That was my first response to playing (the unfortunately named) After Burner Climax. A port of the arcade game of the same name, Climax drops you into a whirlwind of hectic, near-unnavigable chaos from the word go. Enemies fly at you from all directions, loosing missiles and machine gun fire upon your poor little aircraft. You may survive the first few levels, but if you are like me, your credits (it wouldn’t be an arcade game without them) will expire before even the first third of the levels are complete.
Aside from fancy HD graphics and newfangled control mechanisms, this current generation of consoles will surely be remembered for its knack at selling old games. Whether it’s true-to-form emulations on the Virtual Console or tweaked upgrades for the 360 and PS3, the old has certainly made a claim for itself. While there is no end to the list of games people want to see re-released (EarthBound, anyone?), one game has come up more often than most: GoldenEye 007. Though licensing nightmares may keep that game from ever seeing the light of day again, with the help of 4J Studios, Rare has opted to bring its sequ… I mean “spirtual successor” out to play instead.
Back in the days before video games “became mainstream” and Snoop Dogg performed at awards shows dedicated to the medium, older gamers tended to hide their participation in the hobby. People tended to look a bit sideways at anyone over the age of say, 14 or so who copped publicly to enjoying them.
Another group that had long experienced the same manner of ostracism (worse so, in most cases) were players of tabletop role-playing games and their eventual bastard cousin, the collectible card game. When Magic: The Gathering, the most famous and longest-running CCG on the market today, eventually came in stripped-down form to Xbox Live Arcade as Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers, it was like a match made in socially-reclusive geek heaven. And for this week, you won’t have to tap your entire pool of space bucks to tap some virtual mana.
All you youngsters out there may find this hard to believe, but there was once a time when people didn’t play games on their TVs or computers. There were no “Xboxes” or “PlayStations” or even “Wiis”. Nope. Instead, people used to gather around the family dinner table and play games on cardboard “gameboards” using dice, cards and little plastic statuette characters. And the most unbelievable part about these “boardgames”, as they were called, was that they didn’t even feature online multiplayer modes! Everyone who wanted to play had to physically be in the same room. Can you believe it?
Okay, of course you know what a boardgame is. You might even have gotten one for Christmas just a few weeks ago. But if you did, hopefully it wasn’t Risk, the classic “Game of World Domination” from the good folks at Hasbro, because Electronic Arts has just announced that they plan on making that old “analog” version obsolete when they release Risk: Factions on XBLA in early 2010.
“A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material.” – Wikipedia
Best to get this out of the way first; Shadow Complex borrows more than a great deal from a certain franchise involving an intergalactic bounty hunter, giant flying jellyfish and a huge brain in a jar. The exploration, power-ups, perspective, and even the map all share many similarities with one of Nintendo’s most popular series.
Obvious inspirations aside (the developers cited Super Metroid as a big influence many, many times), a game would have to do more than just copy a beloved (and arguably transcendent) favorite in order to be considered anything more than a knock-off. It would have to build upon that foundation, find ways to improve that which seemed perfected, and ultimately create something that is both an homage and a step forward. In short, it would have to be… well, Shadow Complex.
It’s a bit strange to realize that South Park has only been on the air for 12 years now; Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny feel like they’ve been an integral part of the fabric of pop culture for far longer. What’s stranger still is that for all its weight in the public mindshare, only three attempts had been made to translate Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s brainchild into into video game form before now. By comparison, its closest counterpart in terms of longevity, The Simpsons, has spawned over 20 home video game releases, if you count PC titles.
The idea of being “The Chosen One” is a tired old video game cliche, but at least one game out there still makes being chosen as “The One” a big freakin’ deal. Especially if you enjoy competing for fabulous prizes. And by prizes, I mean Microsoft Points; and who doesn’t love free Microsoft Points?
That’s right, everyone’s favorite massively multiplayer gameshow, 1 vs. 100, returns for season 2 next Thursday, November 19th, and is slated to run for 14 weeks.
D3′s Puzzle Quest was addicting as all hell; slapping a lite-RPG skin over Bejeweled had to be a stroke of genius on the level of the first person to mix chocolate and peanut butter or hookers and blow. How do you top a formula that neared perfection on its first try?
You hand it over to Square Enix and PopCap. And have them add a dash of Pokemon to the mix.
Let’s see a show of hands out there – how many of you owned a TurboGrafx-16 (or PC Engine for those of you in Japan) back in the day? Wow… not that many, eh?
And of those lucky few, how many of you were fortunate enough to play Hudson Soft’s Military Madness (Nectaris for those in Japan)? Some of you also may have experienced it when it was re-released on Wii’s Virtual Console.
Well for those who didn’t get the chance, Hudson has remade the classic turn-based strategy game with full 3D visuals and a host of other upgrades and unleashed it on Xbox Live Arcade yesterday as Military Madness: Nectaris.
Check out the launch trailer below and some screens of lunar warfare after the jump. Then be sure to keep your eyes peeled for CFD!’s review, coming soon.
As we mentioned a few months back, Chilean development house, ACE Team, had been shopping around for a publisher for a proposed Xbox Live Arcade port of their bizarre first-person brawler, Zeno Clash.
It looks like they found a home with a publisher that’s no stranger to the bizarre as Atlus has just announced that it will be bringing Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition to XBLA in the Spring of 2010.
A new batch of screenshots came out of Tokyo Game Show for South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! Tower defense games aren’t exactly known for being terribly exciting to watch in action, which is why the cutscene screen above is about the most exciting thing you’ll see after you hit the jump.
And even though in my heart of hearts I know it won’t be in the game, I can only hope and pray for a wave of everyone’s favorite gay fish (and award interrupter), Kayne West, to be able to throw yellow snowballs at.
It’s a simple dream, but as Guybrush Threepwood will soon find out becoming a pirate isn’t about having a can-do attitude or a funny name. It requires wit, a sharp sword, a sharper tongue and the ability to solve some very odd puzzles.
In a war-torn ancient world, the races of good struggle against the oppression of evil. Noble warriors, enigmatic druids, and masters of arcane sorcery attempt to stem the tide of darkness by engaging savage humanoids, giant beasts and the fell undead horde… in games of Bejeweled?
Do you like the addictive “match-three” gameplay of Bejeweled and its many, many knockoffs? Do you have a fine love for sword & sorcery fantasy? Would you wet your pants at the thought of a cheesy fantasy RPG slapped over the top of said gem matching? Well now you can use that extra five bucks in your pocket to go do some laundry because, yep – you guessed it, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is the Xbox Live “Deal of the Week” this time around.
Wizards of the Coast announced at their Magic: The Gathering party at PAX 2009 that new DLC will be coming to Duels of the Planeswalkers. The DLC, which has the vaguest release date of “soon”, will feature three new decks, six new levels, and new challenges which will include “multi-level” challenges, which must be won in more than one turn. The game will also feature a boss which we’re sure you can guess from the expansion’s title: Duel the Dragon.
Coming before the DLC, though, will be a title update to the virtual card game which will fix many of the bugs present in the current version.
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“A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material.” – Wikipedia
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