Hands-On With Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, A Beat ‘Em Up In Disguise
Beat ‘em ups is a genre that fueled my early gaming years. Looking back at hundreds (thousands?!) of dollars I had dropped into arcades around New York City, the vast majority of those Benjies fired up Captain America and The Avengers, Double Dragon, Final Fight, The Simpsons, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In all honesty, what separated one brawler from another was the licensing; virtually every game had one attack button and one jump button, which pressed simultaneously, caused your character to perform an energy-draining special move. Really, there wasn’t much depth or differentiation.
As arcades and 2D gaming gave up the ghost in the late ’90s, so did the brawler. But it’s back in a big, big way in the form of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. After the jump, my (delayed) hands-on impressions from Activision’s New York City showcase.
Interview: 4 Questions for Mike Kennedy, Senior Producer of Unbound Saga
Interviews can be unpredictable beasts. One may suffer from incessant marketing speak, while the next may be littered with all manners of awesome – - the latter is the category in which I place the words of Mike Kennedy, senior producer of Unbound Saga, the upcoming PSP brawler. There are three things that you should keep with you long after reading this:
- Modern gaming’s deep control schemes may be an impediment to fun
- Unbound Saga, in a way, is much like bubble wrap
- Repetitive gameplay isn’t necessarily a bad thing when well-crafted.
King of Fighters Online: The Evolution of the Beat Em Up Genre?
I’ve been harping on the need for a company to take the Beat ‘Em Up genre by the hand and modernize it for quite some time now, so when the further details of King of Fighters Online landed in my inbox, I smiled knowing that there’s a game developer out there that has the same passion and vision for the genre as I. At least that’s what I hope.
Dragonfly/Triple Games’ King of Fighters Online takes SNK Playmore’s much-loved fighters and places them in the mean streets of what I could only hope is South Town to take on a slew of baddies, including the bastardly Rugal. Seemingly tapping my mind for what I would consider essential gameplay elements of a modern brawler, King of Fighters Online integrates three major fighting game elements: special moves, blocking, and tag team play. While the former is nothing new (after all, Streets of Rage II was stacked with supers back in the day), the middle has been too rarely utilized, and the latter is particularly interesting as you can swap players during battle – - hopefully mid-attack, so you can set up some big time combos in the PvP and PvE modes.
The PC-only game isn’t slated to be release until 2010, which is perhaps the best news, because, as is, the environments look quite lifeless, and the enemy designs look like something straight out of Ringling Bros. Still, I give props to the development team for the cell-shaded polygonal models that retain the look (and sounds!) of their sprite-based counterparts, and from the action seen in the clip, the snappy fighting pace.
Between this and the King of Fighters Skystage shooter coming to XBLA, I’m pretty geeked for what SNK Playmore has in store for us fans. And maybe, just maybe, this will inspire Capcom to give us a real Final Fight sequel.
The Warriors: Street Brawl Coming to Xbox Live Arcade; Will It Rock?
The Warriors is one of those flicks that has somehow elevated far beyond the dubious quality of the original cult film work; from the WWE’s Booker T’s “Can you dig it?” battlecry to Diddy’s “Baaaadddd Boooy….Come out and plaaaa-aaaayyyy” in Craig Mack’s “Flava in Ya Ear (Remix)” video, elements of the flick have permeated many areas of pop culture. The movie’s street-brawling action makes it perfect fodder for a videogame, so I was a bit disappointed when Rockstar Games’ PlayStation 2 The Warriors pretty much dropped the ball with loosey-goosey controls and tedious tasks. Fortunately, the license is getting a second shot at videogame success with the pending release of The Warriors: Street Brawl.
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