Just as a little heads up, Parasite Eve is now available on the PlayStation Network and can be picked up as simple as downloading any other PsOne Classic but the major news here is the fact that Square Enix is going to be bringing the second game of the series to the PSN although no actual release window was announced at the current time.
Parasite Eve II changes venues from the first game by placing Aya in Los Angeles and in the Mitochondrial Investigation and Suppression Team, otherwise known as MIST. Kyle Madigan from The 3rd Birthday is introduced during this title and considering The 3rd Birthday itself is going to be released on March 29th in the U.S. we may be seeing the whole Parasite Eve franchise available for purchase again soon enough.
The Capsule Computers Crew had the complete pleasure of interviewing Atari Producer Michael Fahrny about a few of their up and coming digital releases and a bunch of other random things that us super geeks all enjoy. Sit back and enjoy.
1. What was the development process behind a title like Yars, did you have the original close by for reference?
We had an original 2600 setup with a copy of Yars handy whenever we needed it. Killspace spent countless hours and a lot of personal time putting a lot of love into Yar’s. It was a passion project for them.
2. From what I’ve seen of Yar’s Revenge, it plays like Star Fox or Panzer Dragoon, why do you think that not as many of these on-rails type shooters are released?
I have a new found respect for anyone who’s worked on a rail shooter. Because these genre if games are relatively simple on the gameplay side (i.e. being on a rail), the biggest challenge is to make sure you are doing enough the keep players engaged in the game. There are a lot of different ways to do this, and we used games like Rez, Sin & Punishment, and Panzer Dragoon as influences to help us along that path.
3. Considering Atari have frequently released Dungeons and Dragons video games, has there ever been a point where you have just started borrowing game ideas from campaigns that you have run privately?
A lot of our ideas come from working closely with the team at Wizards of the Coast and from sitting down and going through the table top game. We feel that we have taken the best of both worlds and put them into one cohesive video game.
4. Have you considered any other Tabletop franchises for adapting into a video game?
That’s a good idea 😉
5. Let’s say that Superman and Batman get into a fight, who would win and why?
This is a tough one for me. I love them both, but I think Batman is the more intelligent superhero and in the end (even without having true super powers), he would figure out a way to defeat Superman.
6. Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale – Does it use D&D mechanics? Will players of the tabletop game be able to recognise the game outside of the tag?
Of Course! Daggerdale uses the 4th Edition rule set, so anyone who is familiar with it will immediately recognize and understand what’s going on. That being said, not everything from the tabletop rules translate well into video games so we have worked closely with the Wizards of the Cost team to come to a happy medium.
7. Have you seen the film ‘Grandmas Boy‘? If so, how accurate is it to the life of the average game developer?
[in robot voice] “Please sit on my face.” 🙂
It varies day to day to be honest. Some days, I sit back and can’t believe I actually get paid to do this and some days it can be just like any other job. In the end though, it’s a very rewarding career.
8. What is the average day of a game developer entail over at Atari?
Lots of meetings and emails! I manage more than one project at a time so most of my time is spent evaluating the status of all my projects, making sure everything is running smoothly, and playing my games of course 🙂
9. Stargate SG1 or Stargate Atlantis? Or something even better !!
Wow, well that’s a hard one. I’ve seen them all, including the recently cancelled Stargate Universe. SG1 has to be the favourite though. The biggest new show I’m looking forward to is A Game of Thrones, The Song of Ice and Fire series is my all-time favourite book series.
10. If you could convert any D&D module into a PC game, which would it be?
Return to the Tomb of Horrors would be awesome to see as a video game.
11. Being video game publishers/developers, what are your favorite games and why?
Picking a favorite is tough, but, I am currently playing Civilization 5, Magika, and Dragon Age 2.
12. What do you love most about Working at Atari ?
The people.
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There you have it ladies and gentlegeeks another amazing inteview over. The Crew here at Capsule Computers would like to thank Michael for taking the time from his busy schedule, we wish him and the team over at ATARI all the best with their up and coming digital releases.
Let us know what you thought of this interview, leave a comment below 🙂
With Activision calling time on the Guitar Hero franchise only a month ago, it seems Ubisoft have seen an opening in the market and are making their delve into the music game genre with a new IP called ‘Rocksmith’.
The game will supposedly use real guitars as opposed to plastic peripherals, with the ambitious aim of teaching you real guitar chords instead of fairly redundant button-pressing. Ubisoft’s senior VP of marketing Tony Key described it as “a music experience” rather than just a “party game”.
Ubisoft is said to be in talks with guitar manufacturer Gibson to produce guitar bundle that is reported to cost around 200 US dollars, although Rocksmith will comes with a standard input jack that can plug most electric guitars into a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, though not a Nintendo Wii.
Rocksmith will roll out around September, boasting of a set list of 45 songs from the likes of the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Nirvana and the Animals.
Chapter 1: Random stuff that Phil (MasterAbbott) doesn’t like but I like to include anyway.
I packed my stuff, told Phil(MasterAbbott) I was leaving and then left. I headed for the bus, waited for like two minutes and then caught it. Because I’m awesome, I was listening to some Anime speed remixes by the label of ‘Exit Trance’. Man they’re so awesome. I also listened to some J-Rock, ‘JAM Project’; for all those interested. Anyways, the bus trip was short, uneventful and lacking in babes. I moved onto the train from the train-station and listened to some more ‘Exit Trance’. After what seemed like a longer than usual time, the train pulled into Central Station and I headed to the event.
Chapter 2: The Event.
I almost walked past the location that the event was being held at, I also got lost trying to find it… just a little. I actually had to start relying on The Force to find it.
Using my highly acute Jedi powers, I finally managed to find my way to the turn off into the street that the event was at. I peered down the street (it was actually more like a driveable alleyway) and saw a group of people congregating and what vaguely looked like Phil from a distance. So I approached, the worst that the group could have been is a nerdy gang… hardly a threat.
After a few minutes of waiting we were ‘greeted’ by a couple of Korean Soldiers who kind of looked like they meant business. Queue everybody getting pictures. So the dudes came out, and we got a photo of them. It was cool. Then it’s almost time for us to enter. After standing around and chatting for a few more minutes, Paul from THQ came out to let us know that it’s time to enter and explains to us that we each would be recieving the following items: A copy of the Book – ‘The Voice of Freedom’, A copy of the PC version (on Steam) of the game and a copy of either the Xbox360 or PS3 version of the game. Rockin’.
And so the dude re-enters the building, followed by the Koreans and then by everyone else towards the end. We are led in through this tunnely walk-way thing that was quite narrow, and also somewhat dark. Luckily it wasn’t very long, like max 1-1.5seconds long. We reach the light at the end of the tunnel and are welcomed by a room filled with televisions and connected Xbox units. After observing the room, we were told that we could grab beverages and find an unoccupied unit to game on. I grabbed me a coke and sat in the middle-right row, right in the middle.
Me being an awesome gamer by not holding the controller correctly, or facing the screen. Also, WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH MY THUMB!?!?
MY ACTUAL THUMB, NOT PHIL’S CAMERA BEING WEIRD!
The gaming set-up, while not ideal, was quite easy to get used to… though, you couldn’t appreciate the games detail while your nose is right against the screen. Standing back, the game looked pretty good running on the Xbox 360, but with your nose right against it, everything was a pixelated mess. Made it easy to spot players though, once you could work out what they looked like. Of course, I found this one really good spot that was quasi-camping for easy kills in one of maps.
After a few hours of gaming, it was time to pack up and go. But before it could happen, Paul went around and handed out press-copies of the game, which was incredibly awesome of him. MasterAbbott tried to take an extra copy and the Korean Soldiers were all over him like flies on S$#$%
As you can tell from Phil getting owned by the Korean Super Soldiers. (ONE COPY NOT TWO !!)
Chapter 3: Closing
After receiving our press editions of the game, we had time for one more round and then it was time to leave. The event itself was quite enjoyable, especially when some of starting hurling smack towards each other (er… smack talk, not drugs…) and most especially that one time when I just absolutely owned everyone. I leave you all with one final message. DO NOT SIT SO CLOSE TO THE TELEVISION EVER, IT IS PROVEN TO DEGRADE YOUR EYESIGHT.
Gameplay also works.
Special thanks to the great dudes over at THQ for organizing the event, myself and Masterabbott had a great time !! Let’s do this again soon 🙂
Mastertronic have announced today that their upcoming hidden object game on Nintendo DS, Emily Archer & The Curse of Tutankhamun, will be available from 18th March.
The adventure is set against the backdrop of 1920’s Egypt. You play as Lady Archer who is invited to Egypt to see the priceless treasure of King Tutankhamun by her friend Lord Carnarvon. But, she arrives two months later to find her dear friend murdered and the mask of Tutankhamun stolen. You must use all your hidden object skills to get to the bottom of this mystery, solving the murder and retrieving the missing mask of Tutankahmun.
On your journey you will search 30 different scenes over locations including tombs, hotel rooms and excavation sites. As well as the hidden object aspect of the game, it will also include 30 mini-games to play through along the way.
While football is the world game, there’s a part of tennis that holds a place in everyone’s heart. Top Spin first tapped into this love on Xbox and PS2, and soon enough the franchise has grown into a tennis-loving-gamer’s dream. However, with great franchises comes great responsibility to live up to the fans’ expectations, and after 3 years (Top Spin 3 was released in 2008), that’s a hell of a lot of responsibility for 2K to fulfil.
With “intuitive controls”, an extensive roster of the world’s top players, and upgraded visuals and gameplay, Top Spin 4 really set itself up to “redefine” the way players experience tennis…but Top Spin fans will remember Top Spin 3 making a similar claim. Whether it met the expectations, though, is an entirely different question altogether. ..
Modes
In similar fashion to its predecessors, Top Spin 4 has four selectable modes: Career Mode, Exhibition Mode, all new King of the Court mode, and Top Spin Academy (formerly the Tennis School). Players can jump right in and start playing as one of the greats, or customise a career from scratch.
Exhibition Mode
Exhibition Mode in TS4 is basically just a fancy way of saying “quick play”. Anyone who jumps in expecting a quick five minute match will be disappointed though, because my exhibition matches have generally lasted around 20 minutes to half an hour on three sets. Unlike previous Top Spin games, it’s very hard to jump into exhibition mode without attending the Top Spin Academy first, unless you want to play Rafael Nadal and have him lose straight sets to Novak Djokovic because you couldn’t aim properly.
All of the world tennis players are level 20, which places them in equal footing with each other, and it’s up to the individual player to make what they will of the match. Obviously 2K were watching the 2010 Australian Open, otherwise how would Bernard Tomic have made it into this game? With that being said, Top Spin 4 seems to be stuck in some sort of time rut for women because Li Na and Kim Clijsters didn’t make an appearance, which is quite disappointing for any female tennis fan.
Career Mode
Career mode allows you to build a player from scratch and play him/her through a career by winning tournaments, gaining experience to level up, and beating objectives. There was nothing horrifyingly new about this setup and the layout of career mode in Top Spin 4 is pretty much the layout of any career mode in a sports game – minus the tennis jargon. Each month players can participate in one preparation game and one tournament – if you’re choosing your sparring partner, it’s a good idea to select the tennis player who you will be facing first in the tournament. Players level by expending experience on different attribute sets such as defensive, serve and volley, or offensive, each of which increases different stat combinations.
King of the Court
If Top Spin 4 was looking for a real “quick play” mode, I have to say King of the Court would have to be it. This was by far one of the most enjoyable additions in the game and reminded me a lot of my childhood playing King of the Court handball. In this mode, you must choose four players (one of them being your own, of course) and engage in a round-robin knockout, of sorts. Players can choose from being crowned King of the Court after winning 3 matches, 5 matches, and so on. If you aren’t playing with friends, the game will simulate the matches between players you aren’t controlling. The beauty in this game is that the duration of each match can be customised, and the entire thing goes by quickly and enjoyably unlike tedious 5 set matches.
Top Spin Academy
What would Top Spin 4 be without a place for you to learn how to play? Newbies in particular should go into the Academy before even setting foot in a game. There are so many different controls and techniques to learn, and Top Spin Academy offers tutorials for basic and advanced gameplay. Basic gameplay teaches everything from hitting the ball to serves. A word of warning: don’t go through all the tutorials at once because they can get very tedious if you’re doing them one after the other. There is a section in the basic gameplay tutorial where you will have to aim a serve at a specific area of the court. This took me at least 10 tries before I got it right, and by that time I was very ready to exit the Academy and just hit balls in the training ground.
Graphics
Overall, Top Spin 4 is a nice looking game. It’s not visually ‘stunning’, but it sure was nice to get away from that horrifyingly shiny head of Federer’s which plagued the last game. The players even mimicked their real-life counterparts in mannerisms; Andy Murray has the exact same look on his face when he is losing, and I wondered for a second if 2K had just taken video footage and cartoonized it on Photoshop. The venues were also beautifully recreated, with a choice between lots of venues and lots of options within those venues (clay court? Grass court? Paris? Dubai? Take your pick!). While I was playing, I would see the speed of the serve flash on Ricoh screen on the court and in that moment I admit I was very impressed.
My impressions were taken away when it came to character creation, though. While my character looked good after I had created her, choosing her face and morphology was possibly one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to choose because they all looked so bad. All ten women’s faces had nothing spectacular, and it was at this point I was grateful for the ability to customise her face. Morphology was the biggest nightmare though – when I was choosing between my player being slim or muscular, nothing changed except the size of her thighs under her skirt.
Audio
As Nadal was about to serve for the match point, I would hear people in the audience shouting “Rafa!” and the announcer telling them to be quiet. The ball would make different noises when I did a flat serve or a slice, and I could hear the ball bounce differently when I hit using topspin. Players also sounded exactly like they did in real life. These are little details, but overall add to the brilliant audio that makes up this game.
The soundtrack was nothing special, and really only had loop music used for the menu. To be honest, I hardly noticed it but the tunes are good to bop to once you’ve beaten a difficult player. The real focus in this game is on recreating the experience that players have, and here 2K have really outdone themselves.
Gameplay
Top Spin 4’s new controls really do put a realistic edge onto an otherwise monotonous game. While earlier tennis games featured ‘press a button to hit the ball’, Top Spin 4 requires lots of aiming and timing to create the perfect shot. While it took me a while to get the hang of it, this new control is definitely a welcome change and gave the game even more realism. The players also added to the realism by mimicking the speed of their real life counterparts; Djokovic was fast and Nadal had stamina.
Players also end up sprinting from one end of the court to another in a bid to chase the ball, and end up having to deal with different gameplay styles in their opponents. Some players may play up against the net while some like making you run to tire you out. These different styles really are the icing on the cake because there’s just so much to every player and each match truly is unique.
There were a few frustrating moments in the game where my player would be slow to respond and sometimes fail to move altogether. I still can’t figure out if it’s the game or my controllers, but one fail-proof way to make sure your player doesn’t miss a shot is to just keep them moving at all times in the match.
Overall
One thing about Top Spin 4 is that while newbies can jump straight into the game, it definitely is worth it to invest some time at the Top Spin Academy and hone up on your basic skills, at least. Despite there being some hiccups in the game, I found Top Spin 4 to be very enjoyable. I put in the disc intending to play it for an hour, and was still playing it three hours later when I realised it was dark outside. There’s just something incredibly hypnotizing about hitting a ball back and forth, and you know you like a game when Nadal wins a set and you start singing Buster Poindexter’s “Hot, Hot, Hot”.
The crimes that plague Cole Phelps in Rockstar’s upcoming game L.A. Noire are some of the most intriguing aspects of the game. With the game being a replica of 1940s Los Angeles in all its corruption, glory, and landscape, it’s no wonder that the cases are at least somewhat inspired by real-life crimes of the ’40s.
Rockstar showcased one of these crime cases at the PAX East show last weekend. “The Red Lipstick Murder” from the in-game Homicide desk was inspired by the real life homicide investigation of the murder of Jeanne French. French was a 45 year old veteran Army nurse who was found stripped and stomped to death inside “The Moors” in February 1947. It was discovered that the letters “B.D.” (and other rude words) were written in red lipstick over French’s nude body. The case remained unsolved, with a myriad of questions left unanswered.
While L.A. Noire doesn’t directly translate this case into the game, several pieces of information were used for inspiration. The red lipstick on the corpse is a prime example of the way Rockstar and Team Bondi have worked to take 1940s L.A. and translate it into 2011 L.A. Noire. Players will be happy to know though that unlike the real case where the killer was never brought to justice, The Red Lipstick Murder in the game will definitely have a ‘case closed’ stamp on it.
It was the news that rocked gamers all over Australia. The Australian Classification Board had refused classification (RC) of Mortal Kombat. The internet was turned into a warzone with fans coming together to vent their anger and seek vengeance.
Games that are slapped with a RC rating is banned and it is illegal to promote and sell in that country. So fans of MK who are seeking to import the game into Australia, watch out. Australian authorites have already blacklisted the game and will be keeping an eagle eye out.
The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service spokesperson has confirmed that Mortal Kombat has been added to its list of prohibited items.
“As Mortal Kombat has been refused classification in Australia it is considered objectionable material. It is therefore a prohibited good, and illegal to import into Australia,” the spokesperson said. “Customs and Border Protection works closely with Attorney General’s Department to identify imported games that are banned in Australia. This includes games purchased over the internet from foreign websites. Attorney General’s Department regularly updates Customs and Border Protection about classification decisions on publications, films and computer games, including the reclassification of material, and about different versions of computer games (some of which may be refused classification), and how to identify those versions at the border. This information is then used to assist in identifying and seizing banned versions of games.
“Any copies of the games detected at the border, including via international mail, will be seized.”
AND NOW THE CRAZY PART !!!
The Customs spokesperson said someone caught trying to import RCed games into Australia could expect a fine of up to three times the value of the product, or A$110,000, which ever is greater.
I feel sick to my stomach, how about you ?
Australian games should be aloud to be eligible for an R18+ rating! No matter what country your from, you to can fight for the cause! Even if it’s just as simple as signing the Capsule Computers petition to include an R18+ rating for Australia here! Sign it now and help make a difference.
Now that the original Parasite Eve is going to be arriving on the PSN tomorrow there is no reason for Square Enix to be letting people forget about the 3rd game of the series. Or should I say The 3rd Birthday eh? Today they have released a couple of videos that show off the cutscenes and battle of the game itself.
In the one cutscene we are introduced to the CTI team and despite some bad lip-syncing with the English voice over work everything looks great. Also released was a video that shows off some of some actual battle scenes were Aya dives into various team members and also uses Liberation mode to help defeat a the enemies that are in front of her. This cutscene is also in English and allows us to get a better look at the user interface in action. Catch both videos below.
If you havent already seen the previous post written by Travis, there is currently a law suit involving electronics giants Sony and LG with claims from LG that Sony are infringing on patent laws by using what they say is technology owned and patented by them within there PS3 Blu ray drives. In late February temporary injunctions were placed on the importation of PS3 consoles across Europe with some 300000 consoles impounded and LG pressing for similar actions to be taken in the United States.
Latest rulings have seen these decisions overturned and Sony has confirmed that they are again shipping PS3 consoles across Europe. Unfortunately for LG they have been hit with large damage claims and Sony’s legal bill to pay. While their consoles may be on the way to homes across Europe, Sony will still have defend these claims in court and could be ordered to pay royalties including back pay for consoles already sold since its launch.
It is quite an important case regarding property and patent laws and also allows Sony to concentrate on other legal issues such as similar charges against LG for use of what Sony say is their technology within LG mobile phones.
Heres hoping they can sort it out asap and continue to ship there much loved products to all of there fans and consumers worldwide maybe even sharing there technology with each other.
