Jason Evangelho writes:
"Last week, eBattalion released "Doodle Run," an iPhone/iPod Touch game that looks like a fun running/adventure hybrid in a hand drawn world. The screenshots are appealing, the hero’s name is Dude, and you get to shoot zombies.
But if you’re really skilled, they’ll give you a shiny new 16GB iPad!"
Kick Ass, the Game, developed and published by Frozen Codebase, will be released April 15th on PSN and the iPhone App Store, to coincide with the release of the similarly named movie, based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. Confused, yet?
Here’s how it breaks down in the game – you can play as Kick-Ass, the young man who vows to put an end to crime in his native New York, or as Hit-Girl or Big-Daddy, both equally awesome characters. In my time with the game, executive producer Ben Geisler walked Hit Girl through her paces. Moves include wall runs, special spin attacks, and a sweet jump in the air, spin and shoot the bad guys below. No, those aren’t the official names of the moves, but you can see my point. Running through each wave and environment during our preview was fun-looking and promised enough variety to justify the under $20 price tag Geisler promised. No word on a specific price, nor on the cost (or gameplay differences) of the iPhone version.
The game is still in alpha, but the animations are smooth and the character models colorful and interesting. The game is basically a hack n slash button masher with some RPG elements like “Hero Abilities,” special moves that you unlock as you gather golden rings from beating down the baddies. Each room we went into wiht the leveled-to-about-20 Hit Girl character had it’s own mini-boss that made the fights more interesting and strategic. There’s some light puzzle solving and platforming tossed in as well, with some cool environmental damage effects like exploding barrels that cause damage and can set other things nearby on fire (pallets, stacks of wood, etc.)
Missions are sent to your character, as in the comic and movie, through Facespace. Funnily, the game touts some Facebook integration in the real world, allowing players to brag on Facebook about the trophies and levels they’ve completed. With 50 levels to level up through per character, and 8 missions to solve, this game is shaping up to actually be a good game, rather than a quick cash in on a movie and comic book property. There are movie assets in the game, as cutscenes to set the scene for missions, but not all missions are directly tied to the movie, says Geisler. The comic book art also moves the story along, adding some new twists to the comic book story itself. Artwork has been done by Dave Crosslin, a Marvel artist who has the full blessing and support of both Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., the creative team behind the original book.
Stay tuned right here for a review as soon as possible, and more artwork and video trailers as the developers send them to us.
Sharing: It’s Win/Win
EA Sports will launch a new version of their popular fitness game this holiday for Wii, PlayStation 3, and iPhone and iPod touch platforms. The company is currently dubbing it EA Sports Active 2.0, though they point out that name is still just a working title for the game.
This new fitness game will feature an "innovative wireless control system" that includes new body motion sensors for your arms and legs, as well as a heart rate monitor. EA Sports Active 2.0 will also take advantage of a new online hub that will track and share your data.
Game: Age of Zombies
Platform: PS Minis (PSP/PS3)
Developer/Publisher: Halfbrick Studios
Genre: Twin-Stick Shooter
Verdict: Funny and at times fun, but hampered by the innate limitations of the PSP’s controls.
Pros: Great sprite work; concept is formulaic, but the writing is hilarious; the controls are the best that could be done given that the PSP has no second analog stick
Cons: The PSP’s lack of a second analog stick (and the PS3’s inability to utilize the second analog stick with PS minis) really limits this game’s controls and my enjoyment of the game; the story mode is very short.
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Price: $4.99
The quality of Age of Zombies is dependent on your preferred platform. If you want to judge the game based solely on its existence on the PSP, it does well for itself; when you compare it with the twin-stick revival on the iPhone, and factor in the ability to play it on the PS3, Age of Zombies doesn’t shine quite so well. Twin-stick shooters have always been dependent on the range that second analog stick provides, and systems without that second stick just don’t do as well with these games. Overall the game “fights the good fight” given its system, but I have seen the light elsewhere and it diminishes what Age of Zombies is doing.
Age of Zombies is pretty much an amalgamation of trends and memes. You assume control Barry Steakfries, the game’s wise-cracking, foul-mouthed, “super badass,” snarky protagonist, who is out to defeat the evil Professor Brains. Your arch nemesis has sent zombies throughout various points in history for the purpose of wreaking havoc on human existence. Barry Steakfries thus must travel through time, fighting zombie dinosaurs in the time of… dinosaurs, zombie gangsters in the 1930s, zombie samurai in Feudal Japan, and more. Sure, Age of Zombies could be accused of unoriginality for using the wise-cracking protagonist and zombie conceit yet again, but it does it so well. The dialogue is legitimately very funny, and the art of the various zombie sprites in all the different time periods is great.
The primary issue is that it’s on a platform without a second analog stick. Well, technically, you CAN play it on your PS3, but if you want to use the right analog stick to fire, well… tough tiddly-winks! You move using the d-pad or left analog stick, and you can fire in the cardinal and diagonal directions by using the face buttons. As you will learn, the face buttons are spaced out a bit too far to make using them for firing in each direction comfortable, especially when you need to fire diagonally. To make things easier, you can lock your firing direction in place by holding down R, which will put you in lock-strafing mode. Holding down R all the time to shoot feels a bit awkward, but this is the superior option compared to trying to shoot using the face buttons alone. The only real issue with using R to lock-strafe is when you have to use your special weapons with the L trigger – you may need to hit a face button in the direction you want to fire your special weapon even if you’re firing via lock-strafing already. It’s just a minor annoyance for this particular control mechanism. This is probably the best way to control a twin-stick shooter on a system lacking the second analog stick or similar mechanism, but the face buttons are too far apart to make shooting feel comfortable.
As you might predict, the gameplay is movement-centric like a lot of twin-stick shooters; you want to keep moving away from the zombies, keeping them in your line of fire, and not in your intended path of movement. Much of the same technique in other similar games works here. The story mode is sadly very short and not very challenging; I finished the game in under an hour, and only ran out of lives once. Thankfully, all 5 environments are available to play in Survival mode for replay value, but there’s not much difference between each level in terms of challenge, it’s mostly aesthetic changes, particularly as my high score for each level was about the same.
For $4.99, this isn’t terrible for the PS Minis, and the game is funny and good-looking enough to make it not feel like you wasted your money. However, the control issues native to the platform and the knowledge that if you have an iPhone that you could have better controlling (and in some cases, longer-lasting) games for less price makes Age of Zombies a challenge to truly appreciate. If you need a twin-stick shooter with some humor, albeit one without much length to it, Age of Zombies isn’t bad, despite its native control deficiencies. iPhone owners (who have the cream of the crop of this genre, although there really isn’t another game that is as funny as Age of Zombies; Halfbrick’s starting developing for the iPhone, so we may see this one on the App Store soon enough) or those who can’t stand using face buttons for multi-directional shooters will want to pass on this one.
Sharing: It’s Win/Win
Downloadsquad writes: Did you know that the Xbox 360 is just a PC in a box? Sure, the inputs are different and you generally attach it to a TV — but still, internally, it’s PC hardware. You can even use the controllers with your PC if you like! The Xbox doesn’t run Windows though; and despite its name, Windows Phone 7 isn’t anything like the Windows you’ll find on your PC. It’s a similar situation with Apple devices: the desktop machines use standard PC hardware, but the iPhone, iPad and iPod all use ‘phone-like’ integrated hardware.
There’s been a lot of speculation concerning Apple and what some believe will be it’s inevitable entrance into the gaming industry. But still many analysts have doubts, arguing that the company already has three gaming devices: the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad.
TechRadar writes: Developers are gearing up to unleash their wares on Apple’s iPad.
Although the device is compatible with the vast majority of existing App Store content, the iPad’s larger screen has led many developers to look at reworking apps for the platform.
Games are likely to feature heavily, in part due to the iPhone and iPod touch becoming surprisingly strong competition for the DS and PSP.
Taking into account the quality of existing titles and the technical and practical benefits and limitations of the iPad, here are TechRadar’s top 20 iPad games we want to see.
Sean Carey writes, "If there’s one genre that is over-represented on the iPhone, it has got to be tower defense. With a minimal investment of money and people power, you can push a serviceable game out to the market in a short period of time. With a few exceptions (the excellent GeoDefense comes to mind), the platform is saturated with mediocre clones of clones of clones of TD standards.
It’s no secret that the Gamer Limit crew went a bit ga-ga over the PC release of Plants Vs. Zombies; it came in runner up to Torchlight for best PC game in our 2009 Game of the Year Awards. With the transition to the iPhone, PopCap faced the twin challenges of recreating the original PvZ magic with a new control scheme/hardware and standing out amidst the shambling horde of tower defense offerings already available. Read on for the official Gamer Limit verdict!"
LAS VEGAS–After the awards luncheon, Rein could be found playing with his iPhone, which had a brand new Unreal Engine 3 tech demo running in full 3D. Rein, who also attended Apple’s iPad reveal in San Francisco last month, said that UE3 is now being used by developers for 3D iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Rein talks about the new portable direction for Epic Games and gives his thoughts on the impact all of Apple’s devices will have on videogames moving forward in this exclusive interview, which includes a first look at UE3 running on a portable.
Pocket Gamer writes: "Like everyone else, we’re fascinated and reasonably excited about the next-gen game streaming service OnLive, which promises to "break the console cycle" by streaming high tech games directly to a web browser.
What this means is even a low-powered system can run technically advanced games easily, which its developer claims will revolutionise the games industry and become ‘the world’s most powerful games system’."
