Archive - 2011

Articles, E3, Interviews, News, Previews

I showed up at the Bandai Namco complex at E3, yes I called it a complex because there were two floors, lots of meeting rooms and tons of kiosks. I stood in the wrong spot for a bit before I even realized there was a check-in desk at the front of the complex where they called up the representative assigned to you and took you back into the section you need information on. There they would lead you to a meeting room, a demo room, or a kiosk with the games you need to see. It should have been chaotic but they had it running like a well-oiled machine. I found myself teamed with another journalist who was there for the same information I was and we were whisked, much to my surprise, into one of the meeting rooms. There sitting across a table from us and motioning to chairs was a face I recognized from years of gaming news and reviews. Katsuhiro Harada, Chief Game Director for Bandai Namco Games and the legend behind the Tekken franchise was sitting there. I tried to keep my face from showing shock as I settled down in a chair next to my fellow journalist and Michael Murray from the development team, who also translated, sat on the other side along with Syouichi Tanaka from Product Management. They made us feel very welcome and at the end of the interview we even got to go hands-on with Tekken Tag Tournament 2 in front of the people who made it before they ran off to another engagement. They left at the last possible moment giving us as much time as they could. I’d like to thank Michael Murray-san, Syouichi Tanaka-san and Katsuhiro Harada-san for honoring us with their time during such a busy event.

Q: Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is that just arcade or is that going to be on the consoles?

A: Yeah it’s going to be ported to consoles eventually. we’re still working on this one, its about 80% complete.

Q: Is there a timeline when you expect to see that finished?

A: Consoles or for this [gestures to the arcade version]?

Q: Consoles.

A: We can’t really say. The arcade this will be finished, well released, sometime in fall of this year and then after that at some point the consoles.

Q: And Tekken Hybrid, there was a lot of stuff going on, there’s the movie and then there’s the games. Is it one package or is it…?

A: So umm, you know we announced the movie first and normally we would have this first in the theaters as a special release and then later to Blu-Ray that would be the typical marketing approach to that. But since we’re a game company we want to do something more interesting than that. So on one Blu-Ray, what the Tekken Hybrid is is it’s got Blood…Tekken Blood Vengeance which is the animation. It’s going to be paired with Tekken Tag Tournament 1 HD. The reason for choosing that title is we are just working on [Tekken Tag Tournament 2] and people are really excited about it. And the reason why we made it now is just because its such a huge request from fans to see a sequel. But a large portion of our player population is pretty young, maybe in their teens, and some of them haven’t played the original. So we wanted to give them a chance to check out [Tekken Tag Tournament 1 HD] and see why it was so popular back then while they’re waiting for us to get [Tekken Tag Tournament 2] to them. But not only that, we hope to have some other bonus content and some surprises for fans all on one disc. So that’s why its called Hybrid.

Q: So as far as the Tekken storyline is Blood Vengeance, is that more story oriented or is Tag 2 more story oriented?

A: Obviously the movie will be more focused on the story aspects where Tag 2 is kind of taking like we did with past installments whether that’s 4, 5, 6 or even Tag 1 and all the evolutions of gameplay we’ve done for each installment and then adding a lot of new features for Tag 2 on top of that.

Q: There’s a ton of new Tekken games coming out with Blood Vengeance and Hybrid and 2 and Street Fighter, is there one that you’re most excited about?

A: Well you know obviously Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was one of the games that [Harada] always wanted to create because of the popularity of Tekken Tag Tournament 1. There was just a lot of obstacles, technology-wise, that we had to overcome before it came out. But you know its 80% complete for the arcade so [Harada]’s pretty happy with that so far. So [Harada]’s next dream is probably Tekken X Street Fighter because [Harada] was always a big fan of Street Fighter and even in developing the past installments [Harada] kind of mentioned to people all along that he’d love to do something with the Street Fighter team. So it really is a dream come true and [Harada]’s been doing that for 16 years and now the 16th year, possible the 17th year of his career at Namco the Tekken X Street Fighter game will come to life. [Harada]’s really looking forward to that.

Q: What are the release dates for arcade Tag 2, console Tag 2, the 3DS… just everything?

A: [Harada]’s currently thinking about the best schedule for release dates. The only thing we can say is [Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Arcade] will be fall of this year. The rest we’re trying to bring out as soon as possible.

Q: Does Tekken X Street Fighter have a release date yet?

A: Not at the moment because its not very far along in development yet. The reason for that is because all those teams currently on Street Fighter X Tekken so there’s really no purpose in taking away from that by doing 2 at the same time. We’re waiting for [the Street Fighter team] to finish on that game and give that its time in the spotlight before we start ours.

Q: How hands on have you been with Tekken X Street Fighter? Hows the collaborative process been?

A: Do you mean Street Fighter X Tekken or ours, Tekken X Street Fighter? Well, we’ll answer both.

Well first off for Street Fighter X Tekken [Yoshinori Ono]’s working with that on his team. Of course [Harada] provided them with all the background materials about the universe and our characters and popularity and stuff. And then we let [Ono] go ahead with that and he comes by once a month with the latest build to show us. But you know [Harada]’s full of surprises, he lets them do their own thing because he doesn’t want to be a limit to their creative process. [Harada] wants to have them do 120% of what they’re capable of. Our development team as well, we’re all kind of interested to see what each other comes up with.

In our case when we actually go and create Tekken X Street Fighter Ono-san actually has made it clear he’s going to keep his mouth shut in regards to what we’re going to be doing just because if [the Street Fighter team] were giving us instructions or whatever we might have some great idea but wouldn’t really go through with it because we’d be kind of worried about what they would think. We really don’t want to stop each others creative possibilities.

Q: Who approached who for this venture?

A: So [Harada] has been saying for over 13 years now that he wanted to do something with the Virtual Fighter team or the Street Fighter team in all kinds of different interviews all over the place so a lot of people are aware of that. But they didn’t really go to Capcom and ask for anything. Just happened we were eating Korean BBQ and said it would be really cool if we could actually make something cool together. And that’s how it started.

Q: And those are going to be cross platform and arcade or…?

A: First Ono’s game will come out, Street Fighter X Tekken on consoles. But Ono-san is saying he would like to make an arcade version as well because that’s what Namco is best at. So we’ll probably make some arcade versions of that one and of course ours when it comes out.

Q: Will Tag 2 have any new characters?

A: There aren’t any characters who are completely new that no one’s seen for the first time. There are a lot of revivals that a lot of the fans have been asking for. So for example we have Ogre, we have Jin Kazama. Heihachi has drastically changed, he’s gotten quite young as you can see. JC…she has a lot of new moves. We’ve just had so many requests to bring back this character or bring back that character. [Harada]’s twitter has exploded with “bring back ….”.

Q: Is True Ogre or Devil Jin coming back?

A: True Ogre’s in there. It’s listed as Ogre, but its really the True Ogre, the one with the snake head.

Q: Thanks a lot for the time!

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Hands On (E3)

2011/06/20

E3, News, Previews

Developed by the Project Aces team, Ace Combat Assault Horizon intensifies the franchise, escalating combat to the next level with aircraft that are literally torn apart, spewing oil and debris across the sky. Players will engage in combat across the globe, dodging skyscrapers and turning their enemies into fiery supersonic debris in both single player and online multiplayer. Never before has combat been so fast and in-your-face.

Features

Dramatic realistic storyline – Written by New York Times Best Seller and military author Jim DeFelice, players will experience an engaging war drama spanning real-world locations across the globe
Entirely new aircrafts to pilot – Experience split-second maneuvering and positioning, pinpoint targeting, hovering attacks and other gameplay diversity through the introduction of the Attack Helicopter, Door Gunner and more
Revolutionary Close-Range Assault system – Delivering high-speed acrobatics, dizzying one-on-one encounters, satisfying visceral low-altitude and high-flying death from above
ACE COMBAT online reinvented – Take to the skies and engage hostile forces in a variety of modes

E3 Impressions:

So this screenshot above looks like a nice cinematic but in reality that is how the gameplay works as the planes go through “Steel Carnage” and you literally tear them apart. Shoot the tip off the wing it blows off and the enemy loses some control with fire and smoke bellowing behind them. Here’s another:

Those are pieces of airplane that you probably don’t want to be flying through but seconds before you took that plane out in a dogfight mode that you enter by getting close enough behind them while targeting. There are different views of the game available but when you get to exploding aircraft time they clear everything out of your way so you can see the majesty of their graphic destruction system. It is absolutely awe inspiring the first couple times you see it then you start talking loudly at the game as you shred your enemies who are trespassing on American soil. Ok, I gave away just a touch of storyline, a storyline which is both great and exciting I might add, but it isn’t too hard to notice that some of the buildings and cities you fly over look pretty darn familiar if you watch any gameplay video. The plane handleing takes a little getting used to, the poor rep who watched me was almost jumping out his skin with how close I would get to dogfight mode before, at the last second, I was zigging when I needed to zag and missing the lock of Steel Carnage. After taking down a few and having some fun I handed the stick over to him and had him show me how it was done. I think it was therapeutic for him, as battle video games can be. Soon he had the skies ablaze and he was in the zone. After getting out of it he showed me another one of the most exciting additions to the game. Attack helicopters.

I play plenty of first person shooters that give you access to helicopters and so I was a much quicker learner on this fly through and I was taking out enemy SAM sites in no time. The detail you see above is the same detail maintained throughout the game and made for a far more realistic and gritty environment with the smoke and explosions having such great resolution. The only time anything becomes a bit grainy or out of focus is when you zoom in on a long distance target to give it a strafe with guns or missiles. Once again when I’d had some play I turned it over to my rep (sorry man I truly wish I had caught your name) and he showed me how it was done. He was such an expert with the game and controls that he could stay in zoomed in cam shot so I could see the details of the guys jumping out of the backs of trucks, the patterns on their shirts and the looks on their face as they fire or run for their lives. This game wasn’t just addictive to me, my rep was so into showing me details in the game and I was so into seeing them that I was late to my next appointment because we both lost complete track of time.

Final Thoughts:

I think it says a lot about a game when the game play representative was into the game as much as I was, antsy to get me into dogfights and just as happy to get his hands on it and play through. With the variety of view options available, the amazing graphics and all the air weapons at your disposal all driven by a powerful storyline this game proves to be addictive on the demo and I just can’t wait to get my hands on the full game. If you doubt me just watch the representatives in videos at the booth, they play the game between guests and on breaks because even they can’t get enough of it.

EVE Online Incarna 1.0 Coming Tomorrow

2011/06/20

CCP Games has announced that the first part of their Incarna expansion for EVE Online will be released tomorrow.

The first iteration, fittingly named Incarna 1.0, brings the Captain’s Quarters to each station. The Captain’s Quarters are a seat of power, a hub of information and a quiet sanctuary for a pilot looking to relax a bit. A quick walthrough video can be found here. Incarna will grow over time, adding new versions of the Captain’s Quarters and then establishments and beyond.

New Tropico 4 Trailer

2011/06/20

Kalypso Media has released a brand-new trailer for their upcoming dictator-sim, Tropico 4, which is due out on August 30th for the Windows PC and Xbox 360 platforms.

Star Trek Infinite Space Hands On Preview (E3)

2011/06/20

E3, News, Previews

For over 40 years, Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction universe Star Trek has been enthralling millions of fans all over the world. Names like James T. Kirk, Jen Luc Picard or Catherine Janeway are as familiar to us as the militant Klingons, the bargaining Ferengi or the imperialist Cardassians. Star Trek has influenced our every day culture so much that even Google or Facebook are available in the Klingon language. Gameforge has signed an extensive cooperation agreement with CBS to publish the first browser-based Star Trek game. ‘Star Trek-Infinite Space’ is currently under production in Frankfurt, in close collaboration with Star Trek screenwriter Lee Sheldon. The game will take place in the diverse Deep Space Nine universe and is scheduled for release in summer 2011. At the start of the game you can choose between two factions – the Federation or the Klingons and choose from a range of races including Human, Andorian, Klingon or Bajoran.

Features:

Once a team with differing skills has been assembled, there’s nothing to stop the voyage into hundreds of diverse individual missions, during which they will come across the occasional familiar face from the TV series. Additionally, players can use the special cooperative mode to explore space with up to five friends and they can meet with up to fifty other players in special player-versus-player sectors to battle it out in space conflicts.

Graphics:

Utilizing Unity3D technology, players will enjoy spectacular 3D action on an unprecedented graphics level has got Star Trek experts Michael and Denise Okuda, as well as screenwriter Lee Sheldon on board to offer fans a genuine Star Trek experience. And it is free, simply log on and play Star Trek: Infinite Space!

E3 Impressions:

First off I have to point out how enthusiastic the Gameforge team are about their project and how contagious that enthusiasm is. I was just starting my day full of appointments, the NOS energy drink hadn’t kicked in yet and the team of Gameforge greeted me warmly and immediately filled my hands with information about their title including a book on how to learn Klingon. After many warm handshakes we sat down, had a brief tutorial and before I knew it I was flying a Federation ship, checking out the lounge in Deep Space Nine and getting a quick feel for a universe I had watched far more than I had played.

Flying the ship was fun, my crew worked like a skill system, each one bringing their own abilities to the fight. The ship was easy to learn to handle but not so easy as to make it boring and the battles looked beautiful. Even though the game is still in fairly early development (not in Alpha yet) I was still able to get a feel for the game and I could understand the team’s excitement. 2D navigation will be available for more access to non-hardcore gamers so that if you are not a big gamer but love Star Trek you can still play the story. If you are just a hardcore gamer and want to feel the power of a Klingon war bird or a Federation star ship and don’t care much for dialogue you can ignore the boxes, skip the cut-scenes and start blasting away. They really are trying to make the game not just accessible to a wide audience but also make it tailored to a wide audience which, as any Trekkie or Trekker could tell you “does not sound logical”. But damnit reader, they are developers not just fans! Ok I’m sorry I’ll stop but I do have to elaborate just a touch more on the skill set. Your percentage of success at anything from scanning a planet for life to firing a successful torpedo depends on the skill level of your crew in that area and when you are about to attempt them it gives you a percentage so you can decide if you want to risk it. These decisions as well as where and how you choose your battles mean the difference between survival and your coffins being jettisoned by another ship.

Last Call:

This game is still in the early stages but has everything you could want for a successful game: great graphics, excellent engine, Star Trek experts on board and oh yeah, one more thing I forgot to mention: the music changes dynamically and was performed by a 67 musician orchestra. I know I will be giving this game a run at warp speed!

Editorial Question:

On this interview I was also asked to find out the answer to how they feel about BigPoint moving into the U.S. and starting to compete with Gameforge globally. Gunnar Lott, Gameforge Productions, let me know that they feel on equal footing in the U.S. and that they are actually stronger in Europe. Lott went on to say that there are no bad feelings between the two companies and they are both working to expand the niche. “And” Lott said, “we consider ourselves more than an MMO company.”

Screenshots

Runes Of Magic: Lands Of Despair And The Challenge Hands On Preview(E3)

2011/06/20

E3, News, Previews

This week ‘Runes Of Magic Chapter IV – Lands of Despair,’ released telling the story of a mighty yet mysterious demon who is throwing the world of Taborea into turmoil. As part of his devious plan, he has released a horrifying contagion across the land, turning the inhabitants of entire villages into soulless zombies. Even Annelia, daughter of Lord Grafu, has joined his ranks as a young apprentice and has been consumed by the darkness inside her. Venture deep into two new, perilous, high-level zones, each bringing along a brand new instance for both groups and raiders, 6 and 12 player instances. Participate in the new Public Encounters and grab those new quests waiting for you, leveling all the way up to 67. Heroes that wish to ensure the safety of the old lands can help defend against the impending invasion in the World Battlefield. You also now get the option of choosing a third class for your character! Pick up the 3rd class quest in Varanas and teleport to the new starting area, the Coast of Opportunity, to level-up your new class. And it is still free to play!

E3 Impressions:

This game is really nice and hard to believe with the graphics quality and the complexity of the game platform that it is a free to play game. In this installment the world is basically being increased by 25% with 20 new areas. It is going from dual to triple class format but players should know only two of the classes can be active at a time. Bag space is being increased as is the size of the mount and pet bags which, let’s face it, for collectors you want as much room for as many of both of those as possible (if you collect mounts make sure to pick up the steelseries QcK Limited Edition mouse pad, it comes with a permanent mount!). Few things are more frustrating than running around and getting loot and having to pick and choose because of bag space. The game competes with subscription platforms for quality and earns it’s money through mini-transactions such as pets and mounts. It is possible though to play the core game and have a great experience without paying real life dough. That’s kinda important in these days where most “free” games are actually free to play, pay to win. The world design is also interesting since the game is made in Japan but the developers are based out of California so it has a Western game feel with an Asian blend making for a very interesting building style and game philosophy. The team was excited about their project and very gung-ho about getting it out into the public and getting word out that they may be on the fourth chapter, the game is not just alive and well but growing in great strides. Their passion and dedication shows.

Runes Of Magic: The Challenge:

Based off the same world discussed above, Runes Of Magic: The Challenge is a new Facebook app/game from the same developers as the Runes Of Magic series this is an independent game relying on Facebook technology. It is designed to be attractive to the casual gamer but prize cards can be won playing Challenge that can be redeemed in the full Runes of Magic game.

“Runes of Magic is the first free-to-play MMO game ever to expand into the social networks sphere with a rich, full, social gaming experience that will appeal to fantasy fans of all ages – independently of whether they play the full client game or not”, comments Lars Koschin, CEO of Frogster America, Inc. “With the success of Runes of Magic among core MMO players, it was a natural decision to build upon the franchise by taking it to a genre with mass market appeal and the powerful viral approach of the rapidly evolving social networks. The result is ’Runes of Magic – The Challenge’ for Facebook.”

E3 Impressions:

The graphics for this Facebook game look amazing, it is kinda hard to believe that browser technology has gotten so good that such nice looking games can pop out of Facebook apps. It is turn based and playable with friends and has only a 100mb download with an 8 gb client. I see players of the main game REALLY gravitating towards this side game simply for the codes that can be earned. Casual gamers and casual Facebook gamers will probably try this out, get their codes and give the main game a chance. It has a lot of the standard MMO elements that appeal to the casual player yet the hardcore grinder or raider will have plenty to keep them occupied working on Challenge to get codes and on Lands of Despair for game progression. This was an amazingly smart move that should have been thought of by more game developers sooner. Kudos Frogster.

Screenshots

GRID PC and PS3 Servers Shutdown

2011/06/19

Codemasters has announced that its PS3 and PC multiplayer servers for racing title, GRID, have officially been shutdown. According to an official Codemasters GRID forum post, multiplayer service will continue on the Xbox 360 platform.

Official Post

Hi all, I have an update for you all regarding GRID online multiplayer on the PS3 & PC.

After three years of service, 2008’s Race Driver: GRID’s online play service has been discontinued for the PS3 and PC editions of the game. This follows the decision by a third party provider to decline the offer of an extended contract to continue online play on these platforms. Race Driver: GRID for Xbox 360 is not affected. We thank fans for their support and apologise to those affected by the end of this service.

__________________
Ian ‘Helios’ Webster
Community Manager
twitter.com/helioscm

Cars 2: The Video Game Talent Trailer

2011/06/19