Earlier today at the Microsoft booth at this years EB Games Expo us here at Capsule Computers were incredibly lucky to have received an opportunity to play a small amount of the multiplayer in the upcoming Halo 4 developed by 343 Studios and published by Microsoft. The game is the fourth entry in the main Halo storyline featuring Master Chief, but is actually the seventh entry to the series.
This multiplayer preview that we were shown had a number of different gametypes. The two available to us were the free-for-all and capture the flag gametypes. Unfortunately we only had the time to play one of these gametypes, so we went with capture the flag, as it is one that I am most proficient at playing.
What’s really cool about this iteration of Halo is the games UI. When you’re in a lobby, you’re not really looking at something that is hard to understand. It also carries an impressive looking aesthetic that is both functional and decorative. I was actually quite impressed by it.
Some of the cool features in this menu are that is allows you to alter your Spartans loadout; easily, cycling maps, checking through players, and whole lot of other features that are both familiar and new. Unfortunately, I was only able to take a quick peak at this menu before being taken into the game, so some of these assertions may be inaccurate.
From what I could tell from the games loading time, it either loads incredibly fast, or it does what the previous Halo games have done and pre-loads maps in the background. This great because it gives the impression that the game is a tighter experience, rather than one broken up by several moments of looking at a banner.
Anyway, lets get into the actual game shall we. At this event both myself and Luke Halliday were allowed into the game room for this preview. Although we were sitting next to each other, we were actually on opposing teams. So that means that there were two teams in this CTF match, the red team and the blue team. I was on Blue. Luke was on Red. Blue won, just sayin’.
So this CTF mode was the tradition two flag styled capture the flag match, with teams having to take each others flags and returning them to their own base. What made this cool was the arena that we were playing on. It was a pretty small arena that could be traversed pretty quickly. The map itself was a kind of space station with multiple corridors and floors which allows players to plan a route into and out of their opponents base. What was really cool though (and something I saw nobody take advantage of) was that there were these jump-pads that would take you straight over to the enemies base on the sides of the map. This made getting into the enemies base incredibly easy; and even though I was killed shortly after arrival, I still managed to take down a bunch of enemies.
What I noticed about the Spartan armour in this particular match was that they were much more sleek and stylish in comparison to the armours we’ve seen in the past. The weapons have also undergone a redesign, with each weapon retaining the familiar aesthetic of the Halo universe, but also being unique enough to give the game a fresh and unique feel.
Overall I was very impressed with the few minutes we had of the multiplayer hands-on for Halo 4. The guys at 343 have done an amazing job with the franchise and this is a must buy for any gamer out there.
In spending the whole opening day at EB Expo 2012 on Friday, I got a chance to play some of my personal highly anticipated titles of the coming year. Tomb Raider was one of them. Having been a Tomb Raider fan since the original, I was curious to see how Lara controlled in this fresh new take, and I’m about to let you know. Of course the game does not release until March next year so in reading any observation I make here, it’s only fair to reserve judgement on the little things that may be fixable by it’s release date. The demo was on the Xbox 360.
The portion that was playable is the semi-open section that was shown at E3 this year, that is set directly after the opening with Lara escaping out of the caverns where she was hung upside down in a cocoon like wrapping. The title shows in front of you as you look out into the ocean, littered with wrecked ships. This was probably exacerbated because of it’s stunning graphical quality and detail, but for a split-second I did not realise that I was immediately in control of Lara; I thought the title would fade and the camera would change perspective and momentarily lock to hint that it was out of cut-scene mode, but the presentation and transition was fluid and seamless, which I prefer for the purpose of a more complete sense of immersion. Obviously this won’t always be the case since, as we’ve seen in previous footage, there are more cinematic scenes that fade out without giving control back to us immediately.
As I moved forward and down the cliff’s path, I was relieved to find that Lara is not as weighty, cumbersome or as awkward as I had feared – I’m looking at you Nathan Drake! With my primary concern already quashed from the get go, I grew even more optimistic. Soon enough Lara is jumping gaps and climbing as button prompts pop up on screen. An early criticism, which may just be nitpicking, is a mild jitter in the shimmying animations. The jitter is more obvious when Lara shimmies over corners, as if they are not connected and there is some resulting form of clipping. Moving on, ledge hopping sometimes results in Lara losing her grip, at which point you must make a timely press of the ‘X’ button to retain it. I was also introduced to the wall climb, which basically requires pressing ‘A’ once to jump at a higher wall and then again to boost up and reach the ledge. On the way to finding shelter as the wet weather begins to wear on Lara, I initiate the cut-scene where she finds her fellow castaway’s belongings, and notably their match box and walkie-talkie, before falling from a ledge and somewhat violently careening down a slope.
After Lara gets warm using the only match left in the aforementioned match box to make a fire and gets ready to look for sustenance, a notification displays on screen noting “New Camp Discovered”. There are constant notifications like this that also alert you to a new objective or an update to your current mission. I could access a map by pressing the ‘back’ button, which displayed the camp and my current objective’s location. A quicker way to find your bearings is to look at the compass line at the top of the screen. There is also ‘Survival Instinct’ mode, whereby everything turns black and white, highlighting objects or points of interest. I tried to turn it off by pressing the activation button – in this case the left bumper – but it does not deactivate it too, meaning I had to wait for it to automatically time out. It only lasts maybe 5 seconds in it’s current implementation anyway. Fighting onwards, as seen in the E3 video, I come across the hanging corpse with a bow on his back. I noticed an overtly placed red-painted board that I realised was used to lead me in the right direction, and my eye to the quiver lying next to it. I like to call this “color-guidance” after it was implemented so prominently in the 2008 release, Mirror’s Edge. Pressing ‘X’ collects the quiver, which represents ammo in the form of arrows for your bow. After retrieving the bow I am instructed to hunt and kill a deer. Finding one was easy enough, and killing it involved pulling the left trigger to pull back the bow, and the right trigger to shoot. The deer bolted after the first shot, and it took 4 shots to kill (tough bugger!).
After skinning the deer via cut-scene, I headed back to camp. Once there, I access the fire with ‘A’ and am shown a menu where I can choose to use my “Survival Experience Points” on upgrading my “Survival Skills”. These skills are unlocked in tiers, and include abilities such as arrow retrieval, advanced looting and increased ammo capacity. Once I exited this menu, a final cut scene plays to end the demo. Interestingly, there was text at the top and bottom of the screen that respectively read “Australia Event 4” and “Hunting Demo”. For the life of me, I can not remember three prior events based in Australia where Tomb Raider has been shown! But I digress…Tomb Raider felt good, controlled well and with that animation hiccup aside, it was a seamless experience. There may not have been much to this demo, considering we have seen video of it before, but actually getting my hands on it makes me more excited to play through the game and get involved in this origin story of sorts. From my experience Lara is nimble, the world is detailed, controls are tight and it looks and sounds fantastic. If the final game is well-paced, we may just be playing the best Tomb Raider ever come March.
Glu Games is bringing a new action game to iOS and Android with Death Dome, where players will not only fight against the isolated infected hosts of the terrible “M” virus, but the fully developed hostless Behemoths that the virus turned into. Playing as Phoenix, a survivor trapped within the dome built to contain the outbreak, players will have to try and kill all of the Behemoths that inhabit the city, as well as the still infected residents that remain, in hopes of escaping the dome.
Information is still very limited, without even a release date announced for the game, but those interested can at least see the game in action in the trailer embedded below. Check it out and hopefully soon enough we’ll hear when the game will be releasing.
Cyanide Studio has recently announced that the Confrontation license they have had a hold of since 2010 is finally going to be seeing some use for not just one, but two games set to come out in 2013. For those who haven’t heard of the Confrontation universe, it is a medieval fantasy set at the start of Rag’Narok, also known as Armageddon or the end of the world.
The first is a tactical adventure game called Aarklash: Legacy, where the player will control a group of fighters through the strategy combat heavy storyline as the party grows into the heroes needed. The interesting focus of the game is the combat being based on an active pause system, so that players can really focus on the tactics required of their group to succeed.
The second is a Management and Strategy free to play game called Dogs of War Online. Instead of a group of fighters like the Aarklash: Legacy, the gameplay will have players controlling a mercenary company. After making the mercenary company, players will enter into online arenas to compete against each other in turn based battles to show how their company compares to everyone else.
Aarklash: Legacy and Dogs of War Online are currently planned for release in Q2 2013.
EA Mobile has plenty of news this week. To celebrate the countdown to Halloween, The Simpsons: Tapped Out received an update with a Treehouse of Horror XXIII update. A bunch of new Halloween themed characters, buildings, and artifacts have been added along with a zombie invasion. As an added bonus, those who watch The Simpson’s episode this Sunday will find a secret clue that will unlock an exclusive in game gift. Check out The Simpsons: Tapped Out here.
The World Series of YAHTZEE was released this week. Players will find a new twist to the classic board game that adds loaded dice that provide a variety of power ups, combos, and speed rolls. The game is fully integrated with Facebook, allowing players to challenge their friends. The game is free to download here.
Keeping it up with the board game releases, WordSmack will hit the iTunes App Store later this month. The game is a competitive turn based word game that challenges players to find five letter words in a random jumble of letter tiles. Need a leg up on your opponent? Trigger power-ups to change the tide of the game. WorkSmack will be free.
Cyanide Studio and Focus Home Interactive are pleased to provide their fan base with new screenshots of Blood Bowl Chaos Edition. Blood Bowl is a interesting sports based title that revolves around the fantasy world of Warhammer. Penalties and fouls are rarely heard of in this game as races like Orcs, Elves, Humans, Vampires, Ogres, and even Dwarves are pit against each other in football. Who would have the guts to yell at an Orc for breaking a player’s limb?
Players will get to experience brand new content in the newest edition. There are three new races including Chaos Dwarves, Underworld creatures, and Daemons of Khorne. Additionally, a new stadium has been created in the jungle thanks to the contributions of the Lizardmen and Amazons – great teamwork? Needless to say there is going to be a bloody brawl, and they cannot wait for teams to come celebrate in that venture.
For those that have been loyal Blood Bowl players from the beginning, you will be able to take part in an exclusive discounted offer. All owners of Blood Bowl will be able to purchase the new edition for only $10. However, newcomers will have to pay $29.99 in order to join in on the violent tactics of fantasy football. To take advantage of these deals and pre-purchase the title for its October 11th digital release look (here). Australia and European retail release will occur on October 18th. Feel free to check out the screenshots below!
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes Developer: Frogwares Publisher: Focus Home Interactive Platform : PC (reviewed), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Release Date: 25 September 2012 Price: $39.99 (available here)
Overview
Sherlock Holmes has enjoyed something of a media revival over the last few years, with adaptations popping up on the silver and small screen. Robert Downey Jr brings his bags of charm in the movies, Benedict Cumberbatch stars in a pitch perfect modern day TV adaptation, and Lucy Liu somehow turns up as Dr Watson in the US version.
Game wise Holmes has also had a fair share of releases, witha near constant stream of games hitting the PC and handhelds. Testament is a bit of a different take for the pixellated version of the detective, sporting a console release and higher end production values all round.
Sadly despite attempting to break a little bit bigger and badder, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes does very little to make any impact on the legacy of the character, or indeed of point and click games.
Story
Holmes goes rogue is probably the quickest way to sum up the story that has been spruiked for this game. Testament’s trailers were full of references to Holmes actually being a bit of a bad guy, and promised a tense relationship between the titular detective and Dr Watson, who would suddenly find himself struggling to cope with the possibility that his greatest friend had been lying to him for years.
Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot of the anticipated dynamic on show, with the majority of the game spent with the two enjoying a fairly normal relationship. Holmes is a bit of an arse to Watson, and Watson just takes the flack. The relationship between these two characters has always been a huge selling point for Holmes as a property, and unfortunately here it isn’t something that attracts much empathy or fondness. The main flaw is the almost total lack of humour in the script, and the rest of the game (the voice acting, the animation) doesn’t provide the best technical foundation for storytelling.
The case itself kicks off with the theft of a necklace, moving into the meat of the plot with the murder of a bishop. The mystery is well paced and intriguing enough to ensure you see it through to the end, and packs in a good selection of characters and locations: Holmes and Watson take in a prison, a carnival and a morgue to name just a few. Taking Toby out for a spin is a great idea, even if its execution in gameplay terms is fairly middling. There are also some suprisingly gory and violent moments littered throughout the game, but the rest of the drama doesn’t quite give them enough impact beyond the inital surprise.
The entire game is framed by some scenes from the present day, where a group of children play in an attic full of Holmes paraphernalia. Creepy children aside the whole lot of sequences feel jarring and unnecessary. The story’s end tries to tie everything up into a nice sympathetic and heart-warming bundle, but it feels wrong for the character and leaves the series of games in an awkward place.
Gameplay
Point and click adventures have a few simple things to get right. The control system has to allow for intuitive interaction with the world and the objects found within, and the characters have to move through it all with ease. The control scheme in Sherlock is simplistic, with three different camera angles allowing players to pick between a fixed camera, third person or first person view. Movement isn’t too much of an issue (despite a generous smattering of invisible walls), but handling objects can be a bit of a clunky process. A hand or eyeglass will hover over objects that have a function, and choosing between multiple targets is performed with the scroll wheel. Inventory items are similarly cycled with a scroll, which can lead to frustration when an item you just picked up is relegated to the back of the pile.
There’s also a ‘sixth sense’ function that can point out clues, although players are left to themselves to find out the finer points of the systems literal bells and whistles. Some of the major puzzles will also pop up with a ‘skip this’ button after a few minutes of clicking away, making the game largely idiot proof. The deduction boards – where players must piece together clues to form the likely conclusion – are a great feature that sadly features too little in the game, with only three popping up throughout the entire case. It’s a shame that more aren’t included as they feel like the closest thing to mimicing Sherlock’s thought process – as opposed to solving puzzles that whilst interesting have little to do with the character.
The puzzles stand up well, and are a mixture of combining and collecting the appropriate objects and puzzling out sequences. The method of solving the aforementioned major puzzles is largely obvious, with the difficulty stemming from some trial and error in the process rather than a particularly tricky solution. Don’t expect to find anything particularly imaginative though, because as with the rest of the game Testament is strictly average.
Average is the best of words to describe Testament. Everything works on a technical level, but nothing rises above competent. The game is rather lengthy for a point and click adventure but carries excruciatingly little replay value – once the story is concluded it’s highly unlikely that you’ll return.
Audio & Visual
Graphically Testament is high spec for its genre and scale, but the visuals aren’t going to blow you away. The environments are highly detailed and full of nods to previous Holmes adventures, but lack the interactivity to make them feel genuine. Invisible walls strike too often, and the awkward navigation of the characters doesn’t lend itself to immersion either.
The characters also do their best to undermine some pretty enough visuals, with bad lip syncing and strangely artificial movements. There are some terrifyingly rendered children to add to the mix, proving that dead video game eyes are not dead yet.
The voice acting is good but terribly straight laced, and anyone who has been enjoying the current revitalisation of Holmes elsewhere in the media will probably be left cold by this portrayal. Holmes (a dead ringer for English actor Mark Strong, who coincidentally played the antagonist in the first Holmes film directed by Guy Ritchie) is upper class English, Watson is a bit more bumbling – job done.
The more dramatic moments could do with a bit more vim and vigour from the performances and there are some absolute clunkers of lines in the script. Nonetheless Testament does deliver Sherlock Holmes and some moments of character, but it’s just not enough to put it into the big leagues.
One particular feature that more noticeably drags the game down is the music. There is one track that plays for the majority of the game, no matter what is happening on screen. All atmosphere is utterly lost when you’ve heard the same loop of inappropriately dramatic music ten times before.
Much of the problems Testament has probably won’t bother fans of the genre, but they do hold the experience back from greater heights. Point and clicks are terribly dependent on atmosphere and character, and the lacklustre music and sometimes underwhelming voice acting certainly takes away from a good visual style.
Overall
Testament is a highly conventional interpretation of Holmes that takes no risks. It is by no means a bad game- the puzzles are intriguing and the story trips along nicely – but there is nothing here to truly impress. Everything works on a technical level but it’s utterly lacking in character and vitality – point and click adventures live on quirk, charm and powerful storytelling. Sadly Testament is lacking in all three.
Fans of the genre will get through it for the sake of it, but in the grand scheme of the point and click world The Testament of Sherlock will quickly fade from memory.
The latest update to the Razer Synapse software brings some amazing new functionality to the Razer Naga device. These features are things that many users have been looking forward to and wanting for a while now and have finally received them.
The three primary features that are being included in this update are: Key Mapping, Storage for unlimited pre-built profiles and the ability to import and export profiles. This means that players can set up customised bindings for their Naga mouse, save them to a profile and then export them for other players (or themselves on another device) to use. Not only that, but say you need three variations on the one control scheme, it is now possible to map three similar settings together in a binding.
Here is an excerpt from the press release –
A keymapping feature lets gamers keep settings like lighting and DPI, but change the layout of the 17-buttons on the Razer Naga on-the-fly. Gamers can cycle through eight keymaps per profile, essentially increasing the available buttons on the Razer Naga eightfold. Alternatively, users may assign temporary keymap toggles for dynamic keymap swapping, useful for temporary in-game skill swaps when changing stances or weapons.
With unlimited profiles stored in Razer’s proprietary cloud system, gamers can have a different profile for each MMO or application they use. Profiles are saved and synced automatically from the dedicated remote server and can be bound to applications for effortless profile customization.
Users will now also be able to export their profiles and macros and share them with friends via the new profile import/export function. The feature also allows settings to be imported from older models of mice for seamless transitions, making hardware upgrades easier, and changing out a gaming mouse simple.
Be sure to update your Synapse software to take full advantage of these new features.
Fans of all sports games and more specifically Basketball take note as 2KSports have announced the release of NBA2K13 onto Xbox 360, PS3, PSP and Windows PC platforms. “NBA 2K13 represents the greatest year-to-year leap we have made in the franchise’s history,” said Greg Thomas, president of product development for 2K Sports. “Our partnership with JAY Z brought a new dynamic to the game, and really elevated it to new heights.”
The guys over at 2KSports have teamed up with R&B titan JAYZ, who has taken on the role as executive producer of the new instalment in the franchise. JAYZ was in charge of choosing the titles 24 song soundtrack as well lending his artistic hand to the interactive menus, pre-game intros and much more. Players will also get to experience the new Control Stick implemented in NBA2K13, which maps dribbling and shooting to the Right stick, further adding to the realism of this Sim. Players will also get to pit the 2012 US Mens team against the famous 1992 Dream Team.
“Partnering with a great franchise such as NBA 2K13 has been a unique experience,” said JAY Z. “The best basketball video game is now a premier entertainment experience.” The NBA2K franchise has sold over 11 million copies and should only continue to gain popularity with the announcement of 2KEverywhere. This will allow players to stay connected to NBA2K even on the move through a new mobile app, Social Facebook game and full mobile version of NBA2K13 for iOS and Android devices.
The Wii version of the game will be available 19th October and the WiiU version coming on its launch
For more information please visit www.facebook.com/NBA2K or the 2KGames site for all their titles.
Today marked the beginning of the 2012 Sydney EB Games Expo held at Olympic Park. This marks the first appearance of the Expo in Sydney and the second time ever that it has been held in any capacity. The very first time was held, it was Brisbane, so this is a first for almost everybody in NSW.
Anyway, as media, we were allowed into the conference hall early for a Master Chief awakening photo shoot that included Master Chiefs cryogenic stasis pod and an actor in a Master Chief costume coming to life from that pod. However, this event was quite limited to watching him awaken and being able to take photos before he was promptly refrozen and then whisked away before his purpose could be revealed. After sitting down and waiting, it is still unapparent as to what it was that we were taking photos for.
After a short while of listening to music and posting tweets to try and appear on the live Twitter wall being projected on to screens (we got a tonne of them up there, I had two removed personally), the head of marketing for EB Games took to the stage and welcomed us all to the show. After this introduction we were shown these videos of a kind of top 5 games of each year starting from the mid-90s up until this year so far. Also on during this time were a group of dancers that not all that many people probably noticed. I know I didn’t realise that they were there until Ubisofts Just Dance was playing for an unusually long amount of time in comparison to every other franchise shown on this video reel.
After that happened we were treated to some pro dirt-bike stunts from some ex Crusty-demons and Nitro Circus members that seemingly had very little to do with gaming. I was not the only person with this concern as the MC of the stunts had a hard time ensnaring enthusiasm from the crowds. What was even worse was that it was clear that the stuntmen were clearly not gamers and they felt that they had to force gaming related answers to the questions that the MC was posing to them. After that there was some more dancing and loud music.
After all this happened, something Assassin’s Creed-y happened. We were shown a trailer of Assassins Creed III that was neither Assassin, nor was it Creed. To be completely honest, it felt like the Assassins Creed trailer Michael Bay would direct. So after this trailer happened, we had a stuntman in a Connor costume come out on to the stage and climb up this piece of scaffolding. He then jumped off, much like an Assassin would. We have no idea if he survived or not.
Overall the opening ceremony for the EB Games Expo was kind of entertaining in some regards, but in others it felt like it was being borderline offensive. I’m hopeful that the opening show next year is more about the games and less about the things that gamers probably won’t appreciate.
