Sure, the summer is almost over, but that hasn’t stopped Major Nelson from announcing “Xbox Live Arcade’s Summer of Arcade”. Basically, a bunch of highly anticipated arcade games are going to be released over the coming weeks. July 30 we get Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, August 13 Bionic Commando: Rearmed comes out, and August 27 Castle Crashers. There are more titles coming, as well, but those are the three I’m really looking forward to.
Ubisoft released its First Quarter Reports (2008-09) today. Sales for the company are up 25.8%. Titles launched in 2007-08, such as Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Assassin’s Creed and Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, are mainly what brought about these numbers. While this may seem like boring news to non-business people, the company did mention some titles that will be released during the second quarter of 2008-09. The second fiscal quarter will see the following main releases: Brothers in Arms Hell’s Highway and Soul Calibur IV (with Darth Vader and Yoda). I am sure everyone knew this already anyway.
Avid gamers can also look forward to the Ubisoft DS title “My SAT Coach”. I personally wish there was a gameboy game when I was younger that mixed the fun of gaming with the intelligence and vest of the SAT’s.
In other Ubisoft news the company opened up two new, randomly placed, studios. One in Kiev, no clue where that is, and Sao Paolo. Fascinating.
At first I was thinking Dead Space was just going to be a Doom knock-off. Now I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter, after watching the trailer I don’t think I care one way or another, it looks pretty awesome. Fun fact, apparently this trailer wasn’t approved by the ESRB (that’s why it shows the EU rating at the beginning).
Also, for some reason it sounds like Bjork singing to me. I don’t know how to do the two dots over the ‘o’. Björk. I just figured it out. Just kidding, I just copied that. I searched “Bjork” on Google and got “Björk”. It’s probably totally not her, because I’m wrong about music always. Always. Except this one time, Liz knows, ask her. She might not tell you, though, or mysteriously forget. It really did happen though, seriously.
PS3
- Resistance 2 – Game play trailer, looks very nice. Fighting a GIANT Leviathan guy that’s bigger then most buildings. Showed another level, Twin Falls, Idaho. Giant battleships, all kinds of gigantic bad things, it looks very cool.
- LittleBigPlanet – Used a level in the game to show sales graphs for Sony, basically. Actually it was really cool, I can’t believe how they did it. Seems like you can create anything in the game.
- Export PS3 videos to Youtube. Called Life With Playstation. Available before the end of the month.
- DC Universe Online – Jim Lee talked about the game. Did one-handed push-ups like Jack Palance. Talked about how, as a kid, he just wanted to read comic books and play videos. We all did Jim, we all did. Talked about how you can be a villain and help the Joker get criminals out of prison to attack the bat cave, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.
- 80 GB PS3, $399.99.
- Showed a number of games: LittleBigPlanet, Motor Storm Pacific Rift, Metal Gear Solid 4, Quantum of Solace, Socom, Ghostbusters, Soul Caliber IV, Resistance 2, The Agency, Naruto, Mirror’s Edge, Resident Evil 5, Singstar, Guitar Hero World Tour, NBA 09 The Inside, Buzz! Quiz TV, Killzone 2.
- God of War III. Trailer looked awesome, but it was short.
- inFamous. Basically, I guy gets like force powers in a modern setting.
- Massive Action Game (MAG). Multiplayer game. Battles of 256 players at one time! Broken into 8 player squads, a command system (character growth, basically). Showed a video…prerendered.
PS2
- Showed a number of games: NCAA, Tiger Woods, Star Wars Unleashed, Warriors Orochi 2, Singstar Pop 2, Yakuza 2, Madden XX Years, Mercenaries 2.
- New bundle, Lego Batman Bundle, Lego Batman and a Justice League movie.
PSN
- Can log in via computer, send messages, see friends.
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty. $14.99.
- Showed off a bunch of PSN games: Crash Commando, Fat Princess (looked interesting), Eden (looks sweet), Pain Amusement Park, Flower (looks interesting as well), Siren Blood Curse, Ragdoll Kung Fu.
- Gran Turismo TV. Watch real life races, learn about cars.
- Trophies – Achievements, basically.
- Playstation Home – Say it’s worth the wait, basically. Showed a video. Warhawk room, Uncharted room.
- Video delivery. Can download to PS3, then to PSP. Looked pretty nice. Takes an hour to download a two hour movie. Can download or rent the movie for less. Available tonight.
PSP
- New entertainment pack. October. Ratchet & Clank Size Matters pack. $199.
- Resistance Retribution – 3rd Person Shooter, looked O.K. Spring 2009.
- Brief videos for: Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Madden 09, Loco Roco 2, NBA 09 The Inside, Super Stardust Portable, Lego Batman, Patapon 2, Buzz! Master Quiz, Valkyria Chronicles
Various
- Buzz to PSP, PS3.
Overall I was extremely disappointed…there really wasn’t anything announced for the Wii and DS that I need to get. Animal Crossing is cool and everything, but it’s not on the same level as a new Mario/Metroid/Zelda/etc. game.
3rd Party Games Wii
- Star Wars The Clone Wars – Use Wiimote like a light saber. Coming sometime in 2008.
- Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party – used balance board as a flying ironing board.
- Call of Duty World at War – use Wiimote like a gun or flamethrower. Lots of things blowing up. “Coming Soon”.
3rd Party Games DS
- Guitar Hero on Tour Decades – On the way this Fall. Share songs between games.
- Spore Creatures – Different then the Spore. Just basically looks like the creature creator, can share creatures with others.
- Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars – Coming to DS this winter. Custom game engine, same GTA gameplay.
First party DS
- Pokemon Rangers Shadows of Almia (sp?) – No real details.
First party Wii
- WiiSports Resort – Uses Wii MotionPlus. Packaged with WiiSports Resort, along with extended sleeve. Knows where your arm is in space. Showed throwing a Frisbee, riding a jet ski and sword fighting. Sword fighting looked pretty cool.
- WiiMusic – Some guy playing drums and sweating a lot. Miyamoto playing a WiiMote like a saxophone. Playing at the same time. You don’t play notes, you don’t have to know how to play a real instrument. All you do is hold the WiiMote and move like your actually playing the instrument and the game does the rest. Playing a song from an F-Zero game. Played a variety of instruments. Drums, use Wii Balance Board. Can record a music video. 4 people playing the Mario song together, look stupid.
- Animal Crossing Town Folk – See here
Technology updates
- For the DS, they talked about using it to find your gate at an airport, didn’t say how exactly. DS can earn a spot in your kitchen, in November there is a game coming out that’s basically a cookbook. Didn’t catch the name.
- For the Wii, Wii MotionPlus. Renders movement better.
- WiiSpeak – Microphone for the Wii. See here
Animal Crossing Town Folk was officially announced today by Nintendo at E3. It will be out by the end of the year. Some other details announced:
[ via E3 ]
I’m excited about Halo Wars, but I’m worried about the controls. Every single console RTS game I’ve played just hasn’t worked for me, it just seems like a mouse and keyboard are perfect for RTS while game controllers fail miserably. Hopefully Ensemble will get the controls just right because I really want this game to be good, a Halo RTS game is just too radical.
The only thing I’m worried about is convincing Gmoney, Thrasher, and Robert to buy this game. I want to play it, but I don’t want to play it alone. I haven’t played a side scrolling beat-em-up in a long, long time…
I love the artwork in the game, too. More images after the link…
Geometry Wars was awesome. Something about the simple game play was incredibly addicting, and the graphics were pretty cool, too. I expect Geometry Wars 2 to be 2 times as awesome. We’ll find out soon as it will be available on Xbox Live Arcade August 6. In the mean time, you can look at a bunch of new screenshots.
