We Love:
New Saboteur info and screens
Everyone and their mother is sick of World War II games. Enter Pandemic Studios (Destroy All Humans, Star Wars Battlefront, Mercenaries) with a breath of fresh air for this done-to-death era:Saboteur. The stylish look and fresh gameplay concepts have us eager to join the French Resistance and mess with Hitler's boys, all sneaky, Sam Fisher in GTA style. Vive la revolucion!
Project Treasure Island Z and companies taking chances on the Wii
The Wii screams for innovation. With its revolutionary motion-sensing controller, it's begging to be used in ways we've never experienced before - creative, unusual, immersive ways. Nintendo's console boldly challenges game developers to think outside the box but, until last night, we assumed the only one doing so was Nintendo itself. Last night was when we got our first hands-on experience with Capcom's Project Treasure Island Z.
The story, something about a weird little kid wanting to be the world's strongest pirate, is unimportant. What we're excited about are the puzzles, which force the Wii remote into bizarre new forms like a flute, a saw, a key and a water scooper. Even more exciting? The game doesn't teach you what forms to use... you've got to experiment and figure them out all on your own. That's what the Wii's supposed to be all about - endless invention and the ever present potential for embarrassment. More, please.
Lair
Like a white knight astride a fire-belching lizard, Lair roared in last week to make us fall in love with the PS3 again. Never mind the cool visuals and motion-sensitive controls; what impressed us was that, at any time, we could swoop in from the heavens on the back of a huge dragon, stomp down in the middle of a huge mob of soldiers and start tossing them around like rag dolls. Screaming rag dolls that sprayed blood everywhere, but rag dolls nonetheless. Want to read more? Then check out our preview.
Intelligent analysis of Top 7 Nintendo Mistakes at Digital Press:
Sometimes it's tough to remember that not all forums are filled with today's equivalent of poo-flinging monkeys. All too often, thoughtful discussions give way to uninformed rants and flames that smack of alpha-gamer chest beating. But this week, we'd like to give some love to posters atDigital Press,a message board and database with a focus on all things retro.
The majority of internet haters who accused GamesRadar's Nintendo Editor, Brett Elston - the biggest Nintendo freakazoid on the planet - of being in Sony's pocket when they read our Top 7 Nintendo mistakes story. However, it appears that the regulars at Digital Press actually read the feature and thought about it before getting all indignant. Must be their sense of history. At any rate, their thoughtful discussion regarding Nintendo's past business decisions can be found here.
Above: See the Zelda image? That's a tattoo. On the arm of the guy who wrote the Top 7 Nintendo Mistakes article
We Hate:
Internet knee-jerks
So this past Monday we posted The Top 7 Nintendo Mistakes. The entire internet exploded. Ravenous fanboys the world over wanted our writer's head on a platter, claiming he's a Sony fanboy, in Microsoft's pocket, and even that he'd "never played an N64 before." While we're not about to write some huge response to thousands of squeaky wheels, we will say this much: the author might be Nintendo's best friend ever.
Take a look at the picture above. That's one of two Zelda tattoos permanently etched into his skin. The guy's got more pictures of Miyamoto on his desk than of his family. We can't help it if he loves the company so much that he's able to look past the present and envision a scenario where it might slip again. It's called tough love, people, so calm down and think before you post. Thankya kindly.
Paying $97.76 for Guitar Hero tracks
When Guitar Hero II hit the 360, the first thing we all wanted to know was, "what kind of downloadable content you got for us, Activision?" The answer came this week in the form of a giant "eff you, consumer!" Sold in packs of three each at 500 MS points a pop (roughly $6.25), tracks from the first Guitar Hero can be nabbed and added to your playlist. Thing is, that means the game's 47 songs will cost nearly $100 total. Um, hey, the game plus controller didn't cost that much, so what gives? Fans are signing petitions against this lunacy. Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb spoke to Joystiq recently and said the cost is sound - "It's not like you go to iTunes, and you're buying the same thing. There's testing that's involved, and there's also licensing involved," he said. The Major added, "It's not old content. The contracts have to be renegotiated on a new platform, and it's also involving digital distribution." So, we see your point, and unlike iTunes songs you actually get to interact with the GH tracks, but that doesn't mean the prices are kosher. Work something out.
We'll find out HOW!?
Being huge Resident Evil nerds from the start, we've been waiting about 10 years for an epic confrontation between the series' heroes and the shadowy Umbrella Corporation. Resident Evil 3 didn't give it to us; neither did Code: Veronica. And by the time RE4 came out, we just heard something vague about how the company had quietly died off-screen. Bullshit!
Now, however, the story of the company's downfall will be told... but only in Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, which is basically an on-rails lightgun shooter. Dammit. It looks cool and all, but why shoehorn such an important part of RE history into a spinoff? It just doesn't seem right, somehow.
Uwe Boll, Postal, and Uwe Boll going Postal
We knew film director/butcher of good Uwe Boll had no respect whatsoever for video games - it's the only explanation for the way he rapes one game series after another by turning them into spectacularly ass-tacular movies. But now, the horrifyingly repugnant director of such sacrilege as Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and House of the Dead has proven he doesn't give a damn about actual human beings either.
A leaked trailer for his upcoming film Postal shows a plane in New York plowing into a skyscraper in full 9/11 fashion, from the point of view of an unfortunate window washer on that same building. Which is pretty much a microcosm of why we hate him: he's all crass and no class. Hey Uwe: you're not a tenth as clever as South Park or GTA's writers, you'll never ever be funny, and you apparently have no sense of common decency. Give it up before you get hurt.
April 13, 2007
