Majesco have already announced a couple of titles they will be publishing for the Nintendo 3DS, but the latest announcement for the hidden may hold the most interesting use of the actual handheld to date. In The Hidden, players will use the Augmented Reality function to turn the portable into a “portal to the astral plane” as you hunt for paranormal entities through-out real world environments. Thrown into the role of a paranormal investigator, it is now up to you to capture and destroy all the supernatural entities you may encounter.
Majesco also spoke more about this upcoming release which is being developed by 1st Playable Productions:
“The Hidden is a great example of exciting content mixed with compelling technological innovation on the Nintendo 3DS,” said Jesse Sutton, Chief Executive Officer, Majesco Entertainment. “This immersive experience leverages many key features of the new system– including the camera, gyroscope and Wi-Fi capability–to deliver a rich 3D adventure with multiple layers.”
As a member of the elite G.E.I.S.T. squad, Ghostly Entity Investigation and Strike Team, you must work with your team to track, capture, shoot and eliminate evil spirits, including fast-moving Kamikazes and Tanks, solid phantoms armed with claws. Explore different real-world locations to find and destroy new ghosts. Battle and defeat powerful entities using a full arsenal of high tech tools and upgradeable weapons, including the Plasmatic Disruptor, Ectoplasm Sensor and Spectral Shield. Navigate through tunnels to access a hidden dimension and collect power-ups to fight off dangerous threats. You will also use the Circle Pad and Nintendo 3DS gyroscope control to shoot and destroy ghosts, while keeping a log of your otherworldly discoveries made at previously visited places using the Location History feature.
Sounds like a modern day, real world version of Ghostbusters, and that is a good thing for sure. I have loved every second of the AR function and if this title plays as awesome as it sounds, I think we may see quite a winner with The Hidden. The Hidden also is scheduled to hit just time for Halloween when it hits stores this October. We will continue to bring you more updates as they arise for this title, so stay tuned!
Here’s a game release that might have you jumping for joy! Namco Bandai are about to release a new game for iDevices called Pac’n-Jump. The game is a clone of the iOS hit Doodle Jump, but with Pac-man themes of course. Pac’n-Jump is a tilt controlled platformer that has Pac-man jumping from platform to platform, eating power pellets and avoiding or eating ghosts along the way. If Pac-man isn’t enough classic Namco arcade nostalgia for you, then good news, Pac’n-Jump will have a number of levels based on Namco games such as Rally-X, Dig Dug and a forever personal favourtite of mine, Galaga. Pac’n-Jump is due to be released on April 7th.
Its no secret that I am super excited for the next iteration of the fast paced, wacky snowboarding game. And now EA is offering fans, like me, to get in on the development of the game.
In order to fine tune the game and promote it, EA is having a contest on their Facebook page to win a round trip to the studio where the game is being created. All you need to do is write a strictly enforced 100 word essay explaining why you should be chosen to win. The prize will not only include a trip to see and play the early build, but you can also give your feedback to the team building the game. You better head over there fast though, as only 5 people are being chosen and the contest ends on April 15, 2011. Board on over to the FB page here: http://apps.facebook.com/ssxconetst/contests/103490?ogn=facebook
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D Developer: Ubisoft Publisher:Ubisoft Platform:3DS Release Date:Out Now! Price:$59AU Buy Now $39.99US Buy Now
Overview
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D is a game that takes place on a more ancient Earth where dinosaurs rules and battled their way to supremacy. There are four groups of dinosaurs for players to choose from, each with their own distinct look and feel; Predators, Hunters, Defenders and Chargers. Each group has their own subset of dinosaurs from players to choose from and each group has its own particular advantages. The game also has an extras area to view things that you have unlocked; as well as other things, like streetpass, credits and a trade menu.
Story
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D’s story is that basically an evil Arkosaurus is threatening the land and it’s up to the player to gather a party of dinosaurs to take into the Arkosaurus’ lair and end its evil scheme. Well, at least that’s what I assume is happening. The Arkosaurus’ plot is never really delved into aside from a few lines to let you know that he is evil.
Primeval Earth, 15o million years ago. The dinosaur races shared the ancient land respectfully. Under the protection of the four great chiefs, the fury of the Arkosaurus was contained.
Contained you say? How is that he broke out?
One day, unforeseen cataclysms struck the land. The four great chiefs disappeared and the Arkosaurus seized power, rallying the tribes of malevolent dinosaurs. The world stood on the brink of utter destruction.
Fair enough.
While the story may be a bit basic, the game is likely to have been developed with children in mind, so any kind of complexity within the story may have been too confusing for younger gamers. Which is a fair call, it’s better to have a basic story that you can get everyone behind, rather than put on a long and convoluted plot involving several teenaged dinosaurs running around a city and having the main protagonist be a fraud and etc. Simple, but maybe too simple. As I said earlier, you’re not really given much backstory to the Arkosaurus, other than he was contained and that he broke out because of a fluke. I would have liked to have seen a little more from the Arkosaurus’ backstory, just so that it would make it easier to get on board with killing him later.
This is all done on the + pad. Touch screen is a no go.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D is quite basic, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. Essentially players need to guide their selected dinosaur down a linear path and battle 4-5 other dinosaurs along the way. These battles are always in sequence and can never be skipped. Between battles, there are generally long stretches of landscape with a handful of breakables that sometimes drop bones or other collectibles as you break them. Along with the breaking of stuff, like dinosaurs bones, sticks and rocks, there are also smaller dinosaurs which you can scare into dropping loot for you to upgrade your dinosaur with. After traversing the long stretches of land between each battle and defeating each opposing dinosaur, you will reach the levels boss and you have to defeat the boss to move onto the next level.
Each level in the game is set up the same, start at point a, travel to each new point with a new enemy, kill it, then end up at the end point with the boss and kill that. The levels are set up differently, but I’m sure I noticed that a few environments were seen elsewhere in the game. For instance, for each of the dinosaurs I played as, I passed through a giant tunnel in a desert and a volcanic mountain – with each of them having a layout that was incredibly similar between each dinosaur. I understand when it’s a dinosaur of the same base type (example hunter), but when ones a charger and ones a defender (and each is on a separate continent) it starts to look a little lazy. Though, I must admit that the repetition in environments does not detract from the fun all that much.
Each enemy has a particular strategy to them, which the game informs you of for the first time you encounter that particular enemy. While it may seem effective to utilise an enemies weakness, I often found that the weak-point sometimes took a bit long to appear and would switch to a more quicker strategy… such as ramming the enemy off the side of a level. In this game, players battle an enemy dinosaur on a platform with the ends leading off an edge (think Super Smash Bros.) and each combatant must either knock their opponent out, or knock their opponent off. It’s quite simple.
There are three types of attacks for players to utilise, which are: basic and rapid physical attacks, charging and a special attack. The physical attacks are where your dinosaur attacks using their own body, charging rams your opponent back; closer to the edge and the special attack is used to deal damage and push your opponent back. I’m assuming that each class of dinosaur, Chargers, Defenders, Hunters and Predators, has their own unique advantages and disadvantages, but outside of movement I haven’t really noticed a difference between them.
Speaking of movement, out of all the dinosaurs classes, the only dinosaurs that don’t handle like a school-bus are the hunters. I’m serious, none of the others seem to glide or have any kind of grace in their movement, they move as heavy as they appear to be. Which is both interesting and annoying simultaneously. It’s interesting because it gives you a sense of feel with the dinosaurs, but it can also be annoying because sometimes you’ll miss the thing you’re trying to crush and it takes a little bit of work to back up and try again.
The boss fights probably have the strangest difficulty curve in the game, with the first being initially difficult and with subsequent bossed getting easier. That is, until you reach the final boss where it’s back to being tough as nails. While each boss is built to be beaten a certain way, I found it easiest to avoid using the strategy that you’re supposed to use and just went on a more push-back type stratagem. This made the fights terribly easy as it would only take a handful of hits to ring them out as opposed to the whole bunch of hits it usually would have taken to drain their HP to zero.
This however almost changes with the final boss battle of the game. The final boss has a much faster rate of attack and much more harder to notice cues as to which attack it is going to be doing next. This makes it hard to dodge it’s attacks which increases the challenge a fair bit. I think this is one of the few boss battles in a game that I have enjoyed in a while, which is something in the games favour. While the boss is hard to work out, once you do, it becomes way easier and is almost simple to pull off. It’s all about learning the moves and then pulling them off one after the other.
Overall the gameplay is a bit wavey, but it isn’t to the games detriment.
And he’s almost off the edge.
Sound
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs features a rather compelling soundtrack and series of effects. I can’t complain about the music or the sounds, which is good.
The sound effects in the game sound similar to the way you would expect them to, for instance, stepping on a branch will yield a crunch. The dinosaurs have a particular roar that will let out at certain times, like when a player selects one or when a player hits Y while running around, that sound surprisingly authentic and aren’t irritating at all. Each hit a dinosaur lands on an opponent is greeted with an effect that correlates to that action and seems to fit wonderfully.
The background music is there usually, with jungle beats and similar music to accompany the gameplay. Though often, it will play at the beginning of the level then kind of just stop. I’m not sure if it’s a bug or expected behaviour, but it suits the game quite well. Somehow it adds a sense of length to what what’s happening, whereas if it was just fast paces, then it would feel much shorter.
Open the door; Get on the Floor; Everybody walk the dinosaur!
Minor Gripes
This game has one minor personal gripe with me and that’s with it’s 3D feature. At maximum I found that the 3D effect was too strong for me to handle and too hard for me to focus on. While turning down to 75% or below made it more enjoyable, I feel as though the maximum 3D effect has been aligned incorrectly as I have no problems viewing maximum 3D in other titles.
No touch screen support! This game could have made decent use of the touch screen, but I found that I couldn’t even use it for input when naming my dinosaurs… talk about a bit odd.
Overall
Overall Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D is a rather fun game aimed at a younger audience. It provides a solid amount of time to complete fully, but can also be picked up and played in short bursts. There are also a few extra that can be earned through collecting items which also increases the re-playability of the title. This is a title that I would heartily recommend for parents to get their younger child as it is both enjoyable and challenging. A considerable purchase for any parent.
Let’s face it lag in online games can kill it for any gamer. This holds true with fighting games as it requires precise controls to pull of moves and combos. One delayed button press can make a difference between winning and losing. GGPO technology was made to allow people to play fighting games online just as good as good as playing next to someone in your own living room. However other than PC emulation GGPO has yet to be used in a commercial fighting game until now.
It has been announced that the downloadable fight game Skullgirls will be using the GGPO online technology in the game. President of Autum Games stated that using this tecenology in the game will enhance the games online features. This is something fighting game fans have been asking for a while now, let’s see if Skullgirls can convince the bigger game developers to implement it in the future. Skullgirls will be out on Xbox Live and PSN this summer.
At first glance when you start up the trailer you will think that there is absolutely zero chance that a game like this would be getting a Western release. Well you are wrong in that case because Otomedius X, also called Otomedius Excellent, will end up getting a release date for the U.S. but it will be later this year due to delays. Originally the title was set for release on the Xbox 360 in Japan this past year but due to delays it is currently set for release on April 21st according to Andriasang.
Either way this trailer shows off plenty of gameplay and introduces us to a handful of the characters that we will be able to play as when the game comes out as well as enemies players will face. The characters are all anime styled girls including a catgirl pirate that you can see above. The game looks like it will be a bullet hell shooter with side scrolling action as opposed to vertical based. Catch the trailer below.
There are some people who don’t know what bar to bar racing means, can you believe that? Well honestly I can because I barely follow either of these sports but regardless of that James “Bubba” Stewart is here to tell us what exactly bar to bar racing is.
In the trailer we see a small amount of gameplay but the majority of it is real life video showing riders getting wiped out. Apparently MX vs. ATV Alive will allow you to potentially crash other riders as you crash into them around corners. This video brings to mind another racing game involving motorcycles that should be made into a full fledged game again. Road Rash anyone? Either way fans of the series or those intrigued by the game will be able to pick it up in May when it releases for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Leave it to Capcom to give us a countdown until release and then place a very vague outline in the background. As you can see on Capcom Japan’s teaser website http://www.capcom.co.jp/DD/ there is a counter that is counting down as you read this. The current time places the announcement in six days but until then we have nothing to do but sit and guess as to what it will involve.
The silhouette appears to have dragon wings attached to someones back and the current website address is DD. Capcom recently trademarked the name Dragon’s Dogma which would match up perfectly with the initials but what exactly could that Dragon’s Dogma attach to. Or is it an entirely different thing altogether, it is anyone’s guess at the moment.
Chillingo’s Cut the Rope has been on the top of the App Store for quite a long time. The simple but addicting puzzle game with the little green monster that wants nothing but candy seems to be a big draw on anyone who owns an iPhone or an iPad. In an effort to keep fans of the game happy Chillingo has released many updates with new levels and content.
Their latest update will add a new Magic Box to the game where players will recieve a bunch of new levels featuring magician themed levels. Also sine it was updated today you can already be playing these levels now. Also as you see in the trailer the candy can change into an Easter Egg, now it is up to you to find out how to use this little secret in your own game. If you haven’t picked up the game yet it is only $0.99 cents on the App Store.
When a video game series becomes popular it eventually has a few books written about it to help expand the world that the games try to create. There have been Resident Evil novels, Halo novels, World of Warcraft books and now there will be another entry into the Mass Effect novel collection. The fourth book in the series will be called Mass Effect: Deception. This one however will not have the same author as the first three books but instead will be written by William C. Deitz.
The book is currently slated for a release some time this Fall and with the cover already revealed we see the Illusive Man’s face in the background. This could mean a lot of involvement with the Cerberus group and the Illusive Man himself.
William Dietz has written a few books about video game novels already, including an entry into the aforementioned Halo book series. Despite the change in author the book will continue to follow Gillian Grayson. Here is a small excerpt about the plot:
Gillian was once the subject of horrifying scientific experiments, but now, after her rescue, she is beginning to master her amazing powers. When she falls under the sway of a radical group who believe their powers make them superior to ordinary humans, she finds herself faced with a choice between her destiny…and her humanity.
