In less than a year, the London 2012 Olympic Games will be underway and Mario and Sonic are all set to compete. The newest game from Sega that will celebrate these games will hit store shelves on November 15, 2011 for the Nintendo Wii. The Nintendo 3DS version of the game will be releasing in February 2012. For the Nintenod Wii, the packaging will have a unique yellow banner (see above). The Wii version will have an enhanced 100m sprint race, and the Nintendo 3DS will have a new event: the 110m hurdles. More events and new features are also being developed for the game.
Apple, a company that has been synonymous with anti-competitive behaviour from day one, has escalated a patent dispute against Samsung Electronics, effectively stopping the South Korean company from selling its new tablet in Australia until further rulings. With a lawsuit in motion, Apple hope to stop Samsung from selling the device in any coutries where it would seem to be in direct competition with the Ipad.
The Samsung Galaxy 10.1 apparently infringes upon up to 10 Apple patents including the “look and feel”, as well as the touchscreen technology used within the phones, according to Apple lawyer Stephen Burley. Samsung, who are based in South Korea, have agreed to stop selling the device in Australia until the lawsuit is finalised, according to an agreement reached by lawyers during a break. If Apple were to lose the lawsuit it would be liable for an undisclosed amount paid in damages to Samsung.
The dispute began in April, when Apple sued Samsung in the US, with claims that the Galaxy range of products “slavishly” imitated Apples design for their line of Ipads and Iphones currently on the market. Ironically, Samsung supply memory chips to Apple and have retaliated with lawsuits of their own in South Korea, Japan, Germany and the US.
So why the rush for an Australian injuction? Well the Samsung 10.1 has been threatening to hit the market since July 20th, with Apple doing everything in their power to stop any potential customers from seeing it, let alone giving them an educated choice. The decision has been made based on a US version of the tablet which according to Samsung, differs greatly from the australian version. Samsung have agreed to give Apple three samples of the Australian device at least seven days before its sale date so that the California based company has a chance to review it before it hits the market.
Some of Apples strange ethical practices have been in the spotlight over the years and this new act of kindness to their fellow competitors is just another example of their greed, which in the long run has the greatest impact on the customer. Without competition we as consumers are at the mercy of the producer. Everything from the price to the features incorporated in the device will be under full control of Apple, which is bad for the market, the consumer and the industry. Heres to hoping Apple lose this one and have to pay Samsungs bills, and watch what looks to be a superior product give them a run for their money.
Who doesn’t love seeing plenty of zombies, especially when it comes to Dead Island’s zombies. Today Deep Silver and Square Enix released a handful of new screenshots that show plenty of zombie goodness. If there is one thing you can take away from these shots, is that there certainly is going to be a lot of variety in the way the undead are going to look in the game.
The multiplayer aspect of the game can allow four players to take on the undead at one time if they feel like playing co-operatively, but can also take on zombies solo. The title will be released on September 6th and these zombies will be gracing the screens of home consoles everywhere.
G-Mode, the studio of which he was CEO, announced earlier today that Takeshi Miyaji has died at the age of 45. Takeshi Miyaji is the creator of the legendary RPG Grandia series, which has been widely claimed to have some of the best JRPGs of all time. He also had his hand in making Silpheed and Gungriffon titles.
Andriasang reports that he had passed away on July 29th and the company did not go into any details about his death. The company’s CEO position will be taken over by Ryu Okoriyama. This is certainly sad news for JRPG fans as many of us grew up playing at least one of the Grandia titles when we were growing up.
It’s always a good sign when developers of a game take fan feedback to heart. Such is the case with Armored Core V’s developers From Software. After receiving fan feedback from a closed online beta that took place recently they have decided to delay the game and work on implementing changes that were suggested by fans says Siliconera.
The title was originally set for a release on October 20th in Japan but now it has been delayed until January 2012. There currently has been no announcement from Namco Bandai as to whether or not this delay will affect a North American release which was also supposed to be occurring in January 2012. Best chances are, that it will at least affect the release by a few months.
If you were hoping to get your Witcher on on consoles this holiday season then you my friend are unfortunately out of luck. Earlier today, developer of the title CD Projekt RED announced that their Xbox 360 adaptation of The Witcher 2 has been delayed until the first quarter of 2012. The developers have stated that the reason for the delay is because their port is not your average “typical” one and the dispute they are having with Namco Bandai in court.
The problem with Namco Bandai is the fact that they are suing the developers over distribution rights in PAL territories. Otherwise it is good news that they are taking as much time as they need to make the title as good as it can be for eager console owners out there.
A few months ago you may remember that Activision canceled a few game franchises. While most people were crying about the death of the Guitar Hero series, a number of others were crying over the fact that True Crime: Hong Kong was also canceled because it was said to not be good enough for the company to continue working on it.
That is until now of course. Because another company decided to pick up the game instead. United Front Games’ open world title has been acquired by Square Enix this time around, but since they don’t own the franchise itself then this means that the name will end up being changed, but fans will still have the same type of experience.
This news comes out of an interview that Square Enix London Studios’ general manager Lee Singleton had with Gamasutra. Lee says that the game has an “incredible new engine, rich new story with deep and complex characters and gameplay features which have simply never been seen at this level in an open world game.” They haven’t said anything about a release window or what consoles it will be released for yet. This is great news for fans of the True Crime series and it sounds like it may just be the next big open world game to look out for if what they are saying is to be believed.
Fans of hunting and video games everywhere should rejoice because Cabela’s Survival: Shadows of Katmai was just announced by Activision today. Despite having one of the most misleading sounding names in the history of the hunting franchise, the game will be released on November 1st of this year and will be available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and even the Wii.
Players will take the role of a man named Logan James, a survivor of a plane crash up in Alaska’s Mount Katmai. He has been stranded away from civilization and must survive packs of wolves and other dangerous creatures that see him as nothing more than lunch or a threat to their families. Activision also released a teaser trailer for the game which you can catch below.
Check out these new games which will be available for download this week via the Nintendo eShop, Nintendo DSi Shop and Wii Shop Channel! PAC-MAN Nintendo 3DS: (Virtual Console) Nintendo eShop, €4
The 1980’s classic PAC-MAN is back, and this time he’s appearing on the 3DS this Thursday! Escape the wrath of Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde and nom down those Pac-Dots and Power-Pellets before its too late!
Go! Go! Kokopolo Nintendo 3DS: (DSiWare) Nintendo eShop, €8
Nintendo DSi: (DSiWare) Nintendo DSi Shop 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Play as Kokopolo, the hyperactive wildcat, in this action-packed game! Hunt down those responsible for disturbing your afternoon nap, across 80 levels with a sharp claws to slash, and chase them through hazardous hallways abd mind-twisting mazes!
The Lost Town.The Dust Nintendo 3DS: (DSiWare) Nintendo eShop, €5
Nintendo DSi: (DSiWare) Nintendo DSi Shop, 500 Nintendo DSi Points
It’s 2037, and expert weapons master, Chilia, must defend a little South American town and it’s innocent civilians from the fallout of a military bio-chemical facility explosion.
My Australian Farm Nintendo 3DS: (DSiWare) Nintendo eShop, €2
Nintendo DSi: (DSiWare) Nintendo DSi Shop, 200 Nintendo DSi Points
A breeding simulation game for all ages, My Australian Farm has you begin with nothing but an empty field, a little money and a single emu. You’ll have to your emu and take care of it as you begin to grow and expand your farm to unlock new bonuses and features.
Monochrome Racing Wii: (WiiWare) Wii Shop Channel 500 Wii Points
Experience the passion for colour in this adrenaline-filled racer and leave enemies in your dust!
Call of Juarez: The Cartel Developer: Techland Publisher: Ubisoft Platform: Xbox 360 (Reviewed), PlayStation 3, PC Genre: First-person Shooter Released: 19th July, 2011
Price: $54.65 BUY NOW!
Overview
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is the latest installment of Techland’s western first person shooter franchise, but this one has a twist-it’s set in modern-day Los Angeles and Mexico. Elements of the old west still remain however with the game’s dirty cop protagonist Ben McCall being the decedent of Ray McCall from the previous games, with his two equally dirty partners as they attempt to take down a Mexican drug Cartel in today’s wild west. This title places a very heavy focus on it’s story and online co-op gameplay while trying to throw in a few new unique aspects to spice up that same old FPS genre routine. Call of Juarez: The Cartel isn’t the greatest FPS ever made as sometimes it seems to be at a Mexican standoff with itself, but there are many shiny treasures inside that you can definitely tip your cowboy hat to, that should catch the attention and interest of even the most critical of FPS fans.
Presentation and Story
The Cartel begins on a good start with decent looking menus and a character select screen that has clips of each character’s backstory. The game then begins with cutscenes that are well told with interesting plot points in between each level. To further tell the story, during loading sequences we are shown phone call conversations as well as opinions from people radio and television, giving us an insight on how the country is being effected by McCall and his team going head-to-head with The Cartel. This is nicely done and touch on interesting subjects like the decriminalisation of drugs which surprised me to see in a video game. While the plot tries to present us with some sections of emotion and character development, its hard to feel for them though as all three protagonists are unlikeable, dirty cops who never trusted each other to begin with, so this attempt of adding depth to the story is sadly a hit and miss. It does have a few nice plot twists though and the story does improve as it goes along, so it still is enjoyable to watch. Still, these cut scenes are nicely done and is told well, it’s just the graphics and animation that let it down at times. In between these cut scenes of coarse, we have the game itself. There are a few presentation issues which can be an annoyance, like the skip cut scene button which takes up an unappealing amount of the screen, and constant pop ups telling you how to do things you’ve learnt about ten levels ago. But these issues are just small, ignorable things that shouldn’t matter too much, but its the small things like this that bring down Call of Juarez: The Cartel, because there is just so many that they add up and make the game look and feel a lot worse than what it really is.
Gameplay
Call of Juarez: The Cartel controls like your typical shooter. You can crouch, zoom in/scope, throw grenades, you get a jump button that you’ll never use unless you wanna show off in multiplayer, etc…The whole game will feel familiar to any FPS fan, it actually plays a lot like Call of Duty: Black Ops, but it’s different because your dude’s rocking a cowboy hat! You do get a nice selection of guns, and they are fun to shoot. Techland has also thrown in a whole heap of baddies into the levels so your bullets don’t go to waste as well-how sweet of them! To avoid things getting stale of just duck-and-cover, run-and-gun shooting, the action is broken up between different kinds of gameplay. These include free-roaming events where you can steal special items and talk to people and explore small areas, dreaded driving stages with very awkward controls, fun on-rail shooting sections when you shoot from the window of a car, as well as some terrible hand to hand combat sections with even worse controls, and for some unknown reason your character seems to temporarily forget that he owns a gun. Despite all these styles of play however, these are just small aspects of the game and the main focus is on the most fun section-shooting! With decent controls and some sweet guns, it plays good, but not great. It could’ve been more, but some simple issues just come into play. The biggest of these is that it is very simple to walk out of bounds which will cause you to loose the level. Having a radar is nice, but a map would’ve been good as well. To make things worse, everything feels so repetitive, which is a shame since it looks like Techland has put some decent effort into attempting to make sure this didn’t happen. You do get a nice mix in level design. A forest level in the beginning of the game provides opportunities for a lot of free-roaming combat, you get some car-park levels with nicely spaced out cars for cover and levels in urban settings often have some intense shoot outs in some alleyways. On the other hand you also have characters magically appearing in front of you a lot, which does seems kind of buggy.
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is not a bad game. Yes, there are a few problems with it’s core gameplay, but these are just mostly small, unpolished things that just add up to bring it down. What keeps it all together and makes it worth playing however, is all the unique ideas thrown into the mix to shake things up, so it doesn’t stay as a typical cliche FPS game. The most important of these ideas, is the player will receive phone calls from people who’ll give them secret missions to carry out. These missions usually involve some kind of dodgy bad-cop nature, like stealing money or evidence, and it must be done without getting caught by your partners. This works extra well in online co-op, as catching somebody in the act gives extra thrills. It should be noted that there are some instances where these phone calls come at bad times which can effect gameplay, but those are rare situations. Also, killing enemies rewards you with the ability to enter Concentration Mode, which will put the game into bullet-time and let you pop in a few kills in slow motion max-payne style. You also get the same slow motion effect when you bust in doors with a partner. These are a bit overdone, but it does make things more interesting.
Multiplayer
Before each level, Techland have included an interesting element to place a strong focus on playing in co-op online. Before you start, you are taken to a lobby where you can choose your weapons for the level, but it doubles up as a lobby for players to join and get invited to play through the level with you as well. A very nice addition, which is actually pretty smart. As well as the secret missions being more fun to take online, additional side missions appear in co-op campaign featuring challanges such as races to get a certain amount of headshots the quickest, etc. for points. This adds an extra level of fun as while your working together to beat the level, your also against eachother for points. Co-Op is further explored even in VS death matches, with extra points awarded to those who stay close to their partners. This really puts an emphasis on team work and I hope other FPS games follow suit with this feature as it does work well. The maps are also decent, but sadly these online features won’t be enjoyed as much as the online comunity for The Cartel seems pretty small at the moment. There is also no split-screen feature, which is a shame.
Audio and Visual
Voice acting is good, although the voices can sound a bit cartoonish for such a serious toned game. The dialogue is well done, but it is ruined by the over use of profanity which starts off making characters sound gritty and bad-ass, but that quickly changes to sounding like they’re trying too hard. In fact basically every second sentence, by every single character, involves the use of curse words and it is just unnecessary most of the time. It’s like the game is trying to convince you its a mature title and not intended for kids, but does that by childishly over swearing to a point that it’s actually very immature. There’s also some buggy voice issues like clips cutting eachother out, and people still speaking after being killed. The music for The Cartel is good, and I liked how in some parts add a western feel in some sections of the score to remind you of the roots of the franchise. Graphically speaking, The Cartel isn’t the prettiest game, but it isn’t terrible, it just needs some more polish. Environments are rendered well, but objects often pop in and out and appear at random times, and animation can sometimes appear a bit choppy. Textures are a mixed bag, as they are often good but a few things here and there will be seen that aren’t of the same standard. It’s a shame, because on the most part the graphics are actually done well, but is brought down by small things here and there that add up, which could’ve easily been fixed if the game just spent a little more time in development.
Conclusion
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is a good but messy game that just needs some polish. It will put off a lot of gamers, but if your tolerant, you will find a lot of things to like within it. Honestly it feels as if the game was rushed. The gameplay itself is fun and paced out nicely, although it does suffer a tiny bit from repetition, and it has nice cut scenes that tell an interesting story, although it is about unlikeable characters. Call of Juarez: The Cartel is an average, decent first person shooter with a few specks of greatness thrown in and who knows, if it had a little more time in development, this could’ve been something really special. As disappointing as it is, The Cartel is still really fun to play and is at least worth giving it a rent, so if your an FPS fan check it out, you may find something you’ll like.
PROS
Engaging Plot
Secret Side Objectives
Nice Focus on Co-Op
Fun Shooting Mechanics
Ben McCall Has A Cowboy Hat
CONS
Buggy and Filled with Glitches
Unlikeable Characters
Sometimes feels Repetitive
Easy to Go Out-of-Bounds which Leads to Missions Restarting
Awkward Controls in Hand-to-Hand Combat and Driving Sections
Overuse of Pointless Swearing is More Annoying Than Cool
