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February 20, 2012

Q&A – Remedy Talks Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Remedy Alan Wakes American Nightmare Interview
Embracing the best of the horror genre, 2010’s Alan Wake left a fair amount of questions lingering after its conclusion, with two subsequent DLC chapters furthering the narrative while still leaving plenty of room for interpretation regarding the fate of the writer in his battle against a malevolent darkness. While the upcoming Xbox LIVE Arcade release, American Nightmare, picks up the threads with Alan and his dark half Mr. Scratch, the events that unfold serve as a spin-off tale rather than a direct continuation of the original release.

In a move that certainly caught me by surprise, American Nightmare builds an arcade mode around the combat mechanics of light and evasion from the 2010 title, offering a survival challenge that hopes to find longevity after players have chewed through the standalone pulp horror story.

With the game releasing this week, I managed to gather a few of my endless questions regarding digital content and American Nightmare’s direction, which Remedy CEO Matias Myllyrinne was good enough to answer.

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February 17, 2012

Review – Twisted Metal

Review Twisted Metal
Calypso’s apocalyptic tournament of car carnage returns, bringing one of Sony’s legacy franchises to the PlayStation 3 with an emphasis on multiplayer as the primary reason for investment and potential longevity. With a franchise that has seen successful releases on every piece of Sony gaming hardware to date, sans the new Vita, Twisted Metal has a strong list of accomplishments to draw on when it comes to maintaining its title as the King of vehicular combat. Mind you, that genre is far from crowded, particularly today.

It’s also worth noting another long-standing Sony franchise, the Wipeout series, as one that hit the PlayStation 3 with a digital release to deliver the core experience of its anti-gravity racing without unnecessary trappings to round out retail expectations. Under the watchful eye of David Jaffe, Twisted Metal stretches for retail justification with a single-player campaign again accompanying the multiplayer priority, see-sawing while struggling to beat familiar expectations for a story mode in addition to bringing the old war horse out for another round of competitive action that has certainly been wanting on the console.

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February 14, 2012

The Zombie Apocalypse Is Metal

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 11:45 am

Metal Dead
Making short work of explaining its title, Metal Dead begins with two friends in a car cranking heavy metal music while trying to escape an outbreak of zombies.

The way these two characters talk about the zombie apocalypse being a heavy metal dream come true, I was fully expecting this point and click adventure game to contrarily be a sobering tale of how such an incident is not cool at all, and is the last situation that anybody would realistically want to endure.

In a way, Metal Dead does defy romanticizing the idea of being one of the few human survivors among hordes of the living dead, but in a much zanier way than expected.

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February 13, 2012

Review – The Darkness II

the Darkness II 2
Videogames that enable players to act out extreme power-fantasies often struggle in presenting checks to balance the ability to do anything with the consequences of such actions – or at least they should. Being let loose to smash and slaughter on a God-like level offers players incredible freedom, but wants for purpose rather quickly. The majority of such games resort to unleashing the hounds with old ideas of order and control, which often take the form of recognizable authoritative order reacting in force scaled to the level of chaos being created.

Powered by comic book source material, The Darkness II continues to serve as an oddity in power-fantasy gaming, with Jackie Estacado’s superhuman abilities offering players a check via the weight of conscious felt purely through the narrative.

The Darkness hits us with something applicable on many levels, with a power that makes Jackie great at what he does, which just happens to be killing people. But it also consumes him via its usage, with each act of power surrendering more of Jackie to The Darkness that works to consume him. And while Jackie’s relationship with The Darkness plays out this way, the consequences of this union emerge entirely through the relationships within the game rather than any play mechanic that might attempt to spank players with the parental hand of morality.

This allows The Darkness to actually brush against a pursuit often cited but rarely achieved, creating a game that does cater to those gamers simply looking for a few hours of visceral tentacle murder as well as those players inclined to read and write lofty words about the more subtle potential being tapped.

The Darkness II continues to offer the opportunity to consider consequences without the weight of heavy handed intention, though the game also struggles with subtlety, at times slipping into preachy forced moments hoping to stress the narrative effort at work beneath the layers of blood players can paint the town red with.

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February 12, 2012

Review – Rhythm Heaven Fever

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:19 am

Review Rhythm Heaven Fever
Videogame releases comprised entirely of mini-games leave me struggling come review time, puzzling over some means to measure and weigh how the individual offerings form together into a cohesive experience. The situation might be easier if today’s game was 101-disposable-games-in-a-box – insofar as I could probably get away with giving the quick thumbs up or down to each tiny game and be done with it.

But as with the WarioWare series, Rhythm Heaven is less about bargain quantity and much more about offering dozens of brilliant ideas for tiny games – a landslide of joyful tactile discoveries that find harmony in the audio and visual to leave an impression best captured by a snapshot of the player’s lips curling into a smile the longer they play. My best attempts to describe the experience to others recently tended to descend into off-key singing and wild hand gestures while hurriedly listing off the games that stood out most.

The best review is probably that there are so many offerings from Rhythm Heaven Fever that I feel obliged to mention. If you’re willing to read on however, I’ll try to offer some more constructive words on the subject.

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February 5, 2012

Lazy Sunday – Dual Analog, On the Go

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:24 am

3DS Circle Pad Pro
Having recently gotten my mitts on Nintendo’s 3DS Circle Pad Pro attachment, I feel obliged to attempt throwing a few words at the device – with only one game that supports the add-on at my disposal, a few might be all I can manage today. The Circle Pad Pro isn’t flashy or visually appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Practicality is the name of the game, housing two rear triggers and one shoulder button along with the add-on circle pad on a very light-weight frame that cradles your 3DS. Open spaces provide access to the 3DS’ volume switch, power cord connection, and headphone jack. There’s also a thin opening for the wrist strap included with the device, which is meant to be attached directly to the 3DS.

An infrared transceiver at the back of the device uses science and magic to silently detect the connection, which the 3DS makes no mention of until Resident Evil: Revelations loads and acknowledges the situation by offering to enable control style-D. As expected, this control option allows players to tackle Revelations as if they were using the dual analog controls offered by the PS3 and/or Xbox 360.

Guiding Jill through the derelict cruise ship with the Circle Pad Pro offered two observations.

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February 3, 2012

Nostalgia Trip – The Simpsons Arcade

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:07 pm

The Simpsons Arcade
The Simpsons’ trip to the arcades in 1991 represents a perfect intersection, the point where Konami’s apparent ability to create beat ’em-up quarter-munching arcade cabinets with any license, crossed paths with The Simpsons’ surging ability to sell any product their images were plastered upon.

Today the game hit Xbox LIVE Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points, and will appear on the PlayStation Network next week for $9.99 – or free to PlayStation Plus subscribers on that platform. Like last year’s release of X-Men Arcade, The Simpsons Arcade game was what I often longed for on home consoles, rather than the infuriating adventure games we got instead.

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