Second Viva Pinata bash starts Sept. 2

From the first day Microsoft unveiled Viva Pinata as a Rare-developed Xbox 360 game and a Saturday morning cartoon, it made its intentions to expand the brand undeniably clear. Since then, Microsoft has ported the original to the PC, produced a spin-off in Viva Pinata Party Animals, and is following that up with a THQ-published DS port, Viva Pinata Pocket Party.

Pinatas on parade.

Now, two years later, the first proper sequel to the game has a release date. Microsoft today announced the official North American and UK release dates for Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Gamers in the New World will be able to get back to breeding Sparrowmints and Bunnycombs beginning September 2, while their cross-Pacific counterparts will have to wait a bit longer for the planned September 5 UK launch.

Trouble in Paradise expands the world of Viva Pinata beyond the garden of the first game, allowing users to cultivate the festive fauna in both sandy and snowy locales. Other additions include a host of new pinatas to collect, two-player cooperative action, and Xbox Live Vision camera support to read special bar codes and import additional pinatas into the game.

For more on Trouble in Paradise, check out If Its Games’s hands-on impressions.

Midnight Club stalls again

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is stuck in the garage for another month. Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar San Diego’s anticipated Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 street racer has been pushed back again, this time to early October. Rockstar London’s spin-off for the PSP, Midnight Club: LA Remix, has also slipped a month.

Originally set to launch earlier this year, the game was delayed in March and later given a September 9 release date. Take-Two explained that the postponed launch was “to leverage the retail strength leading to the key holiday-selling season, and in order to provide some distance from the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.” No reason was given for today’s delay.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles features an open world planned to be nearly three times the size of Midnight Club: Dub Edition and full of actual LA landmarks. Keeping faithful to the series, it will also sport customizable licensed cars and tuner parts including rims, tires, and spoilers.

All three editions of Midnight Club are now expected to arrive in North American stores on October 7, with European launches set for October 10.

FaceBreaker Hands-On

The first thing you’re likely to notice about FaceBreaker is the eccentric stable of boxers shown pummeling each other in any number of prerelease videos and screenshots. We certainly can’t fault you for that–each character is dripping with style, from the Jack Black-inspired faux kung fu artist Steve to the suave lady killer Romeo. It’s not until you get your hands on a controller that you discover FaceBreaker’s hidden depth. Lurking behind two simple attack buttons is a stacking tier of increasingly effective special moves: a ping pong-like parry system and the ability to simply fight with one arm behind your back when you’ve mastered it all. We recently took part in our first hands-on session with FaceBreaker, getting a feel for these control mechanics while taking a look at the interesting boxer factory character-creation system.

A variety of interesting levels are offered, like arcades, trailer parks, zoos and insane asylums.

Our time was spent playing the PlayStation 3 version, though the game will also be released on the Xbox 360. Your two basic attacks go like this: X to land a low punch on the opponent’s torso and square to throw a high punch at his head. You can hold R1 to block, and if you time it right with a punch, you can parry the attack to respond with your own counterpunch. The fun part about this system is that each boxer can keep parrying as long as he continues to time the punches correctly, so theoretically, you could see a dozen failed punches exchanged until someone finally flinches and takes a jab to the face.

Landing a series of uncountered punches will build your FaceBreaker meter, which is the game’s system of special attacks. These are triggered by hitting the triangle button. The first level is the GroundBreaker, which is a slightly more devastating punch than the basic high and low attacks. The next level is the SkyBreaker. This one derives its name from the savage uppercut you give your opponent, lifting him high into the air, and if you time a second triangle press correctly on his way down, you’ll land another punch to add insult to injury. After the third level, the BoneBreaker, is the final step in the meter, which is the titular FaceBreaker. This is basically your finishing move. Each character will do away with his opponent in his own unique way, like Molotov the Ivan Drago-esque Russian doing push-ups on someone’s face or Voodoo the overweight shaman jumping from the turnbuckle to land posterior first on another person’s face. Notice a theme? They’re called “FaceBreakers” for a reason.

If you find yourself underwhelmed by the quality of your opponent, you can hold the L1 button to keep one arm behind your back and fight with a bit of condescending panache. There’s no tangible reward for fighting like this– only the look on your buddy’s face when you continue to beat him despite your showboating. With an arm behind your back, your move set will be changed to mock your opponent. One of your moves is the ability to simply shove your opponent down to the ground, while another will see you landing a solid kick to the nether regions. It may not be the most practical of attacks, but it helps reinforce the game’s focus on multiplayer zaniness.

This is probably illegal in most boxing leagues.

Overall, we had a lot of fun with FaceBreaker. The controls are simple and easy to pick up, with each character’s personality adding extra appeal to the simplified style of boxing presented in the game. But while it may be simple, we picked up on certain areas where strategy is a must. The most notable area is with FaceBreakers. When you use the first or second tier, you’ll drop your FaceBreaker meter back to zero. What that does is knock away a substantial portion of your opponent’s health, but you’ll, then, need to build it back up all over again for the next special move. This adds a fun risk-reward element to the fighting. You’re constantly at odds with your instinct to pummel your opponent as savagely as you can right at that moment, but in the back of your head, you know you can guarantee yourself a victory if you patiently build that FaceBreaker gauge all the way up to the top.

When not abusing the ability to fight with our hands behind our back, lead designer Todd Batty was kind enough to walk us through a few of the game modes. FaceBreaker is, without a doubt, a multiplayer game. The ease of controls and eccentricity of character movement lends itself very well to having fun with others. One of the ways the developers are looking to encourage you to play this way is with the Couch Party mode, which essentially allows you to create a pool of players and have them swap controllers between each round. The winner stays on while the loser has to hand over the controller, but it becomes increasingly difficult for the winner to stay on with each passing round because he only gets three knockouts to carry over through each match.

The other interesting feature we saw is the boxer factory. Here, you can design your own Frankenstein’s monster and throw him into the ring. You can either download photos from your hard drive or a USB camera to create the face and then choose body-shape templates based on the actual cast of boxers. You, then, adjust more than 60 sliders to tweak the look of your boxer to change his hair, shorts, and other visual characteristics. To cap it all off, you can upload your design to a content-sharing service that houses 30 boxers per user. Boxers will be promoted through a YouTube-style system that ranks and features various designs to help you sift through the muck to find the real gems.

The SkyBreaker requires careful timing, but it’s a lot of fun to pull off.

We also had the chance to take a look at the Wii version, known as FaceBreaker: K.O. Party. It plays very similarly to its PS3 and 360 brethren, but with a few notable differences outside the obvious inclusion of motion controls. As a way of mixing up the way you throw punches, characters will have their own handedness to take into account. That means characters, not players, will be either left- or right-handed, and you need to focus on their dominant hand while boxing. The actual fighting has been slowed down a tick to reduce any chaotic flailing. There won’t be a Boxer Factory, but there will be a few unique multiplayer modes. And finally, the Wii version has the leg up on other versions in character selection; you can choose from the same cast of characters, plus a few extras unique to K.O. Party.

FaceBreaker is looking like a fine introduction from EA’s new Freestyle brand. The appearance is slick and comical while the controls offer accessibility and enough light strategy to keep you involved. We’ll be sure to bring you more on FaceBreaker as its release draws closer.

-If Its Games

NASCAR 09 Review

There’s no question that with all of the new features, NASCAR 09 is an improvement over previous installments in the series. The gameplay hasn’t received much attention, but better presentation, the ability to completely customize your ride, and other minor enhancements make this a game that should please most fans of the sport.

Jeff Gordon’s involvement can be seen consistently throughout the game–he’s not just the guy on the cover. What makes his involvement unique is that Gordon essentially acts as a pit-crew chief to help users navigate through all of the different stages that a driver must take to reach the winner’s podium. The onscreen addition of the four-time Cup champ improves the presentation and results in a better overall experience. However, he’s not the only driver to have an impact on the game. EA has finally worked out a deal to add Carl Edwards and his #99 car to the roster. The rest of the field remains the same as a year ago.

Jeff Gordon’s influence is present both on and off the track.

Although some may prefer to get right down to racing with the Race Now mode, many will be intrigued by the improved Career mode. After you set up your new driver information, it’s off to the garage to explore the robust new customization options. You start by selecting and designing your own number, and then lay down a base color for the body of your car. Racing stripes, waves, flames, and sponsorship decals are just some of the graphics that you can use to pimp your ride, though many of the sponsors won’t be available until you earn them. As if that weren’t enough, you can design your own graphics in an image-editing program (such as Adobe Photoshop) and upload them to an online locker to make them available in-game. This impressive depth of customization makes NASCAR 09 a much more engaging experience.

Upon completing the design of your car, you’ll be asked to sign with a sponsor. Each sponsor has a set of expectations that must be met to improve your reputation and, ultimately, move up to bigger sponsorship opportunities. Unfortunately, though it may be cool to raise your reputation and gain bigger sponsors, it actually does very little for you other than boost your ego. The real key to improving your skills in NASCAR 09 is to complete as many of the 77 different Sprint Driver Challenges as possible. The first challenge asks you to complete a lap without going under 150 mph and to avoid going off the track or hitting the wall. Another interesting challenge is to finish ahead of a specific driver within a certain time frame. These challenges are actually more fun than the races themselves because they are shorter and more intense. By completing the different challenges, you’ll earn performance points that can be used to improve your car’s performance. The challenge mode’s variety is one of NASCAR 09’s strengths.

Before each race, you can tinker with every aspect of your car’s suspension, aerodynamics, tires, drivetrain, and even weight distribution if desired. For those of you who aren’t full-time mechanics, you have the option of choosing between a basic rookie setup and a veteran setup, which immensely simplifies the process of setting up your car. Nevertheless, you probably won’t have to mess with your car’s setup if you’re playing on rookie or veteran levels. Qualifying for a race is uninteresting and too easy on either setting. It’s possible to drive through the grass or even scrape the walls and yet still grab the pole. Obviously, the first position is desirable to any driver, but starting first often feels like you’re racing the track alone because you rarely ever see any other cars. In fact, the hardest part of winning a race may be staying awake for the remaining laps after you’ve taken the lead.

Fortunately, if competition is lacking on the rookie and veteran settings, you can step it up another notch to legend difficulty. This makes qualifying and finishing first much more challenging and rewarding. If you start the race toward the back, it may take you 50 laps just to get up front. You can also turn damage and collisions off as well as set the flag rules to full to further increase the difficulty. Computer-controlled drivers aren’t noticeably more aggressive on this setting, but they are much faster and more precise when making turns. You may have to work a bit to find the settings that fit for you, but NASCAR 09 provides a level of competition for all users.

The in-car view provides the most excitement.

There are five different camera options when driving. The in-car perspective delivers the most exciting driving experience; every turn seems to be magnified and demands your utmost attention. NASCAR 09 offers two different driving styles in the game to go along with the different viewing options: normal and pro. Normal is the easier of the two styles in that it lets you be a little less precise when taking turns. Conversely, the pro driving style requires a more experienced driver with steadier hands to be successful. To master the driving controls, it certainly takes some precision behind the wheel at first. The slightest wrong move and you’ll slam into the wall if you’re not quick enough to correct. Despite the sensitivity of the controls, they’re accurate. When racing at almost 200mph, the stakes are high and your every turn must be precise, and the controls reflect this. However, it’s really not that difficult to remain on the road and become the pack leader once you’ve adjusted to the game. Overall, the computer AI is definitely not as aggressive this time around. Drivers will still attempt to fight for position, but it’s nothing like the road rage exhibited in the past.

NASCAR 09’s graphics are adequate but the crashes could use some work. The problem is that you rarely get huge collisions that result in cars flipping end over end. Most crashes result in one driver bumping another and spinning out of control until the yellow flag comes out. It’s more realistic that huge crashes don’t happen that often, but it would no doubt add to the excitement of the game. The graphics aren’t stellar, but they still look pretty good considering the number of cars onscreen at any given time. All of the tracks are the same from a year ago and look nice, but it’s difficult to notice any major graphical flaws when you’re consistently driving more than 170 mph.

Online play was difficult last year, and it hasn’t gotten much better this season. EA has changed the number of allowed drivers in each race from 11 to 14. The change to 14 is nice, but that just means that there are now three more drivers who can bring out the yellow flag by being reckless. Fortunately, users can turn off yellow flags and collisions when racing in both ranked and unranked matches. Keep in mind that you may have to wait a while for a race to start, though. Sometimes the process of getting a race started will actually take longer than the race itself. However, once you actually do get online, you may find that there are some advantages. For starters, when the yellow flags aren’t coming out, there’s a lot more action during the race because so many drivers are fighting for position. Furthermore, the lag doesn’t seem to be a problem, despite so many drivers playing at once. NASCAR 09’s online play also includes the ability to share paint schemes with other users. This cool and unique feature is another attempt to pull the NASCAR community a little bit closer together. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game played the same both online and offline.

There are plenty of crashes, but they all feel a bit subdued.

The sounds within NASCAR 09 are a great complement to the game. The noise from all the crowds and the engines sounds lifelike throughout the game. Additionally, the spotter does a solid job of helping you navigate through the field by consistently letting you know if there’s an opposing driver running down low or up high. The music on the soundtrack has a nice mix of hard-rock tunes featuring such bands as POD and AFI to help set the mood on race day.

The bottom line is that NASCAR 09 is a good racer but doesn’t provide the same level of excitement as the real thing. Regardless, it’s at least a small improvement over last year’s game in nearly every way. If you’re willing to spend the time adjusting some of the settings, you’ll find NASCAR 09 to be a fun and challenging game.

Fatal Inertia EX Review

Though it was originally announced as a retail exclusive for the PlayStation 3, delays in development allowed the Xbox 360 version of Fatal Inertia to jump out ahead of its PS3 counterpart. Now, almost a year after the release of the Xbox 360 game, Fatal Inertia EX is finally available as a download from the PlayStation Store. The EX version boasts new single-player races, an adjusted difficulty setting, and motion controls. Despite some improvements and additional content, however, Fatal Inertia EX never really rises above the floaty physics and underwhelming sense of speed that plagued its original release.

Courses are beautifully rendered, if not altogether original.

The Fatal Inertia combat racing series features futuristic hovercrafts sponsored by various corporations, each with their own style and specialty. The Titan class, for example, features heavy machines that are slow but tough to take down. Phoenix racers are more agile but easier to damage. The single-player campaign consists of themed events divided into four races each. In traditional combat races or knockout events, your goal is to reach the finish line in the fastest time with your ship still intact. The Velocity series limits the available items to those that give you a speed boost, and it’s during these events that Fatal Inertia overcomes its otherwise lackluster sense of speed. In the magnet mayhem events, each player is granted an unlimited supply of bullets to try to incapacitate the competitors. The variety of race types keeps things interesting, but the linear nature of the single-player campaign is very restrictive. You can’t try a new series of events unless you’ve completed each previous race in succession.

The weapon designs in Fatal Inertia EX are imaginative, and most serve a dual purpose. The cable can be used to snag two opponents together or sling shot your ship around corners. You can fire magnets that attach to an enemy ship and slow it down until the projectiles eventually explode to cause more damage. A quick-thinking opponent can avoid the explosion by performing a barrel roll to knock the magnets off his or her hull. Used effectively, these items can quickly turn the tide of a close race. Unfortunately, effective use of weapons is ultimately out of your control because the acquisition of them is completely unbalanced. Racers in first place are usually stuck with magnets or smoke bombs that are of little use when no one is near you, while those lower in rank are blessed with speed boosts or time dilators that allow relentless opponents to close even the widest gap. This makes for some great multiplayer matches against human opponents of all skill levels, but the Career mode just feels like it’s punishing you for doing well.

A number of changes have been made to Fatal Inertia EX in its transition from the Xbox 360, but not all are for the better. The difficulty curve has been adjusted to make earlier races less frustrating, and gluttons for punishment will be happy with the new master difficulty tier. Fatal Inertia EX also supports Sixaxis motion control with three levels of sensitivity, but none feel quite right. On the medium and high settings, you’ll find yourself oversteering and running into walls. On the low setting, which isn’t nearly sensitive enough, it’s very difficult to maneuver around sharp turns. Controlling the pitch of your ship is also troublesome, obscuring your view during long jumps.

Progression through the Career mode unlocks new paint, emblems, and parts that allow you to customize, as well as improve, the performance of your ships. These customization options are great for distinguishing yourself in online matches, which run smoothly. AI opponents are available to fill any unused spots, and you’ll likely need them because the servers are sparsely populated. Luckily, split-screen multiplayer is a blast to play, so there’s plenty of fun to be had once you’ve finished the single-player offerings. You can even play the Career mode with a buddy if you don’t feel like unlocking each tier by yourself.

Split-screen multiplayer is a blast to play with friends.

The environments in Fatal Inertia EX are all rendered beautifully. Weaving through downed tree trunks in Deepwoods Pass or jumping off of a cliff into a pool of lava in Devil’s Summit are both impressive, if not a bit cliche. A few visual effects add nice touches to the presentation as well. Setting off an EM pulse, for example, covers the screen in static and momentarily renders any nearby opponents inert. The soundtrack is mostly techno, but between the sounds of weapon fire and engine revving, you won’t even notice the music during races.

If you have a passion for challenging, futuristic racers, you’ll find Fatal Inertia EX to be a competent effort. Punishing track designs and relentless AI opponents are still issues, but the more gentle difficulty curve helps alleviate some of the stress. It’s a fair bit more expensive than most of the PS3’s downloadable offerings, but if you can take advantage of the multiplayer options, there’s enough content to justify the $29.99 price tag. Otherwise, casual racing fans are probably better off avoiding this one.

WALL-E Review

The main reason Pixar movies are so revered is that they are able to appeal to both adults and children at the same time. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the games based on these movies. Wall-E follows in the path of many cartoon adaptations before it–taking the wholesome aesthetic and crafting a trivial game around it while ignoring a large part of the film’s audience in the process. The mechanics in Wall-E are accessible enough that children eager to spend more time with the lovable robot will find an inviting world, but the end result is too short and predictable to provide value for any platforming veterans.

The cutscenes add some life to these electric beings.

The story in Wall-E is about friendship and flowers. Like in the movie, you start off as a lone robot on a dirty planet, left to clean up the trash of thoughtless generations after the humans bolted for cleaner pastures. The first level is quiet and desolate. It’s not often that platformers present a world without any enemies in sight, but the early parts of Wall-E exist to highlight his severe loneliness–and that weight comes across quite powerfully. Wall-E eventually meets up with a flying robot named Eve and gets to experience space travel firsthand. The cutscenes are well done, telling most of the tale through gestures and robot groans that give a lot of personality to the mechanical beings. Though the cinematics were not taken directly from the film, they are still carefully crafted to express the subtleties of Wall-E and Eve’s wide range of emotions. The environments are inviting and eye-pleasing, though they are sometimes too sparse, especially in the space station levels.

The quiet energy of the first few levels doesn’t lead to action packed gameplay, but it still provides a few thrills. Your time on Earth is spent navigating through elaborate obstacle courses. As Wall-E, you can jump and make tiny cubes of trash that you can hurl at targets. There is a variety of different garbage types–heavy, magnetic, and explosive–but the puzzle solving is extremely light. The key is always next to the locked door, so navigating this filthy world is very straightforward. The platforming elements are a little more complex, forcing you to climb walls vertically and even upside down with your magnetic bottom, but the paths are always linear so any sort of directional acumen is left by the wayside.

The Eve sections follow the accessible path displayed in the Wall-E portions, but they spice up the action a bit. Eve is able to fly around the environment at will, which turns out to be surprisingly fun. There are two types of flying sections: open air and tunnel races. In the open air, you have to search for plant life and other collectables hidden on the surface. The freedom of flight works well here because the controls are so responsive. It’s easy to fly through pipes and under bridges, but the lack of imagination in these objectives is disappointing. The levels are ultrastreamlined so it removes any challenge from the scavenger hunts and the space is too confined to make racing interesting for long. It’s a shame the developers couldn’t have expanded on this section because the act of flight is really well done.

The shooting sections make up the final gameplay type, which occur late in the game. Once in the spaceship, you have to fight your way through a small army of robots. The hectic pace and destructive violence seems out of place here compared to the rest of the game. You can pull the camera in over your shoulder and mow down robots with quick aiming, or you can let the game auto-target anyone who walks in front of you. The lock-on is too responsive, making quick work of your enemies before you have time to worry about your health dropping. The sheer number of foes you’ll have to face here make these sections too long and repetitive. When the simple joy of platforming and flying is replaced by nonstop shooting, the game loses much of its charm.

Flying around as Eve is freeing.

There are a number of movie related unlockables, but the rewards aren’t compelling enough to demand a second play-through. The multiplayer mode is only good for a quick taste before it loses its appeal. There is just something unsettling about taking part in a deathmatch with four happy Wall-Es wheeling around with laser guns. The main adventure can be finished in less than 10 hours, and after you play through the story once, there just isn’t much reason to go back again.

The presentation is the only part of Wall-E that separates it from the glut of other platformers out there. The different gameplay mechanics offered by Eve and Wall-E provide some variety in this adventure, but the ideas are never fully fleshed out. This is still a fun game for anyone anxious to spend more time with the garbage-making robot, but there isn’t enough depth or replay value to raise this above similar movie-licensed offerings.

Sony PlayStation 3 Update Locks Consoles (PC Magazine)

PC Magazine - Sony pulls the latest update to its PlayStation 3 after users report problems large and small.

Sony PS3 catching up to Wii in Japanese sales (Reuters)

Reuters - Nintendo Co Ltd’s (7974.OS) Wii game console once again outsold Sony Corp’s (6758.T) PlayStation 3 in Japan in June, but its lead is fading, a game magazine publisher said.

Game Group falls on fear demand has peaked (Reuters)

Reuters - British computer games retailer Game Group smashed first-half profit forecasts, boosted by new releases like Grand Theft Auto IV and Wii Fit, but its shares slumped on concern that demand has peaked.

Sony PS3 Update Locks Consoles, Web Site Attacked (NewsFactor)

NewsFactor - Sony is feeling some gaming-division woes this week with a double PlayStation 3 whammy. First, Sony’s PlayStation Web site fell victim to SQL-injection attacks. Now Sony’s PS3 firmware update is turning some consoles into bricks.

Game makers eye young girls with “Boogie SuperStar” (Reuters)

Reuters - If “American Idol” and a modern fairy tale combined to create a video game, you’d get “Boogie SuperStar” — Electronic Art’s latest game for the Nintendo Wii system.

Chipmaker Connects A Wireless World And Makes It Run Faster (Investor’s Business Daily)

Investor’s Business Daily - Now televisions, digital cameras and game consoles commonly link to the world without those physical ties.

German body rates Mega Man 9 for Xbox 360 too

German ratings board the USK has rated Mega Man 9 for the Xbox 360. The game has not yet however been confirmed for the Xbox 360.

Here’s how Skate It for Wii will work with the Wii Balance Board

Ever wondered just how Skate It for the Wii will work with the Balance Board? Well wonder no more as IGN has published four decent shots of the control scheme which is available to view here.

Square Enix remind us of two classics on sale tomorrow

Square Enix Ltd., the publisher of Square Enix interactive entertainment products in Europe and other PAL territories, announces the return of two legendary TAITO games, ARKANOID DS for the Nintendo DS handheld system and SPACE INVADERS EXTREME for the Nintendo DS system and the PSP, will be available across Europe from tomorrow.