While we attended the event, I was lucky enough to speak with Mike Jones of Slant Six Games, producer of Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City. Mike was kind enough to conduct a brief interview with us, discussing the story, multiplayer and various features of the game as well as exploring the rest of 2012 for the franchise. Check out the video below, and don’t forget to get your hands on the game March 22nd!
We were lucky enough to be invited to Capcom’s Ultimate Capcom Showcase earlier this month and alongside a bunch of other amazing titles, the one that was the most surprising for me was Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City. In all honesty, I’ve had some doubts for this game, but upon trying out the ‘verses’ multiplayer, I can confidently put all these worries to rest. Guys, this game has one hell of a multiplayer and is definitely something to be excited about! Filled with frantic and fun action, this is one hell of an epic third person shooter that’s certainly going to get a lot of love on the PlayStation Network/Xbox Live.
Before I do speak a word on this game however, I need you to do me a favour: take everything you know about Resident Evil and chuck it out the window. Laters! This is not your slow-paced typical horror RE title. This spin-off is letting you do what you’ve always wanted to do: cause a ruckus and blow some zombie brains out! While the controls aren’t too different from say RE 4 or 5, there are some obvious changes that make combat much more deeper, resulting in a more a faster-paced, action packed third-person shooter. So take out all that suspenseful, boring stuff…the multiplayer here is about killing dudes-and that’s exactly what you want to do when your online, right?!
Visually speaking, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City has everything you want in a Zombie game, and while it does take place during some of the more classic titles, playing as the ‘evil’ Umbrella Corporation this time completely changes the atmosphere. The motto here should be “don’t be a wuss” because your never screaming at one zombie…your yelling in triumph as you unleash hell on hordes of zombies, AND other dudes shooting at you. Multiplayer accomplishes what no previous Resident Evil title has done before (although RE6 may do so later this year) and that’s make it actually feel like your smack dead in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. You’ve got innocent bystanders running around for safety and getting in the way while hordes of zombies chase them. You’ve got cities on fire, chaos surrounding you and high-def blood & gore everywhere you turn. It’s just like a typical zombie movie, and not like those sucky RE ones either where people do silly martial arts to fight zombies, I’m talking about the good stuff like Dawn of the Dead where your town has gone to hell and if you stop shooting your probably going to die! In one particular mode you even have to race towards an escape helicopter to evacuate the city, which not only makes for fun competitive play but also is a nice throwback to many plot points in various zombie films & games.
That all being said however, amazingly this title still stays true to it’s roots effectively. You still run out of ammo and need lots of green herbs, so that survival horror element still remains throughout. However amongst fighting for your life against zombies, you’ve got other humans shooting at you as well (because your the bad guy, remember?) so this competitive element of gameplay only enhances the survival element of RE, making it even more intense. My biggest concern for Operation Racoon City judging by trailers was mostly “what if it becomes TOO chaotic?”, but once I got my hands on the controller I felt totally in control. Yes a lot was going on, but if that wasn’t happening it’d probably piss me off. I mean come on, if I’m playing a game where the setting is a zombie outbreak, I want it to look and feel like hell on earth, and oh boy….this game delivers!
But don’t take my word for it, find our yourself and get in on the awesome multiplayer action yourself when the game comes out March 22nd!
Publisher: BulkyPix Developer: Egg Ball Games Platforms: iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone (reviewed) Release Date: February 2nd, 2012 Price: $2.99 (BUY NOW!)
Overview
This latest title from Egg Ball games is a platformer with heart. You play as Trump, a jazz trumpet player looking to make a name for himself. And with some interesting mechanics and a laid-back atmosphere, it’s well worth a look!
Story
Jazz: Trump’s Journey presents the story of Trump, a lone trumpet player on the search for recognition in the Jazz musician world; overcoming social issues, building up a band, and getting the fame he deserves; and it is an ambitious parallel to Louis Armstrong’s life.
It tells this story through a smattering of cutscenes, some “boss” battles, and brief pieces of dialogue in certain levels; and it tells it well. The characters are cartoony and larger-than-life, the writing is near perfect, and the plot itself, while not affecting the gameplay all that much, is nicely woven in; pleasantly playing in the background as it were.
Gameplay
The title features the usual 2D platformer trappings; sliding on and bouncing off of walls, pushing and pushing boxes, pressure switches, moving platforms, and spikes. There are even collectables in the form of musical notes, and hidden areas where you can pick up photographs. You can bounce on the heads of some enemies to kill them, or simply to get to a higher area with others. There’s even a few teleportation doors here and there!
But there’s an interesting original mechanic they’ve added, too. At the tap of a virtual button, Trump blasts out a little riff on his trumpet, and the world time stops. You can use this to stop a falling box in mid-air, creating a platform, or to stop a platform from moving so you can aim your jump easier. This adds another layer to the levels, making you have to think, at least a little, on how to get to the next screen.
The checkpoints are placed liberally, and for the most part feel like they’re in just the right spot. Anything you collected will be kept even when you die and respawn, which is a nice little feature.
The controls are, virtual, on-screen buttons. They are well placed, and don’t feel like they’re cluttering or obscuring the view of the action. There are times when, for aesthetic reasons, the camera puts Trump on one side of the screen, or in the corner somewhere, where your fingers can blind you, but the camera soon puts Trump back in the centre of the screen and you can continue without too much annoyance. The icons for these buttons are bold and easy to understand, and some only appear when you can actually use that ability or whatever, which also keeps the screen uncluttered.
At first, the controls are a joy. The levels are pretty simple and gameplay is filled with wonder at the art style and animation as your traverse the levels. Once you hit the harder levels toward the end of the game, and the twitch factor comes into play, you can soon find yourself missing a button at a crutial moment and plummeting to your doom. Because there is no tactile physicality to the button you’re trying to press it can, at times, become frustrating when you die for the tenth time on the same part of a level.
There are also a couple annoying things built-in to the mechanics of the game, however. For example, when you reach the top of a ladder, Trump bounces into the air (one can only assume he’s happy to have made it), which in most of the game is a fun little animation to add to the general feel of the game. This can be a problem, however, when there’s a row of spikes above your head.
There are a few bugs here and there, collision errors and the like, but they can easily be forgiven when you see the better part of this game in action. Most of the little puzzles are fairly straightforward to figure out, and not too taxing to put the solutions into practice. There is a rising curve of difficulty, but until the last couple of levels, things start getting really, really tough; a real change of pace from the bulk of the game, which is nice and gentle in it’s little challenges.
Audio & Visual
The visuals in this games are wonderful to behold. The painted world has a sweet bluesy/jazzy vibe to it, and has a good level of detail throughout. The objects you can interact with are more bold and cartoony, but still keep that level of finesse the rest of the game has.
The characters are simple, vector-based works of art, and their animations are exadurated and fun to watch. They remind me of the old betty boop cartoons; the old-school feel and wavy arms really bring these characters alive.
The music is of course jazz thoughout. And while I’m not all that into the genre of music, it compliments the game’s art style perfectly. If you get stuck in a particular level, though, you may find it starts to grate the third time you start listening to the same track. But again, this’ll likely only happen towards the tail end of the game, and the rest of the time, it was fun to listen to something out of the ordinary, especially for a platformer.
The sound effects are good, adding to the cartoony animations of the world. There is a bug with certain sounds being heard from way over on the other side of the level, but for the most part they simply enhance the already pleasurable experience.
Overall
At the end of the day, this game is fun to play. With a passable story, stylish presentation, and some cool music, Jazz will be a pleasant excursion for any platformer-fan. And while the virtual-button controls may become troublesome at certain points, most of the time they work fine.
Whether you like the Jazz genre or not, the game is a great excursion for anyone to pick up.
After a report revealed that the UMD Passport Program will not be heading to North America, there were some unanswered questions on whether the program will make its way to Europe and PAL territories. According to Eurogamer, it seems that SCEE is still undecided on whether they will implement the program, which will allow Playstation Portable owners to obtain digital copies of their games at a discounted price.
The comment was made by a Sony Europe representative:
We’ve not made any announcement about the program in the UK and Europe as yet. We’ll let you know as and when that changes.
So far, the Land of the Rising Sun (Japan) is the only territory where PSP owners can use the program for their libraries. However, if you still want to play PSP games on the Vita, then you would have to buy the game of the Playstation Store at its current price.
This post has been made for everyone out there who had this problem. The problem is one that I am sure that almost every PC gamer has encountered at one point or another, the evil game crash and a torrent of overbearing brightened gamma that renders your pc near unusable.
The old solution to this problem? Restart Windows. The New solution? Try running a program called GlideWrapper.
What causes the issue of the gamma incorrectedness? Is it the game crashing and windows changing the gamma levels but not responding to the command? No. The problem lies with a solution called Glide, which essentially adjusts the gamma levels of applications, such as games, while they are running. The problem is when the game crashes, the Glide application has no chance to revert the settings of the PC and thus creates the overbearing brightness that comes along with the enhanced gamma.
So now that you are aware of the quick solution to the problem, you are now free to engage with gaming as it was meant to be – full of crashes and a pain to run.
Kodokawa, known for their video games, manga, light novels, and anime (quite the busy company there!) has released a trailer for the upcoming Strike Witches animated movie.
Strike Witches is quite the diverse franchise, spanning light novels, anime, manga, and even video games. Gamers will probably remember the Strike Witches shooter that was released on Xbox Live arcade a while ago.
This latest trailer for the movie shows off all the the main characters, and it looks pretty good. The movie is due for a Japanese release in March 2012.
It was revealed way back at E3 that Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS, would feature use of the handheld console’s Augmented Reality feature. It has now been confirmed that six AR Cards will come packaged with the game on release.
The AR Cards feature characters from the game including Pitt and Palutena, which can battle one another before your eyes with the Augmented Reality feature.
Kid Icarus: Uprising is set for a release on the 23rd of March, 2012. What do you think of the game’s AR functionality? Would you want to use it? Let us know in the shoutbox and comments section.
Fans of adventure gaming may have had their eye on this – Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle. A point and click adventure set in the 17th century pirate infested Caribbean, the game was originally due for release on February 24. For reasons unknown the game has been delayed by a couple of weeks until March 16.
The title is shaping up to be something very unusual, given that it’s a point and click adventure built on an unusually large scale. Reportedly containing over 20 hours of gameplay, Captain Morgane also runs in full HD, is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well as the usual adventure game home that is the PC, and boasts over 40 characters scattered through 50 environments. The title is also due to release on the Wii and DS.
For those who aren’t hardcore Neon Genesis Evangelion fans, you are excused for not knowing that this manga even existed at all. Well regardless it has now been confirmed that the manga which is a tie in with the anime series of the same name is soon to be coming to an end.
The manga itself is often considered by it’s fans as an alternate retelling of the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion storyline, not much unlike the recent cinematic re-imaginings known as the Rebuild series.
The announcement regarding the manga’s imminent conclusion confirmed that the series has one more manga volume left before it finally says farewell to the truly hardcore readers that still remember it exists.
Takehiko Inoue the author of Vagabond and Slam Dunk has confirmed via. his official twitter page that his samurai manga series Vagabond will be returning next month after nearly a year and a half hiatus.
Vagabond which was serialised weekly in Kodansha’s Morning Magazine, was placed on indefinite hiatus in August 2010, after Inoue became gravely ill. After he regained his health, he had found that he has lost enthusiasm for writing his manga and prolonged the return.
It appears now that Inoue has regained his enthusiasm and plans to bring back his award winning manga in full force next month. The next instalment of the manga is currently being coloured (which reveals that the next chapter will feature a colour page). No exact date has yet been revealed for Vagabond’s return, but the vague ‘next month’ date is good enough for fans of the manga.
