Although Activision doesn’t want you to know this but Wolfenstein is out on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. I am playing Wolfenstein and enjoying it despite the deafening silence from the Activision publicity department. The same people who want you to buy five different versions of Guitar Hero each year, a Call of Duty each year and dozens of previous id games, including Return to Castle Wolfenstein; don’t really care if you buy this game or not.
Even games that publishers know are crap get more marketing than Wolfenstein has had. Is it really that bad? No. It’s more to do with id being bought out by Zenimax, owners of Bethesda along with rights to any Wolfenstein sequels. Competition for Modern Warfare 2 may have some bearing but as the Quantum of Solace game was released almost simultaneously with CoD: WaW in 2008, it’s safe to assume Activision weren’t interested in spending money on advertising a game that only benefits Zenimax in the long run. It’s a pretty douchey thing to do and even EA is not going to dump Rage simple because they won’t be able to publish Rage 2.
So, Wolfenstein is a first person shooter set during WWII. But rather than the realistic and gritty approach of Call of Duty, Wolfenstein is set in a more fantastical WWII where Nazi’s are in possession of occult and supernatural weaponry. It’s almost like the spy adventures alluded to in the most recent Indiana Jones movie. Single player has proven to be fun but Multiplayer is like stepping back in time. Back to when Cher was young.
It’s a fun enough diversion but god it looks like an Xbox 1 game. A laggy Xbox 1 game. Go back to single player and the graphics are good to very good. It’s quite polished for the most part, apart from lacklustre voice work.
Also on the ‘box has been Shadow Complex, from Epic and Chair. A side-scrolling 2D Metroid/Castlevania style game. Yes, people have been peeing in their pants with anticipation of this, but I had mainly ascribed this to being grumpy fuckers who can’t play any game made after the year 2000 without complaining how things aren’t as good as they used to be. I’ve only had a quick squizzy but it’s a game that I can see many people (the explorer types) getting a huge kick out of. It’s 1200 points but it is worth it.
Trials HD is as good as it was in the Focus Test.
To continue: the Sony and Nintendo conferences were held today, the first day of the show, proper.
So let’s get into it….
Sony
God of War III is coming in March 2010. It looks like a painting come to life according to David Jaffe and I’m not going to argue with him, merely ask him not to visit goth art galleries anymore whilst inebriated. the fourth game in the trilogy 9(!) will close out the series (!).
PSP Go! was announced. People were shocked. People who woke up from coma’s were shocked anyway. Its a slimmer, UMD less PSP that will go on sale in a few months for US$250 alongside the current PSP-3000. PSP will finally see Gran Turismo portable, which seems to have taken a leaf out of Pokemon and Monster Hunter’s huge popularity in Japan by allowing trades over wifi. There’s a new Metal Gear portable game, Peacewalker or Pisstaker or something and this looks to be set a few years after Metal Gear 3. There’s the previously mentioned Little Big Planet PSP, Motorstorm and Assassin’s Creed PSP; as well as a newly announce PSP Resident Evi, PSP Infamous and PSP Soul Calibur.
On the PS3 front there’s the duel wand motion controller, currently unnamed and listed for release sometime in 2010. You can now get your waggle in three different flavours, depending on which system you own. As far as games go there weren’t many surprises, as most had been either announced, teased or leaked before the show. What games were shown mostly look pretty cool. Uncharted 2 looks to be fantastic, but we new that. MAG looks to be big and expansive but we knew that. The demo was nice in showing the strengths and weakness of the concept. Another quick look at the new Ratchet game in one of Sony’s many montages and a new Final Fantasy online game, FFXIV for release in 2010 on PS3 only.
But the exclusive that looks most intriguing is Agent, from Rock Star. Its set in the 70′s so I’m sure we’ll get that period completely inaccurate (you know early 70′s hippie fashions and giant afros with disco music). You’re an assassin. Its a Rock Star game so you’re never going to be handing out leaflets in a mall.
Assassin’s Creed 2, not shown on the Ubi conference, was demoed but as Jade Raymond was no where to be seen we’ll skip that. Just kidding. Can this game redeem the flaws of the original? Time will tell. PS3 is getting some exclusive DLC. Its called the PSP version and if you buy that, you get some extra weapons to use. Also shown is a cartoon racer where you can make and share tracks. Moving right along, there’s The Last Guardian, from the makers of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Even though the trailer showed up on the web a few days ago, its still nice to see.
Overall, better than last year but we knew 95% of the content previously so the surprise factor was lower. Personally, GoW III, Ratchet and Uncharted 2 are my must haves on PS3 out of what was shown here.
Nintendo
Well, if they could put the word Mario into any more products they would. They started by talking about mario’s evolution and how they want to take Mario into 4D. By this they mean a 4-player coop version of All New Super Mario Brothers for Wii. A 2D renaissance has taken place with this and Epic’s XBLA game announced yesterday, but hopefully this won’t merely be the DS game upscaled for Wii (though bets on that’s exactly what this is).
Of course there would be WiiFit 2. Nintendo may not be making the kewl games like they used to but your grandma needs something to do in between lawn bowls and writing angry letters to the newspaper. Motion Plus was pimped yet again, with what seemed to be a familiar montage of what you could do with it (deja vu circa the Wii’s2006 launch).
Wii Sports resort seems to be less of a tech demo and more of a “this is what we should have done all along” game.
Along the same vein, Red Steel 2 (Motion plus only, it seems) is going to try and fulfill the promises Ubi made in 2006 with the big selling but reviled original.
We have a Final Fantasy game for Wii, Crystal something. Open world gayness from SE. Weeeeee. A DS Kingdom HeartZzzzzzzzz. Mario and Luigi told from Bowser’s side. oh dear. Golden Sun. Oh well, some fanboys should be happy. But Women’s Murder Club? Cops: A recruit ?. I think my DS will be getting dustier and dustier.
Mario Vs Donkey Kong Mini’s March Again, is more puzzling action, this time with a level editor- buts its a DSi Ware game only. As is a Wario Ware title where you make your own games. I sometimes thing games where the idea is to make your own games is rather lazy on the part of developers.
There was a long build up to an announcement by Satoru Iwata (Nintendo Japan Head dude). The build up was to one of those cheap things you clip on your finger to monitor your heart-rate. The internet goes “huh?” The next announcement lead to believe its a joke at the expense of fanboys. Its Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii!
Also, making sense of the recent bundling of the three Metroid prime games on one disc is a new Metroid Game from Team Ninja. Its called Other M. And its semi side scrolling.
Depending on where you are, its Christmas over the new few days. If not that, then your celebrating something so have a good time and play some games with your family. They may have just gotten a band new Wii and will expect to play Wii Sport with you. You might as well do this as it is fun and if you have more than basic gaming skills, you will pwn granny. “You’re going down, bitch!”
So after they’ve played Wii sport and you hook up the Wii Fit for the one and only time your mother will ever use it, here are some things to consider:
1. Don’t hook it up to the wifi. Everytime Nintendo feels like it, it will send a message to your Wii and the disc tray will glow blue. This will freak the fuck out of your grandfather who will proceed to call in a priest and have your Wii exorcised.
2. There are mountains of Wii games available for insane prices in bargain bins world wide. There’s a reason they are so cheap. They are either shithouse, crappy or Boom Blox.
3. Wii Fit is not a substitute for a proper exercise regime.
4. Carnival Games is not a substitute for a proper game
5. Wii Music is a toy. The only tunes you can successfully recreate in Wii music are those from Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music album.
6. The best games on Wii are Zelda Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid: Corruption
7. The worst games have outsold the best games. Games such as Wii Play and Mario and Sonic at the Olympics are the big sellers on the system
8. Ubisoft is combining some franchises into mega-selling blockbusters such as Imagine: Tom Clanciez, Shaun White Recon Boarding Babiez and Prince of Fashion Designerz.
9. Gamecube Pikmin is being ported to the Wii. Not a new version, just a port of the GC version they runs on a Wii disc, even though you can just load the GC version you can get quite cheaply pre-owned or used or, as is more likely to be the case, sitting unplayed in your own collection.
10. Now that Mario Kart, Super Mario Galazy, Zelda, Metroid and Wario have games on the system, the 3 year long wait until the next Nintendo machine with new iterations of those games begins. In the meantime Nintendo will offer us Wii Macrame, Wii Masturbate (a surprising hit amongst core gamers), Wii Beat a Dead Horse, Wii Scraping the Bottom of the Barrell and Wii Out of Ideas.
