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.
So someone bought my parents wii-fucking-fit. Truth be told, they kinda need it. But I don’t need to be tech support.
Like thousands of older folk on Christmas, they turned to their tech-savvy kids to set up their new Wii and show them how to use their balance boards. It is of course a fun distraction for actual gamers- for a short time- and far more fun than assembling a barbecue or a lamp. But it’s a lot of money for something I know will be set aside very shortly. My parents aren’t particularly interested in technology so their interest in Wiifit is more down the fact is an excercise gadget.
I found the balance board games to be the most fun, heading a football whilst avoiding shoes and panda heads. Running with a wiimote is pretty cool but overall this isn’t going to make you go down a shirt size. It will if you keep up with it, the same way WoW will make you fat as you head towards 80. For the oldies who do keep up their Wiifit regimen, it will suck them in just as much as a MMORPG will to a Korean student.
Its that time of the year of the year 2008 (stop that!). Gaming mags and websites are running their Games of the year awards. Controller1.com is only a small site and we don’t play everything under the sun but we’d like to see what you think.
This year was one where the heavy hitters were more evenly spaced out through the year. We’ll start by looking at the bigger games that came out in January, February and March 2008.
THE GOOD
Burnout Paradise (360 and PS3)
The only driving game that was so much fun that even non-racing fans could find enough to enjoy to justify a purchase. No retry button but the scale and depth of the game is amazing. You don’t have to be a hardcore racing fan to get a kick out of this game. From races, Takedowns, marked man, burning route (time trials in specific cars) and stunt modes, this game keeps on giving. Criterion and EA have been very good to fans of the series in so far as the many numerous FREE updates have all brought new content and challenges.
REVIEW
DEVIL MAY CRY 4 (360, PS3 and PC)
Some people really love the Devil May Cry series. Think about it, we wouldn’t have God of War without Devil May Cry. That said, now that Jaffe has the recipe, did we need DMC4? DMC fans liked this latest epic- the first game to have a long mandatory install before you started to play on PS3, yet the benefits over the 360 version were barely noticeable.
ARMY OF TWO (360, PS3)
EA Montreal’s coop-focused shooter was the butt(grab) of many jokes in the lead up to its release. It was famously retooled somewhat during a delayed release. The final product is slightly schizophrenic- It doesn’t know if it wasn’t to be a serious shooter with a political message or a braid dead action movie. It tries to be both and manages to still be fun (apart from the being dragged to cover mechanic when your health is low). This game actually sold quite well (on 360 at least) so a sequel “Army of Too” might turn up at some stage. Not essential but worth a play if you like coop. REVIEW
TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX VEGAS 2 (360, PC, PS3)
The first Vegas game was one of the best R6 games released since Ubisoft bought Red Storm. The sequel is one of the worst. It’s so fucking bad that I hope eeryone involved in its production si struck down with terminal bad breath. This game stinks. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE! Which plague, you might ask? Does it fucking matter? A Plague is a plague. It scored and sold very well, unlike the games in the “NOT SO GOOD” section where it belongs>.”
GRAND THEFT AUTO IV (360, PS3, PC)
So this was expected to be the biggest game of the year. It isn’t. Its a good game in its own right, maybe not as expansive and as much fun as San Andreas, but still great. It was very daring but at the same time, kept a lot of the stuff you hated about the old games, things that Crackdown and Saint’s Row managed to get right. Definitely the most overrated game of 2008 (a lot of people fell in love with the idea that this was a near perfect game when it came out but too many cracks appears all too quickly) but still at the least, a very good and even great game. You need to play GTA IV, just be aware its flaws aren’t always minor and easy to overlook.
LEGO INDIANA JONES
The Lego Star Wars releases show that you can make fun games for kids that adults will also respond well to. Lego Indy is perhaps a test to see how well the formula can survive with Jedi involved. Indiana Jones is a huge franchise in its own right and without a Next Gen version full of DMM and the like, this was the game that came out alongside (or near enough) the cinematic return of the Man with the Hat.
This game is highly playable on whatever system you have so go play it. REVIEW
And of course,
METAL GEAR SOLID 4 (PS3)
So this was meant to be the swansong of the series but its sold well enough for Konami to invoke the “Bitch” clause in Kojima’s contract. Its a great game. If you own a PS3 and don’t have this then go and get it, This is the reason you bought the damn thing. This game will also make you take up smoking. There’s so much attention to detail in the game that you can sometimes get overwhelmed with options. Here’s a hint, you don’t need 70% of the stuff you have at your disposal. REVIEW
BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY (360, PS3)
Not Battlefield Heroes, but a better version of Battlefield 2. It works phenomenally well on PS3 and 360 online. Oh and there’s a decent single player that’s a proper single player game and not just MP maps with bots. REVIEW
SID MEIER’S CIVILISATION REVOLUTION (DS, PS3, 360)
Our own Cam has been playing Civ games since he was in nappies. In fact he still is playing Civ games in nappies. Sid Meier on a console? Outrageous. But it worked. A review is apparently coming (better late than never).
THE NOT SO GOOD:
THE CLUB (PC, 360 and PS3)- Sega and Bizarre Creations attempt to merge the Kudos systen from PGR and a shooter went largely unnoticed. A pity as the demo was fun and I still intend to pick this up (cheaply) to blast through its single player mode
FRONTLINES: FUEL OF WAR. (PC and 360) THQ and KAOS Studios’ version of Battlefield (some of the Kaos guys were originally behind the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat) was not bad, but after a couple of demos and a stillborn PS3 version, the game was just a victim of too many better shooters already on the market. When you’re up against UT3, CoD4, Halo 3, Quake Wars, etc, you need to do something better and with more charm than the competition.
TUROK (360, PS3)
Well, this series was a really big deal back in the N64 days but Turok is not what it was. Actually, it was crap back then, so maybe it is exactly what it was.
HAZE (PS3) Ubisoft
Another overhyped failure, this game was meant to be the PS3′s top draw shooter until Resistance 2 and Killzone 2 appeared. It wasn’t. If you can talk about Haze on a message board without LOL appearing within 30 seconds, and your NOT on the “Official Haze website” you’re having a good day.
THE BOURNE CONSPIRACY (360, PS3) RENTAL OF THE YEAR!
Well no Matt Damon, no Jason Bourne. What’s the point? You might as well mocap Richard Chamberlain.
ALONE IN THE DARK (PC, PS3, 360, Wii, PS2)
Atari and its last remaining internal studio try to scare the shit out of us. They certainly scared the shit out of people who bought this. “Oh my god, I’m an idiot for buying this.”
QUAKE WARS (PC, PS3, 360)
It sorta fizzled on PC late last year and any remaing embers doused on 360 and PS3. Both console versions are to be avoided, for different reasons. The main reason to avoid it is because its Quake Wars.
and in a special sealed section on its own.
THE NINTENDO WII
A trio of Nintendo releases headlines the Wii.
WiiFit: It may not be an 800 pound gorilla, but only because the balance board’s weight limit is 130kg. My mother, who doesn’t like videogames and rarely bought me games as gifts as a child wants a Wii Fit. She doesn’t want the Wii, just the WiiFit. We tried to tell her you couldn’t use the WiiFit without a Wii but she stopped listening at that stage. So she’s getting a Wiifit for Christmas without the required Wii. What the hell do I care?
Mario Kart Wii: Mario Kart was always a big franchise but for some reason the Wii version with its multitude of control schemes (somehow all less than optimal) has managed to outsell the sublime Super Mario Galaxy. Mario Kart on the DS is kinda the reason I hooked up with these bums to make podcasts back on angry-gamer.net. But I hate Mario Kart with a passion because of those fucking snakers. Yes you can’t do it apparently on the Wii, but hatred is a keeper.
Super Smash Brothers Brawl: When I used to play wifi DS games with friends on planes, a DS SSB was what i was hanging out for as a really good MP game. But its on the Wii and its very good for the sort of game genre that you don’t get many options for on the Wii.
there’s also:
Boom Blox: Hey look, a third party Wii game. It did OK and is still selling decently (if not charting). Hey EA, make more Wii specific games designed fro the Wii.
Zak and Wiki: Puzzle game. Its a puzzle game. Its not the second coming of our lord and savior Mecha-Christ.
No More Heroes: Yes it was interesting to look at the character design. Then look at the backdrops and go driving around down. The combat was mashing buttons until you use the Wiimote for a finishing move. NEXT!
