Prince of Persia gets Nickelodeon makeover
“Kid-friendly” isn’t a term you would normally use to describe the Prince of Persia franchise. On the contrary, the most recent titles in the long-running series have fallen very solidly under the “T for Teen” rating. For whatever reason, though, Ubisoft is out to change that.
The latest entry for Nintendo DS, Prince of Persia: The Fallen King, has turned the dark, brooding main character into a cell-shaded pre-teen that would be right at home on a Rugrats cartoon. It remains to be seen whether the gameplay has been dumbed down along with the graphical tone, but it’s not a good sign. I would have preferred the designers take a cue from Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, which proved that a violent, mature-themed game can do very well on the DS.
On the plus side, the classic 2-D sidescrolling action has returned and the game is almost entirely controlled with the stylus, similar to Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
Check out the trailer here.
Via IGN
Sega slides one under the radar: Sonic and the Black Knight
While we all recover from E3, not that there was much to recover from, a leaked scan of the cover of September’s Nintendo Power managed to sneak it’s way onto the NeoGAF forums for the world to see. Warning, the image may shock you.
What makes the picture of a new Sonic game so interesting is the fact that the blue man is WIELDING A F***ING SWORD! Yeah, that’s right. Our speedy old friend has decided on a whim to pick up the art of the blade. What makes this puzzling news a bit more plausible is the fact that this game is heading to the Wii under Sonic’s newly created “Storybook” series with former entry “Sonic and the Secret Rings” an innovative yet not fully thought-out title.
While we have yet to see or hear anything else about the game, if this “storybook” category is any indication, we can expect to use the Wii remote to steer Sonic through a facsimile of the story of King Arthur.
While I could rant on and on about how this could be an abomination to the franchise and, how Sonic Team has driven the blue rodent so far off course, I will reserve judgment until we get more information. Expect that to come with September’s Nintendo Power.
Via IGN
Source Sega
“The Conduit” gameplay vids emerge from E3
In an effort to show that E3 wasn’t a complete and utter waste of time for Wii fans, IGN has posted some of the first detailed gameplay videos from High Voltage Software’s sci-fi shooter The Conduit. The sneak peek was offered behind closed doors and thankfully gives me something to look forward to early next year following Nintendo’s yawnfest media briefing. Honestly, does anyone give a flying you-know-what about Wii Music? Gah!
At any rate, these early videos give a pretty good impression that High Voltage is pushing the Wii hardware to its limits. It by no means looks anything like BioShock or Halo 3 (or Halo 1 for that matter), but it does indicate that a decent approximation can be achieved with a little effort. If an enjoyable story can come together to match the graphics, it should be worth a look.
Electronic Arts to “Moneytize” id games
Yesterday at the Electronic Arts Press conference John Carmack, founder of id Software, announced that EA would be publishing their upcoming game RAGE which is the first game to use the new id Tech 5 engine. EA CEO John Riccitiello then came on stage to announce that they would add micro transactions to RAGE in various forms to make the game “more customizable” for the user.
The 360 version of RAGE will come with all the controls locked and players will be able to pay 50 EA Points (equivalent to $0.50 USD) to unlock the use of each button on the 360 controller, for example you would pay to unlock the Right-Trigger in order to shoot . Riccitiello said “if some of our players don’t feel that they need to duck in the game, they don’t have to unlock that feature, its all about choosing what you want to be able to do. This new direction we are taking with RAGE will ultimately allow our players to custom tailor the game to their likings”. He also said that the micro transactions would be different for each platform and he hinted that PC players might have to unlock each digit of the serial number.
RAGE is set for release in 2009 on 360, PS3 and PC.
And the World goes “meh”: Nintendo’s Keynote
All eyes are on the gaming world this week with the Expo extravaganza that is E3. While the air is rife with anticipation, things seem to have fallen a little sour for the Nintendo crowd.
With very few things to actually anticipate, Nintendo fans had some pretty fantastic guessing games as to what the Big N would grace us with this year. After their past two relatively stellar performances, Nintendo had quite the reputation to uphold. What new exciting things could they possibly bring us? Fans touted things such as Kid Icarus, or a new Zelda, or redesigned DS. Everyone kept on guessing with bated breath until Reggie “Regginator” Fils-Aime took the stage at 9:30 PMT on Tuesday morning. Then, with all the pomp and circumstance Nintendo delievered…nothing. I’m using that term lightly here. Sure, we got a peek at Animal Crossing and Wii Sports 2. But as for any earth-shattering developments, I think it’s safe to say we’ll have to wait until next year, or the Tokyo Game Show at the earliest to get some shocking new Nintendo news.
E3 Wolfenstein footage
As id continues to cycle through its mainstay franchises (Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein) it seems it is now time for William ”BJ” Blazkowicz to save the earth once again from the occult experimentation of the Third Reich……again.
Announced 3 years ago, little so far has been announced about 2001’s RTCW sequel. Going by the end of the trailer above it seems the assumed ‘Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2′ name has been dropped in favor of simply ’Wolfenstein’.
The visual asthetic has definetely got the feel of RTCW, with the graphical bar being raised significantly. It is unclear what engine Wolfenstein is currently running on, but I’d assume it would be the Rage engine “id tech 5″ rather than an enhanced Doom 3 engine.
At the very least the trailer promises destructible enviroments, jetpack and electricity weilding enemies and a ton of explosions. Good times
The game is being developed for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 by id software and Raven, with publishing duties handed to Activision. Todd Hollenshead has announced more footage is to be shown at Quakecon on July 31st.
Mega Man 9 - Multi-platform Retro
Oh, you beautfiul thing you. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Capcom recently cracked the gaming world in half with their announcement of Mega Man 9. A modern game that is being developed with the same tools and techniques that made it a classic during the 1980s? It’s like Capcom is writing videogame love poetry just for me! Aw Cappy… (that’s my secret love name for Capcom). Anyway, the big reason for this post isn’t to tell you something you already know, but instead, to share something that seems to have slipped past the early warning systems in Autobot City. In an exclusive story, IGN revealed not only the official trailer for Mega Man 9 (which is teh hawtness you see above), but also dropped the megaton bomb that it is indeed coming to XBox 360 AND Playstation 3 and not just WiiWare (even though Capcom categorically denied that information until now). So there you have it. Everyone gets to feel the love now. Capcom… you complete me.
Source: IGN
Ride your music: Introducing BodySurf
In a very interesting use of Wiimote homebrew, Evan Jones has developed a GlovePIE script that enables people to use their Wii remote and Balance Board on their PC to play the new, popular, music game AudioSurf.
For those not in the know, AudioSurf is a music-based puzzle game that develops unique puzzles based on the user’s mp3 input. The sheer number of play-style combinations is mind blowing and if you’re in any way a rhythm/puzzle game fan, I highly recommend you get it.
That being said, this homebrew script for GlovePIE enables players to steer their music ridin’ vehicle using the balance board and utilizes the Wii remote for alternative character specific actions. While there are some demo videos of Body Surf in action, it’s hard to actually distinguish use of the Balance Board. If you’re interested in seeing it in action though you can check out a few videos by clicking the ‘read more’ link below.
From Body Surf
Via Slashdot
AMD’s Cinema 2.0… Wow. Seriously.
Sweet mother of Carmack! Did somebody say gaming on the PC was dead? Well, ok, I’ve been accused of saying that, but the flood of game titles has been on a tremendous decline since developers discovered that consoles print money. But I digress. So, what are the PC hardware manufacturers doing to combat the dreaded console menace? That video you see right up there. Take a moment to watch it. I’ll wait. Done? Good, now watch it again. Seriously. Pay very close attention. That my friend is REAL-TIME. Yeah, not pre-rendered. Not some fancy Sony video that claims gameplay but is obviously a cutscene. Real. Time. Text can’t express the emphasis I’m trying for here. Hit the jump for the full scoop on this piece of lovely from our friends at AMD/ATI.
Unreal Tournament 3 hits Xbox 360 in July
To quote Victor Lin from Bloodsport “It’s about f**king time!”
Epic Games announced today that the long-awaited (or rather ‘late-coming’) Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 4.. er, I mean 3 (I guess Epic forgot about UT2003) hits North American store shelves on July 7th. The 360 release gets a split-screen multiplayer mode, new characters, new maps, and all of the official downloadable content released for the other versions. Now before you get too excited, keep in mind that the mod support that is in the PS3 and PC versions is missing thanks to Microsoft wanting to keep a short leash on what players can put on their consoles. So what was the hold-up in getting this released? They didn’t say, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with UT3 being treated as another cog (get it?) in the Gears of War 2 hype machine. What makes me think that? The fact that along with announcing a shipping date, they also went out of their way to point out that UT3 will contain “an exclusive video that gives a never-before-seen first look at some of the new gameplay modes in Gears of War 2, hosted by Cliffy B”. Whatever…
Source: Shacknews
