During their pre-e3 event, Konami gave us a good number of things to look forward to, and the publisher is ready to go into more detail at Gamescom. Of course the star of the show will be Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which will be hitting shelves come early 2013, but there is a lot more to look for this year.
All news, announcements, interviews, and trailers will be broadcast through KONAMI OnAir during the five day event, letting fans that are not in Germany get a better look at the event through live streams, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. This will get everyone more involved, so that you all can connect with Konami and voice your feedback through several outlets.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow will also be on full display, with both the console and 3DS title (Mirrors of Fate) being shown off. There will also be a playable demo for the latter, which will let the world get a more close up look at what the Belmont family has to offer this time around. PES 2013 is the last of the offerings this year, and seeing how the soccer favorite is due out this fall, there is sure to be a lot of news coming from that area as well.
Gamescom takes place on August 15th-19th, so stay tuned until then!
Robot Entertainment will be teaming up with Valve next month to make their hit mobile game Hero Academy available on Steam!
Hero Academy is a tactical strategy/battle game playable on the iOS. It is free to download from the app store and features more content that you can pay for in game with real currency. These items mainly consist of avatars and team expansions that allow you to play as different races such as Night Elves and Dwarves who have their own unique units. The gameplay is very easy to understand, fun and fast paced, until you have to wait for your opponent to finish their turn of course. Hero Academy has received critical acclaim with a Metascore of 75 and 4.5/5 stars on the App store.
If you are already familiar with Hero Academy and have enjoyed playing it with your friends on your iPhone or iPad you will be happy to know that the Steam version will be cross-platform providing multiplayer between PC users playing on Steam and folks still using Apple products to play on the go. Also featured in the Steam release will be characters from Team Fortress 2. The familiar mercenaries will be unlocked as a playable team with their own unique features and abilities. That’s not all, for every hero team purchased in Steam, a special item will be unlocked in Team Fortress 2! All this will be available next month on August 8th.
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien – Ultimate Alien Rescue Publisher: Cartoon Network Price: FREE – Play Game Online Here
Overview:
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien is the most recent series in the Ben 10 television series’, having ended in March of 2012. Featuring a 16 year old Ben Tennyson, the series sees Ben with an improved Omnitrix, called the Ultimatrix, as well as becoming known worldwide for his power and abilities. Becoming known for being a superhero has it’s downsides though as Ben continues to face bigger threats, but also gains the ability to use improved Ultimate forms of some of his alien forms.
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien – Ultimate Alien Rescue is an online flash game made for the series and is available on the Cartoon Network website. As with most flash games based on a series, it attempts to fit into the story of the series or is based on one or more episodes. With Ben 10 being such a hot property does the game live up to what fans of the series would expect?
Story:
The story this time around is that 5 aliens, after having crashed onto Earth, are on their way back to their homes when they get captured by the evil Aggregor. Technically, this happens in the Ultimate Alien series proper, but the way it is executed makes the game pseudo exist between the episodes “Fame” and “Escape from Aggregor”, in that Ben 10 luckily finds out about it and heads up to save them, but in the end as Aggregor puts it “No one escapes me.” What this does is that ultimately what the player does in the game feels unimportant, but on the other hand doesn’t upset any canon of the actual series, so it is really a trade off.
Unlike other games, Ultimate Alien Rescue features an opening and closing, as well as dialogue in each level albeit incredibly limited. This is actually pretty nice to see in a flash game where many others have maybe a few panels explaining the story in the best case. These are not by any means overly in depth, but each of the characters appears to actually have character, instead of just stating “Thanks, now save the next guy” four different ways. Who knows maybe a flash game for the next Ben 10 series will actually have voice over dialogue.
Gameplay:
The game plays like a standard platformer for the most part, where players get to utilize Swampfire or sometimes even Ultimate Swampfire. In addition to, since playing as Swampfire, the mouse can actually be pointed at enemies and fire fireballs while moving along. This is a solid concept in theory, but all of the enemies in the game have a lot of health, and many fire back, so trying to kill everything will generally end with be killed unless dodging constantly. Making the best course of action to simply jump past and around enemies and attacks, only utilizing attack itself in boss fights.
The design in each level is pretty much a maze, which scales bigger and more branching in later levels. Unfortunately, the game is designed mostly linear as Swampfire can only really head to the key, which opens a door, which has a key for the next door, etc. until reaching the alien on that level. So, younger players will probably run around a lot taking different paths until finally actually find the one that has the next door and key, making for a longer game where the only excitement is avoiding all the things enemies are firing at them. There are a few boss fights as well, which instead of having int he same maze style room arrangements simply is in an open arena, which makes it easier to dodge attacks and fight away at them, but can be hard to dodge different attacks, luckily dying doesn’t revert boss health to ease these battles for the younger crowd.
Besides keys and thankfully health pickups, Swampfire can grab 1ups for extra lives and Ultimatrix pickups which power the ability to turn into Ultimate Swampfire. While hitting harder, the power will drain away while playing as Ultimate Swampfire until back as regular Swampfire again and it’s really a good idea to just use it when even possible as getting hit as Swampfire drains Ultimatrix power as well as health. A good way to break up monotony, but not necessary to get through the game.
Audio and Visuals:
This time around there is no voice over work at all, but players are only using Swampfire and Ultimate Swampfire in the actual game so it’s fine as he probably wouldn’t have all that much to say. It would have been nice if the short little dialogues were voiced over, but I suppose it was more surprising that they were there and that might be asking too much. Music on the other hand works out pretty well, it changes throughout different scenes, so there’s less likely to get stagnant unless stuck in the same level for way too long, but since the music is really the only audio, besides attacks and pickups, muting is an option, no literally you can just click Mute at the top.
The visual style is generally good with Ben 10 games as the art style is easy to match and this is no different. Unfortunately, because the entire thing takes place in the same spaceship visuals get old pretty fast. After seeing one maze and the 4 different enemy types, you’ve seen all of them. It does look nice, but it would have been nice to see a little bit more as there were 5 different levels and 2 boss fights, which where practically the same.
Overall:
Really the only thing outstanding in the game is that it had some semblance of a story and not just one copy pasted from one episodes, but kinda filling a one off between two of them. It’s a solid platformer though for those interested in constant avoiding take fire from lots of different directions, though gameplay can become a bit repetitive nearer the end, which might be worse depending on how quickly one can progress through. Ultimately, I give Ben 10: Ultimate Alien – Ultimate Rescue
Firefly is a massively popular franchise, despite the fact that it had far less episodes than a lot of television shows. Sean Maher played the doctor of the show, Simon Tam, and we were lucky enough to see him in a panel at Oz Comic Con 2012.
Sean Maher talked about how Simon had changed through the timeline of Firefly, and in Serenity. He seemed quite keen on his development of the character, and cited his favourite episode as being Ariel. Both as a general episode, and due to his character growing.
It sounded like Firefly had the most amazing cast with a hugely family feel. He talked about how his relationship with Summer Glau was actually quite like their off screen one, and in fact fed into it. When the cast all found out about the cancellation of the show they met at Nathan Fillion’s house to sort through that shock and the disappointment at the cancellation of a show that had so much promise. The fact that it had been granted a movie was something that Maher had been skeptical of right up until the table reading, which must have been the most powerful moment and even upon recalling it he seemed to have had some emotion about it.
When asked what character apart from Kaylee that he’d like to have Simon have a ‘will they won’t they’ relationship with, he answered Jayne. Once the initial laughs died down, he assured the crowd that he wasn’t in fact being sarcastic, and upon second thought that relationship would certainly be an interesting one and their chemistry could have certainly gone that way, considering the thin line between love and hate.
Sean Maher also has a role in Joss Whedon’s new project, Much Ado About Nothing, where he plays the villain as Don John, which he really enjoyed because it was the first villain he played. This is definitely a movie to keep an eye out for, if it does happen to be given a theatrical release, although I’m sure that it will find some way to be released, given that it’s a Whedon creation.
Check out the rest of our Oz Comic Con coverage on the rest of the site, including impressions, more panels, and interviews!
One of the most eminent television and movie actors involved in massively popular science fiction franchises, as well as a comic book franchise, is Sir Patrick Stewart. Not only was Sir Patrick Stewart in the panel, but he was accompanied by his son Daniel Stewart. This was one of the few panels that had two people doing the panel at the same time, and they had a fantastic chemistry going between them on the stage, which is no surprise since they are father and son.
Patrick Stewart was asked about the voicework he’d done for Seth McFarlane on Family Guy, American Dad and the new movie Ted, given that it was so different from his usual work and very far from his classical work he’s done a lot of. Which, it turns out, is the reason he chose to do such roles.
One of the big upsides of having a father-son team on stage was that they talked about some of their family stories, such as how they used to play board games with the family and Patrick Stewart would be the only one allowed to read the rules, and would make them up as they went, so he’d never really let the children win. Which led to Daniel Stewart’s somewhat skeptical and hilariously insulting personality.
In addition to this, Sir Patrick Stewart was gracious enough to offer a story about how his brother had trained his six year old niece before her first games day and how, when she stopped and waited for the rest of the field to catch up, his brother had been raging on the side lines. And that was why he had grown up to be ultimately competitive. It was actually amazing to hear such stories like this from Sir Patrick Stewart, and I’m sure the rest of the audience felt the same. He actually had the most awesome and warm personality that was so different from his characters that he had played. At one point a small boy in a Hulk suit asked him a question and he was absolutely lovely towards him.
Sir Patrick Stewart had actually never seen the original Star Trek series, although his son Daniel had, and he had to get briefed on what the show was about. But it clearly became a huge part of his life after that, and he cited the saddest part of his time on Star Trek, as a character and an actor, was when he said goodbye to Commander Riker when he was promoted to Captain and given his own ship. The one line where he says “No Number 1, the honour is all mine” was apparently a very difficult line to deliver because it carried a lot of weight, not only for the character, but for the actors.
Overall, it was one of the more enjoyable panels, because of the chemistry between the two on stage. Almost all the questions were solely directed towards Sir Patrick Stewart, but Daniel Stewart took it beautifully and managed to have just as much of a stage presence and provide just as many laughs with his personality and wit.
Check out the rest of our Oz Comic Con coverage on the rest of the site, including impressions, more panels, and interviews!
Fran Kranz, famous for his role as Topher in Dollhouse, actually did come off as the embodiment of an actor from the Whedonverse. He’s funny and a little self-deprecating, and quite humble. He also had so much to say about the story of Dollhouse, little things that he’d thought that went on behind the scenes and his own narrative of things that hadn’t specifically come up in the show. This dedication to storytelling and commitment to a role is something else that marks him as a Whedonverse actor. And, with a TV show and two movies under his belt under Joss Whedon’s capable hands, he’s certainly a part of the family now.
He spoke a lot about Joss and how he has the ability to inspire people and encourages actors to make their own decisions and suggestions about the character. The adulation was clear, and really, it seems quite well earned. It did sound like a family environment and one that Kranz was happy to be a part of. One example was Topher’s reaction to the spreading of the Dollhouses, which Kranz played as Topher being disturbed by this, while Joss thought that he would be thrilled. It’s things like that which is why the Whedonverse just seems like such an awesome environment to be a part of, and it translates so well onto the screen.
He also talked about Much Ado About Nothing, a movie that was filmed by Joss using a lot of his favourite actors at his home. This is definitely something to look out for, and Kranz seemed quite excited by it. Check out the iMDB page for the cast list HERE. What do you guys think? Are you keen for the movie? It isn’t yet slated for a theatrical release, but here’s hoping!
Check out the rest of our Oz Comic Con coverage on the rest of the site, including impressions, more panels, and interviews!
At the tender age of eleven years old, Willow Shields holds herself far better, and with far more maturity, than I, or anyone I know, did. She speaks with a wisdom and surety that any pre-teen would be jealous of, and manages to still remain confident and well spoken in front of a conference room of people, which is no easy feat.
Willow Shields is famous for her role in Hunger Games as the main character’s little sister Primrose Everdeen. And given her performance in the movie, it’s no surprise that she comes off as a good actor off screen as well. When asked if it’s difficult for her to cry as often as she does, she answered that it was easy for her once she was in character. She couldn’t quite explain it, but clearly her instincts are right on, because she carries it off well.
She talked fondly of Jennifer Lawrence, saying she was the most wonderful, kind person, as well as Josh Hutcherson. It is nice that her on screen relationship with Jennifer Lawrence’s character, Katniss, continues off screen. She also bonded with Amandla Stenberg, who plays Rue and is closer to her age than the other actors.
When Willow first auditioned for the role of Prim she was halfway through reading the book, and like most people, loved it and wanted to have a part in the movie desperately. She also relates really well to Prim, in their caring and helpful personality, and relishes the development her character is going to undergo in the second and third movie, on this her maturity was clear in the way she spoke of how she loved the challenge and the opportunity to really utilize her acting skills to expand her character further.
When asked the question ‘Peeta or Gale?’ she replied ‘Katniss’, which as a Hunger Games fan, I fully support. Even that choice spoke of her maturity and was a great answer.
Catching Fire will start shooting in the American Fall, so sometime over the next few months, and has a release date set for November 22, 2013. Are you guys keen for it? Is there a particular thing that you’re looking forward to seeing in the second movie? Or are you just excited for the whole thing?
Check out the rest of our Oz Comic Con coverage on the rest of the site, including impressions, more panels, and interviews!
This is massive news for the Evangelion fandom as the latest in the film rebuild storylines has had its cinema release date finally revealed. This is a long time coming for Evangelion fans as it has been quite a while since the release of the last film, Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.
The latest film is titled Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, which has been updated from Evangelion Q, as I recall it being called in the preview section of the previous film. The movie is set for a November 17 release over in Japan on cinemas and we have yet to hear anything about a release over in the US or Australia.
Be sure to keep an eye out for more info as it comes. Video is embedded below. Thanks to @animemadman for the tip.
Thomas Was Alone Developer: Mike Bithell Platform: PC (Reviewed), Mac Release Date: June 30th, 2012 Price: $9.99 – Available Here or Here
Overview:
Building up from and expanding a game that was made in 24 hours, Thomas Was Alone helms from the mind of developer Mike Bithell. The original was pretty unique for an internet flash game, to the point that when I first read about this release I still remembered playing the original game myself. Somewhat short, the original game didn’t dally on spectacular graphics, but instead nice, slightly challenging platforming featuring rectangles trying to reach a specific spot for one on each level. This time, the expanded full game now has a full narrative story, including voice-over, and more gameplay featuring than simple jumping. So, just how good is this indie title?
Story: Thomas Was Alone is the story of simple rectangles moving up and to the right, no wait it’s the story of the events leading to a companies closure, no wait it’s the story of emergent self-aware AI, no wait it’s all of them and more. Thomas, while being the title character, is by no means the main focus in this three act story. There is a lot of things going on in the story that aren’t even told through the voice-over work. The story is a pretty interesting thing, there is more there than is handed to the player, which must be figured out for themselves. For something that can be taken for a simple platformer there is a lot more going on and that’s what makes it so good.
The story starts with just the introduction of Thomas, but continues to build to the character base. All of which have their own little personalities, that while never actually speak for themselves comes out quite well through the narration. The game really is a three act story, albeit divided into 10 different chapters where several of the chapters form each of the different acts. The third act, and still trying to avoid spoilers here, is actually pretty interesting and unexpected. Going in a direction that while still building from the previous act, solidifies the ending of the second act perfectly. That’s what is so refreshing about the game, a platformer that gives characters to actually care about, even if they are just multicolored little rectangles.
Gameplay:
To be honest, in some ways there is more story to the game than actual gameplay, though this isn’t really a bad thing. There is still some nice interesting features in the gameplay department. In the original flash game the only difference between characters was movement speed and jump height, but now there are characters that can float on water, act as trampolines, and break the laws of physics. The puzzles range in difficult from requiring some decent movement skills, to simply getting characters into the correct positions. Weighing in at 100 levels, there are a decent amount that revolve only around forwarding the narrative, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing though as the story is one of the best things about the game.
The gameplay does switch gears throughout the different chapters, continually changing things up and adding new characters as well as other aspects of gameplay. This does keep the game fresh and prevents the player from having to think in the same way from start to finish, so that they have to stay on their mental toes. The shifts in gameplay are really welcome and keep the game feeling dynamic, it’s not simply having another shape to get to that shaped spot across 100 levels. Even without the story, some of the levels would give players a good mental jog at figuring out how to use the characters together, though these can be a little far in between.
Audio and Visuals: Thomas Was Alone doesn’t have much to speak of in terms of visuals, it does look very nice at the highest resolution, though it is much more simple in terms of how things look. The most diverse thing in the game is a pixel cloud, while the vast majority are just the different shaped rectangles. Though the visuals of the characters are pretty well thought out as many of the characters stand out in shape alone, but also in nice contrasting colors. Though I will point out that two of the characters are the exact same shape and while being different colors, these are red and green, so colorblind people of that spectrum may have a harder time with those two, if they didn’t act in completely opposite ways.
In terms of audio though, this game is of the highest tier. The music fits the computer-istic setting with its bleeps and wonks and there is plenty of it as well. The music changes to fit the different tones of the different chapters, which some might not expect in a platformer and even better doesn’t get overly repetitive and on the nerves, with much longer pieces than some other games. The music isn’t the only thing in audio getting top marks though as the voice-over is one of the most fun I’ve heard in a while. The narration of Thomas Was Alone features Danny Wallace, an English TV personality, who is probably best known in the gaming world for providing the voice of Shaun Hastings from Assassin’s Creed II. Danny does an amazing job and adds a lot of charm and humor to the characters through his voice over, but the narration doesn’t simply hinge on humor alone. There are some pretty low points that the narration doesn’t simply make light of, actually being pretty somber when needed to the point where I cannot think of anyone who could have done a better job with it, as it is one of the main things that makes this game.
Overall: Thomas Was Alone is one of the best games I’ve played this year, which I’d been dying to play since the trailer. I was not at all disappointed with not only how the game turned out, but where it went in the game. The music, narration, and gameplay all meet together to make something amazing. The game is quirky and fun, but it isn’t all the time having highs and lows, which is what quality story-telling is about. I give Thomas Was Alone
After being beta tested for the PC for months and months to work out the kinks for its eventual release for the Xbox 360, Cold Stream, the newest DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 has finally been given a release date. Coming out on July 24th, the new DLC will not include just the single new campaign, but reworked and re-tweaked versions of the remaining campaigns for the first Left 4 Dead to fit and work within Left 4 Dead 2‘s mechanics.
In addition to the total of 5 campaigns with the DLC, the devs have said that all the mutations will be available at any time with the update. This means users will no longer have to wait around for Gibfest to appear in the hopper to go for the expert difficulty achievements. With the date announced all that’s left is to wait for the release, and probably pricing too, though with a total of 5 campaigns, 4 from last game, hopefully it isn’t too much more than other DLCs.
Get out the gun oil and get ready to get your team back together to relive the rest of the Left 4 Dead campaigns and the new adventure Cold Stream on July 24th.
One of the most eminent television and movie actors involved in massively popular science fiction franchises, as well as a comic book franchise, is Sir Patrick Stewart. Not only was Sir Patrick Stewart in the panel, but he was accompanied by his son Daniel Stewart. This was one of the few panels that had two people doing the panel at the same time, and they had a fantastic chemistry going between them on the stage, which is no surprise since they are father and son.
Fran Kranz, famous for his role as Topher in Dollhouse, actually did come off as the embodiment of an actor from the Whedonverse. He’s funny and a little self-deprecating, and quite humble. He also had so much to say about the story of Dollhouse, little things that he’d thought that went on behind the scenes and his own narrative of things that hadn’t specifically come up in the show. This dedication to storytelling and commitment to a role is something else that marks him as a Whedonverse actor. And, with a TV show and two movies under his belt under Joss Whedon’s capable hands, he’s certainly a part of the family now.
At the tender age of eleven years old, Willow Shields holds herself far better, and with far more maturity, than I, or anyone I know, did. She speaks with a wisdom and surety that any pre-teen would be jealous of, and manages to still remain confident and well spoken in front of a conference room of people, which is no easy feat.
