Archive for November, 2009
Visceral Games released Dead Space, received well by fans and critics in '08. Dead Space: Extraction came to the Wii a year later in the form of a prequel.
Dead Space: Extraction is an on-rails first person shooter. Extraction serves as a prequel to the popular game Dead Space, which released for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in 2008. The story follows various characters on the surface colony of a planet called Aegis VII. The goal of the colony was to scan the planet for resources, so that a large ship called a Planet-Cracker (the USG Ishimura from Dead Space), could remove said resources from that planet, and return them to a now resource-depleted Earth.
However, shortly before the planet-crack is scheduled to begin, a strange artifact called a Marker is found, and events begin to unravel, as suicides and murders begin to climb to outrageous numbers.
The ominous Marker...
The game drops you into the story as a miner on the colony while the madness begins to break out. During the course of the game, which is laid out into a number of chapters, players take the role of multiple characters. This creates a unique storytelling mechanic, because as the events unfold on the Aegis VII colony, they also run parallel to the Ishimura's story. So, you get multiple perspectives of what exactly is going on.
Most of the main cast from Dead Space: Extraction
Dead Space: Extraction is on-rails. This means there are no controls related to movement. Your Wii remote controls the on-screen reticule, with the B button firing your weapon. A second person with a Wii remote can also jump in and aid in the fight. The A button controls your Kinesis which, as Dead Space players will remember, allows the player to pick up and throw objects. In Extraction, this is the primary way a player will collect items, such as ammo, weapon upgrades, and audio/text logs. These logs are a nice complement to the story, as they fill in many of the blanks the game intentionally leaves in its story.
Body shots won't help you much against these bad boys.
The main Story Mode is a series of chapters that will take about 6-8 hours to complete. Each chapter awards you a set amount of stars upon completion ranging from 1-5 stars. The game takes into account the amount of times you have died, number of dismemberment/kills, accuracy, and a few other factors. The stars you collect are responsible for upgrades.
These upgrades will improve your health and your stasis ability. If you played Dead Space, it takes the place of the stores that could be found around the Ishimura. Stars are also responsible for unlockables, such as levels for the alternate mode, Challenge Mode, and new chapters of a motion comic.
Challenge Mode is the other mode of Dead Space: Extraction. In this mode, the goal is to score the most points on the level. Each Challenge Mode level takes a particular scene from a level from Story Mode and throws ten waves of enemies at you. As you progress through the level, the goal is to kill the enemies while taking the least amount of damage and in the fastest time. Doing this will achieve the greatest score. Who doesn't love points?
I'm so sad. There was an obvious attempt to give the character models in the game a sense of realism, and one of the ways this shows beautifully is the emotion that can be seen on the characters' faces.
Sharp voice acting. The characters are often very emotional, as most would be when they come face-to-face with their fate. The voice acting is very believable and contributes to the scary atmosphere.
A collector's mission. The main story can feel a little short. Visceral definitely made an attempt to add replay value to the game, however, and expand on the number of gameplay hours. Between the four difficulty settings, the unlockables, and all of the items to collect, Visceral makes it worthwhile to replay the game.
Strategic dismemberment. Perhaps one of coolest and most gruesome sounding phrases ever, it can't be better explained. Dead Space players already know, aiming at the body of your enemy is going to do nothing but get you killed. Aim for the limbs!
Thrilling. On-rails shooters have the potential to be very boring, however Visceral Games has created a very intense and gripping game.
Spooky soundtrack. The music does a fabulous job of building anticipation for the unknown.
Two firing modes, two times the fun. Each gun has an alternate firing mode, which can be accessed by holding the Wii remote sideways. While not all of the alternate modes are useful, some are, making this mechanics' inclusion worth it.
Dead Space, the motion comic. As you progress through the game, new chapters of a motion comic unlock. Its story runs parallel to the one you're playing, and is done quite well.
What are you, BioShock? In the game, there are computers your player will need to hack, and the game forces you to do tedious, difficult puzzles requiring precise Wii remote movement. They serve as a nuisance more than anything, as you sometimes have to do them while fighting enemies.
"I'll cover you... not." I can't tell you how many times the computer A.I. told me this as I tried to complete a puzzle or hold off a horde of enemies. I end up usually replying, "so much for that." There are animations of your computer friends firing their weapons, but it seems like they accidentally use blanks.
Time... who needs it? When entering a room it becomes a scramble to grab anything that even slightly resembles a flashing collectible item. The game affords the player little to no time to collect items and supplies, which seems like a somewhat cheap device to make players replay the campaign.
Cheap shots. As is typical of most survival/horror games, you will find your way walking/crawling/running through very dark sections. While you are occasionally provided with a light (that doesn't really do much), you still can't see quite as well as you should be able to. Enemies will then rush out of the darkness and hit you before you even have time to react, some launching projectiles from a distance.
Dead Space: Extraction is a fun experience. Based on the success Dead Space had, there were some pretty high expectations set for this game. Extraction meets these expectations. Visceral Games took the concept of a first-person on-rails shooter and made it quite enjoyable. Being a genre that has a lot of potential to feel boring and/or pointless, Visceral should be proud. While there are frustrating parts of the game, they do not harm the overall experience. This is a must have for Dead Space fans, and survival/horror enthusiasts should give this title a chance as well.
Is EA's next entry in the MySims series an effective 'agent' of entertainment?
MySims Agents is the latest in EA's attempts to strike gold on the Wii, by taking its massively popular God-game franchise and super-deforming the heck out of it. With a great dose of personality and a load of puzzles, MySims Agents tries to bring a heavy dose of adventure gaming to the platform, and for the most part, it actually works pretty well.
At its core, MySims Agents is an adventure similar in structure to Monkey Island or Zack & Wiki, discovering items and evidence, interrogating witnesses, and using a fair amount of gadgets to solve a wide variety of criminal cases. While not perfect, it's a game with a lot of heart and effort, and that certainly helps its case when compared to the rest of the Wii's lineup, and the other MySims titles.
Puzzles elements like hitting your face with a crowbar abound.
In MySims Agents, you play as a character you name and design yourself in typical Sims fashion, and then embark on completing a variety of "missions," generally having to complete a step-by-step path of interrogating NPCs, completing puzzles, and collecting items. As you play, you can unlock different skins and clothing items for your character, as well as new trophy rewards - some taken from recent EA releases like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge, in a nice nod.
It's repetitive, yes, but the the story and characters are good enough to keep you engaged. Essentially, your character is an aspiring detective who begins by figuring out rather menial cases around town, until you gain the attention of an evil corporation called Morcucorp. Its president, Morcubus, is trying to get his hands on a device called the "Nightmare Crown." You, along with your sidekick Buddy and a mysterious girl named Evelyn (who has more than a passing resemblance to Resident Evil's Ada Wong), must be the usual protagonists.
Broken platforming controls are a sore spot for the game.
The real star of the game are the puzzles themselves. Essentially, there are four different types: relatively simple lock picking and hacking puzzles, more complicated repair puzzles, and brain-bending analysis puzzles. The lock picking is simple, just move the blocks around with the Wii Remote to get the key from one side of the screen to the other - pretty simple. Hacking is a bit more unique: players must use the Wii Remote to move a circle through a side-scrolling maze, making sure not to touch the sides.
However, the real stars of the game are the repair puzzles, which involve placing a combination of gears, wires, and belts together in order to fix a specific object. Also, the analysis puzzles, which involve putting a combination of different colored spheres together to create a sort of molecular puzzle, are brain-teasers worthy of any seasoned gamer. Many of them bring back memories of classic PC adventure games. Combined with some smart writing, this is definitely a game as much for the older crowd as it is for the Cartoon Network crowd.
What better place for a vending machine than a snowy mountain?
While the game admittedly doesn't have much to do with The Sims outside of the customization, one area where it does come in handy is through the game's mission mode. Throughout the game, players can hire agents and send them out on a variety of missions. Each team can be customized for the mission's specific needs, plus, furniture and other amenities can be added to the different teams' ready rooms to boost stats. While the team is on the mission, cellular updates let the player keep tabs on things, with limited control over the team's actions. The missions are a safe enough diversion while completing one's own missions, and actually make for a unique, if simple approach to strategy.
However, the game comes up short in one certainly crucial area: platforming. To be blunt, the game's jumping is frustrating at best and completely broken at worst. It has tons of exploitable glitches, but also plenty of incredible cheap jumps and oddball level design choices. Jumping is controlled via the Z button, which works about as well as one would expect, and feels very loose and lacking polish. If anything, it really keeps the game from reaching the highs that it certainly has the ability to do.
Is that supposed to be Mother Brain?
The game's graphics are nothing to write home about, being on par with most of the MySims games before. However, the things that stand out are the same as before, namely the well-done character designs. MySims's characters are as cute as ever, and it's hard not to go "aww" at the many anime-influenced little buggers. Music and sound effects are standard, but the usual addition of Simlish will be enough to drive one mad after a while.
Adventure. MySims Agents provides a worthwhile adventure game, with a decent story that kids and adults should enjoy.
Puzzles. The game's puzzles are both unique and challenging, and aren't typical fare for most kid's games.
Cute characters. The MySims characters are still "daww" worthy, and some of them you just want to jump through the screen and hug. Yes, I know that's creepy.
Customization. There's plenty of ways you can design your Sim, and while you won't do it more than once or twice, the options are there.
Strategy. Mission mode provides a unique way to to pick up more items, and it doesn't impede on the game at all.
Platforming. The jumping and platforming is pretty much broken, with extremely loose controls and a horrible lack of polish. The many jumping puzzles don't help.
Simlish. It's back, and annoying as ever. Seriously, whose idea was this? Oh yeah, Will Wright. Perhaps I should shut up now...
MySims Agents is a game that tries to do a lot of things, and be a lot of different games at one time. At its best, it's a tremendous adventure that hearkens back to classics like Monkey Island, with unique, difficult puzzles and a nice strategy game thrown in. At its worst, it's a sub-standard platformer that often can be frustrating and overly complicated. Still, it is the best MySims to date, and a great pickup for those looking for a great adventure.
Capcom now believes Resident Evil 5 could happen on the Wii.
In an article we posted last week, we showed that there are plenty of companies overlooking the Wii, mainly for graphics-related issues. Capcom was one of the companies mentioned, when they, at Resident Evil 5's launch, claimed the Wii couldn't handle even the loading screen of the game. Well so much for that.
During a Q&A session for the upcoming Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, Capcom's product manager Matt Dahlgren admitted Capcom may have been too hasty when claiming Resident Evil 5 couldn't make it onto the Wii.
Dahlgren says, "After some of the work that Cavia (the developer) has done (with RE: Darkside Chronicles), the producers of Resident Evil 5 over in Japan now think it is possible." Dahlgren explains that it was because "some of the light effects in the South America stage are pretty incredible," that the Japanese producers were able to see that the Wii might be able to produce a better looking game than initially thought.
Now before Resident Evil fans get their hopes up, this is by no means any sort of announcement, and Dahlgren made sure not to start any rumors when he said, "whether it is going to come, I don’t know the answer to that question. But, it has been said that now at least it is possible.”
Regardless of whether or not Resident Evil 5 will find its way onto the Wii, Capcom is certainly going to give the Wii an even more serious look than they have in the past.
Via Destructoid
How Nintendo's presence can vastly impact their reputation and credibility
The Video Game Awards are a star-studded example of the tremendous growth in the games industry. Say what you will about the overall quality of the show. Or the fact that they are more about celebrities than games, the nonsensical music acts, and the overall fratboy-focused feel of it. The fact remains that it is a tremendous event for the industry that in recent years has been a great way to promote upcoming titles as well. While we all laughed at the program's beginnings (Madden as Game of the Year? Really?), it's a widely-viewed, core gamer-focused show that does promote a lot of major upcoming titles.
So long as those games are for the Xbox 360, PS3, or both, that is.
Apart from a disturbing skit poking fun at the Wii at last year's show (Jack Black has a threesome with a PS3 and a 360... ew), Nintendo has rarely been even given a mention during the show's five year history thus far. Also, it's safe to say that the awards have not been kind to Nintendo...for both winners, AND nominees.
Sure, a couple GameCube exclusives snuck in here and there in the early years, and of course, the handheld category was usually comprised entirely of Nintendo software (even after the PSP's release). However, there has been several notable omissions. In 2007, the VGA's nominees for Game of the Year were BioShock, Halo 3, Mass Effect, and The Orange Box. Yes, not one nomination for Super Mario Galaxy. Then last year, Super Smash Bros. Brawl got an equivalently poor treatment, also denied a nomination for best game. It did, however, gain a nomination for Best Fighting Game - where it was defeated by Soul Calibur IV. Well, at least it won its other nomination, for Best Wii Game, right?
Boom Blox, 2008 winner of Best Wii Game award.
Wrong. It was beaten out by Boom Blox, which just so happened to be published by event sponsor EA.
However, this goes back even longer than that. In 2005, Resident Evil 4, notable as GameCube title, won Game of the Year. There was one problem...it was listed as only being a PlayStation 2 game. That's right, kids - the VGAs were so embarrassed that a violent game was available for GameCube alongside PS2, that they only listed it for the more "mature" console out of the two.
Pointing the finger
So, why has Nintendo gotten such a bad rap when it comes to the VGAs? Well, this may surprise you - but it's Nintendo's own fault. Remember how I just said that Boom Blox won for best Wii game last year, over Smash Bros. Brawl? And how EA was a huge sponsor of last year's event?
Well, I'm not going to be the one to read into something like that, as I'd probably get into quite a bit of trouble. However, it is odd that we never see any Nintendo personalities at the show. Shigeru Miyamoto has never appeared at the VGAs, although Hideo Kojima has. Reggie Fils-Aime is always a no-show, but Phil Harrison, Shane Kim - they've both shown up. Why does Nintendo seem to forgo the VGAs so much?
I could write an entire essay about Nintendo's media relationship, but essentially it's that Nintendo seems to treat journalists exactly as they are - journalists. Other companies tend to use the gaming media as another outlet for advertising, promoting games, previewing games, and showcasing new trailers and world exclusives. Essentially, with Sony, Microsoft, EA, Activision, and pretty much every other publisher or developer on the planet, the industry works for the media. With Nintendo, it's the other way around. Rather than happily show off their cards to the world, Nintendo keeps them close to the vest, using their events, and theirs alone (with the lone exceptions of E3, GDC, PAX, and seldom others) to promote their games.
Of course, this has worked well, especially in this generation. Rather than promote to the usual gaming crowds, Nintendo has decided to focus on those that have never picked up a controller, and, well, if you're a news-savvy gamer, you already know the fruits of that labor. However, what makes things more interesting is how Nintendo has marketed the Wii. You'll almost never see an ad for a Wii game on G4 or during GameTrailers TV, but you WILL see them during the TODAY Show, popped into episodes of Oprah, or splattered throughout the daily lineups of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel.
It is clear that Nintendo's market is likely those that wouldn't be watching the VGAs - however, that doesn't mean Nintendo should completely ignore them. The company has said many times in the past that they are still dedicated towards the core gamer - and while that may be the case looking at the upcoming 2010 lineup, I haven't seen an ounce of that dedication from their marketing department.
If Nintendo wants to reconnect with the hardcore, they need to start doing what the other guys have been doing for years. Show up with some hands-on demos on X-Play. Get an entire episode of GameTrailers TV to yourself. And yes, do some promotion at the Video Game Awards. With recent news of the VGAs getting some huge, E3-level reveals and exclusives, I can see no better time than for the "Big N" to get in on the action. And why not do it with the biggest gun they have... Zelda.
Could Nintendo's next Zelda title be unveiled at the Spike VGAs?
Nintendo could gain a lot of fervor and a lot of support if they revealed the next Legend of Zelda for Wii at the 2009 awards. The fact is, while a lot of today's "fratboy FPS-addicted gamers" want to burn Mario at the stake and think a Metroid is some new DLC weapon for Halo 3, most of them know, love, and respect Zelda. Five years ago, when the company infamously revealed Twilight Princess at E3, I had first-hand experience of those sick and tired of Nintendo making plans to buy GameCubes - plans dashed by Nintendo's delays and promotion of the game, but I digress.
Now, take the 250 or so journalists that were in the Kodak Theater that day in Los Angeles, and multiply that by the possible hundreds of thousands watching on TV. You want to talk about a major television event? Well, this would be it.
All in the execution
How to promote the event? Simple...make no indication that Nintendo will even be there. Not a peep, except for maybe teasing an enormous, humongous, gigantic announcement or what have you. Fortunately, this year's event is live, making things far harder to spoil. They could tease the reveal throughout the show, keeping in mind the earth-shattering-ness of the event. Close to the end, reveal the trailer, have Miyamoto come out and say a quick word, and watch the fanboys fly. It's not exactly rocket science.
Nintendo has usually seen the Video Game Awards as an opposition, when they should be seeing it as an opportunity. Truly reaching out to the hardcore at an event such as this would boost the company's credibility on a major scale, and also prove that the next Zelda is indeed being marketed solely towards the gamers of the world. If not, it certainly won't be the downfall of Nintendo. It would just be another missed chance.
I eagerly await more VGA details, and maybe we'll get more of an inkling as whether I'm right. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what platform Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is listed for in its inevitable nomination.
Frustrated by lack of support for third parties
Nintendo has always been infamous for having trouble rallying quality third party support for their consoles. While Nintendo itself is and has always been able to create widely accepted first party titles, they have always been criticized for not doing more to promote and support third parties on their consoles. Unfortunately, it appears little has changed, as recently EA's CEO John Riccitiello spoke out to GameIndustry.biz, criticizing the Wii.
When speaking to investors, Riccitiello openly discussed EA's disappointment with how their games have been performing on the console. "To be honest with you, I think the Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had certainly anticipated." Riccitiello would continue to explain how he feels EA is releasing some of its best content on the system, and Nintendo isn't doing their games justice. "There is no lack of frustration to be doing that at precisely the time where we have the strongest third-party share," Riccitiello commented.
John Riccitiello also brought up an intriguing point, discussing what he thought was the reason the Wii's sales have been slipping of late. "Frankly, I think they need more beats in the year than they get out of a first-party slate – to be able to have the Wii software platform perform as well as they would like." The solution for getting more of these "beats" on the console every year? Riccitiello made a very interesting suggestion, in that Nintendo should team up with more third parties (obviously including EA) to further support third parties, as well as Nintendo's own content. "We are reaching out to Nintendo to find ways to partner to push third-party software harder."
Riccitiello specifically wants to push multiplatform releases harder. In EA's eyes, it is their Wii iterations of multiplatform games that aren't selling to their potential. Because "very, very few multiplatform titles are succeeding on the Wii," Riccitiello feels partnering with Nintendo will allow these titles to be more easily recognized by consumers as games worth purchasing.
Whether or not you agree with Riccitiello's statements, everyone can agree that it is a troubling sign for EA to be so publicly upset with Nintendo.