expansion of their empire: They’re going to start selling games. Teaming up with Hothead Games once again, Penny Arcade today announced the formation of Greenhouse Interactive, a digital-distribution game store “dedicated to supporting independent game development worldwide.”
The site was developed initially to give Hothead and Penny Arcade a place to sell their games, but according to Krahulik’s latest post, “Once it was done we realized that it could actually be super useful to other independent developers.” To begin with, Greenhouse will sell only Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One for the PC, Mac, and Linux ($19.95 each).
Currently, Greenhouse has only a single downloadable offering–an uncompressed Penny Arcade podcast about the game–meant to test the store’s ability to dole out game-sized files to users. The first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures is set for simultaneous release on the PC, Mac, Linux, and Xbox 360 sometime this spring.
April 3, 2008
Sony has revealed some very sad news. A Sony rep has said that the Sixaxis has been discontinued. “Sixaxis will no longer be offered after it’s completely sold through at retail (likely by the summer timeframe).” he said.
April 3, 2008
SCEA has confirmed that there will be no changes to the Playstation Store as part of its revamp in relation to region locking. So just like before, users with a number of accounts relating to different regions will not be locked out of those Playstation stores.
April 3, 2008
The resurrection of an old game franchise is never without pitfalls, and Seven Kingdoms: Conquest seems to plummet into just about every one of them. Enlight Software’s latest has nothing to do with the historical-strategy epic that turned a lot of heads back in 1997, and has moved from a complex empire builder to a simplistic, fantasy-oriented real-time strategy game that pits humans against demons. Beyond that, the game is clearly unfinished and has a tremendous number of serious bugs, few strategic choices during gameplay, and campaign missions that amount to nothing more than skirmishes by different names.
Building farms, building mines. We’re guessing that you’ve probably done this before.
Instability is the biggest problem. Seven Kingdoms: Conquest is, to use the technical term, buggy as hell. Just getting the game to start is a challenge, and glitches can bring everything to a halt at any time. Not only did every one of these frequent lockups require an Ctrl-Alt-Del escape to the Windows desktop, but they also seemed to cause some sort of lasting graphical corruption that prevented a successful restart of the game. The game would load, but with a black background screen in the main menu and lots of visual artifacts and stuttering music. Only a full uninstall and reinstall got the game working again…at least until the next big crash.
Other serious problems plague the game even if you get it running properly for a few minutes. The human tutorial mission is so messed up that it’s unplayable due to scripting errors, such as a gate that refuses to open. Some campaign and skirmish missions with annihilation as the objective can’t be won even if you wipe out all of your enemies. Pathfinding is awful for the most part, which means that units easily get stuck behind buildings. And any sort of adjustment to the visual settings seems to cause the game to crash even sooner than it usually would. This actually serves as a kind of trap, given that you’re bound to go into the video-options screen eventually in search of a way to improve the gloomy, horrifically pixelicious visuals, or at least to change the default resolution to something supporting widescreen monitors. (Don’t bother, the game’s limited to 1024×768 and 1280×1024.) To make a long story short, wait for the patch.
Or not. There isn’t much here worth hanging around for, actually. Although the original two games in this franchise were hardcore strategy epics that blended real-time battles with intricate empire management and economics, Seven Kingdoms: Conquest is a generic RTS that pits humans against demons, and it features generic resource gathering and base building. You don’t even get to play with the seven kingdoms that gave the franchise its name. Instead of the partially realistic, diverse ancient powers that gave the first game its depth, such as the Chinese and the Persians, you’re stuck with a handful of nearly identical human factions given historical names such as Hittites and Saxons. The only appreciable difference between these nations is the visual appearance of units in the interface. (As an example, Egyptian troops wear those famous desert headpieces.) Troop and building options change as you move forward from the starting Early Bronze Age through the closing Middle Age, but even then it’s not as if you’re thrown any curveballs. Bowmen turn into crossbowmen, and catapults become trebuchets–that sort of thing. At any rate, the human factions play the same no matter what age you’re currently undergoing.
Stereotypical characteristics such as flame, ice, plague, and shadow make the seven demon-realm factions more interesting, but there isn’t much to choose from no matter what faction you’re commanding. Admittedly, some of the monsters are pretty cool in an old-school D&D fashion, given that you have the ability to summon troops like yeti, plague demons, and naga. Nevertheless, each realm uses the same two basic units, larvae and succubi, and you get only a handful of unique options to choose from when building the unit-summoning hellgates. Resource gathering has a more intriguing, darker vibe, although collecting the blood needed to summon monsters is about as creepy as pumping oil, and the facilities that gather stone are just mines under the spookier name of “stone shrines.” Monotony grows fast.
Game options do nothing to alleviate this sense of boredom. The human and demon campaigns consist of skirmish missions given opening screens and voice-over intros that recount soldiers’ diaries. The voice acting is surprisingly good considering the low-budget nature of the game, although the gritty effect is ruined when these first-person accounts wrap up with mention of dates like “756 BC.” Uh-huh. At any rate, the “campaign” missions all task with you building up a base, cranking out troops, and killing everything in sight. The actual skirmish missions do the same, but they’re a little better than the campaigns because you at least have the option to pick a faction to play, along with your opponents, a map, and the starting age. You just can’t take skirmishes online, at least not without knowing an opponent’s IP in advance, because there is no matchmaking service.
Demon hordes on the attack. Look really closely and you can see some horns.
Gameplay in both modes rarely varies from the RTS formula, with the only real difference being the need to deal with neutral villages and cities. Maps are dotted with these settlements, which can be attacked or brought over to your side with human ambassador or demon succubi units. Not that you ever really need to resort to diplomacy. The AI is so incompetent that it never mounts anything resembling a reasonable attack or defense, particularly in larger maps. Enemy cities will crank out troops, but they’re sent on what seem to be mindless raids against you and the odd neutral village, more like they’re pillaging marauders than a coherent army in the field. Computer-controlled foes also never seem to bother with the monster-guarded treasure hordes and demonstones (mana-providing resources) scattered around the maps.
Essentially, Seven Kingdoms: Conquest is a disaster in just about every imaginable fashion. A few patches may yet round it into some kind of playable shape, but right now this is simply another cookie-cutter RTS loaded with serious bugs and unfulfilled potential.
April 3, 2008
Nyko has let us know that its front man wireless guitar for the PS3 is now shipping. In addition to the press release which details what its all about, Nyko\’s PR agency would like the following main points to be pushed - $10 cheaper than the 1st party option - Compatible with both Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. One guitar for both games to reduce the clutter! - Wireless stomp box for switching between games and interchangeable pick guards for color customization.