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Nintendo Wii U’s Miiverse Revealed

Michael Irving
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Nintendo’s self-imposed goal of getting players to connect in different ways was always going to be a key feature of the Wii U, but today they’ve revealed exactly how this will be implemented.

In a Pre-E3 Nintendo Direct video, Satoru Iwata described the Miiverse (an obvious amalgamation of “Mii” and “Universe”), which looks to be a deep and intuitive system for communication between players.

An expansion of the Mii Plaza already seen on the Wii and 3DS, the Miiverse acts as the initial system menu on booting up the Wii U console. Icons for games and apps float above a Plaza, where Miis are gathered around them, indicating how many people are currently playing each game. It can be brought up either on the TV screen or the GamePad, without ending your current game session.

Iwata explains that it will display Miis created on your console, so yours, your friends and family; Miis streamed across the Nintendo Network from your friends’ consoles; as well as a bunch of other Wii U users in your region.

The Miiverse features a forum-like chat setup, where the GamePad touch screen can be used to type or handwrite messages, like the 3DS’ Nintendo Letterbox. Iwata believes that “what you physically write or draw can naturally convey stronger feelings than what you simply type”, so it looks like both typed and written messages will co-exist.

If you can’t communicate enough with handwritten messages, Nintendo have given you an extra way to implement “smileys”: your Mii icon to the right of your message can be altered for each post, to display the appropriate facial expression.

Native support for all Wii U games will allow developers to implement the system however they see fit. While Nintendo are keeping their software news under wraps until their E3 conference, some interesting examples were given using the Mario prototype we were shown last year. Players are seen writing messages on specific levels or even parts within levels, which their friends can see when they reach that point.

It feels like those Facebook posts you get from people playing Words With Friends or something, detailing their high scores, good moves, etc. So while it is pretty cool, let’s hope they include the ability to turn it off, if players wish.

Iwata also stated that the Miiverse can be used for players to share screenshots and user-generated content, and that some time after launch, players will be able to access the Miiverse while away from their Wii U consoles, on their 3DS, PC or any web-enabled mobile device.

All up, it looks like Nintendo are achieving their goal of connecting people to each other, even if there’s no one else in the room. Of course, all this will only be as good as the Nintendo Network connection allows, but with such a huge improvement in online functionality over the original Wii, I think it’s safe to trust them.

We’ll have to wait until the official conference to get any news about the software, but I’m already genuinely excited for this. If they have a decent launch lineup of games (and having learnt a bitter lesson from the 3DS, I think they will), the Wii U will be a Day One purchase for me.

See the full Nintendo Direct video here.

Nintendo Wii U Controller Now dubbed the Wii U Gamepad – Other Details Revealed

Dustin Spencer
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Iwata and the entire team over at Nintendo made it a point to focus on the Wii U’s controller last year at E3 during the upcoming console’s big reveal. One year later, the pre-E3 show from the major publisher has enlightened us quite a bit on how far they’ve come since then in terms of development, as there are quite a few updates as well as a new name for the peripheral.

The Wii U Gamepad will be the name of Nintendo’s fancy new touchscreen controller. As you can see, the same functions are still in tow, but Nintendo did toss out the slide-pad sticks and have replaced them with some much more appealing analog (as rumored). Of more interesting note, this gamepad will be able to sync with television sets, allowing users to go from game to T.V. without ever having to leave the couch.

For those who are not really a fan of the touch screen controller, Nintendo also have you covered for the more hardcore gaming experiences on the Wii U. The Wiimote, Balance Board, and Nunchuck will all have compatibility with the system. A new controller by the name of the Nintendo Wii U Pro Controller will also be launched alongside the Wii U’s release, allowing for a more familiar method of control. At the moment, this news is pretty great as a whole as it seems that no one will have to leave the comfort of their seat while playing and there will be options for everyone in terms of control. Stay tuned, as we will have even more coverage as E3 rolls along this week.

Skyrim: Dawnguard DLC Leaked Images

Roger Ma
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Skyrim: Dawnguard DLC Leaked Images

Well just in time for E3 2012, images have been leaked showing off The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim first game add-on Dawnguard have emerged. A post on neogaf’s forum shows images of the game taken from this month’s upcoming GameInformer Magazine.

Skyrim: Dawnguard sides players with either The Dawnguard or Vampire Lord Harkon. If players decide to side with Harkon, they themselves will be transformed into a Vampire Lord.

The game also adds on new perk trees for both Vampire Lords and werewolves. New enemies such as Gargoyles, death hounds, armoured trolls and legendary dragons will be included in this add-on. Players will be also revisiting the oblivion realm in some quests.

Of course we will know more details on Skyrim: Dawnguard at its official presentation at E3 2012.

Arma 3 and Carrier Command: Gaea Mission Will be at E3

Simon Wolfe
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Bohemia Interacive is bringing two games to E3 2012, with the alpha build of Arma 3 and the near complete Carrier Command: Gaea Mission.  For the Arma 3 presentation, which there’s a sneak peek of below, there will be showcases of plenty of different aspects the more interesting of which being diving, helicopters, and night ops.  In addition, there will be some of the campaign through the mission “Deterrence” and players eager to get hands on the game can get more information on the Community Alpha, which is planned.

As for Carrier Command: Gaea Mission, the main presentation will be the campaign and it’s story surrounding the struggle between the Asian Pacific Alliance and the United Earth Coalition on the planetoid of Taurus.  The game, which will allow players to take control of any of the units at any time, is set for release on September 27th for both Windows PC and Xbox 360, but so far the only player intereaction has been through the strategy mode available through the beta.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 Tees Off On Google Play

Jamie Laike Tsui
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Fore! Golf season is in full swing here in the northern hemisphere and to celebrate, EA Mobile has released Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 on the Google Play market for Android devices. Players will get a chance to create and customize their own golfers and play through famous PGA Tour courses, including Pebble Beach and St. Andrews, against eight real life pros, such as Tiger Woods and Paula Creamer. There are four game modes to play through including the PGA Tour mode and the Tiger Challenge, featuring 20 mini-games to sharpen your golfing skills. Multiplayer is supported via local WiFi or Bluetooth connections.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is available on the Google Play store here.

The Precursors Review

Benjamin Webb
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The Precursors
Developer: Deep Shadows
Publisher: Russobit-M
Platforms: PC
Release Date: December 21st, 2010
Price: $19.95US (Gamersgate)

Overview

Imagine playing a game back in 2004, back when everything seemed like it was perfect. Anime was good, gaming was at it’s highest in quality in years and it was just before the release of the current generation of games. Now imagine, one of these games from the golden days appearing before you, but was built with today’s standards in FPS’ gameplay. How would you feel about that?

I imagine you would have felt utter disappointment at picking up such a title. This is simply because the standards in gaming have dropped dramatically since those glory days of old. Despite a few of today’s games trying to break the mold of mediocrity, much of the same trash has been in circulation for a while now and it is this trash that has widely impacted Precursors.

Story

One of the worse things about Precursors is it’s horribly told story. I mean throughout my playthrough, I had no idea what was going on with what, with the exceptions of what was being thrown at me in horribly directed cutscenes. I mean these are so horrible that it took me nearly an hour to realise that I was the unarmoured dude in the spaceship crash at the start of the game.

While playing the game, you will receive a ton of information on the top left of the HUD. usually they’ll throw this information at you in the middle of a firefight, causing this massive backlog of stuff to be present. Even worse is that it doesn’t beep or anything which means that you could be focused on running between points and just simply miss out on information.

The story was pretty unamazing, which I think is to be expected from a game that is based more around exploration, like this game is.

Gameplay

Precursors tries to pin modern day thinking to a classic Unreal formula that falls flat on its own face. part of the fun of the exploration in exploration based games is the exploring, on your own, with no outside help. But no, in Precursors, you’re told where something is, given this massive area to explore and then shown exactly where it is. It takes most of the fun out of the game, assuming you’re having fun playing this game.

One of the worst things about Precursors gameplay is that it borrows from the wrong set of games. Instead of pulling its gameplay from modern shooters and RPGs it should instead be looking to the past for it’s inspiration. Games like Unreal and even Turok should have been an inspiration here. But instead the developers took what could have been awesome and Call of Dutified it. The end result is much lost potential to try and cater to an audience that will not have enjoyed this game in the first place.

Combat in this game felt like an unfair and clunky exchange when it is forced upon you. Most of the time you can just run past a lot of the enemies and not really worry about them. But in some cases, you have to fight and these battles are on fairly unfair terms. These battles often left me feeling mad and aggravated me to the point of having to take a break. You know you’re making a game wrong when you’re presented with a battle that cannot be beaten without a plethora of luck and kiting.

There are also space-sections of the game which are a change of pace and offer some interest, but it feels like an un-needed layer of padding to a game that was already padded without brilliance. It feels like I’m being way too mean with this game, but really, these are just my thoughts…

If you like unfair games that take forever to get anywhere even when being led by a map to an exact location, then this is the game for you, gameplay wise at least. I wont judge you if you do buy this game.

Visuals

Remember earlier when I said that this game was like playing a game from 2004? Well, that’s because it looks like a game straight out of 2004. I am not lying here, it really does look like a game from the ’04 era and I feel that the games visual style has suffered severely because of this.

Have you seen James Cameron’s Avatar? Everyone has at least seen the ads for the film, and I’m fairly sure nearly everyone in the world has seen the movie, I mean there was a massive movement about it where people would dress up as giant blue cats and everything. Anyway, the visual style of the game is much like the planet Pandora’s aesthetics. You’ve got all this glowy stuff, rich vibrant colours and exotic wildlife all waiting to be brought to life which never actually happens. Now I understand that games have budgets, but I think that if they were going for a game as low quality visually like this, they should have released the game on a lower-spec system. The PC, a system synonymous with unforgiving graphic whores, probably wasn’t the best choice to launch this title on.

Without modern graphical techniques, the visuals just look plain, and even sometimes horrible. I think one of the appealing factors to this game was probably it’s world, but it’s just really fallen flat on itself and completely missed it’s mark.

Audio

Okay this is one of the aspects of the game I slightly enjoyed. I mean really, video game composers and musicians need to stop hanging out and producing music together just so that I have a soundtrack to really whinge about. Unfortunately, I think this is more of a case of the soundtrack being acceptable, rather than something brilliant so it’s not worth buying for the music alone.

Often I found the sound effects to be quite bland and uninteresting. This is especially the case with weapons and enemy noises. Heck, this can even be applied to the terrible voice acting within the game. Seriously if there was an award for lack of emotion, this game would get it.

Overall

Precursors is an experience that I would wish on nobody. I played this game because I had to, none of you have to, so please do not follow in my footsteps. Of course, you’re free to do what you like, and maybe you’ll even just want to pick up this game to see how bad it really is.

2-0-capsules-out-of-10

Razor: Salvation Review

Kyle Moore
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Razor: Salvation
Developer: Blowfish Studios
Publisher: Crescent Moon Games
Platform: iPad (Reviewed)/iPhone
Release: 29/5/12
Price: $0.99 [Sale Price]- Available Here

Overview

First-person shooters are a little hard to manage on iOS. The usual dual controls, coupled with changing weapons makes it difficult to not flood the screen with interface. Crescent Moon and Blowfish Studios have teamed up to create just one more shooter for iOS, Razor Salvation. How does it hold up? Read on to see.

Story

Razor Salvaition is a fairly typical science fiction story. Aliens, known as Xenos have invaded the Earth, and you are given the task to defend it. Captaining the dropship Salvation, you need to shoot down the invading aliens and rescue as many civilians as possible. I particularly enjoy the story being told through a pseudo-animated comicbook style introduction to the game, and even little glimpses into the narrative during the loading screens in the form of faux-adverts. Each level, broken down into days, also has a brief introduction, something along the lines of a captain’s log. The game also functions as the first installment for a wider story concerning the Xenos invasion, which may be why the game feels so short. Regardless, the small glimpse into the story is interesting, and maintained well across a number of narrative devices.

Gameplay

Picking up Razor Salvation is rather easy. The game is a stationary shooter, where you take control of the gun on top a dropship. Waves of enemies approach the ship, firing on you as they saunter over. The control system takes some time to get used to, with the fire button on the left feeling slightly uncomfortable, and the means of rotating around feeling very sluggish. Of course, you can always invert the controls in the options menu, but eventually, the trigger button’s placement feels right, and the game becomes much more bearable.

Razor Salvation is a game that grows on you. Despite it’s simple to learn mechanics, the actual playing of the game can feel a little uncomfortable. Similar to the controls, the reloading of the guns can be bothersome. Perhaps I am just used to guns reloading quickly on PC shooter titles. Either way, eventually the slow loading time has its purpose. It forces you to strategically reload and swap your weapons based on your situation. This makes the last two levels particularly taxing to master. There are wide ranges of weapons, all of which can be upgraded, as can the dropship. However, the weapon change menu is a little lacking in terms of usability.

Visuals and Audio

The graphics are great, but completely wasted on the iPhone. Small aliens are hard to shoot from a long distance, and the detail gone into the physics of objects is lost. After a few play throughs, I decided to swap over to the iPad and found the large screen much more rewarding. Cars flipped as I fired rockets, to destroy the enemies hiding behind them. The detail isn’t wasted at all on the larger screen, and even the ability to better see your enemies comes in handy. The interface is just too small on the iPhone screen, and it can become troublesome to view any of the enemies, especially snipers. So, be warned, while the iTunes blurb claims to have ‘console’ quality graphics, these graphics will only be fully appreciated on the larger screen.

The audio at times can be rather annoying. The music is nice as a background, setting an anxious tone to the game. However, sound effects that accompany radar warnings, reloading, explosions and even certain gunfire can become a little overwhelming. Perhaps it is the eventual difficulty of the game, coupled with the tension-building soundtrack, but eventually the sound effects just make me overly frustrated. That being said, it does fit the theme of the game well, saving civilians in a dropship would be a rather stressful ordeal.

Overall

Razor Salvation clearly works better on an iPad. But this comes as no surprise, the high end, graphically stunning, large swipe based games like this always work better with the biggest screen. The controls may be a little uncomfortable at first, but if you give it some time the game comes to life. There is a great deal of strategy that goes into playing the game, giving it a high level of replay-ability.

7-0-capsules-out-of-10

No Gore In Injustice: Gods Among Us

Matthew Vella
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No gore. No surprise.

It has been confirmed that while Injustice: Gods Amoung Us is being developed by the guys behind Mortal Kombat, it certainly won’t be as violent. The game is going for a T (for teen) rating much like Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe, however NeatherRealm Studios plans to push the envelope and go a bit darker this time around.

“DC understandably will never let us cut Batman’s head off,” Ed Boon of NeatherRealm studios told Kotaku. “They’re never going to let us stab Wonder Woman in the face… In this format they’re never going to do something like that.” However, this will not stop characters from smashing each other into walls and through buildings.

“Violence is replaced with crazy, over-the-top action,” Says Boon. “We’re making big, action-movie, over-the-top, kind of Transformers, Dark Knight, Spider-Man-type [action]. All the events you see in those kinds of movies is what we’re trying to capture in this thing.”

Boon assures us the game will still be a pretty brutal experience. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comment section below!

E3 2012: Predicting Sony’s E3 Media Conference

Joshua Spudic
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E3 2012 is right around the corner. Leading up to this mammoth event, many have been predicting what will turn up to each media conference. In terms of Sony’s media conference, the focus seems to be on exclusive Playstation 3 games, a plethora of Playstation Vita titles (including rumoured ones), updates to existing services and the introduction of new ones. What can we expect at Sony’s E3 media conference this year? Below are some of the possibilities involving the Playstation 3, Playstation Move and, what should be the main focus, the Playstation Vita.

The Playstation 3 and Playstation Move

The Playstation 3 will be focused on games, mostly exclusive ones, since they are usually a system seller. The five main Playstation 3 exclusives that will be shown will be The Last Of Us, God of War: Ascension, Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, Sly 4: Thieves In Time and LittleBigPlanet Karting, all first party titles. Each of these titles will divulge into gameplay, a bit about the story as well as a demonstration. Expect more characters to be revealed for Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, including Nathan Drake, Cole McGrath and Solid Snake. As well as these first party titles, expect some third party titles to be explored. While this could be a long shot, one title that should make an appearance at Sony’s conference will be Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. With a confirmed January 2013 release, this could be a chance to show off the game.

The Playstation is more than games, though. So, don’t be surprised if Sony reveals any more media applications. With the revelation that Youtube is coming to the Playstation Vita, a Playstation 3 version could follow suite. More deals with media streaming services might be announced. Then there is the Playstation Plus overhaul. Sony will be showing off the future of the premium service, with possible access to Playstation and Playstation 2 games via a cloud base service. Connectivity with the Playstation Vita is also a possibility.

Also expect some Playstation Move titles to be shown off, both those which use the motion control exclusively and which utilise it as an option. Two games that may have a trailer shown could be Sports Champions 2 and DanceStar Party Hits, both which were recently announced. Bioshock Infinite could also make an appearance, with Ken Levine showing off how the Move will work in the game. But that is all that can be commented on the Playstation Move. Sony will be bringing more stuff for the Move but it seems the motion control peripheral is on life support.

The Playstation Vita

Since its release in February, the Playstation Vita will surely be the focus of this year’s E3 conference for Sony. So far, gamers have seen Uncharted, WipEout, Gravity Rush and Resistance coming from the first party studios of Sony, with third party support in the form of Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention (NIS), Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (Capcom) and Rayman Origins (Ubisoft). Currently, the amount of games being released for the Playstation Vita is only at a trickle, with only a couple of games every month since February. This could be why Vita sales are only at 1.8 million. That number will shoot up if the Vita has a strong presence at E3.

E3 will be where the Vita will either shine in the spotlight or wither into nothingness. Sony must show the world that the Vita is worth having and, if these games do appear at E3, then they certainly will achieve that. What is already known is the release of Sly 4: Thieves In Time with the Playstation 3, utilising a cross-platform save feature which will allow players to take their save game on the go. Warrior’s Lair (introduced last year as Ruin) will use the same feature. Also expected to be there are two rumoured titles that have found home on the Playstation 3: LittleBigPlanet Karting and Playstation All Stars Battle Royale. If both games are to be found on the Vita, then it opens up endless opportunities. Imagine cross platform multiplayer, as well as sharing content with others on both platforms. Modnation Racers did share created PS3 and PSP tracks with the Vita version. A test, perhaps?

Assassin’s Creed Lawsuit Settled

Matthew Vella
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The ongoing lawsuit between author John Beiswenger and Ubisoft has been settled out of court.

Beiswenger was claiming parts of the Assassin’s Creed story was stolen from his book, Link, but now has settled with Ubisoft. The main claim of theft is that the ideas for the Animus device were first seen in his self-published book. This voluntary dismissal of the suit means it will no longer prevent a release delay of the up coming Assassin’s Creed III. However, it should be noted that things have been left open so Beiswenger can re-open the suit at a later date. Beiswenger claims he still believes that the original source material was still originally his.

His representative had the following to say:

“My client’s decision to exercise his right to voluntarily dismiss the action, without prejudice, in no way diminishes his stalwart conviction in the merit of his claims against Ubisoft. He is unwavering in his belief that many key components of the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise infringe on many key components of his novel, Link. We believe Ubisoft has engaged in egregious acts of copyright infringement and, should he choose to seek redress through the courts in the future, we remain confident that a trier of fact would agree.”
-Representative of John Beiswenger

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