Goodbye Mega Man Universe, we hardly knew ye! Always a fan of classic Mega Man action, I was looking forward to this one. Not to say I was salivating and fighting back bouts of the shakes though. When I playedMega Man Universe at New York Comic Con 2010, it seemed like a flawed product, but it had promise. The create your own Mega Man angle seemed like a pretty neat idea, especially taking into account the broad range of characters across Capcom's library that could have been added in.
The official Mega Man Universe site states "various reasons" for cancellation. I wonder if this has anything to do with Capcom's serious lack of Keiji Inafune these days? Mega Man Universe was scheduled for release in Spring 2011 for PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Arcade. I guess Mega Fans will just have to keep their fingers crossed that the demise of Universe opens the door for Mega Man 11.
The world needs more four-player cooperative futuristic ninja games, dammit. Thankfully Square Enix has answered the call with Moon Diver, the multiplayer ninja platformer created by the man who may have pioneered the genre, Kouichi Yotsui, designer of the arcade classic, Strider.
Ninjas are an easy sell for me, as is four-player co-op. Pairing the two means I'd buy four copies of the game, which I may consider for my tight-pocketed friends. I understand some may not be sold on what to me seems like a complete no-brainer. For those of you on the fence, there are three items to sway you into a purchase: a demo which is currently available on PSN, a launch trailer which is considerately attached to at the end of this post, and a katana to the neck!
Moon Diver is out today on PSN for $14.99, with an unspecified XBLA release sometime in April.
After hearing about Fallen Frontier just recently, I was stoked to spend some time with it on the PAX East show floor. While still an early build, I would be hard pressed to find many flaws with what I was able to play.
Right off the bat, what caught my eye about Fallen Frontier is the awesome way it handles split-screen co-op. Players exist on the same screen until one ventures off too far, at which point the screen is bisected in whichever direction the wanderer has moved off to. For example, if the first player is at the right of the screen, and the second moves off screen to the left, a split-screen line will divide the screen vertically. As the players move around independently, the split screen adjusts to track them. When the players come back together, the screen is once again whole, without a beat missed. It's hard to describe, you can see what I mean in the trailer attached below, but wow, why has no one ever thought of this before? It's really brilliantly simple.
Adding to the co-op experience is the fact that the second player is said to be more than just a throw in to accommodate a bored friend. Player one plays a human who sets out from Earth on a personal mission of revenge. Player two controls an augmented human, which looks kind of like a cyborg. The idea here is rather than terraforming planets to create suitable living conditions for humans, it was the people who are adjusted to inhabit to the conditions of their home world.
Your character can hold any two weapons as well as grenades, in addition to using a couple of secondary abilities to spice things up. This build featured a grappling hook -- with no cooldown -- which allowed our slow moving heroes to zip around the environment with relative ease and increased speed. It has uses in battle as well, such as the pleasing combination of pulling an unsuspecting enemy into a cloud of fresh buckshot. The grappling hook makes the shotgun a viable long range weapon of sorts. There was also a forcefield pushback, which knocked back everything in your immediate area, be it enemies or grenades. Helpful in a pinch if you become swarmed or need to clear a grenade with a short fuse. More abilities will be available in the final release of the game, but these two were the only ones we were able to see.
The developers stated much inspiration was drawn from Blade Runner, and it shows. Not only because of the mesh of organics and robotics, and no, your character doesn't look like Harrison Ford, but mostly due to the bright-yet-dreary beauty, in similar style to Blade Runner's futuristic world. The backdrops are startlingly lovely, akin to concept art used in production, and executed very well. The character models are crisp, animated well, and generally look great.
Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait until 2012 for Fallen Frontier, which is shocking considering how tight the build I played was. A true testament to its development process and the pedigree of those working on it.
There's no way around it, Infamous 2 looks like a jolt of fun administered right to your brain in the most unorthodox ways imaginable. Developers Sucker Punch have chosen to omit multiplayer in favor of creating a truly immersive single player tale. Bummer, innit?
Fear not fans of PlayStation 3 exclusives, Infamous 2 is attempting to win you back and keep you playing with the latest announcement of user created content. While it won't be as deep as Little Big Planet 2's user-creation modes (really though, what is?), it will surely be a great way to extend your hours logged as the shocking Mr. MacGrath.
It looks as if user-creation is 'limited' to creating unique missions in various modes with various goals, such as stealth, defense, search and destroy, races, and so on, but that in itself will give creative gamers plenty to work with. Once you've created your masterpiece, throw it on PSN and let the rest of the world suffer through your impossible user-created mission. Really though, why did you have to make it so difficult?
Amped for Infamous 2? Your day is about to get even better with the news that a limited beta will be available to a few lucky gamers to jump in Cole's stylish shoes and drop a beating on some very well deserving individuals. Check back on March 14 for details.
For more than 20 years, Contra has been a staple of classic gaming worldwide. From its original, painfully difficult roots, the series has grown and evolved into different entities over time, with slight gameplay changes introduced to keep the series fresh. Hard Corps: Uprising, while not a member of the Contra family in title, is a spiritual relative of the esteemed franchise. That said, The look of Hard Corps: Uprising is as drastic a departure from the series as the name change is. Does it get past the heavily armed and fortified one-eyed wall, or does it mistime it's leap and plunge into a pit?
The planet of Nibia is under attack by a threat named the Vortex, and all of the Nibian Guardians are out of commission. You are Explodemon, a Guardian held in cryogenic storage due to your instability. Not only are you barely able to control your tendency to spontaneously explode, but you hardly have a grasp on the English language. Faced with the greatest decision of their history, the Nibian elders would rather surrender before letting Explodemon run free. Despite their choice, a stray missile hits your cryogenic chamber, and you awake from slumber to find the city under attack. Explode now, and ask ridiculous sounding questions later!
If you told me there was a four-player cooperative stylized side-scrolling futuristic action game in which I take control of a super-powered ninja and fight oversized bosses for PSN and XBLA, I'd slap fire out of your mouth and call you a liar. Fortunately for you, this is not a lie, so rather than resorting to violence, I'm just going to cream my pants instead.
Directed by the dude who created Strider (and it shows), Moon Diver combines many things I love, even if it looks like it might be a little confusing. Four ninja throwing flashy moves all over the screen in a side-scroller seems like it might be overwhelming to keep track of the important factors: position, health, enemies, pitfalls, etc, but hot damn if it doesn't look like it'll be worth the trouble!
Aside from the beautiful art and effects, Moon Diver has some RPG elements peppered in to assure that your character progresses in stride with the difficulty, which I'm sure is going to be pretty steep. This looks to be the experience I had hoped Castlevania: Harmony of Despair would deliver, but couldn't quite nail down. Fingers crossed Moon Diver gets it right when it releases, sometime this spring.
In the most unlikely scenario that you have PlayStation Plus AND you won't be spending all your free time playing Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, you'll be pleased to know that a demo of Yakuza 4 will be available for your consumption on February 15. If you are not a member of PlayStation Plus, you'll have to wait until February 22 to get your fix of the Japanese underworld.
Gamers of my day have a fond appreciation for the arcade game, a medium which has been steadily declining in the states, to the point of near death where it lay today. While you may still be able to find arcades around town somewhere, the odds of the games being up to date and the prices being moderate are next to none. One of the elite arcade games of my time was X-Men, a six-player orgy of flying fists and mutant powers, which was a blast both in part to the multiplayer mayhem, and the enjoyment of seeing my favorite mutants mix it up on the dual arcade screens. Is Konami's re-release on XBLA and PSN too late to be appreciated? Is our review too late to be appreciated as well? Read on to find out.
I can never get too excited about PSN exclusives, if only because I've never really gotten into the swing of using PSN. Maybe it's because I don't own a Bluetooth headset, and the system doesn't come with one. Leave me alone, I'm frugal, dammit!
Regardless, Explodemon! is a PSN exclusive that I've been hot for since I first took a look at its earliest trailer. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the title will make its scheduled winter 2010 due date, instead now aiming for a January 2011 release. Can't hate on that, it's just a months difference, and it looks like the wait will be well worth it. To tide those looking forward to the Mega Man X/Splosion Man hybrid, here's a new trailer that shows a lot of dope action, puzzles, wall sliding, and of course, explosions.
Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 12:12PM 
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