Archive for May, 2011
May 29th, 2011 | 
Author: With the launch of the Xbox Live Arcade, there was an opportunity for lesser-known developers to get their name out there without the sometimes-prohibitive costs of releasing a disc-based game. And sometimes, XBLA is used by larger, more well-known developers to get a game out the door which they don’t deem necessary to put on a disc. Either way though, the experience you can get in a Live Arcade game is sometimes hit-or-miss. But every so often a game comes out on this platform that really makes you sit up and pay attention, not by virtue of the experience in and of itself, but moreso the way that it feels like a familiar old friend of a game that you remember playing on Saturday morning in your pajamas. It connects with you in a way that you have not experienced in a good long while, and it reminds you of a classic game or games of your youth. This is the experience that I have had with Moon Diver.
For those who do not know, Moon Diver is a game developed by FeelPlus, Inc. and Published by Square Enix. The general story-line is that humanity’s inventions and machines were brought to life by an evil force and turned against them in the beginning of the 22nd century. Mankind is facing extinction and an elite force of ninjas, code-named Moon Divers, is called into action.
You can play as one of four characters, and have up to four people on screen at once in either couch- or online-cooperative play. Each character has different ways that they progress in building their skills, akin to other games where you’d have a brawler who can’t really use much magic, a spell-casting pro who isn’t very strong with a melee weapon, a balanced character, etc. Though as I was playing through with each character, at least initially, the differences between them were negligible. Not so negligible that it felt like just pallet-swapped characters, but just not hugely different either. Perhaps as you get each character further leveled-up the differences become more apparent, but nothing really jumped out at me as I played through.
The game-play is very reminiscent of Strider, and to me that is a great thing. One reason this comparison makes sense is that Kouichi Yotsui of Strider fame had his hands on this project. Moon Diver isn’t a sequel in any way, but I feel comfortable using the term “spiritual successor” here. There are other comparisons to be made here too, in that any fan of NES, SNES or Genesis-era side-scrolling platformer action games will see things that make them nostalgic. We’re talking about Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Castlevania, Legend of Kage, Contra, etc. You run and jump from location to location while hordes of enemies, fodder for your blades and magical abilities, do their best to come at you and drain your life bar until you are no more. Occasionally barriers form at either end of the screen, boxing you into an impromptu arena of sorts where you have to dispatch all your foes before proceeding. You have the always-handy double-jump to get yourself up and out of the fire if things are getting too hectic, and there are a bevy of magical abilities you can use and level-up in addition to your trusty blade.
So the main question is – how does the game fare? Very well, in my opinion. The action is frenetically-paced at times, the controls are simple but have a decent amount of depth in that you can change your magical abilities after each level. Graphically-speaking the game is very bright and colorful. It can be hard at times to keep track of your character with enemies flying everywhere and blowing up and so on, but that is not enough of an issue where you get frustrated. The Anime-inspired art style is crisp and comes off really well.
Turn down your volume before playing!
The sound design is a bit of a mixed bag. The sound effects are really good – you hear some really nice metallic-clashing sounds when you shove the business-end of your blade into the torso of an enemy, and explosions have an awesome “sci-fi futuristic” sound to them (just watch out for the yellow guys who blow up like BomberMan when you hit them a couple of times!) and all that. But the music in the game, in my opinion, is kind of repetitive and doesn’t really stand out as being anything special.
So the bottom line is this: If you are looking for an action-packed game that is reminiscent of some of the best side-scrolling action games of yesteryear, you can do far worse than Moon Diver. If you can get past a slightly-repetitive soundtrack you’ll find a great experience that is well worth those aforementioned hard-earned MS Points. Well done, FullPlus and Square Enix.
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[Gamasutra rounds up the week's biggest news for the major console and portable digital delivery services, this time highlighting news about Gotham City Imposters and Awesomenauts.]
This week we’ve seen a set of interesting announcements, such as the reveal of Gotham City Imposters, a first person Batman game, and the cartoony styling of Awesomenauts by Ronimo games, as well as numerous leaks — including Crimson Alliance and Tetris Party. We’ve also seen the first trailers for WiiWare racer FAST and the Diddy Kong Racing-style flying of SkyDrift.
All in all, it’s made the weeks up to the Electronic Entertainment Expo all the more difficult.
Top Stories
In-Depth: Xbox Live Arcade Sales Analysis, April 2011 (XBLA)
April was a strong month for Xbox Live Arcade with some of the best reviewed games we’ve seen on the service. Ubisoft showed its hand with the release of both Outland and Might Magic: Clash Of Heroes, while EA and THQ released their own unique titles.
We also saw the release of Section 8: Prejudice, an attempt by a studio to bring a full retail release to the downloadable market.
We take a look at the Leaderboard statistics from all the new titles from April 2011, keep tabs on some downloadable content that made itself available on the marketplace, and see how deals affect the marketplace in terms of sales, when over 20 titles got discounts during the month.
For the full article, follow this link.
Gotham City Imposters Announced (XBLA / PSN)
So how does one make a Batman multiplayer game without everyone being Batman? Monolith Studios’s answer is to make them imposters, and you’ll be doing so with Gotham City Imposters later this year.
The story, which inspired its own Batman comic storyline, features a 4-on-4 first person shooter in which you customize your own civillian in a Batman costume with the goal of beating the other team of custom “Jokerz”, who plan to wreak havoc.
“Monolith is creating a game that turns Gotham City upside down, and we think fans are going to have a blast with this creative twist on multiplayer heroism and anti-heroism as they play up the classic rivalry between Batman and The Joker,” said Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s Samantha Ryan.
This title has quite a bit of oddities going for it — it’s got a cartoony look, you’ll be (we assume) shooting guns as a Batman-like character, and also it’s class based 4-on-4 combat.
Ratings Reveal: Kinect Me, Fusion: Genesis, and Crimson Alliance Coming To Xbox 360 (XBLA)
What can we expect from Microsoft this upcoming E3? These latest ratings from the Australian Classification Board might give us an idea.
Monster World IV, More Sega Classics Coming To Digital Download (XBLA / PSN / Virtual Console)
Sega has revealed that it will continues it Sega Vintage Collection with a few new titles coming to the PlayStation Network and Virtual Console.
These titles include Monster World IV (Genesis), Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Arcade version), Revenge of Shinobi (Genesis), Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Master System) and Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis/Mega Drive). This will mark the first Master System title to come to the PlayStation Network, and will join the more recent additions like Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 for the Genesis.
The most interesting of the lot is Monster World IV, which was never released outside of Japan. This new version will feature a complete translation into English.
While there has been no announcement of more games coming to the Xbox Live Arcade, Monster World IV has been rated on the ESRB for the system, so we expect it might come at some point.
Awesomenauts: Swords Soldiers Dev Reveal New XBLA, PSN Game (XBLA / PSN)
The Dutch indie developer’s next title Awesomenauts plans to mix classic platforming-action with modern online multiplayer functionality.
Interview: Anamanaguchi’s Guide to Scott Pilgrim: The Game‘s Soundtrack (XBLA / PSN)
In this interview, chiptune band Anamanaguchi discusses its soundtrack contribution to Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim game, discussing its influences and its development process.
Zombie BBQ Dev’s 99Bullets Out Now for DSiWare (DSiWare)
EnjoyUp Games (developer of the excellently-named Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ) has a new game out for DSiWare this week: the retro-styled vertically scrolling shooter 99Bullets.
Ratings Reveal: Tetris Party Challenge, Googly Eyes For Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA)
The Australian Classification Board is breaking at the seems apparently, with the titles of two new Xbox Live Arcade games revealed.
Top Trailers
SkyDrift Flies To Consoles (XBLA / PSN)
Hungarian developer Digital Reality and Namco have revealed a new racing game for the XBLA and PSN — SkyDrift, in which you fight for the skies, rather than the roads.
Just the trailer itself brings back memories of Diddy Kong Racing‘s flight levels, plus it looks extremely good.
Renegade Ops — Official Gameplay Trailer (XBLA / PSN)
This new trailer shows off much more combat than the teaser, demonstrating the beautiful locales, as well as some missions flying a helicopter, which will just make you want a new Strike game even more.
Shin’en’s FAST: Racing League Speeds to WiiWare (WiiWare)
German studio Shin’en wowed WiiWare audiences last year with Jett Rocket, but the studio has one-upped itself with its latest title: FAST: Racing League.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
It started life as an April Fool’s prank on ThinkGeek.com, but overwhelming consumer interest prodded the company to bring the iCade to life (much like the Tauntaun sleeping bag, another ThinkGeek mockup that became a real product). For the uninitiated, the iCade is a pint-size arcade cabinet/stand for Apple’s iPad. Slide an
iPad in, and it acts as a wireless Bluetooth controller for the Atari iPad app, which offers 100 classic arcade and home console games for $15 (or individual game packs for 99 cents).
iCade arcade cabinet for iPad (photos)
Our iCade just arrived this morning, so we quickly assembled it and ran it through a few hands-on tests. It’s made of particleboard with retro graphics, including a little wood grain, and it comes with a page of Ikea-like wordless instructions, along with a handful of screws and accessories. Construction was simple, but the front and side panels took a little elbow grease to get the hex screw holes to line up. The final product felt solid and sturdy when fully assembled. The $99 iCade is being manufactured by ION Audio, a company best known for its plastic USB turntables and high-end Rock Band video game drum kits.
To slide an iPad in, the top panel tilts open, and the
tablet simply sits in a docking cradle. There’s no connector cable or locking mechanism, so shifting the iCade even a little bit can move the iPad–we’d definitely not suggest walking around with the iPad inserted. The interior compartment is much bigger than the iPad, meaning you’ve got a lot of empty space on each side of the screen; we’d have preferred a tighter fit.
The instructions are hidden under the top panel.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
Connecting the iCade (powered by two AA batteries) was a breeze; select the iCade from the Bluetooth devices menu on the iPad and enter a series of joystick and button-presses to make the connection. From there, you still have to manually launch the Atari app and navigate to your favorite games, but once there, the controls worked well in games such as Missile Command and Crystal Castles. Because the eight physical buttons are unlabeled, a cheat sheet is included showing the button mapping for some of the more popular Atari arcade games.
For now, the 100-game Atari app is the only available software for the iCade, but ThinkGeek says that an API is in the works that will allow any iOS game developer to make iCade-compatible games.
But his friends know him as DerHo, one of the world’s best players of Big Buck Hunter, an arcade hunting game that enjoys a rabid following among trendy urbanites who most likely have never held a gun.
The game is essentially an advanced version of Duck Hunter: players compete solo or head-to-head using two plastic rifles to see who can kill the most wildebeest or 14-point bucks. Most of the country’s 18,000-plus coin-operated machines are connected to an online network on which fans can compare scores. And yet the game maintains an analog social appeal; it’s played primarily in bars by rowdy groups of people in their 20s and early 30s.
Big Buck Hunter boasts a following in places like Texas and Minnesota, where hunters are known to play in full camouflage. But the game, which was developed in 2001 by Play Mechanix of Glen Ellyn, Ill., has also spawned a dedicated subculture in New York. And judging from Mr. DerHohannesian’s success, hunting experience is not required.
“I’ve never really hunted before,” he said the other day at the Black Bear Lodge, a hunting-themed bar in Gramercy Park. “I shot a squirrel once for Pioneer Day in middle school. We cooked it and ate it, and it was god awful.”
The bar was hosting a round robin sponsored by the game’s manufacturer, and patrons were invited to challenge Mr. DerHohannesian and other nationally ranked players on the bar’s two machines, which feature both Big Buck Hunter Pro Open Season (North American terrain) and the newer Big Buck Safari (African terrain). The grand prize was a $100 bar tab.
“People are gunning for me now,” Mr. DerHohannesian said with a grin, cracking the first of what would be many cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon that evening. “I’ve got to stay sharp.”
In the world of Big Buck Hunter, staying sharp doesn’t always mean staying sober. Last year at the world championship, held at the Cubby Bear sports bar in Chicago, Mr. DerHohannesian drank eight bottles of Miller High Life and won the head-to-head Big Buck Safari tournament. He left with a $10,000 check.
As Andy Lin, 33, a New Yorker who is nationally ranked and nicknamed the Big Buck Ninja for his eerily quiet shooting style, said: “Not being able to see straight sometimes helps you see straighter.”
Still, drinking remains less a performance enhancer than a byproduct of the game’s inherently social character.
Mr. DerHohannesian began playing in 2006 as a way to let off steam with friends after work. He took the game more seriously after Play Mechanix introduced regional and national tournaments in 2008, with top players competing several times a year.
He now practices a few times a week at pubs like the Black Bear and the Horseshoe Bar in the East Village. He is often accompanied by members of the Back Alley Critter Waxers, his eight-man “hunting party,” whose stats and trash talk are recorded on one of the game’s official online message boards.
Solitary play seems contrary to the spirit of game. Recently, Richard Flynn, 30, a researcher at the Sleep Disorders Center at New York University and a nationally ranked player, formed a one-man hunting party called the Cruelest Animal. “It’s based on the Nietzsche quote,” he said.
Mr. DerHohannesian disapproves of solo hunters and has been trying to recruit Mr. Flynn for his own hunting posse. “We’re trying to bring him over to the dark side,” he said with a laugh.
As for why he’s so good at the game, Mr. DerHohannesian attributed it to “a strict regimen of beef jerky and certain types of alcohol.” In truth, his hand-eye coordination, honed from years of playing hockey and guitar, is extraordinary.
During his rounds, Mr. DerHohannesian tended to shoot the game’s virtual mammals in the head or the heart as they galloped across the screen. In one inspired trek, he mowed down kudu, ibex and gemsbok for a perfect score.
Still, the competition was stiff. Around a dozen challengers had showed up, ranging from a young female vegan with a mohawk to a process server in Manhattan who shoots trap and skeet every weekend on Long Island. The latter, Andrew Chao, rose immediately to the top of the leader board, eliciting some playful disparagement from the champ.
“He’s what we call a screen stabber,” Mr. DerHohannesian said. “He stands too close to the screen.”
Mr. Lin said a competitive streak runs through most die-hard Buck Hunters. “If we lived in another age where people fought with swords or dueled with guns, we’d probably be doing that instead,” he said. “Thank God we use an electronic video game.”
Mr. DerHohannesian lost focus as the night, and the drinking, continued. He shot too many doe, ending his turns, and pretended to shoot himself in the head in frustration. Mr. Lin edged ahead to finish second. Mr. Chao won the $100 bar tab.
“It’s not $10,000,” Mr. DerHohannesian said. “But I regret not winning that tab. It won’t happen again.”
The full lineup for the Austin City Limits Music Festival was released just after midnight, so now all the folks hoping the rumors that Stevie Wonder and/or Kanye West will be playing can rejoice. In the festival booking biz, those are known as “good gets,” acts that promise not only entertaining sets but also expand the parameters of the lineup from previous years. That’s why Stevie and Kanye are better gets than Arcade Fire and Coldplay, who’ve already left their sonic footprints on the Great Lawn of Zilker Park.
Our staff ranks Charles Attal and company’s bookings, not just on talent, but also on the acts’ GQ — “get” quotient. Contributing are Michael Corcoran, Joe Gross and Peter Mongillo.
1. Stevie Wonder. Having written so many classics that are still played on the radio, the 61-year-old Motown Mozart doesn’t need to tour, so he doesn’t anymore. Which makes every time he plays live an event in itself. Universally adored, Wonder has the catalog to fill the love fields with instantly recognizable music, which is a big plus when you’re seven football fields away. And he can still electrify a crowd, according to KGSR’s Andy Langer, who deemed Wonder’s set at Bonnaroo last year the best he’s ever seen at a festival. Arcade and Kanye are the hottest acts at ACL, but Stevie’s the main Event.
— M.C.
2. Kanye West. West is the first hip-hop headliner in the 10 years of ACL. That’s major, as ACL, which started as an Americana-heavy answer to New Orleans’ Jazz Fest, continues to evolve into a festival that embraces all forms of popular music (except mainstream country — no room for Jason Aldean at this inn). As he proved so stunningly at Coachella, West is an artist in control of his own destiny. And with a 10 p.m. park curfew, he can’t pull that Sly Stone stuff like he did at Bonnaroo a couple of years back.
— M.C.
3. Randy Newman. The canniest songwriter of them all remains the meanest when he wants to be, the corniest when he needs to be and the funniest and most cynical almost all the time. Newman’s songbook is a mind-blower, and his fans, a hard-core bunch if ever there was one, can mull the complicated emotional math of his finest work forever (check out “12 Songs,” “Sail Away,” “Good Old Boys” and “Bad Love” for starters). Lately, he’s been in a reflective mood, releasing “The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2,” his second volume of stripped-down piano and voice versions of some of his classics. Expect bile and charm in equal measure, and expect to not be able to tell one from the other.
— J.G.
4. Coldplay. Does this lineup even need Chris Martin and his pawnshop piano? Back in 2005, when Coldplay was the band of the moment, they set a standard for ACL headliners that even Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers couldn’t meet the next year. But since then they’ve been slagged as pop sellouts and paid for an addition to Joe Satriani’s house. With ACL four months away, a lot could happen, however. The band’s long-awaited fifth album, produced by Brian Eno, could come out and make the Cold ones red-hot again. But what’s special about this booking — the first time a true Sunday night headliner (Ben Harper was a last resort in 2004) has returned — is that Coldplay is showing that they love ACL enough to come back with three other acts as top dogs. Nothing better than a band with something to prove.
— M.C.
5. Pretty Lights. This booking is significant because this inventive electronic duo from Colorado has played every major pop music festival in the country, but not ACL until now. The three Charlies came late to the rave, but thanks to crazily received sets from Ghostland Observatory, Bassnectar and Deadmau5 in recent years, electronic dance music looks to be the fest’s biggest growth genre. Ah, the Zilker neighbors are gonna love that.
— M.C.
6. Death From Above 1979.The chances of this Canadian industro act inspiring another riot, as they did at SXSW in March, are nil, considering that at ACL, everyone with a wristband gets in.
— M.C.
7. Arcade Fire. So now ACL is getting Backyard castoffs? Kidding, kidding. When some lucky fan put a quarter to a lottery lineup card and scratched off “Arcade Fire” three times last week, it made sense that the band as hot as a room full of Pacmans ablaze would play the 7,500-capacity Backyard earlier this month when they’re playing 20,000-seaters in the rest of the country. All the folks who couldn’t get through for tickets then — and some who are still looking for parking — can buy single-day tickets and see the band that everyone seems to love at the same time. The reason they’re not a bigger get: This will be their third time at ACL, plus how are they going to top Coachella?