General gaming

General gaming

Japan Review Check: Ocarina of Time 3DS

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 08:32 AM PDT


Not too many games coming out next week in Japan, but they're all worth your attention. Here's what's due to hit shelves, courtesy the review pages of Famitsu magazine:

- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (9/9/9/10, 37 points): Nobody was expecting a bad review of this 3DS remake, definitely. "The game's the same," one writer said, "but being able to play Ocarina on a portable is really amazing. The hard-but-not-too-hard play balance is still there, and the hints make it a stressless experience. The 3D backdrops also have to be seen to be believed."

Most reviewers remarked on how kind the passage of time has been to Ocarina's core gameplay. "It still doesn't feel old," one said. "The graphic improvements are well-made, and the controls are also enhanced." This was echoed in another reviewer's text: "It hardly feels like a 13-year-old game. From the UI to the game's gyroscope gimmicks and 3D graphics, the sense of adventure here is stratospheric."

Vanillaware's George Kamitani on Dragon's Crown

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 08:10 AM PDT


George Kamitani, head of Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade developers Vanillaware, is not a man who forgets. When he comes up with an idea, he wants to finish it -- even if it takes a decade or so. That's the story behind Dragon's Crown, his latest game and one that has its origins in Princess Crown, a fighter title he developed for the Saturn in 1997.

"The idea for the game itself had its start around 13 years ago," Kamitani told Famitsu magazine in an interview published this week. "Dragon's Crown was concepted immediately after Princess Crown -- it was originally a Dreamcast project. I worked on [Capcom's] Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom before that, and ever since then, I've always been hoping I could work on something like that again. It was hard to convince a publisher to greenlight the idea, but I rewrote the project plan after finishing up Muramasa and finally managed to get Ignition to sign on with the game."

What's the goal of Dragon's Crown? "The challenge here is to advance the genre of games like Golden Axe and The King of Dragons, which I love, while still keeping them 2D," Kamitani said. "Hopefully we can work some new stuff in there that we didn't manage with Muramasa. For example, there's a red dragon boss that's sleeping atop a massive pile of treasure. If you try to take the treasure, he'll wake up and attack you. You can try taking him on directly, but it'll be a tough battle. You have the option of escape, of course -- he'll chase after you, but if you can make it over a stone bridge, it'll collapse under the weight of the dragon and he'll fall downward. That sort of thing. We want to have these sorts of rescues for the player when he's fighting difficult bosses. If the player comes across an enemy he's too low-level for, I want to be sure there's always a way he can survive."

Bamco Head Reflects on Mergers and Western Development

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 07:40 AM PDT


In 2005, oldschool Japanese game makers Namco and Bandai merged together to form a single company, Namco Bandai Games. The team-up didn't have quite the fanfare of Square Enix's two years previous, but for the game industry over there, it was an even bigger blockbuster -- two of the oldest, most prestigious toy companies in Japan, two outfits where the corporate culture couldn't possibly be any more difficult, coming together and trying to make it work.

Shukuo Ishikawa, current NBGI president and a veteran of Namco since 1978, doesn't regret a thing. "I was in full agreement on it," he said in an interview published in this week's issue of Famitsu magazine. "I was a development director at the time, and I got to discuss it with Masaya Nakamura [founder of Namco] extensively. When the topic came up, I said 'Let's do it' within basically a couple of minutes. Putting Namco and Bandai together sounded like something that could become really interesting."

The way Ishikawa saw it, the clash in corporate style wasn't as enormous as a lot of people made it out to be at the time. "It was surprising, actually, because we really had the same aims in the end," he recalled. "Just talking about the aims of the founders of both our companies, both Nakamura and Naoji Yamashina [founder of Bandai] were primarily driven by the value and responsibility we all have to raise children and enrich their lives with play. That's at the root of both companies, even though the work involved and the corporate cultures couldn't have been more different."

Level-5's Past and Future

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 06:47 AM PDT


Level-5, the Fukuoka, Japan-based developer of the Professor Layton and White Knight Chronicles series, has made a lot of progress since its founding in 1998. Originally a hardcore RPG developer working mainly for Sony, the company began publishing its own titles in Japan starting four years ago, starting with worldwide million-seller Professor Layton and the Curious Village and moving on with the kid-centric Inazuma Eleven series in Japan.

It's been a particularly long Journey for Akihiro Hino -- Level-5's president, founder, and chief creative force behind all of their games. As Level-5 shifted from indie development to full-on publishing, the former PC game programmer had to learn the ins and outs of selling games in extremely rapid fashion. "I was originally on the creative side of things, so I had to give a lot of thought to how we were going to sell Layton," he told Famitsu magazine in an interview published this week. "The platform was going to be the DS from the start to keep costs down, so the question was how to appeal to that userbase. The conclusion we came up with was that Brain Age probably brought a lot of new casual users to video games, so we figured that making perhaps some sort of advanced version of Brain Age, something that audience can move on to after that game, would produce results. That became the basic strategy. Layton was developed from the start with the hope that it'd sell."

The results were surprisingly successful. "The fact we were able to successfully kick off an original series on the DS was a great confidence booster for all of us," Hino recalled. "For me personally, it made me realize how much fun it is to come up with a promotion scheme to effectively sell the games we work on. 'Sales' became a big watchword in my mind as a result of that experience, and that's when I started getting involved more personally in marketing."

Postcard From E3 2011: Modern Warfare 3 Draws a Crowd

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 12:50 AM PDT

At this year's E3, Activision is using their booth space to throw game-related presentations. And they're showcasing them in a 360 degree production. We caught up with Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling for the Modern Warfare 3 event, and it was quite the show.

Postcards from E3 2011: My Bathroom Got Branded!

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 12:35 AM PDT

I left my room early this morning to go to the Nintendo Press Conference, where the company finally revealed their new video game machine. I spent a lot of time at the exhibit hall, and played some games. I'm not sure what exactly happened between the time I left earlier today and when I finally returned, but I found this hung in my hotel bathroom.

Bad Kinect AD

Posting this story is possibly giving some sick yahoo exactly what he/she wants, but lets try to have fun with his. Examining the text it's hard to understand what this ad really means anyway? I've never 'felt a movie with my insides.' That can't possibly be comfortable. And controlling a movie with my outsides also sounds weird.

Ubisoft Making Download-Only, Possibly Free To Play Wii U Ghost Recon Game

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 11:18 PM PDT

Ghost Recon Online

About two weeks ago, Ubisoft announced Ghost Recon Online as a free-to-play PC game coming out later this year. Today they announced the game is also heading to Nintendo's Wii U, and in an interview with 1UP said they're hoping to carry over the same free-to-play (with in-game purchases) business model. Given that Nintendo hasn't mentioned anything about Wii U's online plans yet, though, all Ubisoft can say at the moment is that the title will be released as a multiplayer-only downloadable game.

"We know that [Nintendo wants] to be modern in terms of business models," said Ubisoft game content manager Pascal Allancon. "The only thing we don't know yet is what Nintendo's policy will be [on offering free downloads with in-game purchases]."

In addition to being a port of the PC game, Ghost Recon Online on Wii U will let players customize their weapons and look at a map on the handheld screen. Beyond that, at least as Ubisoft is discussing at this point, the two versions will be mostly similar. Currently, the prototype of the game on the E3 show floor looks graphically simple and has no aim assist on the controls, but according to Allancon, both of those aspects will be improved drastically by the time the game releases next year.

Postcard from E3 2011: Nintendo Wasn't Kidding About Supporting Dragon Quest

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 10:18 PM PDT

It looks like Nintendo was making a serious commitment when it agreed to publish Japanese smash hit Dragon Quest IX in America. Not only did a remake of 1995's Dragon Quest VI follow nine months later, but now the company is showing off not one but two Dragon Quest titles at its E3 booth.

E3 2011: Prototype 2 is Prototype Perfected

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 10:02 PM PDT

When Prototype came out I had a backlog of quality games that I wanted to play first. In fact, I still do. When I started playing it the craziest thing happened that I still can't explain: I couldn't put it down. The game isn't that great but it was still a fun take on an open-world superhero game from the team that made Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Earlier today I had a chance to see Prototype 2 in action, a game described by Radical Entertainment's Chris Ansell as "Prototype perfected."

Ansel and I also discussed the original game and how it wasn't well-received critically but sold enough to warrant a sequel.

E3: Pikmin 3 is Wii U's First (Mostly) Confirmed Game

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 09:48 PM PDT

Over the past few years, the Nintendo Developers Roundtable has become one of E3's most interesting (albeit somewhat exclusive) events. It's an opportunity for a few hundred members of the press and industry to hear candid insights into the development process of upcoming Nintendo games directly from designers like Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma. And, inevitably, there's always a bit of news to be had. Four years ago, that news was Miyamoto's confession that the long-awaited Pikmin 3 was in development for Wii. This year's news also concerned Pikmin 3, but this time it was the surprise revelation that the game isn't in development for Wii anymore.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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