The Lair of the Monkey

Who is this guy?  No idea, but apparently it’s first gen gaming meets next-gen - whatever that means.  Here’s what they had to say officially:

An action hero emerges from the pixels as D3Publisher (D3P), a publisher and developer of interactive entertainment software, today announced plans for Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard™, a third-person shooter with a sense of humor for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. Offering an original storyline and an off-the-wall cast of characters, Eat Lead is written by 2008 Writer’s Guild Award winning writer Dave Ellis and features the return of classic 80’s videogame action hero, Matt Hazard, and parodies some of the most beloved genres of games and pop culture. Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is anticipated for release in Q1 2009.

In Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, videogame action hero Matt Hazard gets his chance to prove once and for all that he is the king of shooters when the new owner of mega game publisher, Marathon Megasoft, gives Matt his comeback role starring in a new title for next-gen consoles that pits him against all of his memorable foes from videogames past. In the world of Eat Lead, however, everything stops being a game and becomes reality when it is clear that someone is using the new game to bring about Matt’s death once and for all. With only the mysterious “QA” to help him, Matt must fight against a legion of Marathon Megasoft catalogue of videogame characters to keep it from being “Game Over” forever.

“Eat Lead parodies some of our fondest memories in classic gaming and pop culture, so gamers will have a laugh out loud experience everytime they pick-up the controller,” said Pete Andrew, vice president, product development, North America, D3P. “With an original storyline, Eat Lead perfectly blends action and humor with rock solid gameplay for an experience like no other.”

Eat Lead pays homage to the games of yesteryear with a menagerie of classic enemies such as zombies, space marines, cowboys, genetically mutated super snipers, and more and an expansive level environment design that reflects videogame history in a next-gen package. The game fires on all cylinders with explosive artillery and combat moves to help gamers escape from a variety of predicaments including radically-changing environments during gameplay via “hack effects” Hazard’s nemesis uses by altering the game’s code on the fly. Throughout the adventure, players will utilize a strategic cover system dubbed “point and cover,” upgradeable weapons and different interactive melee moves to attack and outsmart foes.

Developed by Vicious Cycle Software, Inc., Eat Lead will feature its new game development engine, Vicious Engine 2 (Ve2) and is currently rated “RP” (Rating Pending) by the ESRB. For more information on Eat Lead, please visit www.EatLeadVideoGame.com.
The teaser trailer for Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard will premiere, Saturday, October 4th at 1:00 a.m. EDT/PDT exclusively on Spike TV’s “GameTrailers TV.” Players can catch the full HD Episodes at GameTrailers.com and on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for Xbox 360!

Well, I like to have a little bit of this now and again.  I’m not talking about plastic statues, but fan service.  Chun Li is a legend in gaming, having come from Street Fighter 2 and appearing in just about every other iteration of this extremely famous Capcom game ever.  If you’re a fan of 2D fighting games, then Street Fighter 2 will either be remembered fondly for a great balance and Ryu Vs Ken, or overlooked in favour of more obscure stuff like Dalkerstalkers.

Personally, I really liked Street Fighter 2: Turbo.  Now that’s retro.  I owned it on the SNES - now that was a proper console.  You could drop that from two metres and it still wouldn’t break!

Hope you enjoy the figure, I’m off to find out how much an original arcade cabinet is.

Now - how cool is that?  Well, the first picture is, kind of.  Yet the second one is a certain now-staple character.  Wario.  And he’s farting.  People are still trying to tell me that Manhunt 2 is what’s wrong with the games industry.  Am I at odds with everyone else when I say it’s not actually games like that, but rather this?  Hang on Nintendo, do you realise that I’m not 12 anymore?  Do you know my fondest rose-tinted gaming memories are with you, but I no longer play your consoles (I never did buy a DS on holiday, though I still want one)?  Do you even care anymore?  Hell, I don’t think you cared anyway given how long we waited for Animal Crossing.  For that FU you gave us, I think that this feature is long overdue…

N.B. Images curtesy of Kotaku.  Top site guys.

 TO

Now as you can see, I’ve added a picture of a Nintendo DS and a picture of an original Game Boy.  Now, why is that?  Well to show how things have changed of course!  The original Game Boy was a revelation.  It was a huge piece of news.  The DS?  The same.  In fact, it’s still selling more than every other piece of hardware (Xbox360, PSP, PS3 included) out there - the Wii excepted.

So how come it’s been such a success when the GC was a bit - well - lacklustre?  The Nintendo DS is original.  Whatever the Sony fanboys tell you, that’s one of the biggest reasons for the success of the Wii and the DS.  It does something different.  Not only that, but it does it in a way that is intuitive and responsive.

Of course, that’s not the only thing.  The Nintendo DS is made in such a way that it is desirable to a variety of consumers.  Everyone from the younger child wanting to play Pokemon to the 20-something executive playing Hotel Dusk on the train to a meeting.  This means that the DS will sell to the widest audience and unlike the Wii will actually appeal to the hardcore as well as the more casual amongst us.  It is also open to the market of the non-gamer.

No doubt you’re asking Mr B, have you got one?  The answer is at the moment no.  But I’m moving house soon and I think I need to get myself a house warming present beyond a new cooker…

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Strange images eh?  Well not really.  Soul Calibur Legends is in development for the Wii.  Apparently, it’ll be a Soul Calibur game with all the cool bits from the games (such as extra weapons, well balanced characters and maybe a character creation set) but it will also feature the Wii controls somehow.  I’m baffled how this will work.  Will you just throw it around to have wild swings?  I’m still not enamoured on the Wii control for ’standard’ games like this - something like Virtua Fighter which requires pinpoint, particular frame of animation control simply wouldn’t work with something that is so inaccurate/potentially wild.  As such, I’m not sure this will work either.

On the other hand, and moving to the point of why I’ve added a GC pic, one of my favourite games ever was Soul Calibur 2 on the GC.  I played this game soooooooooo much, and in fact was one of the first in the country to play it on Japanese import.  It was, and is, really ace.  Fluid gameplay matched by a ranking system that is very addictive.  As such, Nintendo, do not cock this up/allow Namco Bandai to do so.  Or I will lose massive respect for you.  Make it a good ‘un as I know you can and Nintendo, Wii and gameplayers in general will rejoice.  Hell, it might even be competition for the mighty VF5, which is, let’s face it, the best fighter of this generation.

Fostorial.co.uk is still his homepage, but he’s changed the template. Not only that, but he’s added an excellent article on 2D games. As there isn’t a facility for comments yet, I thought I’d write my own here. Great article, keep up the good work! On the subject of 2D though I don’t think it’s died a death just yet. For starters you have games that are in 3D but have 2D (i.e. cel-shaded) graphics such as Okami. Moving on from that, you have ace games that have 3D graphics but use 2D planes for gamplay - such as the uber-hard Ikaruga.

One other thing to note is both Nintendo and Microsoft have a growing library for download, with a huge array of 2D games (Sony’s gaming history doesn’t include 3D games, and they aren’t following the same strategy as Microsoft just yet). Now okay, these aren’t going to be massive budget sellers, but something like Geometry Wars evolved made arguably a bigger impact on gaming that a lot of 3D games of recent years. It also sold really, really well. Overall though, I see where you’re going. They are never going to take advantage of what could be done. Then again, that’s at least partially due to the market forces. Stuff that looks out of the norm (Rez, Doshin, Animal Crossing, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Jet Set Radio, Hotel Dusk to name just a very few) whether in 3D or not doesn’t sell too well.

I for one still enjoy 2D games and in fact some of my fondest memories come from the SNES - which had very few 3D games to its’ name. This has meant of course that popular genres have changed, with the FPS basically arising from the invention of 3D and vector graphics. The history of that however is a whole different topic…

I’ve recently been given a reccomendation of a game for Xbox Live Arcade by the one and only Fost - though I haven’t had a chance to look it up yet due to where the 360 is versus the router.  But what I’d like to say is that I will definitely find it when I have the chance because the more I am having to do other things at the moment, the more I’m really enjoying just having a quick game of Geometry Wars Evolved for instance, or Street Fighter 2.  These games are in stark contrast to my most recent purchase, Fight Night Round 3, where matches can unfold in real time over the whole 12 rounds.  I’m not about to become a casual gamer but I love how we have the choice now of a short game vs a longer one.  I think we’ve finally got to a good balance.  Now I just need to get that Nintendo DS…

Let me say this first - as you’ll see I have put this post in ‘nex-gen’ and ‘retro’. Why?!? For a simple reason. Dead Rising is on a nex-gen platform but plays like a proper old school game. You can restart with your current level, you have to walk to a save point, there are numerous respawns (enemy and weapon) and quests that are a tad difficult. I don’t know about you but I found that I couldn’t complete it the first time out, Frank just wasn’t hard enough.

I’m not sure how people tackled the game, but it is obvious that it’s a case of two worlds colliding. It feels very much like West is trying to meet East here. Or perhaps vice versa. The reason being we have a very western story idea but with Eastern gameplay elements, such as the respawns and making saves into part of the gameplay. Overall, I think it’s reasonably successful but it does ask a few questions, as well as answering why Dead Rising is not to everyone’s tastes.

One of the things that I didn’t really like about Dead Rising (Xbox 360 btw) was how quickly it became frustrating. It wasn’t a ‘tense battle to survive’ but rather a teeth-gnashingly annoying experience when you died yet again trying to make it to an area with food to boost your health. I’m sure better players had this problem too - but maybe they just didn’t play DR in the same way that I did. I guess that’s one thing I’d love to see on Live - how the really top end players tackle stuff like this.

Dead Rising is to some degree a game of aesthetics - look how you can kill this zombie! Look how you can grab the sword and slice them! Look how you can’t get access to where the car is! Arrrrgggghhhhhhhh! I guess what really gets me is how I can see the potential but feel that I really don’t have the time to exploit it. Now that I’ve spent about 200 words talking about it though maybe I’ll go back for ‘just one more go’ today. Not sure though.

I like my retro.  However, I know you’re not going to believe me when I say what I’m about to say.  Older games, on the whole, aren’t as good as their modern counterparts.  What are you talking about, I hear you cry.  Older games are ace!  No, no they aren’t.  This is for one simple reason.  Expectation.  Modern games have developed out of their history.  Their collective timeline.  Older games, no matter what their perceived ‘cool factor’ is, will never be able to compete.  On every level we’ve seen improvements.  Gameplay, storyline, graphics, sound, AI - almost every part of every game has been improved upon.

Now, of course retro gaming has its’ place.  That’s what makes things like Xbox Live so good.  You get the best of both worlds.  I just don’t want you all being swept up in this mad craze of what is about buying games that you’ve already bought.  Do we really need to play YET ANOTHER version of Mortal Kombat?  Okay so 3 was probably better than the new 3d versions so sure.  On the whole though, times have changed.  This is evident by sequels continuing so unabaited.  Sure, people like what they know, but improvements are always worth having.  Are they worth the £40 outlay though?  Well that’s another question entirely…

The original Wing Commander came out years ago now, which was before my PC gaming time.  However, the third was a revelation on my (then new) 486 gaming system!  Full motion video of Mark Hamill and Madman (amongst others) was visually impressive, as was the space combat.  I’m still not sure if Hobb(e)s was a traitor in the mission to destroy the the big cat people, but I never did manage to find out.  That’s because on the mission to destroy the Dreadnought thing it would never bloody blow up!  This is a real shame as I really enjoyed this game and it is a genuinely fun experience.