ShareThis

We’re very influenced by GoldenEye, and we’re also very thankful that a game like that came out that we can learn from. You’ll see a lot of little homages in the game, like when you bring up the map, you’ll see your hand come up, almost like the watch in GoldenEye. There are a lot of little hidden things like that in the game. They’re like little messages from us as a developer, saying “Thank you guys for creating such a great game. Here’s our respectful take on that experience.”

For a little more GoldenEye goodness, hit the jump to see a video of a hacked version of game on a Wii.

[GoNintendo & Joystiq]

ShareThis

Peeling your back off the canvas after a bulldozer of an uppercut requires some God Of War-like button mashing to recover, and there are button combos. But they are very rudimentary, and don’t result in any crazy moves. They didn’t even include some cartoonish characters, like the guy with a big afro who seemed required by some unnamed law in all arcade boxers a few years ago. You can’t even make your own custom goofy bastard in the create-a-player mode either, since the options are pretty limited.

Which is fine, since the Career mode, in which you create your own pugilist and help him go from local bouts to headlining Pay-Per-Views, doesn’t offer anything new or unique either. Even Don King seems oddly restrained here. In fact, the most excited we got was when we realized our intro music could be “Godzilla” by Blue Öyster Cult. Which is probably why, after just a couple of rounds, we threw in the towel. Not because we were battered and bruised, we were just bored.

Das Gamer rating: Das is not so gööd.

The technical info:

Don King Presents: Prizefighter
(2K Sports)
Xbox 360, Wii, DS

-Paul Semel

ShareThis

Das Gamer: Did the development team’s background in Crimson Skies influence the creative process for Dark Void?
Jim Deal: Dark Void came about as a natural evolution of some of the things we were talking about doing on Crimson Skies for Xbox, namely getting out of the plane. We had a demo of just that for Capcom early on in the process. We had a lot of game-play in that demo, (on foot, in-airjacking, motorcycles, and giant robots to name a few) but it still needed something. While we were there, Capcom mentioned how we had the opportunity to do more with 3D space than most games, since we had flying. We went back to the office and were discussing the matter with Airtight co-founder Ed Fries. Ed told us that the game was missing something, something to pull everything together. He didn’t know what it was but he knew it was missing. He also said that Capcom was giving us a unique opportunity to develop something new and we should take the time to do it right. All the senior staff at the meeting agreed with Ed. The whole while, over on the side, our lead designer, Jose Perez III was turning white. It was easy for most of us to shake our heads, but he had to make it work.

How did you figure out what was missing from the game?
Jim Deal: A few days later Jose came into work early, (which is unusual) and he was all excited. Apparently he had stayed up all night working out the details on something new, called vertical cover. As soon as he described it to us, we got it and why it was cool. That was it. In ways, the rest of the game followed. For example, we invented the Void as a world to support the game we were now making. Other games were set in a horizontal world, we reinvented the world to support the vertical and in air experience. We had to re-write the story and reinvent the enemies. In essence, this one feature changed the whole intellectual property. It was great that the team at Capcom saw the vision early and helped us to embrace it.

What’s the story for Dark Void and who’s the protagonist?
Jim Deal: The game is about a cargo pilot named Will, who is just scraping a living together when he takes a delivery run through the Bermuda Triangle. A violent storm causes him to crash land in a strange inter-dimensional world called The Void. His initial motive is to escape the Void and get back to earth when he gets caught up in a huge conflict between an ancient enemy of mankind called the Watchers, and the local resistance fighters, the Survivors.

Can you talk about this Void as a setting?
Jim Deal: This game is set in the Void, which is fictionally set in the universe as we know it, but in a parallel dimension. This dimension is entered, mostly by accident through the Bermuda and Dragon’s triangles as well as a few other legendary spots on earth (Mel’s Hole in Eastern Washington, which is suspiciously close to the childhood home of our lead designer, Jose Perez). These spots are reputed to be wormholes into other dimensions. This game takes place in an inter-dimensional rift we call The Void. The Void, as it stands, just happens to be the perfect place to do things, like vertical Combat.

Can you talk about how the game transitions from on-foot battles to in-air jet packs and flying saucers?
The story throughout the game takes Will and puts him into circumstances that are unfathomable in everyday life. He starts out on foot, gets a hover pack that allows him to jump up and battle on vertical surfaces, then gets a rocket pack that allows him to fly in the right areas and also jack enemy aircraft and fight giant bosses. So as the game progresses you get to play with more and more powerful tools against larger enemies and do it all transitioning from on foot to vertical climbs to rocket packs to enemy UFOs. So in the end the answer is that the transitions are up to the player, and in much of the game they choose how and when to use each tool.

What types of enemies will players encounter?
The enemies are varied and numerous. Since we are a year out, I don’t want to give away too much yet. Suffice it to say that the enemies will increase in difficulty as the story progresses and the character gains experience and weapons. Picture lots of explosive action in vehicles and on the backs of giant bosses, all the while dangling over unimaginable precipices.

Capcom has yet to announce a launch date for Dark Void, stay tuned for more coverage on the game from E3.

–John Gaudiosi

Related: Is Vertical Combat The New Shotgun?

ShareThis

THQ set up shop in a $25,000-a-night Fantasy Suite at The Palms Casino in Las Vegas to debut their first offering in the five-year exclusive video game licensing deal with UFC. The new PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game, UFC Undisputed 2009, which ships in spring 2009, was shown to a packed house of video game, MMA and mainstream sports reporters. On hand for the festivities was UFC president Dana White, light heavyweight champion Quinton Rampage Jackson and his opponent in this weekend’s fight in Las Vegas, challenger Forrest Griffin.

“I’m not a big video game player,” said White. “I’m old school. I played games like Pac-Man. But we’re really excited about this game because everyone knows the first one really sucked. That was a deal that we were locked into when we bought the company. With THQ, we’re building the best fighting game ever created. We want our fans to enjoy this game and forget that the first one ever existed.”

Nevin Dravinski, THQ’s product manager for the UFC franchise (yes, fans, there will be new games every year and there’s the potential for additional platforms down the line), outlined the new game’s features in a presentation that included in-game footage.

“We have Rampage and Forrest looking over our backs making sure this game is done right,” said Dravinski, as Jackson and Griffin stood to the side of the stage. “The UFC brand is powerful. As soon as we announced that we were doing this game we had developers who had worked on games like Fight Night, Tony Hawk and Spider-Man come join our team.”

That Los Angeles team is working with Japanese developer Yuke’s, which currently makes the WWE games and previously created THQ’s short-lived Pride Fighting Championship game. Dravinski said there will be 80 fighters across all five weight classes in the first game, including Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell, BJ Penn and more.

THQ has made 3D scans of each fighter to create 30,000-polygon avatars of each man and bring a photorealistic representation into the virtual Octagon. The Mature-rated game will also include dynamic bruising, cuts, and swelling. Blood and sweat will spray freely with each blow to the face. As a gamer takes his fighter through a match, he’ll become more worn out and visibly damaged. In addition to the expansive roster of fighters, THQ has also included everything from the Octagon girls to the refs like Mario Yamasaki and even the UFC’s most recognizable cut man, Stitch.

Calling the shots in this game are UFC commentators Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg. Rather than bringing them into the studio to fake their play-by-play, THQ has gone through hundreds of real fights and grabbed audio clips from them. By piecing these clips together dynamically, the game will offer a blow-by-blow commentary on each fight that’s based on what the player is doing in the ring for contextually accurate play-by-play.

“One of the major goals of the team is constant control,” said Dravinski. “No matter what angle you’re at or what position you’re in, you’ll always have full control of your fighter. The move sets will be contextually based, so that when you’re on the ground your options are completely different from when you’re standing away from your opponent or going toe-to-toe with him.”

Half of the combat in the UFC game will come from the clinch and grapple position. There are defensive maneuvers for each position, as well, which adds a lot of strategy to the game. There’s a wide array of moves a player can perform. Dravinski added that blocking and counter-punching are key tactics.

“You can’t go into this game button-mashing because you’ll lose,” said Dravinski. “You have to strategize in the Octagon and think about each fight.”

Two developers from Yuke’s were on hand to demonstrate the game. Each took control of Jackson and Griffin as the real fighters stood behind them coaching. In the second round, after much yelling, Jackson finally grabbed the controller out of the hands of his player and conveniently knocked out the virtual Griffin as the crowd erupted in cheers.

One of the most impressive things about this demo was that there were no issues of clipping in this game. When a fighter punches or kicks another fighter, his arms and legs will not go through their opponent’s body (which is the case in many fighting games, including THQ’s WWE games). Instead, the blow will deform the body, whether it’s a punch to the face or a body blow. This makes the game look and feel like a real fight. The fact that there are no on-screen icons or health bars also brings the broadcast presentation to life.

THQ’s gearing up for a major new brand with UFC and this game already looks impressive with almost a year of development still to go. That’s good news for UFC fans who purchased those old Crave games. In the words of Dana White himself, everyone knows those old games sucked. We’ll see what the UFC and THQ have in store for us when the game drops this spring.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Don’t miss the real thing go down this Saturday at UFC 86 in Las Vegas.

–John Gaudiosi

ShareThis

So it’s probably a smart move for Activision to reinvigorate the baseball genre with Little League World Series Baseball 2008, which drops this August on the Wii and DS. With 16 different US or international teams, the game features customizable characters and exaggerated action straight out of an anime flick. Hit the jump to watch the debut trailer.

ShareThis

And what did they find on the site? Well, besides some cool wallpapers and info about an exclusive party at Comic-Con, the page had the first available screenshots of the game. Jackpot, right? Right. Except for the fact that they’re crazy small, as you can see above. But, these should do until E3 or until the game debuts at the San Diego Comic-Con later this month. After the jump, check out a video of concept art from the game.

[DC Universe Online Myspace via Big Download Blog]

ShareThis

The game follows an ancient Aesir war God named Baldur. As Too Human opens, machines are turning on humans and dining on their flesh, an ancient pact has been broken, and a God has taken the life of another God. All this has led to the world falling into utter ruin. If that wasn’t bad enough, Baldur learns that his now dead wife was actually murdered. Baldur is quite pissed, and not only is he charged with finding out what is causing all of this unrest, he’s avenging his dead wife. Most of the cinemas that would explain a lot of this backstory aren’t actually accessible in game, which would help give you clues on what is actually going on. Upon boot-up, make sure you watch the intro (or go to the Cinemas section) for more info.

To say the least, this mixture of Norse mythology and a digital future thrusts you into a complex plot from the jump. But the action gets underway just as quickly. While you play the role of Baldur, you do have the option in choosing your character class. Pick between Champion (balanced, skilled in air combat and critical strikes), Defender (heavy armor, tank-style player), Bio Engineer (regeneration, group protection, healing) Commando (specializes in ranged combat and explosives) and finally, good old-fashioned Berserker (close combat, highly offensive).

Controlling Baldur takes some getting used to. Remember the fact that Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem used the right analog stick for actions instead of controlling the camera? As my chosen class was a Berserker, the right stick controlled Baldur’s swordplay and in combination with the two main shoulder buttons controlled gunplay. Targeting and aiming is done by rolling or tapping the right stick in relation to the direction of the enemies. Since the Berserker class is all about up close offensive attacks you can quickly slide and takeout close enemies creating a combo. Linking combinations will not only decimate opponents, but will build your combo meter. Fill that up, and you’ll gain the ability to drop a brutal “ruiner” or battle cry to help out the situation.

And while this game isn’t all action hack and slash, Too Human is just as much RPG as it is action. Some enemies will drop loot that you can use to upgrade your weaponry and armaments as you level your character. You’ll also earn skill points that you can spend in your skill tree, upgrade specific class areas, plug runes into weapon and armor slots, embark on specific rune quests….You think Silicon Knights learned a few things playing World of Warcraft? Absolutely.

My biggest concern with Too Human however is the balance of the game. In single player I got my ass kicked in certain areas, mainly boss battles. After playing co-op today with a Silicon Knights representative, these encounters were much easier and I not only mowed down previously difficult situations, but secret arena sections as well. Clearing these uber-tough arenas net you epic loot (yes, WoW again), so trying to finish these areas off on your first play through by yourself will be an almost impossible feat. But while playing cooperative was a really good time, it’s most likely the only way I’d play through the campaign. Just like WoW, playing with your friends makes the experience more fun, and the loot easier to obtain.

Considering this game was originally structured to be a four player cooperative game, it’s truly sad that Silicon Knights had to cut it down to two. With all of the differences the classes, skill tress, and specialties allow for, with only having two players will Too Human still have the chops to survive? Even though we were told this was a really “old build” of the game, we think Too Human is melding a lot of great concepts, and hopefully the team can pull it all together in time for its August release.

–Billy Berghammer

ShareThis

The game puts you in the shoes of Charles Deckard, a thief who steals Pandora’s Box and accidentally unleashes an army of mythical beats upon New York City. You’re forced to do battle with everything from Werewolves to Minotaurs in your quest to save the planet from evil Armageddon. But the scariest part has to be their unpredictability—each creature has an Alpha and a Beta class and a variety of “moods” that can constantly change the method and intensity with which they will rip your head off. The game drops in September on Xbox and PS3, so hit the jump to preview its creatures and the weaponry that just might save your ass.

Creatures Trailer:

Weapons Trailer:

ShareThis

They might not be radically different, but hey, it’s a start. Eventually we’d like to see votes on actual fan-designed covers, and maybe even more than just two choices. But credit due to Activision, who is running the cover contest in conjunction with other “Seize Control” consumer voting initiatives, like the casting of voice actors in the game. Check out the Seize Control site to cast your vote for the game cover. And if you’re really emotionally invested in seeing Spidey’s forearms, you can go back and vote once every day while you wait for the October release date. Get a look at some Web of Shadows gameplay and an interview with the game’s designers after the jump.

ShareThis

Even though Ubisoft is keeping most of the game under wraps, we demanded more. For this game, former Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones producer Ben Mattes is back at the helm and he gives us a good idea in what to expect in Ubisoft’s first foray into a next-gen Prince of Persia. Read the full interview after the jump.

Das Gamer: Where does this game fit in the franchise, and what you guys are doing with it?
Ben Mattes: What we’re doing is reinitializing and re-kick-starting the franchise. We’re starting fresh in a lot of areas in order to make sure that our next-gen debut is a real bang. It’s not just a sequel - we are re-imagining the franchise for next-gen. We have certain brand fundamentals that we don’t need to change as drastically because they work. You’ve got your young hero, who is a swordsman. He’s very athletic, agile, and can run on walls. He can run and jump and flip and fight. He does combat, acrobatics, puzzles -you know, those kinds of brand pillars - those are still there.

But then we’re really sort of departing from other elements that people sometimes assumed were intrinsically connected with the Prince of Persia franchise that we didn’t necessarily think we needed to rely on any more. A perfect example of this is the Sands of Time - we’ve closed that chapter for now. I mean, the Sands of Time was a really cool story and part of the Prince of Persia universe, and maybe we’ll want to return to that some day in the future - but for now, that chapter is closed. It’s a new Prince, new environments, a new enemy, and a new quest.

So at least from what my understanding is the old Prince team went to do Assassin’s Creed, and this a new Prince team?
Ben Mattes: After Sands of Time the core team that was sort of the original creators of Sands of Time went on to do Assassin’s Creed. The second core team came up, stepped up and became the main core team for The Warrior Within and Two Thrones together and now we’re doing the new Prince of Persia. This is now their fourth Prince of Persia game together, so they know the franchise very, very well.

Now will this be tied in at all with the movie?
Ben Mattes: No correlation whatsoever, I mean the movie is going to be called Sands of Time. From what I can tell they’re playing with the whole time control mechanism. Jordan Mechner wrote the script and I’m pretty sure he based elements off of the original Sands of Time game that he co-collaborated on with Ubisoft. But like for us, that’s part of the chapter of Sands of Time that’s closed. I’ll have to wait until I see the movie, but it has no sort of connection chronologically or even thematically with this game. You can imagine it as another tale in the 1001 Arabian Knights sort of thing. That’s how I see our relation to the movie.

So as you’re rebooting this franchise, who are the main characters and what’s the story about?
Ben Mattes: The Prince is obviously the main hero, but he’s not actually a prince yet. He starts out as an adventurer and evolves into the Prince. But he starts out just as a guy who’s is wandering around from adventure to adventure, living hand to mouth, if you will. He stumbles into this sand storm and when this sand storm blows away he finds himself in this magical oasis that has no rightful reason to be there in the middle of the desert. Before he knows what’s happening this beautiful young woman named Elika runs into him, grabs his hand and says “You’ve got to help me, these guards are chasing me, you’ve got to help me escape.” The Prince says why not? Pretty young lady asking for help, lets see where this goes….

As they run away from the guards, they come into the center of this oasis and see this gigantic Tree of Life. The Prince quickly learns the back story of this Tree of Life. An ancient evil god of corruption and chaos called Ahriman had been imprisoned in that tree for eternity, and Elika is part of a bloodline of guardians called Ahuras whose job it is to protect this tree and keep Ahriman from escaping. As soon as they arrive, of course, something goes wrong, the tree goes down, Ahriman escapes and he immediately corrupts this entire oasis, killing any thing that’s in there driving all life, and light, and goodness, if you will, out of the world and really infecting it into this sort of dark, chaotic, sort of corrupted wasteland.

Elika as an Ahura, sort of kicks into overdrive mode. Elika’s job from generation to generation has been passed down the responsibility to keep exactly this type of thing from happening. She enlists the Prince’s help to systematically drive the corruption out of the world by using this newly untapped magical power she suddenly discovers she has to heal the world sort of bit by bit. By going to the healing ground, Elika’s magic power, a healing magical energy drives all the corruption out of that area sort of pushing it into the rest of the world. You do this again, and again, until there’s nowhere for the corruption to go except back into the Tree of life. Seal up the Tree of Life and Ahriman is once again contained. That is the goal and the quest they play throughout this game.

So now with this new female character you are introducing a new A.I. co-op situation. How’s that going to work?
Ben Mattes: So Elika is a 100% A.I. controlled support character. She is there to support the Prince in this quest that he takes on his shoulders. Even though she’s the Ahura, she can’t do it alone. She needs the Prince to help her because he’s stronger, he’s faster, he’s more powerful, etc. The A.I. behind Elika is integrated into every element of game play, so it’s not just a story telling mechanism or something there for the character to kind of think “Well, oh she’s hot” kind of thing and have a story moment with her.

She does acrobatics with the Prince cooperatively to do more spectacular moves that allows the Prince to go further and faster than he could alone. The same thing goes with puzzle solving, exploring the world, and in combat. When it comes to fighting, the Prince and Elika tag team. They’re literally cooperatively flipping off of each other, throwing each other at the enemies, and jumping off of each others backs to defeat these enemies. She’s integrated into game play in a much deeper way than we think anyone’s done in the action adventure genre before.

She’s never a negative. You’re never going to be frustrated because you’re babysitting her because she keeps getting lost or falling behind because she’s taking some initiative to do something that the A.I. thinks is smart - but in fact completely messes you up because it’s not at all what you wanted. Our sort of promise to the player is that Elika is going to only be a positive influence on their game play experience and they’re never going to have feelings of frustration or resentment towards her.

So I know that on paper this all sounds well and good, but a lot of games when they have an A.I. assist character like that, they really get in the way. The only game I can honestly think of that worked out was Alyx from Half Life 2. What challenges are you guys finding when you’re trying to pull this off?
Ben Mattes: Oh I mean it’s huge! It is, it is, but it’s one of our critical innovations so we’ve invested the resources we needed to make sure that we treat this challenge with the appropriate level of responsibility and we’ve put into this what we needed to, to make sure that we live up to our promise. Alyx is a really good example in terms of what is primarily a story telling mechanic as far as I see it. She does integrate into game play but into very, very scripted ways. She’ll shoot enemies for you and there’s some pretty interesting collaborative elements with Alyx, particularly episode one with the thing in the basement where you’ve got the flashlight and she’s got the gun. There’s a really cool synergy element that we really, really like, but having a support character work in an FPS is very, very different than in a third person action adventure game.

In the Prince of Persia, you’re doing a wall run and you hit a pole, and Elika is right behind you, so as soon as you reach the pole a second later she’s on the pole. What if you decide you want to turn around and go back the way you just came? If she’s still on the wall she’s going to be able to get out of the way, so she’s got to have the intelligence to be able to follow you in everything that you’re doing, but also to be able to get out of the way if you want to occupy the place that she’s currently occupying. All the while not dying, and looking cool while doing it. So there are a lot of challenges in making sure that every thing that the Prince can do, Elika can do as well. That she’s always on hand for the player to be able to say “Elika jump in here, I need your help, I want to do something collaboratively with you.” But that she’s not falling off the cliff or the pole, she’s not blocking an object to prevent you from being able to move past her, et cetera. The challenges are enormous but we’ve overcome most of them.

So why not go for a co-op thing?
Ben Mattes: All the cool kids are doing it! I mean, Prince of Persia is a single player game and it’s always been our focus. The more full answer to that question is that in single player Prince of Persia games rhythm and flow is critical, right? You’ve got to have that bump, bah, bah, bah… run, jump, do a wall jump, rebound, grab the pole, jump off the column, - in order take full advantage of what the game play offers. Now add another character in there who is collaborating with you in this sort of acrobatic gymnastic style where you’re running, and jumping, and flipping off of each other in this very sort of choreographed fashion. You can quite quickly see that in order to maintain that kind of flow under a traditional co-op system would be impossible because you’d never be able to guarantee that player two was going to be where you needed Elika to be. To do that double jump, that co-op jump in order to attack the enemy - you would never be able to make sure that the second player was going to be able to play the game the way you wanted them to play to have the proper Prince of Persia experience.

How are you balancing with the combat and the platform elements that people have come to know? Is it going to be a 50/50 split?
Ben Mattes: No, I mean in terms of actual numbers, we haven’t calculated it, I mean it probably tends toward something like a 60:40 or 70:30 split favoring acrobatics and platforming. It’s a world with player choice right? Where you can heal the world in any order that you want, so as you’re navigating the world there’s a lot of instances where you’re going to pass through an environment you’ve already been through before. We’re making sure that if you pass through a level multiple times that it’s not exactly the same experience every time. The game system is set up in such a way that the world evolves as you play. It dynamically changes the level design and difficulty as you’re playing through it to make sure that it feels fresh, different, and new even if you’ve passed through the environment multiple times.

Because there’s all of that exploration in terms of navigating through the world, that’s pushing the amount of platforming, exploration, and acrobatics relative to the combat. That said our ambition with this combat system is that, even though in terms of the 15-hour- play time you’re only spending 30% of your time in fights. Those fights feel so dramatic, so impactful that it’s like nothing but boss fights the whole game. Every fight feels like it’s you and Elika against a boss. It’s everything you can do to survive and it’s everything the two of you can do cooperatively and collaboratively in order to defeat this enemy. The feeling of reward that the player has from successfully completing these combat encounters more than makes up for the fact that their not slashing through hordes and hordes of enemies in order to make sure that we have a 50/50 split.

Any thoughts on adding DLC after the game is released?
Ben Mattes: Yes, we’re still thinking of some ideas for that to see if it’s something we want to explore, if it’s something that will work within our story, our game structure, and our world. There are a couple ideas we’re investigating. The question is will it add enough value to the player that we feel is worth doing. We’re not going to do V.R. style missions because they don’t belong at all in the Prince of Persia type universe - they work fine in something like Metal Gear. If we can find an idea that we really think is a value, that adds to the game play, and fits into the total package that we want to deliver, it may be something we’ll peruse.

So the big question is when are we going to see actual game play and when can we get our hands on it?
Ben Mattes: E3. E3 for sure is in game. We’re not yet going say whether or not it’s hands-on or a controlled demo - it’s still under discussion. But at E3 you will see everything I’ve been talking about today in action. You will be able judge for yourself whether or not I was telling the truth regarding Elika never getting in your way, never falling behind, and just never being a negative element.

–Billy Berghammer

ShareThis

“After working on sim racers for so long, we had a lot of ideas that didn’t fit within the framework of those games,” explained Jason Avent, director of the game at Black Rock Studios. “The premise of Pure is that four wheel ATVs are fun, they’re light and they handle like cars, but they also open up a whole new world of tricks and stunts.”

Traditionally, bike games are hard to get into because they focus more on reality than fun. Pure was designed so that anyone can jump onto one of these redneck killers and get that feeling of vertigo right away as they jump off cliffs with 300-foot drops.

“We want people up in the air 80 percent of the time,” said Avent. “The trick system is based on boost juice. High-level tricks require a lot of juice, but the satisfaction when you pull off a signature trick like the lazy girl can last four seconds in the air–an eternity.”

There’s a strategic element to this game as well. Players can bank their tricks and use their boost and signature tricks to get a rhythm going. Avent said Pure becomes a much more interesting game using these tactics. There are five different routes through each track. Even when other players aren’t there jockeying for position, there’s always a lot for the player to think about.

There are over 80 tricks in the game, including over 15 signature tricks that will probably be possible within the next 5 years, but cannot be done today, according to Avent. These tricks get more insane as you progress through the game and also take longer to pull off. The key to success in this game isn’t about button combos, but fitting the right tricks within the right amount of air time by judging the height you’re at. Gameplay is not about pushing buttons. In fact, points are deducted if you continually resort to the same tricks time and again.

A full field of 16 players can compete online with Pure, which features seven unique locations with a variety of tracks. Avent said all of the courses are true 3D and chock full of obstacles. Players are able to choose from a wide array of ATVs or build their own from scratch. This adds a strategy element to marrying the right ride with the right course and opens up all types of online challenges.

“The tracks become quite congested,” warned Avent, who offered a strategy. “When things get crowded, holding back and then boosting to a secluded area is a good strategy. You can use juice to jump to places you can’t access otherwise.”

Next generation hardware has allowed the team to render stuff 30 to 40 miles in the distance. The end result is that gamers will actually feel like they’re in the thick of a massive forest or traversing huge mountains. The game’s blend of arcade action with off-road realism makes the learning curve accessible, but mastering the trick-based system will require plenty of skill.

Pure hits shelves this September.

–John Gaudiosi

ShareThis

IGN interviewed lead designer Dan Teasdale to get some more info on the release, but he wouldn’t reveal too many details other than everything will be bigger, better and smarter than the original. Expect improved instruments (like a wireless guitar for the 360), more detailed character customization, and new modes, including an easier way to play guitar and sing at the same time. And of course, all the downloadable content from RB1 will be compatible with the new version. Hit the jump for some screenshots and a look at the new guitar.

ShareThis

Fatal Inertia EX
PlayStation Store (Koei)
Cost: $29.99
Japanese company Koei , normally known for its obsessive military history series Dynasty Warriors, has hit up the PSN with an updated version of their 2007 360 hover-racing game. No samurai here; in fact, it’s a combat-racing genre piece solidly lodged somewhere between Wipeout and Star Wars Episode 1 podracing. The vehicles control a little stiffly, though the semi-open-environment arenas afford kinetic cliff-hugging and water-skimming opportunities (until getting pulled back when you miss flying through a checkpoint, thus ending the buzz). Online matches and a fair number of single-player challenges and car upgrades are good reasons to try a download, and the graphics are better-than-average for a non-disc game—but there are only six worlds to race on, and the cost feels like it should really be ten dollars cheaper. Until Wipeout HD, this is the only game on the futuristic-racing block, and it’s not a bad one at that.

Ticket To Ride
Xbox Live Arcade
Cost: 800 points ($10)
Hear that? It’s the sound of Euro-board-game geeks everywhere squealing with joy. In the tradition of Catan and Carcassone, the award-winning cardboard-and-wood game of 1800s railroad building has found its way onto Xbox Live Arcade. Drawing cards, laying routes and generally screwing over up to four other players feels like a cross between Uno and Monopoly, with the additional joy of staring at a huge map full of confusingly-colored track routes. It isn’t very complicated once you get used to it, and don’t expect more than the basic game—but, like backgammon while sipping whiskey, it’s quite a nicely addictive way to pass the time.

Gyrostarr
Wii Ware (High Voltage)
Cost: 700 points ($7)
In the spirit of Gyruss and Tempest, High Voltage’s psychdelic half-pipe racer pits you as a little ship heading down an increasingly-accelerating warpgate, collecting clouds of energy to fill your meter before the level ends and you crash out at high speeds. Shooting little abstract enemies along the way that look like they escaped from a shopping-mall Time Out in 1984, each level piles on the same thing over and over in waves of difficulty, with occasional bonus levels. Fast, fun, but hampered by uneven Wiimote motion-controls that feel too slow for the pace of the game, it’s a better effort than other anemic WiiWare launch titles. Still, for our weekly Wii money, we might spend it on the Virtual Console re-issue of Alex Kidd in Miracle World instead.

ShareThis

After shipping Halo, Seropian walked away from Bungie/Microsoft halfway through the development of the sequel. “When I came back to Chicago I wasn’t doing anything except starting a family, for about six months,” says Seropian. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to get back into this business because my passion is doing new original stuff and being independent.” But in 2003 Seropian founded Wideload, releasing Stubbs the Zombie two years later. Hail to the Chimp, the second title from Wideload, is the latest product of Seropian’s drive to create the games he wants to make while the industry moves onto the next sequel. Check out what Seropian had to say about the future of independent games, lucking out on the current election and his concept for the most expensive game of all time. Hit the jump for the full interview.

Das Gamer: What was the inspiration behind Hail to the Chimp?
Alex Seropian: Well, we started the project off with the idea that we wanted to make a party game. Specifically a game that four people around one TV, sitting on a couch can play and have fun. We wanted it to be really user friendly. We also came up with this idea for a cool game mechanic which was take a regular party game, which has you run around beat the snot out of each other, but at any time two players can team up to perform a super move. So the idea is to have a cooperative element to the game, where if you do cooperate you can have an advantage but it really is every man for himself. The cooperation comes and goes. That was the big idea that we had which I thought was pretty cool.

From experiencing the game it seems like you put a lot of thought into the individual characters in the game.
Alex Seropian: We’ve done a lot of work on that. The whole idea is its set in this crazy animal world that we’ve invented. The Lion who has been the king for so long has been ousted they’ve kind of thrown away monarchy idea and supported democracy and its all documented by GRR which is pretty much the animal version of CNN with all the things you that you may find – the scrolling ticker bar, fake commercial, debates and interviews, but its all funny – it’s all satire. The experience is cool cause there is this whole world - we built in rivalries, they all have back story, and it all comes out in the interviews, debates, or in dialogue in the game. We even made these political ads that run smear campaigns against each other. It’s this back story world that you would never get from a party game, and we don’t force it down your throat. You don’t have to watch a cut scene. There’s no linear aspect to the game at all.

Are you a political person yourself?
Alex Seropian: Well isn’t everyone? [Laughs] I do follow politics to some degree.

Who are you picking to go all the way?
Alex Seropian: Toshiro (the Octopus) actually.

I was actually asking about the other elections.
Alex Seropian: The human elections? I am of course. I’m a big Barack Obama fan. I have this theory that somebody should write a job description for a president of the United States and I find it kind of amusing that there isn’t one and we hold or elections basically in the same way that American Idol works, which may be not so bad. But from my perspective what you want out of a president is someone who has leadership skills, is smart, but also can be inspirational. And I’ve yet to see somebody like that who has a position that I also like until Obama came along.

Of the three candidates that were up until recently still in the running, what animals would they get if they were in your game?
Alex Seropian: Well I’m not going to tell you who I think they are but I will tell you who I think they would pick if they were playing the game. If they sat down to play the game with me, and this is my formal invitation to Senators McCain, Clinton and Obama to join me at Wideload in a game of Hail to the Chimp. In any case, here’s what I think: Clinton would play Crackers the Monkey, because Crackers is the Lion’s right hand man. He’s kind of the establishment, which I think Hilary would relate to. I think Obama would pick Ptolemy the Hippo because he does posses excellent oratory skills. And uh, gee, not to give away too much of my political bent but I’m going to stick McCain with Floyd the Walrus. Floyd takes his lead from a radio that he believes is channeling signals from super intelligent beings [laughs].

Was it a marketing plan or just coincidence that Hail to the Chimp is hitting shelves in the midst of an election?
Alex Seropian: Yes it is a coincidence but I think we are kind of lucking out in a sense because this election has made for great TV. It’s been great entertainment and it’s been in the forefront of a lot of people’s minds. And we have a game that’s politically themed but it’s not really a game of politics so much as it is a fun party game. But I think we kind of lucked out.

You left Bungie halfway while Halo 2 was still in development and founded Wideload what about the games industry made you want to pursue a more independent route?
Alex Seropian: There’s the sequels, then the movie licenses, budgets were just getting bigger, the finances of the industry have become more risk adverse with the risk getting pushed more uphill towards the developer. And I watched a bunch of small developers struggle. In the film business, you can start a project with three guys, three creative guys, make a screenplay and produce. And then you put something into production and you spend your $100 million on all these people and at the end of the project they’re no longer there. But in games the way it had been done is you would start a project with three people and then you hire all these people to spend your budget to make your game but they’re still around at the end of the project cause you hired them all.

Have you taken a different approach with Wideload?
Alex Seropian: Yeah so I looked at that and said I don’t want to do that, because I can just see it failing. So we came up with a model that is more like a film project. So our company is tiny compared to other developers. We have 25 people in the whole studio and we have two teams. The way we work is we have this core team, which is like the first three seats of each discipline, and we’ll start a project with that small team and we’ll take it to a prototype stage and then we’ll build a whole production team with contracted, outsourced talent. Hail to the Chimp is a great example, we’ve got this whole motion graphic stuff that makes up GRR news… And when you look at it, it looks pretty good, it looks like a 24-hour news show. The reason we were able to do that is because we hired the guys who did the graphics for 20/20 and the Today Show. We called them up and they were total gamers. That’s our whole model. We were really good at finding talent and making them teammates in a sense.

Do you think this will become an industry standard?
Alex Seropian: It sort of has. We’ve been doing this for about five years and at the time some people would look at me and go, that’s interesting and others would look at me and say, what are you crazy? We didn’t do it perfectly with Stubbs, but we did it pretty good job and with Hail to the Chimp we’ve done it really well. And a lot of people are doing it this way. Look at THQ, which is one of the biggest publishers in the industry, a couple years ago they decided to hire an outsourcing VP to find outside talent to assist their internal teams. It’s definitely a model that’s spreading a bit.

What’s the next project for you?
Alex Seropian: Well there are a couple things that are real exciting. We started a shorts team to create smaller downloadable games. And the first game out of that team Cyclomite will come out on InstantAction.

With Xbox putting up their dev kit and platforms like InstantAction popping up, is the trend to go towards smaller games?
Alex Seropian: You could argue that it has made a big impact on the industry already. I think it’s a huge market, potentially more to come.

After you left Bungie did you follow their progress at all? Did you miss it at all?
Alex Seropian: [laughs] Well I certainly miss hanging out with the people over there. I have a lot of friends, awesome people. I play the games, I keep in touch and keep tabs on those guys. It’s very flattering to me that something I cooked up in my basement is still going strong and is a very big thing. I find that very cool.

What made you want to get into creating games?
Alex Seropian: When I was in college, my senior year, I wrote a game, and I also interviewed for jobs and sat down one day to decide if I wanted to start a company that makes games or take a job. I remember, I sat down on the couch with my dad and was like, “What should I do? I’ve got this game and I kind of want to start a business to sell it.” And he’s like, “Why don’t you take a job, get some experience and then go out and start your company.” Which made me go out the next day and start the company. It was total old school, guy in his garage, I wrote a game on my Mac, bought a bunch of diskettes, made some labels, I got like $10 grand from my dad’s friends made some boxes and started selling it. I called up mail order guys and asked them if they wanted to sell my game, really hoofed it and uh…barely broke even on the first few.

Is the independent homebrew way of making games still viable?
Alex Seropian: I think so, that kind of stuff I think goes in waves. And right now we’re at the crest of very cool wave, which is the [console manufacturers] opening up their platforms for distribution. So somebody can make a game, four guys with sweat equity can make a game and get it on to Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network and make some money. I have to think that those opportunities are gonna be around for a long time with the whole “Internet thing.”

Yeah, I heard the Internet is going to be big one day. How many developers do you think will succeed and make it to the “big leagues” or even make money off of the games they self-publish?
Alex Seropian: In my opinion, opening up XNA and the homebrew stuff won’t change the financial landscape too much. The thing I’m kind of curious to see work out, is as digital distribution becomes more popular and there’s a market for it expand and people are paying for those game s and the economics improve, it seems to me that we might end up trading, from a developer’s perspective, the ills of retail sales for the ills of these closed distribution networks. Meaning, right now its hard to get games on shelf space because there’s not a lot of shelf space and there are a lot of games and GameStop and Wal-Mart can exert a lot of leverage because they have a lot of shelf space. As the market for the downloadable stuff grows I think we are going to trade one for the other where you’re going to have Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony being the outlets that you are going to go to if your selling a game because they have the virtual space. Right now there isn’t any leverage being exerted by any one platform but as the economics improve, I can imagine that will change.

What made you decide to go with Gamecock as your publisher?
Alex Seropian: They’re really a perfect fit for us. We like to do original stuff, our business model revolves around us owning the IP and Gamecock is really supportive of that. They want to be in the same business. They want to do original stuff and they are very supportive of us making the games the way we want to make them.

Activision and Vivendi are merging. EA still seems interested in a hostile takeover of Take-Two. Are these mega mergers a good or bad thing for gamers?
Alex Seropian: The reality of our industry is that consolidation happens continually. If it’s Activsion and Vivendi today and EA and Take-Two tomorrow, its gonna be another pair getting in bed later. And that’s going to happen continually. People will come to fill their space. The interesting part from Wideload’s perspective, when you see two companies like Activision and Vivendi combining, it sort of changes the rules of engagement for that new organization. They’re sufficient in size now that it’s hard for them to justify going after smaller opportunities. If it’s not World of Warcraft, if it’s not Guitar Hero, or James Bond or something in that strata, it’s hard for them to get excited as an organization. Which means they’ve sort of taken the roots out of the garden in a lot of spots which means that a lot of smaller plants can start growing. So in one sense it creates a lot of opportunity for smaller players to address some of these smaller opportunities.

So it’s not a doomsday situation for independent game makers.
Alex Seropian: Oh no, from that perspective it’s a great thing for us. We’re not necessarily in the business of making a Harry Potter game or making version 12 of whatever was hot last year. We’re in the business of taking creative risk. So in a lot of ways it gets them out of our way.

What’s the riskiest game concept you have tried to pull off?
Alex Seropian: Well, I’ve been kicking around the idea of trying to make the most expensive game ever created. Like what it would take to justify a $120 million dollar video game. I haven’t worked out the details just yet but it’s going to be huge.

Can you give me some broad brush strokes?
Alex Seropian: It’s going to be an epic story, and it’s an MMO, right?

Are you yanking my chain right now? Because you’re using what I’m guessing is your “dramatic voice.”
Alex Seropian: No it’s real, totally multiplatform. It uses both the Unreal engine and the Source engine, it’s first person most of the time but sometimes it’s a strategy game and it’s got this rhythm game component to it…and a peripheral.

Of course, possibly a Guitar Hero kind of component?
Alex Seropian: No, the peripheral would be a big bazooka that you have to play with. And it would actually shoot things across the room.

Ah, so there would be a real-world aspect to this. Moving parts…
Yes…it’s also an alternate reality game. [Laughs] Would you buy that?

Ehhh…I don’t know. Does it have a good storyline?
It has three good story lines…it’s a trilogy. [Laughs]

For more of Alex Seropian’s singular sense of humor, pick up a copy of Hail to the Chimp.

ShareThis

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2
On sale: June 29
The first Guitar Hero game fully tied to one band is now on shelves. Take the stage alongside Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and…those other two, I mean three guys. Rather than just sticking with, “We’ve moved over 150 million albums” Tyler had this to say about getting picked to headline Guitar Hero: “Any band that can go from ‘Don’t Want to Miss A Thing’ to the ass-kicking ‘Sweet Emotion’ to the cheekiness of ‘Love in an Elevator,’ to the classic ballad ‘Dream On’ shows why Activision chose us to headline this game based on the diversity of the Aerosmith catalog. Not only is songwriting a bitch, but then it goes and has puppies.” Bravo Steven. The new game features more than 25 original Aerosmith tracks. You can also add to your peripheral collection with the Aerosmith-branded wireless guitar. www.activision.com
Buy it now.

Dungeon Runners
PC
On sale: July 2
NCSoft’s send up on dungeon-crawling MMOs gets its first ever boxed copy. Up to this point the game has been available free via online download. The retail version does come with at least one notable upgrade and the incontrovertible evidence that the word “bling” shall never again get used in anything resembling a serious manner: the Bling Gnome. www.ncsoft.com
Buy it now.

Trauma Center: Under The Knife 2
DS
On sale: July 1
Screw med school. Who the hell wants to live in Grenada anyway? Let Nintendo’s handheld take you down the path of Hippocrates in this sequel to the original Trauma Center. Derek and Angie are back in all their manga-esque glory. Message to Atlus: if you take our idea to develop Extreme Taxidermist, you owe Das Gamer at least $20 bucks. www.atlus.com
Buy it now.

ShareThis

ShareThis