Yes, that headline does seem a little ludicrous, especially when you consider that triple-a titles are usually the ones that top sales charts. But you can decide for yourself whether or not that is true after hearing what Assassin’s Creed 3 creative director Alex Hutchison had to say about the state of big triple-a games.
Recently in an interview with EDGE, Hutchison made some somewhat puzzling statements regarding triple-a games, “We’re the last of the dinosaurs. We’re still the monster triple-A game with very large teams [and] multiple studios helping out on different bits. There are fewer and fewer of these games being made, especially as the middle has fallen out.”
“We really felt like this was a rare opportunity, We had an experienced team, who had worked on the franchise for a while; we had the full backing of Ubisoft to make something huge. We had almost three years to do it, which is a rarity these days; the tech and the hardware platforms were both mature, which allowed us to start running instead of building base features; and the installed user base for all platforms is massive,” said Hutchison.
He went on to conclude, “Many of these factors are about to change, by choice of circumstance, so a lot of us truly believed this was a once in a career opportunity.”
Now this is not the first time Hutchison raised some eyebrows with his comments as he had already caused some controversy when he claimed that gaming journalists were racist.
What do you think of Alex Hutchison’s comments on triple-a titles? Is he right or is he wrong? Let us know in the comments section below.
If you haven’t yet subscribed to Playstation Plus now might be the time to take the plunge. Sony have announced that Playstation owners can get a Playstation Plus membership for a discount of 25% off.
From today until the 19th of September, Playstation owners can pick up a year long membership for Playstation Plus for the price of $52.45. Alongside the announcement of the limited time discount of Playstation Plus year memberships is the announcement that Red Dead Redemption has been added to the Instant Game Collection. This means that if you’re a Playstation Plus member you can get this game for the price of absolutely nothing.
What do you think of this Playstation Plus discount and Red Dead Redemption joining the Instant Game Collection? Let us know in the comments section below.
Aksys Entertainment have announced that their BlazBlue 3rd Anniversary Contest has been extended to the 3rd of October, 2012. This contest is one where fans must take photos of themselves either in costumes or with their Noel collections in order to prove that they are the biggest fans and for a chance to win some amazing prizes.
There prizes actually look quite interesting and they include awesome items like banners. In fact people will be competing for a horizontal banner and two vertical banners. Be sure to check out the official contest rules here for more info.
Ever heard of the manga known as Doubt? You haven’t? Well I’m not surprised, it’s a series that ultimately flew under the radar of many manga fans. But that does not mean that it is not a quality series. The good news is that Yen Press have licensed the manga for a Western localisation.
The manga follows a group of teens who regularly play the online mobile game known as ‘Rabbit Doubt’ which focuses on a number of players having to figure out which one of them is actually a wolf in disguise. One day during a meet up of ‘Rabbit Doubt’ players, they soon discover that ‘Rabbit Doubt’ is not just a mobile game but a Survival Game with their lives truly at stake in a mysterious unknown place with seemingly no escape.
Doubt ran for 4-volumes and was serialised in Monthly Shonen Gangan from 2007-2009. A sequel to Doubt called Judge is currently being serialised but has not yet been confirmed to have been licensed by Yen Press.
Paramount Pictures released the Australian trailer for their action adventure horror film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. The film is directed by Tommy Wirkola and stars Jeremy Renner as Hansel and Gemma Arterton as Gretel. The movie follows the years after Hansel and Gretel fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm when the siblings have become expert witch hunters. A coven of evil witches are planning to sacrifice children and Hansel and Gretel are hired by the mayor of the local town to stop it. The film will hit theaters in Australia on January 17th, 2013 and North America on January 11th, 2013.
Code of Princess’ unveiling kind of came out of nowhere earlier this year, but the hype has began here and as of now, this little action packed romp is looking to be the most refreshingly new IP on the 3DS this year. Along with the hefty amount of attacks and depth of the combat system, Princess will also feature a online and local co-op mode where up to four and team up throughout 100 quests.
Yes, this will be the first title of it’s kind to try the online co-op is such a large manner, but Atlus’ new trailer displaying the feature makes it look quite savory. Check out the clip below, and make sure you mark your calenders as Code of Princess hits thew 3DS on October 9th.
Gameloft released their first Unreal Engine game to the iTunes App Store today. Wild Blood is a twist on classic story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The game is a 3d hack ‘n slash action game featuring Sir Lancelot fighting back against hell spawn. King Arthur has gone mad after discovering Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere in love. In a fit of madness, he turns to the sorceress Morgana who opens the gates of hell, feigning an attempt to seek revenge upon Sir Lancelot. Wild Blood features ten levels, puzzles, exploration, and horde based combat. Check out the launch trailer below and our review of Wild Blood here. Check out Wild Blood on the iTunes App Store here.
The very recently revealed Marvel Avengers: Initiative for the Android and iOS is going to be released tomorrow, September 6th, 2012. The game is going to be a series of four games set in the Marvel XP Universe that the Marvel Avengers Alliance is already a part of. Each game in the series will feature a different playable character from the Marvel Avengers lore.
The title is set to retail for the price of $6.99 and can be viewed on the iOS App store and the Google Play store. Be sure to check out our preview article for more info.
Wild Blood Developer: GameLoft Publisher: GameLoft Platforms: iPad (Reviewed), iPhone, iPod Touch Release Date: September 6th, 2012 Price: $7.99 USD Get it Here
Overview
Wild Blood is Gameloft’s first game on the legendary Unreal Engine. A console quality hack ‘n slash set in on a dark twist to the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table with lofty expectations, the game combines some FPS mainstays and influences from Devil May Cry and other hack ‘n slash classics. Does Wild Blood have what it takes to start a brand new hit hack ‘n slash franchise for the iOS?
Story
Wild Blood stars the knight Sir Lancelot on his return to Albion. He and King Arthur’s wife Guinevere have had a lengthy affair and King Arthur has discovered his wife’s infidelity. Wracked with grief, Arthur makes a deal with his sister, the sorceress Morgana who promptly opens the gates of hell and wreaks havoc upon Albion as the demons enslave the population. Sir Lancelot returns to Albion to close the gates of hell and bring peace back to Albion.
The plot seems to provide some background noise to provide a little reasoning for the hacking and slashing action. Unfortunately, character development is lacking and our heroes seem to be rather one dimensional for the most part. Some parts, such as the random archangel boss, left me rather confused without much explanation. I could help sitting at my iPad thinking “Hang on, I thought I was fighting hell spawn…” Although the hack ‘n slash genre is not known for its particularly epic stories, games such as Dante’s Inferno and the Devil May Cry series have raised the bar for the genre.
Gameplay
Wild Blood is a hack ‘n slash game that looks torn right out of a console. Players have all the toys and abilities that are familiar to the genre including a light and heavy weapon, a ranged weapon, and potions. Special abilities are fueled by mana that regenerate as players use regular attacks on the enemies. Enemies are plenty and diverse. Each enemy has their own particular weaknesses and tactics to best deal with them that provides a welcomed sense of variety.
The upgrade system is simple to understand but provide plenty of options to fit anybody’s play style. I appreciated the fact there are three different special elemental attacks for each weapon, but players are only able to choose two special attacks for each weapon. I also really enjoyed the puzzle chests. To open some of the chests in the level, players are given a Rush Hour type puzzle game where they must move a key block to a certain zone on the board to unlock the chest. These were a great change of pace and made great use of the touch screen. I also appreciated the FPS mainstay of mounted turret sequences. This brought much needed pauses in the hack ‘n slash action.
Gameloft stuck to its familiar control set and kept with a control scheme found in many of their games. A virtual joystick is on the left side of the screen moves the character, a variety of action buttons is on the right hand side of the screen, and players can swipe the screen to move the camera around. For the most part the controls feel ported from the console. For regular action, players use the virtual game pad with the odd swipe puzzles and opening of doors that make better use of the touch screen controls. There are the traditional turret shooting sequences that is a staple of the FPS genre that is also controlled by the virtual joystick. For the most part, the possibilities touch screen controls of the iPad are largely ignored. Players are stuck with a frustratingly inaccurate and clunky control scheme for the multitudes of turret sequences. The regular hack ‘n slash controls are only marginally better. The staple movement of dodging in a particular direction is extremely finicky. I found I was only able to execute a successful roll when the joystick was not causing Sir Lancelot to move in any particular direction. When avoiding the use of the action button and focusing solely on attacking and moving from creature to creature, the controls were flawless. The game compensated for the inaccurate joystick by automatically sticky targeting the closest enemy after one dies. This was a tremendous help.
The difficulty of the game is a funny thing. For the most part, the game was just difficult enough to be challenging without hair pulling diff
icult. Most of the difficulty suddenly hit by chapter five due to the controls. Suddenly it became apparent that the inaccurate controls caused getting past spike traps that happily dealt almost quarter of a health bar worth of damage to become a small mini boss on its own right. Bosses began to hit mercilessly with gigantic health pools, the lousy dodge controls made the game unnecessarily difficult.
Visuals
The visual quality in Wild Blood is strong for the most part. On one hand, the game is beautiful. The animations transition into each other with a buttery smoothness. The visual design is impressive, enemies are visually distinguishable and the graphics are top notch. The skinning and modelling are well done with only a little bit of aliasing to be found. However, it seems rather obvious that this is Gameloft’s first game on the Unreal Engine. I ran the game on the top of the line new iPad with the Retina display. There are some extremely noticeable FPS drops interspersed in the game. There are moments when the action becomes too intense on the screen that the game drops a few frames to cause a sudden visual jolt. These problems ruin an almost perfect visual experience.
Audio
Wild Blood brings a great soundtrack and strong sound effects to the table. However, the voice acting is a mixed bag. The main characters are all well voice acted, especially for the iOS platform. However, minor characters like Merlin have a marked difference in acting quality. Worst of all, the hostages are some of the most irritating voices in the game. There are two different types of hostages, one female and one male. Each seems to have only two lines.
I found the male hostage to be the most irritating of the pair, but both hostages repeat the same few lines over and over with only a few second pauses between lines until you free them. Although I am aware this was most likely done to help players locate hostages hidden in alternate paths, the same two or three lines become old very quickly. On the other hand, the soundtrack is extremely pleasant to listen to and the sound effects are well done.
Overall
Wild Blood feels like a hack ‘n slash game designed for the console and ported onto iOS as a last minute decision. Some of the touch screen controls feel like afterthoughts. Places where the best of touch screen controls could shine, players are stuck with a clumsy virtual joy stick. Although the plot is a tad thin, I find it no thinner than the average hack ‘n slash. An epic story this game is not, but it provides just enough reason to slaughter hundreds of demons without mercy. Visually, Wild Blood is an impressive display making great use of the new iPad’s Retina Display. However, there are some obvious FPS drops at some points that detract from the visual quality of the game. Considering the premium price of $6.99, Wild Blood is by far cheaper than a similar quality console game, but priced as a premium title on the iPad, it is hard to recommend all iOS gamers to brave Wild Blood’s troubling control scheme. If you are a diehard hack ‘n slash console gamer that wants to get straight to business in killing or bring the experience onto their mobile device, then by all means purchase Wild Blood. But Wild Blood will not win any new converts to the genre by any means.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
It was revealed Tuesday evening that Halo 4 will include one map remake when Halo 4 launches on November 6, 2012. Frank o’ Connor, the lead franchise director for the franchise said the following via twitter:
“Halo 4 only includes one map remake, I know what it is. It is good. It will cause the least amount of drama of any new thing. It is NOT small.”
This comes as quite a shocker to many fans because it was said by Frank himself that the game would not feature any remade maps at launch but, it is a possibility to release some as DLC. The map is unknown, but, many fans are hoping for another remake of Blood Gulch. Fans may be disappointed with Frank o’ Connor’s response, no.
Halo 4 will launch on November 6, 2012, on the Xbox 360.
Ever heard of the manga known as Doubt? You haven’t? Well I’m not surprised, it’s a series that ultimately flew under the radar of many manga fans. But that does not mean that it is not a quality series. The good news is that Yen Press have licensed the manga for a Western localisation.
