Well, I can’t say that this should come as much of a surprise, but Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed. Again. I know that a lot of gamers probably thought the delays were done since we’re only two months from its May release date, and Gearbox has taken the reigns, but time makes fools of us all.
Yesterday, Gearbox announced via the 2K Games YouTube channel that Duke fans would have to wait one extra month to get their hands on this long-awaited sequel. After 14 years I suppose another month doesn’t matter, although this does give doubters one more month of “It’s never coming out!” before DNF finally ships. At least Randy Pitchford and the Gearbox guys can laugh at the whole situation (and probably at us for believing it was coming) and I thought the video was a pretty clever way of breaking the bad news. If you ask me, I think Gearbox just wanted a chance to delay the game since 3D Realms seemed to enjoy doing it so much. Was it worth it Randy?
The new release date is June 14th in the United States and June 10th everywhere else. Check out their Youtube video below.
If you began your gaming in the mid to late 80’s you will have seen firsthand the enormous leaps and bounds that developers have made from Greenhouse on Nintendo’s Game & Watch through to the realistic FPS an sports simulators of today’s generation. Strangely and sadly (for today’s gamers) my most memorable games, the ones that kept me interested in the industry in general and ate up most of my time in between school are not from today’s list of popular titles. I say sadly for today’s gamers as I personally think that the playability and standard of games has dropped in quality. That’s not to say that today’s titles are not visually spectacular with integrated storylines more akin to a Hollywood blockbuster, they just seem to lack that ultimate feeling of fun over the duration of the game. I have tried to justify my choices by acknowledging the fact that games of an older era possessed the advantage of being truly groundbreaking and in many instances they changed the face of gaming forever. These were not just ports from another platform or a sequel to a popular series on a new generation console, they were new ideas presented on new technology never seen before. While this does have a bearing in the decisions ultimately these games were simply more fun to play and even 20 years down the track I have fond memories of being lost within their firm grasp.
Movies of today rely heavily on special effects and sound to enhance the entertainment value of the film, foregoing natural acting talent and engrossing storylines in the process. The same can be said for many of today’s games, which although possessing amazing visual scenes are empty of emotion, having no way to connect to the audience and encroaching too much on the movie genre. I can’t think of any game from today’s current choices that would have me up at the local milk bar 2 hours before school at 6am in the morning lining up to play the local champion. Ahh those were the days.
Anyway onto the list
Street Fighter 2
The undisputed King of games IMO. This game had me down at the local milkbar every day before and after school pumping 20c coins into the lone standing arcade machine (until Mortal Kombat came out and kept it company). Note I am referring to the original SF2 not the lame Hyper versions and such that came after it. Everything before this game paled in comparison to it and the same goes for much that came after. It was released 20 years ago this month and is responsible for the cavalcade of fighting games that have come since, with many of its characters still being used in new titles and off-spins. I actually remember as a child having a Super Nintendo and sourcing one of the first copies of this game from an ad in the Trading Post, having to buy some special adapter that required 2 games plugged in at once to allow foreign games to work. Cost me an arm and a leg to boot. SF2 is the highest selling Capcom game ever.
Super Mario Bros
Theoretically still the highest selling video game of all time with over 40 million copies sold worldwide. The game that has taken over from it is Wii Sports and since this game was given away with the Wii console I don’t think it gets the title. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played this game all the way through and it still doesn’t get old. Responsible for resurrecting the entire video game industry as well as putting Nintendo firmly on the map, this could be considered the most influential game ever made. Increased playability came from the multiple ways a player could get through a level often having to go back to discover new items. There’s not really much to say about this as there wouldn’t be any gamers not aware of its presence or who haven’t played it for that matter. It was released originally by Nintendo in 1985 for the NES system on a cartridge not much smaller than a Wii, and has been revamped in New Super Mario Bros which is the latest instalment on the Wii. It was first rendered in 3D on the Nintendo 64 and has since been improved upon in the multi award winning Super Mario Galaxy series on the Wii.
Resident Evil 0
Easily the most current game on the list, this title was developed by Capcom in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube as a prequel to the entire series. If they weren’t the first to use the concept of changing between players instantly within game play they were certainly the first to implement the feature successfully. It was also one of the last adventure games to have truly challenging puzzles that kept the player thinking long after the console had been turned off in frustration. I remember many times getting up at all hours of the night having just thought of a way to decipher a poem or get through a locked door. Everything after this I feel concentrated too much on enemies and shooting their way through the game rather than solving puzzles. This game really had everything, from a scare factor reminiscent of Dead Space to challenging enemies and cool weaponry (flame thrower).
Sierra collection
Specifically I am referring to 3 games but they are as similar in terms of design and idea as to include them as 1 game. Also they are sold as a collection these days I think. In order of age they are as follows, Kings Quest I, Space Quest I and Leisure Suit Larry.
Originally released in 1984, Kings Quest – the quest for the crown involved players taking control of King Graham, in his adventures from being a knight to King of Daventry where he and his family live. The fun and at the same time annoying part about games from this era is that there was no mouse available yet to control characters. Players had to walk around using the cursor keys and type, yes I said type in the commands they wanted to perform. You had to be prepared to die many many times while typing in controls that 1980,s computers could not understand. Typos resulted in death in the majority of cases and save points were few and far between. Remember these games were being played off five and half inch floppy discs and didn’t have the capacity to save much data on them. The puzzles were incredibly complex and the game utilised EGA and VGA graphics which were ground breaking and visually superior to anything else.
Space Quest I- The Sarian encounter was along the same lines in terms of game play but added a character that was remarkably stupid in nature. Players took control of Roger Wilco, a janitor on various space crafts as he travelled through the galaxy saving the universe often by accident. It had a very Star Wars feel to it especially in relation to alien character design. Like Kings Quest it relied on typing in commands but allowed for saving at any stage in the game.
Leisure Suit Larry – The thing I remember most about this game is having to answer the questions at the beginning aimed at keeping minors from playing it. What they didn’t implement was a feature limiting the amount of times u could try. A fantastic game that introduced young gamers into the seedy world of Larry, a short ugly man that thought he was god’s gift to women. I have fond memories of playing this when I was 12 giggling madly but having no idea about what a condom was, let alone what it was used for. This game was more fun for its taboo nature but it also had a very engrossing storyline and ideas and concepts never seen in games previous to it.
Crash Bandicoot
I didn’t bother really playing any of the sequels to the original as Naughty Dog left after the second instalment and didn’t have much involvement in the others. I first had Sim City in the list but then remembered how much time I wasted playing this and why. In an age where Mario Bros reigned supreme as the King of platformers, Crash Bandicoot came along to eventually become one of the highest ever selling Playstation games. The addictive part of this game was collecting the various different coloured gems and solving the puzzles by having to perform near impossible tasks and precision jumps in the process. Every level had to be carefully analysed in order to collect every box and get the bonus gems.
Of course this list is subjective and I’m not arguing that you all will have a very different list of games that give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside. I could have listed a whole lot more but those are the 5 that most stick out in my mind without even having to think about it. They represent a time to me when games had a lot more thought put into them, and had the individual player in mind when designing it. A game most of you will say is missing from the list is Grand Theft Auto. I actually had the pleasure of meeting the guy randomly in a pub in Eastwood Sydney who designed and came up with the original concept for the game back when it was nothing more than stick figures and blocky cars seen from an aerial view. I won’t say anything to incriminate the guy but let’s just say he was incredibly eccentric, and very proud of his latest idea of offering players discounts on the game if they could bring in some kind of traffic offense statement when purchasing it (an idea which didn’t last long once the authorities found out). While this game did offer gratuitous violence on levels never seen before and finally gave gamers the opportunity to commit offenses which would otherwise see them behind bars, for me it became repetitive, not changing a whole great deal between instalments. Don’t get me wrong, today’s developers are producing phenomenal games, with intricate plots spanning across all eras. Character design is incredibly interactive and sport games are realistic with players gaining more lifelike characteristics with each instalment, but for me they have gone too far in many respects. I never design characters I play everything with the stock option. I’m not saying I don’t upgrade them but that’s different to spending more time chiselling out a high cheek bone and lip structure then actually playing the game. Game developers are getting away too much with empty shells of games that players are completing with ease. Yes you can argue that FPS are designed for multiplayer and online play, but that doesn’t help the gamer who wants to immerse themselves in a fantasy world and get lost in the pure pleasure of it.
Anyway that’s just my rant hope you enjoyed reading it all.
Some other games that deserve a mention include
Gran Turismo, Moto Roader, Escape from monkey Island, Alien Storm, Shamus, Sonic, State of Emergency, Dig Dug, Mortal Kombat, Streets of Rage, 10 Yard fight, Double Dragon, Alley Cat, Gauntlet, Golden Axe, Ghost and Goblins and Sim city. Most available as VC or Wiiware.
Anyone who owns the game is already familar with the immersive character design and addictive gameplay offered by 2KSports in there latest edition of Top Spin tennis. For anyone else here is the ‘Opus’ trailer showing why you should definitely own this game if you are a fan of any kind of competitive sporting game. The trailer highlights the hard work that has gone into making Top Spin 4, emphasising the vast array of character features and manipulation that contribute to the interactive and smooth gameplay. Check out the facial manipulation section of the trailer, that would make most rpg games jealous. I have to add that most sport games dont hold my interest for very long, maybe as i dont have many friends to play against but i have found myself going back to this game again and again mainly due to the coach quests and upgrade system that 2ksports use within it.
And we’re back for our latest random game. When my random number generator landed on the original Playstation I got a little worried. I have some really great games on the PS1: Parappa the Rapper, Klonoa, and Oddworld to name a few. On the other hand, I also have some real garbage. So, we spin the wheel and the answer is Sentinel Returns, a 1998 title published by Psygnosis (the back of the case also lists No Name Games and Hookstone as the licenser and programmer respectively). Much like my first game, Solaris, I have no idea what to expect with this one. I picked it up used from my local video game story about a year ago mostly because it had the Psygnosis label and it has been sitting in a box ever since.
The interesting cover and Psygnosis logo prompted my purchase of Sentinel Returns.
The case certainly looks interesting enough, which is perhaps why I dropped ten bucks on a game I can hardly remember buying. The front cover features some sort of evil totem pole looking thing with laser eyes (I assume that’s the sentinel). The back describes it as eerie with “white-knuckle gameplay”, and apparently it’s based on Sentinel by Geoff Crammond. I’m not familiar with it, so that doesn’t really tell me much. From the looks of it, I’d guess that it’s some sort of puzzle game involving avoiding detection by this sentinel. I guess it’s time to start it up and find out.
My first thought upon watching the pre-menu cutscene is that you really don’t see this type of creepy, dark and dreary type of stuff in games anymore. The sort of eerie, gory imagery of games like Phantasmagoria or D is something that’s just not that common anymore. There are still horror games, but maybe this type of thing was just a relic of the 90s. Basically what we have is a collection of strange images flashing in an incoherent, seizure-inducing manner much like you’d see in metal music videos on MTV back in the 90’s when they still aired music videos. It sort of reminds me of a cheesy knock off of the X-Files, and I’m not sure if I mean that in a good way or a bad way yet.
I’m pretty sure I saw this exact logo flit across the screen for a frame or two, except it was about one-third this resolution.
Now that I can see they’re really trying to sell the fact that this game is supposed to be scary (or at least creepy), allow me to play it and see how that holds up…after the CD loads of course. At least I’m playing it on a PS2, so maybe I won’t have to wait so abysmally long.
…2 minutes later…
I have absolutely zero idea as to what’s going on. From what I can gather, I’m in some sort of…field? Canyon? I don’t know. I’m somewhere. And there are tall silver…spikes? Look, I don’t know what anything is, alright? Just bear with me as I attempt to describe this. I have a targeting reticule which I can move with the D-pad. R1 seems to turn me 180 degrees around. L2 seems to change the reticule when held, although I have no idea for what purpose. R2…does something. I really don’t know what, but it looks like I’m using or losing something whenever I press it because an icon disappears from the bottom of the screen each time. The face buttons and analog sticks don’t seem to have a function whatsoever.
I know what I’ve written doesn’t make any sense, but that is exactly how I feel. Perhaps in my disjointed descriptions and lack of clarity I have instilled in you just a fraction of the confusion I’m feeling. There is also a very loud noise constantly playing that sounds kind of like steam rushing out of a pipe, and the music is decent enough but it’s a pretty short loop. I’m going to have to consult the manual again.
These are the spikes I was referring to. Stay tuned for the revelation of what they actually are!
It seems that even the instruction manual isn’t quite sure what’s going on. It talks about a substance of unknown origin which can be injected into a specimen of equally unknown origin, and apparently the consequences of failure are unknown. I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t know anything.
It seems that the gameplay revolves around absorbing things in the environment in order to gather energy while avoiding detection by the sentinel. If he spots you, he’ll absorb your energy. The sentinel can also create sentries, which are mini versions of himself, and both the sentinel and sentries can create, I kid you not, “meanies”. These meanies can teleport you from where you are to a less advantageous spot on the map. The ultimate goal seems to be to gain enough energy and get to a spot from which you can absorb the sentinel itself. Or at least that’s what the manual says. I suppose I’ll restart the level and see if I can figure this out.
“Meany by name, mean by nature”, here is the game’s version of a meanie (right) compared to my interpretation of a meanie.
Surprisingly, knowing the rules does not really help all that much. I’ve managed to absorb a few “trees” (I put that in quotes because these trees are actually the huge silver spikes I mentioned earlier), and to warp back and forth between two equally useless locations before wasting all of my energy. I’m really just stumped. I think the real problem is that while the manual is quite verbose in describing what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to do it, there are very few pictures.
Usually when describing a HUD or interface, a manual will have an image of it with captions and labels. I also think I’ve figured out that you need to create robots (apparently in this game robots are smaller totem poles) and you can move around by jumping from robot to robot. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to get to a higher vantage point because I only seem to be able to create robots at my level or lower. I would really hate to give up on this game without even being able to make sense of the first level, so perhaps now is time to head to the internet to see if it can be of help to me.
As always, YouTube has provided me with a bit of a clue as to how I should proceed. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered this before, but the answer is quite simple. Apparently apart from creating robots and trees (aka totems and spikes), you can also create boulders. Hey, what do you know, the boulders actually look somewhat like boulders! Anyway, you can stack a robot on top of a boulder to reach higher locations. Now that I’ve figured that out I’ve made a bit of progress in moving about and I’ve absorbed a few more trees. Unfortunately, once I got a few levels higher than where I started I saw my scan bar filling, which means the sentinel has spotted you and is about to either drain your energy or create a meany to warp you away.
Wait, where is the sentinel? I looked all around me, up and down (mostly up since he has to be above me), but I have no idea where he is scanning me from. Therefore, I have no idea where I can go to hide from him. I think the main problem is that moving the camera around and aiming the reticule is incredibly slow and clumsy. It takes forever to look around you to see where enemies may be or where you can and should move to. Apparently this game can also be played with the Playstation mouse, which I didn’t know existed until right now, and it’s also available on the PC. I’d say it’s probably a much more playable game on the computer, and unless you have a mouse to control it, it doesn’t seem like you can really do too much.
A comparison of the PC version (left) with the much muddier looking Playstation port.
Well I failed to make it through even the first level. In fact, I wasn’t even close. I think that’s as far as I’m going to go with Sentinel Returns. I think I gave it a pretty fair shake, but unless I was to resort to looking up a guide or a video on what exactly to do I don’t think I can really make it much farther, and is that really how you want to play a puzzle game? Like I said, I think it can probably be pretty decent (or at least playable) on a computer with a mouse, but this Playstation version seems pretty weak. If you’d like to see the game in action the way it’s meant to be played, feel free to check out the YouTube video embedded below this, uploaded by spicyechidna94.
So for this entry, rather than giving you my thoughts on the game, I suppose I’ve shared with you my confusion and frustration at trying to figure this one out. I expect that this kind of thing will happen from time to time, and that’s to be expected when you choose games randomly, but that’s exactly what I wanted. Even if I don’t love every game I play, I want to get a feel for all different types of games. Some I’ll love, some I’ll hate, some I won’t be able to figure out for the life of me, and some will probably be downright mediocre. So join me again next time, when the hands of fate shall guide me in an unknown direction, to find an unknown substance, to be injected into an unknown specimen, etc. etc. etc.
One of the biggest gripes that players can have about games that were originally released in Japan and then later are dubbed in English for a Western release is the fact that the animation and characters don’t move their lips or sometimes even act accordingly for their new dialogue. But this will not be the case with Catherine.
Talking to Siliconera, Ms. Ruff (the woman voicing Katherine, Vincent’s actual girlfriend) revealed that she has been told to match all of her lines to a certain time and then Katherine’s actual lip motions are modified to fit her dialogue as good as possible. If the scene was already fully animated then she had to sync her voice to the character’s lips. Atlus itself has set the release date for the psychological horror puzzle for some point this Summer on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
THQ and Relic’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine finally has a little less vague of a release window. Today the companies announced that rather than a Summer release window the extremely changed Warhammer game will be available some time in August of this year.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine takes a different approach from the normal RTS game that is Warhammer (or table top game for major fans). The game will take place in third person and appear to be quite similar to Gears of War. Of course this game will have plenty of Orks to kill instead of locusts. Currently few titles have been even announced for an August release date which currently puts Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine in a good selling position when it releases for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
Nothing says a strong Western fan base like getting a classic looking title from Japan localized for the U.S. and other countries. XSEED is going to be handling the localization and of course the release for the classic, old school looking dungeon crawler series Wizardry. The title itself is going to be an exclusive release for the PlayStation 3.
The dungeon plays as a first-person crawler where the RPG itself grew out of originally. The series as a whole is well known for creating some of the most recognizable changes to the RPG ever since its creation years ago. The enemies and sprites will all be hand drawn by Yuki Hayabusa and will consist of 120 different enemies and give players a chance to play with a party of six that they can create from five different races and assign eight different classes. Currently XSEED has only just announced the fact they are localizing the title and only has a release window of Spring 2011.
If you have a decent amount of disposable income and want to help further a good cause while also getting some interesting game merchandise at the same time then now is the time to do it. SEGA is currently holding a video game item auction where they are selling a number of cool and rare items related to some of their popular franchises.
There are a number of items up for auction and is performed by eBay and everything is currently still available. All proceeds from the auction will go to the Red Cross to help fund efforts in Japan. The current item that has the largest price at the moment is the above Valkyria Chronicles promo poster. At the time of this writing it is at $560.00 which means it will certainly be a great collector’s item. If of course you don’t have enough money to enter these auctions you can still donate to help Japan through our own fund raising efforts here.
It looks like everyone will start getting their FEAR on a bit sooner than expected. With the previously release window only being Summer of 2011 it is now been announced by Warner Brothers that FEAR 3 will be released in the United Kingdom on May 27th. That means that in under three weeks, people in the UK will be able to see what Alma has in store for everyone this time.
Then again the rest of us in the United States, and Australia of course, have yet to hear any release date for ourselves. One can assume however, that considering the release dates between nations often varies only by a week or two then the US release date could be anywhere between May 20th to June 3rd. However we have contacted Warner Brothers themselves to see if there is any sign of a definitive US release date.
Sure this was bound to happen eventually. There may be an app for this already on the iPhone, or you could of course just store the pictures themselves onto your phone and have the 3DS pick them up but I digress. There is now an app for the Android phone which you can pick up here that makes it so you won’t have to worry about carrying those Augmented Reality cards with you in public if you want to do something involving the 3D camera outside.
Of course the APP downloads for free and contains all of the AR cards that otherwise come free with the Nintendo 3DS: Question Mark Block, Mario, Link, Kirby, Samus and the Pikmin. For those who do not know what the AR cards do, they allow the 3DS to place 3D objects ontop of the card as if they were there in real life, even though they are not.
