Platinum Games, the wonderfully creative team behind thrilling action titles such as Bayonetta 2, Vanquish, and Anarchy Reigns, blesses the Wii U with what will be the company’s first next-generation effort, The Wonderful 101. I previously played the game at New York Comic Con, but an updated E3 build showcased many of the game’s new features.
Bayonetta is an over-the-top, stylish action game developed by Platinum Games and directed by Hideki Kamiya, of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe fame. Bayonetta brilliantly integrates free-form combat with structured combos, resulting in one of the best action games of the generation. Unfortunately, despite the critical acclaim, publisher SEGA never gave Platinum Games the green light for a sequel. All of that changed during the Wii U showcase last fall, where Nintendo announced a sequel to Bayonetta as a Wii U exclusive title. While a teaser trailer was revealed earlier this year to tide fans over while Platinum Games worked on the Bayonetta 2, the game’s current was kept secret until the day E3 2013 began. Not only did fans get a new trailer, but E3 2013 attendees could also get hands-on with a playable demo of Bayonetta 2.
I never got around to playing Bastion, but I did watch friends play it. The game seemed odd, the isometric camera angle weirded me out, and it lacked a hook to pull me into its world. This isn’t the case with Supergiant Games’ turn-based strategy game Transistor. When it was revealed at the Sony press conference on Monday evening, I immediately felt compelled to play it.
I met up with Greg Kasavin, Transistor’s writer and designer, at Sony’s booth. I was honest: I told him that I never played Bastion, or really had the interest to, but wanted to play Transistor. I asked him what it was about, how it was different, what I should expect. Kasavin laughed and said, “You know what? How about you go in cold. I think it’ll be better for you that way instead of me trying to explain everything.”
And boy, was he right.
Killer Instinct, Rare’s bombastic fighting game series, returns to combat after a 17 year hiatus. Last appearing on the Nintendo 64 as Killer Instinct Gold, Killer Instinct lied dormant until it was teased at Microsoft’s E3 2013 Xbox One press conference.
Killer Instinct, now under the guidance of developer Double Helix, has returned at the right time. Fighting games have enjoyed a renaissance that’s resulted in Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Dead or Alive, and Virtua Fighter receiving new series entries. The fighting game landscape hasn’t been this rich in decades, so its good to see Killer Instinct, one of the ’90s fighting game posterboys, contribute to this second coming.
Bethesda opened its E3 presentation with The Evil Within. On-hand representatives claimed, “We wanted to make a game that was truly horrifying.” Horrifying was right.
The Evil Within was so damn scary that I truly do not have faith in myself, or many others to review it. The game has an old Resident Evil or Silent Hill feel that keeps you not only on the edge of your seat, but on the edge of sanity.
Hideo Kojima confirmed what we kinda knew all along: Hollywood actor Keifer Sutherland will take over the voice (and motion capture) of Snake/Big Boss in the new Metal Gear Solid game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. We heard him “audition” the role as the bandaged character Ishmael in the Phantom Pain gameplay demonstration a few months back, but in a way The Lost Boy has been auditioning for the role for the past decade or so as Jack Bauer in the hit TV show 24.
When has any other game ever included offbeat, observant moments like these? These sequences are not only moments to breathe in between breathless action sequences; they are moments to truly imbibe the sadness and stillness that permeates the entire experience. In that sense, Heavy Rain is very much a game about depression.
What makes a game more fun than others? After being pointed to it by Kotaku, I’ve read Brian Hertler’s problematic piece on “Why Games are So Weirdly Fun” at GameCrashers about five times now, and I still have no idea what he’s trying to say.
Despite the overwhelming fear of being assailed by the Georgia Tech game studies mafia for criticizing one of their graduate students, I’ll opt to take this argument on part by part. Note: Excerpts from his piece are bolded.
There are many amazing series that have fallen off the face of the earth and died from neglect. I like to think that they’re being held hostage in their corporations’ dark and damp basements, crying out to be revived and renewed. We’ve all fell victim to a favorite franchise that’s left to rot.
The truth, however, is that we might never see them again, aside from (hopefully) a digital marketplace re-release. After giving the topic much thought, we’ve compiled a list of favorite franchises that would shine modern consoles. New series entries would be ideal, but, hell, we’d even take HD remakes at this point.
Developers, stop leaving money on the table and make this happen.
Once upon a time, there was no such thing as online multiplayer. You blew into a cartridge, jiggled it around until your system read it and played a game until you beat it or hit your frustration limit and saved it for later. Whether it took you 3 hours or 3 days to complete, there was a sense of accomplishment and never a complaint about how long it took. You beat it… so that was that, right? Hell no. It may not have been in the days after or the weeks after or even the months after but at some point you remembered how fun it was and decided to play it all over again.
Pretty crazy, huh?
