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E3 was a disappointment. But you knew that already. Yet do you know why it was a disappointment? Sure, there are the easy answers. Few new game announcements. Anything Nintendo said or did. But they're just that. Easy answers. There were a lot more things wrong with the show than just those limelight-grabbers. Things that we never want to see at E3 again. Ever.
As previously announced, developer Monolith Productions is back with a new F.E.A.R. game, but it's not called F.E.A.R. 2. And we had a chance to check it out at this year's E3. Since publishers changed during development, the game is now called Project Origin. Different titles aside, this actually is the sequel and is set in the same world F.E.A.R. was — though the game does follow Delta Force sergeant Michael Beckett instead of the mysterious Point Man. The devs are thinking of giving Beckett the same slow motion that Point Man had in the original game.
Remember when we told you to pencil (yes, pencil) in upcoming Remedy title Alan Wake for the Tokyo Game Show? As Kotaku's own Mike McWhertor pointed out a mention that it would be at TGS appeared in a Windows branded contest that actually dates from last year. Over on the Alan Wake Forums, Remedy has posted:
The Microsoft Vista promotion referring to TGS took place in 2007, and is old news - we've had the winner over for taking the pictures already.
Sorry for the confusion and possible disappointment, but this was not an annoucement that Wake would be shown at TGS 2008. Remedy's team is just getting back from a bit of holiday and we haven't had time to chat with Microsoft on upcoming shows/showings yet.
Oh. Question: Then why didn't we see it at E3?
How far has Remedy comed on Alan Wake [Alan Wake via VG247]
Here's a gameplay trailer for The Last Guy, due on the PSN at the end of the month (least, in Japan). They sure weren't fooling around when they said it was using Google Maps, whose services you use to lead the survivors of a zombie apocalypse to designated "safe zones". The whole thing looks nice and simple (which it will be, since it's going for under $US 5), but whatever, if that music makes it into the final game, this moves up a spot on our shiny white purchase board from "will buy" to "must buy".
Even Nintendo president Satoru Iwata doesn't think friend codes are prefect. Heck, hear him say it:
First of all, I don't think the current system we have with friend codes is perfect. However, if it's an online world where you can get access to anybody without any restrictions, I as a father do not feel like allowing my daughter be engaged in that kind of world. So for Nintendo, especially in terms of the people who have never experienced online video games before, we think that it's still very important to create a world where we can assure that there will be no harassment for these online beginners, and we really want to assure the security and safety for them to do that. So we will be studying this on an ongoing basis in order to improve Nintendo's own circumstances where people can freely and safely enjoy the communications through the net.
Quick show of hands. Who likes friend codes? Okay, who tolerates them? And, who hates them? Nintendo is doing its best to make sure that its online service is friendly to all players, and the company should be commended for that. (Think of the children!)
Interview: Satoru Iwata Talks [GameDaily via CVG]
Seriously. If you remember, back in March Paramount movie studios announced they were getting into the gaming business. Today, they've announced their first three titles. To be developed in conjunction with Legacy Interactive, the first three games (all adaptations of films, obviously) will be...yes, Mean Girls, Clueless and Pretty in Pink. No word on target platforms or anything of the sort, but Legacy are in the business of cheap, disposable/casual titles, so anyone hoping for a sprawling, 100+ hour adventure based on the busy social life of Cher Horowitz will most likely be sorely disappointed.
Universal gets into games with Wanted, Paramount making Pretty in Pink videogame [Variety]
Last week while we were caught up in the E3 circus, we missed the launch of PS3 title Tears to Tiara. Bummer! The game went on sale July 17th, and the "Adventure + simulation" fantasy sword-swinging RPG features 2D cutscenes. A bevy of screenies are popping up online showing just how suggestive the game is — tentacle touching included! Other MAXIMUM RISKY scenes include cow milking and bound girls and girls in mid-riffs. Here's the kicker: This Japanese game is rated CERO B, which is ages 12 and up, so start 'em young. Check out the gallery below.
And the gentrification of the British gaming scene continues! While American charts continue to be a refuge for games about big men with guns, this week's British charts only reaffirm the fact that the sceptred isle's great unwashed care not for the adventures of Snake, or what kind of company Battlefield keeps. They care about anything that has "Wii" in front of it, or is for the Wii, or just looks like it's for the Wii.
When we were kids, Mega Man was a hard game. We died all the time. And when we were dying in Mega Man, we were dying in Mega Man. It was that hard. So when Capcom decided to make the multi-platform Mega Man 9, the company knew it had to make it hard. Says the game's producer Hironobu Takeshita:
Mega Man 9 is very hard. We didn't want to do Mega Man, but easy. We want players to get better, we want them to remember. I've always tried to challenge players, and I think there are gamers who miss being challenged by games.
We'd like to think so as well. Takeshita also expressed his interest in making more Wii titles, which is good news for Wii owners looking for a challenge.
Never let it be said Take-Two aren't focused on quality. They don't have the packed release schedule of companies like EA or Activision, but pound-for-pound, their games are amongst the best-regarded in the business. A strategy chairman Strauss Zelnick is very keen on, telling VentureBeat that quality will always win out over quantity:
In periods of high growth, like where we are now, B titles and C titles can do OK. But as soon as you get to the point where the platform penetration has reached its asymptote, then quality reins supreme. We think that if you focus on quality all along, regardless of where the market peak is, you will do better.
Explaining, perhaps, why T2's Wii catalogue isn't quite as robust as some other publisher's.
E3 perspective: Q&A with Chairman Strauss Zelnick on the future of Take-Two Interactive [VentureBeat]
So E3 came and went, and we still don't have a hard and fast date for Home yet. Sure, we've got a "spring" dating for the Home Beta, but still, people have been waiting. And people kinda wish that Sony would hurry it up! According to Kaz Hirai, Sony's trying to make it right so that first time users have a positive Home experience. Fair enough! Says Hirai, "...we don't want to prematurely launch it and then be dinged for having a bad service... this is a platform initiative which means that we need to be extra careful that we've crossed all the 't's and dotted all the 'i's". And hey, Sony is in it for the long haul. No need to rush. Just listen to Hirai chime in about that 10-year-life-cycle and keeping the last hardware generation alive:
And the E3 post-mortems continue! Latest to chime in with his 2c is swarthy heart-throb David Perry, who thinks E3 is stupid. And broken. And an embarrassment. And diluted. And...look, we'll just let David explain:
If there aren't dramatic changes to the format and staff, I'm never going again...The concept is broken, it's expensive, messages are diluted, consumers are ignored (remembering that the future of this industry is direct connections with consumers - not retailers), the ticket policies are stupid, and if the entire industry worldwide doesn't participate, it's not real anyway.
Tough words! Tough, but true. Who'll be next to let us know of E3's impending demise? Stay tuned!
Perry: E3 is an embarrassment [GI.biz]
Back at E3, we had a chance to check out some of the titles Natsume is publishing in the US. Titles like Rune Factory 2 for the DS. It's of course the second Rune Factory game, which is best explained as Harvest Moon meets fantasyland. The game's going to be out this fall, and here's something I didn't know about it: Rune Factory 2 has over 9,000 words of text. That's a lot of text! For those not into the fantasy element, the DS and the Wii will both see new Harvest Moon games. Bring on the farming and marrying!
The Xbox 360/Netflix deal may well be one of the more important things to come out of E3 last week. Streaming Netflix movies (at least for Americans) sure beats the Video Marketplace. Here, Microsoft's Larry Hryb takes us on a guided tour of the new service, including how quickly your 360 queue is updated once you make changes on a PC.
They've got Pokémon planes so why not Pokémon trains? As summer vacation kicks off here in Japan, Japan Rail East is rolling out four Pocket Monster bullet trains for the Tohoku and Joetsu lines and one each for the Yamagata, Akita and Nagano lines. Says one 7-year-old boy travelling with his parents to Iwate Prefecture:
I was surprised to see Pikachu, but I really like the character so I'm happy...It's a cool bullet train.
And Pikachu was surprised to see you. Summer 2008, this is the photo op. Hit the jump for a clip of the train in action.
Like many other games companies, Capcom will be at Comic-Con. Unlike many other games companies, however, Capcom are getting into the spirit of things. Not only will they be showing off games, but attendees will get the chance to hit up Capcom's booth and meet Kristin Kreuk (ie Chun Li from the upcoming SF movie), some of the Udon art team, Street Fighter IV producers Yoshinoro Ono and David Clislip and (and!) both Mega Man and Nathan Spencer. Or, dudes in suits dressed like Mega Man and Nathan Spencer. But still! Mega Man and Nathan Spencer!
Capcom Comic-Con Happenings [Capcom]
Speaking with VentureBeat, EA boss John Riccitiello was asked what he thought of each of the big three's E3 keynotes. Despite dodging the initial question, he goes on to talk so much about staying neutral that he does a 180 of sorts and gives a handy guide on how EA view each of the three home consoles strengths:
There are three strong players in the sector. They have all got their respective demographics and geographies. Blu-ray on the PS trumps DVD on the Xbox 360. Xbox Live trumps the PlayStation Network. The wand controller trumps the traditional controller. They've all got their rock, paper, scissors competition going.
Give John Riccitiello a Blu-Ray-playing 360 with a Wii Remote and he'll be a pig in spit. The rest of the interview's also worth a read, if only to see him say "I don't think the investors give a shit about our quality".
E3 perspective: An interview with John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts [VentureBeat] [Pic]
Portal: Still Alive was announced during E3 last week. It bundles the original Portal with some "additional content", and it's due for release on XBLA. And ever since, PC owners have been complaining, wondering why 360 owners are getting new stuff while they're not. Well, according to former Shacknews boss Chris Remo, the "additional content" isn't necessarily "new content", as he says the bonus maps are those found in Portal: The Flash Version MapPack. Which PC owners can already get. For free.
Portal: Still Alive explained [Remowned]
The whole "Res 5 is racist!!!" thing got pretty big for a while there, didn't it? Culminated in some thoughtful (and heated) discussions about the place, few as notable as N'Gai Croal's "clearly no one black worked on this game" piece on MTV. Well, in a case of "better late than never", the game's producer - Jun Takeuchi - has attempted to put the whole mess to bed by saying clearly somebody black worked on this game, telling MTV:
To answer the question that was posted on your blog, there are black members in the development team. We do have staff working on the game, who are aware of the historical background and we are constantly checking these kinds of things with them.
Course, he doesn't say how long those staff have been working on the game, but slow, reactive progress is progress nonetheless.
Posted by Logan Booker at 1:00 PM on July 22, 2008
Earlier this year, things looked grim for Softprint, the distributor of Nintendo (and Activision) wares in New Zealand. Then, last month, the company handed in the towel, leaving our Rugby-loving neighbours high and dry. Distributor AID stepped in to pick up the slack, but without active promotion, advertising and marketing, Nintendo's future in the country remained uncertain.
Now, NZGamer is reporting that Nintendo Australia will be stepping in to save the day, with a representative stating it would "like to assure gamers in New Zealand that [it is] currently sorting everything to make this change happen". Sounds like good news to me, but I'd like to hear how those across the Tasman feel about the move.
Nintendo Australia To Take Over NZ? (Confirmed) [NZGamer, thanks Shaun]
Portable football devoid of the NFL licence may sound like the sports game that has the least likely chance of success, but Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff may just get by with its barebones, retro-styled gameplay and a heaping help of nostalgia. The game sticks close to the formula established in a handful of Tecmo Bowl games release in the late '80s and early '90s, offering basic side scrolling gameplay for casual fans of the sport.
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff offers d-pad and stylus control options, naturally, with the latter making for easy (possibly to easy) play-making. You can move your QB around and pass to your receiver with straightforward stylus drags and taps, leaving little to the imagination control-wise.
The DS version also adds Super Skills, buffs that give your quarterback, running back and receivers special abilities, adding to the arcade-style bent of Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff.
Tecmo's exhuming of the franchise may not appeal to the Madden set, with its faux teams, old school graphics and limited playbooks, but for lapsed football fans it might be worth checking out. We had fun, maybe you will too.
Posted by Logan Booker at 12:30 PM on July 22, 2008
What makes a game "Australian"? Is this even quantifiable? On the surface, a game made by an Aussie developer should qualify. But what if the game has no Australian themes, characters, environments or accents? Take Bioshock or Puzzle Quest. Is there anything about them, other than their developer, that makes them Aussie?
Not really. So how's our country going to make its mark on the industry at large if we don't burn in the message with our games? PALGN spoke to David Hewitt and Tom Crago of Tantalus to find out.
From Hewitt's perspective:
"I actually feel as if the contribution of Australian game developers is largely under-credited. It's not an industry that generates celebrities and recognisable faces, and games developed here don't necessarily have Australian accents in them, or Australian scenery in the background. Most players would be surprised at the number of high-quality, high-profile titles that are developed here".Hewitt goes on to say that this effect can be attributed to the fact that many local titles are designed with an international audience in mind.
Posters on the PSPChina BBS are claiming that Sony is planning on releasing a hardware update to the currently available PSP, model number 2000, one that includes a built-in microphone, updated buttons, a few cosmetic changes and possibly even cell phone support.
As can be seen in the picture above, the Home button on the original and current PSP models is now occupied by a PS button, similar to the one on the PlayStation 3 controller. One could assume that Sony would have made the Home to PS change in an attempt to prevent confusion with its Home service. The purported microphone is to the right of the volume buttons.
More pics after the jump.
Nintendo's E3 conference didn't really go to plan. Lots of disappointment afterwards. Disappointment that manifested itself into hate. Hate that was then focused on Nintendo of America's Cammie Dunaway, and her Mother's Day cards, and her cute puppies, and her world-devouring grin. People felt she was grating, annoying, that she was, worst of all, fake. Well, she'd like you to know she's not fake. She is, indeed, for real:
I'm really a genuinely smiley, nice person. Because people think I'm fake, smiling up there. I'm just not! It's just me! I am who I am.
Which is likely true! Though in the Nintendo acolytes defence, it was probably the content they were most displeased with, not necessarily the delivery.
While we were hunkered down at the Los Angeles Convention Centre last week, wondering "Is that it?" of E3 2008, Konami announced Gradius ReBirth, a WiiWare title that looks to fill the Gradius void in our lives. Like the retro stylings of Mega Man 9, Konami is giving the hardcore what they want — gameplay minus expensive production values — and they're doing it through digital distribution.
Gradius ReBirth is planned for a winter release in Japan. If it arrives elsewhere, buy it. Convince Konami to restart work on Gradius VI. Seriously.
Gradius ReBirth [Konami]
BioWare treated us to a closed doors look at its upcoming role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins at E3, our first glimpse into what even the developers are referring to as a spiritual successor to the Baldurs Gate series. While there was a distinct lack of actual dragons in our extended preview of the PC version — BioWare reps confirmed that we will run into said dragons at some point — what we did see was still impressive.
Our demo began with an introduction to the Grey Wardens, better known as the Good Guys, and their epic struggle against the Blight. The Blight are a the blue and green skinned orc lookalikes that you, your party and the Grey Wardens will battle throughout. They're of a varied species, some standing ten feet tall with sprouted horns, others more human like, with an unfortunate similarity to the Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. movie.
So we've heard a little bit about LittleBigPlanet's saleable user-created assets, but does that mean you'll have to pay for everything? Not so, Sony's David Reeves told Eurogamer, clarifying that all user-generated content will be free at the game's launch.
"SCEE and Media Molecule can guarantee that all consumer-generated content will be free at launch. We know how important this is to the LBP community and what we want most is for people to enjoy playing, creating and sharing their content", Sony told Eurogamer.
Monetizing user-generated content has been a hot-button issue in video games' adjacent virtual worlds sector, where casual multiplayer social games usually rely on microtransactions support to make money, and community content to drive engagement. It'll be interesting to see whether LittleBigPlanet can set the standard for bridging those two worlds with what Reeves calls an "iTunes meets eBay" system.
How willing are you, Kotaku readers, to pay for something another player has made? Or will you just stick to the free stuff?
All LBP user content to be free at launch [Eurogamer]
By now, you're likely well aware that Dead Rising is coming to Nintendo's Wii platform. It's coming this summer with a new "improved" save system, a lower zombie count and quite possibly the best name ever in Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop.
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop which has "pretty good for a Wii game" graphics is touted as "taking advantage of the same proven technology that brought Resident Evil 4 so successfully to Wii". Whether that simply means a Wii Remote driven control scheme with zombie killing accuracy or something else more technical, we're not sure. We don't know computers.
The full press release with all the details is after this.
Senior brand manager Lauren Faccidomo may be a capable bass player in the all-female Ramones cover band The Sheenas, but her performance on her own company's "band" game, Rock Revolution, is... awkward. Faccidomo is most likely very thankful that her Rock Revolution misfire was comfortably nestled within dozens of exciting Konami announcements and that this particular embarrassment was quickly forgotten about.
Sorry, what's that? This is how Konami wrapped up its press conference at E3? Oh. Oh my. Lauren, I have Jaime Kennedy's phone number if you need someone to help you through this rough patch.
Posted by Logan Booker at 10:00 AM on July 22, 2008
The Force Unleashed: Epic Moments And Mindless Slaughter
Is there anything better than throwing lightsabers around? Yeah, I didn't think so.
BioShock PS3 Getting Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum Trophies
Wrench-bash a turret? That's a trophy. Or it should be.
Thumbs Up For Left 4 Dead's Awesome Box Art
That's not a normal hand... it's a scary hand.
Silent Hill: Homecoming Hands On With The Pipemaster
Impressions of Konami's latest survival horror title.
E308 Justify Your Game: Fallout 3
Hopefully we'll see the game in its unedited form Todd!
Vin Diesel is back as Wheelman. He's not the Wheelman, just... Wheelman, the Pontiac driving, car jacking star of Midway and Tigon Studios' upcoming action driving game. Diesel has been digitised before, starring in the Chronicles of Riddick side story, Escape From Butcher Bay, and Wheelman has similar Hollywood tie-ins.
It's not just designed as a day and date release cash-in, as the game follows the Tigon design mantra of "combining key film components with unique game play". That comes through in some of Wheelman's more dramatic driving sequences, ones that will see the titular driver jump flaming oil tankers and smash into cubicles as he speeds through an office building.
Wheelman forgoes realistic driving for over the top badassery. Diesel's digital alter ego can "air jack" vehicles a la Pursuit Force. He'll jump from car to car, kicking out the driver without missing a beat. The whole thing looks a bit silly in person, but this is the kind of game one should suspend all disbelief for.
Sony President and CEO Kaz Hirai wants 40 GB PS3 users to know that they still own a "very powerful machine", and said that those who need a bigger hard drive can just swap theirs out.
Speaking to MCV, Hirai said the PS3 continues to evolve over time, and that as PlayStation Network content expands, Sony wanted to offer more storage capacity without raising prices.
"We brought in the 80GB because we wanted to make sure we continued offering the value proposition to consumers in the true fashion of PlayStation", Hirai told MCV.
"We heard a lot of response from the consumers basically saying 40GB is nice, but with a lot of additional download products were offering via the PlayStation Network, consumers were looking for a higher capacity hard drive".
"We thought it was a great time to introduce it at E3, but also make sure that we continued to keep the pricing the same."
Along with the cartoony yet curiously compelling Clone Wars and the innovative Fracture that is hovering at the very edge of my interest, LucasArts presented one more game at E3 2008, and this one is truly going to be epic. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a game I have been secretly drooling over since it was first announced, from both a technical perspective as well as the story standpoint. Sure, die hard Star Wars fans complain about continuity, but what else is Vader going to do during the gap between movies? Kick back and eat some Hot Pockets? Sure, but that only takes like five to ten minutes.
Between the LucasArts presentation of the game and my brief hands-on, I walked away feeling confident that this could not only be one of the most exciting Star Wars video games of all time, it could very well provide moments more epic than anything we saw in the three prequel films.
Kotakuite ZeroGinc sent us a snap of a $US 5 reservation card from Target that seems to reveal a release date for Sony's much-anticipated LittleBigPlanet. Expected initially for September, you may recall that during Sony's E3 2008 presentation, they pegged the game as dropping in October — precisely the month indicated on the card you'll see after the jump:
Bioshock PS3 will be getting a robust collection of trophies, in three flavours.
Tynan Wales, programmer for BioShock PS3, took the time to walk through some of the rewards you can grab up while playing through this amazing game on the Playstation 3. Reading through her description it sounds like the rewards are broken down into bronze trophies, for the more mundane stuff, silver and gold trophies. There's also a single Platinum Trophy that can be earned only by gathering up all of the other trophies in the game.
Wales even laid out a couple of example trophies.
Flagship Studios has reportedly suspended private beta testing for Mythos, shutting down the game's servers and message board — but not before an official explanation was posted on the forums by Flagship co-founder and COO Max Schaefer:
Unlike most games, Mythos has been running with our testing community for almost its whole life. I really feel like we've all done this together. And despite this bump in the road, I think we've succeeded wildly. This is undoubtedly the best game community I've ever seen. This is the best game development team in the world, in both Seattle and San Francisco. The things we've learned here, and with you all, will be with us forever".
Why bother redesigning the Xbox 360's interface? Shane Kim is here to tell us. Oh and Kim totally gets in Sony's face. No, not really. He does talk a minute amount of smack, but no gang signs were thrown.
Normally, box art posts are the stuff of filler. This one, however, is merely for praise. Valve's art department makes up for The Orange Box's yucky melange with the most enjoyable pun-as-box art treatments ever with Left 4 Dead. Frothing demand, will buy two copies, probably should get a DVD-ROM drive in my PC, etcetera, etcetera...
