Late Night Consoling
Thanks again to Marcus for last night's great hands-on impressions of Ninja Gaiden. I may not have the full game, but I did fire up the demo that came with this month's issue of the Official Xbox Magazine, and I must say that I have very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the game is absolutely gorgeous. But that camera, while not too bad in this demo, I could see becoming a real pain over the course of a 20 hour game. But I will say that this looks like the best implementation by far of a fighting game-style combat engine in a third person action game. But that's not much of a draw for me. I'm the sort of person who will play through an entire game using the same three-hit combo move. Everything I've read suggests that in this game, that's simply not possible. That, plus the stories I'm hearing about its difficulty, will keep me from buying the game, at least for now. I have far too many games to play as is without running out and buying something I won't play for a long time. But I am looking forward to reading the inevitable ShackReviews after its release next week.
| Mortal Kombat: Deception Announced Looks like the rumors on this one were true: Midway has announced Mortal Kombat: Deception, the latest entry in the long-running Mortal Kombat series, and the first one to feature online gameplay for both PS2 and Xbox. There's not too much known about the game, but we're mirroring the trailer Midway released here at FileShack, and while it's almost entirely pre-rendered it does show some cool interactive environments. If you pause it at just the right moment you can catch a glimpse of an amazing fatality in which Scorpion knocks his opponent into what looks like enormous meat grinders. Speaking as a one-time Kombat fanboi, I say kick ass. |
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| New Gauntlet, Second Midway Arcade Treasures Announced Also announced at Midway's Gamer's Day press event was a new Gauntlet title, which will apparently be supervised by John Romero, who joined the company recently along with his fellow ION Storm co-founder Tom Hall (who is apparently working on the new NARC game). And in cool retro news, a second Midway Arcade Treasures has been announced, and will contain the first two Mortal Kombat titles among others. |
| Midway Dropping GameCube Support? If you're wondering why there's no GameCube icons in the above two stories, it's because Midway has said they are "selectively considering software for GameCube" but that there aren't any games currently in development for the platform. This has been rumored for some time, and IGN has posted sales figures for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance that show a pretty big difference between the PS2 (1.1 million) and GameCube version (205,000). |
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| GoldenEye 2 Official Electronic Arts today confirmed at long last that a sequel to the classic GoldenEye is in development at their Los Angeles studio. As was rumored, the game will indeed let you play as a Bond villain, but as it's a totally different storyline, I can't see them keeping that GoldenEye 2 title. It will be out later this year, presumably for all three platforms. |
| Ninja Gaiden Xbox Live Details Revealed, Old Games Reviewed IGN has posted details on the Xbox Live features of Ninja Gaiden. Called the "Master Ninja Tournament", and to enter you'll have to first complete the single player game. Once that's done you'll unlock a mode that will let you practice for the tournament, which will begin this summer and contain regional competitions, followed by a national championship and then eventually a world finals at X04 in Europe in September. Rather than head-to-head competition, it sounds like it's a score-oriented battle, which is kind of a shame. That fighting engine could have been really cool in a one-on-one combat arena. On a related note, 1UP has dug up EGM reviews of every single Ninja Gaiden game to date, including the pair released for the Atari Lynx. |
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| Weekly Bungie Update The latest weekly Bungie update has been released, and this week is running over at Team Xbox. This week has reports on the development of the graphics, controls and sound in Halo 2, as well as a cool image of the upcoming 3" Master Chief figure. |
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| Devil May Cry 3 Confirmed IGN is reporting that martial artist Stephanie Cheeva has inadvertently confirmed the development of Devil May Cry 3. During a convention appearance, the actress let slip that she's doing motion capture work on, "a new Devil May Cry videogame." Which I guess is a pretty good confirmation that the game exists, huh? Look for it to debut at E3 in May. |
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| King of Fighters: Maximum Impact Announced Not much to report here: SNK Playmore has launched a teaser site for King of Fighters: Maximum Impact. All there is right now is a logo, but hey, it's a cool one. GameSpot speculates that this is the PS2 game that was teased at the Tokyo Game Show with a pre-rendered CGI movie of KoF fighters in action. Which, considering that it wasn't unveiled at the big arcade show in Japan, is probably the case. |
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| Raziel Interview Well not literally Raziel, but rather an interview with Michael Bell, the prolific voice actor who has provided the voice for this character since the original Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain. The interview doesn't really talk a whole lot about games at all (Bell has also appeared in everything from The Smurfs to various episodes of E! True Hollywood Story) but it's still worth a read if you're interested about someone whose voice you've probably heard more times than you can count (even if you don't necessarily realize it). |
| Dual Shock 3 Rumors Computer and Video Games, citing a "highly placed SCEE insider" is reporting on a few new features expected in the Dual Shock 3, which will of course ship with the PlayStation 3 (whenever that ships). Specifically, CVG says they've confirmed that the controller will indeed be wireless (please use a rechargeable battery! I know they won't, but I'm going to say that anyway) as well as contain a new trigger under the right side of the controller. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
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| Konami has launched their new English-language site for Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (Flash required). |
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| Both GameSpot and IGN go hands-on with Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, GameSpy has a new preview of Killzone, GameScience has posted the first shots from Vib Ripple (thanks Slashdot Games), CVG has new media from Onimusha 3 and Transformers, 1UP links to new trailers for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Armored Core Nexus and IGN goes hands-on with Bujingai: The Forsaken City (saying that "Otogi lovers MUST play this game"). |
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| GamePro has a single shot from the Xbox version of Doom 3, The Magic Box has new shots from Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, GamerFeed has brief impressions of Tenchu: Return from Darkness and Team Xbox has a Breakdown "media blowout". |
| GameSpot has a pretty in-depth look at Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon (including details of that wacky card system) and CVG has new shots from Sabre Wulf. |
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| Lots of media and previews from Midway's big gamer's day can be found at GameSpot, IGN and GameInformer, both IGN and GameSpot have hands-on looks at Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku (GC, PS2, Xbox), GameSpot has new shots from Headhunter: Redemption (PS2, Xbox), GameSpy previews Red Ninja: End of Honor (PS2, Xbox) and Team Xbox has new media from Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. |
