February 2009

Wandering around the floor of Comic Con, I came across a playable demo of Radical Entertainment’s upcoming game Prototype.  I almost moved on because someone else was playing and the game looked like a third-person sandbox action game, something which is hard to pull off and not a particular interest of mine.  But I watched for a few minutes and just the sheer amount of ridiculous mayhem on the screen had me captivated.  I mean, there was some serious craziness going on.

The kid who was playing Prototype was doing these insane jumps in the middle of an urban environment that looked like Times Square and bouncing off skyscrapers.  Then he started performing these sick glides over a bunch of soldiers that were shooting some wild demons.  He landed and started carving up zombies with wolverine-type claws and blood was flying everywhere.  The main character’s hand then morphed into some sort of bladed weapon and he charged into a group of soldiers, sending them flying and slicing them up.  For the heck of it he beat the hell out of a taxi and blew it up.  Then he freaking ate someone.  This all happened so quickly and looked so wild that I had to give it a try.

Even though I kinda sucked it up a bit and didn’t know how to morph my hands into different weapons, I still felt really powerful playing Prototype.  Picking up taxis and flinging them into groups of zombies will do that to you, as will running up the exterior of a skyscraper and then jumping off into the midst of a battle.  I found out you could grab weapons.  I picked up a rocket launcher somewhere, jumped really high into the air and started firing it at this tank that had come rumbling through the city streets.  Even though this seemed like an open-world type game, an objective flashed on the screen: “Consume the Commander.”  

Well, I didn’t consume the commander but I did jump on top of a tank, hijack that sucker and then started blowing the crap out of a bunch of helicopters.  I have to admit it was incredibly fun and cool, if a bit stressful and manic.  The atmosphere of the city was insane with all these fights going on everywhere and taxis flying about.  And it was awesome to be driving a tank through midtown.  The sound effects were good as well and I even heard some “mature” dialogue being thrown around as people screamed and yelled at each other.  You kinda have to see a video (here and here) to see how insane things are…but they look even crazier when you’re actually playing.  It’s not that the graphics are super cutting-edge, it’s just the amount of stuff going on and the coolness and variety of the animations.  Even though this is not the type of game I usually play, I was so curious about Prototype that I ended up going to the panel Radical was having…so hit the jump if you want to know more.

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I really loved the first Ghostbusters movie…it’s probably one of my all-time favorites.  I know a lot of other people love it as well so I wasn’t surprised that the Ghostbusters game booth at New York Comic Con was packed with fans at all times.  However, I did manage to make my way through the crowds and get an actual hands-on with the X-Box 360 version of the game.

The first thing you notice about the game is that the graphics are pretty awesome.  All of the characters look amazing and there are tons of little details everywhere.  The animations are also really tight and the proton streams look appropriately cool.  Things even get a bit messy, as a Ghostbusters game should, and it’s really cool to see your character get covered with slime.  The reps were talking about how they really strived to make this game authentic and it seems like they succeeded because the game looks just like you would expect the Ghostbusters world to look like.  For example, the proton packs are really detailed and convincing.  This authenticity is helped by the fact that all of the original actors apparently provided voice acting.

The action is really fun (it’s a third-person action game) and it’s great to nail ghosts with your proton stream.  You can even slam them around and stun them so they are easier to trap.  There seemed to be a wide variety of ghosts, even in the demo, and I liked their animations.  Oh, you can’t just hold down on the proton stream button forever.  The longer you blast away, the more your pack will overheat and your proton stream will become more unstable and harder to control.  It’s pretty fun to wrangle a wayward proton stream.  Actual captures seemed a little tough, at least for me…but I only had a limited time to play.  

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Even though I’ve seen various previews for Bioware’s Dragon Age: Origins, I had pretty much zero interest in the game.  It’s not that I don’t respect Bioware…I do.  But it just seemed like such a generic fantasy game in a generic fantasy world that there was nothing about it which excited me at all.

So fast forward to Comic Con, where I come upon a huge EA booth and a bunch of Dragon Age banners.  I was surprised to see that Dragon Age was playable at Comic Con.  I mean, anyone who wanted to could just walk up to one of the PC stations and play around with the game if they wanted.  Of course, I couldn’t resist the opportunity so I began playing through a dungeon with the helpful advice of one of the Bioware reps.

I’m still not a hundred percent sold on this game, but I am way more interested than I previously was after getting a chance to have a hands-on with it.  First of all, the graphics, which didn’t look like anything special to me in screenshots, are really nice when you are up close and personal.  Everything looked well done - the characters, the mobs and the setting (well, the setting was a bit generic).  What’s more, you have a lot of control over the camera and the game looks surprisingly different from various angles (top down, over the shoulder, etc.).  But zoomed up close, the animations were pretty awesome.

I saw one of my fighters kind of “shield bash” an orc (or whatever it was) and it just looked really good.  All of the attacks looked nice…it was tempting to just sit back and watch the battle unfold.  But I soon found that casting magic spells was really fun.  My mage had a wide variety of fire-type spells to cast and the magic effects were very sweet.  I was having such a blast with it that I ended up injuring a bunch of my party members with an AOE spell.  Hey, it happens.  To make up for it I cast a cool buff that made their weapons kind of catch fire.  Awesome.  I also noted that there are some line-of-sight and cover features in combat.

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What’s this?  Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS?  I had heard nothing about this game so I was surprised to see the big Rockstar setup at Comic Con for Chinatown Wars.  They had a crazy van on the convention floor, banners and a bunch of DS’s set up to run the game.  I was kind of taken aback by the concept of GTA on the DS because I’m so used to “cutesy” games for that platform.  But I figured I would give it a try.

I have to say I was pretty impressed by my limited play of the game.  The graphics are not going to blow you away if you’re used to GTA IV but they really work for the DS and I liked them.  It’s a somewhat cel-shaded, colorful look and the game runs very smoothly.  At first it looks kind of like a top-down view, but you can actually move the camera around and see that everything is really 3-D.  It’s pretty detailed too.  All the usual GTA touches, like pedestrians interacting with the environment and each other are actually present.  As we’ve come to expect, the city feels alive.  What’s more, the city seems huge…I drove around a lot and the Liberty City of the DS is very big.  

I was also really dubious about the controls, but let me tell you…they work.  You basically use the D-Pad and the buttons to do what you have to do and it is really easy to pick up.  I was jacking cars and gunning people down in seconds (the targeting system seems fine to me).  There are some issues with the camera and things blocking your view, but, honestly, I’ve struggled with the camera in all the recent GTA games.  That might just be me, but I found this actually easier.  Thankfully, the stylus is relegated only to mini-games and for those it works fine.  The only one I ran across was scratching off an instant lottery ticket, but I heard there were plenty more and I saw someone assembling a rifle or something with the stylus.  I think these will be a fun little break to add some variety to the game and I’m looking forward to discovering more of them.

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Do you remember me saying that I love my mechanic? Well, he is awesome!

It was just last week that I mentioned my car slammed into a huge chunk of ice. When my rear-tire ran over it, the strut pierced through the freakin chassis, and into the back seat of my car (read about it here)! I just wish I’d taken some pictures of what I was certain was a write-off.

Well, my awesome mechanic surprised the hell outta me: he managed to fix it for $258 - and that *includes* the oil change I was overdue for! Yeah! That’s what I said!

Now, I know zero about cars, and this is what he told me was involved in my mechanic paraphrasing speak:

“I had to point-weld the strut mount back into place, and I had to replace the rubber seat the strut sits in.”
                    - Karn’s Awesome Mechanic

Whatever that means. To be honest, I likely got it all wrong because the only part I was waiting to hear, and that I understood, was the $258 part. My brain blocked out all other words, really.

Schweeeeet! My Mazda Protegé may just hit the 400,000km milestone yet!

So - while I’ve been driving my old beater around town, showing it off to the naysayer locals, I also found a bunch of fantastico links to share with you all. I tell yah, it’s like freakin’ Xmas here baby!

• Eliza Dushku interview - Late Night with Conan O’Brien
• The People vs. George Lucas
• Absolutely Amazing Video Game Remake Wallpapers
• Escape From City 17 - Part One
• Alex Broeckel’s Concept Art and Illustration
• Buffy vs. Faith by Katie Cook

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One of the panels I attended at Comic Con was a gaming panel presented by MTV.  When I saw it on the program, the name was so stupid (something like “Versus Video Game Clash Live”) that I almost ignored it until I noticed that Todd Howard of Fallout 3 fame and Bioshock’s Ken Levine were on the panel.  It turned out to be a pretty fascinating discussion so I’ll relate it here and even butt in with my own opinions from time to time.

When asked what was most surprising about this generation of video games, Todd Howard stated that he was surprised by how huge trophies and achievements have become.  I tend to agree, it is pretty amazing when you think about how popular this whole meta-gaming sphere has grown…and I think it will only keep getting more and more popular.  Howard mentioned that achievements didn’t change anything in the way the actual game of Fallout 3 was put together.  But the team did spend time putting thought into them and trying to come up with a creative and entertaining list, even making sure the graphics matched the style of the game.  Ken Levine agreed and felt this was only “the tip of the iceberg” and that we would soon see other forms of interaction between gamers.  That had me pondering possibilities…but that’s a story for another post.

The two talked about the issues with making sequels for a bit and the fine line between giving the fans what they think they want and what they really want.  I think the most important thing is to make sure you make a really fun game.  Whether that sticks closely to the original or not depends on the game in question, but I’m not a stickler for remaining totally true to the source if a game is great to play.

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