Atlus, current holder of the World’s Busiest Developer title, has announced the forthcoming North American release of Knights in the Nightmare, a new pigeonhole-avoiding curio from the creator of unpronounceable GBA strategy-RPG Yggdra Union.
A pseudo-sequel to that underrated gem (which was a bit like Advance Wars only 87 times more complicated), Knights sees you controlling a wisp with your stylus, sliding it across the bottom screen to manouevre it on the top. It’s a bit strategy, a bit bullet-hell shooter, apparently - with you collecting items and having to dodge projectiles simultaneously. It sounds a bit tricky, and Atlus admits there’s a steep learning curve but that there’s a lengthy tutorial which guides you through the weirdness.
Once you’ve got your head around the idea, you’ll be dipping into item-management, troop levelling and strategic planning as well as fast-paced scrapping, bobbing, weaving and collecting. It’s making my head spin just thinking about it - and the video above didn’t really help any in explaining exactly what the chuff it is you’re supposed to be doing. But I digress. There’s a great reward when you finish the game - the chance to play it through again as the game’s antagonist. Nice.
It’s out in the US on June 2nd and has some pretty awesome boxart which can be seen below. Another one to add to the ‘must import’ list, then…
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure might sound like a bit of a Professor Layton rip-off, but you should never judge a game by its title, as a closer look at EA’s intriguing forthcoming handheld hope proves.
An increasing number of games recently have started to realise that using both DS screens for gameplay might just be a good idea - in particular Square-Enix’s superb original RPG The World Ends With You - and Henry Hatsworth is no different. On the top screen you control the plummy-voiced protagonist himself, swiping at enemies with his trusty sword. This then sends them down in block form to the touchscreen, whereupon you need to match three or more tiles to build up a special meter which affords Henry a little more firepower against larger foes.
But if you leave those blocks to stew a little too long, they’ll start to encroach upon the top display, appearing above Henry and bopping him on the bonce should he be careless enough to wander underneath.
The whole thing seems very nicely presented - check out the (admittedly small) piece of art above - with an endearing 2D style and what appears to be a fairly charismatic central character.
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure will be released on 17th March in the US and, in what’s becoming something of a happy trend, just three days later in dear old Blighty (as Henry no doubt calls it). Oh, and the rest of Europe, too, of course.
Bloody clever bit of marketing from the guys and gals at Sega - a House of the Dead Overkill poster creator, promoting the lightgun blaster which is released this Friday (or today, if you’re in the US).
Featuring a wealth of titles, graphics, character and background art, you can craft your own grindhouse-style movie poster, adding your own credits if you fancy, and muddying the print for added authenticity. There’s even a bunch of tacky filters you can apply to any part of the poster, along with a host of ‘warnings’ for adult content and such like.
You can see one of my efforts above, and I’ve produced a couple more here and here. Do have a go and feel free to link to your own posters in the comments thread below.
April 14th is yet another date for DS owners to scribble in their diary, as Atlus has just announced the forthcoming US release of friendship-destroying RPG-boardgame Dokapon Journey.
Wii owners may already be familiar with Dokapon, as Atlus also published last year’s Dokapon Kingdom, which was released to positive reviews last October. While the board game template might seem like a better fit for the home console, the portable version allows you to play against 3 AI opponents as well as three human friends wirelessly. Sadly, there’s no online option, but then it’s understandable when the fun part of board games comes in the shrieks of outrage when one player seems to get all the luck, or in this case the smug looks you can conjure when your avatar beats up an opponent.
Mini-games and touchscreen scratchcards (using the stylus to reveal chance card items) are the main additions for the DS version. No word on a European release just yet - if only Atlus had a European arm.
IGN has an interesting feature about a Wii title from Geist creator n-Space named Winter - a game which, sad to say, is unlikely to ever see the light of day.
The concept seems to be a mix of Silent Hill-style survival horror, and the elemental obstacles of SOS: The Final Escape or even Disaster: Day of Crisis. It features a lone female protagonist battling against sub-zero temperatures and a host of otherworldly creatures, one of which - featured in the creepy trailer above - would look right at home in Silent Hill: Homecoming.
For a game developed in such a short time by a minuscule team, it looks pretty good - certainly comparable to Disaster, while the sections which see our heroine rummaging through drawers and cupboards aren’t a million miles away from Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse.
Of course, it’s no surprise to learn that, two years on from IGN taking a look at the game, it remains unpublished, even after a very positive critical reception to the game’s early demonstration. The studio’s creative director, Ted Newman, explains:
“We left GDC that year feeling very confident about placing the title quickly and on our terms. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. In almost every case we got hung up with the sales and marketing groups. They simply could not get behind a survival horror title on the Wii. In spite of great sales for Resident Evil 4 and the Umbrella Chronicles, these groups were unable to support the projections required to create a viable P&L for the title. The idea of an “adult” game on what they perceived to be a “kids” console was simply too big a leap for them, regardless of the enthusiastic support of the PD department and the Wii’s total domination in the marketplace.”
There’s a tiny silver lining in that n-Space has been offered plenty of work on other titles since then, purely off the back of that impressive initial demo. Hopefully IGN’s story might convince a third-party publisher that Winter is worth investing in, particularly given Newman’s insistence that they could make it look even better. But I’m not going to get my hopes up - until more than a couple of core titles sell in big numbers, no-one is going to take the risk on anything that’s not aimed at Wii’s expanded audience, particularly in the current economic climate.
Clever internetters with too much time on their hands have uncovered a patent filed by Nintendo, which suggests the next Zelda game will feature an elaborate hint system involving players being able to view videos uploaded by other gamers, offering solutions to puzzles they’re stuck on.
Equally interesting is a new DVD-style chapter system, which will apparently allow players to replay certain sections of the game, and also offer the possibility for players to skip a section they’re stuck on, but only after a certain amount of time has passed. Thus, in theory, encouraging less able gamers to complete the game, while still giving them a chance to figure out the solution for themselves.
One of the pictures accompanying the patent strongly suggests that the game will be played in the third-person, and not - as some (ahem) have suggested - a radical change to a first-person perspective.
Strong rumours were afoot that the next Zelda would offer something very different to previous titles, and for this intriguing new structure to work, it looks like it could be a little more linear than before. It also suggests that the game’s puzzles will remain as brain-ticklingly tricky as ever, but that those without the time or the smarts to figure out the more taxing riddles will be more likely to finish the damn thing.
Potentially, this could be an intelligent, elegant solution to what Miyamoto perceived as a problem with Twilight Princess - he was disappointed in that game’s sales, and hinted that its epic length and difficult puzzles may have been off-putting for Wii’s expanded audience. With the option to turn hints and skips off for hardcore players, the next Zelda looks like the best of both worlds - a game which offers plenty to both casual and hardcore players.
So will we be seeing a new Zelda at E3 2009? The hype meter just got turned up another notch.
Right, then. I finally got round to uploading some videos of my Wii Music compositions. Above is version one of John Lennon’s ‘Woman’ which I recorded a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I did another, very different take -with one instrument remaining the same - just to compare and contrast, and to show how you can change the feel of a song by the way it’s performed. See below.
To some people this is still going to seem like a load of old rubbish, but hopefully one or two of you will be inspired to pick up Wii Music after seeing just what you can do when you put your mind to it. Not for nothing is it in my top five games of the year…
We’re finally starting to see evidence that third-parties are taking the Wii versions of their multiformat releases much more seriously, with a host of winter titles offering motion-enhanced experiences which don’t compare too unfavourably on the less-powerful console to its HD rivals. But it’s still rare to see a game which is much better on Wii than on 360 and PS3, but that’s certainly the case with Shaun White Snowboarding, whose debut on 360 - the other version I’ve played - is pretty poor, while the Wii version (though not perfect) is a vastly superior game.
The Wii version has the suffix Road Trip, and the game is presented as such, with a pair of boarders invited by the titular Olympian to join him on his latest snowboarding adventure. It’s charmingly presented, with some enjoyably daft story sequences and a pleasing art style coupled with a terrific soundtrack. But it’s the control scheme where the game really shines.
While you can use the remote alone, the game’s much more immersive when controlled with the Wii Balance Board. As you might expect, you position the board lengthways, and guide your boarder using your back foot to turn and leaning forward with your front foot to accelerate. Bend your knees and straighten them to jump, and adjust your foot position in mid-air to spin. Pressing A or B on the remote at the same time executes tricks.
The latter part is the only real difficulty with the board controls which are otherwise really solid - it just seems you need to press down and shift your weight a little too much to execute any moves and the game doesn’t really allow you quite enough time to pull them off. But it seems that comes with time - I’m already getting higher scores than I was on my first few turns, so it appears it’s just a case of getting over that particular difficulty hump.
I need to play more before I can review the game fairly, suffice to say that if you’ve finished SSX Blur and are looking for some more winter sports action, you really can’t go too far wrong with this.
Electronic Arts today announced details of EA Sports Active - essentially EA’s own take on Wii Fit, but it’s actually much more interesting than that.
Far from just a straight clone, EA Sports Active looks to provide a different kind of fitness experience to Wii Fit - and all without requiring the Balance Board (though the peripheral is supported).
It’s clear that EA has spent some significant time on R&D with this, as the press blurb and accompanying video proves. Rather than provide a series of disconnected exercises, in EA Sports Active you’ll be able to specify targeted workouts - used to focus on whichever area of your body needs the most work. While there aren’t as many activities as in Wii Fit (”over twenty” EA claims) it seems they’ll be more varied, and will be supplemented by regular downloads.
Intriguingly, it’s bundled with two peripherals - a resistance band which you place under your feet to make bicep curls and the like more difficult, and two leg straps, used to attach the nunchuk to your leg so the software can recognise your full body movement instead of just your arms. (The spare is so another player can join in simultaneously.)
It promises full one-to-one body movement, thirty day custom exercise plans, and the option for new peripherals for future exercises. Evidently EA sees this as more platform than game, with a ‘football version’ planned for release at a later stage. There’s a packed-in nutrition book, and it’s all endorsed by Bob Greene, personal trainer to Oprah Winfrey.
So yes, this is going to be big. It’s certainly one of the most intriguing forthcoming prospects on Wii, and from the sounds of things could provide a more thorough and effective workout than Wii Fit. And it’s out in March, so we’ve not too long to wait to see whether Nintendo has indeed been beaten at its own game.
Good to see one pro site at least which is treating Wii Music with the respect it deserves. After its positive review of the non-game recently (it got an A-), writer Jeremy Parish has written a terrific blog entry, explaining why it doesn’t deserve the scorn poured on it by internet-goers (and, indeed, other websites).
” I’m impressed by the substance and depth hidden beneath the simplistic surface — there’s a lot of musical nuance to the game, or toy, or whatever you want to call it — yet while I can say I like Wii Music, it’s not at all the sort of thing I’d want to play myself,” Parish begins.
“But it’s the worst kind of solipsism to call something a failure simply because it’s not my sort of thing” he argues. “I mean, I have no intention of playing Dead Space, because survival horror bores me to tears as a genre — and I’d be an idiot to say it’s a bad game, because clearly it’s not. It’s a good game that simply doesn’t hold any interest for me, and I’m far beyond the point of expecting games to cater strictly to my interests or of forcing myself to try to enjoy things for which I have no taste. This is a good thing! It means that gaming has grown and diversified enough that no one need be expected to experience or appreciate everything to come down the pipeline.”
I needn’t really add anything more, suffice to say if you’d like to read more wise words, click on the link above and prepare to be enlightened.
Wii Music is out in the US and Japan now, and will hit these shores on November 14th. I’ll be reviewing it very soon once I’ve spent some time with the English-language version.
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