Vanquish is the new title from Platinum Games that SEGA is publishing on Xbox 360 and PS3 in October 2010. Producer Atsushi Inaba, who used to head Clover Studio (Viewtiful Joe, Okami, God Hand, etc.), co-founded Platinum Games where he has since worked on Bayonetta, Infinite Space, and MadWorld with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami.
At the show I was lucky enough to be in a closed-door setting where Inaba demoed his new 3rd-person shooter for Gamesugar.
Finding Kirby’s Epic Yarn playable on the show floor after hearing the announcement of the title at Nintendo’s Press Conference was a complete joy. Even the length of the lines could not deter me from a demo playthrough, and so I adamantly waited in line for my turn.
As proof that you never know who you might be standing next to at E3, I asked the man next to me if he wanted to join me with the game only to discover that he was out of Nintendo’s top game composers, credited with having worked on quite a few memorable titles.
This is my favorite screenshot of the day, the Steamboat Willie 2D side-scrolling surprise I wasn’t expecting. Before E3 began it was clear that Disney was pushing Epic Mickey with plenty of resolve, but this one sequence made me forget the uncomfortable reaction when footage released last year – when I thought the game was looking at best like a decent N64 title.
It’s clear when Warren Spector talks about the project that he loves Mickey Mouse more than I ever will, but he’s already made a believer out of me before I’ve laid my hands on it, and I wanted to revel in that a bit.
That sounds a bit crazy, but really, if he convinced Disney on a world of choice based on whether we create to solve our obstacles or simply erase them, and on the stark and incredibly slick marketing already on display, than how can I resist? They even call it Disney’s Epic Mickey now, and stuck with the Wii exclusivity I really wasn’t expecting to hold out.
Again that sounds a bit silly of me, but this E3 is full of earnest surprises, and that Disney could bring this type of title to the show sincerely surprises and impresses me. That I’m feeling a bit of the strange magic I only vaguely remember when I first saw Mickey on the Sega Genesis is probably also a factor.
They’ll be plenty more to say about the game this week, for now I’m just going to fantasize a bit more about jumping into old cartoons via film screens.
Announced during Sony’s presentation at E3 today was the incoming Playstation Plus subscription service. With the continued success of Xbox Live, plans from Activision to implement a subscription model within the Call of Duty franchise, and this latest announcement from Sony, the subscription model is quickly becoming ubiquitous within the game industry. Sony’s announcement was no surprise, having been the stuff of rumour for months, and a total inevitability, considering certain realities. If you imagine a great, serpentine creature twisting, wringing it’s hands and salivating uncontrollably, you probably have a fair understanding of how Sony has observed Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold service for the past several years, and know that this day always existed somewhere in the imminent future.
Coming late to the PS3 scene, I wasn’t able to participate in the excitement of some releases that would have otherwise been day one purchases for me, one in particular being PixelJunk Shooter. Luckily, the PlayStation Store included the whole PixelJunk series in its “Spring Fever” sale on the first weekend of May, when I coincidentally had a sudden breakout of unemployment calling for a mix of vacation and celebration, leading me to purchase the whole series.
From the first five minutes of playing Shooter, I found myself especially drawn in by the art style and music. I plowed through the game, bobbing my head up and down while a rhythm of satisfaction came from destroying cavern walls with missiles and a personal mission that my subterranean ship would never leave any survivors stranded in those underground areas.
I became an instant Q-Games Fan.
I’m only three chapters into Alan Wake and I’m already a happy camper in the town of Bright Falls. That could still change before I reach the ending, and I’ve found a few things that are entertaining for the wrong reasons.
For instance, as Alan explores the woods of Bright Falls at night, sudden gusts of darkness will sweep in with violent winds that give a heads up to imminent danger. Of course these are triggered when the player reaches a certain area, and being a curious jerk I’ve spent too much time walking back and forth to trigger it on occasion, like a kid continually pressing his foot against a squeaky floorboard.
While sinking deeper into the spiraling mystery the game offers, I’ve also had the chance to become addicted to a television show within the game – a Twilight Zone knock-off called “Night Springs” that must be good, because I’ve completely stopped to watch two episodes in full – the entire concept of Quantum Suicide is gold by the way.
Happy as I was at the idea of Konami bringing back their heroic opossum and former mascot, I had reservations about Rocket Knight from the word go. Most of my doubt rode on the 3D artstyle, which is quicker and cheaper than the way mom used to make games, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.
After more than a few play-throughs you still won’t change my mind about the charm of the oldschool approach, but Rocket Knight looks quite a bit better than I expected. Keep in mind that the game uses a zoomed out perspective, which offers plenty of space for details to overwhelm the eyes, with characters in the background, objects in the foreground, and Sparkster himself all fighting for attention. There were times I took damage simply from losing Sparkster for the trees.
The trade off is that you never really get a close-up connection to the characters, so smaller details that make me continue cherishing platformers of the past never really come into play here.
As exciting as the new release cycle can be, there are plenty of days where I really want to take my SNES, a copy of Yoshi’s Island and a few other choice carts, and seal myself away in a cave for a few years. I’m not necessarily antisocial mind you, there are just periods where I’m incredibly tired of getting excited for titles on the horizon, only to have the final release dash my hopes that there can still be games that make my fingers tingle with excitement the way I remember.
It always seems like an easier option to crawl back into my childhood memories, which probably skews the truth plenty to make the games of yesterday seem so much better than what we have now.
Over the last week I’ve been watching my girl play a game I missed the first time around though, Rare’s 2006 release of Viva Piñata. The result so far is that I’m absolutely stunned at how refreshed I feel, even from passively experiencing the game, which also comes from a company I’d almost entirely written off.
Since the original release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 the world has been introduced and changed by social media, especially the world of gaming. Facebook, Twitter, blogging, commenting, Flickr… these are all familiar elements of our days, often when we should be working. And when we’re not being “socially connected” in that sense, a growing majority of gamers are connected via Xbox Live or PSN, even when we’re not actively playing a game.
Yesterday I took a road trip to Kitchener to meet up with some good friends and a few of my favorite game collector’s at CGCC’s annual videogame swap meet. I’m fairly certain that checking out stacks of classic videogames and shooting the shit for hours about collecting and playing them is what “good times” is all about.
It’s also earnestly refreshing to escape the new release cycle for an afternoon and remember where so many of us came from – there really aren’t that many places to soak in the nostalgia of the games that ruled my childhood and also talk with people about the titles that stood out for them. Every game has a story for someone, and picking up a copy of Megaman X or Castlevania IV and hearing how it came into someone’s collection is the kind of bonus you’ll just never get at a store. We even got to meet two very young kids that were collecting classic Mortal Kombat titles even though they had the newest consoles.
It’s also a great chance to catch up on filling some holes in one’s collection.
I can remember when my own collecting habits were guided almost entirely by the rarity of titles, grabbing them up to sit like fine jewels on the shelf. Lately however, I’m every bit as content finding a few common games that simply bring back good memories or offer a chance to play a game I missed altogether when it originally released. From the title picture it’s clear I have plenty to keep my thumbs busy today, but I did want to share two finds from yesterday that make me ridiculously happy, which is pretty much the guiding principle for any classic game I pick up these days.