General gaming

General gaming

Review: Space Marine Is All Out of Bubblegum

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 09:16 PM PDT

I'm rather limited in my understanding of the Warhammer 40K universe outside of the miniatures at my local comic book store and the excellent Dawn of War strategy games from Relic Entertainment (who have also worked on this title) -- Space Marine is the next evolutionary step for this developer to bring more of the 40K universe to life. When a game has enough guts to call itself "Space Marine" well, that gets my attention. It conjures up so many images of bad-assery, like a one man army who's ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum (that's a Roddy Piper quote, kids). In reality, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is a rather generic action game that may be new for the franchise but does little-to-nothing new for the genre.

There are moments early on in the game that it feels like this could be the 40K action game fans have wanted for years. From the opening moments we're shown our heroic Ultramarines ready to defend an Imperial Forge World from an Ork invasion, jumping out of their space transport, free-diving on top of an Ork vessel, and then riding it like a surfboard into the planetary surface below. As I continue through the opening moments of the game I cut through waves upon waves of Orks and the over-the-top violence beings to permeate my senses. I'm grinning ear to ear. The music begins to build with deep brass horns and pounding drums, the well-detailed and animated characters move freely in battle -- it feels like I'm on the ground level of a Dawn of War game. Then I attack another wave of Orks. Then I do it again. And again.

Review: Star Fox 64 3D Lets a Classic Finally Live Up to Its Full Potential

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 05:59 PM PDT

While we professional video game reviewers don't really have much to complain about, the recent resurgence of remakes has thrown our role as critics into disarray. As any writer knows, the intended audience should dictate the way a piece will flow, but reviews of remakes need to speak to both fans of old and those who never had a chance to encounter the original -- two entirely different crowds. And Star Fox 64 3D complicates the matter even further by taking a more complicated approach than merely upgrading textures and frame rates; the game's been completely rebuilt from the ground up, yet stays ineffably faithful to the original.

Whether you're new to Star Fox or have been in league with its cast of animal-puppet people since the early '90s, one thing hasn't changed: Star Fox 64 is easily one of Nintendo EAD's top ten games, and perhaps the greatest rail shooter of all time. Star Fox 64 3D simply takes the greatness contained within the original and presents it in a much better looking and sounding package, free of the technical difficulties that plagued the N64's hardware. And as long as Star Fox 64 veterans are comfortable with that fact that this new version offers barely anything new, 64 3DS is easily one of the best additions anyone can make to their 3DS library.

Weekend Deals: Civilization V, Dead Island, and Space Marine

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 04:26 PM PDT

Civilization V

Unless you're a fan of strategy games, it's a fairly quiet week for deals. Luckily, if you do like strategy games, there's a lot on offer.

Steam is offering Civilization V (the most recent of the bunch in the series) for only $12.50. You can't reasonably expect to get a much better game at a better price; that's an excellent game that could last you a very long time for not much money.

A handful of Need for Speed games (including Criterion's very fun Hot Pursuit revival) are also cheap on Steam, as is a bundle of Worms Ultimate Mayhem and Worms Reloaded for $23.98. Ultimate Mayhem won't be out until September 21, when it will cost $14.99 to pick up. Reloaded normally costs $19.99 on its own so $24 isn't a half-bad price for the pair.

Review: Rise of Nightmares is a Poor Mash-Up Between House of the Dead and Resident Evil

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 03:06 PM PDT

The main problem I have with Rise of Nightmares isn't the Kinect controls -- sure, it takes some getting used to, but I got what I wanted from them 70-percent of the time. I also didn't have a problem with the C-movie quality story or the unimpressive graphics because I usually enjoy bad survival horror games. In fact, this zombie-filled first-person brawler channels the weird vibes of Sega's House of the Dead video games more than anything else, which works for me too.

My beef with Rise of Nightmares is that it takes too long to figure itself out, and the game doesn't explore the horror theme nearly enough. Up until Act 4 I must have killed a hundred or so zombies using punches, kicks, and whatever weapons I could get my grubby hands on. Most of the arsenal favors the melee end of the spectrum (think knives, pipes, and hatchets), but there are instances where I can throw test tube concoctions and scalpels at oncoming monsters -- or chainsaw them into little bits. Weapons break often, so a majority of the game boils down to fighting, surviving, and then searching for a new one before you're attacked again.

DSi XL, Still the Same Price as a 3DS, Gets Pink as a New Color

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 02:32 PM PDT

DSi XL Metallic Roes pink

The super-sized model of the DSi is getting a new color this month, Nintendo today announced. And like the existing colors (Bronze, Midnight Blue and Burgundy), it will cost $169.99.

Some people might find it strange that Nintendo has the DSi line of systems co-existing alongside the 3DS, but what might be even stranger is that the DSi XL costs the same as a new 3DS following the latter's price drop last month. The XL was previously priced at $189.99 and, along with the regular DSi, had its price slashed by $20 last September.

The brand-new color is officially called Metallic Rose (because "pink" just won't cut it). It will be available on Sunday, September 18 and comes with several pieces of pre-installed software: Flipnote Studio, Brain Age Express: Math, Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, and Photo Clock.

Grasshopper Loses Harvest Moon and Little King's Story Creators

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 01:42 PM PDT

Yasuhiro Wada, Yoshiro Kimura, Goichi Suda

Two of Grasshopper Manufacture's high-profile hires from last year have left the company.

Yasuhiro Wada and Yoshiro Kimura, two former Marvelous Entertainment employees, left the company as of last month, Siliconera reports. This has since also been confirmed by Gamasutra, meaning the two spent less than a year at the company headed by Goichi "Suda 51" Suda (all three men are pictured above).

Following the hirings of Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka and freelance Japanese gamer designer Kazutoshi Iida early last year, both Wada and Kimura were brought on board later in the year. Wada is best known as the creator and head producer of the Harvest Moon series, and was named Grasshopper's chief operating officer. Kimura was responsible for Little King's Story on Wii and was named chief creative officer.

Final Fantasy Type-0 Collector's Edition Has a Postcard Book and Soundtrack

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 11:38 AM PDT

Final Fantasy Type-0 Collector's Edition

The status of a North American release for Final Fantasy Type-0 is still unclear. Over in Japan, not only will gamers be getting it on October 27, they'll also have a collector's edition to consider purchasing.

As pictured above, there are three main components to the package: a 24-page postcard book with eight pages spent introducing the game's characters, a three-disc soundtrack (a first-print version), and the fancy box. You obviously get the game -- formerly known as Final Fantasy Agito XIII -- as well, which comes on two UMDs no matter the edition that's purchased.

Origin Installed on 4 Million Computers, Adding Third-Party Content "Very Soon"

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 11:01 AM PDT

Origin

Electronic Arts rebranded and relaunched the EA Store in June as Origin. It's a digital platform that sells EA's games and provides other features like a friends list and in-game overlay. With Steam already comfortably filling this role, many PC gamers were upset to even see EA try to clog the market with a competitor, though that hasn't stopped four million users from installing the Origin client since June.

EA's CFO, Eric Brown, mentioned the figure during a UBS conference in London today, Gamasutra reports. EA expects that figure to "climb substantially" as we near the holiday season. That's all but guaranteed, what with Origin being tied in with Battlefield 3 and it being the only place to purchase a digital copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Another thing that may help to drive installations is the addition of third-party content to Origin. The store is currently home to nothing but EA games -- Battlefield 3, The Sims 3, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 comprise the front page whereas Skyrim, Red Orchestra 2, and Serious Sam 3 are the headliners on Steam at the moment. Steam was originally launched to host only Valve's content like Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike; it has since expanded to largely consist of third-party games and that's a critical component of its success.

Video Games, Animated: Parodies from the Cartoon Kingdom

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 10:33 AM PDT

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Video Games, Animated: Parodies from the Cartoon Kingdom

Spoofs of gaming from the world of animation.

By: Nadia Oxford September 6th, 2011

If you're young--or simply young at heart--it probably doesn't take much to laugh, bounce, and spill your Lucky Charms all over yourself. Just a good game. Or a good cartoon. Or maybe one stuffed within the other.

Cartoons have made sly references to video games ever since the first arcade blinked into being. Most often, we see our animated heroes bash randomly at a controller (which elicits equally random bleeps and bloops that are not native to any video game in the world) while they ramble towards a paint-by-numbers lesson about how excess is bad. Sometimes, animation, education, and video games collide in strange and unsettling ways (do you remember being thrilled and/or terrified by Square One's Mathman?).

Review: Disgaea Takes Another Step Forward -- Except On a Treadmill

Posted: 09 Sep 2011 10:30 AM PDT

A new Disgaea game is kind of like when a fast food restaurant says they now have all-white-meat chicken nuggets: we can agree it tastes different, but it's not like we have a clear memory of what it used to be like. People will keep coming by to eat it. You get the same situation with Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten: a product that nobody's going to outright condemn because it still makes you feel good. And how could it not? Disgaea games (and several other cousins in the NIS catalog) are proud tactical strategy games in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics, yet incredibly far beyond it. Disgaea is more of a giant strategy playground, and Disgaea 4 is just as much of one as its prequels.

The game has a few new things in it, but maybe the most obvious are the territory-grabbing metagame, the map creator, and its network features. The first is an added layer to the game where your party is laid out on a map of the underworld, and can acquire new "evil symbols" to place on the map and enhance characters in battle. As for the online features, they're interesting, but not amazing: on the outside, a bunch of worldwide stat-tracking, and on the inside, a sort of "battle" mode where you send out troops to be used in another player's game. But since you're not in control of anything, it's just used to further gain loot and level up your squad. The map editor is also an online component, where you can design your own battle maps and have them shared with the rest of the world, or of course download your own. In a series known for puzzling stages, one can get a lot of mileage out of this feature alone.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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