Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Capcom has two more games coming at E3

Capcom is becoming my heroes as of late. Street Fighter 4, Bionic Commando, Rearmed, Dead Rising 2 and (finally) Marvel vs Capcom 2. But Capcom isn't done.

On the Capcom Unity twitter page, this was posted:

"You think we have great titles now? Wait 'til we announce two more at E3!"

Oh shit! I'm calling Rival Schools. Wait. Power Stone. Yeah. And Strider.

Any guesses out there?


J.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

FINALLY CONFIRMED!!!!!!!!!! MARVEL VS CAPCOM 2 HD COMING THIS SUMMER!!!!!!!

There is a god......evidence here at Capcom's website


And by the way, PS3 owners get exclusive demo Thursday. Suck it with your Fallout 3 and GTA4 DLC, 360 owners. This is something I'm glad PS3 owner get to dig before everyone else. Demo-lition will be coming soon after I get back into the lower 48.



J.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Fat Princes beta: first hour impressions



Note: I hit this up a few days ago. I tightened some parts up and I'm posting it up from here in Seattle, en route to Hawaii. Check it out and I'll be back next week with more fun.


As I dropped earlier, I was able to get into the Fat Princess beta test. I'm good like that, I guess, seeing that this is my fifth beta I've participated in. But you don't want to hear about that.

But first, a description of the game. From Wikipedia:

"Fat Princess puts the player on a team consisting of up to 32 male and female cartoon characters, with the main goal in the game to rescue their team's princess held captive by an opposing team, although team-deathmatch and other online modes are also available. The player can choose from ten dessert-themed levels such as Coco Cliffs and Black Forest.

At the beginning of the game, each of the teams will already have their opponent's princess held captive. In order to make their opponent's task in rescuing her more difficult, the player can give more and more food to the princess they have captured, so that she will become fatter and heavier, and the opponent's team will need larger number of players to carry her.

The game's mechanics have the player control a standard 3D, cel-shaded, character at the fort, castle, or stronghold. There are five machines at the player's fort, each producing hats. Depending on which hat gets picked up and put on, the player gets different abilities. The game consists of five classes: the mage, priest, warrior, worker and archer. Each has its own set of unique weapons and play style."

That's the facts. Now I will say that ever since Sony showed this game last year, we haven't heard much about it. Something I think Sony should take to heart. Much like Killzone 2, keeping the game under wraps gives the developers more room to move and make the game, rather than constantly answering questions about why ths game will 'save' the PS3. The game looks really good. It runs very well with all the chaos running rampant on the battlefield. The menus, like everything in the game, are full of humor and tongue in cheek moments. There is a custom character menu, and as you play the game, more and more custom parts become available for you little avatar. Some are really funny and cool. I'll say that a Mr.T-like mohawk should show up at some point. The backgrounds give you an idea what the game is going to play like and again, everything so far was very well laid out. There is an option to play online and to play LAN style offline. I jumped online and dove head first into the fray.

The general combat is very open ended and seems to cater to alot of different play styles. The two gametypes, Deathmatch and CTP are standard fare for the multiplayer online games, but it's the class system that makes everything come together. The hack and slash, all in your face, on the front line type players will dig the warrior class. More background/support players will dig the priest and the archers. The key to the game is upgrading your hats, which makes the worker the backbone of the game. The fast paced nature of the game and the non-binding style of play (you are able to change classes on he fly by picking up different hats on the battlefield as well as in you castle) make for a quick and crazy game and alot of fun. If you play with flattening out anyone in your path or using strategy to break down the enemies castle doors, you'll have a good time playing.

The blood and gore can be turned off for people sensitive about such things, but the game gets BLOODY quick. It's a trip to see head popping off an enemy as you chuck a bomb from you upgraded worker. It starts looking like Braveheart after two or three minutes. Choke points, like a bridge in the middle of the map (only one mag in the beta so far) make the players start thinking quick about teamwork.The team that has a priest and some archers are going to fair better than the team that has nothing but warriors. I found myself, like in most online games, backing up a fellow player (that later friended me so we could play the beta more at a later date) going over said bridge in the middle of the map. Just over the bridge is a mini castle that your team can take over for points. Both teams seem to meet here to rumble. We went into it two on their four and did ok. He was a priest and I was a worker and we smacked them down, took over the mini and head over the next bridge to the enemy main castle where we were met by about eight players that completely destroyed us. Not a game to 'go it alone' for sure.

You get points for almost every action in the game. From getting resources for your hat machines to shooting and killing enemies to picking up the princess, it adds up and unlocks items and other goodies we're told. It looks ripe for DLC like maps and possible new classes. It really fits into the perception that PSN has different game experiences then your arcade rehashes. It seems like this is going to be beating up the bandwidth on the Playstation Network soon.

For someone that enjoys team based online games rather all out war fragfests, Fat Princess is going to take alot of time from me. Hopefully, the trophies and challenges will be interesting provide some more ways to play the game outside people's comfort zone. I really dig the game after an hour and I do plan on buying this one day one. Hopefully, girls don't take this too personally. It's campy fun. Bloody, campy fun.

J.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Morgan Webb Plays Punch-Out with Jimmy Fallon

Call me crazy, but to see Morgan Webb come out and demo the new Punch-Out!! on Jimmy Fallon's new late night gig with Ice-T and Elmo in the audience just seems a little over the top to me. But, it happened last week, so now that I've found a clip of it, I have to share it with you.




Ouch! Jimmy! Either the motion controls for this are going to be a monster, or Jimmy hasn't played much of the Wii yet. Either/or, it's a fun new early look at Punch-Out!! in action!


Max

Thursday, April 16, 2009

I'm in the Fat Princess beta



Keeping in the tradition of me getting into Sony beta tests, (Warhawk, Home, Littlebigplanet) I just got an invite code to Titan Games much hyped multiplayer PSN exclusive. The game is downloading as we speak. I'll try to get a few impressions up on the site before I take off for a few weeks to enjoy some R and R in Hawaii. It's hard out there for a pimp I hear........


J.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Killzone 2 DLC: might as well jump.



Is it just me, or was gametrailers TV actually good last night? On the show that brought us some gameplay videos of Bioshock 2, comes the big reveal of the first Killzone 2 DLC maps. Titled Steel and Titanium, the two maps are as different from the current multiplayer maps as you can get. Set inside the ISA's home spaceship, The New Sun map looks like a snipers paradise. Bad news for me as I seem to get shot from millions of miles away when I play the game now. But, that's what I get for going back and playing Warhawk and Call of Duty 4 again this week. Multi-level maps are cool just to get the drop on people by jumping down and wasting enemies in mid air. Possibly alot of forcing people off the deck while they run from hordes shooting at them as well. Hooray for cheap kills!

The Wasteland Bullet map is the one that I'm going to either hate or love. It takes place on two trains speeding down the rails. Shooting is going to be fun, provided that no gravity physics pull bullets from intended targets. The real love/hate thing will be the jumping from train to train. I can tell you now, I WILL die numerous times by getting smashed like a bug trying to outrun someone plugging me in the back with bullets.

Both look like very cool updates to a great game and will be out at the end of the month. No price was given, but I figure it won't be so hard on your wallet. Sony has been doing a really great job with marketing Killzone 2. Sure, there aren't any branded Mt. Dew bottles or trailers before Star Trek, but the word is out and people are buying. Let's hope they keep up the streak.

J.

Bioshock 2 looks fucking awesome! (for lack of a better word)



I liked Bioshock. Alot. So when word came out about a sequel, I was all about it. And then, when they dropped that it would be coming to PS3 day and date, I was subsequently more happy. But, as the internet does, worry started to set in. Did Bioshock really need a sequel? Why does Bioshock 2 have mulitplayer? (and a question I want answered as well.) What is it going to look like? Well, thanks to Gametrailers.com, we now know the answer to that question. Fucking awesome!

The atmosphere is still there from the 2 minute clip shown on the tv show. (and on the website as well) Following the Big Sister down blood stained hallways until you get to a huge room with a glass window. The next thing you know, she's cutting the glass and you're being crushed under a ton on rushing water. That's all I needed to see. I'm sold. Let's hope that we see more of this game soon and that it doesn't take a wrong turn somewhere. That would be a shame.

Check out the video for yourself.

J.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Plants VS Zombies? WTF???



The title says it all...
Leave it to the bastards that fathered Peggle, Bejeweled 1-396, Zuma and ton's of other mindless, addictive timewasters to mash up Plants killing Zombies in what s sure to get you fired from your next job do to how addictive it will probably be!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Joystiq Interview with NOA's Denise Kaigler

Ever since Nintendo of America moved out of Seattle, there's been several new faces to get to know. One of these is Denise Kaigler, NOA's VP of Corporate Affairs. During GDC, Joystiq sat down with Denise for an enlightening interview.


Some of the interesting points she discusses is that although core gamers are upset that there may not be enough core games coming out of Nintendo, that it's actually the core that helps causual games such as Wii Fit become a success:


"Would you call Wii Fit a core game? Wii Fit would never have reached the type of mass penetration had the core not been part of that audience. Never would have. But, when we first announced that game at E3, the core from what I understand was kind of not really sure, but the core is buying that game."


Then Denise asks the interviewer if he owns Wii Fit and he admits he does.

There's also talk about how the DSi will be marketed alongside the DS Lite, Nintendo bringing back classic franchises, and overall it's just a good look into how Nintendo views its core audience. Check it out!


Max

NSFW: Mega Man 2 Rap

Mega Man in da house! Check out this ridiculously long, incredibly funny Mega Man rap, which has the Blue Bomber rapping battling against Dr. Wily and each of the eight robot bosses. It's not safe for work, but definitely worth a watch. Check it out!


Max