Frankenreview: Halo 3: O.D.S.T.
Halo Wars showed us that a Halo game in a different genre can do moderately well without Master Chief, but a first-person shooter? Can O.D.S.T. pull that off?
Master Chief is such an iconic gaming figure that it almost seems wrong to have an FPS with the Halo name on it without him. It’s like a Mario game without Mario in it, or a Team Ninja game without breasts. Yet here we are, with a brand-new single-player adventure in the Halo universe with no sign of the big man.
O.D.S.T. began as a little bit of downloadable content that got too big for its own classification, making the leap to full-fledged game. The question is, is it worth its own game, and if so, how are they pulling it off without old MC?
Games Radar
Are you hoping for more Halo 3? Are you looking forward to another adventure in that game’s grandly exaggerated yet comfortingly familiar universe? Are you excited to wield the same crazy weapons and vehicles in brand new battles, to encounter the same smart enemies in unexpected new situations and to witness the same epic war from an entirely new perspective? Are more missions and more multiplayer enough? If so, then ODST is the answer. You will definitely not be disappointed. But what if you got carried away by the hype? What if that amazing live-action trailer, or that significant September release date, have you convinced that ODST is the next major milestone in the Halo phenomenon? What if the talk about detective characters, film noir settings and gritty close-quarters combat have you anticipating a bold departure from the Bungie formula? Then yeah, you might be in for a bit of a letdown. 
Eurogamer
Halo 3: ODST does present a compelling alternative to the Master Chief, but the smartest thing about the game is that Bungie faces down this intimidating challenge by realising it cannot do so through one man alone. Although you control the Rookie, a seemingly fresh-faced but faceless new tip of the spear in the battle against the Covenant, the developer prefers to tell the story of New Mombasa through a series of playable vignettes, each of which showcases individual acts of very human heroism on the part of a scattered group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. 
ActionTrip
Halo 3: ODST retains the familiar Halo AI, which we still hold in high regard. Stronger enemies react according to your behaviour and will never rush until they are certain they have the upper hand. Grunts and weaker enemies such as the Jackals lose their nerve in battle if you take out nearby Brutes or other Covenant Chieftains. However, with help of the new VISR (standard addition for all ODSTs) enemy threats are easier to make out. When switched on the VISR allows you to see areas of interest and tell friend from foe. It sounds like it makes things too easy, but thanks to the well-balanced AI the game remains challenging throughout the entire campaign. Also, you’ll enjoy the freedom that was given to the main character. Yep, the game is not as linear as Halo 3 or other titles in the series. Now, you can choose where you can go and which opponents to tackle. 
VideoGamer
Length aside, the campaign is not without other problems. The story is a largely un-engaging affair. The mysteriously silent Rookie is hard to love, and certainly lacks the heroic appeal of Master Chief. His squad mates are classic cliché-ridden space marines, with personalities that aren’t explored to any great detail. The plot makes more sense than previous Halo titles, but is still hugely silly. The ending is barmy, and seems as if it should have had a massive bearing on the Halo universe as a whole, but clearly didn’t because it’s ramifications never came up in Halo 3. 
Worth Playing
Aside from the single-player game (which can also be played through in co-op), Halo 3: ODST also features a co-op multiplayer mode called Firefight. Similar to the Horde Mode in Gears of War 2, Firefight pits four human players against wave after wave of Covenant forces. The waves are randomly generated, though things do get progressively more difficult as you progress due to the skull modifiers. Firefight is a true test of skill, as it doesn’t have an ending. Your team simply fights until it is dead. The catch is that you have a shared pool of lives, so one weak link can bring down an entire team. While reviewing the game, we saw some Firefight matches exceed an hour in play time. There’s no doubt that this is going to be a popular gameplay mode on Xbox Live. 
Kotaku
If you want to judge ODST for its fun without worrying about its price and the contents of its case, then know that its campaign hits the peaks of Halo 3 less often due both to its relative brevity and its uneven, experimental hubworld. The campaign can mostly be a joy. Firefight with a group of players is a blast. The main hero may be a bore, but the fiction is at least as interesting as it was in prior Halo games. Bungie’s done good this time. That’s a victory, even if that’s a departure from a series which has often seen Bungie do great. 
So there is life beyond Master Chief?
Metroid Prime Team Discusses Their Decade Of Samus, Ponders Series’ Future
Following the recent release of Metroid Prime Trilogy, members of Nintendo’s development teams in Texas and Japan answered Kotaku’s questions about what the Metroid Prime series got right, what it missed and more. They even hinted at Prime’s future.
Our interview was conducted over e-mail, with questions sent to Nintendo a few weeks ago and responded to by members of the Nintendo-owned Retro Studios in Austin, Texas as well as by the game’s Japan-based producer, Kensuke Tanabe. The team had just finished the development of Metroid Prime Trilogy, a compilation of the two GameCube Metroid Prime games, the pioneering 2002 and 2004 first-person adventure gamesin the 23-year-old Metroid series, as well as their 2007 Wii sequel, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
The veteran Tanabe was the one who hinted at the future of Metroid Prime — a series that seemed to have concluded with the release of 2007’s Corruption. Responding to a Kotaku question about whether the Metroid series has the potential for multiplayer popularity equal to GoldenEye’s or Halo’s, Tanabe said, “As all I take part in is the Prime series, I am not capable of commenting on the whole Metroid series. But we will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series. For instance, I think I can come up with some unique ideas using the Morph Ball, which is a specific skill of Samus.”
That can of response will make a Metroid fan do a double-take. Tanabe’s open consideration for more modes to a series thought by many fans had concluded is a tantalizing comment. Unfortunately, it is also a vague one, and one that Kotaku was unable to clarify due to the e-mail nature of the interview.
But as cagey as Tanabe was with that answer, he and Retro were generously specific in response to other Metroid inquiries.
Take jumping, for example.
How did Retro Studios manage to make — with the creation of 2002’s Metroid Prime — arguably the first first-person video game with decent platform-jumping?
“One of the first considerations we had in developing the player package was how to make platforming approachable to the player,” Retro’s senior designer Mike Wikan told Kotaku over e-mail. “We experimented with many ideas, including having the camera pitch down a little after the jump apex, fields of view, standardized platform sizes and jump heights as well as player gravity to strike the right balance of approachability and positive tension. Once we locked those basic things down, we were able to build the rest of the game around it.”
Tanabe explained even more tricks the team used to make platforming in Prime a pleasure: “As Mike just mentioned, we have discussed very, very carefully about the feature of jumping. We decided not to create jumps so high that Samus can only barely reach [them] or long valleys that Samus could jump, or to design footholds larger than our specific basis. At any rate, we solidified these standards by discussing with Retro about including an additional layer of safety, even in areas where we felt when playing the game ourselves that the jumps were doable. “
Platforming worked in Prime, allowing Retro’s series to present, in first-person 3D, a version of the leaping actions that heroine Samus Aran performed in the original 2D Metroid games. Bit by bit, other staples of the 2D games made it into the Prime games, including Samus’ mid-air attack-acrobatics known as the Screw Attack, which was implemented in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. One of the only 2D Metroid power-ups that didn’t make it into Prime was the Speed Boost, a super-charged running ability that would allow Samus to dash through walls, exploding through dirt and rock-filled caves as if they were empty hallways. It’s a cool ability that went missing.
“The Speed Boost was something we were interested in trying early on,” Wikan told Kotkau, “But we found that limitations imposed by the scale of our environments — as well as the first-person player viewpoint — made that system less appealing. We discussed the possibility of developing something in third person that might work, but in the end determined that time spent developing that system would take away from so many other things we felt might be better explored.”
The Speed Boost wasn’t the team’s only experiment with series features that was tricky to implement. The developers told Kotaku that they had considered making Samus’ ship a more prominent aspect in Prime. The third game, which begins with the player, as Samus, piloting her vessel, was originally going to take that concept further. “Early in development of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption we played with the notion of making the ship a whole system of similar impact to the game as, say, the Morph Ball,” Wikan said. “After discussions with [Tanabe's Nintendo development group in Japan] SPD and more thought on Retro’s part, we felt that, while the ship was going to be an important part of the game (with the utilization of the command visor), it might take too much of the focus away from Samus and her struggle against the Space Pirates and Dark Samus.”
Tanabe elaborated on this one too: “At the time we launched the Prime 3 project, we at Nintendo proposed that Retro plan a game system where the game takes place centered on the space ship, and they gave us ideas accordingly. On the other hand, we and Retro had agreed not to develop another game mode like a shooter in the space ship, which would take us a significant amount of work, as large as making another game title. With many discussions we reached the conclusion that we need a brand new system for this final chapter of the trilogy, and decided to use Hyper Mode utilizing Phazon as a pillar of the game play.”
The developers of the Prime games had some unusual priorities. They were developing first-person games that many people would call first-person shooters. But, noted Wikan, “in those games our primary consideration was player movement and jumping in the environment so that they could more easily explore it. Shooting was a very important, though secondary, consideration.” He noted that Retro is still proud of the original target-lock-on control scheme that didn’t allow players to aim freely. It was featured in the original GameCube editions of the first two Prime games. The Wii release of Trilogy does away with those controls, in favor of the point-and-shot system of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Tanabe said the original scheme was ideal for the GameCube controller and that the Corruption and Trilogy method best suits the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.
The Metroid series will continue with 2010’s Metroid: Other M, a Nintendo and Tecmo joitn project which involves one of Metroid’s original creators, Yoshio Sakamoto, but neither Tanabe nor Retro. Despite their lack of involvement in this next game, the Prime creators spoke proudly of what they added to the series. “The expansion into fully three-dimensional exploration was obviously the most important element,” Wikan said, “But it also added a great deal of character and depth to many of the creatures and themes explored in early Metroid games through the Scan Visor system. The Space Pirates, for instance, were given a great deal of character as well as a more unified intent in the series. In addition, the Metroid Prime series explored a great deal of new territory regarding the Federation and the Metroid universe as a whole, with the inclusion of new races like the Luminoth and the Ing. “
Wikan would like to see more of Metroid Prime 3’s Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates in future Metroid projects and is hopeful that the visor system and enhanced grapple beam will “live on as well.”
As for the Prime team’s future, Retro has been working on a new mystery game. While the studio still focuses on a single project at a time, it was able to create Trilogy on the side with just a “handful of people,” according to the studio’s senior director of development, Bryan Walker. Retro isn’t offering hints about what the next game will be. Said Tanabe, “Hopefully we can address some information in the next year.”
Holy 2.5 Million Units Shipped, Batman!
2 million units sold is impressive, sure, but now that the PC version is out and about, Eidos celebrates passing along 2.5 million units to retail shelves since the launch of Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Eidos celebrates the “must-have game of Summer 2009″ today, announcing some rather large shipping numbers for the first Batman game in a long while to not outwardly suck. Citing numerous awards, including the dubious Guinness World Record the game earned for highest-rated comic book game, Warner Bros. gives credit where credit is due.
“The tremendous critical and commercial success of Batman: Arkham Asylum sets a new benchmark for superhero games,” said Martin Tremblay, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Rocksteady Studios created an excellent game and the sales numbers demonstrate how a powerful franchise fused with high-quality production resonates with consumers.”
As for how many of those 2.5 million copies shipped have sold since we reported on the 2 million sales, it would take a master detective armed with figures I don’t have on hand to work out that figure. To the batcave!
Holy 2.5 Million Units Shipped, Batman!
2 million units sold is impressive, sure, but now that the PC version is out and about, Eidos celebrates passing along 2.5 million units to retail shelves since the launch of Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Eidos celebrates the “must-have game of Summer 2009″ today, announcing some rather large shipping numbers for the first Batman game in a long while to not outwardly suck. Citing numerous awards, including the dubious Guinness World Record the game earned for highest-rated comic book game, Warner Bros. gives credit where credit is due.
“The tremendous critical and commercial success of Batman: Arkham Asylum sets a new benchmark for superhero games,” said Martin Tremblay, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Rocksteady Studios created an excellent game and the sales numbers demonstrate how a powerful franchise fused with high-quality production resonates with consumers.”
As for how many of those 2.5 million copies shipped have sold since we reported on the 2 million sales, it would take a master detective armed with figures I don’t have on hand to work out that figure. To the batcave!
Aion’s Early Start So Far
This is what Aion looked like for those of us who managed to log in at around 12:02PM Pacific time yesterday, two minutes past the servers going live.
If you look closely, you can see my chanter-to-be Caliban, lost amidst a sea of people acting how they normally do when gathered in large groups via the internet. The server is Azphael; the side Asmodian. For the next five hours I would randomly crash three times, say the word “fuck” on at least 120 separate occasions, and eventually make it to level 9, at which point I left the newbie hubbub behind in favor of the more subdued, higher-level hubbub.
Yesterday we talked about queues a upwards of seven hours long, and while I certainly commiserate with those left waiting, it almost seemed as if the servers remembered who was online in case of a crash, letting them slip right back in as soon as they returned. At least this was my experience. I’m almost positive that at one point my server went down completely, and there were a few instances of severe server-wide rubber-banding (running the length of a road and finding yourself snapped back to the beginning), but otherwise things seemed rather smooth considering the huge influx of players.
My main problem was due to the initial rush. With that many people in your starting zone, quest items will be camped, and quest monsters will be slaughtered mercilessly. At first NCsoft had 10 instances of the newbie area available for players to freely switch between, but each one was packed, causing severe quest bottlenecks, especially when the quest required players to click on one item that spawned every two minutes. It was chaotic.
Later in the day I went back through and completed some of the quests I skipped, and things seemed to have calmed down a bit. I suspect the full launch tomorrow will experience similar problems. My suggestion? Skip quests and grind, or simply wait a bit to start leveling up.
I’ve managed to make it to level 12 so far myself, with Caliban the chanter kicking ass and taking names left and right while searching for a guild that’s a little more about roleplay than most. I know, good luck with that, right? Either way, I hope to see some of you in game. If I don’t respond, I’m asleep with my face on the keyboard.
The Nintendo Download: You, Me, And The Cubes
There’s tennis, a last ninja, a little strategy, and a shot of MySims in this week’s Nintendo Download, but once you get past those it’s just Me, You, and the Cubes.
You, Me, and The Cubes is a puzzle game for WiiWare from Kenji Eno of D and Enemy Zero fame. Shake your Wii remote to give birth to mysterious creatures called Fallos, and then throw them at cube structures in the hopes that they will keep their balance until you run out of Fallos to toss. Cubes with different properties shake things up as you play through dozens of stages in both single-player and co-op multiplayer modes. You, Me, and the Cubes is available today for 1,000 Wii points.
I will not comment on how wrong the phrase “shaking your Fallos” sounds.
Also on WiiWare this week is the return of Aksys’ family in Family Tennis (500 Wii points), which involves a family, preferably yours, playing tennis.
DSiWare likewise gets two new games today, with a dose of strategy from the Clubhouse Games Express: Strategy Pack (500 DSi points), which comes complete with Backgammon, Field Tactics, Turncoat, Grid Attack, and Connect Five. If you prefer to use your DSi for cuteness rather than thinking, EA unleashes the MySims Camera (200 DSi points), an application that allows you to superimpose adorable 3D MySims characters over your real-world images.
Wrapping things up on the Virtual Console is Last Ninja 2 for the Commodore 64 (500 Wii points), the classic action/adventure game that proved the previous title, The Last Ninja, completely false.
As always, check out the official descriptions below, and let us know if you’ll be making any choice selection from this week’s Nintendo Download.
WiiWare
You, Me, and the Cubes
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief
Price: 1,000 Wii Points™
Description: Experience a unique combination of strategy and skill as you maintain a level playing field in the physics-based action puzzler You, Me, and the Cubes. The action centers around Fallos, mysterious creatures that resemble humans and have an ability to balance on a playing field of 3-D cubes. First, create a pair of Fallos inside your Wii Remote™ controller by shaking it up and down. Next, determine suitable places for the Fallos to land, then fling them to the selected cube with a swinging motion. After that, the Fallos are on their own. If your placement is sound, the Fallos will remain stable and you’ll clear the stage after tossing a required number onto the cubes. But if the weight or locations of Fallos causes the cubes to tilt and sway too much, the Fallos will lose their balance and fall off. Adding to the challenge, you’ll find that some cubes have different properties, making tosses tricky and further threatening the stability of the Fallos. Guide Fallos through dozens of single-player stages or invite family and friends to join you in two-player cooperative mode.
Family Tennis
Publisher: Aksys Games
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief, Mild Suggestive Themes
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Daddy, Mommy, Sarah and Billy return for some hard-hitting, fast-paced tennis action. Battle it out between the happy family members as you vie for the top spot. Choose from three different modes: Elimination Match, Free Match and Thrilling Rally. Play against the CPU or compete with friends. Elimination Match mode pits you against the CPU to test your skills, while Free Match mode allows you to play against another player under conditions of your choosing. Thrilling Rally mode lets you join up to three other players and rally to see who can get to 100 points first.
Virtual Console
Last Ninja 2
Original platform: Commodore 64
Publisher: Commodore Gaming
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Violence
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: The ninja known as the Mystic Shadow Warriors were the elite fighting force of ninth-century feudal Japan. The evil Shogun Kunitoki was once beaten, but he has gathered all his mystic powers to create a modern-day tyranny in Manhattan. Face your archenemy Kunitoki in the urban jungle and conquer him with your ninja skills. Transported to 1988 Manhattan by an unknown force, the ninja leader Armakuni must find a way to defend himself against the unknown dangers that lie before him. Will this be the final battle? Can you vanquish the evil Kunitoki once and for all?
Nintendo DSiWare
Clubhouse Games Express: Strategy Pack
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-8
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Prepare yourself for a lesson in tactics as you play through five strategy-based games in this Nintendo DSiWare version of the popular Clubhouse Games. Take on an opponent in the classic Backgammon, invade an enemy base in Field Tactics, sandwich your opponent’s pieces to capture them in Turncoat, create strings of five in a row in Connect Five and guess where to attack your opponent’s pieces in Grid Attack. Play by yourself or use DS Download Play to host as many as seven friends.
MySims Camera
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Players: 1
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: MySims Camera is a camera application that utilizes popular MySims characters. You can take photos and overlay 3-D MySims characters to bring them into the real world. The 3-D characters can be animated, moved, scaled, rotated and cropped. You can also draw on the photos with the stylus or use the stamp tool to add more art and style. Create a unique frame and save the photos to the Nintendo DSi Camera album to share with friends. MySims Camera is a fun, creative experience for the entire family.
Why Lightguns Are Restricted by Most Hunting Permits
And with a bit of luck and a lot of practiced skill, the stoic hunter feeds his family for another day. Now commemorate the plebeian triumph with this $19 shirt. [uneetee via Fashionably Geek]
Dungeon Fighter Online Enters Open Beta
What happens when you take a 2D side-scrolling beat-em up and transform it into an online game? Dungeon Fighter Online happens, and its open beta happens to kick off tomorrow.
Nexon America’s latest addition mixes arcade action with RPG leveling, allowing players to step into the role of a Fighter, Gunner, Priest, Mage, or Slayer to beat the living hell out of anything that moves; even each other. The open beta launches tomorrow, allowing all comers to sign up at http://dungeonfighter.nexon.net/ and get a piece of the 2D brawling action.
“Video game fighting has never been so fun in an online environment,” said Min Kim, Vice President of Marketing for Nexon America. “Dungeon Fighter Online is like a Molotov cocktail of fun, mixing the fast and furious action of arcade fighting games with an online community and the customization features found in role-playing games.”
I got a chance to play a little Dungeon Fighter Online at PAX earlier this month, and for a free-to-play 2D online title it’s rather sweet. Traversing dungeons works just like any other side-scrolling beat-em up you’ve encountered, only with a bar full of powers and attacks like you might find in an MMO. I even got to take on another convention-goer on PVP, which was extremely entertaining, though I did win both rounds so my perception might be a little skewed.
Next Generation Wii Coming With HD Graphics and New Controller in 2011
Leave it to Yoichi Wada—president of final fantasizer Square Enix, the biggest Japanese game house—to break the news about the next generation Nintendo Wii. All while predicting that Microsoft and Sony motion efforts won’t be “truly successful.”
Wada says that the next-generation, high definition Wii will offer the same capabilities as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while adding a brand new motion controller. We will have to wait till 2011 to see it, like previous rumors pointed out. [Joystiq]
Next Generation Wii Coming With HD Graphics and New Controller in 2011
Leave it to Yoichi Wada—president of final fantasizer Square Enix, the biggest Japanese game house—to break the news about the next generation Nintendo Wii. All while predicting that Microsoft and Sony motion efforts won’t be “truly successful.”
Wada says that the next-generation, high definition Wii will offer the same capabilities as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while adding a brand new motion controller. We will have to wait till 2011 to see it, like previous rumors pointed out. [Joystiq]
