Sony has been showing off PlayStation Move a lot lately, but it’s hard to tell what the experience is like from all the talk. So GamesRadar recently tested it extensively and quizzed all the developers they could find for snippets of info. So far, it seems that PS Move has no great games but incredible tech. Read on for their analysis of the controller and the games they got to play.
GamingUnion.net: "The late 80s and the early of the 90s were all about two console manufacturers, Nintendo and Sega. Of course, there were others around at the time, but none really gathered any real momentum with regards to their hardware and even Sega were mostly playing catch-up behind the dominant Nintendo. This of course lead to some legendary advertising campaigns, but it also lead to some great games being created by both companies as they competed for the attentions and imaginations of the general public. "
Sometimes really great and really shit things go together like an unhappy married couple who’ve stuck it out for 40 years. Lollipops and tooth-terrorising drills at the dentist, six pints of lager and a ruinous hangover and, occasionally, rubbish characters and great games. And it’s testament to the following titles’ awesomeness that they somehow stayed afloat in spite of their hateful captains.
WiiWare Review: Max and the Magic Marker
Platform: PC/Mac/WiiWare
Developer: The Games Company
Genre: Drawing/Puzzle
Pros: Adolescent fun, great presentation, fun for all ages
Cons: Too short. Wiimote is not easy to use for drawing
Verdict: A great time to be enjoyed by the whole family
Price: $20
Acquired: Developer Provided Review Copy
The Wii was founded the promise of fun and unique games. Over the years we have been graced with one shovelware game after another. This has been acceptable, as it makes the few great games stand out. Max and the Magic Marker is just one such exceptional game.
Max and the Magic Marker takes you on a trip through the colorful world of a child’s mind. The main character, Max, receives a magical marker in the mail. He promptly puts this marker to use with his mad drawing and coloring skills, drawing magical worlds that you will get the opportunity to interact with.
You take control of this magical marker, helping Max to accomplish his goal of defeating the purple people eater he inadvertently drew at the start of the game. While this whole drawing mechanic has been done before, the uniqueness of this world, combined with the platforming aspects, make this game stand out like a clergymen at a brothel.
There are no super powers here to help you through the levels. There will be no invincibility stars or psychedelic ’shrooms to get you through the levels. There is only Max and his magical orange marker of doom. It is going to take every ounce of that muscle mass between your ears to get you through this game, but you’ll enjoy every moment!
The magic marker is not 100% ubber magical though because it will run out of ink. You collect orange balls full of ink to keep the marker full of drawing prowess. It can’t be that easy though, after all, nothing good ever is… When you clear checkpoint signs, the purple overlord of marker hatred will descend upon you and suck up all of your ink. This leaves you with the continuous struggle of finding more marker fluid. Though this is nothing too mind bending, it does complicate things that much more.
Another neat gameplay mechanic is that you can stop time. Maybe Max is just a pint sized incarnation of Braid’s protagonist, Tim… Stopping time becomes an integral part of solving puzzles. You will do some super jump, pause time, suck up all the ink you have laid down, and then draw your next object of puzzle solving godliness. It is a nice touch for those who are not so keen on the running and jumping bit.
Einstein’s favorite laws of physics also govern the objects you draw. You can draw stairs, but they will react to the weight of Max. Think twice before you draw a simple line on a floating island. You add the weight of Max and the whole thing could end up in the pits of despair. Drawing a “rock” in mid air will also mean that rock is going to come tumbling down to the ground. I warned you before that this will make you strain that pink mass that keeps ears separated.
The presentation is a throwback to your coloring book days. Seriously, the game starts out with max coloring in a book. The magic marker then takes you into the book. It is fun and creative, in an adolescent, Saturday morning cartoon sort of way.
This also means the game is colorful. Thank the graphic design gods that someone else has figured out there is more to this gaming world than the infinite shades of brown littering the current generation of console releases. Max and the Magic Marker is a game full of eye-popping colors. Sure, it isn’t Ratchet and Clank, but what is?
The art style is also reminiscent of hand drawn goodness. For example: pausing the game will take the whole screen and turn it into refrigerator art! Those of you with kids will know immediately what I am talking about. There is nothing more reflective of childhood art than squiqqly lines with coloring that does not stay inside of the borders. When you die you also see the game go from this fridge art to full rendered game art. It may not be super realistic, but it keeps the light heartedness going. We fully approve of this unique take on art direction.
The one downside to all this artistic cutesiness is that the enemies turn out to be disappointingly ordinary. Enemies just felt like bumps in the road to getting to the end of a stage. There was really nothing that made me stop and think of how bad ass they were in comparison to other enemies that have been felled in other games.
This blah-ness carries on to the titles archnemesis, Grimace. Yeah, a purple jellybean is what is going to rock Max’s world. It almost would have been scarier to have a purple dinosaur kicking Max’s ass.
Controls are as straight forward as all the bridges you will be drawing (as long as you have a steady hand, that is!) You use the analog stick on the nunchuck to control Max. Jumping is as straightforward as pressing the Z button on the nunchuck. Press A to lay down some of that precious orange ink, while pulling the trigger to vacuum up ink. The controls are so simple a caveman could do it. The only issue I have is that I wanted to use the trigger to slap on some ink.
Things are not all happy times in wonderland though. The biggest issue that plagues this drawing game is that the actual drawing mechanic will cause you more frustration, and broken Wiimotes, than you might have planned for. Lets face it: drawing objects with the Wiimote is just not precise, or even easy for that matter.
There were many times I found myself having to pause and redraw items several times, in order to get them right. It was downright frustrating. This also solidified why drawing games need to stay on one console that handles them like a god amongst mere consoles: I am speaking of the Nintendo DS. I found myself wanting a stylus so much I almost cried. Please port this game to the DS, or at the very least DSiWare!
The other complaint I have is that this game is short. Short as in right around four hours short. Maybe it was designed for people with A.D.D. but I found myself wanting more. I know, the game is really designed for kids, but I am a child at heart, damn it! Once you solve the puzzles it is kind of blah to run through the game a second time. How about a quick sequel?
Overall, Max and the Magic Marker brings on the adolescent fun. Once you get used to fighting the Wiimote, you will enjoy living in a coloring book. Rule number one for all you parents is to let your kids play this first. Just because you are bigger and stronger, doesn’t mean you should be grounding your children from this game. Do as you were taught so long ago and share. Now, you could always send them to bed early. Just a thought… but you did not get that one from us.
Sharing: It’s Win/Win
The 1990s was a great time to be a fps gamer. So many great games were released such as DOOM, Half-Life, Descent, Duke Nukem, and Quake III. Who had the time to play them all? But what game from the 1990s was most influential on the industry? Which game laid the groundwork for today’s multiplayer experience?
PSLS writes:
God of War III is probably the biggest and most hyped PS3 exclusives to date. Kratos’ epic will without a doubt be a massive financial boost to Sony in terms of both game and console sales (that is if Sony can get some more stock on retailers shelves). However, will the competition from other blockbuster releases in a month already showered with many great games stop Kratos’ fury on the sales charts? Nope. Competition means nothing to Kratos and in the end, there will only be massive sales.
GB writes: "Folks we are in the seventh generation of gaming and are being blown away by the power of Xbox 360. All of us who have bought the Xbox 360 must have bought many blockbuster games along with it like Gears of War, Halo 3 and the more recent Mass Effect 2.
But there are many great games which we have played last generation (and in previous ones too) and we are forced to wonder if we will ever get to play them with next generation graphics and game play. We decide to list those games which should be remade on the Xbox 360."
With Super Mario Kart, Nintendo proved that game mascots can still be in great games outside their “regular jobs.” Since then, Mario’s now-friendly rival, Sonic, has tried to keep up (pun not intended). The bog-standard Sonic Drift series on Game Gear and the well-liked, but still baffling, on-foot racer Sonic R were far from grasping the potential of a great Sonic racing game (and who knows what they were going for with Sonic Riders). How can a character known for speed not properly harness it? Well, in their latest attempt, Sega has decided to throw the blue needlemouse back onto the track with a host of friends from other Sega universes; Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a racing game that’s the best any of its characters have been in yet, but it serves more as a gift to Sega fans than to all-ages kart racing players.
It is quite a gift, though. There’s Sonic, of course, and Tails, Knuckles, Amy… and Big the Cat, who’s somewhere on the short list of Most Hated Sonic Characters. But outside of that group, there’s the other “All-Stars” like Super Monkey Ball’s Aiai, Billy Hatcher, Amigo, Jet Set Radio’s Beat, and even more relatively obscure characters available for purcahse with earned “Sega Miles”: Ulala, Jacky, and Akira from Virtua Fighter; shallow, Shenmue protagonist Ryo Hazuki; Fantasy Zone’s sentient ship Opa-Opa; and many more surprising appearances. (Just no anthropomorphic Daytona car.) It’s a great, varied roster that pretty much confirms developer Sumo Digital as the best professional Sega fan around.
People all know how important the success of a game must be for any developer. Hell, even developers who have been marginally successful have had to face the axe. The pressure of EA’s top dogs to pull out the winner this year and Activision’s rampage of cutting costs makes 2011 and 2012 look more like the antithesis of 2010.
And "Winning" may well be defined not by the metacritic scores attached to games but by first hand consumer reaction. The demo may actually play a critical role in a year where so many great games are being released into the market.
We all know them and love them and know they make great games but what makes them so great?
Naughty Dog has a tendency to create a new IP every generation for the Playstation. As we all know, they are the creators of the hugely popular Crash Bandicoot franchise, on the Playstation 2, they moved on to their Jak and Daxter series. While boasting rather similar platforming, the sequels brought guns into the mix. As we all know, on the Playstation 3, they began their Uncharted franchise boasting amazing visuals and amazing cinematic experiences.
I list the following reasons why Why Naughty Dog is One of the Best Developers Around:
