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High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle Last night, word broke that Konami, publisher and developer of trailblazing rhythm games Guitar Freaks and Drummania, was suing Harmonix. The Japanese company claimed that the developer of Rock Band was in violation of three patents held by Konami, seeking damages (read: cash) and demanding that Harmonix and parent company Viacom cease the use of its inventions (read: more cash).
MTV News received a response from an MTV spokesperson on the matter — which, in my mind, was shouted across cubicles — who said the lawsuit was “extremely surprising”. The rep further noted that “successful products such as ‘Rock Band’ can often become targets for baseless litigation”. We agree, especially when the entity filing suit is showing up extremely late to the party with its own stillborn excuse for a rock game. At least those poor unfortunate litigation lawyers will finally get a few bucks coming to ‘em.
Further details on the suit at MTV News.
‘Rock Band’ Creators Sued By ‘Rock Revolution’ Publisher Konami [MTV News]
Midway launched two online storefronts for its arcade, PC and touchscreen titles – the first, Midway Arcade, currently offers more than 25 of the company’s arcade-style titles like Defender, Joust, Spy Hunter and Mahki, starting at three titles for five bucks.
The Midway Arcade site lets players post their high scores, too. Additionally, Midway’s opened a digital storefront on its main site, where you can buy titles like Stranglehold, UT3 and BlackSite: Area 51 as direct downloads.
Full announcement with prices listed follows the jump.
Harvest Moon publisher Natsume has a new IP – it’s called Princess Debut, a “rhythm and adventure game for girls” coming to Nintendo DS in spring.
It sounds a little bit rhythm-action, a little bit dating sim (not the hentai kind of dating sim, of course). Players become a princess and have 30 days to master dance moves and woo one of six princes to be their partner, over the course of a branching, event-driven storyline before the dance portion begins.
There are 20 different outfits, 14 endings and 18 different musical styles like Waltz, Latin, Dance, Tango and Ballroom. Natsume knows its audience (e.g, me) — I’m generally not into “games for girls” per se, but multiple endings, tons of unlockables, romance and rhythm gameplay? Seriously, I’m so there.
Admit it, guys — this sounds kind of cool to you, too, right? Right?!
Dance Into a Prince’s Heart With Natsume’s Original IP Exclusively For DS
This morning, Motus Games officially unveiled its Darwin motion controller on its website, with videos including one showing the Darwin being used as a lightsaber with LEGO Star Wars. It had us wondering – is this the long-rumoured Xbox 360 motion controller?
“We’re leaving it to the console-makers and publishers to announce whatever they want to announce”, said Motus chairman Satayan Mahajan. “There’s a lot of rumour — some of it true, some of it not true”.
“A few companies approached us and asked us to be an enabler for their motion technology… in a role like [Gyration's relationship with Nintendo] . Others have said, ‘we want you to build something that looks like the Darwin controller.’”
Mahajan was unable to specify who Motus was working with or which console-makers and publishers could be expected to make an announcement, but said it might be a few months until announcements of Darwin-integrated titles surfaced.
“Console-makers need motion-based control, and for publishers it makes sense too… they invest a lot of money in these Wii titles while not reaping the benefit on other platforms. We’re happy we’re a part of that”.
We’ve contacted Microsoft for comment and have yet to receive reply.
Galactrix, Puzzle Quest’s sci-fi spin-off, looks to be a pretty impressive step-up from the original Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlods that took everyone, including the developers, by surprise.
This time around the puzzle game will have a full storyline penned by a professional writer, rather than something dreamed up by the development staff. The game opens after a scientific accident provokes an alien race to try and exterminate humanity. As with Challenge of the Warlords, players create a character who gains skills, craft items, and in this case, upgrades their space fleet and deals with political factions.
The new hexagonal puzzle board now drops uses gravity, based on a player’s location in the universe, to determine how to drop pieces as others are cleared. The game will also include a set of new mini-games that has you hacking jumpgates, negotiating with other factions, trading commodities and collection blueprints.
My very short time with the game gave me a glimpse of the new game board and, as with Trism, the new gravity-specific gameplay adds a whole other level of complexity to the game. I’m sure I’ll end up being just as addicted to Galactrix as I was to Warlords when it finally hits.
A title that’s guaranteed to be “announced” at Microsoft’s E3 Media Briefing this Monday is Lips, the iNiS developed answer to Sony’s SingStar. The musically inclined team behind Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents was previously rumoured to be behind the sing-along title, but consider it doubly confirmed now. Gamekyo not only lists the Japanese dev in its news story on the game, iNiS president Keichi Yanno can be seen busting what appears to be a rhyme in product shots of the game.
Other early shots give us a look at the Lips microphones that have lights on the shaft that “pulse to the rhythm of your voice” along with motion sensors that let players “dance, move or swing to score points”, according to previously leaked marketing documents.
Gamekyo lists Lips as shipping in November.
The good news? Warhammer Online just launched its Guild Beta. The bad news? There’s a bit less game for the Guilds to beta. In an interview with MMORPG.com, Mythic Entertainment VP and General Manager Mark Jacobs explains that in order for the game to be ready for launch, certain sacrifices had to be made, including nixing four of the six staring racial capital cities in favour of one for each faction, and getting rid of four of the classes that they just couldn’t make work. On the cutting board are the Choppa (Greenskin), the Hammerer (Dwarf), the Blackguard (Dark Elf), and the Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire)…two DPS classes and two tank classes.
“Of all of the news in this interview, this is the worst. Having to cut these guys out, even though it’s the right decision, I am really sorry that we have to do it. I truly am. I don’t like going to the guys and telling them ‘hey sorry, we’ve got to cut these guys out. They’re just not good enough but that was what we had to do.”
While we’ve taken a good hard look at what we expect from Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony during E3 2008, we’ve not yet touched on the original gaming platform, the personal computer. Back during my first visit to E3 in 1998, PC gaming made up a relatively large portion of the show, with PC publishers large and small showing off everything from big-name titles to tiny indie games like Space Bunnies Must Die. The new E3 has changed that a great deal. Smaller companies who might have once brought their games to the Expo for exposure to retailers and publishers just can’t justify the space to show off their wares…and why should they? In the age of high-speed internet, smaller companies can deliver a demo to the press in minutes, so the PC presence has definitely dwindled at the event.
Play? Video games? Not this weekend, pal. There’s far too much to get done for E3, which for the Kotaku staff, starts Sunday afternoon. Some of us will be probably be playing our Game Boy Advances, DSs, PSPs and Neo Geo Pocket Colours en route to smoggy Los Angeles, California, but this editor is going to focus on leveling up his stress levels. Oh, sure I may get my Paladin up to level 50 in Diablo II to let off some steam, but beyond that… work, work, work, work, work!
Hopefully, some of you are planning on hitting up the Kotaku party on Sunday. Then we can talk about games. For now, let us know what your playing this weekend in the comments, and I’ll live vicariously through you. Maybe name your character after me in a sign of solidarity? No? Hey, I tried.
In some news that will provoke squee-ing from fans of Japanese strategy RPGs, Atlus announced it’s bringing Luminous Arc 2 on DS over to North America.
Atlus says the second installment features a “more refined” interface, rebalanced strategy features, touch-based play and “many more improvements”. I never played the original Luminous Arc – did it need improving?
Also, every copy of the game comes packaged with a soundtrack CD, together in a “lovely” big ol’ box. Yay for extras!
IGN got the exclusive reveal – screens over there. Luminous Arc 2 Coming to America [IGN]
