Fourteenth-century epic poetry is coming to videogames.
EA confirmed that its Redwood Shores studio is creating a game adaptation of The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri by showing a teaser trailer at the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards, now available at the game’s official site. No release date or platform information has been given.
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Can Legendary, a game with a halfway decent plot, atmosphere and pace carry a game with bad mechanics?
When a mysterious relic is brought up from the sea floor, you are hired by an antiquarian to steal the famed artifact. What seems like a simple task turns deadly when you realize you were unwittingly set up to open Pandora’s Box and let loose all the monsters of mythology into the modern world. Emblazoned with the signet and a power to stop the demons, you are hunted by werewolves and your ex-employers mercenaries as you desperately try to seal in the horrors you unleashed.
What starts out as a cool premise is quickly shattered by the actual mechanics of this game, despite the cool atmosphere. Right from the beginning you get a sense that something just isn’t right here; the gun positioning on screen is off, and the controls feel way too loose, despite being adjustable through the options menu. More to the point, the one trick pony of this show is a hobbled one; the powers bestowed by Pandora’s Box are ironically more of a curse to the player than a benefit.
Using the signet, you have the ability to suck up animus, a sort of energy left by the monsters, to refill your health as well as store as energy to use against enemies. Problem is the game is so unforgiving, even on the lowest difficulty setting, that you will constantly be low on both health and stored energy to do anything with it. Practically useless against the monsters, this energy is better used tending your health, although trying to do that while being attacked is impossible and all the more frustrating. Luckily the standard FPS mechanics and plenty of ammunition save this title from being completely unplayable.
Designed from a run and gun perspective, it is all about the pace. You are not meant to stop and stare at the lacking environments. You are supposed to jump a little as a werewolf comes screaming through a door or a griffon plucks an unwitting victim from right in front of you as you navigate the linear path. Spark nailed the atmosphere, giving you a strong impulse to just keep going for survival’s sake. Creature graphics were favored over area details and while the overall graphics are nothing to write home about, they get the job done.
In short, the game seems half finished, like the multiplayer, hoping a good premise can save a flawed game. If you are looking for a good FPS, there are a bunch of titles that are better than this. If you are looking to see how they interpret the Japanese Blood Spider myth (don’t ask), the game may seem playable, if barely.
ESRB: Mature for Blood, mild gore and plenty of bullets
Plays Like: Mythology themed First Person Shooter
Pros: Fast paced action with more than a few wow moments
Cons: Broken; mechanics and gameplay seriously flawed
Turbine, the folks behind MMOs such as Asheron’s Call, Lord of the Rings Online, and Dungeons and Dragons Online are apparently feeling the hurt of this economy too as they are reported to have laid off most of the Customer Support and QA teams. There are also rumors of additional layoffs in the works.
The impact that this has on gamers is that players of the any Turbine run MMO are going to have to do without any type of support from the company for the time being.
No official word has come out of Turbine, but stories from ex-employees are sure to hit message boards over the coming hours.
We have been unable to reach Turbine for comments.
UPDATE: Adam from Turbine’s Communications Team has contacted us and confirmed that there was a small percentage of layoffs from the company today. He also was clear in stating that they didn’t eliminate either of the QA or Support teams in their entirety. As a private company they aren’t disclosing exact figures, but we were assured that there would be no impact to current customers playing any of the 3 games that Turbine is responsible for. The layoffs were organization wide and didn’t impact any one team or department more than another.
Adam did stress that some of the factors for these layoffs were the preemptive measures related to the economy as well as strategic moves as they refocus the business after wrapping up the Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online.
Gamers currently playing any of the Turbine titles shouldn’t worry, but we feel for the departing members of the Turbine family as the economy is definitely leaving lots of casualties in its wake.
Stuffing popular characters from other media into a fighting game has a long and varied history. Occasional greatness (Marvel vs. Capcom) is tempered by consistent mediocrity and the rare absolute stinker (Marvel Nemesis). Tomy’s series of fighters based on the crazy popular animé Naruto have been above-average, but even with its fourth installment, the series remains just shy of excellence.
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 is basically the same 3-D, Tekken-esque experience as its Wii predecessor and the Clash of Ninja games for GameCube. A few new characters and a four-player brawl mini-game have been added, but the core game is virtually identical. It’s more 1.1 than a full 2.0. A new story mode takes Naruto’s characters through a plot of mind-control and sinister ninja jutsu, but is told through boring, static character cutouts and scrolling text. Nothing is really explained about the characters either, so if you’re not already familiar with the Naruto universe, it just looks like a bunch of colorful ninjas fighting each other.
Which is fine by me. Clash of Ninja Revolution 2’s range of characters is one of its most impressive qualities. Their names all blend together, but their unique powers are some of the coolest in the fighting genre. One guy can control sand. Another can grow incredibly fat and bowl over his enemies. One fights alongside a life-size marionette, manipulating it to attack from different directions and adding a couple more fists to his combos.
Laying down long combo strings of weak and strong attacks is the key to victory. However, the game’s use of the Wiimote destroys one’s ability to attack with any precision. Using the nunchuck-and-Wiimote scheme, the weak attack is triggered by shaking the Wiimote. The slightest flick of the wrist, such as the natural inclination to reset your hand after flicking downwards, sets off your attack causing unintended strikes that ruin the combo you were attempting. Playing with the Wiimote alone (where attacks are mapped to buttons rather than waggle) or either the classic controller or a GameCube controller is highly recommended.
Figuring out each character’s set of moves is made easier by the similarities between all of them. Four weak attacks followed by a strong is a very common combo, for example. Matches can be one-on-one or a two-on-two tag-team. Arenas are multi-level and fighters can throw opponents from one level to another, much like Mortal Kombat: Deception and the original N:CNR. Also back from its predecessor are objects in each stage that fighters can hide behind and use to launch unique attacks. Players earn jutsu with every attack that can be used to dodge or launch formidable special attacks.
N:CNR2 is not an original, innovative game, but it’s no quick cash-in. Developer Eighting, which has worked on the series since its beginning, throws every fighting game ingredient into its recipe to make a product that’s conventional but competes with the best. Though gameplay is generic, the variety and imaginativeness of the game’s licensed roster are its strong points. It’s not much of an upgrade over the Naruto games that have come before, but for anyone who hasn’t tried those—or for the many hardcore Naruto fans—this is a solid fighting game that’s one of the Wii’s best.
Pros: great characters, easy controls, big range of game modes
Cons: lame story mode, awful use of Wiimote waggle, lack of innovation
Plays Like: previous Clash of Ninja games, Tekken
ESRB: T for Cartoon Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes
Game of the Year awards are almost never consensus picks. Different gamers like different types of games. Here at Snackbar Games, we have a diverse staff of writers and editors, and between now and the end of the year, they’ll each be telling you, however they choose, about their top ten of ’08. Today, Chris Ingersoll (Vyolynce) talks about the games that got him hooked, as well as the ones that got away.
Before I list my top games of 2008, I feel the need to add an important disclaimer: I did not play a lot of (new) games this year. I never do, really, since I don’t subscribe to GameFly or any other rental service, so most of what I play is purchased outright (this has changed recently as we started receiving review copies here at Snackbar, but not much). That leads to delays as I wait for the price to drop or have to prioritize things like being able to pay my bills — and this past summer especially, fill up my gas tank; every time it cost me $50 to fill up, a part of my brain said “well, there goes another Wii game…”.
So here is a quick list of games that I did not play this year and would have liked to had circumstances been different:
Castlevania: Judgement — the concept intrigued me
deBlob — I’m sure I’ll pick this one up soon, but it was a victim of our economic situation
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates — loved the original FF:CC, but I would have had to buy this one twice, so my wife and I could play together; that simply wasn’t happening
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