New Games |
- New Destructoid Episode: Now with 100% less Max Scoville
- Would you like the Source SDK for free too? Okay!
- Games for Windows Marketplace merging with Xbox.com
- Happy day: 12 minutes of Batman: Arkham City gameplay
- Live Show: Backlog wakes the Pikmin up early
- Bodycount dev: There's room for FPSs beyond Call of Duty
- This weekend on JTV: July 2-3rd
- Review: James Pond in the Deathly Shallows
- Final Fantasy Tactics iPhone pushed to the end of July
- Okay, now Fieldrunners HD will be free on Amazon Appstore
- Interview: Talking pagans and Starhawk with Dylan Jobe
- PS Vita facial technology demo impresses
- Meet the world's oldest Battlefield player
- Interview: Speaking to Tomonobu Itagaki for Devil's Third
- The Question: Should Last Story, Xenoblade come to NA?
- Friday Night Fights: Steam sale edition
- Review: Lucha Fury
| New Destructoid Episode: Now with 100% less Max Scoville Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:03 PM PDT
Well, for today at least. Anthony Carboni joined me in the studio today to talk about the latest and greatest in video game news and discuss our mutual dislike of that unreasonably tall man who sometimes co-hosts the show with me. Just kidding, we miss you Max! Come back soon! Anyway, it's July 4th weekend, so obviously some sales are in order. Both Steam and EA have a ton of their games on discount right now, in addition to all of [adult swim]'s iOS games. In other news, the first two minutes of Bioshock Infinite's E3 demo are now viewable online, Sega is making another 'Sonic Storybook' game (much to Anthony's chagrin), and we finally know what Bungie Aerospace is all about now. Last but not least, it saddens me to report that Operation Rainfall was a failure. That's about all for this week. We'll be back on Wednesday of next week with a whole new slurry of vidja game news. In the meantime, have a safe and happy holiday! | |
| Would you like the Source SDK for free too? Okay! Posted: 01 Jul 2011 03:00 PM PDT As a side effect of Team Fortress 2 becoming permanently free, Valve will make its Source SDK free as well. I wonder if people who paid to get access to mods in the past will come out of hiding and demand a refund. Wouldn't surprise me, sadly. Says Robin Walker of Valve: "We are in the process of getting it all done. It's a bit messy because we have multiple versions of the SDK, and there's some dependencies we need to shake out. But yes, the gist of it is that we're just going to go ahead and make the Source SDK freely available." These guys sure do treat us well. Not Only, But Also: Source SDK To Be Free [Rock, Paper, Shotgun] | |
| Games for Windows Marketplace merging with Xbox.com Posted: 01 Jul 2011 12:30 PM PDT The Games for Windows Marketplace will be brought over to Xbox.com, according to an update on the website. "Now you can get all of your gaming needs in one place. It's convenient, it's concentrated, and it's a whole lot of great games." And it's going to get much more attention from the larger Xbox community, I'm sure. Honestly, I can't think of the last time I visited the GFWM site outside of the odd sale. This also makes a considerable amount of sense, given the push to integrate Xbox Live with Windows 8. Microsoft to merge GFW and Xbox.com [Eurogamer] | |
| Happy day: 12 minutes of Batman: Arkham City gameplay Posted: 01 Jul 2011 11:30 AM PDT I can think of a few ways to blow 12 minutes, but if you're reading this, here's the best way right now: 15 minutes of gameplay footage from Batman: Arkham City. Enjoy. Batman: Arkham City is out October 18 which is so, so long from right now. | |
| Live Show: Backlog wakes the Pikmin up early Posted: 01 Jul 2011 11:00 AM PDT I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who famously said, "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and able to command hordes of onion-men." I might be paraphrasing there, but you get the idea. Backlog is coming at you a little early this afternoon so that we might spread the joy of Pikmin 2 even further. Come join me and all the goons in our live chat. Last night, my fiancee was giving relationship advice at one point, so it's really hard to predict what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis. Better for you to just find out for yourself. It's all going down right now on Destructoid's Justin.tv channel! | |
| Bodycount dev: There's room for FPSs beyond Call of Duty Posted: 01 Jul 2011 10:40 AM PDT An interesting tidbit came out of a Bodycount interview with Codemasters game director Andy Wilson. "We looked at Bulletstorm and I think it's fair to say that it was a sort of 'acid test' for us," he tells CVG. "Because they were coming out first we were very interested in how they did and it's a very good sign." "It shows that there's room around those huge titles like Battlefield and Medal of Honor. It's nice to see that you can still have multi-million-selling FPS games that are not that. Brink's the next one. Brink's even more extreme than Bulletstorm. I know it's having some critical problems at the moment but if it does well commercially then that's another one ..." It's funny to see this discussion about the market being saturated by military shooters when we've got these three titles, all of which tried to have a standout identity, taking slightly different approaches. At least August is still a ways off. 'Bulletstorm proves there's a market outside Call of Duty' - Codies [CVG] | |
| This weekend on JTV: July 2-3rd Posted: 01 Jul 2011 10:20 AM PDT Destructoid's Justin.tv channel is committed to bringing lots of great gaming-related entertainment even during the weekends. From playing games on the stream, to discussing them in a talk show format, we bring a wide range of entertainment with that unique Dtoid flavor. Happy Independence Day weekend! Unless you are not American, odds are you will be spending the weekend getting ready for a wonderful Fourth of July. In between going to the store to buy the burgers and fireworks, make sure to tune into some of our programming as laid out below! Saturday Morning Hangover with Conrad Zimmerman and Jordan Devore airs from 10:00am to 12:00pm Pacific. They will be putting a spotlight on -- and giving away copies of -- Galaga Legions DX! They'll also be playing Half-Minute Hero and, as always, checking out the week's best and worst Xbox Live Indie Games releases.
321gocast is Destructoid's only live show/podcast hybrid airing on Sunday, from 2:00-4:00pm Pacific starring Johnnyviral, Jesse Cortez, Analoge, and Ryu89. Every week, they bring the live audience as well as podcast listeners into their conversations about videogames, Doctor Who, Jersey shore and exactly what makes Johnny so angry. The special guest on this week is Philanth0phy!
Destructoid's live community talk show, Also, Talks, starring Bill Zoeker and Johnnyluchador is committed to bringing interesting conversations about videogames, Destructoid, and other stuff. This week, the guys will be joined by the super adorable and past co-host of RetroforceGO, Stella Wong! Catch these shows and more on Justin.tv/destructoid! | |
| Review: James Pond in the Deathly Shallows Posted: 01 Jul 2011 10:00 AM PDT James Pond 2: Codename Robocod is one of the first games I ever remember playing. By most standards, James Pond was never a great series, but its charmingly unfunny humor and silly gameplay made it quite popular in Britain. When I heard James Pond was coming back, I got quite excited, and I was really looking forward to checking out his mobile resurrection. Then I played it. Now I feel sad. James Pond in the Deathly Shallows (iOS) James Pond in the Deathly Shallows bears only visual ties to the James Pond games of old. While the original nineties titles were puzzle-platformers, this iOS iteration has more in common with Ecco the Dolphin, rightly recognized as one of the worst games the Genesis ever boasted. Instead of platforming, the titular James Pond swims from left to right, and the player has to tap the screen to keep him afloat. The more one taps, the higher he climbs. He can also fly above water and swim backwards, but that requires an air supply which can be refilled by collecting scuba tanks or swimming through air bubbles. Unfortunately, the game controls horribly, and James takes damage if he so much as glances a rock or piece of land. Deathly Shallows thinks it's fun to navigate tight corridors with a character whose movements are difficult to predict due to the unwieldy tapping mechanic. He also takes damage if he touches the ground while on land, and if he runs out oxygen, he'll stick to that land, grimacing uselessly while his health runs out. This happens all the time, and it's the opposite of fun. Pond automatically shoots at enemies, although his response times are random. Sometimes it'll take several seconds for him to start shooting, other times he'll do it instantly. Working out whether or not you'll hit an enemy or take damage is a matter of simple guesswork, and it's easier to just forget about enemies and hope for the best. Deathly Shallows looks like a poor Flash game, but even if this was free on a browser, I'd feel robbed in some way. The visuals are cheerful but poorly animated, the music is repetitive and annoying, and above all, it's incredibly short. Length is only padded out by how many cheap, pointless, random deaths you risk suffering. I'd be surprised if the entire game takes more than ten minutes to beat by lucky players who get through it unscathed. Yes, it is only one dollar, but when so many other games provide immeasurably superior iOS experiences for a buck, I can't help but feel cheated by the measly price. In an ideal world, HPN would pay people to download it. It is clear that those behind the game know what a useless waste of time it is, and awkwardly glued the James Pond name to it on order to con fans. It's fairly despicable, and I can't warn fellow lovers of the series to stay as far away from this piece of trash as possible. Sorry to dampen spirits, but this red herring is stuffed to the gills with soggy gameplay and should be condemned to sleep with the fishes. | |
| Final Fantasy Tactics iPhone pushed to the end of July Posted: 01 Jul 2011 09:40 AM PDT Square Enix has given a status update for the iPhone version of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions on Facebook. It's been delayed ever so slightly -- to late July -- with the iPad version planned for release one month later. If nothing else, you need to follow that link to see assistant producer Shiina apologizing. It's adorable. He's also included a brief Q&A in the post: game slowdown was addressed, autosave functionality is in, and the Retina display is supported. Bummer, but these things happen. Final Fantasy Tactics iOS Delayed [GamePro] | |
| Okay, now Fieldrunners HD will be free on Amazon Appstore Posted: 01 Jul 2011 09:20 AM PDT Android owners in the United States, great news: Fieldrunners HD will be free the first day it launches on the Amazon Appstore. Wait, what? Wasn't it supposed to be available yesterday for 99 cents on the Android market? But hoping to stick to its word of "free for the first day," the developer negotiated with Amazon a two week period of exclusivity. Although the date of release has yet to be determined, that first day it's available it will be absolutely free. But it seems Subatomic, for all of its good intentions, can't really win. Amazon's Appstore is only available in the United States, leaving folks outside of the country out of the deal. Furthermore, they'll have to wait two weeks for the game to appear (as a paid app) on the Android Marketplace. Yikes. What a mess. It's clear that Subatomic isn't trying to be malicious in this situation. It seems it was backed into a corner trying to make right on a promise it made to its fans, and found what it felt was the perfect partner with Amazon. While that solution doesn't work for everyone and many fans are becoming angry on the company's official site, Subatomic is still trying to make right. | |
| Interview: Talking pagans and Starhawk with Dylan Jobe Posted: 01 Jul 2011 09:00 AM PDT After its unveil in May and strong showing at E3, Starhawk is once again hiding within the walls of LightBox’s Austin office. Thankfully, LightBox’s office is only a block away from Austin’s lively bar scene on Sixth Street, making for the perfect spot to coax new details out of LightBox president Dylan Jobe -- an unusually cheerful, generous guy who genuinely cares about the game he is working on. For those of you who missed our previous coverage of Starhawk, I’ll summarize Dale North’s excellent and lengthy preview. It’s the follow-up to PS3 multiplayer-only shooter Warhawk with a new focus on a single-player campaign and base building. The game’s combination of real-time strategy elements with team-based third-person shooting promises a refreshing change of pace from other shooters on the market. Personally, I can't wait for it. I miss the days of team-based games where anything seemed possible, and Starhawk's "Build and Battle" system opens the doors to advance strategy and silly shenanigans. Over a couple beers, we discuss Trenched, the PSN outage, Ladyhawke, Pagan theorists and Austin, Texas. How was E3? E3 was really great. It was interesting because when E3 went live it was just shy of one month of when we first announced in May. At Sony’s E3 press conference, I was surprised the spotlight wasn’t put on Twisted Metal and Starhawk. Did you have any input on that? No. I’ve been working with Sony for 12 years and as an employee for ten. If you remember me flailing around on stage with the Sixaxis Controller [in 2006], I got to see what happens behind stage. It’s a lot of business strategy and all of that stuff, so you just kind of hang on and wait for the opportunity. They didn’t ask us to do any on-stage stuff. In fact, we finished the gameplay trailer they showed only three days before the conference. It’s just whatever the Sony executives want and we give it to them. Did you have a chance to check out any games, at E3? We went to see Trenched, Double Fine’s mech/tower defense game. Obviously, there are some similarities between it and Starhawk. I’m a big fan of their stuff and I was very happy I got to meet those guys. Being able to say hi to Tim Schafer was awesome, because I have so much respect for him. So we got to play it and their designers were familiar with Starhawk, so we had a really great discussion between our creative director and their creative director. But, most of the time I just sat at our developer booth and was dragged to press interviews. Kind of a bummer. Why did you wait until May to announce the game, since rumors have been around since 2009? I think a lot of games show too early, so they’ll contract a CG house and get the players amped up with some gorgeous video that is indicative of the tone but not indicative of the game. I had actually promised our fans that the first time we unveil it, it will be with real footage -- that was a year and a half ago. Working with the Santa Monica team [Starhawk's publisher], we wanted to unveil it when we felt it was good. We actually thought we wanted to show it at last year’s E3, but we weren’t happy with it at LightBox. As a testament to the critical eye of the Santa Monica guys, they were like, "You know what? Let’s wait." We didn't have to show, so we waited. I’m glad we did because at our unveil and at E3, we got a lot of comments from people saying, “Just release this as a demo, right now.” We had the game running 72 hours at E3, and I think there were only three crashes -- and it’s way pre-alpha. You recently set up a Facebook page for feedback and suggestions. Have any fan comments been worked into Starhawk? Some, yeah. There have been -- I can’t really talk about it -- but there are a couple things that really influenced us. A lot of it's about clarification on some stuff. The other day I got a tweet from someone saying there should be a Horde 2.0-type mode where you can build stuff and play cooperatively, and we totally have that mode. You and three buddies play Rifters and defend a Rift plane, and the server just sends wave after wave of enemy troops, tanks, jeeps and aircraft. In that mode, you all share an economy so you build up your plane and defend it, kind of like a strategy game. Warhawk was such a well-balanced game. With the new “Build and Battle” system in Starhawk, how are you able to preserve the balance between vehicles, aircraft and troops? After a playtest we pull everyone together and we bitch about the game. We make a few tweaks and we play the game again the next day. We do that every single day. We’ll do our best to make sure everything is well-balanced before release, but as we saw with Warhawk, we’ll make a mistake -- “oh shit that’s bad” -- now that we have 30,000 people playing at the same time, we’ll see how bad it is. We never would have seen that during QA. This guy on the forums that is complaining is totally right, but I know in order for me to fix it, it’s a minimum of $32,000 dollars worth of cost to submit a patch and all that stuff. What we really want to do is do what Naughty Dog brilliantly did with Uncharted 2, where they have a patch system and a hotfix system that could by-pass Sony and react quickly. So we follow their lead. Next time when someone complains about something in the game, I don’t have to say, “Yes, it will be fixed in three months.” Now, I can say, “Yes, it will be fixed tomorrow. All you have to do is reboot your machine.”  At E3, I talked to Naughty Dog about how it created a offline LAN-mode as a work around during the weeks without PSN. Now it’s a feature in Uncharted 3. Did you guys have a similar experience? No, but a lot of our hardcore fans love LAN mode. From a business perspective, not many people are playing LAN mode but those people who play LAN mode love your game. Do you want to shit on your most hardcore fans or do you include LAN mode? We decided to keep LAN mode. When you boot Starhawk and there isn’t a network connection, it just says “Do you want to play LAN mode?” So, you play LAN mode. So it didn’t really effect us. Warhawk was at the forefront of PSN, when Sony didn’t really have things figured out. Now that the service has matured, are there elements that you can now include in Starhawk? PSN and Crossbar updates have given us new stuff, but really the new things we are doing in Starhawk are pushing the boundaries of the service. We are still having discussions with Sony -- one of the things we want to do is have the game always online, whether in single-player or multiplayer. In Call of Duty, you choose multiplayer or single-player and it starts up a different game. If you go multiplayer, you have to exit all the way back out. That always seemed weird to me, so what we ended up doing is taking all the functionality associated with friends list and wrapped it up in number of apps in our Uplink, which is our pause menu. You bring up a menu in the middle of a single-player game and you can see what your friends are doing and even browse the server list. It pauses the mission, of course. You can press a button and go right into a multiplayer game. That sort of “always online” thing is something we are still hammering out with Sony, but we are really excited about it. I read you guys cut single-player out of Warhawk, because you felt it wasn’t up to snuff. How did that inform the way you approached a solo campaign in Starhawk? It informed us a lot. In Warhawk we simply weren’t happy with our single-player game. Truth be told, we really didn’t have the experience we needed to do a single-player game for Warhawk. If you look at the sort of games we did at Incognito -- Twisted Metal and War of the Monsters -- the single-player was largely multi-player with bots. Maybe you’d see a movie after a boss battle. We wanted to do something different for Warhawk but we were failing at it and it just didn’t come together. It was kind of a gamble to cut it all, admit it and release it as a download. For Starhawk, we built a big design team. We have a legitimate scripting language, tool pack for building machines, a separate A.I. team and we get the incredible benefit of having the God of War team critique our shit. They know how to make a triple-A, cinematic experience. Sure, Starhawk is a different game but they can help us gauge where we are going. Why did you move to Austin? We always had staffing troubles in Utah. It’s always been my belief that when the content matches the culture it works really well. We are a rambunctious group. We like our beer, we like our music. We wanted to build a community that we couldn’t build in Utah. So we looked all over the place and Sony offered us office space in San Francisco and San Diego. But, Austin ended up winning out just because it has a great vibe. I remember the first time I came down here and scouted it, it was at night and I just walked around. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I just went into different bars -- I could hear the music and I could hear the people. It was awesome. I was like, “This is going to happen.”  It’s five years from now. Starhawk has already come out. You’ve had your expansion packs and your game of the year edition. Sony want another game in the “Hawk” series but Sony only wants you to make a game associated with one of three licences. It has to be Tony Hawk, Ladyhawke or Hudson Hawk. Which of those three do you go with and why? That’s a damn good question. It’s tricky. I think if you could comeback with a really good Tony Hawk game and do it right, that’d be a good product for a publisher. I like Ladyhawke. I think they can re-film Ladyhawke and it’d do good at the box office. I think the bigger question is: Who will be the hero of the Ladyhawke game? Would it be Andre the Giant, young Fred Savage in the bed or would it be Columbo. I don’t remember his name. He’s the dad telling the story. Wait, you just described Princess Bride. That's not part of the deal! Oh my god, you’re right. That’s Princess Bride! I just totally botched that. I’d probably do Ladyhawke because I like the idea of doing a Zelda-style game where you have missions during a certain time of day and a certain set you have to execute at night. And there are some missions you need to transform into the hawk and finish the rest of the mission, then wait for the sun to come up to transform back. The first thing that came up when I googled Starhawk is pagan theorist Miriam Simos. Will she be an exclusive downloadable character? No, we probably won't do a pagan crossover. You unlocked PAGAN RITUALIST! Maybe, robots and paganism would be cool. Maybe. You ever played Starhawk, the 1977 arcade game? Yes. Early on when we talked to Sony about it, we all wanted to call it Starhawk. Sony lawyers took care of the rest, although I’m not sure who owns the rights in Japan. Was Call of Starhawk ever in debate? Nooooo! Call of Starhawk: The Re-Staring and...Its Adventures? No, just straight Starhawk. | |
| PS Vita facial technology demo impresses Posted: 01 Jul 2011 08:40 AM PDT Sony showed off some new facial recognition technology for the PS Vita during a middleware and game tools event in Tokyo yesterday. The demonstration was intended for developers, but I think gamers will also get something out of it. In the video demo above you'll see how the PS Vita system recognizes the player's face and then immediately translates his movements to an avatar in real time. The mouth opening and closing is hilarious, but it's also impressive at how responsive the tech is. More impressive is how the avatars will even blink and raise eyebrows to match the user. The half-open eyes of the girl avatar creep me out a bit, though. Andriasang says that Sony is hoping this "FaceControl" tech will also be used to control games and change viewpoints. | |
| Meet the world's oldest Battlefield player Posted: 01 Jul 2011 08:20 AM PDT Say hello to Jaap, a 66-year-old former DJ who loves gardening, maintaining his boat, and owning fools in Battlefield. Under the name Wacko Jacko, he declares himself to be the world's oldest Battlefield player, and he takes his work very seriously. This an excellent little video, so check it out if you haven't seen it yet. I want this man to be my friend. | |
| Interview: Speaking to Tomonobu Itagaki for Devil's Third Posted: 01 Jul 2011 08:00 AM PDT While certain people in the games industry make me jump up and down with excitement, there are others who make my personality do a complete U-turn and Tomonobu Itagaki is one of them. Instead of swearing and squealing I become almost silence and humbled; even to the point where Itagaki had to reassure me mid-interview! Despite this we take some time to talk about the setting up of his new studio -- Valhalla Game Studios -- following his rather messy departure from Team Ninja, and we chat about the studios very first game: Devil's Third. | |
| The Question: Should Last Story, Xenoblade come to NA? Posted: 01 Jul 2011 07:40 AM PDT [Every Friday, Destructoid will pose topical a question to the community. Answer it if you want!] Perhaps the most controversial story this week was the announcement by Nintendo of America that it was not planning to bring Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower to its territories, despite an extensive campaign by gamers under the banner of Operation Rainfall. Nintendo has not given an official reason, although it has always hidden behind localization costs and financial viability in the past. Do you agree that it makes no business sense to bring these titles to the Americas, or do you think there is profit, or at least useful PR, to be had from giving certain gamers what they want? That is the question this week -- should Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower come to North America, or do you think Nintendo of America is right to leave these games where they are? Are gamers being whiny or righteous when they demand these titles, and is Nintendo justified or not? | |
| Friday Night Fights: Steam sale edition Posted: 01 Jul 2011 07:20 AM PDT Normally, mentions of summer camp bring images of bonfires, cute camp counselors, and possibly flutes. But thanks to the Steam Summer Camp Sale, people can think of things like crowbars, bejewels, and much more! I've always been envious of my PC-owning brethren, so I finally succumbed to installing Steam for Mac. It might not have all the offerings that PC does, but I'm already having a good time checking out the games. Curse you, Steam! This Friday, as always, the Destructoid community comes together to play their favorite games on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in a longstanding tradition we call Friday Night Fights. So check out the list of community hosts and games below and feel free to join in the fun! New to FNF? Read this: Each week, a bunch of Destructoid readers and usually an editor or two get together to play some videogames online. Basically, this is what Friday Night Fights are all about. The planning for FNF takes place in the forums, where community members volunteer to host by posting their information (gamertag, time to meet up, game, etc.) in the forum post corresponding to the system they're interested in playing on. Then, every Friday, reminder posts for those who don't read the forums regularly go up in the community blogs section all thanks to a dedicated group of cool individuals. And for everyone who wants their info all in one place, they have got my weekly recap posts to look forward to between 3:30 - 5:30 PM EST. Now that you're here, just scan the list below and find a game you want to play. All that's left to do after that is to join the match by contacting the host below using any means necessary. For Wii, you might have to be a little creative, but for 360/PS3 a simple "invite me" message will be fine. The names on the left are our Destructoid handles, while the ones on the right are our online handles (PSN IDs, for example). Don't see a game you want to play? Feel free to post a comment offering to take up hosting duties yourself. Tonight's Hosts:
Tonight's Hosts:
Tonight's Hosts:
Tonight's Hosts: (more info found here)
Tonight's Hosts:
More information on this community server can be found on Knivy's cblog here! If you want to find people to play with, check out the Steam chat below: | |
| Posted: 01 Jul 2011 07:00 AM PDT It's incredibly difficult to make a bad beat 'em up. The concept of moving from left to right while mashing buttons to clear out groups of attackers is an incredibly simple one. You've got a game in the bag if you can nail those very easy basics and dress it up with a little sense of original character. With that in mind, it's hard not to be impressed with just how badly Lucha Fury screws everything up. Lucha Fury (PlayStation, Xbox Live Arcade [Reviewed]) Lucha Fury certainly has style, and nobody can take that away from it. The bright, cel-shaded visuals are quite charming and the Mexican luchadore gimmick sported by both player characters and enemies gives the game an appealing visual flare. Unfortunately, cute visuals are the only thing this game has going for it. For a start, Lucha Fury is incredibly slow paced. Characters walk at a snail's pace, and their running speed isn't particularly impressive. Attacks are also pathetically sluggish and this leads to combat feeling dull throughout the entire experience. It doesn't help that the game's hit detection seems off, and it's often difficult to line up your moves -- especially against irritating projectile enemies that run away. In addition to the slow movement and combat, the controls are despicably unresponsive. There seems to be an arbitrary delay time between attacks where your character won't make another move. Sometimes they just won't respond at all. Many of the blows I suffered from opponents came not so much from their actions, but my character's inaction. There is not a single enemy that is fun to fight, either. While Streets of Rage made pummeling bad guys satisfyingly meaty and Castle Crashers had fast-moving melee against foes that could be blocked and dodged, Lucha Fury pits you against a small stable of repetitive enemy types who are often better at fighting -- be they sporting projectiles, irritating slap attacks that break your limited combos, or unblockable attacks that will totally ignore your attempts to stop them. Lucha Fury lacks the ability to block or dodge, too, which means that most battles come down to either simple attrition or finding the one move that works (usually the jump attack) and spamming it until your target's eliminated. As the game progresses, you get to unlock and equip extra skills. Some of these are new attacks, such as submissions or slide kicks, but the majority of them won't really change the gameplay very much and some of the attacks just outright aren't worth equipping. Health is obtained by kicking chickens and drinking the "Polojo" that they leave behind. If all health is lost, the player becomes "cursed" and will need to find Polojo within ten seconds or lose. This wouldn't be quite so bad if the curse didn't also mean that the player keeps freezing and needs to waggle the right stick in order to move again. Now, I'm not sure who on the development team had the brain tumor that made them think this was fun, but Lucha Fury is obsessed with making players waggle the right stick. If you get knocked down, you have to waggle. If you get stunned, you have to waggle. If you're cursed, you have to waggle. If an enemy tries to force you into a submission move, you have to waggle. If you try to force an enemy into a submission move, you have to waggle. If a robot tries to attack your face, you have to waggle. Waggle waggle waggle waggle waggle waggle. Lucha Fury owes me a new controller for the stress it's put my current one through. I didn't beat Lucha Fury. I reached a point where I fought two enemies who could only be attacked by grabbing them first. No big deal except, as I say, there happens to be two of them, and grabbing leaves the player wide open to cheap shots. After they whittled down my health by trading places over and over, my character became cursed and discovered that, once cursed, characters cannot grab enemies. So I literally just had to stand there and die. This was at the end of a lengthy and annoying stage, and I decided that it was not worth it. You couldn't pay me to finish Lucha Fury -- in fact, I am paid to do such things, and I still refuse to do it. I've only got one life, and I won't spend another second of it playing this garbage. To wrap up the delightful package, you'll be thrilled to learn that the game supports local co-op only. There is no online feature, which just highlights what a horrible bargain basement package this miserable little game truly is. Lucha Fury is visually gorgeous with an aesthetic that oozes charm, but this skin-deep beauty acts as a Siren's call, luring unwary gamers to crash against putrid game design of a most shallow and wearisome nature. The game's low quality is apparent within seconds of starting the game, and it remains at the same consistent level of sub-par rubbish from the moment you start to the moment you inevitably decide to stop playing ahead of completion. You don't get many brawlers these days, but even the biggest fan of the genre should consider it a personal debasement to buy this one. |
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