This week’s new video games are a good mix of the old and new. Oh, wait, no they’re not. It’s another round of sequels and licensed games. Not that game sequels are inherently problematic (technology tends to keep getting better, y’see), but it’s hard to get excited over the sixth Tekken if you’re not a huge fan of fighting games. Even if you like racing games, Forza Motorsports 3 will only be interesting if you really liked the first two.
There is one new and original title launching this week, and that’s DJ Hero. Activision might deck it out in Guitar Hero dress, but DJ Hero’s gameplay bears little resemblance to its big cousin or Rock Band. Sure, you still hit colored buttons at the right time, but scratching, crossfading, and rewinding have no analogue in either of the two big music games. DJ Hero isn’t just fresh and exciting, though; it’s also shockingly fun.
Find the full list of new releases after the jump.
This week belongs to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. At least it does if you own a PlayStation 3. The PS3-exclusive third-person shooter deserves its deafening hype; it’s a fantastic combination of great storytelling, top-notch game design, and superb multiplayer options. The Jack Black-starring, Tim Schafer-designed Brutal Legend shouldn’t be overlooked, though, especially if you love heavy metal, hacking and slashing, or light Pikmin-style strategy. If you’re looking for a Wii game the whole family can enjoy, there’s always Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games or the beautifully animated remake of the NES classic A Boy and His Blob.
You should never underestimate any Nintendo game with the word Wii in the title (well, except for that one time…) Wii Fit Plus is the biggest release of the week, but the cross-section of people who’ll buy that and, say, the punishingly difficult Japanese dungeon-crawler Demon’s Souls is probably microscopic, if not downright non-existent. Which is a shame, as Demon’s Souls deserves Wii Fit’s justified success, and also because people who love punishingly difficult Japanese dungeon-crawlers could probably stand to exercise a little bit more.
Demon’s Souls highlights a strong week for PlayStation 3 exclusives. Afrika, a gorgeous camera safari in the vein of cult classic Pokemon Snap, finally gets a U.S. release over a year after coming out in Japan. Also coming out this week for the PS3 is the adorable puzzle game Critter Crunch, which will be downloadable exclusively through the PlayStation Network.
Remakes, ports and sequels abound this week. I keep that sentence on my computer’s clipboard, ready to be pasted in every single week. It’s more notable with this week’s lineup of new games, though. The most intriguing titles here — Dead Space Extraction, MySims Agents, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days — are extensions or new installments of established franchises. These aren’t Halo-sized blockbuster properties, but never underestimate the value of familiarity and name recognition. We’re living in a world with a Land Before Time XIII, after all. My crippling Turbo-Grafx 16 nostalgia impels me to highlight the new Military Madness: Nectaris remake arriving this week on Xbox Live. It’s been far too long since I last waged war on the surface of the Moon.
NINTENDO WII
September 28 Arkanoid Plus! (WiiWare)
September 28 Drift Mania (WiiWare
September 29 Baseball Blast!
September 29 Bass Pro Shops: The Strike
September 29 Crazy Chicken Tales
September 29 Dead Space Extraction
September 29 Deca Sports 2
September 29 Doctor Fizzwhizzle’s Animal Rescue
September 29 Family Feud: 2010 Edition Continue reading “Player’s Club: Video game releases for the week of Sept. 28″ »
Halo 3: ODST
Rated M for Mature
Released Sept. 22
Xbox 360
Published by Microsoft
WHAT IT IS: Master Chief returns yet again with… oh wait, that’s right, he doesn’t. Like this spring’s Halo Wars, the newest Halo first-person shooter is entirely without the series’ iconic lead character. It’s like those Queen reunion shows without Freddie Mercury, although ODST’s Nathan Filion isn’t nearly as acceptable a stand-in as Paul Rodgers. Originally announced as a value-priced expansion of Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST arrives with two discs of content and the standard price tag for a new release. The second disc is entirely recycled, consisting of Halo 3’s multi-player mode and all the various map packs that have been subsequently released through Xbox Live. So ODST rests on the first disc, which offers up an original Master Chief-less solo campaign that should take you less than eight hours to play through and the new Firefight multi-player survival mode. There’s a lot happening with Halo 3: ODST, then, but is it enough to justify the price?
The annual summer gaming drought is over and the fall’s weekly flood of new video games has begun again. It’s dangerous to stroll through the video game aisle or (shudder) any of your 50 local neighborhood GameStops without knowledge and a plan. So please, let us educate you.
Mountain Dew sales will skyrocket with the release of Halo 3: ODST, this week’s most anticipated new game. Despite the name, the first-person shooter is less an expansion pack than a brand new game set alongside the events of 2007’s Halo 3. The inscrutable Katamari Damacy franchise debuts on the PlayStation 3 with Katamari Forever. The Wii gets two new youth-skewing co-op beat ‘em-ups. The first, Spyborgs, is a side-scrolling action game for two. The other, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, is basically Super Smash Brothers with the Turtles replacing Nintendo characters. PSP players can waste the next 100 hours or so with Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, a remake of the first installment of the infamously lengthy role-playing series. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection finally comes to the 360 and PS3, with three more classic pinball tables than last year’s Wii and PS2 release. Maybe I’m crippled with nostalgia, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be spending more time battling that asshole demon Gorgar with pinballs than I will rolling stuff up in Katamari or yahdoodin’ it up with ODST.
Follow the link for the full list of this week’s new releases.
Allyn Moore’s new columnImagine Video Game Critic focuses on games directed towards younger audiences, particularly girls. There’s a thriving subset of the video game industry dedicated to young girls, especially on the Nintendo DS. Look at the DS section of any game retailer and you’ll see dozens of games designed with this audience in mind, with names likeImagine Fashion Designer andPetz Rescue Wildlife Vet. Despite their popularity and commercial success, games like these are hardly ever reviewed by any publication, and when they are they’re usually ridiculed. Critics rarely take into account the needs or desires of the target audience.Imagine Video Game Critic aims to do just that, treating these games seriously and helping parents decide which ones are right for their children.
Review by Allyn Moore
Dreamer Series: Shop Owner
Rated E for Everyone
Released May 12
Nintendo DS
Published by Dreamcatcher Interactive
Let me begin by saying that I had high hopes for this game. I often joke that if I win the lottery, I’ll open my own store (Allyn’s Cool Stuff Store), so I looked forward to running my dream store on my DS. I also hoped that the Dreamer Series would give Ubisoft’s Imagine games a run for their money.
My first red flag was the fact that this game only costs $19.99 new. I also became a little concerned in the beginning when the game asked for my age. The age range was from 6 to 20, so I’m a little old. Basically, this game has nothing to do with running a store. It’s comprised of mini games that take place in different types of stores – a flower shop, a grocery store, and a bakery. Each type of store has four or five mini games that have the player handle such tasks as straightening shelves, adding things on a cash register, or rolling dough into loaves using your stylus. Some are overly simple, such as setting the timer and thermostat correctly on an oven. The controls are a bit shaky on some of the mini games, and the directions are almost too basic.
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but it took me three tries to pass the challenge where the player slices loaves of dough into croissants. Maybe I was thinking a little too much about the task? Also the game only takes about an hour to finish.
Bottom Line: Dreamer Series: Shop Owner is fine for kids under 10, but anyone older will quickly become bored.
Prototype
Rated M for Mature
Released June 9
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Published by Activision
What It Is: Like Sony’s Infamous, Prototype is an open-world superhero action game that doesn’t force you to be a good guy. Unlike Infamous, Prototype doesn’t give you the option to be a good guy. It’s impossible not to kill innocent civilians in Prototype; you’ll unwittingly decapitate a half-dozen just crossing the street. It’s not the point of the game’s story, but Prototype is basically about being a crazy genocidal dickhead in a realistically rendered New York City. Your enjoyment will hinge on how you feel about massacring some fools.
Prototype’s superfun when: you pick up a car, ram it into soldiers and pedestrians while running five Manhattan blocks, scurry up the side of the Empire State building, toss the car at one helicopter, dropkick another until it explodes, and then blow up a tank on the way down with an elbow-drop. Prototype’s utterly ludicrous action offers up some of the purest fun of any game yet this year. Oh yeah, you also eat people to regain health and learn how to drive a tank. It’s so dumb it’s god-damn genius.
Prototype’s puny alter ego is exposed when: you stop fooling around and pay attention to the story. As fun as the gameplay can be, Prototype’s story and cut scenes are among the worst in recent memory. The lead character is angstier than grunge Hamlet; he’s a wholly unlikable whiner who wouldn’t think twice about killing every single person on Manhattan in some vague quest for revenge against the people who gave him completely awesome and amazing superpowers. It’s like if Superman got pissed over being able to do absolutely anything and vented his anger by Stone Cold Stunnering the Sun until it died. Combine the miserable story with repetitive missions, a needlessly complicated skill tree, and, oh yeah, the gleeful endorsement of genocide, and you’ve got a game that tries valiantly to undercut whatever fun it might possess.
What you should do: borrow a copy from a friend, play the first few missions to unlock some powers, and then completely ignore the rest of the story as you wreak havoc throughout the city.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
PlayStation 3
Rated T for Teen
All told, third-person shooter Uncharted 2 might’ve been the best game at E3 this year. Its strongest rivals were games that were only playable for judges (Splinter Cell: Conviction, Assassin’s Creed 2) and quirky underdogs like Scribblenauts. It’s difficult to adequately gauge a game’s quality after only playing the multiplayer for maybe 10 minutes, but Uncharted 2 impresses so thoroughly in so many ways that it’s hard to not be excited.
Like its predecessor, Uncharted 2 promises to be highly cinematic without resorting to long-winded cut-scenes. During the single-player scene demonstrated at Sony’s press conference and in a private session in Sony’s booth, gameplay and narrative bleed seamlessly into one another, as lead character Nathan Drake avoided a helicopter by scampering through various blasted-out buildings. That chopper was a total asshole. Continue reading “Loafing at E3: the Sony booth” »
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Rated T for Teen
Released June 16
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC
Published by Atari
What it is: Ghostbusters: The Video Game isn’t just a game. It’s an unofficial sequel to the ‘80’s classics. Like the movies, the third-person, Gears of War-style action game has a script by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and many actors from the movies reprise their roles. Aykroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and even William Atherton (the dude who played Walter Peck) show up. Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis passed, unfortunately, so Alyssa Milano voices a new love interest for Murray. You can bet the cut-scenes will be long with all these folks on board.
Bustin’ makes you feel good when: Aykroyd, Ramis, and Murray start talking in the very first cut-scene. Fans of the movies will love hearing these characters again, especially with this script, which is packed full of Ghostbusters trivia and references. Those just looking for a good game will enjoy the generally solid action.
Although it looks like a shooter, Ghostbusters: The Video Game doesn’t quite play like one. Sure, you shoot ghosts with your proton stream, but the goal usually isn’t to destroy them but to wear them down and drag them into a trap. That can take some time, but it distinguishes the game from other shooters, treats the subject matter with respect, and also just feels good. The four-person multiplayer is also a nice change of pace for your Left 4 Dead foursome.
Capcom had more playable titles at E3 than almost any other publisher, both on the floor and behind closed doors. The company’s highest-profile 2009 titles have already been released (Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, Bionic Commando), and most of the games in its booth will probably come out in 2010. So it was a bit like stepping into the future, a future that was in almost every regard exactly like our present.
Dark Void
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Release date and rating TBA
If it wasn’t for the jetpack, Dark Void would feel like a middling, bare bones third-person shooter. I took cover, I shot some dudes, I picked up new weapons and ammo, and I did this all over and over. Thankfully the encounters were spaced out with stretches of highly entertaining jetpackery. As with Capcom’s recent Bionic Commando, the fun of Dark Void isn’t the combat as much as the transportation. It was uniquely thrilling to fly around with Dark Void’s jetpack, once I got accustomed to the awkward controls.
The jetpack also opened up opportunities not available to most shooters. The part of the demo I played didn’t have any airborne shoot-outs, per se; I had to blow up some shield generators and then storm a couple of enemy installations, which is where the mediocre ground-based third-person shooter action factored in. The second installation illustrated how the game embraces the spatial possibilities opened up by a jetpack, though. I flew up a horizontal tower, jetting from platform to platform while taking out the bad guys. This open-ended attitude toward space, combined with the joys of jetpacking, made Dark Void one of the better action games on display at E3.
Here’s the thing with E3: You’re mostly just looking. There are a lot of games on the floor that anybody can walk up and play, but a significant number of high-profile titles are shown exclusively in closed-door, hands-off demonstrations. Instead of driving classic cars, shooting dudes, and speaking with a stereotypical Italian accent in 2K/Take-Two’s Mafia 2, I watched a tester do all those things in a 15-minute demo. That demo made the game look awesome, but almost every demo I saw last week made a game look awesome. I saw many designers play many different games, but that Mafia 2 guy had to sit in that room playing those same fifteen minutes all day. At least he was in one of the few air-conditioned parts of the convention center.
I understand why game publishers don’t want to provide hands-on access to games that aren’t yet finished. I understand why they’d want to pull the string on the hype machine and watch it whir. But writing about trailers and games I watched other people play wouldn’t really help you. I wouldn’t watch an author read one chapter aloud, and then write about the book. Over the next few days I’ll be writing briefly on every game I actually got to play with these here two hands, the very same hands I am currently using to type these words. These hands have touched many things, and people, and hopefully even hearts and minds. Hands are useful.
So I’m at this thing called E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, where most of the major video game publishers and developers show off upcoming titles to press, retail, and each other. It’s a massive trade show that fills up both halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center with an overwhelming assortment of video games and video game peripherals. Some might remember when E3 was held in Atlanta back in ’97 and ’98. It’s basically fun and business mingling awkwardly for three or four days out of the year, with a steady soundtrack of explosions, upbeat dance rock, and whatever music game happens to be nearby. And there’s always a music game nearby.
The biggest news of E3 thus far has probably been the new Wii-esque motion control systems from Sony and Microsoft. Sony’s motion control wand operates much like the Wii remote, interfacing with the Sony Eyetoy to bring one-to-one motion sensing to the PS3.
Microsoft’s Project Natal is something different, though. Natal is a camera that attaches to the Xbox 360 and that reads motions without need of a controller. To kick a ball, you swing your leg. To strike with a sword, swing your arm. You can even scroll through menu screens with a wave of your hand, and select options by pushing an invisible button. With a testimonial from Steven Spielberg, Project Natal made a huge debut.
Microsoft also impressed with a video demo of Lionhead Studios’ Milo project. Milo is a computer generated boy who reacts with you through the Natal camera. In the video Milo recognized a Lionhead employee and carried on a surprisingly realistic conversation. Of course demos exist to make products look amazing; it’s too early to assume Milo works as well as this video showed.
Sony officially announced the new PSP Go, coming this fall for $249.99. That’s a steep price to pay for a minor revision of a 5-year-old handheld. The most notable thing about the Go is its lack of a UMD drive. Gaming on the Go will be download only.
Other than those announcements, E3’s memorable moments have been mostly software related. More on those later.
Punch-Out!!
Rated E10+ for Everyone 10+
Released May 18
Nintendo Wii
Published by Nintendo
What It Is: Here’s another revival of a classic Nintendo franchise from the good ol’ days. Punch-Out’s particular good ol’ days ran from 1984 up to 1994, commencing with the arcade original and stretching to the SNES installment Super Punch-Out. Somewhere in-between saw the series’ most famous and successful title, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, a game familiar to pretty much anybody who ever owned an NES. Punch-Out’s certainly had a good run. Those ten years between the arcade original and the SNES version may not seem like much, but that’s an epoch in gaming time. One version of Punch-Out or another was a formative gaming experience for both my oldest brother and my youngest brother-in-law, which is an almost twenty-year swing. Now my nieces and nephews can have fun beating Glass Joe and King Hippo down to the mat. Times change, but violence is always popular.
Lands a knock-out punch: simply by existing. Nintendo updates the past better than any other company. The nostalgia factor associated with Mario, Zelda, and now Punch-Out can’t be understated, but it’s in no way vital or even necessary to enjoy the actual games. If you’re old enough to remember Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out or Super Punch-Out, you’ll probably love squaring off against old foes like Bear Hugger or Soda Popinski. You probably won’t love getting destroyed by them when you first face off. They might look the same, but after the first few rounds your opponents largely don’t fight like they did in the past. Defying our expectations like this doesn’t just insure that Punch-Out will challenge those familiar with the series; it’s a blatant provocation to fire up those of us who can’t believe we were actually beaten by a stiff like Don Flamenco. It keeps you motivated.
Remakes, ports and sequels abound this week. I keep that sentence on my computer’s clipboard, ready to be pasted in every single week. It’s more notable with this week’s lineup of new games, though. The most intriguing titles here — Dead Space Extraction, MySims Agents, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days — are extensions or new installments of established franchises. These aren’t Halo-sized blockbuster properties, but never underestimate the value of familiarity and name recognition. We’re living in a world with a Land Before Time XIII, after all. My crippling Turbo-Grafx 16 nostalgia impels me to highlight the new Military Madness: Nectaris remake arriving this week on Xbox Live. It’s been far too long since I last waged war on the surface of the Moon.
Halo 3: ODST
The annual summer gaming drought is over and the fall’s weekly flood of new video games has begun again. It’s dangerous to stroll through the video game aisle or (shudder) any of your 50 local neighborhood GameStops without knowledge and a plan. So please, let us educate you.
Prototype
What It Is: Here’s another revival of a classic Nintendo franchise from the good ol’ days. Punch-Out’s particular good ol’ days ran from 1984 up to 1994, commencing with the arcade original and stretching to the SNES installment Super Punch-Out. Somewhere in-between saw the series’ most famous and successful title, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, a game familiar to pretty much anybody who ever owned an NES. Punch-Out’s certainly had a good run. Those ten years between the arcade original and the SNES version may not seem like much, but that’s an epoch in gaming time. One version of Punch-Out or another was a formative gaming experience for both my oldest brother and my youngest brother-in-law, which is an almost twenty-year swing. Now my nieces and nephews can have fun beating Glass Joe and King Hippo down to the mat. Times change, but violence is always popular.