How Shank Is An Ultraviolent Cartoon That Animation Fans Should Pay Attention To
Written by from on March 12th, 2010 | 0 CommentsShank “had me at hello” due to its ultra-stylized and violent debut back when it was first announced at PAX. Recently picked up by EA, Klei Entertainment’s endearingly brutal brawler (coming to XBLA, PSN, and PC this summer) has a lot of things going for it. Right off the bat, Shank just feels extremely smooth. With its simple attack commands, you’re able to focus on actually tearing enemies up rather than fumbling around with complicated button presses. You have three basic modes of attack to play with: The namesake shank for quick (yet not extremely powerful) strikes, the slower chainsaw that’s perfect for inflicting lots of pain, and dual pistols that are great for keeping enemies at bay. You’re also given a pounce attack to pin enemies to the ground while you rip at them, as well as the ability to grab foes to make sure they don’t get too far away. To round out your attacks, you’ve got a finite number of grenades to use against some of the tougher goons.
ilomilo Is Action-Puzzle Games Cubed
Written by from on March 12th, 2010 | 0 CommentsBack in 1985, Hudson made a game called Binary Land , a puzzle game where you guided a pair of penguin lovers through a maze — at the same time. Simple, clever, and underrated, it was the kind of game typical of the flourishing game design spirit of the early ’80s. ilomilo (EE-low-MEE-low), from Swedish developer Southend Interactive ( R-Type Dimensions , Tecmo Bowl Throwback ), has a similar gameplay concept to it: Get the gumdrop-shaped creatures Ilo and Milo through a path of obstacles in a level so they can meet and be happy (unlike the penguins, though, they’re just friends). And that’s about where the similarities end. ilomilo’s chief advantage over Binary Land is that it’s in 3D, so you’ll be guiding Ilo and Milo up, down, and all around the cube-based platform worlds of the game. And you won’t be controlling them simultaneously. For example, if you get stuck as Ilo, you just push a button to switch to Milo, and have him (her?!) stroll through the level to clear Ilo’s obstacle.
The Shoot GDC 2010 Gameplay
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsOff-Screen: 1UP’s Ray Barnholt shoots up the screen using the PS3 motion controller.
MLB 10: The Show Review
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsIn videogames, just as in sports, competition’s really the key to success. When you’ve got a rival challenging your every move, you’re simply a lot more motivated to get the job done right. The year-to year competition with Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer helped propel EA’s FIFA series to worldwide success as the top footballing sim, while many observers feel that Madden hasn’t shown the same innovation since the NFL 2K franchise bit the dust. Last year, MLB: The Show faced competition in theory, but against a buggy, broken MLB 2K9 — one of the worst baseball releases in history — it wasn’t much of a contest. And that might have lulled Sony into a false sense of security — while MLB 10: The Show is still the baseball sim to beat, the competition’s certainly much closer this year. For example, while I didn’t personally experience any game-breaking bugs in The Show’s franchise mode, some users have reported issues such as randomly completed trades and crashes in specific stadiums. I simmed the first half of my franchise season in order to speed things along and noticed some curious results myself: At the All-Star break, real-life San Francisco Giants ace (and the Cy Young winner two years running) Tim Lincecum stood at 2-10 with an ERA over 5, while underachieving Barry Zito had laughably transformed into the ace of the staff at 10-3, with an ERA well below 3. Maybe The Show just hates Lincecum for gracing the cover of MLB 2K9?
February NPDs: 360 Overtakes Wii, BioShock 2 Tops Software
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsThe Wii doesn’t often fall off its perch atop the console crowd, and when it does it’s worth noting. The Wii slipped below the Xbox 360 this month, though the reasons aren’t easy to identify. None of the consoles have seen price drops, so this seems more of a natural equalizing of the consoles than we’ve seen in months past. The last time the Wii slipped below another console was September of 2009, due to the PS3 price drop and launch of the Slim. The last time the 360 topped the Wii was September of 2007, during the Halo 3 launch. Now that the three are on par without any particular mitigating factors, we may see them swapping spots for a while. Year-over-year sales were down, though the consoles saw moderate gains from January of this year. Still, all of the hardware manufacturers have reason to celebrate this month. The PlayStation 3 sales are up 30%, the 360 is on top of the console market, and Nintendo always has its trusty DS to sell like hotcakes. February 2010 Hardware Sales Nintendo DS — 613,200 Xbox 360 — 422,000 Wii — 397,900 PlayStation 3 — 360,100 PlayStation Portable — 133,400 PlayStation 2 — 101,900
The Shoot: The Only Light Gun Game That Also Features Figure Skating
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsThe Shoot is a fairly standard arcade rail shooter, adopting the theme of a series of B-grade movie sets (hence the double meaning in the title). Its look is certainly different: the presentation features comic book-style harsh lines and dank colors, but with characters presented as cardboard cutouts — and often on strings. Again, The Shoot is a, “light gun” shooter at its core, so most gamers should know what to expect: move the cursor and push the trigger. The Move controller does serve a slightly greater purpose, as you can physically lean to the left or right to dodge enemy missiles and such; plus more moves like a slow-mo mode activated by turning yourself in a complete 360-degree spin (light gun meets figure skating?), or drawing the Move from your hip and shooting for a finishing move (which, admittedly, I never actually pulled off). So you’ll have to accept the fact that you will have to stand up and look silly at least once. In all fairness to the game and its genre, it’s nice to see some extra Time Crisis -style movement with your body, and the 360-degree move in particular is something the Wii Remote and its rail shooters just can’t accomplish.
EA Shows How Medal Of Honor Is Not Just Another WWII FPS
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsMy memories of Medal of Honor traditionally involve the Saving Private Ryan -esque level depicting D-Day, or highly scripted (and action-filled) gunfights-as-rollercoaster moments. So it’s pretty darn weird to see the new Medal of Honor take place in a period other than World War II, and on top of that, to see a pretty low-key (and downright stealthy) mission as opposed to a blazing shootout. Executive producer Greg Goodrich recently stopped by to show off a mission, and briefly talk about the new direction for Medal of Honor. Sure, this install maintains MOH’s core ethos of being a serious and realistic depiction of military combat — it just happens to also be the MOH that takes place in the modern day, carries an M-rating, and has two development teams working on different aspects, to boot.
SOCOM 4 Hands-On Preview
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsMany of us here in the office got our first hands-on with the new PlayStation Move today and its (somewhat necessary) add-on, the Sub Controller. There were a number of tech demos on display at the event (look for our video recap for more impressions), whereas the only “real” game on display working with the new Move was the recently announced SOCOM 4 . And while I personally won’t be hanging up my DualShock3 and trading it in for a Move after my first impressions with the product, it’s still an impressive display on what can be done with this new device: decent motion control for a hardcore game. The PlayStation Move controllers themselves are very similar to the current set-up of the Wii Remote and its Nunchuk: The right-hand controller controls your head/gun/firing while the left-hand controller handles your movement with an analog stick. Each controller has a trigger as well; the left-hand’s trigger operates as a “go-into-cover” function, while the right-hand’s trigger fires your selected weapon (for the sake of the demo we were only able to use a machine gun). There is even an “action” button in the middle of the Move that, when pressed, would have you look down the sight line of the rifle — making the motion sensitivity increase.
Sony Unveils Sports Champions for PlayStation Move
Written by from on March 11th, 2010 | 0 CommentsAmong the many gameplay demos Sony just showed off for their newly christened PlayStation Move motion controller was Sports Champions , a compilation of athletic events very much along the lines of Wii Sports. The first event from the game that Sony demonstrated today was Gladiator Duel, which used two Move controllers as a sword and shield in an arena-style, one-on-one fighting game. Vertical and horizontal swings of the right-hand remote appeared to trigger the same sword movements onscreen, while moving the left remote would adjust the position of the player’s shield. A quick uppercut allowed the user to pull a Devil May Cry and juggle his opponent in the air. There were also maneuvers that would prompt canned animations, such as hiding the remotes behind the back to perform a taunt. A version of table tennis was also on display during Sony’s Sports Champions demo. It looked pretty much how you’d expect a modern, motion-controlled table tennis game to look, but the precision of the Move controller allowed for some impressive trick shots. The person demoing the game seemed to be able to pull off shots with all sorts of spin, and with varying degrees of power behind them.
PlayStation Move Games Include LBP, SOCOM 4, Move Party, More
Written by from on March 10th, 2010 | 0 CommentsIn addition to Sports Champions (which, let’s be honest, may as well be called “PS3 Sports,” but you can’t blame Sony for following the money), Sony also announced a slew of other games that’ll use the PlayStation Move motion controller, including Move Party , Little Big Planet , EyePet , Motion Fighters , and the recently revealed SOCOM 4 . First up was Move Party, which seems to be an amalgam of random mini-games with a bit of a WarioWare vibe, but also the “augmented reality” style of games the PlayStation Eye (and EyeToy on the PS2) often featured. It shows the player on the screen in each mini-game, but with the Move controller replaced by what each mini-game requires. The demonstration included mini-games where the Move controller was used to swat bugs with a tennis racket, color in shapes as though it was a paintbrush, or, uh, cut someone’s hair as though the controller was an electric clipper. Again, it was all very fast-paced in a WarioWare style. Motion Fighter was about what the name implies. The player controlled the character with a behind-the-back view, and common-sense motions translated into the game — throwing punches, crouching, leaning side-to-side, etc. You can change the aim of your punches, throw special kinds like hooks and uppercuts, or even throw a spinning elbow strike. Unfortunately, the spinning elbow didn’t work the first time (precision!), but the player demoing the game got it to work on a second attempt.