VG247: So that kick ass news he promised yesterday? Turns out it was just the announcement of cameos of Marcus and Dom from Gears of War in Lost Planet 2.
But hold the phone, kiddlewinks.
Cliff Bleszinski is promising some "megaton face melting news" which should be coming soon.
Brütal Legend, like its unnecessarily umlauted name implies, tosses you into an over-the-top heavy metal fairy tale. Tim Schafer’s name is on the box, so you know that, just like Psychonauts and Grim Fandango, you’re going to get a humorous, well-written narrative. But despite the terrific, superbly voice-acted story (featuring Jack Black, Tim Curry, and cameos from many other musicians and comedians), certain missing gameplay features, like the lack of a minimap, jump button, or warp feature make Brütal Legend feel unfinished.
The story centers on roadie Eddie Riggs as he drops into the living, breathing world of heavy metal. He operates behind the scenes to make sure the forces of good (heavy metal) triumph over the forces of evil (hair metal). The game is mostly action mixed with a little light RTS, but in addition to your main mission to save the world, you can undertake side missions to earn extra Fire Tributes (the in-game currency) for new abilities and other upgrades. The missions themselves aren’t very original, ranging from basic “kill a group of enemies before they kill you” skirmishes to races in the Deuce, Eddie’s custom metalmobile. But they’re all surprisingly fast-paced and not too challenging — in another game, they might feel like overdone, unnecessary wastes of time, but in Brütal Legend, they’re quick one-offs with decent rewards.
Given the surge in popularity of the “tower defense” genre, it can be difficult for new releases to distinguish themselves in the crowded, if still niche space. On the surface, South Park: Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! might seem like an odd pairing of genre and license, but if the peanut butter and banana sandwich taught us anything, it’s that two distinct ingredients can combine and complement one another to create a unique product. Announced at last year’s E3 as a Live Arcade exclusive, South Park LGTDP! is a competent tower defense game that will shine for fans of co-op gameplay and the irreverent cartoon series.
Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! doesn’t stray very far from the genre’s basic formula: Keep waves of enemies from making the trek from one side of the map to the other. The hordes of enemies, in the form of ginger kids, hippies, and gnomes (there are plenty of character cameos in this game) follow a set path across the level, and you have to build towers to take them out.
The Ace Attorney series consistently delivers funny, well-written stories, and Capcom’s latest game in the ever-expanding series, Ace Attorney Investiagtions: Miles Edgeworth, seems on route to follow in its predecessors’ footsteps. I recently finished playing through the first case in the Japanese release of Investigations, and while it tickles my nostalgia bone with plenty of nods to the previous Ace Attorney installments, it offers quite a bit new as well.
The game doesn’t change the basic “search for clues and talk to people” formula, but Capcom adds one very important thing that the last game in the series, Apollo Justice, was missing: a main character that you already know. Sure, the cameos in Apollo Justice were fun, but trying to extend the franchise by bringing in a new attorney isn’t as effective as Investigations’ exploration of the backstory of prosecutor Miles Edgeworth.
Making certain superhero videogames must be difficult. Some guys, like Batman, are just regular people with lots of money and awesome gadgets, and they can still die. But what about nearly immortal characters, like Superman? The Man of Steel has kryptonite to make him a little more “human,” but Marvel’s undying bundle of anger, Wolverine, can survive almost anything (or at least put himself back together after being torn to shreds). Wolverine’s latest adventure X-Men Origins: Wolverine, does a great job of making you feel like the nearly invincible mutant, but it doesn’t quite provide a story to match.
Like the title indicates, Origins details Wolverine’s beginnings…well more of the origin of his name and adamantium frame. The character’s true origin began in the 1800s. Regardless, Origins’ five-chapter tale alternates between the present (mostly the Weapon X facility) and three years in the past (in an African jungle), setting up a frame story that slowly but surely drives the narrative forward. After act three, however, things start to get weird; for every question the game answers, it brings up two more. Other popular mutants, like Gambit and the Blob, make brief appearances, but their cameos only confuse the tale of flashbacks further. By the end, the game has set up so many loose plot threads that it leaves no choice but to try and wrap them up in a confusing mishmash of explosions and overlong battles.
