Much like last year, us here at Capsule Computers have been doing commentary casts on the various conferences shown at E3. The conference that we have made available is the Commentary for the Nintendo Conference that was shown Wednesday Morning here in Aus.
In this cast, you will be able to hear our impressions of each item being shown, as well as some entertaining back and forth about this and that. The layout is very similar to that of a Podcast, only it’s now with video and we assure you that it will be completely worth your time to watch, if only for a laugh.
Cast:Luke Halliday, Benjamin Webb, Michael Marr, Jessica Barabas-Bui, Michael Irving, Simon Wolfe.
After the existence of Dead Space 3 was leaked out only a few days before E3 it was clear that Electronic Arts was going to have quite a title to show off during the event. Now the biggest question many will have about Dead Space 3 is whether or not it is in fact still scary despite featuring co-op gameplay. Well if what we were shown behind the scenes at EA’s booth was anything to go by, it very much is.
At the beginning of the presentation we join Isaac Clarke shortly after his crash landing on a frozen planet. This frozen planet provides a number of different features that past titles could never have made use of, such as whiteout conditions from powerful blizzards making it nearly impossible to see enemies even if they are only a few feet in front of you. As one may expect this raises the tension in the game immensely because players are given only a small field of view, while enemies could be lurking anywhere past the walls of snow. In fact, enemies are even capable of emerging from the snow covered ground, which caused quite a scare in the room.
Now Isaac Clarke appears to have learned quite a few new abilities in-between the events of Dead Space 2 and 3, because he is now capable of dodge rolling, allowing him to avoid potentially lethal attacks, take cover behind objects through the use of the game’s adaptive cover system, as well as crouch. Now while this may not be too big of a deal for dealing with necromorphs, such as the pickaxe wielding type shown off in the demonstration, these mechanics help immensely when dealing with a first time enemy, Unitoligest soldiers who will lay into you with not only gunfire but grenades as well.
As one may expect, many of the game’s past weaponry returns, such as the disc launcher, machine gun and plasma cutter and so do Isaac’s abilities such as stasis and telekinesis. Telekinesis is quite useful in certain battles, as players are even able to lift grenades tossed by enemies and throw them back at the enemy before they explode. Oh and don’t worry, you will be able to slice off the limbs on human enemies just the same as necromorphs.
But what about the co-op element you ask? Well your potential partner goes by the name John Carver, a man who is on a mission of vengeance against the Unitoligists. Now Dead Space 3 will feature drop-in and drop-out co-op sessions, but what makes this co-op even more interesting is the fact that certain story elements will play out different ways when there are two players at the same time. In fact, entire story sections may change if there are two players working together, creating an interesting replay mechanic where gamers may be interested in seeing the game solo as well as with another to see how everything has changed.
Besides the standard necromorphs, a new type has appeared and was shown off during the presentation. This new enemy type is called a Feeder and is capable of climbing onto a dead body, replacing the head and controlling the body as if it were alive, creating a necromorph capable of using weaponry. We were presented quite a brutal death at the hands of the Feeders, where one grew close enough to Isaac and was able to devour his head and replace it with its own. It sure seemed that the newly revealed suit, called the Snow Suit, didn’t help protect him from that violent death.
The rest of the presentation followed both developers making their way through a number of enemies and finally facing off against the same giant necromorph creature shown during EA’s pre-E3 conference. The fight lasted much longer this time, but still ended the same way with the creature sucking Isaac and John into its mouth and the two ending up within its stomach with only a few viable options of survival. Despite this additional co-op feature, the game still retained its scary and suspenseful nature as not only could enemies appear from anywhere in the frozen wasteland, but they are just as powerful, if not more, than anything we have seen in a Dead Space game so far.
Now we know what many of you may be thinking, how could Crysis 3 possibly continue the story of Prophet from the past game, considering what happened to Prophet during Crysis 2. Still, during our closed-door presentation at EA’s booth during E3 this year we were told that Prophet would indeed be continuing to fight against the aliens and the 5th cell in Crysis 3. In fact, Prophet is quite literally a prophet in this game as he has had a vision of the end of the world and has set out on a mission to prevent it from happening at all costs.
Now for the first time ever, players will actually be able to make use of the alien’s weaponry whenever they come across one such piece of equipment; however we were not shown how one of these pieces of weaponry would perform in actual combat. Instead the developers chose to give us a chance to try our hand at playing through a level that was about a third of the way through the game called Dam Busters. It is worth noting that we were able to try out Crysis 3 on a high-end PC, but I opted to use the provided game controller for ease of access.
On the PC build of the game we were able to try our hand at making it through the same stage shown during the EA press conference, though we could choose our own way to do it. In this level we were tasked with disabling a generator in a nearby dam to create a window of opportunity to take out another target. Now all of the past gameplay features will be returning, such as stealth and armor mode, and now players can make use of the signature weapon for Crysis 3, the silent but deadly bow weapon.
This bow can be fired from stealth mode without actually discharging the players’ suit energy and disabling stealth. Not only that but various arrow heads could be equipped to provide multiple enemy take downs, such as fragmentation tips which explode upon contact, similar to a frag grenade, as well as electric arrows capable of electrifying enemies in water. Now, not one for too much subtlety I found it quite easy to sneak past a number of enemies despite causing quite an uproar after encountering the first group of enemies, exchanging bullets and multiple explosions.
Still, despite my less than sneaky means of stealth, I was able to make my way to the dam and here I was shown another new feature of Crysis 3, the ability to hack turrets and other electronic devices within the range of the players’ sight. These electronics can be hacked in visor mode and doing so not only eliminates an obstacle for the player, but also provides additional stealth opportunities.
Of course, all that stealth was likely for naught as there is nothing stealthy about blowing apart a massive dam after disabling the generator inside. However there is a lot that can be said for how impressive the title managed to present this large scale devastation. Regardless of how the player chooses to play, whether aggressively or stealthily, it will likely be hard to avoid having fun with Crysis 3 when it is released in February next year.
Cover Orange the hit game by FDG Entertainment, which has been downloaded more than 8 million times since its release, is having some special deals this weekend for the iOS game. On iPhone and iPod Touch, the game is available completely free this weekend, while on iPad the HD version of the game is 50% off, or $0.99.
The game features physics based puzzles that task the player with having to protect cute, little oranges from the scourge of acid rain. The game features 360 levels of physics based fun for players to check out, which at the discounted amounts means a big bang for your buck.
Players can checkout the iPhone and iPod Touch versions of Cover OrangeHERE and the HD iPad version HERE.
We sat down with Luis Sanchez, Senior Game Designer over at Santa Monica Studios at this year’s E3 2012. If you all saw the Sony Press Conference earlier this week you would of seen the amazing God Of War Ascension gameplay trailer presented at the show. This time around you can enjoy a running commentary with Luis as he was able to take us through step by step some of the new features that we can expect to see in God Of War Ascension plus some excellent insight on the new enemies that Kratos will be taking down along with some interesting pieces of information about the man himself. The battles are still as intense as always and Kratos has picked up a few extra tricks and abilities that will certainly keep all you God Of War fans very happy!
So without further a-do, enjoy the click on the play button below and enjoy the presentation / interview.
Deadly Association Developer: Microids Publisher: Anuman Interactive Platforms: iPad Release Date: June 5th, 2012 Price: $2.99 Available Here
Overview
Seems like every crime show leans heavily on modern forensics work today, thanks to the hit CBS show CSI. Microids brings the forensic experience to the iPad with their latest hidden object game Deadly Association. Players will put their puzzling skills to the test to solve a series of murders.
Story
Deadly Association kicks off with a murdered woman. Nancy Boyle is found half naked at her home and police inspectors Chloe Cunningham and Paul Baxter are assigned to solve the case. Quickly, the bodies of Nancy Boyle’s associates begin piling up and the signs point to one of their colleagues. The plot line for Deadly Association is actually rather interesting with a good twist. It is great to see a well thought out story in a hidden object type game. Deadly Association’s story will keep players going til the very end.
Gameplay
When I read the description for Deadly Association, I honestly expected a forensic adventure game in the vein of the CSI games. I was actually quite surprised to instead find a hidden adventure game. Deadly Association would be a decent hidden adventure game as it utilizes the forensic theme to great success. The only catch is the fact the game is rather poorly translated. Often times, objects were not hidden to the point of being impossible to find, but rather the wrong English word was used for the item. For example the word “folder” was used for a binder and a “hoe” was used for a hand rake or fork. This leads me to believe that this game was not translated by a native English speaker. Usually this would not be a problem for games, but considering the nature of hidden object games, this makes Deadly Association unnecessarily difficult.
The controls were well executed in Deadly Association. Considering often times objects in these types of games are extremely small, I especially appreciated the little dot that appeared on the screen to signal where my tap landed. I did not like the levels that required players to tilt the device to see certain corners of the scenery. On a bus or those who suffer from essential tremors like I do will find this to be extremely annoying. These scenes often ended up constantly swaying and making picking out small items more difficult.
Some points of the game seemed a little pointless. There were plenty of times I found myself clearing out smoke, steam, even sun rays so I could get a clear view of my searching area. This seemed completely unnecessary and was only put in to artificially lengthen the game. On the flip side, the forensic puzzles were an enjoyable break from the hidden object game play. It was pretty obvious that the game developers took many cues from popular forensic crime shows when developing the puzzles.
Visuals
Deadly Association is a visually appealing game. Microids skilfully mixed real life photos of models and art for a seamless look. I personally am not 100 percent sure if the character games were photographs of actors or a really impressive piece of art. However, I really do wish there were more of them. It seems that the same images of the characters are rehashed over and over. Even the main character Chloe Cunningham’s image is the same throughout the whole game for the exception of a few scenes where her usual serious expression is replaced with a broad grin.
The hidden objects are well hidden in the game. They do not look obviously different, although the scenery is often extremely messy. There are many a scientists who will look at the state of disorganization in the lab and feel a small part of their soul die.
Audio
The audio for Deadly Association is decent. The music is tense and fits the theme of the game perfectly. There is enough variety in the music to not get sick of the soundtrack; however the sound effects are a tad slim. Although there is nothing in the game’s audio that will make players feel the need to mute the sound, there is really nothing to encourage players to listen to the game’s audio either.
Overall
For $2.99, I struggle to recommend Deadly Association. I was able to beat the game in two hours flat. Although the game play is better than the average run of the mill hidden object game, there is enough problems with the translations of items to severely hinder the game play. The replay value of Deadly Association is nearly non-existent unless players feel the absolute urge to beat their previous time. Although the story is the strongest part of Deadly Association, the game struggles with painfully average audio. Visually, the game is impressive, but at the same time, needs a lot more visual variety for the characters. I feel that the game would be more fairly priced at $0.99, yet there are plenty of games on the App Store that will provide more hours of game time for the price. Those who are hidden object junkies or crime game fanatics will enjoy Deadly Association. For the rest, there are better places to spend $2.99.
Match Day Collection: ZX Spectrum Developer: Elite Systems Publisher: Elite Systems Platform: iPhone(Reviewed)/iPad Release: 8/6/12 Price: $1.99 – Available Here/HD Version Available Here
Overview
Remember 1984? No, me either. That may have to do with the fact that I wasn’t born then. But if unlike me, you were in fact alive, then perhaps this game will be a blast from your past. Developed by UK developers Elite Systems, Match Day Collection: ZX Spectrum is a port of the classic Jon Ritman soccer/football games that started the whole genre off in the 1980’s. The three classic games; Match Day, Match Day International and Match Day II are all available for both iPhone and iPad as of today.
Gameplay
Match Day, and its subsequent incarnations that are also playable in this collection, are the forefathers of soccer games (or football, if you will). The takes place on the field, with two opposing teams – so far so good, right? The rules are the same as the actual game of soccer, as far as I can tell. But how does this virtual representation of a sporting game hold up when ported to a touch screen device? Not too well I’m afraid. Arcade ports to iOS never tend to work so well. The main reason is the lack of tactile controls. Movement within the game, at least for me, has always gone hand and hand with the hard-pressing of a key, or the trust/pull back of a joystick. I find it hard to determine where I am moving or at what speed when my fingers can continuously slip from the D-Pad or virtual-joystick. On the plus side, Match Day Collection: ZX Spectrum allows you to customise your controls and screen mode, so you can play in an arcade style frame or full screen with opaque interface, of which you can control the transparency of. I feel as if Elite Systems know it is a difficult task to emulate these games on iOS, hence their effort gone into giving the player such input customisation. The game is clearly not designed to be played by anyone, but acts rather as an homage to past games – tracing back the steps of a gaming genres to it’s roots and perhaps attempting to gain new fans. There are also a few problems with saving the game, as closing the game, or being interrupted by a notification or any other interference means losing your spot in the game. There is an autosave function, but at times this fails to work and you need to watch the opening sequence of the game again and again.
Visuals and Audio
The graphics and audio have been ported to, what I can assume are perfect. Retro-game enthusiasts will be pleased with the look and sound of the game, but it’s minimalistic 8-bit style may deter new-comers from picking this title up. The designers have done a great job paying tribute to the game and should be commended. Like the controls, colours of teams and the field can be altered to suit the player – which is good as some teams are hard to differentiate, and even hard to tell what player you are controling at any given moment.
Overall
Match Day Collection: ZX Spectrum has a very niche appeal. Contemporary gamers, especially those who have been deemed ‘casual’ may dislike the game, despite it’s retro ‘feel’. Hell, forget feel, it is retro; it’s a direct port after all. Hardcore gamers may be swayed by its primitive nature, lack of stylised graphics or, whatever it is these people stereotypically cherish. The only people I can recommend this game to are the die-hard retro fans. Essentially, Match Day Collection: ZX Spectrum is a portable, playable history of videogaming. It allows owners to get a glimpse at where soccer games started, and gives them a chance to go back and play through some classic games.
We conducted a great three product interview at this year’s E3 with Hilmar Hahn, Associate Manager, Product Marketing from Razer. We fist run through the Razer Taipan, an ambidextrous gaming mouse that sets a new standard for versatility, form and function.
We next run through the Razer Artemis Concept Controller. The Razer Artemis is a concept controller crafted to give gamers a competitive edge as they stomp and destroy their way to victory in the dog-eat-dog BattleTech universe for MechWarrior Online.
And Finally we discuss the Battlefield 3 Razer BlackShark gaming headset inspired by tactical aviator headsets and armed with total audio immersion.
Full details and specifications are in the video interview below. Let us know what which of the three Razer products you’d enjoy using the most.
Game of Thrones Developer: Cyanide Studio Publisher: Focus Home Interactive, Atlus Platforms: PC (reviewed), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Release Date: 7 June, 2012 Price: $49.99 (available here)
Overview
There is currently nothing hotter in the world of entertainment than Game of Thrones. It is the latest sensation for HBO, dominating ratings and scooping up awards. The TV adaptation of George R R Martins novels has brought the long running series to the forefront of the public consciousness, and now that Season 2 has bowed out and the latest novel A Dance with Dragons has hit paperback, there’s a long wait in store for fans of the series before fresh tales from Westeros appear.
Enter the second video game entry in the Song of Ice and Fire world, an RPG simply entitled: Game of Thrones. In development long before the show brought the property to such mass attention, developers Cyanide have nonetheless managed to team up with both Martin and HBO to bring some authenticity to the game: the game was crafted under the supervision of the author and a couple of character models reflect their HBO counterparts, even having the actors along for a bit of voice over.
The first Game of Thrones game, an RTS subtitled Genesis, was a horrible mess best forgotten. The RPG has been handled by the same developer: time to place your bets…
Story
The story rotates between two characters completely new to the Thrones universe – Mors Westford and Alester Sarwyck. Mors is a brother of the Night’s Watch, Alester the eldest son of Lord Sarwyck, a bannerman to House Lannister. Whilst Mors has been bound to the Wall by his vows, Alester has been out of Westeros entirely, spending 15 years away from Westeros and becoming a Red Priest in the mean time.
(If that’s already utterly incomprehensible best not continue: this game is here to hook in those already well versed in the Game of Thrones world…)
Alester returns to Westeros upon the death if his father, only to discover that his bastard half brother plans to take over the family lands by marrying his sister (if there are two things Thrones loves, it’s bastards and incest!). Alester makes haste to King’s Landing to convince the Queen to call off the arrangement and reclaim his status as true heir to the Sarwyck lands. Once there a tiny side plot of the Game of Thrones novel is expanded into the game’s main plot: Cersei Lannister’s purge of her husbands’ bastard children. Mors is drawn into the action by a letter from John Arryn, requesting that he help protect a young girl and find somewhere safe for her to stay. After some action at the Wall, Mors is made a Recruiter of the Night’s Watch, and is thus free to leave the North and try and bring the girl, Jeyne, to safety.
The game is split into chapters, alternating between Alester and Mors. The plotting is much like the novels in that although the two tales are intricately linked, the two characters never share the same space – at least not until the end game. There are lots of little details that fans of the novels will lap up, nods to lore, small ties to major events. Things unfold at a good pace, covering the usual Thrones territory of duplicity, manipulation and politics. Lengthy dialogue scenes follow a branch system similar to Bioware games, and character responses follow a train of thought rather than having a series of replies shoehorned in to particular emotions or archetypes. And as promised, choices you make throughout the game have an impact on the outcome…
The story and the manner of its telling are certainly the strongest thing about the game. Some of the twists and turns ape classic Thrones material and a couple of the relationships are genuinely engaging. The fact that the books are several thousand pages ahead of the characters featured here and have yet made no mention of them at all does limit the scale and consequence of the events, but luckily Martin’s universe is one that thrives on character driven stories, and this part of it is no different. The publisher could perhaps have avoided releasing publicity screenshots that reveal a certain twist in the game, and there’s a certain immersion shattering cameo that should never ever have made it in to the game. Other than that things tick boxes fairly readily, but sadly there is more to a game than a story…
Gameplay
Before any of the action kicks off there is some character building to do, and although Mors and Alester are preset in their looks there is plenty of character customisation to be had in Game of Thrones. Each character can be played in three different ways, with classes drawn from Game of Thrones lore. Mors is largely a warrior whilst Alester leans more towards rogue archetypes. There is the usual levelling system that grows skills (strength, luck etc) and unlocks abilities, but also a rather neat strengths and weaknesses system. For every strength allocated to Mors or Alester there must be a weakness to balance it, so if Mors is a Bruiser (added damage from two handed weapons), he’ll have to be a half pint, psychopath or inflicted with Greyscale to balance out his advantage. It’s different, intriguing, and allows for a little more customisation of preset characters: easily a feature to see more of.
The combat itself is somewhat reminiscent of Dragon Age and many other RPG’s. Each character has an energy gauge as well as health, and each combat ability uses up a set number of energy points. Energy gradually refills with every blow landed, and another limited ability can refill the bar every so often. It’s more unusual in that hitting the space bar doesn’t stop time but only slows it, so the strategy involved remains pressurised. Attacks have to be planned, not only with regards to their energy consumption, but the weapon type being used, the armor being attacked and the status effects in play. An enemy wearing heavy armor will fall fastest to a blunt weapon, and Mor’s dog can rip away an enemies shield only when they are in counter attack. Combatants can be stunned, terrified, set on fire, knocked down, immobilised and more. There is plenty to go on in this system, even if strategy is more about how quickly you can kill the bad guys rather than if you can kill them, at least until later levels.
Each character also has a unique ability that can be used out of combat. Mors can shapeshift into his dog to follow scents and reveal secrets and treasure, whilst Alester can use his Red Priest abilities to discover hidden doors and mechanisms. Mors certainly has the better deal here, as the dog can be used to sneak up on enemies and rip their throats out, which if not that satisfying thanks to a dodgy animation and limited stealth mechanics, is at least useful. The odd basic puzzle rears its head, but gameplay is all about bashing people’s skulls in, lengthy discussions, negotiating the nigh on useless map and doing it all over again. Quests do avoid the nonsensical nature of some games and slot nicely into the plot, so kudos to the developers for integrating even the side quests so well with the story.
And it is the story that drives nigh on all of Game of Thrones’ success as a game. The combat system may have a good depth to it, but ultimately its promising framework is let down by shoddy execution. There is a complete lack of polish to the game despite the claimed seven year development period. It’s obvious in both technical and logical things – combat animations are clunky and doors swing straight through characters. Mors’s dog can chew through plate armor, people recognise Alester despite the fact he’s wearing a helmet as part of a disguise…it goes on. The soldiers in a particular house must all be stone deaf because several were slaughtered without alerting the guy looking out the window just metres away. Enemy soldiers supposed to be actively searching for the protagonists completely ignore them because they are coded to talk to a merchant. The story and characters are forced to fight against a backlog of facepalm moments, and towards the end they struggle to win.
Audio and Visual
Whilst the ‘last gen’ label being plastered on Game of Thrones may be a tad unfair, it certainly isn’t entirely wrong: the game needs a warning label of some sort. There are some impressive suits of armor to be found in Westeros and the overall design certainly channels the Game of Thrones universe, but it’s low res and it just feels dead and flat. Mors, Alester and a few other key players have detailed character models that are very distinctive, but equally every soldier and merchant is the same, and the less said about Mors’ unimaginably hideous dog the better. On the surface things don’t look that bad at all, but inch a little closer and parts of Westeros could have been forged a decade ago. Wandering around one marketplace (in what should have been the hive of activity that is King’s Landing), out of four merchants, three have the exact same character model. Look into the boxes at the stalls and their wares are flat, lacking in detail, or just rendered like something from the 90’s.
Combat suffers under the thumb of clunky animations, and there is no sense of impact to a blow visually or audibly. Sound effects are cookie cutter and the music (despite a few appearances from themes from the HBO show) struggles to lift itself out of generic. Alester’s voice acting fares little better, and although he channels noble lord fairly well it as at the cost of any emotion. “Silence you soulless whore!” has never sounded so dull. Mors is a bit difficult to take seriously at first with his vocal cords made of rubble, but he hits more of the emotional notes and is certainly the more interesting character.
As a package Game of Thrones just stumbles with its presentation. The devil is in the detail with RPG’s and fantasy worlds alike, and this game just can’t bring Westeros to life.
Overall
Fans of the Game of Thrones universe are the only people that need even think of playing this title. The story is the only thing that keeps the game afloat and those who aren’t versed in the intricacies of Martin’s universe will be left utterly bored. The combat system has a lot of potential, but is crippled by a low level presentation that destroys what could have been a decent game. It has obviously been made with love for the source material and the story will hook in fans desperate for some fresh Ice and Fire action, but wait for a Steam sale before hitting that buy button.
We sat down with Lucian Contreanti, Product Marketing Manager at Electronic Arts Romania at this year’s E3 2012 to discuss the up coming release of FIFA 13 for the Apple iOS. Lucian runs us through gameplay and also explains some of the great new features within the game. FIFA 13 is certainly a very polished game, from the stadium, weather effects, to the player model designs. The game also is very easy to play with simple to understand controls, with the swipe of you fingers you can quickly change the entire formation of your team from defensive to all out attacking formation. The game is also compatible with the console version so by logging in with your Origin account you can earn experience points that you can be used on the console version.
We’ll let the video interview/game play below explain the rest in much further detail. Leave any comments below on what you think of the game.
