For the week of July 19-25: Night Vision, summer trailers, Shadow Complex game play, lazy days and Ed Boon keeps the video game news writers semi-busy.
NEWS
Some news from last week I forgot to include was the announcement that Infinity Ward will be including a working pair of night vision goggles in the Prestige Edition of Modern Warefare 2. This can’t end well.
PICTURES
Ed Boon, co-creator of the Mortal Kombat series, has been kind enough to post some pictures from ‘the good old days’ on twitter (@noobde). As a fan of the old MK games, I find this sort of thing fascinating. A little behind the curtain peek at the nitty-gritty parts that went into making the monsters of MK. Also a picture of a MK themed basketball court they proposed to be an unlockable in NBA Jam. Skinless head for a ball, spine/skull backboards… why wasn’t this added again?
VIDEO
Chair Entertainment’s Creative Director Donald Mustard was kind enough to sit down with 1up.com for a quick look at the first 20 minutes or so of one of my most anticipated games of the year, Shadow Complex.
Gaming blog Destructoid posted a rant from Mr. ”Reverend” Anthony Burch this week about why gamers are willing to take pay $60 on a game they may potentially like and zero dollars to games they do like but have played for free. A bit repetative and could be 3 minutes shorter, but the guy makes some good points. What do you think?
A trailer for a new twin stick shooter called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet has been posted and normally I don’t get excited about these things, but everything about this game look amazing. Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet have not been confirmed for the sound track, but that would be appropriate.
Take a peek and tell me you’re not interested. I dare you.
And finally, to start your weekend with a smile, a new trailer for Scribblenauts. Enjoy!
For the week of June 21-27: Red Faction, Original Goro Miniature, iPhone games and trying not to shit my pants.
NEW RELEASES:
A bit of a slow news week out thar’ in video game land, but one new release to make note of is Red Faction: Guerrilla. Moving from a first person game to third person, this, well, third entry into the franchise is getting a lot of good buzz.
You’re a dude on Mars leading an uprising for the people and you have to start some shit. What’s most notable about this game is that the great architecture has been constructed in such a way that it’s a truly destructible object.
It’s not that you hit the building and after a certain point, it rolls into an animation to show a predefined hole. No, there’s girders and beams and things that make a building stand and if you remove enough of them, the building will creak and shake and fall on your head. Even to the point where you can plan which direction you want the building to fall. And this is how video games generally progress as a medium. One game does one really cool thing, then the next time around, that tech is rolled into a new idea and built on and slowly things get better. If you think you might be interested, there’s a demo available on a console near you. Unless it’s a Wii.
This one picture seems to capture that feeling of the small team making use of what they have to realize their goals with all the desk lamps and tape keeping the stage together. It also furthers my beliefs of how we’re losing serendipitous moments like this by digitizing our letters, music and photographs, but this is a post about video games and I’m just fortunate we are treated to cool memories like this. Oh what I would do for another digitized character 2D Mortal Kombat…
Anyway, the interview talks about why the music turned out the way it did and how he’s approaching the music of the new Katamari game, Katamari Forever. The Katamari theme has popped up in my head while I’m milling about on more than one occasion and it makes everything 10x better, but personally it’s this song that makes me point my finger in the air and pretend I’m stepping out a cigarette when it comes up on shuffle.
And finally, if you’re one of the many shlubs that picked up that new iPhone 3GS (the ‘S’ stands for speed), you’re probably wondering what games you should be looking into. I don’t know, since I don’t have that problem, but there are lists coming out of people’s ears for recommendations. OffWorld recently make a post of the 15 Games You Need For Your iPhone (and 30 more to consider). Sounds like link bait to me… and it worked!!!
If I had to make some recommendations, I would suggest, Crayon Physics Deluxe (a puzzle/physics game), Peggle (a pachinko/plinko type game that makes you feel productive) and Field Runners (a tower defense game). Oh, and I noticed that Offworld also has Passage on their list which is one of the most thoughtful and beautiful games I’ve played in recent memory.
And if you’re in the mood for game styles of yesteryear, check out the survival horror game Don’t Shit Your Pants. A text adventure in which every second counts. Play, open door, shit. Oh, I forgot to take my pants off!
Until next week.
Dale can also be found over at www.8bitcyclops.com, looking at design, photography and old video game magazines.
