New Games |
- BattleBlock Theater is all about being cool
- Nintendo DLC: 1950s Lawn Mower Kids and ... wait, what?
- Ridge Racer Unbounded launches on March 6
- Saints Row: The Third brings pimps, gimps, Burt Reynolds
- Preview: Blacklight: Retribution
- Rainbow Six: Patriots announced for PS3, Xbox 360, PC
- HD remake of Dreamcast shmup Under Defeat planned
- MMO Stories: Ode to Cheddar Bacon
- Gearbox to honor late fan as an NPC in Borderlands 2
- PAX East Registration is open, go buy your ticket
- Heavy Rain Directors cut arriving November 8th
- Get your Skyrim launch avatars on XBLA now
- Square Enix's Winter of RPGs: Chrono Cross, FFV, FFVI
- Social features in Call of Duty Elite described
- Review: NCIS
- Grand Theft Auto V: Only For Kinect
- Pachter: Call of Duty: MW3 will hit $1.1b in six weeks
- It Came from Japan! Pepsiman
- New Alan Wake & BioWare title, MGS:Rising to debut at VGA
| BattleBlock Theater is all about being cool Posted: 03 Nov 2011 04:00 PM PDT
BattleBlock Theater, by The Behemoth, has humor, murder, cuteness and now ice. A new video has just been released with some gameplay footage that introduces prisoner #10330 and the ice levels. While I would have liked some more voiced story trailers, this one shows off the game, so I suppose I'm okay with it. The real question here is, can that guy narrate my life? | |
| Nintendo DLC: 1950s Lawn Mower Kids and ... wait, what? Posted: 03 Nov 2011 03:30 PM PDT Admittedly, I felt a little bad that we hadn't brought you guys the news regarding this week's downloadable games for Nintendo platforms. And then I actually saw what they were. I'm just going to back up and walk away slowly. This never happened. Nintendo eShop (3DS)
eShop / DSiWare
WiiWare
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| Ridge Racer Unbounded launches on March 6 Posted: 03 Nov 2011 03:00 PM PDT
Hey guys, it's Riiiiidge Racer! Namco Bandai has announced that Ridge Racer Unbounded will hit shelves on March 6, 2012. Yeah, I know the Wii U is also on its way for next year, but this one won't be a launch title. Crazy, I know! Ridge Racer Unbounded is instead coming out at what seems to be the end of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3's lifespan. But that's beside the point. I'm pumped for Unbounded because it sounds like the epitome of sandbox racing with the ability to create entire cities and be able wreak havoc in them with your friends later. There's also not much on the horizon for racing games in Spring 2012, so this just might be even more of a must-buy for me. Anyone else excited? | |
| Saints Row: The Third brings pimps, gimps, Burt Reynolds Posted: 03 Nov 2011 02:30 PM PDT
Here's a new trailer for Saints Row: The Third and I think you know what to expect by now. It's yet more utter stupidity and baudy nonsense, punctuated by ... wait ... wait is that Burt Reynolds? Yes it is! Oh for crying out loud, what doesn't this game have? Oh right ... decorum. | |
| Preview: Blacklight: Retribution Posted: 03 Nov 2011 02:00 PM PDT Blacklight: Tango Down was a lightweight, budget-priced first-person shooter that sought to offer a full-budget experience. It fell short of expectations, but the free-to-play sequel has started to make a showing recently. I got to put my hands on the game and see how the offering is shaping up so far. Blacklight: Retribution closed beta (PC) We've already told you about a limited encounter with the game before. This time, I was able to play over three maps, and four modes. There was one map that took place in a warehouse area, complete with interior and exterior areas. Another map was on a construction site in the middle of a city, and the last one was in a blockaded-off block or two of a city. The nice thing about each map is that, though they seemed small at first, there is a good deal of verticality to each map, with paths leading to higher and lower areas. In addition to this, both the warehouse and the city block maps had shortcuts that could be closed or opened by players. The modes are pretty standard as well. There's the deathmatch, along with its team counterpart, king of the hill, and domination, or point control. I think the domination mode stood out the most, emphasizing a couple of features of Retribution and requiring more strategy. On every map, there would be three points that you could capture. You can do this the normal way by just standing near the point 'til the meter fills up. You can also hack the point, starting up a quick minigame where you match numbers, and capture the point in a fraction of the time as long as you don't fail or get interrupted while occupied. Blacklight: Retribution feels fast -- like a good mix between an old-school twitch shooter, like Counter Strike, meshed with the pacing from newer shooters like Call of Duty. This is in part due to the return and use of the Hyper Reality Visor from the first game. Using it allows you to see all the players in your line of sight, at the cost of terrain detail. Because of this, there's not a lot of running around aimlessly looking for a fight. It's easy to run at someone, and there's a pressing sense of needing to keep moving before someone catches you. When you do catch up to someone, it begins to feel a lot more classic, aiming going fast, and movement light. Thankfully, the visor does not feel overpowered or game breaking, nor does it feel underutilized like it was in the first game. This is in part due to the new gameplay additions, one being the new armories scattered throughout levels. These always show up in your visor, and allow you to purchase health, ammo, or new heavy weaponry using points you earn from achievements in the match. This gives the game some of the feeling of something like Counter Strike by rewarding you for performance while still in the match. Of course, that's not to say they tossed away all the customization from the first game in favor of the Counter Strike model. The character customization is back, and better than ever. There is still the system where you can build a gun from a series of parts, and it functions almost identically to how it was in Tango Down. Stats for the weapons are a lot clearer to see this time and are measured in the typical ways, such as damage, spread, and rate of fire. In addition to the gun customization, there is also character customization, and true customization at that, starting with a choice that few other shooters offer, gender. After choosing if you want curves or not, you can choose between armor parts that not just affect your appearance, but also how much health you have, how fast you run, and even how long your visor lasts. There are other aesthetic customization options here too, such as the character's voice, taunt gesture, and armor camouflage. A skill system is in place which dictates what support items you can use, and to what proficiency. Here you could learn how to use things like emp grenades, or better knives. I couldn't see the full breadth of everything available at higher levels, but it appears to offer a good deal of specialization. You could go straight CQC, and ditch grenades in favor of knives plus a riot shield, or even a powerful breach hammer if you had enough points. What items show up in the armories through the level can even be customized as well, though only the five starting items were available for me. There were a few things that seemed to be off in the game though that still need to be ironed out. Some of the gun types seem under shadowed by others, such as submachine guns outshining assault rifles, the breach hammer being a one-hit kill seemed overpowered given how easily you could rush up on someone from behind. There were a couple of glitches I stumbled upon, too. However, the game looks great and appears to be shaping up well. Some others here at Destructoid are going to get to check out the game in the near future, and you'll be able to hear what they think of the it soon enough. | |
| Rainbow Six: Patriots announced for PS3, Xbox 360, PC Posted: 03 Nov 2011 01:30 PM PDT No, Ubisoft did not decide to randomly abandon the Rainbow Six series. Rather, the company has announced the newest entry, Rainbow Six: Patriots, and hinted at a new direction for this first-person shooter due out sometime in 2013. The press release makes it sound rather ridiculous, so it should be quite a lot of fun seeing how these promises are kept. With an "unprecedented level of humanity," Patriots will center around the revolutionary group True Patriots which seeks to reclaim the U.S. from corrupt politics and corporate special interests. More details are coming in the December issue of Game Informer.
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| HD remake of Dreamcast shmup Under Defeat planned Posted: 03 Nov 2011 01:00 PM PDT A very random, but very welcome piece of news -- it's been announced that the 2D/3D Dreamcast shmup Under Defeat will be revived and updated via an HD port to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. During a time where SEGA was sadly forced to exit the hardware market and end support of its last console, Under Defeat was one of the many shmups that small companies in Japan made for the Dreamcast, keeping the console alive for fans and the games gaining cult status. With small amounts of copies produced, unsurprisingly all of these games have become very rare and sought-after items. Just saw a copy going for a whopping 240 bucks!! For those who haven't played the game, Under Defeat in many ways is a fairly traditional shmup, but there were a few things they did to mix things up. First, though essentially a 2D shooter, the top-down view is at a slight angle, providing a 3D perspective with a few 3D elements thrown in for good measure, such as passing over projectiles. However, the most significant aspect of the game was the sheer amount of unlockable bonus content available. There were art galleries, a practice mode, viewable replays of no-death runs and advanced scoring techniques, plus the ability to save your very own replays for the first time ever in the shmup genre, and from different camera angles too. Finally there's the secret standalone version of the second loop, reserved for the most capable of players, with mirrored layouts, new firing patterns, and changes in stage appearances, essentially giving you two games in one. Shoot 'em up Under Defeat being revived as Under Defeat HD [Famitsu]
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| MMO Stories: Ode to Cheddar Bacon Posted: 03 Nov 2011 12:30 PM PDT [For his MMO Story from last week's Bloggers Wanted, Revuhlooshun tells us about how his friend pulled off some incredible stuff in FFXI while under the influence. Remember kids: Destructoid doesn't endorse illegal activities. Winners don't do drugs! (Except this guy, apparently.) Want to see your own blog on the front page? Write a blog on the current topic: Peripherals. -- JRo] I spent countless nights on Final Fantasy XI when I was still in high school. For far longer than I should have been, most times. Some days I'd just sit in class a pile of dumb meat afterwards, thinking only about the incredible shit that had happened only a few hours ago, before I had to pull myself out of the house and rejoin society temporarily. I can remember one time in particular, involving a fight to the death with everyone's favorite summon from FFVIII, Diabolos, where I spent every class wanting nothing more than to go home and turn the game back on. By the time I was back home, I was already rummaging through the names of my friends list to see if anyone was online, only to find the man responsible for perhaps one of the greatest stories I have yet to tell. “Dude, Ark, that shit was crazy last night!” “…What are you talking about?” “The Diabolos fight. You saved us. We set a server record!” “…Man I was so high last night. What happened?” I played Final Fantasy XI for 4 years, since the beginning of its PS2 launch (Asura server, a level 75 Samurai named Bunnie – yes, Bunnie, it’s a long story). I had the PS2 HDD, mainly for the SOCOM II maps that you had to hunt down on a disc that came with OPM, and to install Resident Evil: Outbreak, hoping it’d make the game at least a little more bearable (hint: it didn’t). I dropped over 530 days worth of play time before I gave up the game, back during when it was a son of a bitch that spat upon anybody carrying on them notions of “going alone” or “having fun” while playing it. The fun of the game came from being ground up and tossed about – if you could survive it, then that was where the fun came. It was a hard, stupid game that made you work for everything. At the same time, you also appreciated everything, and it made all the high, end-level stuff more prestigious than soloing for it like in other MMOs. I spent a lot of time with a Red Mage by the name of Arkan. We both were pretty active in the end game scene, and were rather top players in our respective jobs (if I may say so myself). We also got along great. We’d hop from Linkshell to Linkshell, joining different guilds but always ending up together and spending our free time doing shit. His real name was very similar to that of a certain fast food personality, and we used to call him Cheddar Bacon just for laughs. On top of being an awesome guy and an astounding Red Mage, he was also one of the biggest potheads I have ever met. By the age of 25, he sounded like Louis Armstrong with a pretzel caught in his throat. The man couldn’t cook anything for his life unless he was putting weed into it. But he was hilarious nonetheless, and I always enjoyed his antics. I also enjoyed how he became a fucking God whenever he was high as a kite. As someone who has never smoked marijuana before, and really has never had an interest in partaking in recreational drugs, I must say: that shit honed him like a Tibetan monk. You would think it’d be the opposite, but it turned him into Luke Skywalker when it came time to get things done. A lot of people criticized FFXI for its grueling leveling, its harsh exp penalties, and its forced group play. One thing it doesn’t get a lot of credit for are its story and its missions. They’re not just WoW-like quests where you talk to some NPC, fetch some crap, and then get some gold – they’re full-fledged cutscenes with recurring characters and plot arcs. It has a Final Fantasy-caliber plot, and if I am allowed to say so: the greatest Final Fantasy story ever told (though this is an unfair accolade as its plot is gigantic and ever expanding). Its missions are elaborate and theatric, with fights aboard airships against Ultima and Omega one moment to even duking it out with Bahamut himself the next. One includes Diabolos. Who is an asshole. He can randomly absorb a certain amount of damage from time to time, and he can cast an array of dark magic such as bio and blind. He has a move called Nightmare, with puts everyone around him to sleep while also eating away at their HP. You fight him atop a floating plane with segments that randomly fall out from under you. He packs an additional move called Camisado, which can knock you off and instantly kill you. He’ll also drain everyone’s HP around him if he’s feeling a little thirsty from all the ass whipping he’s dealing out. The key to beating him is being able to spot when he’s about to belt out something wicked, and stunning him accordingly. This requires near perfection, as it only takes one Nightmare to end the whole charade as he then picks off your team one by one. Suffice to say, me and my party didn’t exactly nail it on our first try. Or our second. Or our third. Or our ninth. So we called Arkan for some help. We went back and escorted him through the proceeding dungeon, until we had regrouped at the chamber to face off against the prick for the 10th straight time. Long story short: shit hit the fan right as Diabolos was about to die. We either had people dead asleep or dead on the floor below. Except Cheddar Bacon. I can get into the details of just what he did, but only the people stupid enough to play FFXI for more than a day would understand what I was saying. Simply put: he managed to stun and evade every attack that came his way while jumping and dodging each evaporating tile in a sadistic game of Twister long enough to cut his balls off and feed them back to the thing. All while we were either in a dying slumber or strewn along the floor underneath him like a kicked rug. Suddenly, the fighting stopped. Everyone put away their weapons, the screen turned black, and a new cutscene played. The chat log then filled with a jubilant fanfare of OMG’s, WTF’s, and enough Yeses to put a porn star to shame. We then left the arena, quickly healed ourselves of all the damage and status ailments, and huddled about outside for a good 5 or 10 minutes talking about what we just saw. It was a long night – longer than I should have been awake for, once again. The energy was still pumping in us though. Why stop now? Let’s go do more missions! To which the conversation then turned to Arkan: “Nah…I think I’m gonna go smoke another bowl. I’ll catch you guys tomorrow.” We stood and stared at each other for a few moments after he signed off, somewhat unsure if we’d make it without him, but more unsure of what had happened. Until we realized he single handily won that fight while stoned off his ass. | |
| Gearbox to honor late fan as an NPC in Borderlands 2 Posted: 03 Nov 2011 12:15 PM PDT This morning, we received an email from a Destructoid fan named Carlo who shared a story about his late friend Michael John Mamaril. Last month, Michael passed away due to cancer at the young age of 22. Both were huge Borderlands fans, so Carlo thought a great way to honor his buddy's memory would be to shoot Gearbox Software an email asking for a short eulogy to be read by the game's smart-mouthed robot mascot Claptrap. Not only did Gearbox comply with the request, it also promised to insert Michael into the upcoming Borderlands 2 as an NPC. This is, without a doubt, one of the most heartfelt and generous acts of fan appreciation ever. For Gearbox to extend such an honor demonstrates how serious the company is in forging meaningful relationships with the people who play its games. This certainly isn't the first time Gearbox has gone above and beyond, and I guarantee it won't be the last. You can listen to Claptrap's eulogy for Michael below. And thanks for sharing this touching story with us, Carlo. You have our deepest condolences. | |
| PAX East Registration is open, go buy your ticket Posted: 03 Nov 2011 12:00 PM PDT PAX East 2012 registration has opened as of today, November 3, so you may want to grab up a pass before they sell out. The expo will be happening April 6th-8th in Boston with one day passes going for $35 and three day passes costing $65. They have even made deals with local hotels so you can book your room (or rooms if you're going as a group) at a discounted rate. It's PAX, hard to say anything else. There will be fun and awesome in ample supply. The best part is that tickets and hotels really aren't that expensive. Granted the entire trip will take a hefty chunk out of your bank account, especially if you fly, but this is PAX, so its worth it. | |
| Heavy Rain Directors cut arriving November 8th Posted: 03 Nov 2011 11:30 AM PDT Two years following the release of Heavy Rain, a "Directors Cut" version of the game is set to hit stores on November 8th. Continuing the trend of "complete edition" releases, this package includes previously unreleased content, as well as videos, the soundtrack and "The Taxidermist" add-on content. For my money, Heavy Rain is a game best experienced in an MST3K setting, where you and your friends can laugh at the strange behavior and odd characterizations. I've already done that once, though, and something tells me it's not going to hold up to repeated viewings in the way that, say, Manos: The Hands of Fate might. | |
| Get your Skyrim launch avatars on XBLA now Posted: 03 Nov 2011 11:00 AM PDT Do you love The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim so much that you want to spend extra money on loosely related digital content? I knew you would! Let me point you to the new Skyrim launch avatars on Xbox Live Arcade. They're available now, and you'll find a full list of them after the jump. I'm sure you already knew this, but Skyrim is set for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 11, 2011 The Skyrim Launch Collection includes the following:
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| Square Enix's Winter of RPGs: Chrono Cross, FFV, FFVI Posted: 03 Nov 2011 10:45 AM PDT The PlayStation Network will soon see three of the greatest role-playing games ever made: Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI. Some of you may not be with me on FFV, but I loved it. What's great is that they're all coming in a row. Square Enix's Winter of RPGs campaign will bring you these games on the following dates:
That's like my Christmas list from back in the day. Give me Brave Fencer Musashi and it'll be my 1990's all over again. Thank you, Square Enix! Which are you getting? Announcing Square Enix’s Winter of RPGs Campaign [PlayStation Blog] | |
| Social features in Call of Duty Elite described Posted: 03 Nov 2011 10:30 AM PDT
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is about to drop its megaton bomb on the gaming world and huge part of that ordinance is the introduction of Call of Duty: Elite. Here we have a video where the development team behind the game discuss the social experience you'll have when you take the battle online with this new service. If there is one thing that I can point to as being an innovation being driven by the mass market games being published by Activision and Electronic Arts these days, it's the evolution of social integration. I may never play Modern Warfare 3, but I know that some day things like this will be standard elements of future games and that excites me. | |
| Posted: 03 Nov 2011 10:00 AM PDT After the drop in quality between 2009's CSI: Deadly Intent with its crazy cases and the plain mediocre CSI: Fatal Conspiracy in 2010, it appears Ubisoft has moved development of the similar and new NCIS game from Telltale Games to its in-house Ubisoft Shanghai studio. These games are meant for two audiences only -- fans of the show and achievement hunters -- and NCIS shouldn't disappoint either of them. In fact, it's much better than the current generation's CSI games. NCIS (Xbox 360 [Reviewed], PS3, PC, Wii) The NCIS game is set during season 9, or just after season 8. It's been one year since Ziva David has passed her U.S. citizenship exam and even Anthony DiNozzo Sr. (voiced by Robert Wagner who plays him in the TV series) makes an appearance. During four seemingly unrelated episodes the NCIS team has to solve cases ranging from a casino robbery, a bank robbery masking an Arab country's embassy break-in, the murder of an officer in an Iraq military compound, and finally some circumspect deaths surrounding the arrest of DiNozzo's father in Dubai. As a mini-arc of sorts, all cases come together in the end to unravel some TV-logic terrorist plot. If you watch NCIS, you know what to expect. The structure of NCIS is pretty similar to the CSI games and so is the gameplay. Instead of only moving your cursor around to select points of interest, you now move a character with a cursor. It gives you a bit more of an emotional connection to the characters of the show than a mere cursor does, although you'll still just move a cursor around crime scenes to select stuff, or point Abby to a lab machine to work her magic. While the crime scenes feel a bit like CSI-lite, due to all evidence being gathered by simply taking photographs and nobody wearing gloves, there is still some occasional pixel hunting to find that last piece of evidence. Contrary to the CSI games, you'll always have an on-screen indicator of your progress as a percentage and it's impossible to miss anything before moving on. Back at the NCIS office, Abby and McGee will do their respective things. That means they will do the kind of mini-games the CSI games had, but this time around they are a lot easier and a lot clearer. It's impossible to mess anything up; although you can run out of tries -- indicated by Caf-POW drinks -- you can always restart these sections without losing anything. Playing as McGee you'll perform some simple memorization and reaction mini-games to "hack a database" that you'd think NCIS would have access to (like conference logs from Naval Command), or keep a reticule over a moving vehicle as he tracks it with his satellite. Abby's job involves grabbing fingerprints from evidence and doing analyses. Chemical analysis simply involves matching shapes to a spectrometer output, while bullet casing and fingerprint analyses are a matter of matching the evidence to the correct image. Everything is like the CSI games at heart, but there are a couple of differences that set NCIS apart. For one, everything is much, much easier. As in: it's impossible to fail throughout the entire game. Anyone can play and complete it; the only reason not to complete it is if you get too bored or frustrated with not being able to find that last bullet in a crime scene. The interrogations now only require the press of one button in a QTE (it's the same button every time) to keep the pressure on and sometimes confront subjects with evidence that conflicts with their statement. This evidence is no longer just one piece of evidence out of dozens, as was the case in CSI: Fatal Conspiracy for instance, but now it is complete and clear proof of something. Whenever Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (the only other person to be voiced by the TV show character's actor), McGee or Abby has run through all the evidence with their analyses, Gibbs will tell them to "DEDUCTION BOARD!" and combine evidence they've analyzed on the Deduction Board -- that big screen they always use in the show when they are explaining how things are connected to the case. This prompts a matching of evidence that usually makes sense to match, sometimes restricting the player to combine obvious matches until you have made other prerequisite matches first. After you match two connected pieces of evidence, you have to select the right answer as to why they are connected. The other answers are always ridiculous, like "<Terrorist guy's name> just loves America," so again this is hard to mess up. When you've connected enough evidence on the Deduction Board, it becomes proof you can use to confront people during interrogation. Besides the CSI mini-games receiving some simplification, the NCIS universe treatment and a visual make-over, the game on the whole feels more like an NCIS game than CSI: Fatal Conspiracy felt like a CSI game. Characters will interact more during and outside of gameplay, giving you the impression you are watching the NCIS team doing their job at your command instead of being a nameless CSI employee, and sometimes there is some hilarity between DiNozzo and Ziva. The series' comedy flair makes an appearance here and there, but the game is a bit more serious than a random episode of the current season of NCIS. Apart from the occasional jokes and banter, the characters don't act like complete clowns and the only reference to Bert the farting hippo is in the loading screen logo. Ziva is really, really dumb in the game, though, and not funny or charming at all. Of more inadvertent comedy value is the act of moving objects around on crime scenes. You'll be prompted to press a button and move the thumbstick to one location in order to move a box, slide a door open, or have DiNozzo push Ziva upwards so she can make a picture. But if you don't move all the way to the indicated direction, the characters will move back into their original position. You guessed it: you can move back and forth for some inappropriate and sometimes hilariously juvenile non-canon character animations. Silliness aside, the added interaction between characters and the increased clarity of mini-games throughout the game gives NCIS what it needs to be better than the past CSI games. That doesn't mean it's a great title or an example of what this type of game should be like -- L.A. Noire is still the best example of the detective adventure genre -- but it's better than you'd expect it to be, even though any veteran player will scoff at the further reduction in difficulty and the game's 4-5 hour playtime with no replayability to speak of. Achievement and trophy whores can be pleased, though, as there's now no way to mess up getting that 1000/1000 or Platinum trophy in this game. Graphically it is a marked improvement over previous CSI games, even if it still only looks "okay" at best. For what it sets out to do NCIS does the job with its virtual counterparts of the team, although Abby looks even creepier than in the show. Some might find the lack of blinking eyes disturbing, too. There is also one satellite tracking mini-game in the third case that is ridiculously hard due to the default controller sensitivity; a strange oversight given that the entirety of the game feels tailored for a casual player. Likewise, this default sensitivity can sometimes make it a bit hard to find evidence on the crime scenes with a controller. It might sound like this is just some stupid game that you can't believe anyone would play, let alone buy. But you know what? There's an incomprehensible addictive quality to NCIS. It's all too easy to keep playing it until an episode is over and even then it's easy to immediately jump into the next episode. Sure, it won't astound anyone but the game does provide a very solid NCIS experience for fans of the show that don't play a lot of games -- if any. NCIS is the best of Ubisoft's series of licensed forensic adventure games, which admittedly may not mean that much depending on your gaming preferences; you just have to accept that it was made for a very specific audience. If you don't care about NCIS or virtual points, there's really no reason at all why you should ever play this. Just like there is little reason to play any Naruto game if you hate Naruto, or Dark Souls if you can't stand dying. This is the kind of game you can easily give to an elder family member if they are a fan of the show, without ever having to explain how it works. It offers a couple of casual evenings worth of extra NCIS entertainment with your favorite characters, and for some fans that might be just what they want. | |
| Grand Theft Auto V: Only For Kinect Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:45 AM PDT If you missed yesterday's Destructoid Show, we did a nice little recut of the Grand Theft Auto V trailer that went live yesterday. Most people seem to get a kick out of it, but some others are posting outraged YouTube comments because they think it's real. Oh, internet. You so stupid. | |
| Pachter: Call of Duty: MW3 will hit $1.1b in six weeks Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:30 AM PDT It doesn't take an analyst to tell you that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is going to make some major money this holiday season, but it does take one to hone in on how much it's going to make in a set time frame. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities says that Activision's next big game will top even its record-breaking predecessor. Pachter told Industry Gamers that he feels MW3 would set a new entertainment record, making $1.1 billion in six weeks. Black Ops got close last year, hitting about $1 billion in six weeks. Pachter is already calling it as this year's best-selling game. He also predicts good things for Call of Duty: Elite, Activision's social service: "We expect the Call of Duty: Elite premium membership plan to be very popular with CoD’s hard core gamers. Elite is being bundled at a $10 discount with the underlying game, which may accelerate as many as 3 – 4 million subscriptions into 2011." Let's do this: Who is NOT getting COD:MW3? | |
| Posted: 03 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PDT [It Came from Japan! is a series where I seek out and review the weirdest, most original and enjoyable titles that never left the Land of the Rising Sun.] Before there was Nathan Drake, there was Pepsiman, a hero's hero who spends every waking second bringing delicious Pepsi refreshments to thirsty consumers, often putting himself in peril in the process. While most may think of Destructoid Editor-in-Chief Dale North, lover of corgis and Pepsi, as Pepsiman in the States, the legacy of Pepsiman can be traced back to this audaciously bananas Japanese game that is sure to put a smile on any Pepsi-lover's face. Well, at least until they reach Stage 4, that is!
Developer: KID Corp. Fan translation: No (It's already in English!) Sometime in the mid-90's, Pepsi's Japanese branch decided it needed to do something spectacularly Japanese, so it contracted comic book artist Travis Charest to create a superhero mascot that could promote delicious yet affordable Pepsi. Pepsiman may look like a creepy, faceless S&M-fanatic, but Pepsi decided to further promote his image through wonderfully insane commercials and a Japan-only videogame. Pepsiman, also known as The Running Hero, doesn't have much power. He knows how to rock a skintight silver-and-blue suit (eww), carry Pepsi in his body cavities (double-eww), and run really fast. Some people use these "powers" for evil (see: Dale North), but the original Japanese Pepsiman used it for saving citizens from death-by-thirst.
In accordance to the commercials, each of the game's four stages tasks Pepsiman with saving some poor individual who is in desperate need of the crisp, God-like flavor of a Pepsi. Whether it's a group of citizens stuck on a roof amidst a fire or a military man stranded in a desert, Pepsiman is on the way with a refreshing can of Pepsi. You know Pepsiman is a quality title because it's made by a developer who primarily makes adult-romance visual novels! To be fair, KID Corp. also made a beat-em-up (UFO Kamen Yakisoban) about a instant noodle mascot, so it is no stranger to making games for the consumer whore at heart. Like Katamari Damacy and God Hand after it, Pepsiman is such a gloriously twisted, charming spectacle that it's hard not to fall in love with it. That's not to say the game is in any way on the same level of playability as the aforementioned titles. In fact, Pepsiman is one of the simplest PlayStation games I've ever played -- it could easily be played with an NES controller if it were an option (which it may be these days via emulation).
Pepsiman is kind of like Crash Bandicoot on PCP-spiked Pepsi. You automatically run forward as you control Pepsiman from a third-person perspective. Since everyone in Pepsitown is an incompetent, Pepsi-crazed fool, every car, construction crane, and buffalo tries its hardest to crash into Pepsiman. You can dodge these obstacles by jumping, sliding, or sprinting, but get hit enough times and you'll have to restart from one of the checkpoints (which are generously spread out). Pepsiman hits a middle-ground between Paperboy and Muscle March, in terms of complexity and pace. The game starts off simple enough, but the later levels demand such perfect timing and precision that only the most dedicated will see the ending. Eventually, memorization becomes more important than skill and reflex.
Despite having a pretty basic foundation, the game throws gimmicks that add some variety to the madness. Some levels require skateboarding or navigating the world with a steel drum over your body (forcing backwards controls on you). Additionally, every stage culminates with Pepsiman's escaping an object like in those Crash Bandicoot "boulder chase" scenes. It makes for a fun but stressful finale. The real draw of Pepsiman is the sheer lunacy that pumps through every second of the game. Much like the Japanese commercials, the game is obsessed with American values and culture. Unlike the commercials, a good chunk of the game depicts Americans as unhygienic hillbillies. Each stage is bookended by FMV footage of a fat American guy drinking unholy amounts of Pepsi while eating chips and pizza and watching TV. It's odd that the game is entirely in English, but it's the fat hillbilly's dialog that will stick with you after the game is done. It often borders on nonsensical Engrish: "Everybody Pepsi! Drink Pepsi! Pepsi only my choice!" Add some teeth rot, cocaine, and hookers, and you have a perfect depiction of what too much Pepsi can do to a mentally-addled American. It's difficult to tell if this hillbilly parody is self aware or not. In either case, it's an amusing award for completing a stage. I wouldn't say Pepsiman is a great game, but it's a highly amusing one, especially when played in a group setting. The entire premise is ridiculous, so full of little details that are easy to miss and make the game so charmingly brain-dead. I don't recommend putting up with the impossibly hard later levels, but it's worth playing while the fun lasts. It brings me back to a time when corporations had mascots, Japanese games were insane, and graphics weren't everything. Pepsi is everything!
DRINK! PEPSI™ ONLY MY CHOICE! ------------------------ What's your favorite junk food mascot game? Do you drink Pepsi while you game/fap? Have you ever had PCP-spiked Pepsi? (Be honest.)
[And he entrusted them with his invented magic stick] | |
| New Alan Wake & BioWare title, MGS:Rising to debut at VGA Posted: 03 Nov 2011 08:00 AM PDT It's almost that time of the year again: the run-up to the Video Game Awards and the inevitable announcements of new games as Call of Duty steals some Best Character award from a game that actually has characters. First of all a new Alan Wake title (i.e., not a direct sequel and likely the rumored downloadable Night Springs title [Jim Reilly has just confirmed it is an XLBA title]) will debut at this year's award show. A new franchise from a new BioWare studio is also set to be announced. While meeting the BioWare doctors at Eurogamer Expo this year, they were on their way to Ireland to see the "new" office. BioWare already has a customer support office at Galway in Ireland (BioWare Ireland) so this new IP might be from yet another studio, or perhaps it is being developed by secret hidden ninjas at Galway after all. Finally, Metal Gear Solid: Rising will get a full reveal; remember that game? Game Informer will have some teaser images for these games in its December issue and on its website next Monday. The VGAs themselves will air December 10 at 8 p.m. EST on Spike TV, Spike.com and MTV2. New BioWare Title, Alan Wake Sequel Debuting At The VGAs [Game Informer] |
Rumored to be the final release for Sega's tenacious last console, Under Defeat pushes the aging hardware to new heights. Set in an alternate reality resembling the WWII era, replete with some stylish retro designs, it can be a sight to behold. The level of detail is unprecedented, with screen-shaking explosions that scatter debris across the screen, leaving trails of black smoke as flaming wreckage slams apart as it collides with ground. A far cry from the small "popcorn" explosions that litter most shooters, Under Defeat's intense effects pack a gratifying whallop that makes you feel good about the havoc you've wreaked. It's hard not to smile with satisfaction as you watch a massive battleship explode, smolder and then sink into the sea as the water sent upward in the blast trickles back down, spattering off your helicopter's rotors. It's these fine brushstrokes that make the action a joy to behold. Indeed, I would say that Under Defeat could well be the most visually stunning game in its genre, on any platform.
Composer Shinji Hosoe (Dragon Spirits, Ridge Racer) has done a very nice "arranged" soundtrack, offered as an option alongside the original. These studio-recorded versions of the songs feature some nice live guitar work and make for a big improvement over the MIDI tunes of the arcade incarnation. The music itself is very retro-style "shooter pop" of the sort that used to be the norm in the early 90s. It seems slightly out of place juxtaposed with the gritty war setting, but it's energetic and catchy, and grew on me quickly. In fact the dramatic music leading into the last level absolutely blew me away, conjuring up memories of some of Motoi Sakuraba's finer moments. Those who paid extra for the "Limited Edition" package are also treated to an exclusive soundtrack CD, featuring the arranged versions of the songs from the DC port, as well as a half-dozen remixes in different musical styles.
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