Speaking with GameDaily in response Monday's Variety article (which we had our own response to) on the "turmoil" surrounding Brash Entertainment, CEO Mitch Davis acknowledged that "we took our lumps" on its first three titles – Jumper: Griffin's Story, Alvin & The Chipmunks, and Space Chimps – which scored 29, 33, and 55 (out of 100) on aggregate. Davis also vowed that changes are in store; ones that will hopefully lead to better games.
"First and foremost, we've put an end to short-cycle games," Davis told GameDaily, adding that, "some of our games will benefit from up to three years of development." This may explain why we've yet to see titles in development by Factor 5 and Game Republic, two of several "better development studios" Davis believes will help Brash get back on solid ground quality-wise.
Speaking to the departure of company execs and other staff, Davis stated, "After our first few games did not meet expectation we decided that we needed to upgrade our staff," pointing to the hiring of former Activision licensing head Lori Plager as Senior Vice President, in charge of intellectual property acquisitions. Quality games based on quality source material? Sounds good – Brash just has to prove it can manage the former before gamers en mass can get behind this newly "refined" publisher.
After what most would agree has been a successful stab at (officially) blogging about PlayStation, SCEA has taken up residence on YouTube. No, this isn't directly related to news from May that, should their developers wish, some PS3 games will offer functionality to upload gameplay videos directly to the Google-owned sharing service. (PixelJunk Eden was one of the first games to capitalize on the feature.)
The PlayStation YouTube channel is essentially SCEA's most direct avenue for distributing new game videos; the channel currently has around 54 in total, from NBA 09 The Inside, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, and LittleBigPlanet. It's nothing groundbreaking, but should be nonetheless handy in that you can subscribe and receive official videos as they're released (albeit in YouTube, er, "quality"). Or, of course, you could just keep an eye on a – ahem – certain blog you're reading right now. (Wink)
Breathe a sigh of relief. It's not nearly as bad as it first sounded. In fact, the "Target edition" of Shaun White Snowboarding might actually warrant a trip to Target for game shopping. And, didn't you hear? Target expects plenty of Wiis in stock this season. Why not do all your holiday spending there?
The marketing ploy is quite clear, and a good one. Building off its apparel partnership with Shaun White, Target has positioned itself to offer, exclusively through its retail and online outlets (oh, hai Wal-Mart!), a premium edition of Ubisoft's snowboarding game, and in turn, a hook to lure consumers into crossing off all the game requests on the holiday gift lists they're responsible for. (A recent survey found that 90% of tweens and teens are expected to ask for a video game this year.)
That's right, we said premium edition. While the Target-branded version will cost an additional $5, it'll include roughly 20 percent more game content (which, we were told, will never be offered as DLC). More specifically, the standard edition, available through all other retailers, will feature four mountains (each divided into peak, park and backcountry sections); the Target edition will include a fifth mountain, the "Target Mountain," which isn't as large as the original mountains, but does boast some interesting extras, like a full loop to attempt in the Xbox 360 version (identical to the PlayStation 3 and PC versions) and a trip inside the Target Chalet, based on the elitist party pad in Aspen. We know what you're thinking: But, what about the ads?
"Nothing but a playerʼs decision and a tactics of using various weapons are important than anything that you really need to think to play." This line, taken from the official Demon's Souls site blurb, should make you feel as scared and confused as I felt when I got my hands on the game. My first thought, "ouch," remains scrawled at the top of my notes and, sadly, it's all downhill from there.
Over a dozen reviews have popped up online, and it looks like LittleBigPlanet is on track to be the PlayStation 3's best-reviewed first-party title -- despite some well-strung criticisms. In fact, according to Metacritic's data, it's the only game in the PS3's Top 5 that doesn't have a "4" in the title (in order: GTA IV, Call of Duty 4, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion). Of course, glowing reviews don't ensure the game will translate into ca-ching, but it's a great indication that we'll be seeing plenty of LittleBigPenis levels for years to come.
PlayStation Official Magazine UK (100/100): "There simply isn't anything else like LBP on any system, anywhere. It's a beautifully elegant and powerful creative tool that puts unlimited potential in the palm of your hand."
CVG(96/100): "You'll look for inspiration for levels, mechanical dilemmas or puzzles in every corner of your life. And in your sleep. It will take over your conversations with fellow players. You will become obsessed. You have been warned."
IGN(95/100): "Media Molecule has created a brilliant platformer, and then given you the tools to recreate the whole thing over again, or better yet, to create your own ideas from scratch. It's not perfect - the controls could be tighter, automatically shifting between planes can be problematic, the editor isn't quite as robust as you might hope - but what's there is nothing short of astounding."
Eurogamer(90/100): "The promise that anyone could create something simple and fun and personal with LittleBigPlanet hasn't come true. In a way, it's the opposite of Spore, which makes it easy and fun for every single player to have creative input, but doesn't let any of them change the fabric of the game. LittleBigPlanet lets them run wild, with unprecedented results, but it locks the majority out of the creative process, because it's time-consuming and simply not very enjoyable."
This one's especially for the Phoenix Wright fans. Those lucky enough to survive the enormous crowd surrounding Gyakuten Kenji's (Turnabout Prosecutor) playable Tokyo Game Show demo were invited into a detailed replica of Miles Edgeworth's office, complete with classy furnishings and a feint air of egomania. We imagine playing Capcom's latest point-and-prosecute in this environment must have been quite surreal for attendees.
Though Edgy himself wasn't available to complete the illusion, we did discover his excellent figurine at the Capcom store -- it's included in the gallery as well.
Gallery: Gyakuten Kenji: Edgeworth's Office
[Special thanks to Ariel A. for the office snaps.]
You can finally pull the cotton out of your ears (and please throw it away, that stuff's been in there forever). The keen eyes over at PS3 Fanboy noticed that the latest PS3 firmware update added support for not only Flash 9, but a softer voice as well, replacing "PLAYSTATION" with the less obnoxious "PlayStation" when referring to the console's online service and store.
It's unknown if this will be reflected across the PLAYSTATION PlayStation brand, but for now both our virtual ears and shift keys welcome the change. And while we're on the subject of welcome changes, if you could stop poking us with pointy sticks sometime soon, that would be great too. Thanks.
If you read our E3 hands-on of Tom Clancy's EndWar, you'd know that we were rather surprised by how well the real-time strategy game's voice commands worked. Rather than function as a vector for our usual hate speech and bigotry, the Xbox 360 headset could now allow us to command our armies from afar and pick fights by proxy. It's just how we envisioned the future of warfare, minus the odd laser or two.
You don't have to take our word for it, though, as Ubisoft has announced that a public demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The sampler includes a single-player tutorial, as well as a one-on-one multiplayer map with matchmaking support. Let us know if it manages to command your attention.
EndWar is out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 4th.
Namco Bandai was all about the anime games at TGS this year. That's counting playable builds of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, at least three Gundam titles, Macross Ace Frontier and Soul Eater. Other titles like the Idolm@ster PSP games were also a hit with the crowd, as huge queues snaked beyond the booth's perimeter. Get a closer look inside our Namco Bandai Booth Photo Tour.
Three would-be drug smugglers have been busted in Australia after a failed coup to take the "Emotion Engine" to new highs. Two Canadians, both 18, and a New Zealander, 20, have been charged with one count of importing and one count of attempted possession after a customs official at Sydney's international airport detected 3,400 ecstasy pills stuffed inside a PlayStation 3 "PlayStation game" and headed to the trio's home address. And here we thought the Cell processor was powered by seven "Synergistic Processing Elements" -- shows you how much we know!
Update: One commenter notes that the container in question looks to be a PS2, a far cheaper mode of transportation! (The source only identifies the system as a "PlayStation game.")
As iPhone users have known for a while now, there's nothing more satisfying than staring into your handset's screen and ... seeing that your friends are at home, playing video games? For those who roll with a Crackberry Blackberry and simply must keep tabs on their friends' Gamerscores at all times, Juan Xavier Larrea has developed the free Xberry Live.
Available via this link, the app functions much like Microsoft's own web-based friends list, displaying Gamertags, status, and Gamerscores along with a Gamercard sub-screen with icons representing your friends' most recently played games. Friends must be added manually for the time being ... which is fine, unless you have a maxed-out list.
Xberry Live has been tested and works on Blackberry 81xx, 83xx, 87xx, 88xx, and 9000 handsets, and requires OS 4.2.1. or higher. No word on whether it (or similar apps) will experience any problems when the New Xbox Experience launches November 19.
When we say that Gomibako -- a new PSN title -- is trashy, we're not aiming to dis the game. You see, we're not referring to the game's quality, we're simply referring to what the game's all about. The given name "Gomibako" literally means "trash box," or "trash can" if you prefer. It's all about festering piles of garbage and how to get rid of them properly (and by "properly," we really mean "in outrageous and silly ways").
In going about our Earth-friendly activities, Gomibako asks players to fill up a giant blue bin with as much trash as possible. The game plays a lot like Tetris, and so, it's important to properly place each falling piece of garbage in order to conserve space for more items to come. But since we're talking about irregularly-shaped articles of trash, conserving space proves to be a little more difficult than it sounds.
"Sony's game falls short of perfection, in large part because of imprecise controls." (1) "[They] left a few corners on what should have been a razor-sharp control scheme." (3) "Your Sackboy's jumping doesn't feel quite as precise as you might want it to be." (6) "After making a jump, Sackboy slides just a bit, as if he were on ice." (1) "We found ourselves forever overdoing jumps, slipping off ledges and generally getting into trouble at the hands of the controls." (6)
"Momentum is another issue. ... the physics don't feel right, so it takes more tries than necessary to complete the objective." (1) "Player acceleration (and perhaps deceleration) isn't as quick as it could be ... likewise, in-air direction change can be a little iffy at times ... making your character occasionally over or under-respond to what you want him to do." (3) "Combined with the vague, slow and over-zealously auto-corrected movement between the game's three planes of depth, it's a problem." (2)
To put it mildly, "the controls were a little fickle when it came to moving your character among the three planes of perspective." (8) "The three-tier system the levels use, allowing Sackboy to move in and out of the screen.... can cause real problems, ending in annoying and occasionally infuriating death." (6) "It works fine except when the game decides to shift you to another plane, which often kills Sackboy." (1) "There are instances where it doesn't do what you want it to do, and these points stick out like a sore thumb, especially when it means your death." (3) "I ... found myself getting ... frustrated as Sackboy found himself on the wrong plane, repeatedly, sometimes resulting in his untimely demise." (7)
"This is made all the worse by what can only be described as a terrible checkpoint system." (6) "Three lives just aren't enough for some of the harder sections, and if you lose them all, it's back to the start of the level. ... this inflexible system creates half a dozen choke points of almost unbearable, teeth-grinding irritation that simply didn't need to be there." (2) "It tests your patience to near breaking point." (6)
Tecmo showed off about a dozen games at TGS this year, though only a few took up actual floor space. Newly revealed games like Quantum Theory and Undead Knights were only shown in trailer form, but other, already known titles like DS Nishimura Kyotaro Suspense 2 Shin Tantei Series (say that five times fast!) took up space as large as an entire side of the squared Tecmo territory. (Perhaps Tecmo needed the extra room just to fit the game's title on the wall.)
Honestly, Tecmo's booth isn't about the games anyway. That's not what draws the crowds. Ask people who visited Tecmo's booth what they loved most and they'll likely respond: booth babes! You'll see what we mean once you take our Tecmo Booth Photo Tour.
It's a testament to the excellent platforming of N+ that we haven't gotten sick of playing it yet. And by that, we mean we haven't grown tired of plummeting to our dooms and watching our lithe ninja bodies succumb to gravity in the worst of bone-crunching, limb-mangling ways.
Though developer Metanet suggests it has "tried to tone down the difficulty" in the free level pack hitting Xbox Live Arcade today, we're certain millions of gruesome fates await us in the 150 new single-player levels, 50 new race levels and 50 new co-op levels. That's a lot of new for nothing, no?
